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I pinched this from the All About Jazz web site (allaboutjazz.com.)
"Ask for the best 10 or 100 albums of all time and you'll get the usual suspects: "Kind of Blue," "Saxophone Colossus," Armstrong's "Hot Fives and Sevens", "Jazz at Massey Hall," etc. Without a doubt, these albums have earned their acclaim... But what about the great, less well-known, even obscure albums? Don't we all have favorite albums that don't ever seem to make the top 100 -- yet always find their way to our turntables? Let's share our discoveries... "
"Ask for the best 10 or 100 albums of all time and you'll get the usual suspects: "Kind of Blue," "Saxophone Colossus," Armstrong's "Hot Fives and Sevens", "Jazz at Massey Hall," etc. Without a doubt, these albums have earned their acclaim... But what about the great, less well-known, even obscure albums? Don't we all have favorite albums that don't ever seem to make the top 100 -- yet always find their way to our turntables? Let's share our discoveries... "
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SF Bay Area
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Re: Great but Obscure Records
Sun, February 8, 2004 - 12:14 PMI play these records *constantly* and while they are not really "obscure" most of them don't seem to ever make it on top 100 lists.
Curtis Amy & Dupree Bolton - Kantanga!
Mulatu Astatke - Ethio Jazz
Donald Byrd - Slow Drag
Sonny Clark - Leapin' And Lopin'
Booker Ervin - The Freedom Book
Rahsaan Roland Kirk - The Inflated Tear
Pete La Roca - Basra
Pete La Roca - Turkish Women At The Bath
Yusef Lateef - Eastern Sounds
Masada - Gimel
Jackie McLean - Right Now!
Hank Mobley - A Slice Of The Top
Herbie Nichols - Herbie Nichols Trio
John Patton - Accent On The Blues
Art Pepper - Smack Up
Horace Silver - The Tokyo Blues
Gabor Szabo - Bacchanal
Mal Waldron - The Quest
Larry Young - Into Somethin'
John Zorn - The Circle Maker
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Great but Obscure Records
Sat, March 13, 2004 - 10:54 PMSo, what, nobody likes anything that off the beaten path? C'mon, don't keep that stuff to yourself now. I'm thirsty for some new music, wuddya got. -
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Re: Great but Obscure Records
Sun, March 14, 2004 - 2:05 AMjuju - chapter two:nia
larry coryell - fairyland
eric kloss - doors
joe farrell - upon this rock
prince lasha - inside story
andrew hill - dusk
dizzy gillespie - souled out
more later -
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Eric Kloss?
Mon, March 15, 2004 - 9:39 PMEric Kloss? Never heard of him, so I do a quick search on AMG, turns out he's *fronted* bands with Pat Martino, Jaki Byard, Richard Davis, Alan Dawson, Cedar Walton, Kenny Barron, Jack DeJohnette, Booker Ervin, Chick Corea, "Groove" Holmes and Don Patterson.
How the fuck did this I miss this guy.
Thanks for the tip! -
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Re: Eric Kloss?
Mon, April 17, 2006 - 6:22 PMalso check out the eric kloss album ONE TWO FREE with pat martino. a
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Re: Great but Obscure Records
Mon, April 17, 2006 - 6:29 PMshit I looked at that thing and I see I promised more obscure jazz titles 2 years ago.
so here goes:
tubby hayes - tubby's groove
rufus harley - re creation of the gods (bagpipe jazz!)
shamek farrah & sonelius smith - the world of the children
brother jack mc duff with benny golson - the dynamic jack mc duff
herbie nichols trio - s/t
dave pike - the doors of perception
keith tippett group - dedicated to you but you weren't listening
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Re: Great but Obscure Records
Sun, October 30, 2005 - 8:37 AMCecil Taylor & Buell Neidlinger: New York City R&B
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Re: Great but Obscure Records
Sun, March 14, 2004 - 6:37 PMI mentioned this in an earlier "Jazz Albums" posting:
"The Swingin'st" Gene Ammons/Bennie Green (VeeJay Records,
now available as a reissue on Rhino)
Others I like:
- On The Trail, Bud Shank 2002
- Any Bennie Green Recording (excellent compilation on Mosaic
Select)
- Early 60s Pacific Jazz Carmell Jones recordings (also compiled
into a must have Mosaic Select series, this also features
a very young Gary Peacock, Harold Land, Frank Strazzeri on
piano, etc. etc.)
- Fingerpoppin', Horace Silver -
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Re: Great but Obscure Records
Sun, March 14, 2004 - 7:00 PMRashaan Roland Kirk's "The Case Of The 3 Sided Dream In Audio Color". This dream album combines Coltrane, Steely Dan, Parliament, and Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon". An altered states friendly album. -
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Unsu...
Re: Great but Obscure Records
Sun, March 14, 2004 - 10:02 PMI don't know how obscure these are, but these are some of my favorites that don't hear mentioned much:
Eddie Harris - The In Sound/Mean Greens (These quintet recordings make me think of Hollywood a little, something of a different flavor but in the same vein as a lot of the Blue Note stuff the big boys were recording at the same time. Real nice Freedom Jazz Dance from the guy who wrote it.)
Herbie Hancock - Inventions and Dimensions (Love that first tune with the hand percussion. It's a great record to put on first thing in the morning to get yourself going.)
Jackie McLean - Demon's Dance (with Woody Shaw. His tune Sweet Love of Mine is my favorite of the album, and the whole album has this mood that I like to tap into now and then.)
The Max Roach Quartet featuring Hank Mobley (Recorded in 1953, this is just an interesting record. Listening to early Hank Mobley playing. Gigi Gryce alto cutting through some of the arrangements...one of those songs sounds like spy music. I don't listen to it much anymore, but I used to get a real kick out of it in college.)
Sonny Rollins - East Broadway Rundown (This is another album I listen to just for the mood of it. It's not an 'okay, let's transcribe Sonny' album. But there is something real cool about the vibe set up by the first song that continues throughout the album).
So that's what one pass through my CD collection produced. Reading the rest of your posts only reminds me of tons more albums I need to pick up. I really like that Kirk one, used to borrow it from a roomate. -
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Unsu...
Re: Great but Obscure Records
Thu, April 1, 2004 - 4:56 PMArt Ensemble of Chicago - Bap-Tizum
Sonny Sharrock - Ask the Ages
Miles Davis - Live Evil
Ben Webster - Soulsville
Jimmy Scott - The Source
Modern Jazz Quartet - Collaboration
Johnny Smith - Moonlight in Vermont
Sam Rivers - Complete Blue Note Recordings
Django Reinhardt - And His American Friends
Ornette Coleman - Of Human Feelings
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Re: Great but Obscure Records
Thu, March 18, 2004 - 9:33 AMThere was a interesting article on the producer of this album in Wax Poetics (issue 5, I believe). He did most of Kirk and Yuseff Lateef's late sixty/ early seventies stuff. -
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Re: Great but Obscure Records
Fri, March 19, 2004 - 10:16 PM<There was a interesting article on the producer of this album in Wax Poetics (issue 5, I believe). He did most of Kirk and Yuseff Lateef's late sixty/ early seventies stuff. >
would that be joel dorn? if so, his son makes electronic music under the name mocean worker (m+ocean=motion) not nearly as interesting as his dad's work... -
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Joel Dorn
Sun, March 21, 2004 - 8:59 AM(bing, bing, bing) We have a winner!
You're right, T, it's Joel Dorn.
And the article _was_ from issue five - "The Gig of the Universe (Joel Dorn reflects on his stoned soul jazz picnic at Atlatntic Records" by John Kruth.
Another interesting interview from one of my favorite magazines. -
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Re: Joel Dorn
Tue, March 23, 2004 - 9:36 AM<"The Gig of the Universe (Joel Dorn reflects on his stoned soul jazz picnic at Atlatntic Records">
man, did they nail that one! i've seen his name on SO MANY amazing records... do those guys archive their articles on the web at all? i'm sure it's next to impossible to acquire back issues... -
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Wax Poetics
Tue, March 23, 2004 - 2:21 PM
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resurrected
Fri, October 28, 2005 - 2:58 PMI thought I’d resurrect this thread by beating the drum (dead horse?) for Mulatu Astatke again.
I can’t recommend highly enough “Éthiopiques, Vol. 4” the volume dedicated to the work of the “Master of Ehiojazz” Mulatu Astatke. This CD is good and crosses so many genre types (in fact it is included in the Rough Guide “100 Essential *Soul* CDs”) that it should appeal to just about anyone that likes good music period.
-- Excerpted from NY Times article “By Ben Sisario
In Jim Jarmusch's latest movie, "Broken Flowers," a graying former ladies' man played by Bill Murray has a strange companion with him as he searches for some old girlfriends. He's gloomy but intrigued by the quest, and his mood is matched by the passenger in his rental car: a CD of brooding and mysterious music, a little funky and a little slithery, a bit like a 1970's blaxploitation soundtrack and a bit like dense modal jazz. He never seems to know what to make of it, but he clearly likes it.
The music is a particularly obscure vintage made in Ethiopia in the late 1960's and early 70's by a jazz innovator named Mulatu Astatke, and thanks to "Broken Flowers" and an acclaimed series of CD's, his music has enjoyed a little renaissance lately.
From the moment Mr. Jarmusch first heard it the music got under his skin, he said, and he began seeking it out wherever he could find it.
The music, influenced by American funk and soul, is being collected in "Éthiopiques," a series of albums on the French label Buda Musique. Mr. Astatke's disc, Vol. 4, is its best seller and has seen a bump in sales since "Broken Flowers" was released in August. It is now selling about 1,800 copies a week, said a spokeswoman for Allegro, the albums' American distributor. -
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Another Mulatu Astatke article
Wed, November 2, 2005 - 11:29 AMFrom last weeks Village Voice:
No current director uses music better than Jim Jarmusch. It's easy to hear what drew him to sides recorded in the 1970s by the Ethiopian vibist, percussionist, and composer Mulatu Astatke for this year's Broken Flowers. To American ears, including Bill Murray's, the groove and spiral of Astatke's tezetas is both exotic and reminiscent of home. And the blaxploitation and spaghetti western echoes make it sound like movie music already…The African diaspora gave birth to jazz, smitten African musicians adopt it to their own purposes, and jazz replenishes itself by looking to them—the circle never closes.
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Re: Great but Obscure Records
Tue, November 22, 2005 - 12:09 PMDanilo Perez: Motherland
One of the best jazz pianists today. If you ever had the opportunity to see this CD long suite performed live, you were a very lucky person.
World jazz with a Brazilian flair. I believe he is from Panama.
Antonio Sanchez on drums and Chris Potter on sax.
Richard Bono may also be on this recording.
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Re: Great but Obscure Records
Tue, December 13, 2005 - 3:32 AMBobby Watson - Appointment in Milano
Watson came to Italy and played in a Milan's jazz club with a local rhythm section, as it is usual when American jazz musicians tour Europe. This particular rhythm section was the Open Form trio. The Alto Saxophonist from Kansas City Bobby Watson liked so much the sound that he could create with this Italian trio that he decided to make a record. They reserved a recording studio for two days in Milan, but all the tracks came out perfectly at the first take in one single day. That record was Appointment in Milano and it is a masterpiece. The next day, since the studio had been paid in advance, they made another record (Round Trip)
Boht records released with Italian label Red Records.
I also suggest some hidden jewels of Italian Jazz:
Massimo Urbani: a great alto sax player who sadly died young in 1993.
I love all his records but If I have to choose two they are "360° Aeutopia" and "The Blessing" both with Red Records.
Renato
The Night Passage Jazz Podcast
nightpassage.blogspot.com -
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Re: Great but Obscure Records
Tue, December 13, 2005 - 12:28 PMBobby Watson is a great example of an often overlooked gem. All of those Italian recordings he made (three on Red?) are worth seeking out.
Thanks Night! -
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Re: Great but Obscure Records
Tue, December 13, 2005 - 4:55 PMYou're Welcome!
I don't know exactly how many records he made with Red but they are more than three, not to mention all albums where he is not the band leader.
Ciao
Renato
The Night Passage Jazz Podcast
nightpassage.blogspot.com
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Re: Great but Obscure Records
Tue, December 13, 2005 - 1:13 PMMark Weinstein's "Cuban Roots" is a sick-ass rekkid!!!
www.rainlore.demon.co.uk/Revie...s.html
1. Malanga (Rumba Columbia) - 6:20
2. Michelle (Rumba Abierta) (Lennon/McCartney) - 2:57
3. Ochosi-Om-Mi (Afro) - 3:42
4. Chango (Nanigo) - 4:50
5. Ochun (Rumba Illeca) - 3:45
6. Just Another Guajira (Guajira) (M. Weinstein) - 3:15
7. El Desenganado de los Roncos (Guaguanco) - 5:36
8. El Barracon (Comparsa) - 4:00
Personnel:
Mark Weinstein - trombone
Arnie Lawrence - alto sax
Mario Rivera - baritone sax
Chick Corea - piano
Bobby Valentin - bass
Kako - bell and palito
Julito Collazo - conga and bass drum
Tommy Lopez - conga drum
Papaito - conga drum
Papiro - conga drum
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Re: Great but Obscure Records
Sun, December 25, 2005 - 6:03 PMHampton Hawes - "Live in the Sky"
Recorded at Los Angeles Internationla Airport with Leroy Vinnegar and Donald Bailey. Hamp at his best. -
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Unsu...
Re: Great but Obscure Records
Thu, January 5, 2006 - 10:54 AMGabor Szabo - Jazz Ragga
( one of the first jazz albums I ever heard as a kid. ) -
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Re: Great but Obscure Records
Mon, April 17, 2006 - 10:15 PMDavid Murray Octet--Murray's Steps.
The song "Sweet Lovely", especially Murray's bass clarinet, Henry Threadgill's flute solo, and Steve McCall's drumming. This song blew me away and continues to do so.
I rank Steve McCall right up there with Elvin Jones in his ability to use the whole drum kit and still keep the beat.
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