What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks Ian - high time I listened to JD Allen: the link to that article looks a good starting point.

[Joseph K]

Thanks Ian - high time I listened to JD Allen: the link to that article looks a good starting point.

Yes I should check Allen out.

Spinning now: the first disk of the Miles Davis Quintet Live in Europe box.

[Stanfordian]

‘Ju Ju’ – Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorte with McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman & Elvin Jones
Blue Note (1964)

[Ian Thumwood]

I have been listening to CD 1 of a 5-CD set of recordings made by the Count Basie orchestra live at the Crescendo Club in 1958 that I had bought for my Dad as a birthday present a few years back. By this stage , the Basie band had managed to amalgamate big band jazz with a more savvy approach that reflected the fact that the musicians in the band grew up listening to musicians like Parker and Gillespie. I believe that some of the material had been issued on an earlier record but this box set includes the complete recordings.

If you had to create list a pantheon of the greatest bands in jazz, the Basie orchestra would surely be on that list. I prefer the band he led in the 30s and 40s yet the New Testament band really set the parameters for big band jazz and created a "mainstream" which, in it's own way, has a legacy as potent as Miles' 2nd quintet or Coltrane's classic quartet. If you like, this is the group which set the template for how so many big bands would sound in the latter half of the 20th century and. I would also argue for smaller groups like Horace Silver who recognised the significance of Basie's then contemporary band. The band was crammed with talented soloists such as Frank Wess, AL Grey, Billy Mitchell, Frank Foster, Thad Jones and boasted the talent of Sonny Payne on drums who is often cited by many as perhaps the greatest ever big band drummer.

The crescendo set is interesting because it collates a lot of material written by Neal Hefti who had produced a set of arrangements for the material incorporated on the three albums recorded in the studio a the time. One of the records was "The Atomic Mr Basie" which is an absolute classic. I find the Hefti charts a little over-familiar but the breezy West Coast style of his writing worked better than you might have expected. I believe that Hefti had previously written for Woody Herman and is supposed to have been really enamoured with Bop. The charts he wrote for Basie always strike me as being quite economic with melodies which would not alienate less progressive fans. Listening to these live recordings, I have to say that there is a degree of ferociousness about the way they are executed which is a real surprise. Performed live, the arrangements are taken at a faster lick and Payne's drumming for much more to the fore. There is an energy and excitement about the first set that I have listening to which is opposed to the more relaxed studio performances which are so familiar. I am really impressed by this music. The balance means sometimes Basie's piano is a bit distant in the mix which is a shame where he is given more room to solo than on the studio sessions as well as for the fact that his solos are far more expansive than the usual minimal approach he employed.

I suppose the overall impression of this record is that it absolutely nails Basie's band as one of the great jazz units of the 1950s. The dynamics are pretty incredible and there is an aggression within the music that gives the charts a more practical and lived in feel than their studio versions. Few bands have ever been able to lay back on a groove like Basie's band yet this record illustrates the robustness of both Hefti's writing and the manner in which it is interpreted. There is a misconception that Be-bop liberated musicians from the big bands and gave them room for individual expression. By contrast, this is a record which demonstrates jazz musicians being liberated by effective charts and the ability for a large ensemble to perform "in the moment" rather like a small band. The music on this disc is pretty much of an eye-opener and as much as part of the 1950's jazz scene as Miles' first quintet or Mingus. As an entry level disc in to big band jazz, this would get my vote.

[elmo]

I have this set and agree with Ian. Over the course of the 5 cd's there is an incredibly high standard of performance throughout 91 tracks recorded over a period of 10 or so days. I can't think of many groups that compare to that. The Keith Jarrett "live at the Blue Note" is perhaps another, these are examples of how great musicians can turn out great art from what could be considered just a regular gig. Its an aspect of jazz that has always impressed me.

elmo

[Jazzrook]

Don Cherry's 1966 BLUE NOTE album 'Where Is Brooklyn?' with Pharoah Sanders, Henry Grimes & Ed Blackwell:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDjc36jslbw

JR

[Stanfordian]

‘Cool Blues ’– Jimmy Smith
Jimmy Smith with Lou Donaldson, Tina Brooks, Eddie McFadden, Donald Bailey & Art Blakey
Blue Note (1958)

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Re Ian talking about the Basie band and Neil Hefti, here's Clark Terry taking about Basie's key role in "Lil' Darlin'" which Hefti first brought in as an uptempo almost bebop thing...http://youtu.be/uTxcZkICxyY

[Ian Thumwood]

I have this set and agree with Ian. Over the course of the 5 cd's there is an incredibly high standard of performance throughout 91 tracks recorded over a period of 10 or so days. I can't think of many groups that compare to that. The Keith Jarrett "live at the Blue Note" is perhaps another, these are examples of how great musicians can turn out great art from what could be considered just a regular gig. Its an aspect of jazz that has always impressed me.

elmo

Good to see you back on line.

I have been playing my way through this record and have been bowled over by how good the music is. The are only a few examples where the music misfires (a dreary George Shearing arrangement of a ballad, for example) but the box set contains what I would argue is one of the greatest live performances of any big band. Unfortunately, not all the arrangements are credited even though the majority are clearly Hefti's.

The thing that struck me today was the tracks with the singer Joe Williams. I would have to admit that Jimmy Rushing remains the big band singer par excellence for me but my Dad was a fan of William's work with Basie and I grew up listening to "Well alright, okay, you win." I was never that appreciative of how vital he was to Basie's band and the live sets feature him on a number of blues as well as a few standards for good measure. It is quite interesting listening to him in a live context as it has never really twigged the extent to which he was a jazz singer. Listening to him, the phrasing and liberties he takes with the time of tunes reminds me a lot of Betty Carter. I don't think he was as radical as BC yet standards are rephrased in a manner that would have upset the composers. There is a brilliant version of "No moon at all" on once disc but the similarity in the timbre of his voice made me think how much of a better match he would have made on the album Johnny Hartman made with Coltrane. As a musical instrument, William's is pretty imperious and there are moments where he almost yodels like Leon Thomas and manages to hold some lengthy notes over quite a wide range. It is a revelation to me insofar as my perception of Joe Williams was as a capable singer and not someone as fully immersed in modern jazz. Male singers with big bands are generally a no go area for me but the tracks on this box set with Joe Williams demonstrate him as something well beyond the capability of a pop singer and a blues artist.

The Hefti charts are reputedly well admitted by Miles Davis but he did make the observation that when performed by Hefti's own band, he was unable to bring the music to the level of the Count Basie orchestra. It is difficult to dispute this even before becoming acquainted with this live session. I have been extremely impressed by the precision and dynamics of this band. Whilst I am aware that amongst musical circles there are those who believe that Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band is performing more complex charts at a similar level of execution to Basie, I am not a fan of this ensemble and think that the feel the Basie band had for jazz as opposed to big band music was unsurpassed. When these live recordings were made in 1958 (the sound quality improves to almost studio levels on discs 2 and 3 whilst being far from unacceptable on the first disc) this band was broadly a statement of the modern-mainstream. Oddly, they are contemporaneous with Miles' celebrated recordings with Gil Evans which prompted significant changes in the approach of arrangers. That said, the confidence and ability of the Basie on a live set remains almost unsurpassable . More dyed in the wool jazz fans might perceive a 5 box set of a big band playing arrangements might flag up the format as a poor vehicle for the creativity and spontaneity in jazz but the change in tempi, solos and general feel for the music is staggeringly vital. This is much, much more than a band reading through a set of charts - they are really inhabiting the music and adjusting the feel of the arrangements over the course of the five discs. I would consider this 5 CD set to be an essential addition to any jazz collection and more indicative of what the Basie band was really like than the studio discs.

[Stanfordian]

‘Empyrean Isles’ – Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock with Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter & Tony Williams
Blue Note (1964)

[Serial_Apologist]

Re the link to "Barracune" from the All About Jazz site, by comparison with our own Paul Dunmall, judging by last night's amazing session with Liam Noble, John Edwards and Mark Sanders at Café Oto, I would judge that Mr Allen might be where Mr Dunmall now is in about another 30 years' time. Lots of catching up to do! But I see there is also lots of youtube to check through before my mind is finally made up! Paul has lost a lot of weight, incidentally; I didn't ask if this had anything to do with the illness he suffered a couple of years back, but it in no way seemed to affect his playing. Both sets were entirely freely improvised, though the wind down at the end of part 2 strongly suggested the music was heading into Neffertiti, even if unintentionally.

[Stanfordian]

‘Blues Up & Down’ – Eddie ‘Lockjaw Davis’
Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis with Johnny Griffin, Lloyd Mayers, Larry Gales & Ben Riley
Jazzland (rec. 1961)

[Stanfordian]

‘Empyrean Isles’ – Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock with Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter & Tony Williams
Blue Note (1964)

[Jazzrook]

JD Allen & David Murray with Ian Kensellar(bass) & Nick Cacioppo(drums) at the SubCulture Club, NYC on January 12, 2019:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=qLENAuAYGG8

JR

[Ian Thumwood]

JD Allen & David Murray with Ian Kensellar(bass) & Nick Cacioppo(drums) at the SubCulture Club, NYC on January 12, 2019:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=qLENAuAYGG8

JR

This is fascinating. I love the flow of Allen's ideas and good to see his locking horns with an old master. The juxtaposition of styles is quite interesting. Murray is an enigma for me, mixing some pretty coruscating sounds that demonstrates his post-Ayler origins with almost swing era lushness. Sometimes this does sound a but incongruous. This set seems to feature a lot of the latter although it switches when he starts to play "Body & Soul." I sometimes think he is a player who goes from A to Z and by-passes a lot of the stuff in between. To my ears, Murray still sounds like one of the most radical tenor improvisers around today. Allen seems a more logical improviser by contrast, building stacking up phrase after phrase on top of each other. I have to say, I think Allen comes across as far more interesting and there is not really a great deal of empathy between the two horn players until they commence the ballad.

I loaned two of my Allen CDs to a work colleague who is a big Coltrane fan and he was really impressed although the more "traditional" record "Americana" was preferred to "Barracoon." If there is an issue with Allen, discs like "Americana" demonstrate too much of a reliance on Coltrane as opposed to exploring his own identity. He sounds like a different musician on that record that the other two I have and also on this disc. For me, it was a well played but lacked the originality of the other two records. "Radio Flyer" is also pretty radical and features the guitar of Liberty Elman who pulls the music in to more challenging territory.

Out of interest, there is a new record on Blue Note of James Carter's organ trio recorded live at Newport that has just been released. I saw this group at Vienne a few years back and found the music incredible , mixing swing, R n,b, bop and free in a storming set of material by Django Reinhart. The results should sound incongruous but smashed everything else out of court that year. One of the best gigs I have been to. The audience were whipped in to a frenzy.,