list your free jazz favorites

[beefbeefmeat]

butcher/hemingway - buffalo pearl. this album is monstrous

I'm fired up at your saying so because Shooters & Bowlers from years earlier is a visit to the dentist.

both of these records are on point!

[johnson]

Marion Brown - Afternoon of a Georgia Fawn
Paul Bley - Barrage
most anything by Art Ensemble

So much, really, I'd rather not get really started.

[faster]

most anything by Art Ensemble

Careful...there are some clunkers...

[johnson]

most anything by Art Ensemble

Careful...there are some clunkers...

Yeah, I even like the clunkers, though. I'll give my favorites as:

A Jackson in Your House
People in Sorrow
Message to Our Folks
With Fontella Bass
Bap-Tizum

I probably listen to Mitchell's Sound more than any of those, though.

[dave quam]

This thread made me look over my collection and see what stuff I was missing from some of my favorite artists discographies. Been loving this one lately, that I had never heard until a few weeks ago.

[beefbeefmeat]

just heard some maurice mcintyre on the radio... totally wrecked me!

[Gerardo A]

just heard some maurice mcintyre on the radio... totally wrecked me!

Look for this one:

[laughter_CS]

at the suggestion of posters here, I went out and picked up Noah Howard's "The Black Ark" and the Bill Dixon 9CD box set on Soul Note/Black Saint and I think they're both out of this world good. Two of the best things I've picked up in a long time, and I'm only three discs into the Dixon set. Anyone looking through this thread wondering what to grab first would do well to pick these up. They're on opposite ends of the free jazz spectrum in some ways, too. The Dixon I've heard is really, really beautiful and chilled out, and the Howard is super high-energy, a bit more unhinged, but very approachable.

I also grabbed Sun Ra's "Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy" and Peter Brotzmann's "Machine Gun" (the complete version with the extra takes), but haven't been able to give them as much time.

[Dan Warburton]

I got the Dixon box - and the Henry Threadgill box in the same series - a couple of weeks ago and, like you, am working my way through it again (only two to go). More impressed this time by Thoughts and Sisyphus and November 1981 than by the (in my view) rather overhyped Vade Mecum and Papyrus sets.
If Noah Howard is your bag, I'd also seriously recommend Patterns / Message to South Africa on Eremite. If it's still around.. if not here's a link while you're waiting..
http://rasterisedcornucopia.blogspot.fr ... south.html
If it's Arthur Doyle madness you want, you need his Alabama Feeling
http://ajbenjamin2beta.blogspot.fr/2008 ... eling.html
and Bäbi Music
http://thechanging-same.blogspot.fr/200 ... music.html (don't know how good the DL is - the guy sez it's a bit dodgy.. but as the LP is rare as hen's teeth this is the only way you'll probably ever get it)

[faster]

My favorites have always been the In Italy discs. Sisyphus a close third.

[bedouin]

+1 on the sisyphus disc. the duo with Oxley should have been a single disc.

...and one which I love, but don't get much mention here:
Wildflowers: Loft Jazz New York 1976 (reissue on douglas records)

[joeperucki]

I also grabbed Sun Ra's "Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy"

For years (in the past) unquestionably my favorite album from my favorite musician.

[crawjo]

I'm pretty sure it's just me, but by far my favorite all-time free jazz record (and I have several hundred in this genre) is Clifford Thornton's The Panther and the Lash. No joke, if I was only allowed to listen to five albums for the rest of my life, there is a 100 percent chance that this would be among them. Hell, it might even be the first one I would pick.

[Jesse]

Thorton's Gardens of Harlem is outstanding too, and I believe is the recording debut of Joe McPhee.

http://freethemusic-olatunji.blogspot.c ... osers.html

[vrfats]

been eating this music up lately with hungry ears for more. It took me awhile to become familiar enough to follow the musical ideas/trains of thought to be able to get into it. Not long ago I didn't really get into it, I listened to some freejazz albums but they all kind of washed over, seeing some live groups certainly helped to orient. Sometimes playing an album closer to the volume it would be performed at helps it make more sense.
So here is a large list:
Noah Howard - The Black Ark
Ornette Coleman - Body Meta (and all the primetime freefunk fusion albums)
Sam Rivers - Crystals
Evan Parker - Monoceros
Last Exit - Iron Path
Albert Ayler - Spiritual Unity
Ronald Shannon Jackson - Mandance
Cecil Taylor - The World of
Anthony Braxton - Dortmund 1976
Pharaoh Sanders - Tauhid
Art Ensemble of Chicago - Bap Tizum ,
Sun Ra - The Magic City
Peter Brottzman - Machine Gun
Archie Shepp - Live at Pan-African Festival
Wadada Leo Smith - Divine Love
Elton Dean - Just Us
CODONA - Trilogy

other / relevant :

Larry Young - Lawrence of Newark
Herbie Hancock - Sextant
Soft Machine - Third
Bruce Ditmas - Yellow
Weather Report - I sing the body electric
Tatsuya Nakatani

[Dan Warburton]

That's the first time I've seen Weather Report and Tatsuya Nakatani in such close proximity

[brandonsyl]

Mohel - Babylon Bypass

[vrfats]

That's the first time I've seen Weather Report and Tatsuya Nakatani in such close proximity

and did seeing those two mentioned in close proximity make you skeptical because you think of weather report as commercial/pop and tatsuya as a higher form of art? Maybe you think I see the same kind of virtuosic fusion cheese in tatsuya's drumming and have some kind of radical misinterpretation? or is that just me making an assumption? Does some level of groove somehow negate the validity of musical ideas or intellectuality in the music to you? http://youtu.be/mrjFtbGKqFk
Black market and I sing the body electric are really worth listening to before you entirely judge them based on their culture, later albums and fan base. I'm sure you lived through more of that so you have a slightly different awareness of the culture that surrounded it whereas I missed out on that aspect... (I know a few douchey progdad weather report fans) maybe you can define your position instead of making snarky smileys
No shame here in admitting to liking some of the weirder jazzfusion, I know its probably pretty uncool around these parts. I think ronald shannon jackson and james blood ulmer fit that bill and they both played in Ornette Coleman's Primetime. Very angular funky music that is in kind of an odd area between jazzfusion freejazz and funk with a lot of weird arrangements. Its worth listening to the solo albums of his band members if you like the 80s period coleman.

Cheesy fusion virtuosity definitely gets a little tiresome (im not a fan of the guitars mostly) but I think its definitely not worth dismissing with a wave of the hand and is often very fun and playful music.


Thanks for recommending the panther and the lash Ive been listening a lot.

[Dan Warburton]

That's the first time I've seen Weather Report and Tatsuya Nakatani in such close proximity

and did seeing those two mentioned in close proximity make you skeptical because you think of weather report as commercial/pop and tatsuya as a higher form of art?

No, as when it comes to listening I don't distinguish between "higher" or "lower" forms of art (you really can't get off this subject, can you?). I just don't see how you can describe Tatsuya Nakatani as free jazz, that's all.

[vrfats]

yes I am a little stuck on the subject for the time being, but I'll move on soon. note how i placed him in a little section below to keep your mind at ease (I think people with an appreciation for freejazz could appreciate tatsuya's percussion). I think this album isn't terribly far off though http://www.forcedexposure.com/artists/t ... assif.html