Jazz Bastard Podcast

This fortnight's spectacular focuses on two very different sets of music - two albums by modern jazz violinists and the two best-known recordings featuring elusive trumpeter Dupree Bolton (they are just about the ONLY recordings featuring him - stay tuned for the details).   Pop matters range from St. Vincent to Sparks to Sade - and that's some ranging.  Ali Bello – INHERITANCE; Tomoko O...

Mike's on the road and overwhelmed with work so it's up to Pat to come up with something to satiate the frothing demand for bastardly content.  Back to the vinyl well he goes - first to talk about six Blue Note albums he discovered on his on-going record buying spree (enjoyable in whatever format you choose) and then to muse a little about how Blue Note is once again building a canon by...

The Bastards look at four albums taking paths less travelled, approaches rarely attempted, and pianos (in the case of Sun Ra at least) untuned.  Three 2021 releases are featured and we go way back to 1966 for a movie tie-in album that went right for jazz fans and terribly wrong the the MGM employee writing the linear notes.   Pop matters this time isn't pop at all but Mike's in-depth dis...

Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged, And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight, And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly, and said shooby dooby doo - er, well, maybe not according to T. S. Eliot, but those aren't the four quartets we're talking about.  Instead, we've got a mix of progressive and nostalgic takes on a jazz combo format as old as time and much, much hipper tha...

We look at two lesser known vocalists tonight and two fairly obscure pianists, and things turn out pretty well if it wasn't for that darn echo.  What's going on in the Riverside studios, anyway?  At some point, the episode turns into a trivia show, but at the last minute, John Cale turns up to set things right and Pat gets a few words in edgewise about the Denver jazz scene.  Mike Nock –...

Since the seventies, it's arguable that most jazz musicians work in 'old' idioms (even if they mix and match them in new ways), but this episode's artists each take on aspects of jazz's past that seem, well, more past than most.  Sometimes the commitment to the older idiom is complete, sometimes it comes and goes, but either way the results are fascinating.  Scott Hamilton...

It had to happen.  The bastards came of jazz-age in the eighties and nineties - an era when young lions roamed the earth (and the mall record bins) and, sooner or later, attention must be paid.  What to say about this last gasp of mainstream, corporate approved jazz before the collapse of the majors?  Oh, so very very much.  So much in fact that some of the ranting had to be tagged on to the endin...

Four recent releases by four artists new to the boys - two offering their debuts to the world.  We've got a couple of vibe-meisters (is that instrument getting hot all of a sudden?), a disciple of Darcy James Argue, and a good old-fashioned small-group jazz album with a thematic thing going on.  Oh yeah, and in a completely scientific poll of one listener, we beat out the brilliant classical...

We bring the old-ish and the brand-new this week, with two catalog items courtesy of Mike and two 2021 Bud Powell tributes courtesy of Kismet, I guess.  One oldie os a middle of the road Blue Note basic, while the other is a third stream effort that is glancingly echoed in the more orchestrated of the two Bud tributes.  And that's all you're getting out of me - you'll have to listen...

The Bastards had hoped to host author Will Friedwald this episode to discuss his book on Nat King Cole, but like a ramblin' rose his path wandered from ours and we ended up high and lonesome, talking Nat's vocal albums on Capital by ourselves.   Nat was one of the great Swing era piano players and led one of the first influential jazz piano trios, but we focus on the second half of his t...

In honor of a Record Store Day release of "In Baltimore", we decide to devote an episode to tenor saxophonist George Coleman, who served tours of duty with Max Roach, Elvin Jones, and Miles Davis among others.  The focus is on his mid-sixties to early seventies work as we ponder George's strengths and weaknesses and whether he's been given a fair shake in jazz history.  Pop mat...

Mike thinks "basserageous" is the stupidest title for the podcast yet, but is it, really?  There's a lot of competition.  Anyway, this fortnight's gem looks at ECM albums where the bass is large and in charge, which provides opportunities to talk about ECM's aesthetics, how technological changes in the seventies allowed bass players new prominence, and Pat Metheny's h...

Mike's on the road for this one, and he's the only one in the car who likes jazz, so things get a bit hairy as he listens to this week's selections.  All were selected by Pat (safely at home) and all are by artists new to both, so there's some fumbling about as they listen to four 2021 releases and try to figure out why they annoy Mike's new cats so much.  Paul Bedal - CER...

The jazz world lost Chick Corea this February and we bastards miss him like everyone else.  Well, maybe not like fans of electric-era Return to Forever, but we certainly miss him.  In this episode, we focus on some of Chick's acoustic music, looking at some early works that show both his melodic and avant-garde sides, and his tribute to a predecessor with a considerably less sunny personality...

Time for a traditional mixed-bag podcast ranging over the decades and through musical styles, though 2001 gets special treatment for whatever reason.  Artists range from an Ornette Coleman-esque quartet from the sixties to an uplifting piano trio from right now, with an outward questing pianist and trumpeter in the middle of the sandwich.  Pop matters dwells on some recent vinyl re-issues of old s...

Pat got a four-LP set from John Zorn’s Tzadik label and thought an episode catching up with recent events in the Zorniverse might be a good idea.  Mike thought the title of this episode was a good idea.  Brace yourselves.   All four albums feature Zorn the composer, while only one features Zorn the alto saxophone player and only one features a demonically possessed Muppet on vocals.  Pop matters r...

A lot of 2020 was spent in the fetal position, so it's not surprising some interesting jazz releases passed us by.  This episode the boys check out four Blue Note releases from that memorable year, all of which we like pretty gosh darn well.  So at least there's something from 2020 we like.  Pop matters wallows in eighties nostalgia, but what did you expect?  Various Artists - BLUE NOTE...

The New Year is here and even bastards need a break now and then.  So while Mike crosses the nation and gets back to laboring in education, Pat takes the baton to talk about some jazz releases from last year's three-part Record Store Day extravaganza, and to muse on jazz vinyl in general.  Hate the black stuff?  Don't worry - next episode the boys will be back in the saddle doing what th...

Hooray - we've made it alive through 2020 and through eight seasons of this podcast, too.  To celebrate the big "eighth" (the internet claims it's bronze and pottery for that anniversary, should you want to send gifts) we talk about half that many jazz octets, and throw in an album named after a funky sea-creature as a bonus.  In pop matters, Harry Nilsson's alternate take...

Mike loves him some holiday jazz specials,so in honor of Christ coming to earth, realizing it was a lost cause, and leaving before he even hit forty, we're looking at five Christmas-themed albums and EPs.  Three of them appear on Telarc, and Pat has things to say about that.  Pop matters is mostly stuck on Harry Nilsson, as we suspect it will be for some time.  Lauren Henderson – CLASSIC CHRI...

We've been looking at various critic's and website's "best jazz of the 2010's" lists, but now the listeners get to weigh in.  Their wide-ranging suggestions encompass a couple of fairly accessible albums and a couple more challenging discs, all featuring artists who have yet to appear as headliners on our show.   This will conclude our sequence on the best of the deca...

We take a break from surveying the best of the 2010's to take a gander at five releases from the second half of this wunnerful year, 2020.   Maybe everything else has gone to heck in a handcart this year but the music releases remain strong, as our survey attests.  Three of the five releases are on up and coming label Outside In Music and all of them have something to recommend.  Aaron Burnet...

For the last of our four-episode examination of discs we missed from various best of 2010's lists (and that's almost, but not quite, rapping, isn't it?) it's all about "something blue".  Or, in this case, something Blue Note.  One entry on Avant sneaks in on the basis of its title, so at least it's not a Blueopoly.  J D Allen – AMERICANA – MUSINGS ON JAZZ AND BLU...

In this third podcast on some of the best-reviewed jazz of the 2010's that we missed first time 'round, the boys look at four albums that 'borrow' something, whether inspiration from a sci-fi author, jazz protests of the sixties, or jazz greats of the past such as Charlie Parker or Duke Ellington.   It's a light pop matters segment this time but little known indie band The...

In this second episode of our prestigious four-part series (we got that idea from Masterpiece Theatre), "new" or at least "newish" music is the focus.  Four albums from the best of the 2010's that seem to promise ambition and adventure and, for the most part, deliver.  The journey may get rocky at times, but brace yourselves as we head for the hinterlands.  Matana Roberts...