What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Stanfordian]

‘There Will Never Be Another You’
Sonny Rollins with Tommy Flanagan, Bob Cranshaw, Mickey Roker & Billy Higgins
Impulse (1965)

[Stanfordian]

‘More Power!’
Dexter Gordon with James Moody, Barry Harris, Buster Williams & Albert Heath
Prestige (1969)

[Stanfordian]

'The Waiting Game'
Tina Brooks with Johnny Coles, Kenny Drew, Wilbur Ware & Philly Joe Jones
Blue Note (1961)

[Bryn]

Tom Chant (saxes), John Edwards (bass), Eddie Prevost (Drums) recorded on my little Zoom H5 (by arrangement) during Giovanni La Rovere's live recording session at iklectik last night. To me it was simply improvised music, but Victor Schoenfield, and indeed Eddie, both think of it as jazz. Whatever, it was very fine music-making.

[Stanfordian]

‘Silver's Serenade’
Horace Silver with Blue Mitchell, Junior Cook, Gene Taylor & Roy Brooks
Blue Note (1963)

[Stanfordian]

‘Unity’
Larry Young, Woody Shaw, Joe Henderson & Elvin Jones
Blue Note (1965)

[Joseph K]

‘Unity’
Larry Young, Woody Shaw, Joe Henderson & Elvin Jones
Blue Note (1965)

Great record. I especially like 'Monk's Dream'.

[Stanfordian]

‘Nice an' Cool’
Gene Ammons with Richard Wylands, Doug Watkins & JC Heard
Moodsville (1961)

[Stanfordian]

‘White Gardenia’
Johnny Griffin with Nat Adderley, Clarke Terry, Ernie Royal, Jimmy Cleveland, Paul Faulise, Urbie Green + strings
Riverside (1962)

[Joseph K]

'Incendiary' doesn't quite cover it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYDyTcxfAU0

[Stanfordian]

‘Face to Face’
Baby Face Willette with Fred Jackson, Grant Green & Ben Dixon
Blue Note (1961)

[Stunsworth]

Bill Evans Trio: Complete Live at the Village Vanguard

Two and a half hours of bliss.

[Serial_Apologist]

Bill Evans Trio: Complete Live at the Village Vanguard

Two and a half hours of bliss.

NOT Sir Arthur in this instance, it should be said.

[Ian Thumwood]

I have been going through some old Weather Report records. This is a band that I didn't mind when I was starting to discover jazz and particularly liked the record 8:30 but my perception of it has changed over time. I have not listened to more than about three discs and am especially unfamiliar with this group's earlier output. Listening to records like "8:30" and "Black market" again has been quite interesting as I must admit that I am more impressed by Zawunal than I had been before. He had a sharp sense of harmony and the use of multi-layered keyboards really betrays the fact that he was trying to create an almost big band like sound with this group. It is effectively his band

By contrast, I can't help but being disappointed by Wayne Shorter's contribution to this band. Maybe I should check out the earlier records since the discs I have make him seem totlly subservient to Zawunal's arrangements . The live disc is pretty good including an excellent version of "A remark you made" as well as the terrific tune "Brown Street." But I am sorry to say that Shorter's playing does seem a bit below par with what he cut with Miles, Gil Evans and his later output. I am almost inclined to say that his talent is squandered in this band.

The other interesting thing is Jaco Pastorious. "Black Market" also features anther bassist and there is no real marked difference when Jaco joins. In a live context, he is more identifiable as a musical personality yet for all his finger-popping virtuosity, he sometimes sounds disengaged with the rest of the band. Here is someone with masterful technique yet not always playing for the other band members.

I have come away in recent weeks with an impression that this was effectively Zawunal's project that seemed to re-cast the jazz-rock music of that time in to a then contemporary equivalent of big band music. As the later records progressed, I feel the Weather Report records became more commercial and perhaps less to do about jazz. Zawunal's later projects stumbled in to World Music territory and he increasingly seemed like a relic from an earlier, less tasteful era. Still, at their best, I just feel that there is an appeal abut Weather Report regardless of how cheesy some of the music is and how uninspired Shorter often appears to be.

[Serial_Apologist]

I have been going through some old Weather Report records. This is a band that I didn't mind when I was starting to discover jazz and particularly liked the record 8:30 but my perception of it has changed over time. I have not listened to more than about three discs and am especially unfamiliar with this group's earlier output. Listening to records like "8:30" and "Black market" again has been quite interesting as I must admit that I am more impressed by Zawunal than I had been before. He had a sharp sense of harmony and the use of multi-layered keyboards really betrays the fact that he was trying to create an almost big band like sound with this group. It is effectively his band

By contrast, I can't help but being disappointed by Wayne Shorter's contribution to this band. Maybe I should check out the earlier records since the discs I have make him seem totlly subservient to Zawunal's arrangements . The live disc is pretty good including an excellent version of "A remark you made" as well as the terrific tune "Brown Street." But I am sorry to say that Shorter's playing does seem a bit below par with what he cut with Miles, Gil Evans and his later output. I am almost inclined to say that his talent is squandered in this band.

The other interesting thing is Jaco Pastorious. "Black Market" also features anther bassist and there is no real marked difference when Jaco joins. In a live context, he is more identifiable as a musical personality yet for all his finger-popping virtuosity, he sometimes sounds disengaged with the rest of the band. Here is someone with masterful technique yet not always playing for the other band members.

I have come away in recent weeks with an impression that this was effectively Zawunal's project that seemed to re-cast the jazz-rock music of that time in to a then contemporary equivalent of big band music. As the later records progressed, I feel the Weather Report records became more commercial and perhaps less to do about jazz. Zawunal's later projects stumbled in to World Music territory and he increasingly seemed like a relic from an earlier, less tasteful era. Still, at their best, I just feel that there is an appeal abut Weather Report regardless of how cheesy some of the music is and how uninspired Shorter often appears to be.

The problem I believe consisted in the "You go now, I've already said too much", "No, you first" improvisational approach adopted from European free improvisation of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble type and adapted to broad-brush rock rhythms and bass lines. When it worked, with everybody "in the zone", the tensions brought about by this way of proceeding, with Zawinul and Shorter second-guessing and completing each others thoughts, but at the same time making sure to leave further harmonic options, the tension brought about was capable of building levels of excitement greater than conventional solo narrative making backed by the rest of the band; when it didn't, due maybe to tiredness or extra-musical tensions between the personnel, performances could fall flat. It was this (I believe) that led Zawinul, the more forceful of the two leading voices, to insist on increasing reliance on pre-conceived formats - which, though of interest in themselves from an idiomatic pov, never really suited Shorter's style, once he had ditched the headlong approach espoused in the Jazz Messengers after joining Miles in favour of greater interactivity and swapping ideas. Ironically Shorter's own compositions, although always highly original in themselves, took on many of the characteristics of Zawinul's: when listening to Shorter's more fusioney post-WP stuff I often find myself asking, is this tune one of Zawinul's or by Shorter? I expect you'll disagree pretty strongly with my view that, as in the case of composers in the romantic classic field influenced by Liszt who made something more interesting out of that influence than Liszt himself (leaving aside the piano sonata and some of the late works) it was often Weather Report-influenced musicians, especially in this country in the late '70s and early '80s, such as Alan Gowen (Gilgamesh), Barbara Thompson (Paraphernalia), Ian Carr (Nucleus), Brian Miller (Turning point), Steve Franklin (Steps), Colin Dudman (Twentieth century Blues, ex-Paraphernalia) and Tim Whitehead (Borderline, before Loose Tubes) who benefitted the Weather Report influence to positive ends, in my view refreshing British Fusion in the brief interregnum before the Acid Jazz fashion and then Loose Tubes and the Jazz Warriors took from elsewhere. I say "this country" because with few exceptions the Americans either copped out of the composition vs improvisation Fusion quandary by turning to Funk, and Continental European Fusion tended towards cold virtuosity for its own sake. As with any other period there were trends that for some represented dead ends, as you've often pointed out Ian, while for others - and maybe this is one place we disagree - suggesting new directions. Genre wasn't always at fault in the case of jazz-rock Fusion; increasing resort to composition and acceptance of cliche was most often down to commercialisation and the perceived need to keep in with the majors.