8 Minute Organizer

In 2013, Funky Town Grooves reissued a significant portion of Norman Connors' discography as a leader slash highly connected talent organizer. Along with straightforward Dance of Magic/Dark of Light and You Are My Starship/Aquarian Dream two-for-one releases, as well as individualized bonus-track-enhanced reissues of Invitation and Take It to the Limit, there was this - a pairing of Connors' 1974 Buddah dates. Among the highlights: a gorgeous eight-minute "Love from the Sun," a storming version of Carlos Garnett's "Mother of the Future" (with Jean Carn at full, jaw-dropping power), and Reggie Lucas' funky instrumental "Slew Foot."

This is how traditional Chicago-style jazz sounded in New York during the mid-1940s. When he wasn't brusquely emceeing these bands on-stage at Town Hall, guitarist and organizer Eddie Condon presented this music on the air and in the recording studio. The phonographic evidence, chronologically arranged and carefully documented, makes for enjoyable listening. Three V-Disc sides for the armed forces have Hot Lips Page lined up next to Sterling Bose, Miff Mole and Pee Wee Russell. This interesting blend of musicians from radically different social and ethnic backgrounds is typical of Condon. Lips sings on a nearly four-and-a-half-minute version of the "Uncle Sam Blues," a wry ode to military conscription…

This 98-minute documentary, written, produced, and directed by Adele Schmidt and José Zegarra Holder of the Washington, D.C. area's Zeitgeist Media, begins and ends at the 2011 Rock in Opposition festival in Carmaux, France, and between those two bookends tells the story of this idiosyncratic movement – or style, or whatever you want to call it – that was birthed in the late '70s and has against all odds persisted on and off to the present day…