jazz does not sell cds/mp3/seats but coffee 'n donuts

[Ian Thumwood]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Goddamn-This-War-Jacques-Tardi/dp/1606995820/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1402950366&sr=1-1&keywords=goddam+this+war

[Ian Thumwood]

Crime noir + West Coast jazz =

http://www.amazon.co.uk/West-Coast-Blues-Jacques-Tardi/dp/1606992953/ref=pd_sim_b_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=1YE5S2PTAR5MX22M3M29#_

I'd rather read THIS than Proust.

[burning dog]

Two "Brick Red" Rosie Lee's in tin mugs please Guv'nor...!!

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

let them eat cake!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"Après nous, le déluge." ~ MOIRA, aka La Madam Pompadour.

BN.

Now I am off on my looooong holidays so I will leave this cheerful band to debate life liberty and "eternal invasions"...T.Blair.

Dont wait up.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

tener una gran fiesta El Senor Blues

[burning dog]

http://www.tablecrowd.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/spotted-dick.jpg

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Tirez sur le pianiste!

[Ian Thumwood]

Calum

That Wilen track is strange. It took me a while to appreciate that it was an old Django Reinhart number . Wilen's sound reminds me a lot of Fred Jackson, especially with his intonation albeit there are none of the r n' b devices in his solo. I quite like the hardness in his sound. The piano is even more bizarre. It sound like the soloist is only playing with one hand and I can't hear any chords being played throughout the solo. Herbie used to do this often with Miles' band even if the rhythmic flexibility of the classic quintet is missing from this recording which seems to be late 1950's ? I quite like the recording even if the drum breaks arrive a fraction late.

When I first went to Vienne in 2001 I sat with a French family during a Wayne Shorter / Herbie double bill and the grandmother in the family has been snapping up all the Gitanes series CD's which were available at the time for about £4. I bought a number of them for my Dad but this woman had practically the whole series! I quite like these recordings as they feature such a wide variety of styles and included many famous names in unfamiliar contexts as well as some American musicians on the continent who are now totally forgotten or seriously neglected like trumpeter Peanuts Holland who followed in Eldridge's wake in the early 1930's with Alphonso Trent's band before being a more modern element of Charlie Barnet's big band in the 1940's.

The French people I have discussed this era with seem a bit dismissive of their own players. I seem to recall chatting to a record dealer in Rouen who commented that the British players performed with far more aggression that their French counterparts. I've seen the likes of Rene Utreger perform live and I think they would probably be exactly the kind of musicians Trevor Cooper would have lionised had they been British. There were many French players like Michelot, Solal maybe, etc who were in a different class but Wilen must have been unique insofar that he was perhaps the only French / Belgian horn player to really capture the imagination of the jazz record buying public. It seems like the Scandinavians seemed to monopolize the horns on the continent with players like Lars Gullin, Arne Domnerus or Stan Hasselgard enjoying the kind of reputations that eluded French horn players. Obviously the French horn players were too busy reading their Proust and Boris Vian or watching black and white films of men in dark glasses patting the derrieres of their female colleagues. (The more I see of "Bande a part", the more it seems like a black and white version of The Monkees but not quite as profound. ) They would have made more convincing horn soloists had they stuck to reading Kingsley Amis or watching Ealing comedies. This seemed to work for Tubby Hayes. I'm sure that De Gaulle must have contributed to the malaise amongst French horn players.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

... and Milt J hits the paino ....

Wilen played on the Miles Davis soundtrack to Malle's Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud which kept us in a west end art cinema for hours just to hear the soundtrack

Wilen also had a go with Monk and recorded amongst much else, music such as this

[charles t]

Thank you, Calum for selecting that (dare I say it?) pertinent article by jazz historian, Ted Gioia.

In his initial publication: The Imperfect Art (1987), Gioia had this to say in his intro:

"Many of the ideas that inspired this work date back to the early 1980s when I was living overseas in England. One might imagine that the academic setting of Trinity College, Oxford - where I was studying at the time - would be a conducive setting for discursive thought of any sort. But, as I look back on it, my interactions with fellow jazz musicians in the Oxford area are what stand out most in my mind, even more than my academic pursuits. My long conversations with saxophonist John O'Neill were as valuable as any tutorial or lecture in shaping my thoughts on music; and our innumerable practice sessions and (less frequent) performances were as demanding as a viva voce as we tried to put our ideas about jazz in practice. I hope that the finished work retains, to some extent, the flavor of those early conversations..."

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

hem yep ... bit disappointed by his West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California 1945-1960 rather a dry listing of recordings imho ... but pertinent? i am bemused as to how anything can be pertinent in the ineffably anarchic spirits of the jazz art ... especially Mr Wilen's psychedelic period ... but fun!

i was eating cabbage and dumplings with No 1 son and Daughter in Law at a LA Deli when from the adjacent ballroom came a perfect imitation of the San Getz Quartet and diners got up to dance ... sat for another hour just entranced ...

[charles t]

I hear you, Calum. L.A. in former years was certainly more jazz-centric...Dave Pike's vibes-sounds traveling up the atrium of a downtown hotel, for example.

The Musicians Union Local 48 would put-on free lunchtime concerts for the office workers. I remember Art Pepper wistful observations - looking over the empty space that would later become Disney Hall...Art reminiscing about the historical days gone-by of Bunker HIll (see John Fante's ASK THE DUST) and commenting,

'It's not any better now'.

Later...returning to my job after having had dispensed of a six-pack of brew (a friend of mine failed to show) and time-stamping my hand! It hurt!