JRR 4 oct 2014

**Serial_Apologist** · 03-10-14, 21:36

Many thanks again Alyn!

Particularly looking forward to the Don McAffer and Sid Phillps tracks, not having heard anything by either up to this point.

**aka Calum Da Jazbo** · 04-10-14, 12:45

i had an lp from the Gate Records second hand shop in Nootting Hill Gate; it was Scrapbook of British Jazz ... Sid Phillips featureed along with other old style favourites and a certain Mr Fred Elizalde ... i hated it mostly but you know what nosatlgia does eh ...

Elizalde criticized British dance music for its Viennese qualities and sought to bring more American principles of rhythm to the British scene. He recorded with his band in 1927 under several ensemble names for Brunswick and Decca. In his run at the Savoy Hotel in London, his band featured many of the best players in early British jazz, including Norman Payne, Jack Jackson, and Harry Hayes, as well as Americans such as Chelsea Quealey, Bobby Davis, Fud Livingston, Adrian Rollini, and Arthur Rollini. The band was voted best popular dance orchestra in Melody Maker in 1928, but "older guests at the [Savoy] hotel were offended by his music, and controversial broadcasts over the BBC didn't help his case. In July 1929 his contract expired and was not renewed."
wicki

must send in a request Alyn .... many thanks for the playlist, much appreciated

**BLUESNIK'S REVOX** · 04-10-14, 16:52

The Wardell was really nice. Must dig out my box. Can hear there the claimed influence on the young Harold Land.

BN.

**Rcartes** · 05-10-14, 09:10

Gil Evans track

Thanks to Alyn, Interesting programme as always - except for the Gil Evans piece which was frightful! What on earth possessed you to include this awful sub rock stuff?

**aka Calum Da Jazbo** · 05-10-14, 11:10

Originally posted by Rcartes View Post

Thanks to Alyn, Interesting programme as always - except for the Gil Evans piece which was frightful! What on earth possessed you to include this awful sub rock stuff?

it is a request show and presumably the request was made in the light of a far more favourable view of the piece?

the world looked different in 1974; apart from any genuinely musical motives and one can be sure of Evans in this respect, it would also have been good to make a few bucks eh ...

**Ian Thumwood** · 05-10-14, 15:59

I used to have that LP and it is a fascinating disc for a number of reasons. I think Gil Evans only wrote two arrangements ("Castles made of sand" and "Up from the skies") but the other charts are generally more exciting.

I bought this record in about 1987 at the same time as buying the first "Bass Desires" album that featured Bill Frisell and John scofield going head to head. At the time Gil Evans could do no wrong as far as I was concerned but the record does sound a bit dated these days even if it is still enjoyable. I think "Angel" is the stand out track but the rest of the album is of it's era. It was impossible to tell which guitarist was John Abercrombie and quite incredible to hear him involved in this project and to kind of the chamber jazz he produces now.

As far as being "awful, sub rock" it is a period piece and, as Calum stated, indicative of where jazz was in the early 70's. This was probably the point at which jazz must have seemed pointless! Putting on a pair of more critical ears, Gil's 1970's stuff is pretty erratic. The rot set in with the under-whelming "Blues in orbit" before a return to form with "Svengali" which incudes the likes of Billy Harper. However, this was followed by "There comes a time" which is a terrible record and features a leaden, synthesizer dominated ensemble. After that disc, the Hendrix album is a marked improvement but discs like "BiO" and "Tcat" do make you start to question Evans' reputation. After the masterful records made in the 50s and 60's, the later recordings are mixed in my opinion. The live recordings made on "Mole jazz" are indicative of how the band sound sound when on form and "Priestess" is even better. However, the Hendrix material formed the bedrock of his repertoire after this point and there is hardly a record that doesn't include "Up from the skies", "Stone free", "Angel" or "Voodoo chile." Some of the records seem to be extended jams with little actual arranging and you can see why the band that played Sweet Basil is alleged to have been a big influence on MM&W.

I love Gil Evans' music and he opened the door for me to listen to certain types of pop music as well as wanting to make me explore classical music. His records up to "individualism" are essential records but, if I am harsh, I think he has been overtaken by a good number of composers since the 1970's. Some of Mike Gibb's arrangements from the 1970's onwards are far superior and the likes of Brookmeyer, Schneider, Hollenbeck, Steve Owen, George Gruntz, Kenny Wheeler, etc, etc just seem to take the music further. I feel that Gil Evans was a bit like Benny Goodman in that there is no real development in the music up to a point - in Gil's case probably around the mid 70's which corresponded with when the music lost it's way. In the end that band became something totally different from the artistry of the sets with Miles Davis even is tracks like "La navada" from "Out of the cool" highlight the minimal kind of charts / absence of charts that marked his later output. He seemed to lose interest in writing and perhaps no surprise that he allowed others to arrange for the Hendrix disc. I'm probably a bit controversial in my opinion as I do like his later stuff even though I would have to say it isn't in the same class as the more famous charts.

Wondered if anyone had heard the "missing" Gil Evans records from Ryan Truesdale?

**Serial_Apologist** · 05-10-14, 16:46

To me "Crosstown Traffic" sounded like the raucous kind of stuff pioneered in this country by the likes of Ray Russell and Bob Downes around 1969/70, and therefore very dated by '74, when there was more sophisticated fusion going in the States to cadge off. My guess is Gil wanted to loosen up and enjoy himself a bit after all the microscopic effort he'd devoted to arranged sonority in the famous Miles recordings, and carried on in that vein to the end. I remember Andy Sheppard telling us working with Gil was something of a doddle compared with George Russell, with Carla Bley's regime somewhere in the middle.

**Ian Thumwood** · 05-10-14, 19:37

SA

That's quite an interest observation. I recall that, in some cases, Jimi Hendrix arrangements were actually produced to be recorded with the guitarist himself and the recording date never came to fruition. Hendrix had actually been listening to "Sketches of Spain" to familiarize himself with Evans' music but he died (in 1970) before the recording session could be arranged. It took a number of years before the music was actually recorded and therefore this might explain your perception. Never-the-less, about 50% of the material continued to be performed by Evans up until his death and including the last concert in the UK which I actually went to at the old Hammersmith Odeon.

I get the impression that Evans was quite unorganised or even lazy when it came to writing charts. The repertoire isn't too expansive even if you include the stuff written for Claude Thornhill. A lot of his music became quite minimal in the end even when it did hit the spot. Even some of the arrangement on the 1960's album aren't that lengthy and some are probably just jams rather like some of the charts cooked up by Basie's KC band or even some of the impromptu Ellington stuff.

When I discovered his music I was pretty uncritical but I think the "essential" Gil Evans is probably limited to the stuff with miles (excluding "Quiet nights" which should not have been issued), "out of the cool", the "New bottle / old wine" set which re-worked a lot of classic jazz tunes, "the individualism of Gil Evans," perhaps "Svengali" and certainly "Priestess." Some of the later recordings also have their moment too and "Ten" is quite good - there is some nice Steve Lacy on that one. You can find some good charts on some of the albums he made with Astrid Gilberto, Kenny Burrell and Helen Merrill. The later includes his best writing for strings but is very much pop music of the day.

I have one of the records that Andy Sheppard made with Gil Evans when the latter front Laurent Cugny's big band. When this came out, it sounded like a more formal and respectful record than the Canadian was producing with his own "Monday Night orchestra" at the time. I loved this record when I first acquired it and was really annoyed when it was re-released about 12 months later with an extra CD's worth of material. I played it a few months back but time plays tricks on your ears and it is pretty anodyne with the most interesting track being an arrangement by Cugny - himself a pretty ambitious composer and whose jazz opera I heard at Vienne about ten years ago.

If Gil Evans was around he would be immensely proud how his legacy has endured and flourished in the writing of his former student Maria Schneider, for example. Others like Darcy James Argue have moved the Evans approach to reflect the contemporary grooves that are familiar today. I think his legacy will love on but it is interesting just how much more Ellington's approach, despite maybe not being quite so modern, has endured more successfully in the jazz vernacular. Ellington's influence seems to exert itself in various guises ranging from Wynton Marsalis, David Murray, Jason Moran, Stan Tracey, Muhal Richard Abrams and even in the recent octet recording by Jason Roebke. As a teenager I always believed that Gil Evans had the edge on Ellington yet I now think that Gil was a product of the jazz of the time and pushed the music onwards to new harmonies and sonorities whereas Ellington latched on to something that immediately catapults music in to the realms of unadulterated jazz and seems to give each successive generation of musicians something to work with in their own image. It's almost as if Evans had a "style" of arranging that offered something new and original whereas Ellington seems to have had an " ideology." In summary, as much as I love Gil Evans' music, I think Ellington will prove to have a far greater reach into the work of future generations.

**Rcartes** · 21-10-14, 07:05

Originally posted by aka Calum Da Jazbo View Post

it is a request show and presumably the request was made in the light of a far more favourable view of the piece?

the world looked different in 1974; apart from any genuinely musical motives and one can be sure of Evans in this respect, it would also have been good to make a few bucks eh ...

Well, Calum, I do know it's a request show but Alyn doesn't have to play every piece of crap that's requested. But it's also a jazz show, and although Crosstown Traffic may have indicated where jazz was heading at that point, it was, thankfully, a misdirection and I for one don't want to be reminded of it!

PS: I'm certainly a great admirer of Gil Evans' jazz work, for example the albums with Miles and the Great Jazz Standards sessions. A particular favourite is the wonderful shorter (Pacific Jazz) version of La Nevada, where Evans scoring gradually builds up a huge tension behind Budd Johnson's marvellous tenor solo. Terrific!

JRR 4 oct 2014

JRR 4 oct 2014

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