J*zz A* Th* P*wn Sh*p

[torstoi]

I quite like it..
If you don't wanna listen to the 3M and Coltrane all day..it's not the musical high noon and it's no big star musicians, but it's solidly good music and with an organically grown background.
What made it victim to the hifi shops is it's amazing recording quality,
but it's intent was never to be that..or to please by tending into the elevator music Jazz direction.

I realize the recording quality is great, but that's not why I listen to it,
it's not the polished meaningless stuff like 'Midnight Sugar' from the Three Blind Mice label,
which really sounds great but intellectually starves me to death.

I recommend the Pawn Shop version with the DVD included thats telling the backstory of the Pawnshop,
which I liked a lot...and was even a bit of a highlight in the package to me. (s/h)
Understanding the background how the whole thing came to be also means understanding
that it has nothing in common with polished hifi demonstration attitude.

If it's enough for your musical intellect is up to you..
To me it's fine, similar to a really good concert in your town with good musicians and no superstars.

 

[RJohan]

Back in the day, it was much more difficult to learn and explore the music but luckily, I spent time in the great cities of Chicago and New York for my jazz education. Hamstrung by lack of money and like-minded friends but armed with my Rolling Stone guide (the Penguin one had not yet been written), I managed to pick up recommended albums and explored the live music scene. I was not one for pop or rock concerts but during that formative period, I managed to see Sonny Rollins, David Murray, Modern Jazz Quartet, Dizzy Gillespie, Pat Metheny, Art Blakey, Branford Marsalis, Miles Davis (I didn't 'get' the music though ) and Sun Ra prancing around my university quad with a lamp shade on!

My only regret is that I really should have done even more. I just don't have the opportunity to do that any more except for being able to afford albums that I want.

I'm not envious. NOT!

 

[RJohan]

The recording engineer, Gert Palmcrantz ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gert_Palmcrantz ) is a bit of a living legend here in Sweden, he's done everything from ABBA Benny's first band, Hep Stars, to, well, everything. Today he's an advocate of 'no more than two mic's', but, as noted above, JATP was done with a plentitude of mic's, mixed live to two track.

IMHO, it's listenable but not great.

If you want a Swedish HiFi demo recording, try 'Tiden bara går' on OPUS 3...

 

[Graham H]

and Sun Ra prancing around my university quad with a lamp shade on!

Essential head wear for Afrofuturists everywhere! If I’d have been in NY in the mid 60s to early 70s - or had a time machine - I’d have spent every Monday evening at Slug’s watching Sun Ra. It has been said there were often more musicians on stage than people in the audience, but imagine the breadth of material and number of musicians over so many years.

 

[hockman]

Think this image or another one has been posted on PFM before. I was at this exact concert, around '88-'89, live in the university quad. There were a bunch of students sitting around looking pretty bemused...I must say I was too!

These days I try to catch whatever great musician I can. One of my recent memorable ones was of Randy Weston in an intimate club. I was sitting right behind him, literally an arm's length away...he died a few months later.

 

[paulfromcamden]

These days I try to catch whatever great musician I can. One of my recent memorable ones was of Randy Weston in an intimate club. I was sitting right behind him, literally an arm's length away...he died a few months later.

Yes I'm the same. So many of the greats performed their final number before I was in a position to appreciate.

I would have loved to have seen Randy Weston. Lush Life cafe in Kyoto organised several concerts by him at Kamigamo shrine over the years. The last time I visited the cafe they had a card from Randy on the counter.