What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Joseph K]

'Perceptions' - the second album on the seventh disk of the aforementioned Dizzy Gillespie box; however, this appears to be primarily a J. J. Johnson album.

[Stanfordian]

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

[Joseph K]

Now - Miles Davis - Filles de Kilimanjaro

Gotta say - this is a profound album. At its best, e.g. on Petits Machins, it is truly mystical.

[Jazzrook]

Clifford Jordan Quartet with Cedar Walton, Sam Jones & Albert "Tootie" Heath playing 'St. Thomas' at the Half Note, NYC on April 5, 1974:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=9Pxj67vJLec

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

Gotta say - this is a profound album. At its best, e.g. on Petits Machins, it is truly mystical.

I remember JRR playing "Toute Suite" from it when the album first came out - which must have been later in 1968 as I recall then living at my parents' and hearing it there. Whoever was introducing the programme back then - possibly Peter Clayton - made a big thing about them not normally playing a track of 14 minutes' duration, but this one required playing in its entirety to make any sense of it, or something like that. That particular track seemed so radical at the time.

[eighthobstruction]

Zoot Sims/Stan Tracey....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm4BrMySU7g


Stan Tracey/Simon Allen / Marc Armstrong....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYIFIHTUDtU

[Joseph K]

Whetting my appetite for the new Allan Holdsworth release (the delivery of which I am waiting for any day now) by listening to one of the tunes from it, since it's up on youtube - I don't want to spoil it by listening to the whole thing.

I have to say, on the strength of the performance of 'Tokyo Dream' which is very dreamlike indeed, we have much to look forward to!

[Ian Thumwood]

I dug out my copy of Iain Ballamy's "All men, amen" yesterday. I had forgotten how good this record was and regret that I never picked up the earlier "Balloon man" disc too. It is amazing to think that this record is about 25 years old. I have always felt that Ballamy was the most interesting of the British tenor players to emerge in the 1980s and more rewarding than any of Courtney Pine, Andy Sheppard, Steve Williamson or Tommy Smith, all of whom seemed to capture the press's imagination more. This particularly album has a kind of pastoral feel to it and the compositions are very strong. Django Bates in of keyboards.

I think the album cover is pretty good too with Ballamy transformed in to a Neanderthal welding a stick!

[Stanfordian]

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

[Jazzrook]

J.J. Johnson Quartet with Tommy Flanagan, Paul Chambers & Max Roach playing 'Blue Trombone' in 1957:

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

JR

[Joseph K]

So I didn't get far into that video of the Chris Potter Underground before I decided I'd rather listen to their first record, which is on youtube - currently listening to their nice performance of Radiohead's Morning Bell.

[Ian Thumwood]

I think it was SA who made a comment about LPs a few week's back. About 4 years ago I invested in a decent quality hi-fi unit and then decided afterwards to buy a deck to play my LPs. I had not played them for years because my needle was worn on the old system. The experience just served to remind my why I quickly switched to CDs when they first came out. To go alongside the deck, I bought an LP copy of Chet Baker's iconic "Playboys" and quickly found that there was a bit of surface noise. My romantic opinion of LPs only lasted a short while - not only because the record surfaces are so vulnerable but also because the actual recordings are not always so well remastered. The Chet disc is a good case in point even if you set aside the distinctly average quality of the session. (the best element of which is Jimmy Heath's writing.) Baker's playing is nothing to write home about of this record which is pretty underwhelming.

I also dragged out a few 1980's LPs. Branford Marsalis' "Royal Garden Blues" has a rotating all start cast including Herbie and is decent enough although, I would stress, nothing like as good as his work in the late 1990s and 2000s which displays the ferociousness of a rottwieller on crack. The other album was Miles' 1981 "renaissance" disc called "The man with the horn" - surprisingly issued without any sense of irony. It is incredible to realise that this is 40 years old now! The record has a poor reputation which is perhaps not in balance. I think it does feature some of Miles' last efforts to try to play jazz before he came a sad parody pop act. Joseph made a comment this week about understanding why Miles was special yet playing these two discs back-to-back makes the "new Neos" to have backed the right horse. For me, it is Stern and Evans who provide the muscle on this record which is not quite the disaster zone critics have suggested. I would concur that Miles had become the consummate poseur by this point and the earnestness of the likes of Branford, Kirkland, Moffett, etc seems more credible to my ears. It is surprising to hear Ron Carter along with his middle aged contemporaries Al Foster, Herbie Hancock and Larry Willis on this disc still employing his rubbery tone production. The younger bassists on this record have the edge, I think.

[Joseph K]

Miles Davis Quintet (with Lee Konitz) - Half Nelson (Live at the Royal Roost, New York City, September 25, 1948)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R1pL9hTnPE

[Stanfordian]

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

[Joseph K]

Pleased to have found another performance by Lage of this tune: