Andrew Hill - Dance with Death
Hill is so very, very good isn’t he? This late 60s release, reissued on the Blue Note connoisseur album was one of the many casualties of the label’s more commercial turn. Like with the Mosaic Select sessions, this wasn’t released until later and with those sessions in hand it’s hard not to compare and contrast with this release. The biggest difference, obviously, is the size of the band, a quintet here rather than the larger bands captured on the Mosaic Select box. Compositionally they are more similar, with the typical compression and complexity you find in Hill’s writing. Joe Farrell is more interesting in this milieu especially when comparing his playing to his stints in the Elvin Jones bands of the time where he was the primary melodic voice. The music is probably a little more accessible than you’d find in the larger group sessions, but like all Hill material, the joy is in learning the material over replays.
Grateful Dead - Dick’s Picks 35 - San Diego 8/7/71; Chicago 8/24/71; 8/6/71
This was fairly big news in the Dead community upon release, as these recently found sessions hail from one of the larger gaps in the vaults, found on a houseboat owned by one of the Godchaux family. I’m not a huge fan of the era, the era between about mid 1970 through early 1972 always struck me as being a little weak in general, or at least a lot more earthy or Americana. But releases like this will go a long way to change my mind and great chunks of these sets are quite engaging, although there’s an obvious major flub or two on the last disc that might leave one with a different opinion. Lots of Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty sounds.
Jackie McLean - A Fickle Sonance
Jackie McLean - Action
Jackie McLean - Consequence
Listening to a fair bit of McLean lately and as these things go, it’s a bit hard to pick one from another when writing in retrospect. Generally speaking I’m more drawn to his music from the mid-60s when the free/avant movements were picking up speed, in fact the last two of these titles are rather good where that’s concerned. At times some of this music lacks a bit of necessary swing, but such a concern may be rendered null as I continue to listen. A Fickle Sonance, from a few years earlier, seems much more a part of the hard bop lineage, as if McLean was only starting to step away from the norm.
The Meters - Cabbage Alley
I’m surprised the Meters don’t come up as often when we talk about groups like Funkadelic and the like, who knew how to throw down a great groove and jam. I may have read that the Meters were inducted to the Rock n Roll hall of fame recently and it wasn’t that long ago that the original band reformed and started gigging, so perhaps it’s timely to point the finger in their direction and intone “badass.” And you couldn’t really find a better introductory release than Cabbage Alley, assuming you’re not lucky enough to run across one of their incendiary live shows.
Hank Mobley - Workout
Old school Mobley in hard bop mode, I haven’t found this release particularly engaging yet, in fact in general, the older and more trad the jazz release, the longer it’ll take me to resonante to it. But the big jumps in Blue Note appreciation don’t usually come until after a few listens, so I may not be there yet. You’d think with Grant Green on board it would be a gimmee, yet for some reason I find the classic Kelly/Chambers/PJ Jones line up to perhaps be a little too formal, stately and old school to usually get into right away. Then again, having warmed up to the Wes Montgomery album Wynton Kelly backed up, it certainly isn’t out of the realm of possibility.