What Jazz are you listening to now?

[MrGongGong]

Scratches of Spain
Billy Jenkins Voice of God Collective

[Bryn]

Not now but last night, some Butchering of saxes and Eddiefied tam-tam and other bowed and struck Percussion at iklectik.

[Ian Thumwood]

Bobo Stenson trio - "War orphans"

[Serial_Apologist]

Not now but last night, some Butchering of saxes and Eddiefied tam-tam and other bowed and struck Percussion at iklectik.

Sorry to have missed it - they used to publicise on the Jazz in London website, but no more, it seems.

[Bryn]

Sorry to have missed it - they used to publicise on the Jazz in London website, but no more, it seems.

You need not have totally missed it. They commisioned Giovanni La Rovere to record it, so at least some of it should be turning up on Matchless Recordings at some point. A multi-disc and book set of AMM since the return of Keith Rowe should be out in the next few weeks too. Then there's this.

[Stanfordian]

‘Side by Side’
Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges with Harry ‘Sweets’ Edison, Les Spann, Sam Jones/Al Hall & Jo Jones
Verve (1959)

[Serial_Apologist]

You need not have totally missed it. They commisioned Giovanni La Rovere to record it, so at least some of it should be turning up on Matchless Recordings at some point. A multi-disc and book set of AMM since the return of Keith Rowe should be out in the next few weeks too. Then there's this.

Thanks Bryn - May 2 noted down. "Cavernous void" describes Lklectik rather well!

[Stanfordian]

‘Preachin'’
Gene Ammons with Clarence 'Sleepy' Anderson, Sylvester Hickman & Dorral Anderson
Prestige (1962)

[Stanfordian]

‘Midnight Blue’
Kenny Burrell, Stanley Turrentine, Major Holley Jr. Bill English & Ray Barretto
Blue Note (1967)

[Lat-Literal]

BBC4 - 50s Britannia - Episode 2 : Trad Jazz Britannia

Repeated yesterday:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01skxpp/50s-britannia-2-trad-jazz-britannia

Interesting programme. They had disagreements among themselves but nowhere near as many as with the be-boppers. Footage of a disrupted festival here shows a jazz equivalent to the later mods and rockers. The coverage of the Aldermaston marches tests any claims that folk music was always the main soundtrack to protest movements. Trad jazzers appeared to believe that theirs would be the defining sound of Britain throughout the 60s and beyond it. Had that been the case, I am not quite sure how it would have felt to have been in Britain. That is, at the time of chopper bikes, MFI, Brentford Nylons and space hoppers. I suppose, though, there was a slight continuity vis a vis the whimsy in the Beatles and psychedelic rock.

[Serial_Apologist]

BBC4 - 50s Britannia - Episode 2 : Trad Jazz Britannia

Repeated yesterday:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01skxpp/50s-britannia-2-trad-jazz-britannia

Interesting programme. They had disagreements among themselves but nowhere near as many as with the be-boppers. Footage of a disrupted festival here shows a jazz equivalent to the later mods and rockers. The coverage of the Aldermaston marches tests any claims that folk music was always the main soundtrack to protest movements. Trad jazzers appeared to believe that theirs would be the defining sound of Britain throughout the 60s and beyond it. Had that been the case, I am not quite sure how it would have felt to have been in Britain. That is, at the time of chopper bikes, MFI, Brentford Nylons and space hoppers. I suppose, though, there was a slight continuity vis a vis the whimsy in the Beatles and psychedelic rock.

The early traddies (before they were so named) were hailed by the Young Communists, on the grounds that being self-trained without the ability to read music made them more "pure" than either the "modernists" playing bebop or the "mouldy fygges" from the 1930s who had learned their craft in the big dance bands that did the W End hotel tea dances and the cruise liners! This supposedly put them "in tune" with the early pioneers in New Orleans, who had the advantage over them in being black, at least, if not in this praiseworthy lack of knowhow in the "essentials". I've always been struck by this example of what I suppose one could describe as "proxy racism" by people claiming to be champions of the working class. In fact it was mostly middle class "bohemian" types, arts students etc, who followed Trad, while the more discerning audiences for "modern jazz" in the 1950s, who sartorially were themselves the pioneers of Mod style, tended like the musicians (again) to be working class, at least of origin. That also went for the free jazzers, btw, many of whom came in from the provinces - a fact generally underemphasised in discussing class in relation to the music.

The Trad/Modernist divide was sharply drawn almost everywhere here at the beginning of the 1960s, with only the Mainstreamers, followers of a sort of halfway house between Trad and Modern, as represented by the likes of Al Fairweather, Sandy Brown and Humphrey Lyttelton, in an ignored mini-niche between the warring sides. I myself fell out with my best school mate, Robin, when I switched allegiances from traditional to modern jazz, which he saw as tantamount to betrayal - I guess an equivalent of going from C of E to Roman Catholicism! Later on he depped on the London "R&B" scene, and subsequently became Sonny & Cher's roady in the States. We reconnected briefly some 15 years ago - by which time bygones seemed to have become bygones.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I think also you've got to see Trad in the context of pop music in the late 50s early 60s. The Elvis, Little Richard stuff (which was never a majority) gave way to Bobby Vee, Mark Wynter, Cliff, Adam Faith and STRINGS! etc, so Trad did have some kind of raw energy and vitality. My recollection is that a lot of architects (goatee beards) were into it, probably from college days. I worked in an architects practice so maybe it was just my lot. My championing of Miles and Monk was dismissed and I was told to go make the tea.

[Serial_Apologist]

I think also you've got to see Trad in the context of pop music in the late 50s early 60s. The Elvis, Little Richard stuff (which was never a majority) gave way to Bobby Vee, Mark Wynter, Cliff, Adam Faith and STRINGS! etc, so Trad did have some kind of raw energy and vitality. My recollection is that a lot of architects (goatee beards) were into it, probably from college days. I worked in an architects practice so maybe it was just my lot. My championing of Miles and Monk was dismissed and I was told to go make the tea.

It may be part accounted for by the way much modern jazz got associated with sleaze through its depiction in on-bill B movies at the local fleapit and TV shows later satirised in Private Eye as "Knacker of the Yard" - Edgar Lustgarten introducing, etc. There were some great title themes written by British beboppers - one, for "No Hiding Place", if I remember correctly (I was only just then allowed to stay up "late" to watch it) wonderfully arranged with more than a nod to Stravinsky's "Ebony Concerto". Dankworth of course did the first "Avengers" theme before it went camp psychedelic. I've tried googling up some of those programmes for the themes, but so far without success. Ah - the romanticism of those nightime scenes of London - the glistening rain-soaked streets, the tinkling cop car bell!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"Nowhere to go" British crime movie 1957 - Soundtrack music : The Dizzy Reece Quartet plus Tubby Hayes...

Boomkat Product Review:
""Blimey" I said as the bloke at Spitalfields record fayre held this up for me. Never seen it before and never likely to see it again I said to meself, so I had to buy it. From 1957 this is possibly the rarest UK soundtrack, only pressed as an EP. It's on that jazz label Tempo and is quite super. Very strange use of cowbells which I like, and it's also worth noting that the fat one they call Tubby Hayes is also blowing off on this. This probably explains why it's so damn rare. Musically it's dark and quite tense, which I also enjoy a lot. Killer noirish sleeve too..."

It's great! And the film (with Maggie Smith) is not so dusty either.

[Lat-Literal]

I have found the last four posts a very, very, interesting read and would welcome more of this kind of thing on suitable threads. It is social history. It is that "get your bearings thing" which I am so fond of in any number of contexts, especially when time-wise they are out of my domain. A few things struck me. One, Colyer's combination of obstinancy and bravery. Two, the spirit in trad seemed not wholly unlike that in brass bands. Three, in older age they all seemed a bit unusual and even mildly sinister while being ever so sentimental. There were tales of faces being punched but at least three on thinking back were almost in tears. Four, it made me wonder where the bloke who married a friend of my Mum's had stood musically when I was in my pram. A bohemian into jazz who painted in the style of Pollock. Someone who my Dad was sufficiently scared of that he avoided him by taking to his bed.

It is fun to think "where would I have been?". Being who I am, I can't just dismiss trad. Notwithstanding the posh background, I think I would have been minded towards the Lyttelton midway-ish point although ultimately veering to modernism on the shallow grounds of "cool". Also, while more challenging - you have to work harder on it - all of that headlights on a rainy night stuff is evocative and I like evocative a lot. There is also a negative around trad for me. It is that while it is intended to be full of energy and life, I don't always get that in my soul in a way that I can with true New Orleans. It can fall a bit flat in me much as they found the earlier dance bands. Loads of things going on, yet not quite delivering as desired.