It's a well-known fact that Pat buys too much vinyl - just ask his long-suffering spouse. But at least some of it comes in handy 'round about podcast time. In this episode, our fearless two-some examine four vinyl finds, mostly by lesser known artists. Their work may not be as "collectible" as some, but that just means it's more reasonably priced. Lawrence Brown – INSPIRED ABANDON; Zoot Sims & Sweets Edison – JUST FRIENDS; Phineas Newborn Jr. – THE GREAT JAZZ PIANO; Lyle Mays – LYLE MAYS....
Jun 18, 2025•1 hr 21 min•Season 13Ep. 317
Mike's out, so Pat gets to interview publicist turned manager Matt Merewitz solo. Listen for lots of insights, opinions, and tales from the biz by Matt, who can be followed at https://thefullyalteredone.substack.com/.
Jun 04, 2025•1 hr 33 min•Season 13Ep. 316
RSD - or Record Store Day for you vinyl virgins- comes but once, er, or twice a year, and while the main focus is who will win the privilege to buy a color-vinyl edition of the Wicked soundtrack, there's a little bit of jazz sprinkled in there, too. The boys talk about four selections, three recently uncovered live dates on the prolific Resonance Records, and a studio date from German stalwart MPS. Kenny Dorham - BLUE BOSSA IN THE BRONX; Charles Mingus – IN ARGENTINA – THE BUENOS AIRES CONCERTS;...
May 21, 2025•1 hr 24 min•Season 13Ep. 315
The boys ponder a batch of 2025 releases on the search for memorable, hummable melodies. These being 2025 jazz albums, you can guess the results of the search. Still, much to enjoy is these very diverse selections. Sean Imboden Large Ensemble– COMMUNAL HEART; Dayna Stephens – HOPIUM; Chicago Jazz Orchestra – MORE AMORE; Camila Meza- PORTAL.
May 07, 2025•1 hr 35 min•Season 13Ep. 314
At Mike's suggestion, today's podcast explores the truncated career of hard bop trumpeter Carmell Jones. We listen to four albums featuring the little-known musician and talk about the arc of his career, his work with running buddy Harold Land, and why he could'a been a hard-bop contender given the right circumstances. Carmell Jones – BUSINESS MEETIN’; JAY HAWK TALK; Charles McPherson – BEBOP REVISITED!; Harold Land – JAZZ IMPRESSIONS OF FOLK MUSIC.
Apr 23, 2025•1 hr 10 min•Season 13Ep. 313
The venerable bastards have made it to their twelfth anniversary, so time to dress us in silk and pearls (if you weren't already in your fantasies). While you attempt to scrub that hideous image from your minds, we'll mention that today's episode looks back to 2013, the origin year of the podcast, covering five releases from that epochal year we missed. Can you guess who appears for the first time on the 'cast and exactly which ways he's oriented? Dave Holland – PRISM; Robbie Williams – SWINGS B...
Apr 09, 2025•1 hr 30 min•Season 12Ep. 312
Normal service resumes with a podcast devoted to tributes celebrating the still-obscure pianist and composer Herbie Nichols. Nichols spent his truncated career in the shadow of Thelonious Monk (a big guy who cast a big shadow). He released roughly four albums in his lifetime and spent much of his career scuffling in Dixieland bands, but those initiated into his cult realize he was a truly gifted and unique composer. These tributes encompass a fairly straight ahead quintet date, a more adventures...
Mar 26, 2025•3 hr 13 min•Season 12Ep. 311
As we noted so succinctly way back in 2014: Some trios play nicer together than others - Pat and Mike investigate. Duke Ellington – MONEY JUNGLE; Terri Lyne Carrington – MONEY JUNGLE PROVOCATIVE IN BLUE; Jean-Michel Pilc – WELCOME HOME; Herbie Nichols – LOVE, GLOOM, CASH, LOVE. Tune in next time as the Herbie Nichols connection leads to a brand new episode covering four albums devoted solely to his music.
Mar 12, 2025•1 hr 19 min
All lists come to an end at some point (often after ten entries) and this third and final podcast on the New York Times' selections for best jazz albums of 2024 considers the final two entries plus two more 2024 releases which the boys - spoiler alert - like quite as much as the chosen ten. Hummable melodies and beautiful woodwind playing highlight the also-rans. Meanwhile, in pop matters Mike's man crush on Sturgill Simpson continues and Pat thinks eighties band The Church is still pretty cool....
Feb 26, 2025•1 hr 18 min•Season 12Ep. 310
The boys are back to take on four more entries from the New York Times' Best of 2024 list and Mike especially is happy with these selections. "Spiritual Jazz" leaves a imprint on several of this episode's albums and bastard number 2 loves it. Pat meanwhile is relieved that Blue Note's entry is the best yet, in his opinion, by a rising young artist, but he finds one of the other entries just an almighty racket. Melissa Aldana – ECHOES OF THE INNER PROPHET; Frank London – SPIRIT STRONGER THAN BLOO...
Feb 12, 2025•1 hr 7 min•Season 12Ep. 309
At the end of the year, media outlets make lots of lists, so many lists that there's even one for best jazz recordings. At the start of the following year, the bastards pick one lucky list to listen through and question every step of the way. This time it's the Times' turn, and Mike is especially skeptical of the paper's first four choices. Pat's just happy things didn't turn out worse. Honestly, these are all good records and who can say which are the "best"? In pop matters, Peter Gabriel gets ...
Jan 29, 2025•1 hr 32 min•Season 12Ep. 308
There's a new Record Store Day ritual in the jazz world - archival live releases from one of the many labels Zev Feldman has a hand in running. This year's two RSD days saw several releases on labels like Resonance, Reel to Real, and Elemental Music and the boys take a gander at one release from each of these wizards of the archive as well as pondering a brand new live release recorded (as well as let into the wild) in 2024. Recorded in Brooklyn because, well, of course it was. Emily Remler – LI...
Jan 15, 2025•1 hr 10 min•Season 12Ep. 307
To start off what is certain to be an interesting new year, Mike and Pat look at leader dates by the deepest of the regularly-used saxophones, the baritone. All four leaders are specialists on the unwieldly horn, though some do dabble in doubling from day to day. Two are composers and one has a crush on that greatest and most irascible of bassists, Charles Mingus. Serge Chaloff – BLUE SERGE; Fred Ho – MONKEY: PART ONE & TWO; Gerry Mulligan – AGE OF STEAM; Pepper Adams – PLAYS THE COMPOSITION...
Jan 01, 2025•1 hr 23 min•Season 12Ep. 306
Every musician, it seems, does a holiday album sooner or later, and visions of residuals dance in their heads. But given the flood of releases each year, it's hard to stand out, and the canon of Christmas favorites is already pretty crowded. How to make your mark? You could try to do one or two distinctive things well. Or, you could try a little bit of everything. Listen as Mike and Pat dissect three brand new holiday offerings and a historic issue by one of jazz's most popular performers. Band ...
Dec 18, 2024•1 hr 11 min
A couple releases exploring older repertorie, a out-ish excursion that goes all over the map, a young woman singer with our time on her hands. Yep, it's a classic mixed bag courtesy of eclectic Mike, with the bastardy mostly courtesy of Pat. Melody Gardot – LIVE IN EUROPE: Micah Thomas – MOUNTAINS; Brian Landrus – PLAYS ELLINGTON & STRAYHORN; Warren Wolf – HISTORY OF THE VIBRAPHONE.
Dec 04, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Season 12Ep. 304
Jazz has gone some pretty wacky places - Russia, South America, the White House - but believe it or not, sometimes it even invades that princess-industrial complex we know and love as the Disney corporation. Listen and learn as Mike leads us deep into this heart of darkness and we see how a rainbow of different jazz artists come to terms with the musical productions of that most profit-driven rodent of them all. Various Artists – JAZZ LOVES DISNEY; Various Artists – EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE A CAT; ...
Nov 20, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Season 12Ep. 303
Halloween's in the rear view mirror but the boys still have a mixed bag of treats on offer, including an album whose cover boasts the best costumes of the year. A piano playing Duke makes his appearance on the 'cast for the first time in roughly 300 episodes and we dig deep into a percussionist's tricky second album from 2006. Like a trick or treater, this episode is short and sweet. Joel Ross – NUBLUES; Duke Pearson – HONEYBUNS; Dafnis Prieto - ABSOLUTE QUINTET; Melinda Sullivan and Larry Goldi...
Nov 06, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Season 12Ep. 302
Podcast 301 picks up where 300 left off, looking at albums from 1993, 2003, 2013, and 2023. Jazz trends get a little harder to pick out once the new millennium begins, but at least our 1990's selection is REALLY 1990's, right down to the haircut and clothes colors. In Pop Matters, Pat discusses seeing Ben Wendel live at the Jazz Kitchen. Look out - that saxophonist has effects pedals! Marcus Miller- THE SON DON’T LIE; Ted Nash – STILL EVOLVED; Jonathan Finlayson – MOMENT AND THE MESSAGE; Maddie ...
Oct 23, 2024•1 hr 25 min•Season 12Ep. 301
Three hundred podcasts is the kind of milestone worth of an echo chamber at the very least and a themed episode at the very, er, leaster. Pat had the bright idea (he thought) of reviewing albums from 1953, 1963. 1973, and 1983. Mike explained that was in fact a stupid idea and so they might as well make this celebration a two-parter with 301 covering 1993, 2003, 2013, 2023. The rules were simple - pick an artist we hadn't discussed to death already and accept that while the album might be charac...
Oct 09, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Season 12Ep. 300
Back in the saddle again, the boys look at three recent releases and one cute little two-year-old. Two of the recordings are lead by bassists and two by drummers, so you could say all four were led by a member of the rhythm section - if you liked saying things like that. They are mostly fairly easy-going albums as well, but, spoilers, Mike doesn't like them all equally. No further clues here - tune in to find out which ones make the grade. In pop matters, Mike once again offers Adele a sandwich ...
Sep 25, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Season 12Ep. 299
Never mind what your podcast feed may seem to imply - the bastards haven't recorded a podcast together in two months, and this one got completed by the skin of their teeth. In this episode we look at two alto sax players from two very different generations (and degrees of reverence for the "tradition") and a piano player few have heard of and fewer still can understand. Pop matters covers the gamut from Dylan to the Blue Man Group with a few hobbits tossed in for good measure. Eric Kloss - ONE, ...
Sep 11, 2024•1 hr 26 min•Season 12Ep. 298
Summer's winding down. How'd you spend yours? Pat spent his immersed in the music and life of Sonny Rollins, one of the greatest improvisers to grace the story of jazz. In this podcast, which is kind of an upcoming article in summary (and audio) form, Pat looks at the massive new biography of Sonny as well as four recent reissues of some of his best loved music, most of which involve trios. Aiden Levy - SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS - THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF SONNY ROLLINS (book); Sonny Rollins - FREEDOM SUIT...
Aug 28, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Season 12Ep. 297
Those crazy hazy lazy days of summer got us in their thrall and scheduling's been tough, so please enjoy this flashback to episode 81: Mike and Pat discuss Walk on the Wild Side; Shine On You Crazy Diamond; Aja; Waiting on a Friend; Baker Street; Just the Way You Are; Logical Song; Old and Wise; Still Crazy After All These Years; Man Eater; Modern Love; Your Latest Trick; Brass Monkey; Edge of Glory; Get It Right; Talk Dirty to Me; Problem.
Aug 14, 2024•2 hr 1 min•Season 12Ep. 81
What's the most famous jazz album in the world? Don't say Duke Ellington Plays Mary Poppins unless you have a really good excuse, like you work for Disney. And please don't name some album by Kenny G even if that's sort of true. No, of course the most famous jazz album is Kind of Blue, and our special guest this episode wrote a book on the three geniuses who brought it into being. Please enjoy this interview with author James Kaplan and stay turned until the end when he reveals the subject of hi...
Jul 31, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 12Ep. 296
A lot of listeners worry that jazz has ossified in the last, say, fifty years or so, but Mike decides to do something about it, terminological speaking, anyway. So this fortnight's episode explores the difference between curating a tradition and trying to create something new within it. Our test subjects comprise three brand-new releases (two instrumental, one vocal) and a vocal album from the nineties paying tribute to the Prince of Darkness himself, Miles Davis. Curtis Taylor – TAYLOR MADE; Br...
Jul 17, 2024•1 hr 30 min•Season 12Ep. 295
Jazz releases these days fight a game of inches. Almost everybody releasing music in the genre is technically accomplished and the rules have been laid out so long that almost everybody knows how to meet the listener's basic expectations. What makes an album stand out in the flood of new music unleashed every week? Sometimes it's as simple (and hard to define) as a sense of intensity, commitment, energy. These four 2024 releases all demonstrate that quality to one degree or another. Erik Friedla...
Jul 03, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Season 12Ep. 294
The boys warned you things were going to get eclectic, but they may have outdone themselves this time, as the selections run the gamut from a jazz trio reimagining Bach preludes to a cutting edge big band arranger/composer tipping the cap to Cab Calloway to a night it the Georgia woods and is what we're hearing even music? Plus, a thoughtful look at what happens when one of the better known ensembles of the eighties loses a pivotal member and expands its horizons past its signature format. Adam ...
Jun 19, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 12Ep. 293
In the last (for a little while, at least) of our one-artist focused podcasts, the boys take a deep dive into bassist/composer/bandleader Ben Allison's latest four releases. Ben's an exact contemporary of our intrepid podcasters, if a bit better looking and more talented, and they followed his career from early days until a few years back when they stopped picked up releases for a hot minute. Anyway, here's all the news on two projects by Ben's new trio as well as two quartet projects with sligh...
Jun 05, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Season 12Ep. 292
The record store day madness continues as the boys take two Cannonball Adderley air-shots from France for a spin. Whether he's Poppin in Paris or Burning in Bordeaux, the listener can hear Adderley's group transitioning from the sixties to the seventies, even if things get bumpy from time to time. To put the great alto saxophone player's creativity into context, two of his more surprising releases on Capitol Records also get a look in. Once you've heard the man's stone classics, here's something...
May 22, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Season 12Ep. 291
Where jazz drumming's concerned, sometimes Blakey makes ya shaky and Buddy's too thud-y. Where to turn? Go West, young man, and samples the wares of one Shelly Manne. Manne, a transplanted Easterner, made a career in California logging studio work, appearing on countless sessions, and leading his own group with varying personnel that was always know as Shelly Manne's men. Now, just in time for Record Store Day, Reel to Real is issuing live days by the Manne and, with luck, bringing his artistry ...
May 08, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Season 12Ep. 290
