Hear, Sense and POLL: the Black Jazz Records catalogue

I've only heard 9/20 so far, but they're all great and above all they *sound* absolutely amazing.

My only cavil so far is that Doug Carn gets a lot of hype, and the two of his I've heard (Spirit, Adam's) are my least loved out of the 9 -- might just be my mild aversion to jazz vocals though. I can strongly recommend both of The Awakening albums and Henry Franklin, who all manage to cover a wide range of sounds on single albums. The first Gene Russell is super solid if not partic boundary-pushing, Rudolph Johnson's The Second Coming is great post-Coltrane spiritual-ish jazz, and guitarist Calvin Keys' funky soul-jazz Proceed With Caution! might be my go-to, it's a total delight

The Awakening are definitely dark horse candidates — their albums rule in an early Earth, Wind & Fire way.

my first instinct is definitely to pick one of theirs, but I listened to The Skipper at Home last night and that is awesome: Franklin's bass lands right in the sweet spot between free and funky, pretty unusual ime

also more generally, I appreciate this label for being a historical showcase for what jazz sounded like in the early 70s, with the genre boundaries now super porous but also with people like bebop original Walter Bishop Jr. still in the mix (and hell he was only 44 when he made Coral Keys)

Embarrassed to admit that I only just got hipped to this label when a friend gave me Shawn-Neeq for my birthday. But it is excellent, and I agree that it sounds great. Hope more people vote so I can get some crowdsource recommendations here.

Hey been thinking of starting a Black Jazz thread for awhile now… probably proceed with caution

The Roland Haynes album is great too.

new direction is really dope too, that’s the other one I have. I also highly recommend Calvin Keys full court press which Numero (I think) reissued a couple of years ago. A little smoother but super good.

Plenty Good Eaton is plenty great but man, that title...

Wasn't this entire label & back catalogue on the market a few years back for like 200K?

broom air: fwiw I only heard my first one in summer 2022, and since then I've found people tend to talk about the label as a whole and less about individual albums, so they fly under the radar (or they did for me too)

I was specifically curious about the Eaton and Haynes albums, so that's cool to hear.

In the meantime, I felt mildly guilty about slighting Doug Carn, so I listened to Spirt of the New Land today and while I'll likely never truly love something like "Blue in Green," the rest is way way better than I remembered. The opening track is startlingly contemporary sounding too, like something off of Moor Mother's Jazz Codes (which I think Henry Franklin played on? he's in a video anyway), which reminded me that part of what I'm into with this label is how influential on 2020s jazz it sounds to me

Thanks for the recommendations!

There's a coupla good Black Jazz mixtape things out there, one by Gilles Peterson and the other by Theo Parrish, that offer up slightly different takes on the label, and are worth tracking down.

The Roland Haynes album is great too.

― brimstead, Monday, March 4, 2024 11:05 AM (two days ago)

ooh yeah this was rad! pushing soul jazz deep into funk and featuring some impressive drumming

I need to check out the Roland Haynes record, I think I might vote...Shawn-Neeq, Hear, Sense and Feel is great too

part of what I'm into with this label is how influential on 2020s jazz it sounds to me

this is otm

Will abstain from voting since I've heard fewer than half of these but those Awakening albums are wonderful

gonna post that Doug Carn track I mentioned:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1iYOsc0dv4

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

guess I forgot to vote :/