What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Joseph K]

Does the 10 CD set of the 1962 European tour include 'Autumn Leaves' from the Graz concert?
As far as I know this was the only time Coltrane recorded this song.

JR

It does indeed include that. It's on disk no. 7 - on the back of the box it says that this is from the Copenhagen concert, but that is not so - I am not sure why they bothered stating a definitive concert for each disk, since as the booklet notes show, most of these disks feature tunes from more than one concert on each one. The booklet is ok, though somewhat eccentrically translated from a French text! But the music is superlative.

[Jazzrook]

It does indeed include that. It's on disk no. 7 - on the back of the box it says that this is from the Copenhagen concert, but that is not so - I am not sure why they bothered stating a definitive concert for each disk, since as the booklet notes show, most of these disks feature tunes from more than one concert on each one. The booklet is ok, though somewhat eccentrically translated from a French text! But the music is superlative.

Many thanks, Joseph.
I'm tempted to invest in this 10-CD set despite the eccentricities!

JR

[elmo]

I had this as a Crissie present and have only just played it "Trilogy 2" Chick Corea, Christian McBride and Brian Blade. The album has figured highly in the this years Critics polls and deserves it.

Here is their sparkling version of Monk's "Work"

https://youtu.be/RfKJO0qaug8

elmo

[Joseph K]

Many thanks, Joseph.
I'm tempted to invest in this 10-CD set despite the eccentricities!

JR

There's also the 61 European Tour box which features Eric Dolphy.

[Stanfordian]

‘Going for Myself’
Lester Young & Harry ‘Sweets’ Edison with Oscar Peterson
Verve (1957)

I love this album!

[Serial_Apologist]

There's also the 61 European Tour box which features Eric Dolphy.

I've only heard one track from that, which was on an Italian bootleg compilation in my possession along with Monk and Mingus tracks from different LPs: Mister PC - excoriating suns it up, and I feel Coltrane might have decided on the spot to let Tyner run on longer than intended, as he twice resorts to his characteristic block-chorded section, normally the rounding off point. I remember talking to Alan Skidmore about this track, and him insisting that Coltrane never recorded Mister PC alongside Dolphy! There's a story I recall that Gato Barbieri and some friends of his had once nicknamed the piece Mister Partida Communista!

[Joseph K]

I've only heard one track from that, which was on an Italian bootleg compilation in my possession along with Monk and Mingus tracks from different LPs: Mister PC - excoriating suns it up, and I feel Coltrane might have decided on the spot to let Tyner run on longer than intended, as he twice resorts to his characteristic block-chorded section, normally the rounding off point. I remember talking to Alan Skidmore about this track, and him insisting that Coltrane never recorded Mister PC alongside Dolphy! There's a story I recall that Gato Barbieri and some friends of his had once nicknamed the piece Mister Partida Communista!

Good anecdote. I think I only got as far as the first disk in the 61 set - perhaps I should listen to all of that before the 62 set. Someone should make a similarly comprehensive collection of his 63 European tour.

[Serial_Apologist]

Good anecdote. I think I only got as far as the first disk in the 61 set - perhaps I should listen to all of that before the 62 set. Someone should make a similarly comprehensive collection of his 63 European tour.

From Jazzrook's #3883, as well as other recent links and releases, one starts to get a rather different narrative than the one we were limited to while Trane was still living, namely one of two steps forward one step back evolution to the critical year of 1965, when, under the influence of the up-and-coming generation in their early 20s, he chose to go literally all out. To me the later statements, from "Ascension" onwards, marked a qualitative shift, but I had always seen them as advances, and in line with the direction he had been pursuing particularly since leaving Miles: I had never gone along with Evan Parker's view of a man who had seemingly been willing to give up on so much of what he had learned. This was because we only had the limited range of releases to go on. Now, with the benefit of hindsight and the release of more pre-"Ascension" era materials laid down by by "the classic quartet", we can hear that Coltrane had already been experimenting along the lines of his later improvising methodologies (for they were more than just one) before giving up on modes-based repeat structures. It had always surprised me to read of reports of being booed onstage on his European appearances in 1961. I'm now left wondering if he had felt freer in the more "enlightened" circumstances of Europe to push his music further than he had been willing to go back home, prior to 1965.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

The 1960 Miles Paris concert with Trane has some quite audible booing. One of my favourite moments is during Trane's solo on "Blackbird" he gets further out than they had ever heard him on record, and then at the peak of the boos and whistles plays one of Dexter Gordon's pet quotations, "Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa"...I assume with some sarcasm. When they came off stage Frank Tunet who was the big figure in French jazz broadcasting apologised to Coltrane along the lines that perhaps that they weren't quite ready for where Trane was. Coltrane apparently just smiled and said "Well fuck them!". The audience seemed to 50/50 pro and con.

[Serial_Apologist]

The 1960 Miles Paris concert with Trane has some quite audible booing. One of my favourite moments is during Trane's solo on "Blackbird" he gets further out than they had ever heard him on record, and then at the peak of the boos and whistles plays one of Dexter Gordon's pet quotations, "Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa"...I assume with some sarcasm. When they came off stage Frank Tunet who was the big figure in French jazz broadcasting apologised to Coltrane along the lines that perhaps that they weren't quite ready for where Trane was. Coltrane apparently just smiled and said "Well fuck them!". The audience seemed to 50/50 pro and con.

[Joseph K]

I had never gone along with Evan Parker's view of a man who had seemingly been willing to give up on so much of what he had learned.

This seems a strange comment to make, considering things like Interstellar Space are as equally, if not more, colourful than Trane's 'Coltrane Changes' type of pieces (Giant Steps etc.) He never got rid of those kind of thirds-based harmonies...

Spinning here: the second disk of The European Tour 61. Excellent stuff.

[Jazzrook]

Ornette Coleman with Don Cherry, Scott LaFaro & Ed Blackwell playing 'Check Up' from 'Twins' in 1961:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=M7sRGhrBgtA

JR

[Ian Thumwood]

On this recommendation I rather think I should look up Mr Klein!

I have been enjoyed the latest album. This track is not on the disc but it markedly less abstract that the album I have . It is really interesting as the constant shifting and jumping of time signatures makes you wonder if he had used software to compose. It seems remarkable that someone can actually "think" about music like this. There are samples on Amazon of from the most recent disc although the music constantly changes tack from where it started off. The list of soloists in the band is impressive yet the writing is far more interesting with the saxes often split up in an almost languid hocket-like approach and frequently with the baritone playing counterpoint. The soprano seems to be used a lot as a lead instrument and there are moments where the band sounds like a large bandoneon. The Amazon samples are the best place to start. Tracks like "Quien te be" burns on a very slow fuse.

[Ian Thumwood]

Bruce Forman - "Forman on the Job"

Bruce Forman Quartet
with Joe Henderson guesting on four tracks
Kamei Recordings (Recorded in 1992)

Just discovered Bruce Forman. There doesn't seem to be a lot of recordings available. What a great guitarist.

Bruce Forman was amongst a crop of younger guitarists who popped up on the Concord label in the 1980s when Carl Jefferson was trying to reinvigorate the label with more contemporary artists like diverse Joanne Brackeen and Tania Maria. There are other players like peter Sprague and Emily Remler who were also signed by the label as well as veteran guitarists like Laurendo Almeda and the late Eddie Duran. I was surprised that both Sprague and Forman drifted out of the limelight but the latter did make a brilliant duet record with George Cables which I always wished I had bought. I think Forman was a West coast musician who was probably most established in that part of the States where he was highly considered.

Concord was a strange record label which emerged by producing a swathe of sessions by the more mainstream / modern players who were often veterans of the big bands from the 1940s. My Dad had a massive collection of this stuff which seemed to work on a mix and match basis in the 1970s. I think Jefferson did well to pursue this policy in the 1970s when jazz was either limited to the Loft scene or smothered by fusion. In the 1980s they got a lot more adventurous and signed veterans like Brubeck and the then "in vogue" Art Blakey whilst also promoting a younger generation of modernists such as Forman. At the time, I was obsessed with Tania Maria's music and snapped up loads of her stuff on the sister "Picante" subsidiary which also issued a lot of contemporary Latin jazz. I look back on Concord's recordings with some affection and thought the studio recording quality was on a par with ECM but without the post-production. Concord is a label that deserves to be remember more fondly.

[Serial_Apologist]

I have been enjoyed the latest album. This track is not on the disc but it markedly less abstract that the album I have . It is really interesting as the constant shifting and jumping of time signatures makes you wonder if he had used software to compose. It seems remarkable that someone can actually "think" about music like this. There are samples on Amazon of from the most recent disc although the music constantly changes tack from where it started off. The list of soloists in the band is impressive yet the writing is far more interesting with the saxes often split up in an almost languid hocket-like approach and frequently with the baritone playing counterpoint. The soprano seems to be used a lot as a lead instrument and there are moments where the band sounds like a large bandoneon. The Amazon samples are the best place to start. Tracks like "Quien te be" burns on a very slow fuse.

Thanks Ian. I suppose this does come across as a bit clever-clever, with pre-computerised rhythms rehearsed down to the last fractal duration. I would think this kind of development has as much to do with the sorts of rhythmic complexity and superhuman requirements for accurate reproduction that came from drum & bass samples created prefiltered through ratio co-ordinates, which live drummers then sought to humanise and adapt to interactive ends. At some point in the process of complexification, rhythmic superimposition can rather disappear up it own rectitude, except of course Latin purists would slate such departures from correct practices. But adapting from other musical cultures has always been what jazz has been about, and "losing the downbeat" has precedents aplenty for its trance-inducing possibilities.