What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Tenor Freak]

[Serial_Apologist]

Rachel and her colleagues cover this material well, but I'm imagining some strange Dr Who episode transporting her back to front the 1966 Peanuts house band with Mike Osborne, John Surman, Harry Miller and Alan Jackson for a couple of numbers, and Ossie, sidelining audience condescension - "Pretty good for a woman" etc., saying "She doesn't have to do all that stuff all over again, WE did that and got it out of the way". Or maybe his ghost in attendance at Ronnie's on this date, where I'm not sure if Osborne ever played. (Surman did, of course).

[Jazzrook]

That's the album with the tune "Maybe Next Year" that Art Pepper featured on his "Smack Up" 1960 date? It's a fine ballad.

That's right, BN - here it is:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=1FYxkRdJ5ew

Will have to dig out my copy of 'Smack Up' to hear that Art Pepper version again.

JR

[Ian Thumwood]

I dug out my discs by the French group "The Bongo Hop" which features the legendary Columbian singer Nidia Gongora. I saw this band at Vienne several years back. I think they are effectively a pop act that is influenced by jazz as opposed to being "full on" jazz. No problem with this. The music they produce is hugely effective and great fun to list to. I love Gongora's singing....

[Ian Thumwood]

Nidia Gongora is perhaps more celebrated for her with British producer / musician William Holland, otherwise known as Quantic. Again, it is stange than no one has ever touted Quantic on this board. This music is hugely infective!

I love this track which translates as slang for money.The video is also terrific with all the kids smiling. Impossible not to like this record.

[Ian Thumwood]

Some more Quantic....

[Ian Thumwood]

Nidia Gongora in a more traditional and acoustic set up. No less wonderful....

[Joseph K]

[Jazzrook]

Jessica Williams with Dave Captein & Mel Brown playing Monk's 'Green Chimneys' live at Chernekata College, Oregon in 1998:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=JlCtJ8j1UXM

JR

[Stanfordian]

‘Empyrean Isles’ – Herbie Hancock
with Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter & Tony Williams
Blue Note (1964)

[Ian Thumwood]

I liked the Jessica William's track.

I was working from home yesterday and went through loads of old LPs whilst I was drafting out an Activity Schedule. It has been quite interesting to listen to some of these records after many years and tended to play through a lot of big band jazz from 1930s including Bunny Berigan. Also played some "Loose Tubes", Chick Corea, Lionel Hampton with Ben Webster / Clark Terry, Coleman Hawkins as well as Keith Jarrett's recording of the Well Tempered Klavier Book 1.

It was quite informative to play the debut recording of Keith Jarrett's Standards trio after Oscar Peterson's "We get requests." I think that the trio's debut was quite inauspicious with a tedious version of "God bless the child" played against a back beat and lots of Gary Peacock's bass. I have never played Peterson back-to-back with Jarrett and I was quite surprised how well the older musician contrasted with Jarrett, especially from a technical point of view. They are the technical equal of each other and both seem heavily indebted to Classical music - Peterson actually quoting Bach at one point. It is ages since I listened to Peterson (my Dad bought me this LP when I was about 17 and was interested in learning jazz piano) and I still find him difficult to appreciate. This 1962 recording does show the influence of Bill Evans and it is not the cold, technical experience I had anticipated. Still, the expansive playing of Jarrett is markedly different to Oscar Peterson's really conservative approach. I liked Peterson's playing more than I recollected yet he seems more "connected" to a populist approach to jazz as opposed to being really hard -hitting. It does make you wonder whether this fate is what awaits Brad Mehldau's reputation ?

[Serial_Apologist]

I liked the Jessica William's track.

I was working from home yesterday and went through loads of old LPs whilst I was drafting out an Activity Schedule. It has been quite interesting to listen to some of these records after many years and tended to play through a lot of big band jazz from 1930s including Bunny Berigan. Also played some "Loose Tubes", Chick Corea, Lionel Hampton with Ben Webster / Clark Terry, Coleman Hawkins as well as Keith Jarrett's recording of the Well Tempered Klavier Book 1.

It was quite informative to play the debut recording of Keith Jarrett's Standards trio after Oscar Peterson's "We get requests." I think that the trio's debut was quite inauspicious with a tedious version of "God bless the child" played against a back beat and lots of Gary Peacock's bass. I have never played Peterson back-to-back with Jarrett and I was quite surprised how well the older musician contrasted with Jarrett, especially from a technical point of view. They are the technical equal of each other and both seem heavily indebted to Classical music - Peterson actually quoting Bach at one point. It is ages since I listened to Peterson (my Dad bought me this LP when I was about 17 and was interested in learning jazz piano) and I still find him difficult to appreciate. This 1962 recording does show the influence of Bill Evans and it is not the cold, technical experience I had anticipated. Still, the expansive playing of Jarrett is markedly different to Oscar Peterson's really conservative approach. I liked Peterson's playing more than I recollected yet he seems more "connected" to a populist approach to jazz as opposed to being really hard -hitting. It does make you wonder whether this fate is what awaits Brad Mehldau's reputation ?

It was the technical aspect which superseded (not allowing myself to say "trumped" any more) genuine interaction in the later Peterson - by which time he was employing accompanists who really had to accompany and not be risk-taking, according to people who've know musicians who worked with or rather for Oscar. I don't believe one should therefore downgrade OP in the pantheon: he still is admired in Canada for being the one, or, more correctly (perhaps) the first fellow countryman to make it at the top echelon of jazz when it took some doing to keep up with the beboppers' fastest numbers without floundering and not Bud Powell: the idea of updating Fats Waller, Art Tatum, Count Basie and Errol Garner into a readily identifiable identity just waiting to be realised suited that of accompanying the likes of Webster and Carter into the new era was evolutionary in its modest way, and always carried out with taste and panache. As you intimate, Peterson was slightly influenced by Bill Evans in the early 1960s, and though I don't know the recording he mentioned I do have the 1962 one that gave rise to the one consensual agreement with Trevor Cooper on the old board that it was good; OP for the most part suppressing bombastic tendencies to overrule in the company of Milt Jackson as guest with the faithful regular trio on "Very Tall". I still love the version of "I'm In Love With A Wonderful Guy" for Oscar's nimble surefooted elegance in his swapped half choruses with Milt: no Oscar clichés in it at all. Funnily enough it was the LP's driving version of "Work Song", sweeping Milt's delicacy to the winds, that got me flogging out for it, my second "modern jazz" LP at age 15. Shows how tastes change with age, or dimished testosterone, or something!

[Jazzrook]

Cecil Taylor with Earl Griffith, Buell Neidlinger & Dennis Charles playing 'Excursion On A Wobbly Rail' from his great 1958 album 'Looking Ahead!':

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=Hn5FCq4ghvE

JR

[Ian Thumwood]

SA

i find Oscar Peterson a bit problematic, to be honest. As a accompanist to other musicians, I always feel that his comping is the aural equivalent of a feather bed and perhaps offered support that soloists would have found hugely beneficial. However, I feel that it can sometimes seem a bit over the top. In these more lazy times, the support he provided might be replaced with synthesizers where something equally lush but much less musical could be offered as an alternative. From a musical perspective, I think OP was perfection in this respect although his approach is not really to my taste. I think someone like Wynton Kelly was much more effective in this respect.

I would have to say that I much prefer OP without support. He is far more interesting as an unaccompanied soloist. My favourite album of his is the duet with Milt Jackson where you feel OP is really working to produce the result. I find him more satisfying when he seems to be challenged.

His later work seemed to absorb Bill Evans in addition to the earlier soloists you mentioned. I would love to know what OP felt about other pianists and who he rated as well as those he didn't. From recollection, he was not a fan of Thelonious Monk and believe that the ill-feelings were mutual.

[Serial_Apologist]

SA

i find Oscar Peterson a bit problematic, to be honest. As a accompanist to other musicians, I always feel that his comping is the aural equivalent of a feather bed and perhaps offered support that soloists would have found hugely beneficial. However, I feel that it can sometimes seem a bit over the top. In these more lazy times, the support he provided might be replaced with synthesizers where something equally lush but much less musical could be offered as an alternative. From a musical perspective, I think OP was perfection in this respect although his approach is not really to my taste. I think someone like Wynton Kelly was much more effective in this respect.

I would have to say that I much prefer OP without support. He is far more interesting as an unaccompanied soloist. My favourite album of his is the duet with Milt Jackson where you feel OP is really working to produce the result. I find him more satisfying when he seems to be challenged.

His later work seemed to absorb Bill Evans in addition to the earlier soloists you mentioned. I would love to know what OP felt about other pianists and who he rated as well as those he didn't. From recollection, he was not a fan of Thelonious Monk and believe that the ill-feelings were mutual.

I prefer Oscar P unaccompanied as well. Julian Joseph once cited an album of solo standards which had influenced him - as finger exercises, I think!