What Are You Listening To? August 2023

[JazzyRandy]

Alan Ferber - Up High, Down Low (2023)


This album was fated to be one that I was intrigued by and highly desired, but would ultimately not purchase because of ... too many great new releases. Still, I put it in the "later" section of my Amazon cart. Three weeks ago, I needed to buy something for Jazzyson to take back to college and I needed it delivered in one day. I added something one of my daughters needed, but it still fell short of the total price needed for free overnight shipping. Then my daughter looked at my cart and said to add this album which was at the top. I hemmed and hawed, because I knew the album's ultimate fate of never being ordered or listened to. She persisted and called me names, and of course I broke down and added this CD to the order.

And you know what? It's great! I'd heard Ferber on a lot of other albums including a co-led project with me-favorite David Binney, but this is the first one I've heard him as leader/composer. It won't be the last. Once I finish absorbing this one, I'm going backward to his previous nonet release.

 

[JazzyRandy]

Meshell Ndegeocello - The Omnichord Real Book (2023)

Very jazzy, often funky, sometimes singer songwriter-y mish mash of styles that ends up defining all facets of the artist. For the past decade (if not longer) it sounds like Meshell decides to make an album that exactly (and only) who she is musically in that moment. It never sounds like she's trying to maintain who she was as a better-selling artist; or who she was as an artist who received more press; or that she's trying to deliver what she thinks will sell now; or what she thinks critics will approve of; or what fits into this or that genre box, or even combo box.

This album is purely about what Meshell wanted to do at the time of creation - and in that it feels very much like a Jazz artist

The guests hail from all over the map. From Jazz to funk to rock to chamber music to spoken word to folk and everywhere.

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers (1971)

Nice blues album

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

Otis Rush - Right Place, Wrong Time (1976)

 

[Ojai Sam]

Badfinger - Magic Christian Music (1970)

 

[Ojai Sam]

Vienna Philharmonic (Carlos Kleiber, cond.) - Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 7 (1975-6)

 

[Nickyboy]

Got Del in my head again tonight:

 

[Unsomnambulist]

Got Del in my head again tonight:

Dude, you're getting a Del!

 

[Ojai Sam]

Various Artists - The Isley Brothers Live At Yankee Stadium (1969)

The Isleys and their friends had a lot more on the ball that year than the Yankees did.

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

Just:
Erykah Badu - New Ameryhah Part Two: Return of the Ankh (201)

Now:
Planxty - The Well Below the Valley (1973)

 

[JazzyRandy]

Rufus - Rufusized (1974)


Gang Starr - Hard to Earn (1994)

 

[JazzyRandy]

David Binney - Anacapa (2014)

 

[Unsomnambulist]

Kairon;IRSE! - Ruination (2017)



If Yes were a little heavier, more "alternative."

 

[JazzyRandy]

Because of the shooting murder of a professor 15 miles from me on the campus of UNC yesterday, I found myself drawn to listen to this tonight.
Jimmy Greene - Beautiful Life (2014)

Greene's daughter was murdered in the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre in 2012. Some of the biggest names in Jazz lent their talents to help Greene create this absolutely beautiful and great musical tribute to his daughter.

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

Benjamin Britten - Curlew River

 

[axolotl]

^ How that is, if ask I may?

 

[axolotl]

The Secret Stars ~ TSS (1996)



Following that in sequence of play, but preceding it alphabetically:

The Secret Machines ~ s/t (2008)



I have a silly story to tell about this band and this album. I first heard Secret Machines perform in a tent at Coachella. It was loud, and I liked the heavy, deep, pounding rhythms. I did not stay for much of it; I think my firstborn wanted to move elsewhere to see another band.

I bought this CD in Durango, Colorado. I had flown into Durango and rented an SUV to travel to and from Farmington, New Mexico. I found a little record/CD shop off the main drag and bought a few CDs. Unfortunately, I left the actual CD in the SUV when I returned it to the airport. I still had the case.

I reordered the CD (only) from one of the CD-swapping sites. Months later, maybe years, I received it. I don't know if I listened to it when I got it.

All of that just to say, I think that this might be the second or third time I have listened to it all the way through.

P. S. This time I was watching TV with the sound off and watched a documentary on certain locations in Southern California and the desert. The doc was about Zzyzx and the resort that was once there. Now, it is a part of CSU, and it is called the Desert Studies Center.

In parting, we will always have Durango... and Zzyzx.

 

[axolotl]

^ In before Unsom gets here:

Is Dave Matthews a vampire?

 

[Unsomnambulist]

Pink Floyd - The Final Cut (1983)

 

[axolotl]

J. S. Bach ~ Mass in B Minor (1991)

Spoilerized for your protection

Spoiler