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After being here for five and a half months, I finally made it to Jazz Record Mart. My dad was in town and it’s only a couple blocks from the hotel he was staying at so we headed over before getting dinner.

I’d heard that Jazz Record Mart had gone downhill a bit in the last couple years, so I wasn’t expecting to be blown away by what that had and I wasn’t. It’s certainly not Dusty Grooves, but there was more than enough good stuff that I had to restrain from doing too much damage to my recently deposited tax refund. No CTI (that I saw), no Jimmy Giuffre, very little electric Miles, but I did find this:

• Henry Cain: The Funky Organization of Henry Cain - I keep buying soul jazz records because about one in five turn out to be really awesome. This isn’t that one. It’s not bad, but there’s not much to recommend it.
• Luciano Perrone: Batucada Fantastica vol. 3 - There were a bunch of records from this series in the Latin section. I never heard of them so I just grabbed one. This one is mostly drum beats and rhythm patterns. Maybe the rest of the series is better?
• Oneness of Juju: Space Jungle Luv - I’ve been a fan of Strut since I picked up the Nigeria ‘70 comp (still by far the best afrobeat comp I’ve heard) five or six year’s ago at Kim’s in NYC (the one on Broadway, not St. Mark’s). Strut went out of business a few years back, so all their re-issues are out of print and whenever I see something they put out I pick it up. This one is a little spacier than African Rhythms, but still good.
• Experience Unlimited: Free Yourself - Proto go-go? Not really as this is nothing like E.U., the seminal DC go-go band Experience Unlimited would eventually become, but their entry on allmusic.com says that Oneness of Juju was also from DC. Go figure.
• Lou Donaldson: Alligator Bogaloo - Given my predilection for soul jazz, I’m sort of embarrassed I didn’t already own this. Plus I just noticed that it’s Bogaloo, not Boogaloo.
• Caetano Veloso: Tropicalia - I’ve been looking for this for a while now. Haven’t even been able to find it on CD. Someone thankfully re-issued it on vinyl at least.
• Herbie Hancock: Fat Albert Rotunda - One of the dopest albums ever.

Not a bad haul, although I should point out that these are all re-issues. Jazz Record Mart isn’t that good and my tax refund wasn’t that big.

You get to go to shows for free if you write a review: Cornelius at The Metro.