What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Stanfordian]

'Destination... Out!' - Jackie McLean
with Grachan Moncur II, Bobby Hutcherson, Larry Ridley & Roy Haynes
Blue Note (1963)

[Ian Thumwood]

I was looking at the album guitarist Vic Juris recorded for Steeplechase last night. It was sad hearing of his passing back in January and he always seemed to be a modest and approachable contributor on the old All About Jazz message board. Stylistically, I suppose that you would put him in the same category as someone like John Abercrombie since his understanding of harmony was so good. It is a shame that he did not get the attention that his playing deserved.

[Serial_Apologist]

Bluesnik & Jazzrook

Oddly enough, All About Jazz had an interview with Matthew Shipp yesterday which makes reference to the influence of Cecil Taylor and explains in greater detail where his influences come from. I have to be to honest and say that the comments in this interview are far more insightful than what has been witnessed on J-Z of late. The observations that fascinate me are his analysis of how different the approach to improvisation is amongst different members of the Free Jazz community as well as his perception of the influence of the piano playing of Duke Ellington. The latter remark really resonates with me. I find Ellington to have been an exceptional soloist and one who has had a spectacularly long reach influencing other pianists like Monk, Andrew Hill, Cecil Taylor, Jason Moran, etc. It is also fascinating to read Shipp's comments about Andrew Hill. I have the trio album he mentioned in a box set and will need to listen to this again after reading with article. You will both find this extremely interesting.

Cheers

Ian

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/matthew...-matthew-shipp

Thanks for posting that allaboutjazz link, Ian - very interesting, plenty of food for thought!

BTW I don't know if you saw my reply to your post on the Hank Mobley Film thread?

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Shipp..."I was really young, but it really hit me how music is language both in a literal and in an abstract figurative way. So, you know, even in my strident times, that was on the back of my mind. I think at a certain point, it was just like, "Wait a minute, I can be as out as I want to be, but I'm never going to get more profound than Bud Powell or Monk." So I might as well relax into the idea that you're a musician foremost, and you're trying to communicate whatever can be communicated in the realm of a phrase. There can be something really beautiful about just playing a bunch of tunes. There's no reason to try to get away from the very essential aspects of making music in that way. "

My feelings entirely!

BN.

[Bert]

John Scofield - Time On My Hands. 1990 (recorded 1989).

Joe Lovano - saxophone
Charlie Haden - bass
Jack DeJohnette - drums
John Scofield - guitar

One of my favourite jazz albums of modern times.

[Ian Thumwood]

John Scofield - Time On My Hands. 1990 (recorded 1989).

Joe Lovano - saxophone
Charlie Haden - bass
Jack DeJohnette - drums
John Scofield - guitar

One of my favourite jazz albums of modern times.

Totally agree. This is a brilliant record.

[Ian Thumwood]

Got to hold my hand up to the fact that I find Cuban jazz fascinating. I dug out by record of Jesus Alemany's "Cubanissimo" big band last night. I had forgotten how good the music was and had some fun translating the titles back from Spanish whilst listening. The tunes don't sound so inspiring when your realise that the titles refer to things like "Bartholo's banana plantation!"

The music often seems to centre around four bar phrases yet the rhythm and use of percussion always puts me in mind with Bach fugues. It is absolutely fascinating how the different percussion instruments dovetail together. I find bands such a Cubanissimo to be really tight. Shame that no one else here seems to have much enthusiasm for this kind of jazz.

[Joseph K]

Shame that no one else here seems to have much enthusiasm for this kind of jazz.

… well I'm not sure if it's considered Cuban (probably not) but I was listening to Dizzy Gillespie's 'Afro' the other day...

[Joseph K]

… on which note: Dizzy Gillespie at Newport.

[Serial_Apologist]

Got to hold my hand up to the fact that I find Cuban jazz fascinating. I dug out by record of Jesus Alemany's "Cubanissimo" big band last night. I had forgotten how good the music was and had some fun translating the titles back from Spanish whilst listening. The tunes don't sound so inspiring when your realise that the titles refer to things like "Bartholo's banana plantation!"

The music often seems to centre around four bar phrases yet the rhythm and use of percussion always puts me in mind with Bach fugues. It is absolutely fascinating how the different percussion instruments dovetail together. I find bands such a Cubanissimo to be really tight. Shame that no one else here seems to have much enthusiasm for this kind of jazz.

OOh, I do!!!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Kenny Dorham & group.."Afrodisia" (From "Afro-Cuban", Bluenote) ...

http://youtu.be/axcH4-ClRAI

[Joseph K]

… on which note: Dizzy Gillespie at Newport.

I have to say that, while I don't not like this, I do get the sense of 'oh, this is why Miles was special' - I mean, because of Dizzy's playful demeanour and playing, the vocals and what I gather to be some silliness that elicits laughter from the crowd...

[Stanfordian]

‘Heavy Soul’ - Ike Quebec
with Freddie Roach, Milt Hinton, Al Harewood
Blue Note (1961)

[Serial_Apologist]

Just now, British pianist Barry Green's "the Music of Chance" with his New York Trio alongside bassist Ben Street and Jeff Williams, from 2006. Green - who replaced the late Pete Saberton in Henry Lowther's Still Waters, and has also worked with that fine tenor saxophonist and great guy Denys Baptiste, eschews the kinds of post-Jarrett approaches favoured by EST, Tom Cawley, Kit Downes and co, preferring to look back for inspiration to the trios of Paul Bley in the 1960s. Annette Peacock has said that Bley played with the minimalist approach he did because he only later learned how to integrate what his left hand could contribute in the context of free playing. I've often wondered about what must have surely been the psychological impact of the advent of Cecil Taylor on free jazz-orientating pianists wishing to avoid either Bill Evans or McCoy Tyner approaches. I seem to remember reading of Paul Bley's conscious adoption of a different route to distinguish his own contribution from Taylor's maximalist challenge to the piano's seeming physical limitations. We have seen Matthew Shipp's too, and his fascination for Andrew Hill, who I remember as being seen as a figure bridging the supposed chasm separating free from straight ahead in the 1960s, stemming from the benefits of later hindsight. I would argue there is nothing wrong with continuiing to mine areas of innovation that have been largely ditched in subsequent years by their progenitors when there remains mileage in them: with Miles Davis the turn to rock and funk has in no way dissuaded later adviocates of the practices of the "second quintet", and Barry's approach seems to have been based on an advocacy of Bley's pared down approach - to some extent also drawing on Herbie Hancock's audible debt to Bley in that same period - and here, in a selection which includes austere interpretations of standards such as Stevie Wonder's "I Believe", "Someone to Watch over Me", but also Monk's lesser known "Played Twice" and, to conclude, a giveaway Lee Konitz's "Subconscious Lee" to emphasise his choice of lineage. The start to "Someone..." is presented unaccompanied for several choruses without recourse to left hand detail infilling of the kind Jarrett would indulge in - Barry goes even further in leaving it to the imagination that would John Taylor. Rarely does he let loose with note streamers, though one knows he can do these, preferring the slow long leap across harmonic markers, prodding the interstices. Ben Street, acting as the performance fulcrum, holds down the fundamentals the way Kent Carter had for Bley. Drummer Jeff Williams, known as something of a driver who have seen his way with young British guys, here does what imv he does best, shadowing every move, mirroring and interacting in the manner Paul Motian did on those influential Bley sides.

[Joseph K]

Miles Smiles