What Jazz are you listening to now?

[teamsaint]

John Dankworth Live at Newport Jazz Festival 1959.

What an incredible arranger he was. It is sheer joy just to sit and listen to the way he put things together.
Liquid big band !!

[elmo]

Like Bluesnik I been a huge fan of Elmo Hope music since hearing the "Fox" album back in the 60's - I agree with BN the 1959 Hi Fi/Contemporary trio is the masterpiece (B's a plenty) but the " Final Sessions" and Sounds from Rikers Island have some wonderful music especially the tracks with John Gilmore on tenor. I wish they had recorded more together.
Listen to Elmo play an old standard like "Somebody loves me" how many other pianists could play such inspired uncliched ideas over 8 minutes as Elmo does here.

https://youtu.be/MiaDJeaR_O4

elmo

[elmo]

Dizzy's great 1947 big band playing a George Russell arrangement of Bird's "Relaxin at Camarillo" A bit rough and ready and never made it as a studio recording but wild stuff....

https://youtu.be/qJvQLdWbnUw

elmo

[Jazzrook]

I was bowled over by this 1968 track, 'Yakhal' Inkomo', by South Africa saxophonist Winston Mankunku Ngozi with Lionel Pillay(piano), Agrippa Magwaza(bass) & Early Mabuza(drums) played on J to Z last week:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=be0XeYghZfo

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

I was bowled over by this 1968 track, 'Yakhal' Inkomo', by South Africa saxophonist Winston Mankunku Ngozi with Lionel Pillay(piano), Agrippa Magwaza(bass) & Early Mabuza(drums) played on J to Z last week:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=be0XeYghZfo

JR

We should hear more about those S African jazz people who remained there.

I was much taken with the S African offerings on last Saturday's J to Z, both new and not so. Something of a renaissance seems to be going on to compare with the rather pessimistic experience Louis Moholo reported some ten or so years ago. That Jazz Epistles track took me rather by surprise with its very 1950s Cool approach: listening blind I thought it must be a Tristano track with Warne Marsh, ca 1955.

[Stanfordian]

‘Blackjack’ – Donald Byrd
with Sonny Red, Hank Mobley, Cedar Walton, Walter Booker & Billy Higgins
Blue Note (1967)

[Stanfordian]

‘Doin' the Thing’ – The Horace Silver Quintet at the Village Gate
Horace Silver with Blue Mitchell, Junior Cook, Gene Taylor & Roy Brooks
Blue Note (live 1961)

[Joseph K]

[Ian Thumwood]

The more I play these records by the groups featuring Joe Henderson and Kenny Dorham, the more I like them. Of the five albums, the best two are "Our thing" and "Page One" but I think a good case could be made for this body of work to be claimed as one of the highpoints in jazz in the 1960s. All of them are "must haves" in my opinion.

I have the lead sheets to much of this material now that the book of Kenny Dorham work by Walter Davis Jr is back in circulation. (Bought my copy for under £10.) Dorham's writing is fascinating. He often writes in more difficult keys with loads of flats (why does not one like keys with loads of sharps!!) but the chord changes are quite different to how other people approached harmony. His personality and identity is very distinct in his writing just like his trumpet work is effectively radically different than his contemporaries. Joe Henderson's compositions are also available in the Jamey Aebersold series. Both Henderson and Dorham are amongst my favourite musicians from this era. They are beyond reproach.

The curious thing about the Kenny Dorham book is that many of the compositions originate from some very obscure albums that I have never heard of such as "Blue Spring" and an Art Taylor album on Blue Note which had completely passed me by. As well as the Blue Note records Dorham made, there are also arrangement from the album he made with Ernie Henry called "Two horns, Two rhythm." I feel that Dorham was a musician who evolved slowly until the late 1950s when he produced a body of work that was exceptional not only from the quality of his playing and writing but on a more general level of raising the standards of jazz composition.

[Joseph K]

John McLaughlin: Extrapolation

Such an awesome album. I've had Arjen's Bag stuck in my head over the past day or two, hence I decided to give this album a spin. While every player is superlative, Surman's improvs are often truly ecstatic.

[Serial_Apologist]

John McLaughlin: Extrapolation

Such an awesome album. I've had Arjen's Bag stuck in my head over the past day or two, hence I decided to give this album a spin. While every player is superlative, Surman's improvs are often truly ecstatic.

John Surman rose to that occasion, considering he found some the other John's time signatures horrendous, was the word he used, I think.

[Joseph K]

John Surman rose to that occasion, considering he found some the other John's time signatures horrendous, was the word he used, I think.

Indeed.

[Stanfordian]

‘Swing, Swang, Swingin'’ - Jackie McLean
with Walter Bishop Jr, Jimmy Garrison & Art Taylor
Blue Note (1959)

[Jazzrook]

Jimmy Giuffre, Paul Bley & Steve Swallow playing 'Cry, Want' live in Stuttgart, November 7, 1961:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=UqF-dH_4VXo

This track is also available on 'The Jimmy Giuffre Trio - Carla'(GIANTS OF JAZZ CD 53257)

JR

[Jazzrook]

John Coltrane with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden & Ed Blackwell playing 'Cherryco' from the 1960 album 'The Avant Garde':

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=FVnLPcgG2D8

JR