JRR 3 Jan 2015

[Alyn_Shipton]

Dear boardees - happy new year.
Tomorrow's JRR playlist here: http://www.alynshipton.co.uk/2015/01...py-new-ynaear/

[Serial_Apologist]

Dear boardees - happy new year.
Tomorrow's JRR playlist here: http://www.alynshipton.co.uk/2015/01...py-new-ynaear/

Thanks Alyn, and a very happy new year to your good self.

What a fascinating list! The Tubby track is a great 2015 launch pad - Mr Hayes responded really nicely to those guys who'd invited him to go over. It'll be interesting to discover what the Jazz Today Unit of 1956 British vintage sounded like too.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Thanks Alyn, and a very happy new year to your good self.

What a fascinating list! The Tubby track is a great 2015 launch pad - Mr Hayes responded really nicely to those guys who'd invited him to go over. It'll be interesting to discover what the Jazz Today Unit of 1956 British vintage sounded like too.

And again, thanks a bunch Alyn and a very happy New Year. Tubbs et Horace Parlan, a, great album and Hamp Hawes.... amazing how many people hipped to that Hawes album....inc Ian of this Parish.

BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

Happy New Year

By co-incidence a lot of the records chosen seem to have been culled from my favourite recordings in my collection from when I was around 18. Two of the selections were really pivotal in my discovery of jazz, namely Mile's "Sketches of Spain" and Hampton Hawes' "The Green leaves of summer." "Sketches of Spain" was a revelation for me and I only started to listen to classical music after being acquainted with the recording. Gil Evans' writing showed that it was possible to write jazz with a whole , new palette. I don't agree with Bluesnik's previous comment about it now sounding a bit dated and think there are parts where Miles performed really freely albeit in an orchestrated context. Hampton Hawes was the first pianist I got in to after discovering Monk and the title track of this record still remains a favourite.

There are also some other brilliant requests tomorrow which I also loved and still have a lot of affection for. The Benny Goodman track is sensational and represents the high point of the septet. The group with Williams , Auld and Christian was an improvement on the previous sextet with Hampton and, in my opinion, can probably be considered as at the very front of contemporary jazz in 1940. Williams was a huge miss from Ellington's band yet I think his style was perhaps more liberated in the context of the Goodman small group. This was one of the greatest small bands of the 1940's , the first few years of which ushered in Goodman's finest work. As a teenager Goodman was one of my first discoveries but I discovered Artie Shaw shortly afterwards and felt that Shaw was a but more ambitious and a more musical soloist. However, it is interesting to return to these musicians and I now find myself far more convinced by Goodman in all contexts. (soloist, leader of big bands and small groups.) "Wholly cats" would be one of those tracks where the music truly excels and where Goodman could call upon some A1 soloists like Williams and Auld. The Basie led rhythm section is also hugely impressive. I would also have to add Shaw may have had some fine soloists in his time yet never managed to match Charlie Christian - a musician at the cusp of be-bop whose ability to outswing most of the other musicians of his generation makes this a band that Shaw couldn't match until the later editions of the Gramercy Five. Compare and contrast this wonderful Goodman track with the almost twee musical-box offering of the GR with the harpsichord (which I actually do like!!) and you can appreciate just how superior Goodman was. This Goodman band was the nearest a regular small group got to a classic Miles Quintet in the early 40's in terms of being such a well-oiled and epoch defining machine.

There are two other tracks which I also a big fan of. The first is the Bennie Moten track. When I got in to jazz I read about his orchestra and the role it played in the development of Basie's band which was always a favourite. Unfortunately, it was really difficult to find their records or to hear their music played on the radio so that I grew up thinking this band had a mystique about it. The first track I heard was "Small black" which featured their trademark "stomping" style which was apparently loved by New York audiences although recognised as being old-fashioned at the time. Moten's tracks don't flow like the contemporaneous Hendersons or MKCP's but their appeal stems from their vertical, almost brutal rhythm. They sound hugely distinctive and it is difficult not to conjure up the image of a hippopotamus dancing to this music when you hear it. It is strange that Basie and Durham radically overhauled the band around 1931/2 so that by the time it recorded it's last tracks it was defining the way rhythm sections would sound in the next decade and something of a proto-Basie section. Added to this, I'm always staggered to find Jimmy Rushing sounding exactly like he did later on back in the 1920's - a real added bonus finding one of my favourite jazz singers in the line up. Spin forward 60 years and all of a sudden big bands were starting to sound like Loose Tubes. Had Moten been around, I'm sure he would have recognised the music and I think the variety of sounds produced by the modern band would have delighted him seeing as he had already tried to do the same with the incorporation of an accordion and an amplified guitar back in the late 20's / early 30's. Like Moten, I feel Loose Tubes were divorced from the then-current trends and pursued their own course. Growing up listening to Loose Tubes, there is almost a nostalgic feel about their music as was the case with Moten - a fact made more salient by the failure to reissue their studio albums on CD. I don't find it difficult to draw comparisons between Moten and Loose Tubes, both orchestras redefining big band jazz in their own differing ways yet still sharing a similar line up and a propensity to make people have a good time or want to dance.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I don't have a real problem with "Spain" except I still think Miles Ahead is the best of the Gil/Miles dates and still sounds so fresh. Then again, I met the principal trumpet player of the RPO at a party in the 1980s who told me he thought Miles's playing on Spain was fantastic and exactly right, so what do I know.

Or, what did he know.

BN

[Ian Thumwood]

"Miles ahead" is the best of the three collaborations but "Spain" is the most ambitious. I don't think Gil was ever that elaborate again although some of the pieces are pretty minimal with regard to the score. The problem with "porgy & Bess" is that it made other versions unnecessary or even unwished for.

[Quarky]

As usual, Ian has said it all - well not quite all:

I'm rather cross, as my next request would have been charlie christian.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

ta Alyn and Happy New Year to all ...

great selection this week!

[Quarky]

What a fascinating list! The Tubby track is a great 2015 launch pad - Mr Hayes responded really nicely to those guys who'd invited him to go over. It'll be interesting to discover what the Jazz Today Unit of 1956 British vintage sounded like too.

Jazz Today certainly a misnomer for a mainstream unit at the time of Miles first group, and when Ornette was getting into his stride. But it's nice to hear some British Jazz.

I guess Alyn aims the programme at a centre of gravity of Jazz music. Obvious to note that going back 100 years from today 2015, we get to 1915, more or less the beginnings of Jazz, and that halfway between, 1965, we were well into the free jazz movement, and (probably) jazz fusion. In other words, nearly all of the important developments in Jazz occurred in the first half of its lifetime. In terms of Jazz played and recorded, I would wildly guess that 50s/60s was the maximum period, but that much more Jazz has been played and recorded in the second half than the first, despite the intrusion of Rock.

So i guess that gets me nowhere, but gives Alyn carte blanche to play what he likes.

[Old Grumpy]

...but gives Alyn carte blanche to play what he likes.

Or, more correctly: "gives Alyn carte blanche to play what he likes as a selection of what is requested"

OG

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

My requests for "No More Banjos" have been ruthlessly ignored. My petition, "Make Banjos History - 2015" now has over 20,000 signatures and is co-sponsored by the Greens who realise its a certain vote winner. Well done Caroline, that's a Brighton "hold" in May for sure.

Repent now R3. Banjos are the instruments of the devil. And UKIP.


BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

I think that the Greens probably prefer panpipes, such as those played by those Peruvian groups they install in shopping centres when they are completed as an alternative to piped musak.

Are banjos really the instrument of the devil? I think that the worst thing in jazz is over-played and unoriginal material. I'd rather hear a banjo going plink-plink in the hands of a proper jazz musician than another version of "My funny Valentine."
What about a bit of Bela Fleck? What about Simon Cowell ? Surely he is worse than even a mass of banjos?

Banjo heaven:-

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=james+reese+europe+orchestra&FORM=HDRSC2#view=detail&id=4B0BDC641683DE0624ABA2DC28ECE4FDC9ABC7B9&selectedIndex=11

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Imagine the classic Basie section with a banjo. So why was it OK for mass war crimes to be committed by Brit trad bands? Where was the Red Cross?

I rest my case your honour. Costs awarded. Send for the black cap and the long drop. The ropes too good for 'em.

BN.

And I can certainly see Nigel Farage playing a banjo. On the end of a pier.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

And I can certainly see Nigel Farage playing a banjo. On the end of a pier.

... er specsavers?

[Serial_Apologist]

... er specsavers?

No, lifesavers.