What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Beef Oven!]

Phew! Pleased to see you're over your Kate Bush phase.

[Old Grumpy]

CD from way back when I have just rediscovered: John Surman - Coruscating.

String quartet plus Surman on various reeds (soprano sax, baritone sax, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet).

Very ECM!

[Ian Thumwood]

Dug out Keith Jarrett's "Fort Yawuh" which was something I first heard on "Jazz legends." The record seemed to prompt a bit of controversy on the old message board as there were a few like Centrifuge who were pretty hostile to it. It is a pretty surreal experience listening to this live recording to see were Jarrett was coming from in 1973 and contrasting with where he is now. The quartet is made up of Charlie Haden, Paul Motian and Dewey Redman and , to my ears, is a millions miles away from the kind of stuff you might associated with the rhythm section. It seems more of an accommodation of Redman's aesthetic in many respects. with even Jarrett's soprano playing coming right out of the Coltrane / angry brood school. This is the nearest I have heard Jarrett so for an all-out approach at free jazz, even if "De drums" hints at the stuff that the Scandinavian quartet would play.

I find Jarrett's music to be more polarising that perhaps any other jazz artist. The Scandinavian quartet is easily one of ECM's greatest groups and indicative of a label that, in the 1970's, was well on the way to creating a legacy as solid as Blue Note's. The standard's trio, on it's day, wipes the floor with most other piano trios of the last thirty years but it is inconsistent. For me, at it's finest, this trio is the natural evolution of the brilliant Hampton Hawes trio on "the Green Leaves of summer." In full cry, I would have to say that there are few contemporary piano trios that swing quite as hard. That said, some of the solo efforts are a bit pretentious and I don't think are quite as radical as their supporters might suggest. He can get in the zone but then come out the other side sounding a bit like Elton John, the king of corn when it comes to the keyboard. Difficult to think of many pianists in any form of popular music as "square" as Elton but Jarrett sometimes comes out from lengthy improvisations with simplistic melodies and "butter chord" harmonies that recall Rocket Man.

[Old Grumpy]

Dug out Keith Jarrett's "Fort Yawuh" which was something I first heard on "Jazz legends." The record seemed to prompt a bit of controversy on the old message board as there were a few like Centrifuge who were pretty hostile to it. It is a pretty surreal experience listening to this live recording to see were Jarrett was coming from in 1973 and contrasting with where he is now. The quartet is made up of Charlie Haden, Paul Motian and Dewey Redman and , to my ears, is a millions miles away from the kind of stuff you might associated with the rhythm section. It seems more of an accommodation of Redman's aesthetic in many respects. with even Jarrett's soprano playing coming right out of the Coltrane / angry brood school. This is the nearest I have heard Jarrett so for an all-out approach at free jazz, even if "De drums" hints at the stuff that the Scandinavian quartet would play.

I find Jarrett's music to be more polarising that perhaps any other jazz artist. The Scandinavian quartet is easily one of ECM's greatest groups and indicative of a label that, in the 1970's, was well on the way to creating a legacy as solid as Blue Note's. The standard's trio, on it's day, wipes the floor with most other piano trios of the last thirty years but it is inconsistent. For me, at it's finest, this trio is the natural evolution of the brilliant Hampton Hawes trio on "the Green Leaves of summer." In full cry, I would have to say that there are few contemporary piano trios that swing quite as hard. That said, some of the solo efforts are a bit pretentious and I don't think are quite as radical as their supporters might suggest. He can get in the zone but then come out the other side sounding a bit like Elton John, the king of corn when it comes to the keyboard. Difficult to think of many pianists in any form of popular music as "square" as Elton but Jarrett sometimes comes out from lengthy improvisations with simplistic melodies and "butter chord" harmonies that recall Rocket Man.

Horses for courses, I guess, Ian. Some Jarrett I like, some I don't.


Nothing wrong with Rocket Man, by the way!

OG

[Jazzrook]

A recent discovery for me was Bud Powell's 1958 trio album for BLUE NOTE 'The Scene Changes'.
He's in exuberant, fluent form on his intriguing composition 'Comin' Up' with Paul Chambers(bass) & Art Taylor(drums):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3ZNXOmdt4o

[Ian Thumwood]

There is a great version of "Comin' Up" on Steve Lacy's album "The Door."

[Jazzrook]

Tony Oxley's Quintet did a marvellous version of Charlie Mariano's 'Stone Garden' on that 1969 British classic 'The Baptised Traveller'.

Here's Mariano's hard-to-find 1963 version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON0mBYev0jY

[Jazzrook]

For some mysterious reason Bobby Hutcherson's 1963 BLUE NOTE album 'The Kicker' had to wait until 1999 before it was issued. It's still very hard to find today.
Here's Joe Henderson's title-track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXFG9ZUasmM

[burning dog]

[Serial_Apologist]

Tony Oxley's Quintet did a marvellous version of Charlie Mariano's 'Stone Garden' on that 1969 British classic 'The Baptised Traveller'.

Here's Mariano's hard-to-find 1963 version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON0mBYev0jY

Thanks JR - I missed this message yesterday! Having only had the Oxley version of 'Stone Garden' to go by, I'd often wondered what the original was like.

[Beef Oven!]

For some mysterious reason Bobby Hutcherson's 1963 BLUE NOTE album 'The Kicker' had to wait until 1999 before it was issued. It's still very hard to find today.
Here's Joe Henderson's title-track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXFG9ZUasmM

Available as a 16 bit download on Qobuz for £10.26 or an MP3 download on Amazon for £7.99. Too pricey, the new CD on Amazon at £24.98.

[Ian Thumwood]

A lot of the old Blue Notes seem to be swiftly disappearing from CD format with some hefty prices being offered for stuff you wish you had picked up earlier.

Regarding Joe Henderson, I think you can't go wrong with anything he recorded on Blue Note. The music has really stood the test of time too, especially the stuff with Kenny Dorham. For me, I think that a lot of this is attributable to the quality of writing with KD being hugely under-rated. Henderson's writing is intriguing too as the heads are so cunningly devised that you don't realised most of them were blues until you see the lead sheet. He was really in to altering chord changes and some of the stuff he was composing in the mid 60's look forward to the harmonic language of today

Hard Bop composition is quite interesting as I think ensembles like Horace Silver and Art Blakey were looking for the bombast and dynamics of big bands and making this work in a small group format. Silver is on record as saying he wanted his bands to play like Basie's Second Testament band. Ploughing through the old Blue Note records, it is intriguing at just how much writing when on in this idiom . These days, I think that the idea of playing Hard Bop doesn't sound quite a resilient as it did in the 50's / 60's but suggesting that post-bop owed everything to Miles Davis is a real disservice to the likes of Henderson / Dorham as they were just as important in creating a vernacular in the music which continues to endure. The traditional lineage of jazz development with the music being turned on it's head in the 60's by the likes of Ornette, Taylor , Shepp and Ayler is too simplistic and whilst you can applaud their originality in using atonality and extended forms, I think that composition / writing was equally important in transforming jazz as the free-players and maybe the repercussions of composition have been more long term ? Listening of albums on labels like Crisscross, for example, seems demonstrative to me of the vitality of the enhancements in small group jazz writing in the 1960's and it's continuing influence. By and by, the quality of writing for small jazz groups is more interesting by the 1960's even if some of the West Coast musicians and the likes of MJQ and Dameron were looking at composition in earnest in the previous decade. This is all a marked improvement on the head / solo / head - chasing the changes type of jazz trumpeted by the beboppers where soloing was all.

Been listening to Blakey's "the big beat" this week. I was a bit under-whelmed to begin with but this album is a grower. I particularly like "The chess players" where the theme take liberties with the beat to create a wonderful snap about the whole composition. I am also curious as to how "Lester left town" might have been considered at the time as the bridge is particularly complex.

[Jazzrook]

Thelonious Monk's final 6-hour studio session in London on November 15, 1971 produced three superb solo/trio albums for BLACK LION that deserve to be better known.
Monk is in exuberant form playing solo or with Al McKibbon & Art Blakey.
Here's Monk's beautiful but rarely heard solo piece 'Something In Blue':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9p_XWyMBJk

& 'Ruby My Dear':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM-upmlM_wg

[Ian Thumwood]

Thelonious Monk's final 6-hour studio session in London on November 15, 1971 produced three superb solo/trio albums for BLACK LION that deserve to be better known.
Monk is in exuberant form playing solo or with Al McKibbon & Art Blakey.
Here's Monk's beautiful but rarely heard solo piece 'Something In Blue':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9p_XWyMBJk

Jazzrook

thanks for posting this record which I had never heard before although I do have the lead sheet for this tune which is another of his B flat blues that make up a surprising proportion of his repertoire.

I find Monk's playing to always be a joy to listen to and this track is better recorded than a lot of his efforts on Prestige which I think are harmed by the poor quality piano be had to labour with. It is funny that Monk's later work is derided almost as much as the later Bud Powell recordings yet a second listen seems to demonstrate that the perceived wisdom is out of kilter with the reality. What is noticeable is that Monk seems really "archaic" on this solo recording and there is almost the impression of listening to one of the country blues pianists from the 1920's. It is weird that someone so "in the tradition" seems to have so strong a connection with more outside players. The later compositions don't really match the original pieces composed in the 40's / 50's but "Something in Blue" is a really good Monk performance.

I remember "Black Lion" records being re-issued in the mid 1980s when I was discovering jazz and I did have the brilliant "Doin' time" by the Francy Boland / Kenny Clarke big band which was still almost "contemporary" when I was getting in to the music. The catalogue was strange as it seemed to feature Traditional and Swing Era musicians and more adventurous players from the 1970's but entirely missed out a lot of be-bop! I have always associated it with fighting a rearguard action for jazz at a time when it's popularity was at a very low ebb and maybe provided welcome income for players whose style was either too unfashionable or too challenging for a broader audience.

Been digging out some older records myself this week including Alex Sipiagin's ""Destinations unknown" which features the likes of Chris Potter, Eric Harland, Craig Taborn, Boris Koslov and David Binney on a post-bop set of mostly originals. I like a lot of Criss Cross's releases which seem to feature lesser known musicians fronting stellar groups in repertoire which never crosses over in to the avant garde and sits comfortably in a state-of-the -art contemporary idiom where the musicians can stretch out. For me, it is a label trying to fill the void of something like Riverside but not quite having the hipness of Blue Note. There is definitely a "house style" and the proprietor seems content to let the musicians speak for themselves as opposed to dropping in guest artists or do anything that might be considered too modish. The results often seem to mirror "Destinations unknown" in that the music genuinely swings and odd tracks like "Fast Forward" will offer scenarios like the "battle" between Binney and Potter that often seems absent from many issues these days. Shame you don't often here these kind of encounters in studio sessions as the duo between Binney and Potter is like two individuals having a wrestle and getting each other in a head lock. The rest of the disc has a modern crispness about it and something of a feel of a small big band about it yet nothing else on the record comes close to the excitement of this duo, even some of Taborn's always interesting piano solos which have an odd angularity than bounces of the rhythm of the bass and drums although the machine line quality of his counter-rhythms are a million miles away from the kind of liberties Monk took. for me, Only Hancock and Danilo Perez seem to think along such similar lines in transforming the style of comping. Good to hear Taborn in a more, rooted post-bop ensemble where he can play the role of the rebellious maverick.

[Jazzrook]

I think I've heard this Freddie Redd tune, 'The Imp', by Tommy Potter's 1956 Swedish-American sextet elsewhere. Freddie Redd's 'The Connection'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jAr8wZDFvk