What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Stanfordian]

'Home Cookin'
The Incredible Jimmy Smith with Percy France, Kenny Burrell & Donald Bailey
Blue Note (1958/59)

[Joseph K]

[Beef Oven!]

Wayne Shorter - Schizophrenia (1967)

[burning dog]

Wayne Shorter - Schizophrenia (1967)

Cant believe Tom Thumb didn't become a popular piece to play !

only found this more recent version (other than Wayne's) - though there is an earlier one by Bobby Timmons (1966)

[Stanfordian]

‘Undercurrent’
Kenny Drew with Hank Mobley, Freddie Hubbard, Sam Jones & Louis Hayes
Blue Note (1960)

[Ian Thumwood]

Been playing Duke Ellington's "Money Jungle. " The CD includes a number of tracks and alternative takes which double the length of the original LP. The "missing " tracks are largely blues including the masterful "Backward Country Boy" and they certainly enhance the issue - to an extent that you wonder why they were not included in the first instance. I do find this a strange album. The recording quality is nowhere as near as good as Ellington's contemporaneous releases on Impulse and the trio session with Max Roach and Charles Mingus realigns Ellington in to the then contemporary jazz scene. It does have strong echoes of players like Herbie Nichols and Thelonious Monk , both of whom also working in trios that featured the exceptional Max Roach. I would have to say that Charles Mingus' bass playing is problematic for me and I find him to be a controversial band member who doesn't want to play ball with the other two musicians. In some instances, Mingus 'playing is right "in there" and following Ellington's piano as if he has tapped in to the maestro's thought process. There are other tracks like the title number where his playing sabotages the tune. It is akin to aural vandalism. The recording session was allegedly really fraught and the evidence on the disc is suggestive that Mingus must have been the problem. It does make the record incredibly exciting because Mingus is so unpredictable yet , for me, the almost mesmerising element of this disc is the understanding between Ellington and Max Roach which is simply sensational. Roach is really listening to Ellington and is perhaps the most responsive drummer that Duke worked with. I can understand why posters on this board such as Jazzrook love Mingus yet the continued wearing of his heart on his sleeve on records means that I feel he is capable of greatness and crassness in the same recordings. He is like a great footballer who can produce the most unexpected and brilliant bit of skill one minute and then produce a rash challenge the next that produces a red card and jeopardises the rest of the team. On "Money Jungle" the sense is that he gets his hissy fit over on the first track but, by and large, I often find the records he made under his own name hard to love.

It is a fascinating record that fully occupies your attention. I love Duke Ellington's piano playing and this record represents one of the best opportunities to hear him as a soloist. I struggle to understand why Mingus proved to be quite so confrontational in this session especially as he loved Ellington so much yet , although I find him to be a musician whose work I can give or take in the work he produced under his own name, his unpredictable character ensured that this particular session never because too casual or saw the musicians lose interest as is apparent on Ellington's other "modern adventure" with John Coltrane which is far more uneven in my opinion.

[Jazzrook]

Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath 1973 album 'Live at Willisau'.

Here's 'Andromeda':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX-ruh96cZ8

JR

[eighthobstruction]

....i've never heard that album....i cut my teeth on this one....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCWgviwmBFk

[Stanfordian]

'Another Workout'
Hank Mobley with Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers & Philly Joe Jones
Blue Note (1961)

[Ian Thumwood]

....i've never heard that album....i cut my teeth on this one....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCWgviwmBFk

The track MRA was my introduction to the Brotherhood of Breath. Listening now, they don't seem quite so radical but you can really sense this band's influence on subsequent British jazz, especially the generation that emerged in the 1980's. It would be interesting to hear if their music still resonated with the younger generation of players because I get the sense that this kind of approach to jazz just not seem quite so fashionable. Abiut 10 years ago I cuafght a French big band at Vienne whose music was almost a carbon copy of BoB and very good hey were too. They were called La Marmite infernale and who doesn't like that yeasty spread ? By the magic of YouTube, you can hear this very concert here.:-

Got to say that the 1980's reincarnation of BoB was a disappointment and hasn't stood the test of time as much as it's original line up. Very much a prpoduct of the 1980's jazz revival.

[Ian Thumwood]

Quite intrigued by this Italian band's version of "Andromeda" which is not so scruffy as the Willisau concert version. They really nail the spirit of Chris McGregor's music.

[Tenor Freak]

Pat Metheny - "80/81"

[Stanfordian]

‘Saxophone Colossus’
Sonny Rollins with Tommy Flanagan, Doug Watkins & Max Roach
Prestige (1956)

[Ian Thumwood]

Canadian pianist Kris Davis is a new name to me. She appears on the latest Eric Revis record called "Sing me some cry." It is a follow up to the excellent "Parallax" but Davis replaces Jason Moran and the drum chair is now filled by Chad Taylor. Multi-reed man Ken Vandermark is also retained from the earlier record. Having given it one listen so far, this is the kind of record that makes you reconsider the current status of jazz and certainly makes a stark contrast with some of the more fashionable names around at the moment. It does reinforce my perception that some of the best jazz to be heard today pitches itself towards the avant garde but this quartet does come across as being pretty uncompromising. Davis' approach is particularly prickly and she clearly likes the resonant bass notes of the instrument. I really like her playing and she fits in perfectly with a particularly muscular and masculine sounding quartet. Vandermark has come in for some harsh and unnecessary criticism on this board before and in the context on Revis' quartet, his more "traditional" jazz credentials shine through. An early contender for best of 2018 from the label Clean Feed who deserve more kudos and a great new discovery for me in Kris Davis.

[Ian Thumwood]

Review of Kris Davis from Downbeat:-

http://www.downbeat.com/digitaledition/2016/DB1607/single_page_view/35.html

Kris Davis website:-

http://http://krisdavis.net/bio/



With a stellar trio:-