First posted on Mark Is Cranky:

Ok, so last time around in my attempt to recommend some jazz-type recordings for The Duke, I kinda got sidetracked. This week, it's nose to the, uh...CD Player?

Anyway, what follows is a list of jazz-ish albums that I think might be to the liking of those who are sort of interested in jazz, but who have found it to be...how do I put this?....slow. A common way to introduce a person to jazz might be to invoke the "F-Word": fusion. Not this time around. It's been done many times before and it's just too easy. I also toyed with the idea of dealing in "energy music", some free jazz that seems to employ instruments as weapons...figuring that yer typical G.G. Allin fan might be able to appreciate the saxophone-as-blowtorch of a Peter Brotzman. Again, a risky thing.

Instead, let's consider some music that's odd, energetic and (sometimes) just plain weird. Here goes nothin'...

Naked City - John Zorn

This is Saturday morning cartoons, roller derby, detective movies, blues, cheesy television, surf, pornography, violence and more. Sometimes all in the same tune. Check out the cover of the James Bond Theme, where the entire band turns on a dime, blows its collective nose and finishes out the song.

Rootless Cosmopolitans - Marc Ribot

One of my favorite guitar players, Ribot defines 'angular'. While some of his finest stuff has happened as a sideman (good gawd, he's all over the fricken place on Tom Waits' Rain Dogs...and now that I think of it, he applies extra twangosity on Elvis Costello's "Let Him Dangle" (from Spike)), Ribot has put out an impressive collection of solo work. Cosmopolitans has Ribot making funny with some justabout sacred rock tunes including a complete bastardization of Hendrix' "Wind Cries Mary" and a busted, detuned "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". Plus, how can you not like a guy who names his band 'The Prosthetic Cubans'?

Ask The Ages - Sonny Sharrock

Perhaps the most 'jazz-like' record here, guitarist Sharrock plays a powerful set with a few jazz legends: Charnette Moffet on bass, Pharoah Sanders (saxes) and Elvin Jones at the drumkit. Scary good.

Song X- Ornette Coleman/Pat Metheny

Ornette, Metheny, Jack DeJohnette, Charlie Haden and Denardo Coleman play some tricky, brutal, and snarling music. I read of review of this somewhere indicating that the gnarlier material was left off of the recording. Then a few weeks ago, I found out that Nonesuch is going to reissue this disc with a pile of unreleased blasphemy. I just might have to start believing in god.

Space Is The Place - Sun Ra

If they had a jazz big band playing on that old TV show Lost In Space, this would be the one. Take a sort of big band lineup, but then mix in some 1960's spacey keyboards and some truly wacky vocals. Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the Grateful Dead of their day.

And there you have it.

I'd be willing to bet money that the Duke will enjoy at least one of these records. In fact, as a sort of money back guarantee-type thing, I pledge that I will go out and purchase a Morrissey album if the Duke points his thumb down.