What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Ian Thumwood]

[Ian Thumwood]

Bryn

I listened to parts of this but regret to say that I found the whole experience totally depressing. To be honest, I am not too sure just how much a lot of this is actually jazz. This kind of music presents a big barrier for a large proportion of people and I think the biggest problem it presents is that it seems more about technique than music making. The piano /trumpet duet was the best example of this. The pianist had bags of technique but was unable to say anything with it.

The free improvisation approach ti music making is fraught with risk and it really takes something incredible to make it work in my opinion. There is nothing worse than bad avant garde. Another problem I have is trying to reconcile this with jazz. There are plenty of musicians around who still largely work in a free jazz context yet repeatedly pull the rabbit out of the hat. It still remains potent as long as it is coming out of the jazz tradition which so much music from the Loft scene demonstrable did. A lot of the music in this clips seems like music students with little or no feeling for jazz. The best of the bunch was the sax/ drum duo at the end.

Sorry, but much of this stuff was not for me.

[Stanfordian]

‘My Conception’ – Sonny Clarke
with Donald Byrd, Hank Mobley, Art Farmer, Paul Chambers & Art Blakey
Blue Note (1957/59)

[Stanfordian]

Bryn

I listened to parts of this but regret to say that I found the whole experience totally depressing. To be honest, I am not too sure just how much a lot of this is actually jazz. This kind of music presents a big barrier for a large proportion of people and I think the biggest problem it presents is that it seems more about technique than music making. The piano /trumpet duet was the best example of this. The pianist had bags of technique but was unable to say anything with it.

The free improvisation approach ti music making is fraught with risk and it really takes something incredible to make it work in my opinion. There is nothing worse than bad avant garde. Another problem I have is trying to reconcile this with jazz. There are plenty of musicians around who still largely work in a free jazz context yet repeatedly pull the rabbit out of the hat. It still remains potent as long as it is coming out of the jazz tradition which so much music from the Loft scene demonstrable did. A lot of the music in this clips seems like music students with little or no feeling for jazz. The best of the bunch was the sax/ drum duo at the end.

Sorry, but much of this stuff was not for me.

It was just noise to me.

[Jazzrook]

Julius Hemphill, Baikida Carroll, Abdul Wadud & Phillip Wilson playing 'Dogon A.D.' in 1972:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=BcxmrZ_l51o

JR

[Jazzrook]

George Russell Sextet with John Gilmore, Don Ellis, Dave Baker, Steve Swallow & Pete La Roca playing 'The Outer View' at Newport J.F., July, 1964:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=sF6f4ELa5d0

JR

[Ian Thumwood]

Julius Hemphill, Baikida Carroll, Abdul Wadud & Phillip Wilson playing 'Dogon A.D.' in 1972:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=BcxmrZ_l51o

JR

Marty Ehrlich is currently involved in a project to promote Julius Hemphill's work. I had forgotten that Abdul Wadud was on this record.

[Stanfordian]

'Undercurrent' - Kenny Drew
with Freddie Hubbard, Hank Mobley, Sam Jones & Louis Hayes
Blue Note (1960)

[Serial_Apologist]

George Russell Sextet with John Gilmore, Don Ellis, Dave Baker, Steve Swallow & Pete La Roca playing 'The Outer View' at Newport J.F., July, 1964:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=sF6f4ELa5d0

JR

Gilmore would have been the late Dolphy's replacement, or one of them, and it's interesting that there's no hyper-bebop styled improvising here: I wonder if this was characteristic of that line-up at that particular juncture. I much prefer that period to the later heavy funk stuff George Russell pumped out in the 1980s. It's a shame we don't have much of George's piano improvising outside this period, which I find highly effective.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

This is the George Russell 1962 band, with Baker, Paul Plummer (tenor) and John Pierce (alto), the latter two students at Boston (I think) and really very good. Not much heard about them after but I think Plummer did more free playing. Bought this record when it came out on Riverside and it really made an impression. "Stratus Seekers", from the LP of the same name ...

http://youtu.be/0OePZvCyopk

[Jazzrook]

Bobby Hutcherson with Joe Henderson, Duke Pearson, Grant Green, Bob Cranshaw & Al Harewood playing Joe Henderson's 'The Kicker' in 1963:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=qtLC-v9mMtY

JR

[Ian Thumwood]

Gilmore would have been the late Dolphy's replacement, or one of them, and it's interesting that there's no hyper-bebop styled improvising here: I wonder if this was characteristic of that line-up at that particular juncture. I much prefer that period to the later heavy funk stuff George Russell pumped out in the 1980s. It's a shame we don't have much of George's piano improvising outside this period, which I find highly effective.

George Russell was the first "major" American jazz musician I ever heard in concert and someone i was massively into in the 1980s. This was prompted by Gil Evans' arrangement of "Stratuspunk" which seems even more radical than it's original incarnation. The tour featured a range of "classic" Russell compositions and I think also feature music from the "African Game" which came out at the same time. This was the first time I say both Courtney Pine and Django Bates. For a while, he was a composer I was obsessed with and have a lot of the "funk" albums be cut with a big band in the late 70s and early 80s. It is quite interesting to see the names of musicians who were mentored by him around that time and who included the likes of the brilliant trombonist Ray Anderson (whatever happened to him?) , Stanton Davis and Marty Ehrlich too, I think.

Back in the first lockdown I dug out my old LP of "African Game" and it did not sound anywhere as good as I remembered. The other stuff seemed to be really redolent of the way jazz went in the 1970s with one album even including a "soul " version of "God bless the child." It is quite interesting how he has fallen out of favour and is no longer a name that carries quite the same weight as say Sun Ra who, I would have to say, isn't really on the level as Russell. I agree about the 1960s work being better and especially some like "Jazz in the Space Age" which is a really interesting concept with the combined pianos of Bill Evans and Paul Bley. I think the work with Russell probably represents Evans' most adventurous work on record. I much prefer the acoustic / straight ahead jazz experimentation than when he implemented funk and rock elements.

[Serial_Apologist]

George Russell was the first "major" American jazz musician I ever heard in concert and someone i was massively into in the 1980s. This was prompted by Gil Evans' arrangement of "Stratuspunk" which seems even more radical than it's original incarnation. The tour featured a range of "classic" Russell compositions and I think also feature music from the "African Game" which came out at the same time. This was the first time I say both Courtney Pine and Django Bates. For a while, he was a composer I was obsessed with and have a lot of the "funk" albums be cut with a big band in the late 70s and early 80s. It is quite interesting to see the names of musicians who were mentored by him around that time and who included the likes of the brilliant trombonist Ray Anderson (whatever happened to him?) , Stanton Davis and Marty Ehrlich too, I think.

My girlfriend of the time was crazy about that band, and also about Andy Sheppard, who was with them - she would take time off work when they toured, and followed them all over the country, booking into local guest houses - even going over to Ireland, if my memory serves me correctly! I wasn't a fan, thinking the band too loud and bombastic. But I did meet George Russell in the hotel lobby adjacent to the Bracknell Festival in '86 or '87, and thanked him appreciatively for what he had given to the music. Half an hour later I was chatting to Evan Parker further into the lobby, and Russell came over and reminded me of my surname, which he had asked me to tell him. Andy later told me Russell was possessed of an unassailable memory! But a particular bete noir for me was the setting of Miles's solo on "So What".

Back in the first lockdown I dug out my old LP of "African Game" and it did not sound anywhere as good as I remembered. The other stuff seemed to be really redolent of the way jazz went in the 1970s with one album even including a "soul " version of "God bless the child." It is quite interesting how he has fallen out of favour and is no longer a name that carries quite the same weight as say Sun Ra who, I would have to say, isn't really on the level as Russell. I agree about the 1960s work being better and especially some like "Jazz in the Space Age" which is a really interesting concept with the combined pianos of Bill Evans and Paul Bley. I think the work with Russell probably represents Evans' most adventurous work on record. I much prefer the acoustic / straight ahead jazz experimentation than when he implemented funk and rock elements.

Yes.

[Ian Thumwood]

the tour with Andy Sheppard was some yeas later. I saw that band at the Maltings in Farnham and it was the one where Sheppard fell over back stage and broken his arm. I saw a few gigs there in the 1990s but they don't seem to feature jazz these days although it is a nice venue.

I have been playing the new Shai Maestro quartet record called "Human." I was really impressed by the samples I heard but the disc as a whole is more problematic. The music is really nice and the leader's piano is very good. The music is extremely well played and I think the folkish element of the compositions does work to it's advantage. The problem is we have heard the same approach now for over twenty years. However, even if you set aside Eicher's rather dated concept of brooding melancholy, this is ultra polite jazz. ECM used to be very much the "go to" label but am I alone in thinking that it has now become something of a parody of itself - as cliched as any Trad jazz with clunking banjos ??

I wonder if Bruce has checked this album out. I quite like it whilst being appreciative just how conservative the label has become in churning out Euro-centric records like this.

With ACT following in the wake of ECM, is this a case of the bland leading the bland ?

[Stanfordian]

‘No Room for Squares’ – Hank Mobley
with Lee Morgan, Andrew Hill, John Ore & Philly Joe Jones
+
with Donald Byrd, Herbie Hancock, Butch Warren & Philly Joe Jones
Blue Note (1963)