What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Stanfordian]

I don't know it either. Stan - how did you come to know it and what's it like?

Hiya Joseph K,

It's on the Avid Jazz 2 CD set 'John Coltrane & Associates' - Four Classic Albums Plus (Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane / Cattin With Coltrane And Quinichette / Jazz Way Out / Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane).

As I have said before I know virtually nothing about Jazz. I just play it.

[Ian Thumwood]

Picking up the debate about "fusion" and the use of technology in jazz, Joseph might be intrigued by Jeff Parker's 2016 album "The New Blood." Parker also has one foot in improvising rock group "Tortoise" as well as connections with more heady Chicago jazz musicians such as Fred Anderson and Nicole Mitchell. In a jazz context, he always seems like a disciple of Wes Montgomery in tone but he is intriguing because of his approach which purposely eschews more extrovert soloing.

"The New Blood" is the first in a two volume set where he purposely decided to abandon his usual composing techniques to embrace technology to push his music in to less familiar and comfortable zones. The first track uses sampling and has a stuttering break beat over which he solos. Before the piece closes, the tune takes a different tact and this sets the tone of the whole album because it does not do the obvious. There is a lot of sampling, loops and drum programming which would normally put me off. The record sounds very homespun and even low-tech with a consequence that it is a million miles away from something like "Tutu."

There was a thread on this board about 7 or 8 years ago which discussed which jazz guitarists had the potential to take the instrument on from previous innovators such as John Scofield, Bill Frisell and the like. The two names which stood out as being genuinely innovative on that thread were Mary Halvorson and Jeff Parker. Of the two, Parker is clearly more "in the tradition" whilst being resolutely non-conformist. He is a musician who is never going to be less than interesting whilst you can understand why someone who is so independent might isolate some fans. "The New Breed" seems on paper to be an attempt at a more commercial approach and whilst some of the tracks either have a catchy hook or a contemporary groove, the use of technology is the antithesis of something that the likes of musicians as different as Pat Metheny, Allan Holdsworth , John McLaughlin or Bill Frisell might do. Despite the beats employed, this record still comes across as edgy and innovative.

[Joseph K]

Stan - thanks for the info.

Ian - I like Mary Halvorson, so I'll check out Jeff Parker. I think this might be the thread you refer to: http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...s-playing-Jazz

[Joseph K]

I take it, that by 'The New Blood', Ian meant 'The New Breed'; I've just started listening to it.

[Joseph K]

Gotta say, I wasn't enamoured by Jeff Parker. Oh well.

Who is everyone's favourite guitarist out of this lot? -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rsGjeYwMrE

Tal Farlow gets off to a quiet understated start, which is ok, but I prefer soloists who are more forceful and strident, qualities that, however, you could say are possessed here by Larry Coryell, however, I am not impressed by repeating the same thing over and over again without varying it. John Abercrombie is better, certainly, but my favourite is Scofield. Larry Carlton is ok...

Tal is better on his earlier recordings...

[Stanfordian]

‘Tom Cat’ - Lee Morgan
with Curtis Fuller, Jackie McLean, McCoy Tyner, Bob Cranshaw & Art Blakey
Blue Note (1964)

[Jazzrook]

Frank Strozier with Booker Little, Wynton Kelly. Paul Chambers & Jimmy Cobb playing 'Waltz Of The Demons' in 1960:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=eU1Ruiw9fsA

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

Gotta say, I wasn't enamoured by Jeff Parker. Oh well.

Who is everyone's favourite guitarist out of this lot? -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rsGjeYwMrE

Tal Farlow gets off to a quiet understated start, which is ok, but I prefer soloists who are more forceful and strident, qualities that, however, you could say are possessed here by Larry Coryell, however, I am not impressed by repeating the same thing over and over again without varying it. John Abercrombie is better, certainly, but my favourite is Scofield. Larry Carlton is ok...

Tal is better on his earlier recordings...

Yes Tal Farlow really belongs to a more intimate style of playing than this headlights context. If this has to be a contest I suppose I'd tie Abercrombie with Sco, the Mike Brecker of guitarists, but there's many over here who to me are just as good, and we've been naming a few, but our dear old friend Jim Mullen for one would have cut 'em all, and as an add-on you get his humour too!

With sincerest apologies for the announcer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nUDqjqHAPw

[Joseph K]

Yes Tal Farlow really belongs to a more intimate style of playing than this headlights context. If this has to be a contest I suppose I'd tie Abercrombie with Sco, the Mike Brecker of guitarists, but there's many over here who to me are just as good, and we've been naming a few, but our dear old friend Jim Mullen for one would have cut 'em all, and as an add-on you get his humour too!

With sincerest apologies for the announcer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nUDqjqHAPw

Thanks for sharing this. He's a very melodic improviser who I heard for the first time the other week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJr5eLtBQSc

[Jazzrook]

Wes Montgomery playing 'Four on Six' in 1965:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=zxTD1XQTcyk

JR

[Quarky]

I'm late, I'm late - Stan Getz.

Stan's finest moment?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAyrdlUcZIw&list=RDqAyrdlUcZIw&start_radio=1

[Ian Thumwood]

Yes Tal Farlow really belongs to a more intimate style of playing than this headlights context. If this has to be a contest I suppose I'd tie Abercrombie with Sco, the Mike Brecker of guitarists, but there's many over here who to me are just as good, and we've been naming a few, but our dear old friend Jim Mullen for one would have cut 'em all, and as an add-on you get his humour too!

With sincerest apologies for the announcer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nUDqjqHAPw

I think the UK is blessed with a number of really good guitarists. I have only seen Jim Mullen perform once and that was with Gene Harris's quartet at the Concorde Club. The group was ok and I had gone along with my Dad because Harris was his favourite jazz pianist. For my money Mike Walker remains the best guitarist that I think I have heard from the UK. Quite how he never gets the kudos he deserves amazes me. I have seen him on numerous occasions and in duets through to working with big bands. A lot of his playing comes out of Scofield who remains The guitarist par excellence in jazz. There are other players like John Parricelli who get over-looked as well.

I was playing Martin Taylor's album "Solo" yesterday and thinking that he is a musician who has everything. It is quite interesting to hear names like Tal Farlow rattled off as a player like Taylor is probably as soon as example of how jazz technique in the more Mainstream field has developed. The repertoire largely consists of familiar material but what I love about the album "Solo" is that you can almost hear the guitarist's mind ticking over as he improvises his way through what are ultimately a series of musical puzzles. Sometimes he sounds like he has run himself down in to a hole but he always seems to extract himself. I could see this been the kind of jazz album that might be dismissed as "retrospective" yet I think it is "old fashioned " for all the right reasons. It really swings, he has a great tone and I think that the kind of jazz he produces is mesmerizing. Taylor effectively has his antecedents from a generation of players who emerged in the 30s-50s and this is mixed with a degree of contemporary savvy. He is as good an example that you can get of a player still producing great jazz from older styles.

It is difficult for me not to think of Scofield, Frisell, Abercrombie and Metheny dominating jazz guitar for the last 40 years. They have been so influential that successive generations of players seem to have taken something from them. Of the younger players, the three that I think have offered something radically different are Mary Halvorson although I am not convinced that she is as much of a technical player as opposed to a radical rethinker of her instrument which probably owes a lot to working with Anthony Braxton even if you can hear a lot of her mentor Philip Catherine in her playing. I enjoyed her playing at a John Zorn gig last year. The other player who is equally radical is Lionel Loueke and totally unique. Again, he is another player I have heard perform live and been awestruck by. There is an exceptional trio album by Jeff Ballard called "Times tales" which is completed by Migeul Zenon on alto, Loueke is incredible on this disc and I think it deserved a follow up if only for the reason that one of the "tunes" was actually a notated bird song. The line up is almost the same as Paul Motion's celebrated trio yet the result is totally different. As a birdwatcher, I really wish that Ballard had reconvened the trio for whole album of birdsong jazz. The result sounded like Ornette Coleman.

I am not too surprised that Joseph did not like Jeff Parker. Parker strikes me as a player that it takes a long while to appreciate. He is a musician who is there to test and probe and not to play to the gallery. He is a resolutely independent kind of soloist. I think there is something of Wes Montgomery in his sound yet why I feel he is interesting is because of his approach to jazz. It does tend towards the introspection (I have a trio record he made for Delmark where some of the tracks have a gossamer effect and almost peter out. It can be disconcerting. ) and there are accounts of him on line going gigs from armchairs to a small audience. He is at his most radical when working with Chicago avants like Fred Anderson and Nicole Mitchell. The latter's quartet album "Awakening" is one of the best albums from the 2010s and perhaps the flautist's best band. He has also performed in more orthodox "fusion" contexts with the likes of Peter Erskine. To my ears, he is very much a non-conformist and even seemingly "populist" records like "The New Breed" only have a superficial relationship to fusion. The technology is just to tool to prompt a different approach and not a veneer to improve the production value. The disc refuses to have a rigid focus and never rests in any zone and even when taking it's cues from Hip hop beats, the whole effect comes across a "low tech." The most effective track is "Get dressed" which shows that Parker can burn, albeit on a very slow fuse. I prefer his work with other musicians whilst appreciating that he is applying his own, uncompromising ethos for more contemporary styles. He is more "in the tradition" than either Halvorson or Loueke but I think maybe more uncompromising in how he applies himself. One of those musicians I think you can judge by who he associates with.

[Ian Thumwood]

I'm late, I'm late - Stan Getz.

Stan's finest moment?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAyr...&start_radio=1

Eddie Sauter's finest moment ?

[Joseph K]

I am not too surprised that Joseph did not like Jeff Parker. Parker strikes me as a player that it takes a long while to appreciate. He is a musician who is there to test and probe and not to play to the gallery. He is a resolutely independent kind of soloist. I think there is something of Wes Montgomery in his sound yet why I feel he is interesting is because of his approach to jazz. It does tend towards the introspection (I have a trio record he made for Delmark where some of the tracks have a gossamer effect and almost peter out. It can be disconcerting. ) and there are accounts of him on line going gigs from armchairs to a small audience. He is at his most radical when working with Chicago avants like Fred Anderson and Nicole Mitchell. The latter's quartet album "Awakening" is one of the best albums from the 2010s and perhaps the flautist's best band. He has also performed in more orthodox "fusion" contexts with the likes of Peter Erskine. To my ears, he is very much a non-conformist and even seemingly "populist" records like "The New Breed" only have a superficial relationship to fusion. The technology is just to tool to prompt a different approach and not a veneer to improve the production value. The disc refuses to have a rigid focus and never rests in any zone and even when taking it's cues from Hip hop beats, the whole effect comes across a "low tech." The most effective track is "Get dressed" which shows that Parker can burn, albeit on a very slow fuse. I prefer his work with other musicians whilst appreciating that he is applying his own, uncompromising ethos for more contemporary styles. He is more "in the tradition" than either Halvorson or Loueke but I think maybe more uncompromising in how he applies himself. One of those musicians I think you can judge by who he associates with.

Sorry, but if in 'The New Breed' Jeff Parker was testing an probing, it still wasn't very interesting. I have no problem with a guitarist not playing to the gallery, if the music is still interesting, but I'm afraid that that was not the case in The New Breed, which was pretty bland. Certainly it was devoid of the rich, colourful harmonic palette and subtle lilting rhythms of someone like Allan Holdsworth etc.

Ant Law is one of the finest guitarists around at the moment (in Britain or not) whose compositions are also great. I currently have his CD Entanglement on, check these tracks out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ljh_nQT8bY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkhKruc5bTM

[Ian Thumwood]

Jeff Parker playing Coltrane's masterpiece composition, "After the rain".....