Has jazz run its course?

[Richard Barrett]

like Cage's "4 mins, 33 seconds" (...) it does seem "anti-jazz."

Like 4'33" also, it's something that confronts and provokes a lot of thought and discussion as to what music (jazz, in this case) actually is. Maybe some would regard that as pointless I suppose. I guess it isn't something I'm going to listen to a second time, but (as with variously unothodox renderings of classical repertoire) the original is still there and undamaged, no?

[Ian Thumwood]

Richard

The idea is interesting for about 30 seconds but as you say, you wouldn't want to listen to it a second time. There are plenty of far more interesting ideas in jazz or approaches where you would want to listen repeatedly to the records. I was a bit staggered that they produced the record although I suppose it demonstrates that they have reached a natural conclusion - I believe Peter Evans is no longer in this band.

[charles t]

I have been waterboarded by the Welsh Waterboard. I no longer have any fear.

I have seen the future and its Charlotte Church singing the Internationale on the roof of the Welsh Assembly...."Avante Comrade Charleeee!"

BN

...while (prone) on the roof of the Welsh Assembly, the artist formerly associated as a Voice Of An Angel - revisits lyrics from her version of

'Call My Name'... beckoning:

Yeah, I love it when you call my name, n-n-name

I like the sound of your shirt ripping
My will slipping under the table
I like the sound of your hand slapping
Your whip cracking, this could be painful



Or something to that effect...

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Yeah that Charlotte!

I blame the parents.


BN.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

...yep all down to the Church man ......

oh those little blue pills .......

[Serial_Apologist]

One never seems to see Apple Charlotte around any more. I'm not sure I even remember what she was.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

[Quarky]

I was really shocked by the MOPDTK version of "Kind of blue" as Peter Evans and Jon Irabagon are musicians I always felt are capable of making really salient contributions to jazz whereas this effort seems totally pointless. .

I guess the point was to sell some CDs and adjust bank balance positively. But note for note copy (musical notes)? Excuse me, but a note played by Miles sounded totally different.

Time Berne on the other hand on Jon3 adjusted my mood from serious to happy - Tim certainly pro-Jazz.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I am mainlining Chris Potter as per Sir Charles T of this board. I can hear all sorts of influences but he is really producing some wonderful stuff. Great tone individual ideas and his own shed.

Hangs head....yes I know I was slow to become aware. So Zoot me.

BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

Chris Potter's best output was with Dave Holland's Quintet which ran from the late 1990'sthrough the 2000's. The line up with Kilson, Eubanks, Nelson and Potter is still Dave Holland's finest line up. I've most of this groups recordings as well as the two discs where the quintet was expanded to a big band which still manged to maintain the core identity of the smaller unit. He's also pretty good on Dave Douglas's "The infinite" where there are some of the best covers of pop material ever recorded by a jazz group including "poses" and Mary J Bliges' "Crazy games" ( a marked improvement from the original) both of which sound like jazz standards and bely their origins. However, the version of Bjork's "Unity" is sensational and I think that this is one of the best ever recordings of a pop song - although Kate mcGarry's version of The Cars "just what I need" is unrecognisable from the original and pretty staggering too. Keep playing this over and over in my car this week.

An odd combination of David Binney is pretty explosive and both saxophonists can be heard on Alex Sipiagin's "Destinations unknown " where they are involved in a brilliant dual on the track "Fast forward." They also lock horns on Binney's "Graylen epicentre" on a track called 2Terrorists & movie stars." For, if anyone wants a demonstration of jazz as a living and vibrant art form, "Graylen Epicentre" remains one of the most potent records of the 2010's.

[Ian Thumwood]

[Ian Thumwood]

I think this track is terrific. Indicative of everything that is great about jazz. I think the album from which this track is culled is pretty special and maybe as good as example of how big band jazz can be at the forefront of an idiom that prides itself on being reliant on improviation. For me, this is far more "progressive" or "modern" than any free improv borrowed from serial music and maybe indicative that the jazz composers who are thinking ahead of the curve nowadays have ditched the atonal movements of the first 75 years of the 20th century to take their cues from the likes of Reich or John Adams. To m ears, this is far for contemporary and, for someone who has lauded Trish Clowes classical / jazz cross-over pretentions, a starting point for SA to explore further as it is this same ability to compose that will propel the music forwards. In my opinion, Hollenbeck is more developed but you can appreciate from this clip just how much potential there is with pursuing this course. Hollenbeck's writing for large ensembles is unlike no one else's and he is transforming the way big bands work more radically than anyone since the likes of Mike Gibbs in the late 1960's. He is writing big band jazz music that is of today just as you might find with classical composers like James MacMillan, Mark Anthony Turnage, etc. You can also hear the inspiration from Bob Brookmeyer - Hollencbeck also works extensively with Meredith Monk and I'm not sure how much influence she has had on his approach. Hollenbeck's re-working of old country tunes, Queen's "Bicycle race," ,Imogen Heap and the tune from "Brother, were art though" is a masterstroke.

I'd also have to add that few arrangers have really managed to capture the voice as part of an ensemble quite as successfully as John Hollenbeck and I feel he is in the same class as early Duke, Kenny Wheeler and Maria Schneider in this respect. The combination of Bleckman and McGarry creates a very unique timbre. The German big band are pretty good too.

This is a great tune - the culmination of this arrangement is something that I find over-whelming,.

[charles t]

Thank you for that tasty big band piece, Ian.

Some of the best voicings within a subdued pallet, I've heard since Bob Brookmeyer's New Art Orchestra.

You mentioned John Adams & Steve Reich.

Heard Adams, this April, conducting a premiere of a Terry Riley Organ Concerto (with the L.A. Phil) as well as his own Naive & Sentimental Music. (The organist was the much heralded Cameron Carpenter...outfitted in a white leather Grand Prix...whatever).

And to have heard Steve Reich & group performing his Drumming, while standing enclosed in a semi-circle of drummers & mallet performers on the floor of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art...was a trip too!

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

like these kids

http://www.arthurlea.co.uk/Arthur_Lea/arthur_lea_biography.html

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

and these:

[i do not recall if Ian has pointed them to us before]