What Jazz are you listening to now?

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  • Ian Thumwood
    Full Member
    • Dec 2010
    • 4129

    I watched a fascinating documentary about Elvis Presley last night on BBC4. I have to admit that I know practically nothing about his music although I was aware that his early material was heavily indebted to blues and Black popular music. What little I had heard and seen always gave me the impression that he was incredibly kitsch and effectively ended up becoming a parody of himself. The documentary was framed along the context of his attempt to revive his career in the late sixties in the wake of bands such as The Beatles and the emerging counter-culture of the time. Effectively, it concerned attempts to make Presley sound relevant.

    What was interesting was that anything that he seemed to do which was "good", appeared to have been contrary to the advice of his manager, Col. Tom Parker. I was not aware how influenced Elvis had been by another popular singer of the day called Roy Hamilton nor the level of respect with which he had held him. The whole programme was a revelation to me as most of this was new as far as I was concerned. An attempt to cut and paste Presley with the more "modern" Memphis sound appeared to have been an artistic success yet Parker prevented any attempt at a follow up due to a dispute over royalty rights. Ultimately, Presley ended up performing endless gigs in Las Vegas , initially with critical acclaim before becoming totally bored by the process.

    It was a fascinating programme, in my opinion, because this was all new to me. What was interesting was that although his career was successfully revived, it struck me that he never managed to come up with a permanent solution to sounding "modern." He was a talented singer and ended up fronting what was effectively a really tight big band including backing singers. By this point the musical production behind him was very professional and well played although often undone by some incredibly corny material such as a mish-mash of popular American theme including "Dixie." With the hindsight of fifty years, these latter performances are probably played by better musicians than he had had backing him previously but seem almost like a pastiche and irrelevant if you consider what else was happening in popular music at the time of the late sixties / mid seventies. (Thinking about bands / musicians like E,W&F, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, NY Loft scene, etc.) Instead of making Presley relevant, he was recast as decidedly middle-of-the-road.

    Not knowing this story before, I was left wondering whether any other manager has ever been so detrimental to a musician's artistic output. Some of the clips from Presley's films were used as examples as to how Parker's crass and overbearing demands for royalties ensured that no decent songwriters would associate themselves with Presley. Given Presley's inability to write his own material, this meant employing some decidedly second rate songwriters which subsequently had a detrimental effect on his popularity after the early 1960's. No one believed in the material he was given to perform.

    This was a really good documentary and a fascinating insight into how an attempt to make a musician's work more commercial can backfire. As a fan of jazz and blues, the earlier material which kick-started his career definitely shares an affinity with some blues artists I enjoy. After that and excluding the brief flirtation with Memphis, the documentary was a salutary lesson in letting a non-musician making artistic decisions. In every case cited in the documentary, whenever Presley rejected the advice, the consequence was to the betterment of his work. Having been totally unaware of a lot of his work, I felt this documentary was very interesting even if the music did make me wince more than once.
    Last edited by Ian Thumwood; 18-04-20, 09:18. Reason: typos

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    • BLUESNIK'S REVOX
      Full Member
      • Dec 2010
      • 4270

      Elvis's early Sun recordings were much liked by my contemporaries, given our ages, and we hunted down the first two HMV "Rock an Roll" LPs (Pre RCA). Despite all the often justified derision, those early blues remakes have a lot of flair, invention and drive. Scotty Moore especially. The one thing I find positive with Presley is that in his early days he would go to Beale Street, hang out, and be respectfully photographed with BB King, Roscoe Gordon, Bobby Blue Bland, Rufus Thomas etc. I always wondered how that played with his Southern white demographic. As for the films, mostly "slot in" awful, although he did have talent. I once had a fight with a kid in grammar school who insisted Elvis played the guitar solo on "King Creole" because he'd "seen him do it on the film" (sic). The intensity of 13 year olds! BN.

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      • Bert
        Banned
        • Apr 2020
        • 327

        Harold Land Quintet - The Peace-Maker (1968)

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        • Ian Thumwood
          Full Member
          • Dec 2010
          • 4129

          Originally posted by BLUESNIK'S REVOX View Post
          The one thing I find positive with Presley is that in his early days he would go to Beale Street, hang out, and be respectfully photographed with BB King, Roscoe Gordon, Bobby Blue Bland, Rufus Thomas etc. I always wondered how that played with his Southern white demographic. .
          This featured quite heavily in the documentary. I was quite surprised that Elvis did not fit the stereotypical white male from the Southern states. It was pretty clear how indebted he felt to black artists but maybe not so obvious that he was a supporter of Martin Luther King even to the extent of incorporating parts of his "I have a dream" speech in to a song. I am not advocating his music by any mean yet the man himself was probably far more liberal than you might have envisaged. The reaction against his music initially came from an older generation of the public and you sense that the people buying his records would have similarly bought in to his original, blues-influenced concepts which had picked up from what was happening elsewhere since the late 1940s. It was quite clear that practically everything artistically negative about Presley stemmed from his manager to the extent that the better songwriters of the day shunned him whereas the positive elements evolved from other people's ideas that had been shunned by his manager. As a record of how commerciality can be totally detrimental to "artistic vision," this documentary was extremely successful.

          What struck me as interesting was that, ultimately, attempts to "modernize" his music often had the opposite effect. Having known very little about him previously as I had no interest, the premise of the BBC4 programme was intriguing. The role of an artist's manager is something that have never really been discussed in this board. I was aware of Joe Glaser's management of Louis Armstrong ultimately having a negative impact on the trumpeter's output with particular projects such as the proposed collaboration with Gil Evans being rejected. (Both Armstrong and Evans were allegedly very enthusiastic about such a project. Armstrong loved Evans' work with Miles where the arranger often referred to himself as Armstrong's biggest fan. Personally, I have always thought that this was potentially the greatest jazz album never made.) I do not think that Glaser's involvement was as detrimental as Parker's upon Presley which I learned seemed to have been on a different scale. The only other manager in jazz I know of was Irving Mills who got a similar bad press with jazz fans / critics. From the point of view looking back from 2020, it seems to me that Mills' involvement did leave behind a wealth of classic jazz recordings from Ellington, Calloway and MBRB. At least his artists judgement seems to have been totally sane.

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          • Stanfordian
            Full Member
            • Dec 2010
            • 9308

            ‘Back to the Tracks’ - Tina Brooks
            Tina Brooks with Blue Mitchell, Kenny Drew, Paul Chambers & Art Taylor
            Blue Note (1960)

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            • Bert
              Banned
              • Apr 2020
              • 327

              Jeff Beck - Performing This Week ... Live At Ronnie Scott’s

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              • BLUESNIK'S REVOX
                Full Member
                • Dec 2010
                • 4270

                Found this intriguing. Listening to a tape of an old JRR and this came up as a request. I missed Alyn's intro and halfway through I thought Miles with Gil Evans maybe, but I know most of that but I don't recognisr this. Turns out its the John Lewis, Gunther Schuller, JJ Johnson Third Stream album from 1956/7, the JJ Johnson piece "Poem for Brass" featuring Miles. Miles comes in at just after five minutes...http://youtu.be/VQqei38jWt0

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                • Stanfordian
                  Full Member
                  • Dec 2010
                  • 9308

                  ‘Bossa Nova Bacchanal’ - Charlie Rouse
                  Charlie Rouse with Kenny Burrell, Chauncey 'Lord' Westbrook, Larry Gales, Willie Bobo, Carlos 'Patato' Valdes & Garvin Masseaux
                  Epic (1961)
                  ‘Yeah!’ - Charlie Rouse (included as bonus album on ‘Bossa Nova Bacchanal’ CD)
                  Charlie Rouse with Freddie Hubbard, McCoy Tyner, Bob Cranshaw & Billy Higgins
                  Epic (1965)

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                  • Joseph K
                    Banned
                    • Oct 2017
                    • 7765

                    Charlie Christian - The Daddy of 'em All

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                    • Jazzrook
                      Full Member
                      • Mar 2011
                      • 3061

                      Originally posted by BLUESNIK'S REVOX View Post
                      Al McLean Quartet - "Theme for Ernie" ,written by Fred Lacey (a guitarist I believe), in tribute to the then recently deceased Ernie Henry. Song picked up by John Coltrane on "Soultrane"...Al McLean is a Canadian saxophonist I like a lot...

                      http://youtu.be/jVTrtVSGMPA
                      That was fascinating, BN.
                      McCoy Tyner also recorded this with Henry Grimes & Roy Haynes on his 1962 album 'Reaching Fourth':

                      McCoy Tyner Trio - Theme for Ernie (1962) Personnel: McCoy Tyner (piano), Henry Grimes (bass), Roy Haynes (drums)from the album 'REACHING FOURTH' (Impluse Re...


                      JR

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                      • Bert
                        Banned
                        • Apr 2020
                        • 327

                        Bobby Hutcherson - Total Eclipse (1968)

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                        • Joseph K
                          Banned
                          • Oct 2017
                          • 7765

                          Originally posted by Joseph K View Post
                          Charlie Christian - The Daddy of 'em All
                          Second disk of this.

                          Particularly enjoyed this just now -

                          HI, we would like to present you something new musically speaking. Our tracks are not present in the YouTube library. Our music library contains thousands of...
                          Last edited by Joseph K; 21-04-20, 06:54.

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                          • Ian Thumwood
                            Full Member
                            • Dec 2010
                            • 4129

                            I dug out some old CDs that I hadn't played for years yesterday including:-

                            1. Benny Carter big band - "Central Park Suite" -amazing to see the line up of the band which includes John Lewis, Ron carter, Lew Tobackin, Jimmy Knepper, etc, etc.

                            2. Keith Jarrett - "At the Deer Head Inn." With Paul Motian and Gary Peacock. I really like this disc and perhaps something Bruce will want to explore?

                            3. Arild Anderson / Ralph Towner / Nana Vasconcelos - "If you look far enough." On Ok disc but 50% is given over to Anderson's processed bass.

                            4. Edward Vesala - "Nordic Gallery." Got to say that Vesala's music still retains it's shock value. This is his last ECM disc and one record that I never really understood. "Lumi" was the last LP I bought before switching to CDs but I never followed Vesala's music until buying this record. It is a mixture of contemporary music, almost Gil Evans'-like picture painting and strict-tempo dance music with a fondness for tangoes. The accordeon features heavily in the arrangements but then Jimi Sumen's distorted electric guitar emerges out of the soundscape. The whole effect of this disc is disconcerting. I was never sure whether this was actually jazz but a track like " the Quay of Meditative Future" is hugely impressive. No matter how often you listen to this record, I doubt if you will ever come to a conclusion as to what it is exactly about. Vesala seems a forgotten name these days have been very much part of the European free jazz scene until his death in 1995. I will have to give "Lumi" as spin next.


                            5. Dino Saluzzi - "Long ago....far away on the South" with Palle Mikkelborg, Pierre Favre and Charlie Haden. ECM

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                            • Stanfordian
                              Full Member
                              • Dec 2010
                              • 9308


                              'Lee-Way' - Lee Morgan

                              Lee Morgan with Jackie McLean, Bobby Timmins, Paul Chambers & Art Blakey
                              Blue Note (1960)

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                              • Jazzrook
                                Full Member
                                • Mar 2011
                                • 3061

                                Ken McIntyre with Jaki Byard, Ron Carter & Ben Riley playing 'Laura' from the 1962 United Artists album 'Year Of The Iron Sheep':

                                Provided to YouTube by Universal Music GroupLaura · Ken McIntyreYear Of The Iron Sheep℗ A Blue Note Records Release; ℗ 1962 Capitol Records, LLCReleased on: ...


                                JR

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