What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Serial_Apologist]

I can appreciate that Corea must have been a bit influence on John Taylor .

If you listen chronologically to both pianists, you can hear their influences working through their own output and then pretty much fully absorbed, though to my ears Bill Evans's influence comes increasingly to the fore later on in John Taylor, as he tackles standards, particularly the same ones covered by Evans, and Evans's own compositions. But, early on, I think Herbie Hancock had a big influence on both, compositionally and playing-wise. JT's debut album "Pause and Think Again" of 1971 (recently cited on here by Bluesnik) is strongly preshadowed by Hancock's "Think Like a Child" of 3 years earlier, right down to instrumentation, harmonic voicings and even almost direct quotation in JT's themes, though I have to admit that Norma Winstone disagrees with me on the strength of this Herbie Hancock influence.

Evans is far to introverted but, strangely, this seems to be a quality much revered today .

It's ironic how the prevailing "jazz image" has returned to a kind of cool that is almost as formal as the way the music was presented until, as Ian Carr pointed out in his Miles biog, the late 1960s when people like Charles Lloyd took sartorial hints off of the San Frisco hippie scene, dressing like rock musicians, and Miles came to Carnaby Street for his clothes. The garishness that was part of Fusion's onstage presence (slightly dressed down in this country) was maintained by the Loose Tubes guys, but not the black crowd around Gary Crosby and the Jazz Warriors; and it has almost become as if flambuoyance is seen as part of todays globalist "me generation", and in poor taste. Hence the studiousness dressing the music, as well as outwardly projected. George Crowley's manner in presenting his new album on the added link below typifies the attitude of polite respectfulness now rife among the younger generation - nothing like ironic dryness one encountered talking to the most radical musicians one got to know in the 1980s (in my case) like Elton Dean, Nick Evans and Jim Dvorak, or the amiable eccentricity of Lol Coxhill. There's no more take-it-or-leave it attitude.

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

[Ian Thumwood]

SA

The George Crowley clip is fascinating as it is very much influenced by the kind of stuff Donny McCaslin and Dave Binney have bee producing recently (until the later electronic project.) This is the second time that specific groups from the UK have appear to have been influenced by contemporary American bands - Laura Jurd being hugely influenced by Dave Douglas.

David Binney must be the contemporary equivalent of someone like Lee Konitz but he is also a very original composer which I found to my cost when I downloads a number of his lead sheets out of curiosity and then we all fell over trying to play them! "Barefooted town" is a good starting point as the excellent "Graylen Epicentre" no longer seems available other than as a download or a £125 CD.

[Stanfordian]

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

[Jazzrook]

Jazzrook


I have seen both Lubat and Eddy Louiss perform live and it strikes me as really strange to learn that they performed together and in a group led by Stan Getz. I seem to recall that Louiss had worked with Getz but when I saw this organist with (I think) Richard Galliano, it seemed very tame and almost bathed in nostalgia. He sadly passed away shortly afterwards. Prior to this I had little knowledge of him other than the album he made with Michel Petrrucciani which was really good fun albeit probably not MP's best. Louiss always strikes me as being a bit cheesy but with an ability to get away with it somehow. On this clip, Louiss seems to do little more than provide a wash for Getz to perform over.

Lubat performing with Getz perplexes me even more as I saw him in an improvised set with the great Michel Portal, not only one of the great French jazz musicians but a true original who borrows from rock, West African music, 20th century music and jazz in his highly individualistic approach. I find Portal far more interesting than Getz, especially in the kind of detached performance on the YouTube clip. I very much rate Michel Portal and, in my opinion, the antithesis of someone like Getz who was doggedly within the jazz mainstream no matter how you feel about his music. I had always understood that Lubat was very much part of the French Improv scene, rather like Tony Oxley in the UK and it is staggering to find him working with a bopper like Getz. The clip is interesting in that there is practically no interplay or understanding between the French musicians and Getz. Lubat seems to be doing his own thing and Getz just ploughs on oblivious.

I never realised that Shostokovich played jazz guitar !

Ian ~ Here's more from that underrated guitarist 'Shostakovich' with tenorist J.R.Monterose:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1tXDBqjb48

It comes from the highly recommended 80-minute CD 'Guitar Groove' recently reissued on FRESH SOUND FSR-CD 898

http://www.freshsoundrecords.com/rene-thomas-albums/6447-guitar-groove-2-lp-on-1-cd.html

JR

[CGR]

Ian ~ Here's more from that underrated guitarist 'Shostakovich' with tenorist J.R.Monterose:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1tXDBqjb48

It comes from the highly recommended 80-minute CD 'Guitar Groove' recently reissued on FRESH SOUND FSR-CD 898

http://www.freshsoundrecords.com/rene-thomas-albums/6447-guitar-groove-2-lp-on-1-cd.html

JR

That is the sort of guitar playing I really enjoy.

[burning dog]

I love his guitar paying as well


Smells Like Teen Spirit !?

0:50 nothing to do with the melody or changes that two of comments on You tube refer, but the bass figure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ALPmRk3Ht4

Sam Rivers is great on this album

[Ian Thumwood]

That Rene Thomas track is absolutely brilliant. I thught that the tenor playing of JR Monterose was really the icing on the cake. What a brilliant band.

[Stanfordian]

Leo Parker with Dave Burns, Bill Swindell, Yusef Salim, Stan Conover & Purnell Rice
‘Let Me Tell You 'Bout It’
Blue Note (1961)

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Isn't that a joy? A bit rough around the edges sometimes but so what. "Rollin' with Leo" is similarly hip. Shame about Leo.

BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

There was a brilliant article on one of the jazz websites about ten years ago which explained the scenario behind the two Blue Note sessions. I believe that Parker had been active in the late 1940's but disappeared off the scene in the 50's due to drug abuse only to be resurrected by Blue Note in a similar vein to Dexter Gordon. The inference was that this was almost done as a favour and also that the band that was assembled was composed of some pretty fringe players who were active at the time. You can discern the influence of Gordon but this is one of the cases of the quality control slipping at Blue Note. Had Parker not recorded for Blue Note, it is doubtful that he would have been anything other than a footnote in jazz. The music is certainly not objectionable and has an appeal. Tracks like "Glad lad" show the band in better light but it seems almost perverse to eulogise about someone like Parker after sending last week with a record that had Hamiet Blueitt on baritone - someone who is still very much with us.

I haven't heard a great deal by Parker but the track below is ok-ish but the horns are shockingly out of tune on the head and the band just isn't together. I am not even sure if the other musicians were professionals but it is a shame that the material was not performed by a better band irrespective of the fact that it sounds if it was made much earlier than 1961.

It is strange that Parker is remembered at all. There is a nerdy quality about Blue Note which I am very sympathetic too and Parker belongs to the list of players like Don Wickerson, Fred Jackson, Baby Face Willette, etc who helped make up the roster for the label but I don't think the Parker disc has the polish of some of the stuff produced by Jackson and Willette whose ambitions were quite modest yet turned out quite stellar sessions in their own way. The Parker record is just a bit rough around the edges. Part of me wants this to be a "lost masterpiece" but I think Parker was one of the weaker artists Lion produced albeit I think he is undermined by a pretty average band and would have benefited from a crisper back up.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

There was a brilliant article on one of the jazz websites about ten years ago which explained the scenario behind the two Blue Note sessions. I believe that Parker had been active in the late 1940's but disappeared off the scene in the 50's due to drug abuse only to be resurrected by Blue Note in a similar vein to Dexter Gordon. The inference was that this was almost done as a favour and also that the band that was assembled was composed of some pretty fringe players who were active at the time. You can discern the influence of Gordon but this is one of the cases of the quality control slipping at Blue Note. Had Parker not recorded for Blue Note, it is doubtful that he would have been anything other than a footnote in jazz. The music is certainly not objectionable and has an appeal. Tracks like "Glad lad" show the band in better light but it seems almost perverse to eulogise about someone like Parker after sending last week with a record that had Hamiet Blueitt on baritone - someone who is still very much with us.

I haven't heard a great deal by Parker but the track below is ok-ish but the horns are shockingly out of tune on the head and the band just isn't together. I am not even sure if the other musicians were professionals but it is a shame that the material was not performed by a better band irrespective of the fact that it sounds if it was made much earlier than 1961.

It is strange that Parker is remembered at all. There is a nerdy quality about Blue Note which I am very sympathetic too and Parker belongs to the list of players like Don Wickerson, Fred Jackson, Baby Face Willette, etc who helped make up the roster for the label but I don't think the Parker disc has the polish of some of the stuff produced by Jackson and Willette whose ambitions were quite modest yet turned out quite stellar sessions in their own way. The Parker record is just a bit rough around the edges. Part of me wants this to be a "lost masterpiece" but I think Parker was one of the weaker artists Lion produced albeit I think he is undermined by a pretty average band and would have benefited from a crisper back up.

The band on Rollin with Leo is in better shape. Leo did record in the fifties and most notably with the guitarist Bill Jennings, a nod to the R&B/juke box market. I guess his introduction to Bluenote was via Ike Quebec, a friend and who was A&R at that time, pre Duke Pearson. Dexter also liked Parker "those bottoms!" and they were due to record together but then Leo unfortunately overdosed before the session.Not a good career move.

The two Leo Parker albums were reputed to be the worst selling Bluenote releases for many years after. But, they were much liked in Japan. And in my house. No, not classics, but some nice blues with a bottle of red.

BN.
* the track "El Sino, the Quintet with Leo and Fats Navarro from the late 40s is a kind of "Walking" or Vierd Blues precursor and is rather good.

[Ian Thumwood]

bluesnik

I notice that Parker isn't mentioned in the new Blue Note book which , to be honest, seems content to trot out a lot of the old, familiar clichés and doesn't offer a great deal of insight.

I am very fond of the late 40's Swing - Bop recordings that you mention and some of the tracks from the Leo Parker session put me in mind of Gene Ammons work in this oeuvre although not as good as the Chicago tenor man. There is something immediately appealing about Bop baritone and I think it is an instrument that is still novel enough to sound exciting - you just have to listen to a player like James Carter to realise this. Carter, for my money, is the direct descent of this kind of jazz and the gig I heard him perform earlier this year is easily the best concert that I have been to in years. I suppose you could accuse him of show-boating but you would have to be curmudgeonly not to hugely appreciate his free-for-all , headlong approach to jazz. He seems quite adept at mixing in honks and squeals more redolent of the avant garde in to barnstorming solos which seem to take in everything from the Swing Era right through to Rap without ever sounding incongruous.

I knew about Ike Quebec's role in Blue Note and this, I suppose, is another link back to the Swing Era as he initially made his name with Cab Calloway's band where Chu Berry had been very much the man on tenor. Having read Jimmy Heath's book about why he passed down the chance to record for Blue Note, it is not difficult to understand his position in the light of the Parker recordings which were roughly contemporaneous with Heath's release from incarceration. Heath expressed the view that he would have more opportunity to compose and act as an A and R man for Riverside. Under Heath's direction, I would have thought that Parker's record would have been more polished but I think that the compositional element in Blue Note was not always the main concern. I am starting to find that the better "Hard Bop" sessions are generally attributable to better writing and although I was initially underwhelmed by his work, I am increasingly impressed with Horace Silver's writing. Setting aside the quartet dates that are frequently blowing vehicles for the leader, the more composition minded leaders do stand out on Blue Note .

[Stanfordian]

Wayne Shorter with Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman & Elvin Jones
‘Night Dreamer’
Blue Note (1964)

[burning dog]

Wayne Shorter with Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman & Elvin Jones
‘Night Dreamer’
Blue Note (1964)

Love this track

[Ian Thumwood]

I think it was Elmo who put me on to Kirk Knuffke but his "Arms and hands" is one record I am still trying to get to grips with. The groups is essentially a cornet plus Mark Helias' bass and Bill Goodwin on drums with guest appearances by a few other musicians such as cult avant gardist Daniel Carter. The idea of groups without a harmony instrument is always one that appeals to me but the interest for me is not so much the format but the juxtaposition of musicians who you would never have anticipated performing together. Helias' pedigree is well known and the leader's affinity for Ornette Coleman makes this seem like a potential free jazz session yet the music is almost like a stab at mainstream by Ornette. The tune themselves are quite slight. However, the one reason for buying this disc is the drumming of Goodwin, a musician I had previously been aware of as a member of Phil Woods' group but who I also understand has also worked with Dexter Gordon, Bill Evans and Gary Burton. This puts Goodwin dead centre in to the jazz mainstream yet the more outside context of the music seems to inspire him. Every time I put this CD on I just seem to switch off to everything else and listen to the drums. Most of the time Goodwin is swinging in a traditional sense although the open context of the music seems to spur him on to be extremely creative. The band came about through Knuffke's desire to put a band together consist of his diverse mentors. Compared with the similar cornet / bass / drums trio of Josh Berman's "A hop and a dance", Knuffke is far less radical yet I find Goodwin as interesting as the under-valued Frank Rosaly on the traps from the Berman set. The one session that this does remind me of more than any other is the maligned Buddy Rich appearance in the group with Bird and Dizzy. Out of curiosity, I have been playing that today as well and must admit that I love this group, especially "My melancholy baby." Goodwin seems similarly "miscast" and, again, I don't think that the difference in styles is important. The clash between Bird and Rich is often singled out as incongruous. The coupling of Goodwin with someone like Daniel Carter is almost the ultimate "odd couple" yet it seems to work.