I lost my interest in mainstream jazz a while ago, but got turned on to so-called spiritual jazz a few years ago, starting with the Strata-East catalog- some amazing stuff there, and a lot of what I listen to and chase these days are in this more offbeat jazz area that is not so cacophonous to be free jazz but comes pretty close sometimes- Pharaoh Sanders, Cecil McBee are two of the great players among many. A lot of the records were originally released during a low point in vinyl in the U.S. but they still sound good. What is now limiting is price- some of the OGs are nutty money or pretty hard to find, let alone in first tier condition. I don’t know that there is a common thread to this sub-genre, since the term is applied loosely to a lot of private label and small label post bop jazz that uses eastern or African influences. Some of it is fabulous, sonically. One that was mainstream was Alice Coltrane’s Ptah, the El Daoud, on Impulse- now very hard to find in mint- condition and pricey even for beater copies- recorded in the family studio in their basement in Long Island. Ron Carter on that one. Lots to discover and learn. There is a movement among current younger musicians to tap into this vein too, so from relatively inexpensive to collector’s pieces, you can spend a fair amount of time doing a deep dive. Even the records Nathan Davis released on his return to the U.S. are pretty rare and made on some of the thinnest vinyl I’ve ever seen, but sound good. Usually pretty simple combos, very little in the way of string fills or heavy-handed production- some of the material, like Horace Tapscott- is fairly large ensemble playing. Worth checking out if you’ve lost interest in jazz or want to take a different path. Most all of it is attributed to Coltrane’s A Love Supreme as inspiration.
