What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Ian Thumwood]

Jazzrook

I had no idea that John Lindberg was recording in 1980. I thin you re right about this kind of jazz becoming increasingly difficult to be heard but just think that the music has moved in, not always for the better.

Thankfully there are still bands like this:-

[Ian Thumwood]

[Joseph K]

Happy 85th to Wayne Shorter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTNnDBnEHk8

[Joseph K]

Some very cool jazz-funk from Mr Dave Holland and co.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAa4jwzzeVc

[Quarky]

Don't know whether anyone on the Jazz Board listens to Breakfast, but the was an item just after the 8 o'clock news, One O'clock Jump, Peterson, Young, etc.

I mention this because Lester sounded half asleep, and seemed to have difficulty getting any sounds out of his saxophone - at least to my ear.

If anyone can point out the error of my ways, I would be grateful.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Didn't hear that but I (only quite recently) caught up with a 50s session of Lester Young with Harry Edison where he is just embarrassing. If it had been anyone else it would have never seen the light of day/LP. As Coleman Hawkins said, "that Lester Young, he doesn't show up, and when he does he's either loaded or high and can't play". Certainly if you wanted a "Lester Young" in that period, there were many more convincing.

[Quarky]

Thanks BR.

Yes, Lester didn't seem up to jumping, at One O'clock, or any other time.

[Stanfordian]

'Back at the Chicken Shack'
Jimmy Smith with Kenny Burrell, Stanley Turrentine & Donald Bailey
Blue Note (1960)

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks BR.

Yes, Lester didn't seem up to jumping, at One O'clock, or any other time.

Which today would be praiseworthy as being not playing on top of the beat, - and you'd be for the high jump for saying anything critical about Lester.

[Ian Thumwood]

Which today would be praiseworthy as being not playing on top of the beat, - and you'd be for the high jump for saying anything critical about Lester.

Lester Young's later work is known for being "problematic" but I think he has been more diminished by the number of disciples he attracted on the forties and fifties - none of whom could hold a match to him. To me he seems yet another of a musician from the 1930s who unfortunately doesn't quite have the prominence he had through no fault of his own. It is a bit like the Benny Goodman thing all over again. You would have to have a skewed perception of jazz if you didn't appreciate Lester.I love his playing but maybe he is a musician who perhaps needs to be taken in to the wider context of what was happening in the mid thirties within the Basie band. Just have to say that I feel this represents a massive sea change in jazz and represents the point at which jazz ceased to be vintage. What was happening around the coterie of musicians associated with Basie in the mid 30's /early 40's has probably transpired to have as much effect on jazz as Charlie Parker 10 years later. I love vintage jazz but the jazz rhythm really only reached maturity with Basie in the 1930's although there are hints with some of Moten's later recordings. I think it was a milestone in jazz and Lester was no small part of that. It is really interesting to see the effect Basie had on other bands like Millinder and Hines who quickly recognised that something new was afoot. By the time you get to Basie's work in the first half of the forties, Be-bop seems less of a surprise and more of an inevitability.

The combination of Lester with Billie Holiday on the old Columbia recordings is impossibly good. I am knocked out at some of the interpretation of the songs and if Lester had only made those records, his reputation in jazz would still be assured.

I agree that you should be for the high jump if you say anything critical about Lester!

There is so much great tenor from the 30's / 40's that you are spoilt for choice. Shame that players like Chu Berry, Herschal Evans, Dick Wilson , etc are not so familiar these days but equally strange that Ben Webster continues to be something of a touchstone for contemporary players like Branford and David Murray.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Yes, I've got great respect and fondness for Lester Young, pre war and especially the immediate post war Aladdin sides. But, even though, I used to defend it somewhat, there was a dramatic falling off towards the end, and honestly, well before. And, as I said, if you wanted a Lester then, well Brew Moore, some of the European players, or better still, Paul Quinichette, could run rings around him given his shape. Quinichette is a lovely player anyway, much maligned.

[Beef Oven!]

Wayne Shorter - Etcetera
Blue Note 1965

[Jazzrook]

Tony Williams & Cecil Taylor playing 'Morgan's Motion' from Williams' 1978 album 'The Joy Of Flying':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri_zObpUk64

JR

[Stanfordian]

‘Soul Street’
Jimmy Forest - Quintet, Sextet and with Oliver Nelson Big Band & King Curtis
New Jazz (1960/62)

[Jazzrook]

Lennie Tristano's 'Descent into the Maelstrom' composed in 1953.

This could create quite a stir if played on JRR!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99UTNVHLgEk

JR