What Jazz are you listening to now?

[burning dog]

[QUOTE=Jazzrook;729321

I saw this group at Hammersmith Odeon a few days later. Many walked out but those who remained gave a standing ovation. The Miles Davis Quintet were on the same bill.

JR[/QUOTE]

I can understand people of the time not liking Shepp but not especially for the reason (I get the impression) that it was too "far out", maybe lacking a jazz pulse for a lot of that particular piece but he has appeared in some pretty swinging groups . The Miles Davis band of the time would have been quite challenging for a conservative leaning audience as well but I reckon they'd recognize it as a development from Bebop, plus he already had a lot of "fans". There's a lot of preconception possibly and perhaps the New Thing of the time courted notoriety a bit. Loved to have heard both but maybe not on the same bill. I was more into The Four Tops at that time - aged 9.

"The Shadow of your Smile" - 17 mins in -: he's a old romantic at heart

[burning dog]

Valve No. 10

Billy Bang

[Serial_Apologist]

Valve No. 10

Billy Bang

What one might call a Lowe blow, BD!

[Ian Thumwood]

Archie Shepp live at Donaueschingen Music Festival on October 21, 1967 with Roswell Rudd, Grachan Moncur, Jimmy Garrison & Beaver Harris playing 'One For The Trane Part 2':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIcWbU10NH4

I saw this group at Hammersmith Odeon a few days later. Many walked out but those who remained gave a standing ovation. The Miles Davis Quintet were on the same bill.

JR

Kazzrook

One of my mates was one of the ones who walked out! He is always telling me about that gig! He loved Miles bit thought that Shepp was terrible. Apparently the JAzzJournal castigated the "feint hearts" who left early.

[Ian Thumwood]

I can understand people of the time not liking Shepp but not especially for the reason (I get the impression) that it was too "far out", maybe lacking a jazz pulse for a lot of that particular piece but he has appeared in some pretty swinging groups . The Miles Davis band of the time would have been quite challenging for a conservative leaning audience as well but I reckon they'd recognize it as a development from Bebop, plus he already had a lot of "fans". There's a lot of preconception possibly and perhaps the New Thing of the time courted notoriety a bit. Loved to have heard both but maybe not on the same bill. I was more into The Four Tops at that time - aged 9.

"The Shadow of your Smile" - 17 mins in -: he's a old romantic at heart

BD

It is interesting to read your comments because my mate was so negative about Shepp's band. He used to work in London and saw loads of jazz in the 1960s including the JATP tours. He liked Miles but was shocked by Shepp's approach and it effectively put him off the New Thing even though his taste is broad enough to take in Ornette and most Freer elements of jazz. I suppose these days he is more passionate about ECM than anything else. What is amusing is that I have been to about a hundred gigs with him since about 1985 yet he always has singled the Shepp set at the worst he has ever been too.

It is funny how people perceive live gigs and how a really poor concert can manifest itself in your mind for many years afterwards. Very little seems to have shock value now for me these days and I tend to find the worse gigs are boring as opposed to having a negative, visceral impact. For me, the New Thing was really of it's time and id didn't really bring forward much fruit until players like Billy Bang in your clip. However, I would add that I really miss the fact that jazz no longer really shocks. When I was a teenager, I saw Don Cherry's Nu in Southampton and was shocked by the clamorous opening to the first set. It took me a while to get accustomed to the music they produced but in the end you understood it and because it was initially a challenge, you feel more positive about it. I felt the same when I heard Henry Threadgill perform live. I think sometimes jazz does need to shake things up and you can understand the frustration of a musician like Jaimie Branch in making a comment such as "does the world really need another Mark Turner album?"

[burning dog]

Ian

Shepp starts in the German clip with a modern solo very much in control but adds barks growls and screeches that I guess some regarded as superfluous. I seem to recall that some critics and musicians of the time thought his gigs were very "theatrical."

He has always been very much "in the tradition " though. I think "Four for Trane" is a cracker where his "out" playing is very direct if that's the right word. His solo on this track is stunning. Charles Moffett has a lot to do with this though I feel

[Stanfordian]

‘Reminiscin'’
Gigi Gryce with Richard Gene Williams, Richard Rylands, Reggie Workman, Eddie Costa & Bob Thomas
New Jazz (1960)

[Jazzrook]

Charles Mingus live in Wuppertal Town Hall, Germany on April 26, 1964 with Eric Dolphy, Clifford Jordan, Jaki Byard & Dannie Richmond playing a 36-minute version of 'Fables of Faubus'.
Towards the end there's a remarkable Mingus/Dolphy duet which Raymond Horricks has described as "An instrumental equivalent of the Muppet show. Several minutes of mischief; an absolutely hilarious and spellbinding chit-chat between Dolphy and his leader".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxIArmBxUI8

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

Charles Mingus live in Wuppertal Town Hall, Germany on April 26, 1964 with Eric Dolphy, Clifford Jordan, Jaki Byard & Dannie Richmond playing a 36-minute version of 'Fables of Faubus'.
Towards the end there's a remarkable Mingus/Dolphy duet which Raymond Horricks has described as "An instrumental equivalent of the Muppet show. Several minutes of mischief; an absolutely hilarious and spellbinding chit-chat between Dolphy and his leader".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxIArmBxUI8

JR

Just 2 months and 2 days after this date, Eric would be dead.

[Stanfordian]

‘The Hard Swing’
Sonny Stitt with Amos Trice, George Morrow & Lennie McBrowne
Verve (1959)

[Stanfordian]

‘Ben and Sweets’
Ben Webster & Harry ‘Sweets’ Edison with Hank Jones, George Duvivier and Clarence Johnston
CBS (1962)

[Serial_Apologist]

I can understand people of the time not liking Shepp but not especially for the reason (I get the impression) that it was too "far out", maybe lacking a jazz pulse for a lot of that particular piece but he has appeared in some pretty swinging groups . The Miles Davis band of the time would have been quite challenging for a conservative leaning audience as well but I reckon they'd recognize it as a development from Bebop, plus he already had a lot of "fans". There's a lot of preconception possibly and perhaps the New Thing of the time courted notoriety a bit. Loved to have heard both but maybe not on the same bill. I was more into The Four Tops at that time - aged 9.

"The Shadow of your Smile" - 17 mins in -: he's a old romantic at heart

Wasn't that the gig where Miles insisted oncoming on first because he didn't wish to play to a sick audience, ie one which had been made ill by a Shepp performance? I seem to remember Ian Carr relating how Miles's band put in a rather mediocre set by usual expectations, and that Shepp, who had asked Miles if he could sit in and been turned down, nevertheless walked on, playing, and the band was "rejuvenated". Miles walked off and didn't return to the stage. Maybe another gig...

It's hard, now, judging by the link, to imagine what was upsetting about this line-up: anyone capable of taking Mingus on board should have experienced no difficulty, I would have thought.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I really liked Shepp from the outset and the first four or so Impulse albums still stack up. As do the Contemporary Five and the Candid album with Cecil Taylor. "Scagg" & "Rufas" etc from "New Thing at Newport" were the intermission tracks at Ronnie's Old Place whenever I went there in c.68/69. Thereafter, the late Impulse albums, where he tried to "do" James Brown/Motown were embarrassing...just hire the Brown band. Then there's a real mixed bag, although the Horace Parlan duets are lovely. Then he became be bop revisited, Dameron, Parker etc, for which he didn't have the chops for, and then the "singing", as almost George Melly. Burning Dog talks about him being "theatrical" and an old romantic and that's true, the way he used to suddenly play like Ben Webster in the midst of the "free" and there's a much more recent album with George Cable where he plays French Ballads fairly straight(is), "Deja Vu" which I like a lot. I gather his health is not so good currently and his group carries more of the weight. But, he's one of the genuine ones.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

And..."Washington Post profile Feb 2019"-

"...Steve McCraven first met Shepp when he was a student at U-Mass. Amherst in the early 1970s. Now, he knows Archie’s routines by heart. “I’ve been with him so long, I’ve seen it. The first thing he does after his feet hit the floor in the afternoon is grab his horn and play long tones” McCraven said. The drummer says that age has made Archie slower and more subdued, but he still plays his heart out. “He plays like a god; he is relentless,” McCraven said over the phone from Paris. “I have 100 percent respect for Mr. Shepp, especially with the pain he’s in.”

BN.

[Jazzrook]

Wasn't that the gig where Miles insisted oncoming on first because he didn't wish to play to a sick audience, ie one which had been made ill by a Shepp performance? I seem to remember Ian Carr relating how Miles's band put in a rather mediocre set by usual expectations, and that Shepp, who had asked Miles if he could sit in and been turned down, nevertheless walked on, playing, and the band was "rejuvenated". Miles walked off and didn't return to the stage. Maybe another gig...

It's hard, now, judging by the link, to imagine what was upsetting about this line-up: anyone capable of taking Mingus on board should have experienced no difficulty, I would have thought.

The Miles Davis/Archie Shepp concert at Hammersmith Odeon was part of Jazz Expo 1967.
Jack Cooke wrote in Jazz Monthly(December 1967): " After Miles I was frankly doubtful if anyone could follow it adequately. Archie Shepp could, though, and did, with an hour's music that cleared a quarter of the audience and brought a standing ovation from the rest... the spectacular mind-blowing ferocity of it all carried the group through and forbade all questioning. There is a sense of theatre about this group as opposed to showmanship, I think".

I remember feeling shattered afterwards and it was one of the most memorable concerts I've attended.

JR