What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Joseph K]

Weather Report - "125th Street Congress" from "Sweetnighter" (1973 and doesn't it show it)

Very nice. That's a great album - Boogie Woogie Waltz is incredible!

[Stanfordian]

'The Tokyo Blues'
Horace Silver with Blue Mitchell, Junior Cook, Gene Taylor & John Harris Jr
Blue Note (1962)

[Stanfordian]

‘Jawbreakers’
Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis & Harry ‘Sweets’ Edison with Hugh Lawson, Ike Isaacs, Clarence Johnson
Riverside (rec. 1962)

[Stanfordian]

'Laughin' to Keep from Cryin'
Lester Young with Harry 'Sweets' Edison, Roy Eldridge, Herb Ellis, Hank Jones, George Duvivie & Mickey Sheen
Verve (1958)

[Stanfordian]

‘White Gardenia’
Johnny Griffin with Nat Adderley, Clarke Terry, Ernie Royal, Jimmy Cleveland, Paul Faulise & Urbie Green
Riverside (1961)

[burning dog]

Dave Douglas — Moving Portrait

[Stanfordian]

The Cannonball Adderley Quintet Plus
Cannonball Adderley with Nat Adderley, Wynton Kelly, Victor Feldman, Sam Jones & Louis Hayes
Riverside (1961)

[Ian Thumwood]

Dave Douglas — Moving Portrait

This is the first Dave Douglas album I bought and it was a revelation to me. I had heard him on "Impressions" and was intrigued to hear his music. It is odd that having returned to this disc last year, I had not appreciated how out of tune the piano is on it. The music is exquisite but he subsequently recorded for RCA where the results were even more impressive. I have loads and loads of his records - probably the most after Miles and Ellington. I stopped buying his work a few years ago as I just found I could not keep up. The quality of his output is staggering and you can generally take a punt on his releases without hearing them or reading a review. This is a really good early effort.

I dug out the Paul Bley / Charlie Haden / Paul Motian album "Memoirs" and played that in the car today. This is an odd record because I was generally under-whelmed when I bought in circa 1991 yet every time I listen to it, it seems to grow in stature. I think the least interesting element is the lengthy bass solos but the Bley and Motian are massively compelling. Few pianists are as concise and consistent as Bley. The music is largely all original material but includes a Monk and Ornette tune. Picking up on one of SA's main themes are the primacy of improvisation in jazz, I feel this record demonstrates this principle better than most others. You get a sense they are really improvising from scratch, even the pre-composed material having an element of spontaneity about it which sounds like the three musicians were exploring their way in to the tunes. It did strike me that when I bought this , all three musicians were doyens of the avant garde but that this kind of jazz really sounds like it was produced by a much older generation. The music seems much more harder won and I don't think the risk level exists quite in this fashion amongst today's generation of players. It is just music for music's sake and all the better for it. For my money, I think Paul Bley was a giant but Motian's drumming in this context is the pulse that keeps this trio on a steady course. It is odd how Bill Evans' trio concept mutated in to stuff like this on one hand and then into Chick Corea's trio with Vitous / Haynes on the other. I don't think many of today's trios come close to playing with the element of risk exhibited on this record.

[Serial_Apologist]

This is the first Dave Douglas album I bought and it was a revelation to me. I had heard him on "Impressions" and was intrigued to hear his music. It is odd that having returned to this disc last year, I had not appreciated how out of tune the piano is on it. The music is exquisite but he subsequently recorded for RCA where the results were even more impressive. I have loads and loads of his records - probably the most after Miles and Ellington. I stopped buying his work a few years ago as I just found I could not keep up. The quality of his output is staggering and you can generally take a punt on his releases without hearing them or reading a review. This is a really good early effort.

I dug out the Paul Bley / Charlie Haden / Paul Motian album "Memoirs" and played that in the car today. This is an odd record because I was generally under-whelmed when I bought in circa 1991 yet every time I listen to it, it seems to grow in stature. I think the least interesting element is the lengthy bass solos but the Bley and Motian are massively compelling. Few pianists are as concise and consistent as Bley. The music is largely all original material but includes a Monk and Ornette tune. Picking up on one of SA's main themes are the primacy of improvisation in jazz, I feel this record demonstrates this principle better than most others. You get a sense they are really improvising from scratch, even the pre-composed material having an element of spontaneity about it which sounds like the three musicians were exploring their way in to the tunes. It did strike me that when I bought this , all three musicians were doyens of the avant garde but that this kind of jazz really sounds like it was produced by a much older generation. The music seems much more harder won and I don't think the risk level exists quite in this fashion amongst today's generation of players. It is just music for music's sake and all the better for it. For my money, I think Paul Bley was a giant but Motian's drumming in this context is the pulse that keeps this trio on a steady course. It is odd how Bill Evans' trio concept mutated in to stuff like this on one hand and then into Chick Corea's trio with Vitous / Haynes on the other. I don't think many of today's trios come close to playing with the element of risk exhibited on this record.

Ian, do you have Dave Douglas on John Zorn's Masada recordings? Zorn might not be to your liking - some of the rapid stylistic shifts stuff doesn't appeal to me - but Masada was doing a sort of Jewish variant on the Atlantic period Ornette Coleman quartet with Cherry, and I thought at the time it was very good. For once we are in agreement on Paul Bley's work in general, and although you speak of the Bley/Haden/Motian trio as coming out of that of Bill Evans, what is intriguing for me is that Bley in fact evolved his own idiosyncratic approach in part through what he learned from Ornette - before Ornette dropped having any pianist! - and came at the Bill Evans approach (greater interplay than for instance the Oscar Peterson and in fact most preceding piano trios, less restricted input from bass and drums) at a sort of tangent. The Chick Corea trio you mention, and contemporaneously with it over here, Gordon Beck's, were really elaborations of the Bill Evans trios, taking techniques to more virtuosic and harmonically advanced areas, whereas the Bley trio approaches operated their influences more indirectly, into Keith Jarrett's and, again over here, the work of Pete Lemer, Mike Taylor and Howard Riley, who all sound distinct from each other as a result. There are a whole lot of younger pianists on the scene today, here, in the States, in fact all over the globe, almost too many to list, who blend the two influences, of Evans and Bley, into their approaches.

[Stanfordian]

‘Midnight Special’
Jimmy Smith with Stanley Turrentine, Kenny Burrell & Donald Bailey
Blue Note (1960)

[Ian Thumwood]

SA

I don't have any of Zorn's "Masada" discs but am aware of them and have seen this group in concert at Vienne. I can take of leave Zorn. He is a terrific musician but there is a tendency towards rock or other elements of music where he is seeking some sort of shock value. "Masada" were terrific live and when he is "straight ahead", I think he is a great player. I have always loved the "News for Lulu" trio with George Lewis and Frisell where the reimagined Blue Note materials by Mobley, Dorham, Freddie Redd, - a classic album of the 1980s.

Strangely enough, I am mid-way through Adrian Goldsworthy's account of the Roman Empire and have been reading about the Jewish revolt against the Romans which is bizarrely relevant to today. This part of the Empire was amazingly volatile and the whole idea of a "Jewish Revolt" and the separate persecution of Samaritans is quite an eye opener. The Romans were often tactless in this region but the level of resistance and different factions they had to satisfy is quite staggering. The picture is extremely complicated and not less simple that today but with Palestinian factions. You end up feeling a little bit sorry for the Romans! Amazed to learn how much trouble there was in that region in the 1st century AD and that this had probably been the norm for many hundreds of years beforehand.

[Serial_Apologist]

SA

I don't have any of Zorn's "Masada" discs but am aware of them and have seen this group in concert at Vienne. I can take of leave Zorn. He is a terrific musician but there is a tendency towards rock or other elements of music where he is seeking some sort of shock value. "Masada" were terrific live and when he is "straight ahead", I think he is a great player. I have always loved the "News for Lulu" trio with George Lewis and Frisell where the reimagined Blue Note materials by Mobley, Dorham, Freddie Redd, - a classic album of the 1980s.

Strangely enough, I am mid-way through Adrian Goldsworthy's account of the Roman Empire and have been reading about the Jewish revolt against the Romans which is bizarrely relevant to today. This part of the Empire was amazingly volatile and the whole idea of a "Jewish Revolt" and the separate persecution of Samaritans is quite an eye opener. The Romans were often tactless in this region but the level of resistance and different factions they had to satisfy is quite staggering. The picture is extremely complicated and not less simple that today but with Palestinian factions. You end up feeling a little bit sorry for the Romans! Amazed to learn how much trouble there was in that region in the 1st century AD and that this had probably been the norm for many hundreds of years beforehand.

Indeed, some of that confusion was brilliantly portrayed in "The Life of Brian"!

[Stanfordian]

‘Idle Moments’
Grant Green with Joe Henderson, Bobby Hutcherson, Duke Pearson, Bob Cranshaw & Al Harewood
Blue Note (1963)

[Jazzrook]

SA

I don't have any of Zorn's "Masada" discs but am aware of them and have seen this group in concert at Vienne. I can take of leave Zorn. He is a terrific musician but there is a tendency towards rock or other elements of music where he is seeking some sort of shock value. "Masada" were terrific live and when he is "straight ahead", I think he is a great player. I have always loved the "News for Lulu" trio with George Lewis and Frisell where the reimagined Blue Note materials by Mobley, Dorham, Freddie Redd, - a classic album of the 1980s.

Strangely enough, I am mid-way through Adrian Goldsworthy's account of the Roman Empire and have been reading about the Jewish revolt against the Romans which is bizarrely relevant to today. This part of the Empire was amazingly volatile and the whole idea of a "Jewish Revolt" and the separate persecution of Samaritans is quite an eye opener. The Romans were often tactless in this region but the level of resistance and different factions they had to satisfy is quite staggering. The picture is extremely complicated and not less simple that today but with Palestinian factions. You end up feeling a little bit sorry for the Romans! Amazed to learn how much trouble there was in that region in the 1st century AD and that this had probably been the norm for many hundreds of years beforehand.

Ian ~ I enjoy John Zorn's 'Masada' recordings especially 'Live in Sevilla 2000':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH7enXNv1hw

I was, however, disturbed to come across this lengthy article alleging Zorn's Zionism:

https://www.furious.com/perfect/zornzion.html

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

Ian ~ I enjoy John Zorn's 'Masada' recordings especially 'Live in Sevilla 2000':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH7enXNv1hw

I was, however, disturbed to come across this lengthy article alleging Zorn's Zionism:

https://www.furious.com/perfect/zornzion.html

JR

Very interesting, that article by Bryan Preston - for reproducing which, thanks JR. A cogently argued article of the kind I only wish I had the wordsmith's skills to write myself! I did go and see Naked City at the Holborn Theatre back around 1989 with my then-girlfriend, and we managed, just, to stay to the end.