What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Joseph K]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlrQZc3h13E&t=1137s

Have I mentioned before how amazing this is? I probably have, but it bears repeating.

Incredibly bluesy, down-home and swinging, soulful and yet otherworldly and transcendental. I listen to it much more than the studio version.

[Serial_Apologist]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlrQZc3h13E&t=1137s

Have I mentioned before how amazing this is? I probably have, but it bears repeating.

Incredibly bluesy, down-home and swinging, soulful and yet otherworldly and transcendental. I listen to it much more than the studio version.

I really ought to have this.

[Joseph K]

I really ought to have this.

My preference for the live version might be explained by the fact that that was the version with which I got to know the piece. It was coupled with a wonderful version of 'Impressions' (the last ever version recorded I believe) also played in France. It's available for 9p on amazon! - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Suprem...a+love+supreme

Now spinning: Larry Young, Unity

[Ian Thumwood]

There seems to be a lot of respect for Ornette Coleman on this board , both as an improvisor and theorist but I have been listening to nothing other than the work of Steve Coleman this week. Quite why he remains so overlooked these days is a joke and the lack of recognition for his playing on this board is staggering. Maybe some of you have been reluctant to explore his music as a consequence of the perception of his music being hugely influenced by Rap which out me off for a long time. His recent "Live at Village Vanguard" is ample proof that Steve Coleman is seriously overdue for the same kind of accolades dealt out to Ornette.


The current "Five Elements" seems Coleman's wonderfully golden sounded alto extruding some quite amazing improvised lines over some asymmetric grooves and coupled with Jonathan Finlayson's lithe trumpet. The guitar, electric bass and drums pop and twist beneath the two principle soloists playing a set of originals largely defined by a sequence f letters. The confusing liner notes allude to the composition process but the results are pretty unique and original. This is the kind f jazz that is infectious yet feature the kind of themes that you are unlikely ever to wind yourself whistling in the shower. Steve Coleman is a truly original voice and something of an iconoclast whose music seems to be reaching out towards a creative zenith. Earlier threads on this board have cited Steve Lehman and Henry Threadgill as alto / composers pursuing a similarly distinctive path yet I would propose that Steve Coleman is easily the best of the bunch. I loved the larger ensemble record "Synovial Joints" but in a live context with a quintet the music sets it's own agenda and is extremely compelling, those elements where the music is really "happening" taking up a healthy proportion of the recent live, double CD album. Plenty to listen to on this record which might put off a few feint hearts yet which needs to be checked out by those looking for answers as to how jazz confronts the liberation offered by Free Jazz. Whilst I don't think this would at all appeal to SA, it might be a salutary lesson in my suggestion that writing and composition is probably the most instructive way for jazz to develop beyond boundary-less freedom. It also helps that the music has plenty of energy and Coleman's tone on his alto is instantly recognisable. Begs the question as to whether Coleman is the foremost jazz saxophonist of his generation - the next step beyond Ornette and Coltrane. Very persuasive....

[CGR]

Steve Coleman is infinitely more interesting than most young contemporary jazz musicians who seem to be intent on retreading the cul-de-sac of Jazz Rock fusion only with a touch of hip-hop to try to make them sound 'relevant'.

Have a listen to this podcast interview from back in 2010: http://thejazzsession.com/2010/07/29...steve-coleman/

[Jazzrook]

Trumpeter Joe Gordon's 1961 album 'Lookin' Good!' with Jimmy Woods(alto sax); Dick Whittington(piano); Jimmy Bond(bass) & Milt Turner(drums).

Here's 'Terra Firma Irma':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZw7TTbRBV8

JR

[Stanfordian]

‘Back in Bean's Bag’
Coleman Hawkins & Clark Terry with Tommy Flanagan, Major Holley & Donald Bailey
Columbia(1962

[Serial_Apologist]

Trumpeter Joe Gordon's 1961 album 'Lookin' Good!' with Jimmy Woods(alto sax); Dick Whittington(piano); Jimmy Bond(bass) & Milt Turner(drums).

Here's 'Terra Firma Irma':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZw7TTbRBV8

JR

We rarely hear of Joe Gordon. Wasn't he a member of Dizzy's big band in the late 1950s? Apart from the rather retro styliings of the arrangements, compared to the line-up that had recorded "Manteca", "Cubana Bop" etc a decade earlier, the main problem with that band was that Dizzy's still phenomenal trumpet playing seemed to put everyone else in the shade, on whichever instrument, which is probably why I am asking.

[Serial_Apologist]

There seems to be a lot of respect for Ornette Coleman on this board , both as an improvisor and theorist but I have been listening to nothing other than the work of Steve Coleman this week. Quite why he remains so overlooked these days is a joke and the lack of recognition for his playing on this board is staggering. Maybe some of you have been reluctant to explore his music as a consequence of the perception of his music being hugely influenced by Rap which out me off for a long time. His recent "Live at Village Vanguard" is ample proof that Steve Coleman is seriously overdue for the same kind of accolades dealt out to Ornette.


The current "Five Elements" seems Coleman's wonderfully golden sounded alto extruding some quite amazing improvised lines over some asymmetric grooves and coupled with Jonathan Finlayson's lithe trumpet. The guitar, electric bass and drums pop and twist beneath the two principle soloists playing a set of originals largely defined by a sequence f letters. The confusing liner notes allude to the composition process but the results are pretty unique and original. This is the kind f jazz that is infectious yet feature the kind of themes that you are unlikely ever to wind yourself whistling in the shower. Steve Coleman is a truly original voice and something of an iconoclast whose music seems to be reaching out towards a creative zenith. Earlier threads on this board have cited Steve Lehman and Henry Threadgill as alto / composers pursuing a similarly distinctive path yet I would propose that Steve Coleman is easily the best of the bunch. I loved the larger ensemble record "Synovial Joints" but in a live context with a quintet the music sets it's own agenda and is extremely compelling, those elements where the music is really "happening" taking up a healthy proportion of the recent live, double CD album. Plenty to listen to on this record which might put off a few feint hearts yet which needs to be checked out by those looking for answers as to how jazz confronts the liberation offered by Free Jazz. Whilst I don't think this would at all appeal to SA, it might be a salutary lesson in my suggestion that writing and composition is probably the most instructive way for jazz to develop beyond boundary-less freedom. It also helps that the music has plenty of energy and Coleman's tone on his alto is instantly recognisable. Begs the question as to whether Coleman is the foremost jazz saxophonist of his generation - the next step beyond Ornette and Coltrane. Very persuasive....

Well it is time I gave Steve Coleman another chance, given that Trevor Watts rates him highly - having myself thus far found his improvising methodology to produce a somewhat cerebral formulated effect, for all the complexity I'm always going on about as being important if jazz it to remain "current", but which Steve Coleman was given to explain in obscure terms, quoting ancient Greek mathematical theorems iirc. I was hearing an example of ultra-chromaticism spinning on its own axle and turning in on itself. Gary Thomas, who works close to this area, suffers similarly from a tendency to operate revolving around a confined pitch-range of chromatic intervals that give a stifling sense of emotional entrapment. The sheer thrill of clearly articulated complexity, exercised at high velocities, should be its own reward, one feels! Of Steve Coleman's erstwhile M-Base colleagues, Greg Osby seemed to make something more fiery out of it, and, in this country, tenor and soprano player Steve Williamson uses it to more attention-holding effect by relating his phraseology to the rhythms produced by rappers against randomised MC samplings, if Pat Thomas, who I have in mind, doesn't mind being called an MC!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

We rarely hear of Joe Gordon. Wasn't he a member of Dizzy's big band in the late 1950s? Apart from the rather retro styliings of the arrangements, compared to the line-up that had recorded "Manteca", "Cubana Bop" etc a decade earlier, the main problem with that band was that Dizzy's still phenomenal trumpet playing seemed to put everyone else in the shade, on whichever instrument, which is probably why I am asking.

He was in Dizzy's band but wasn't Dizzy's choice. The hire (for the overseas tours) was delegated to Quincy Jones. Apparently Gordon and Dizzy didn't get on ( Gordon had a heroin habit), and DG considered him unreliable. From the recollections I've read Gordon was playing better than ever at the end of his life but was living in a broken down building lit by candles. One night after playing at Shelly Manne's club he went home, nodded out, and presumably knocked the candles over... an awful end. Don't forget he was on that great series of records with Manne's Quintet at the Black hawk (top score in Cook et Morton) and was on Monk at the Black hawk with Harold Land and Billy Higgins. He was highly regarded, not least by Clifford Brown himself.

BN.

[teamsaint]

After Ian’s effusive post, I’m going to give the Steve Coleman live album a spin.

[Stanfordian]

'Remembering Grant Green'
Grant Green with Wilbur Ware & Al Harewood + Sonny Green on two extra tracks
Blue Note (1961)

[Stanfordian]

‘Little Johnny C’
Johnny Coles with Leo Wright, Joe Henderson, Duke Pearson, Bob Cranshaw, Pete La Roca & Walter Perkins
Blue Note (1963)

[Stanfordian]

‘Starting Time’
Clifford Jordan with Kenny Dorham, Cedar Walton, Wilbur Ware & Albert Heath
Jazzland (1961)

[Stanfordian]

‘Blue & Sentimental’
Ike Quebec with Grant Green, Paul Chambers & Philly Joe Jones
Blue Note (1961)

A personal favourite!