What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Ian Thumwood]

This is the person I think was most influenced by Strayhorn

Gil Evans "From the moment I first heard 'Chelsea Bridge,' I set out to try to do that. That's all I did ... tried to do what Billy Strayhorn did."

I think the obvious connect, BD, is French Impressionism which had a bearing on both Strayhorn and Evans. I think that Ellington himself came up with his conception of writing and that this was probably done without borrowing so heavily from Classical music although he was obvious pretty aware of it if only by the Chopin quote at the end of "Black and tan Fantasy " in 1927. Ellington and Evans were both colourists but I have seen them as being at differing ends of the spectrum. What is curious is how their styles both changed in their later years and there are moments in Ellington's "New Orleans Suite" which are not too dissimilar in the way he writes for the orchestra from what you might find on a Gil Evans album like "Svengali."

The legacy of Evans and Ellington is really quite staggering. I don't think someone like Maria Schneider could have existed without Evans and you could argue the same with someone like Darcy James Argue. There was an album review on one of the sites last week by Miho Hazama which looked again at the influence of classical music on jazz which was interesting. For me, as much as I loved Evans later stuff when I was younger, I think the stuff he produced in the 80's was a bit hit and miss, his album "Priestess" probably being the last masterpiece. By that time, his music sounded nothing like the stuff he had produced in the 50s and 60's. By contrast, I think that post-Strayhorn, Ellington's music entered a new stage of creativity. I don't think it helped Evans' cause that he worked at such a slow pace and produced a relatively small body of work for someone so important. As he got older, the extent of writing for his band seemed to diminish and it was just a large "jam band" in the end - the 1980's answer to the early Basie band.

It is a fascinating subject and I feel that Ellington is as essential to jazz as Bach is to Classical music. I don't feel the approach of Ellington has dated and it is the one influence in the music which continues to inspire as opposed to being derivative. (Thinking of someone like Jason Roebke's octet or some of the work by David Murray.) By contrast, I think that Evans was a massive inspiration but is more important for offering an alternative pointer to where jazz orchestration could go. To my ears, the questions he asked as still resonating with writers who are probably technically beyond what Evans was producing 60 years ago. In a nutshell, I feel it is easier to recast Ellington's music in to a contemporary style than Evans. Ellington's music has cast a shadow over composers throughout the history of jazz from the likes of Monk, Hill, Randy Weston, Charlie Mingus, David Murray, Stan Tracey, etc, etc.

[Ian Thumwood]

BD

This is the Strayhorn score which has always impressed me more than any other:-

I think that this score is deceptive. It is extremely catchy but the whole piece is really dissonant. You get a clue where the piece if going with the brass before the Ben Webster solo and then continues with the brass punctuation. It mist have seemed pretty shocking in 1941. I love the writing for the reeds at the end which is one of the finest sounds in the Ellington repertoire. It sounds like mid 20th century music and the effect is augmented by Strayhorn's solos which follows.

[Jazzrook]

Ian ~ I've always enjoyed Cecil Taylor's version of Strayhorn's 'Johnny Come Lately' at Newport, 1957 with Steve Lacy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN-ZvK6Pf5A

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

I think the obvious connect, BD, is French Impressionism which had a bearing on both Strayhorn and Evans.

Those augmented triads Ravel used at the start of the second of the "Valses nobles et sentimentales" were taken as the opening to "Chelsea Reach". I only realised this many years after first hearing the Strayhorn.

1 minute 52 secs in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVYLjakSwnc

I don't know the origin of Strayhorn's title - maybe it has an Impressionist connection - Chelsea Reach, with its view west to the now non-existent Lots Road power station from Battersea Bridge, was much favoured by French Impressionist and Fauvist painters. The 606 Jazz Club is just along where it used to be. When I were a tot my mum used to take me there in my pushchair and sit me on the river wall. No one thought to give me a push, so I'm still here.

[burning dog]

BD

This is the Strayhorn score which has always impressed me more than any other:-

I think that this score is deceptive. It is extremely catchy but the whole piece is really dissonant. You get a clue where the piece if going with the brass before the Ben Webster solo and then continues with the brass punctuation. It mist have seemed pretty shocking in 1941. I love the writing for the reeds at the end which is one of the finest sounds in the Ellington repertoire. It sounds like mid 20th century music and the effect is augmented by Strayhorn's solos which follows.

I take the point that Gil followed on from Strayhorn (as much, if not more, than Ellington) in harnessing the French Impressionists and he influenced Bill Evans and Miles Davis in this respect. Ellington seemed influenced by the more angular composers of the earlier 20th Century. Maria Schneider, to my ears, has reintegrated both strands to some extent, although she's primarily know as a devotee of Evans.

Wonderful Schneider arrangement here in the Evans mould

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSCaQ1qRleU

[Ian Thumwood]

SA

I had no idea about the link between the Ravel and " Chelsea Bridge" but the clip shows that it is pretty explicit. The title was inspired by a painting by Rex Whistler which was of another London Bridge and nit the one at Chelsea. I have never been able to find the painting on line but it would be really interesting to see what was so special about it. There is a National Trust properly near Romsey called Mottisfont Abbey where the murals were produced by Whistler. I must admit that I know very little about him although I actually am a massive fan of his contemporary Eric Ravillious.

BD

The MS track is sublime.

This is what I mean about Ellington moving towards more 1970's Evan's territory:-

[Ian Thumwood]

Early 1970's Gil

[Stanfordian]

'Getting’ Around'
Dexter Gordon with Bobby Hutcherson, Barry Harris, Bob Cranshaw & Billy Higgins
Blue Note (1965)

[burning dog]

April In Paris - Count Basie

Count Basie - piano
Wendell Culley (tracks 1-7 & 9-16), Reunald Jones (tracks 1-7 & 9-16), Thad Jones (tracks 1-7 & 9-16), Joe Newman - trumpet
Henry Coker, Bill Hughes, Benny Powell - trombone (tracks 1-7 & 9-16)
Marshall Royal - alto saxophone, clarinet (tracks 1-7 & 9-16)
Bill Graham - alto saxophone (tracks 1-7 & 9-16)
Frank Wess - alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, flute, clarinet (tracks 1-7 & 9-16)
Frank Foster - tenor saxophone, clarinet (tracks 1-7 & 9-16)
Charlie Fowlkes - baritone saxophone, bass clarinet (tracks 1-7 & 9-16)
Freddie Green - guitar
Eddie Jones - bass
Sonny Payne - drums
Jose Mangual, Ubaldo Nieto - percussion (track 9)
William "Wild Bill" Davis (tracks 1 & 11), Freddie Green (tracks 2 & 12), Neal Hefti (track 10), Frank Foster (tracks 3, 6, 7, 9, 13 & 16), Joe Newman (tracks 8 & 17), Ernie Wilkins (track 4) - arranger

[Jazzrook]

Sammy Price(piano) & Lucky Thompson(tenor sax) with Jean-Pierre Sasson(guitar); Pierre Michelot(bass) & Gerard Pochonet(drums) in Paris, 1957 playing 'Minor Blues' from the album 'Paris Blues'(GITANES):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN6oaCsAGmo

JR

[burning dog]

Sammy Price(piano) & Lucky Thompson(tenor sax) with Jean-Pierre Sasson(guitar); Pierre Michelot(bass) & Gerard Pochonet(drums) in Paris, 1957 playing 'Minor Blues' from the album 'Paris Blues'(GITANES):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN6oaCsAGmo

JR

Love it !!

[Stanfordian]

‘One Foot in the Gutter - A Treasury of Soul’
The Dave Bailey Sextet: Dave Bailey, Clark Terry, Curtis Fuller, Junior Cook, Horace Parlan & Pack Morrison
Riverside (1960)

[Serial_Apologist]

SA

I had no idea about the link between the Ravel and " Chelsea Bridge" but the clip shows that it is pretty explicit. The title was inspired by a painting by Rex Whistler which was of another London Bridge and nit the one at Chelsea. I have never been able to find the painting on line but it would be really interesting to see what was so special about it. There is a National Trust properly near Romsey called Mottisfont Abbey where the murals were produced by Whistler. I must admit that I know very little about him although I actually am a massive fan of his contemporary Eric Ravillious.

BD

The MS track is sublime.

This is what I mean about Ellington moving towards more 1970's Evan's territory:-

An American woman wrote a book some years ago in which she posited her theory that Whistler was the Whitechapel murderer. There was TV documentary about it.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

An American woman wrote a book some years ago in which she posited her theory that Whistler was the Whitechapel murderer. There was TV documentary about it.

Wasn't that Sickert? Patricia Cornwell made a TV programme in 2001 in which she accused Sickert of being Jack the Ripper. (Her evidence? A film made of Sickert in his very old age, looking into the camera, with the sun shining directly into his eyes, she pointed out how "shifty" he looked!)

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2001/dec/08/art.artsfeatures

(Actually, there's a bit more "evidence" than that - but coincidence and circumstantial stuff that nobody has since taken seriously.)

[Serial_Apologist]

Wasn't that Sickert? Patricia Cornwell made a TV programme in 2001 in which she accused Sickert of being Jack the Ripper. (Her evidence? A film made of Sickert in his very old age, looking into the camera, with the sun shining directly into his eyes, she pointed out how "shifty" he looked!)

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2001/dec/08/art.artsfeatures

(Actually, there's a bit more "evidence" than that - but coincidence and circumstantial stuff that nobody has since taken seriously.)

Oh THAT's right!!! <- whistler - >

Thanks for the correction ferney.