What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Beef Oven!]

I've got the two Ron McClure CDs, the two Los Angeles Jazz Qrt dates with Chuck Manning, and the "Bill plays Bud (Powell) " by Bill Cunliffe which is a great little record. I had the Donny McCaskin, loads of early promise, but I lent it out and it........ disappeared.

It was an interesting label, A&Rd by Mike Nock?

BN.

I remember, and know little about the label (no idea who Mike Nock is!).

Currently listening to A £3.99, 33 track Qobuz download of Monica Zetterlund. I really like the songs sung in Swedish. I have her disc with Bill Evans on order from Japan.

She has such a beautiful voice.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I remember, and know little about the label (no idea who Mike Nock is!).

Currently listening to A £3.99, 33 track Qobuz download of Monica Zetterlund. I really like the songs sung in Swedish. I have her disc with Bill Evans on order from Japan.

She has such a beautiful voice.

Mike Noch was/is a New Zealand/Australia pianist, who played with Yusef Lateef etc in the USA/ 60s. Also in a more "freerer" context. He selected who was recorded. Monica Z is a knockout, the Bill Evans video and record is fabulous. She also lived and worked with Steve Kuhn in Stockholm. There is a really good feature film dramatisation of her life that was very big in Sweden a year ago. She had a very tragic ending in a fire. I'm a huge fan of her. Her "Lil Darlin'" with Lars Gullin on baritone is a beaut.

BN.

[Beef Oven!]

Mike Noch was/is a New Zealand/Australia pianist, who played with Yusef Lateef etc in the USA/ 60s. Also in a more "freerer" context. He selected who was recorded. Monica Z is a knockout, the Bill Evans video and record is fabulous. She also lived with Steve Kuhn in Stockholm. There is a really good feature film of her life that was very big in Sweden a year ago. She had a tragic ending in a fire. I'm a huge fan. Her "Lil Darlin'" with Lars Gullin on baritone is a beaut.

BN.

Thanks for the info B.N. I know next to nothing outside of the usual jazz suspects. I stumbled across Monica Z looking for some Bill Evans stuff outside of my LaFaro/Motian habitat.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for the info B.N. I know next to nothing outside of the usual jazz suspects. I stumbled across Monica Z looking for some Bill Evans stuff outside of my LaFaro/Motian habitat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj-Llz9Pc5A

Bit of a humorist, the toastmaster!

Not being a big vocalists fan, I must admit Ms Zetterlund was just a name.

[Beef Oven!]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj-Llz9Pc5A

Bit of a humorist, the toastmaster!

Not being a big vocalists fan, I must admit Ms Zetterlund was just a name.

Wonderful footage of Monicas Vals in that video series ..........

[Serial_Apologist]

Wonderful footage of Monicas Vals in that video series ..........

Bill Evans has probably influenced more jazz pianists in this country than anybody else I can think of - one of them being John Taylor, much missed, and I am very happy to share this link to a 2-part TV documentary from 1977* on Kenny Wheeler, the second part of which should follow on automatically if you let it run, which shows the two of them plus Norma Winstone recording the first of their trio Azimuth's albums at ECM's studios in Oslo.

(*For those located beyond the metropolis, jazz musicians and tube trains no longer resemble the ones depicted in these clips):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBRumrdDil8

Nick Smart, in charge of the Jazz Course at the Royal Academy, (Baker St tube, out left, pass Madame Tussauds and it's further along Marylebone Road on the same side), and himself a rather fine trumpet player, is presently writing Kenny's story up, so I've stuck some links about him on the Jazz in the Smoke thread for anyone interested, including a clip of the great Dave Holland rehearsing with the student orchestra there, (he's been back again just recently), and talking direct to camera.

(I'm not Nick Smart, btw, in case anybody suspects I might be!)

[Old Grumpy]

(I'm not Nick Smart, btw, in case anybody suspects I might be!)

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Hopefully not Billy Smart either! Although I've been watching a Dutch documentary on the birth of their free jazz scene which sometimes suggests it would be a gift to the circus and versa. Any William Breuker fans here? No, really...!

BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

Hopefully not Billy Smart either! Although I've been watching a Dutch documentary on the birth of their free jazz scene which sometimes suggests it would be a gift to the circus and versa. Any William Breuker fans here? No, really...!

BN.

Willem Breuker's Kollectief was excellent but only a art of their repertoire had anything to do with jazz. I think they were a band that you had to experience live yet the couple of records I have in my collection are extremely diverse in the repertoire. Discs might include music by Ennio Morricone, Ferde Grofe, Reginald Forsythe and especially Kurt Weill (Beauker was an expert on the latter's music) but could also include plenty of originals which might borrow from early 1930's big bands, minimalism, rock and roll and some pretty firey outside jazz. The band started off as a collective that supported striking workers in Holland yet managed to evolve into a band that explored the full gamut of 20th century music albeit not always totally seriously. The live performance I saw included a lot of theatre, musicians seeking to curtail lengthy solos, the use of seats as percussion instruments which would be used to tap out boleros and even members of the audience having their shoes polished. To use George Gruntz phrase, it was serious fun.

I remember talking to the musicians after the gig having been extremely impressed by the solos and the turn-on-a- sixpence agility of the section laying The piano player was particularly good. Sometimes the jokes might have worn a little thin ( Haydn trumpet concerto played on a car horn) but Breuker was extremely knowledgeable about music and was savvy enough to plunge in to some obscure 1920's repertoire rather like Sun Ra's less successful readings of Fletcher Henderson scores. Even more than Ra, the Kollectief was involved in musical theatre and therefore it is not far removed from being a circus. However, the free solos could be extremely strident and it was not only the leader who had some serious chops. For me, it is somewhat perverse that Sun Ra gets so lauded whereas Breuker was infinitely more musical and musically savvy. There are instances where his band may have done pastiches of Louis Prima and even composers like John Cage were not free from ridicule yet the music could instantly morph into music that might have resembled Louis Andreissen or the more coruscating jazz of someone like Joe McPhee. At their most "jazz inspired", I have recording where the band plays homage to Richard Twardzik.

I think that the Kollectief refracted the gamut of 20th century music and had the ability to present this incredible range as musical theatre where, especially in the likes of Weill, the music had originated. They are a strange band to categorise and their records are perhaps too eclectic to categorise but the whole effect on disc is entertaining and, in concert, a hugely enjoyable experience. "Bob's Gallery" ( album cover complete with Gary Larssen cartoon) is something of a classic and if you have the chance to get this from their BVHAAST label website, is as good a starting point as any. For my money this band was far, far more interesting than Sun Ra but, if your interest is limited to jazz and doesn't go much beyond, it would probably be wise to stay away.

[Ian Thumwood]

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I was surprised by how "established", for want of a word, they became. Breuker getting the equivalent of a Knighthood and the level of public subsidy and support, at least until the 1990s. To people who wanted to tear it all down. The Dutch scene had a very distinct character. Morton/Cook suggest a kind of Year Zero approach after the WW2 events. Stretching it but ...

[Stanfordian]

Tina Brooks with Freddie Hubbard, Duke Jordon, Sam Joes & Art Taylor
‘True Blue’
Blue Note (1960)

[Stanfordian]

Ike Quebec with Grant Green, Paul Chambers & Philly Joe Jones
‘Blue & Sentimental’
Blue Note (1961)

[Jazzrook]

A DVD of a Jazz 625 featuring Art Blakey's Jazz Messenger with John Gilmore in 1965.
Here's their wonderful version of 'I Can't Get Started':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jpaXmrX-Y0

JR

[Stanfordian]

Brother Jack McDuff with Leo Wright, Joe Dukes & Kenny Burrell
'Screamin'
Prestige (1962)