...written in six flats .... funk!

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Alyn has already kindly posted the playlist for this pm


JLU

Claire Martin presents concert music by flautist Gareth Lockrane's Grooveyard Unplugged. Recorded at this year's Amser Jazz Time Festival at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff. The line-up features Alex Garnett (saxophone), Ross Stanley (organ and piano), David Whitford (bass), Tim Giles (drums) and bandleader Gareth Lockrane on flute.

...new to me ...

Geoffrey pays tribute to Horace Silver
Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silver, pianist and composer, born 2 September 1928; died 18 June 2014


[and the pbi gives track listings!!!]


Jon3 features Barry Guy's New Orchestra

Known for his adventurous and demanding writing, Barry Guy's music is highly scored, yet unpredictable in nature - unusual instrumental techniques, sharp-turning textures and thunderous bursts can unhinge the music at any given moment. In controlled sections of improvisation, the composer exploits the talents of experienced free players within the band, including saxophonist Evan Parker and pianist Agusti Fernandez, whilst the Baroque violin of Maya Homburger adds a contemporary classical flavour to the performance.

Here in concert at London's Cafe Oto, the New Orchestra perform brand new material, including pieces featuring smaller groupings of players from within the ensemble.

[Serial_Apologist]

Alyn has already kindly posted the playlist for this pm


JLU



...new to me ...

If you like well played hard bop flute, if that's not a contradiction, you're in for a nice surprise. Gareth L can certainly play; and the rest of the band are right up there with him. He teaches at the school just down my road.

Jon3 features Barry Guy's New Orchestra

I missed that Barry Guy gig at the Oto for some reason; well worth the listen for those who cite big bands as "advanced".

[Ian Thumwood]

I missed that Barry Guy gig at the Oto for some reason; well worth the listen for those who cite big bands as "advanced".

Thanks for the heads up. This is an interesting question. I have listened to Barry Guy's music in the past but I think he is really at the periphery of jazz. You could make a stronger case for what he produces as not being jazz as much as you could for it being so.

I don't really think you an compare Guy's work with an range of big band jazz any more that you could compare it with orchestral symphonies. For me, the big appeal with a lot of contemporary jazz is the fact that the quality of composition / writing has improved tremendously. Alyn made a point last week about the techniques of soloists improving yet the case can be made for big band writing. I feel that big band jazz is an integral part of what jazz is about although, like a lot of fusion, there is a large commercial component where the links to jazz are tenuous. That said, it is a format that has historically appealed jazz musicians with an keenness for composition for nearly 90 years. Some musicians have made a career in this oeuvre whereas as other have shown a propensity to work in this format despite enjoying a reputation as small group players. This latter selection would include the likes of Roy Hargove, David Murray, Stan Tracey, Jimmy Heath, Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Douglas, Kenny Wheeler, Tom Harrell, Tubby Hayes or even Miles Davis if you include the Gil Evans' collaboration. It's an integral part of what jazz is about and does mirror, to some extent, the trends in small formats. In earlier times, the big band was THE format for serious jazz composers and this is the format where they largely worked for most of jazz's early history and at least up to the 1950's. All the major composers in jazz (Duke, Henderson, MLW, Benny Carter, Billy Strayhorn, Eddie Sauter, George Russell, Tadd Dameron, Sun Ra, Gil Evans, etc, etc) worked in this format. Prior to the 1950's, I would argue that the jazz composers working with small groups were a small band. Even with the advent of bop, many of the more celebrated composers were not as switched on as their counterparts in big bands. Big bands are the business end of jazz composition whether we are talking about Don Redman or Richard Muhal Abrams.

It's a bit of a nonsense suggesting that Barry Guy's music is more advanced than say john Hollenbeck. It may be more radical in it's orchestration or mix of writing / soloing but it is not the same as big band jazz. Writing is such a part of today's jazz than, if anything, the music played by big bands is perhaps more relevant that it has been for nearly 70 years. Ok, you still get "commercial bands" such as Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band but the technical difficulty of his scores and the use of bizarre / eccentric time signatures reflects the music of today and is a million miles away from the kind of music produced by the Dorseys or Glenn Miller. Check out something like "Years of therapy" which sounds like Shostocovich. I'm not a huge Phat Band fan yet it is clear to my ears that their musical palette is quite staggering for a commercial band. If you move over to more contemporary jazz arrangers, a good number studied with Richard Muhal Abrams (Hollenbeck for one) and these arrangers are pretty savvy in plundering all sorts of sources for inspiration.

As I pointed out on the other thread, the problem for me with improvised music is when it deviates too far away from jazz. That's why I love the current Chicago stuff so much. It is in the improv territory that Barry Guy has inhabited for nearly 40 years yet the musicians are aware enough of the likes of Bix and Duke as well as Roscoe Mitchell to retain the jazz quotient. I quite like the idea of Guy's music and off course the idea of unbridled improvisation does offer unlimited possibilities and can be sensational when it works. It is a high risk strategy. It is not the same as big band jazz even if the size of the ensemble is similar.

If there is a downside to composition with big bands, there is probably a case that the soloists might not be as impressive as the writing. For me, this is the case with James Darcy Argue's band which has had rave reviews for the last few years. Granted it can also be a conservative idiom yet rarely as dull as when small group jazz enters in to something that is conservative in my opinion. I'd also argue that this is a "British attitude " within jazz buying public in this country that is opposed to big bands because of the negative connotations this form has in the Uk whether we are talking about the woeful, non-jazz bands of the 30's / 40's, the efficient yet supremely square Ted Heath band or NYJO which seems mistrusted in some quarters. Don't even get me on to the subject of Jools Hollands ! However, if you look at each generation of British jazz there are bands like Johnny Dankworth, Brotherhood of breath, or Django Bates / Loose Tubes who have set the agenda for British jazz largely through working with big bands.

If you want to follow where jazz is heading, I would suggest that big band writing has always been at the vanguard of where the music might go even if the links might be tenuous with the young member of Medeski, Martin & Wood regularly checking out Gil Evans "Monday Night Orchestra" in the 1980s' that was a forerunner of the next generation's jam bands. To keep up with adventurous / modern / cutting edge / advanced music you need to keep an ear open to the big bands.

I will listen to Barry Guy on your recommendation though!!!!

Cheers

Ian

[Quarky]

Afraid I could not disagree with Mr. Thumwood more.

The best large ensemble I have heard on Jon3 for ages. The music continuously interesting, and not hidebound by convention.

To be fair on Barry Guy, he does call his ensemble a "New Orchestra", and that seems a pretty accurate description. I liked the score posted on the Jon3 website Rondo for 9 Birds. Worthy of Stockhausen!

Isn't it time to consign the term "Big Band" to history, and to use it only for bands that are clearly legacy bands with the bands of yore, Ellington, Basie etc.

But my main grouse is the very nebulous definition that Ian applies as to what is jazz and what is not jazz. Given the huge spectrum of music available nowadays on radio , internet, live performances, to attempt to restrict our listening ears to music that is unarguably "Jazz", seems to me very inward looking.

And R3 is a Classical Music Station!

[Serial_Apologist]

Well I'm with you there, Oddball. I think Ian's definition of what falls under Jazz is wider than the impression he is sometimes apt to give.

[Ian Thumwood]

Isn't it time to consign the term "Big Band" to history, and to use it only for bands that are clearly legacy bands with the bands of yore, Ellington, Basie etc.

But my main grouse is the very nebulous definition that Ian applies as to what is jazz and what is not jazz. Given the huge spectrum of music available nowadays on radio , internet, live performances, to attempt to restrict our listening ears to music that is unarguably "Jazz", seems to me very inward looking. !

Oldball

I can appreciate where you are coming from but don't think the idea of "big bands" should be consigned to history even though so many larger ensembles have ditched this billing. The whole concept of the "big band" itself covers a very wide base since the days of James Reese Europe and incorporates music that had hardly be described as jazz either. The kind of big bands you mention or who at least played the repertoire of the 30's / 40's were what I grew up listening to through my Dad's record collection but even when I was about 14-15 I could distinguish which bands were playing jazz and which bands weren't. Since the 1970's / early 80's bands which established this kind of stance seem to have greatly diminished as the appetite for the music of Glenn Miller, for example, find it's audience to have diminished. The idea of a "big band" with the line up of trumpets, trombones , reeds and rhythm was largely challenged by the likes of Gil Evans with Claude Thornhill in the 1940's although other groups like Seeger Ellis' "Choirs of brass" offered a reed-less alternative in the previous decade.

As far as confining the idiom to history, even if you set aside some of the more contemporary names I mentioned, the more orthodox line up still very much has legs. I bet that a good proportion of the jazz I will hear next week will include such line ups and, if previous experience is anything to go by, it will be possible to hear such diverse music as Mingus, Dave Holland, Tom Harrell, Thad Jones, Jim McNeely, Carla Bley etc, etc. I wouldn't suggest for one moment this music is in anyway "repertoire" and even if it were, if it resurrects music like the Dameron score I posted a link to earlier in the week, in my estimation this is a good thing.

Here's a link to an article by one of today's leading bandleaders, probably off the radar as far as you and SA are concerned, yet a musician who has produced some of the most exciting big band jazz in the 2000's, a kind of Latin, Mingus big band. -

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/bobby-sanabria-spreads-the-latin-jazz-gospel-by-steve-bryant.php#.U63qJ1xwbIU

Someone who is at once totally relevant and also indebted to the greats like Dizzy, Mario Bauza and Art Blakey.

Ian

[Quarky]

Here's a link to an article by one of today's leading bandleaders, probably off the radar as far as you and SA are concerned, yet a musician who has produced some of the most exciting big band jazz in the 2000's, a kind of Latin, Mingus big band. -

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/bobby-sanabria-spreads-the-latin-jazz-gospel-by-steve-bryant.php#.U63qJ1xwbIU

Someone who is at once totally relevant and also indebted to the greats like Dizzy, Mario Bauza and Art Blakey.

Ian

Thanks Ian - don't have any problems with your excellent recommendations.

[Ian Thumwood]

See you laters..........................................

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

happy hols?