What Jazz are you listening to now?

[elmo]

Wonderful stuff, and a favourite of mine also. I've just listened to the alternate of Blue Monk - not totally sure what's going on there, but Johnny Griffin suitably laconic, sarcastic? But even more so! And Bill Hardman with that very restrained almost traditional opening chorus. It's just a superb date. And the exhausted band had to push start the Baroness's flat battery Rolls in the morning... then Monk and Nica driving off leaving them sprawled in the road.

Jazz!

Wow, great, background story to the session , apparently Monk's bassist Wilbur Ware should have been the on the session but turned up drunk so Art's bass player Spanky De Brest stepped up. It seems that Monk was not that keen on Bill Hardman's playing on the session but I agree with you, I think he interprets the Monk really well.
Another previously unissued track - 'Rhythm A Ning

https://youtu.be/DAC-dtQhbiI

elmo

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Wow, great, background story to the session , apparently Monk's bassist Wilbur Ware should have been the on the session but turned up drunk so Art's bass player Spanky De Brest stepped up. It seems that Monk was not that keen on Bill Hardman's playing on the session but I agree with you, I think he interprets the Monk really well.
Another previously unissued track - 'Rhythm A Ning

https://youtu.be/DAC-dtQhbiI

elmo

I've got a very old tape of Nesuhi Ertegun talking hilariously about that date that he produced himself for Atlantic. He was terrified as Monk would suddenly get up from the piano mid (good) take and dance around the mikes and studio cables with Nica! That's why there are those gaps in Monk's playing, with Ertegun desperate that they didn't kick all the mikes over. He said it took for ever to get going, false starts etc, Monk refusing to show the parts to the rest, but once it did gel, great results. And then the exhausted episode at dawn, pushing Nica's Rolls to start, her and Thelonious roaring off leaving Blakey et al in the road!

[Serial_Apologist]

Enjoying the latest re issue of the Jazz Messengers Thelonious Monk 1957 Atlantic album including 3 alternate takes never previously issued. Nice to have these extra tracks from a favourite record, here is 'Purple Shades take 4'

https://youtu.be/LEzGJG_8iO4

elmo

Was the version of Monk's "Evidence" under a different title on this particular album? It was on an EP from around that time - the first time ever I heard either the Jazz Messengers or "Evidence".

[elmo]

Was the version of Monk's "Evidence" under a different title on this particular album? It was on an EP from around that time - the first time ever I heard either the Jazz Messengers or "Evidence".

SA On this album it was 'Evidence' - the original album had 6 tracks, when it was reissued in the 2000's 3 alternate tracks were added including another version of 'Evidence'. The latest 2cd edition has 5 more alternates not on the previous editions.

I think the version of 'Evidence' you are thinking about was the Jazz Messengers with Benny Golson and Lee Morgan. they recorded 'Evidence' under the title 'Justice'

https://youtu.be/jW-gZ8UlwzA

elmo

[Serial_Apologist]

SA On this album it was 'Evidence' - the original album had 6 tracks, when it was reissued in the 2000's 3 alternate tracks were added including another version of 'Evidence'. The latest 2cd edition has 5 more alternates not on the previous editions.

I think the version of 'Evidence' you are thinking about was the Jazz Messengers with Benny Golson and Lee Morgan. they recorded 'Evidence' under the title 'Justice'

https://youtu.be/jW-gZ8UlwzA

elmo

Yes, that one - thanks elmo.

[Jazzrook]

Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers with Jackie McLean, Bill Hardman, Sam Dockery & Spanky DeBrest playing 'Exhibit A' from the 1957 album 'Ritual':

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=cZyd8Q5ERA8

JR

[Stanfordian]

‘Jazz Contemporary’ – Kenny Dorham
with Charles Davis, Steve Kuhn, Jimmy Garrison, Butch Warren & Buddy Enlow
Time Records (1960)

[Bryn]

Well, it's categorised as jazz on QOBUZ, though many, including the musicians involved, would question such a categorisation:



Recorded December 1979 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg, the period when AMM comprised just Keith Rowe and Eddie Prévost, I've had the LP since the time of its original release but was happy to find the lossless CD-rate version on QOBUZ.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, it's categorised as jazz on QOBUZ, though many, including the musicians involved, would question such a categorisation:



From the period when AMM comprised just Keith Rowe and Eddie Prévost, I've had the LP since the time of its original release but was happy to find the CD-rate version on QOBUZ.

I am willing to bet it wouldn't be featured on J to Z, or get requested on Jazz Record Requests. It might be mentioned on Freeness, however.

[Bryn]

I am willing to bet it wouldn't be featured on J to Z, or get requested on Jazz Record Requests. It might be mentioned on Freeness, however.

Though it might just have featured in the old Jazz on 3. That programme even managed to include more recent AMM member John Tilbury performing (in the role of actor) some of Samuel Becket's radio works.

[Serial_Apologist]

Though it might just have featured in the old Jazz on 3. That programme even managed to include more recent AMM member John Tilbury performing (in the role of actor) some of Samuel Becket's radio works.

Some of us were pretty critical of Jazz on 3 during its long stay of execution, but now, when I listen to some of the programmes I recorded on cassettes, they and their host were friendlier, more informative and less glibly ignoring of the home scene than what we get today.

Goodness, I'm starting to sound like a representative of the League of Empire loyalists!

[Ian Thumwood]

I wonder if anyone else shares my fascination with ECM's output in the 1970s and 80s where it genuinely seemed concerned about making music that was indeed contemporary. Bryn's point about whether it was jazz is salient enough and I think that this was why Eicher branched out into his New Series. The music seemed more varied than is the case these days and I feel that no one was really too bothered that artists like Egberto Gismonti, Dino Saluzzi or Terje Rypdal were jazz as what they produced dovetailed so nicely with other more genuine jazz musicians. I have been enjoying a lot of this old catalogue over the last few months although stff like AMM III was completely off the radar for me at that time. A lot of the music on ECM at that time was really original and refreshing. I recall reading a book by Mike Zwerin where he effectively argued that ECM had single handedly dragged the technical level of musicians upwards around that time. These days, I think this is more of a norm and labels like ACT have effectively diluted a lot of the message ECM were putting out. The best music on that label still stands out even if there are players like Garbarek and Weber whose own material has not aged well .

What I do love about the music ECM sometimes put out is that it challenged the notions of improvisation and offered a more interesting alternative to the atonal Improv scene music which sounds great in the moment but perhaps hit and miss on recorded media. This is why stuff like AMM III never really appealed. It is more interesting to me for improvisors to take a longer and more tonal approach to improvisation. I have to say that I love Egberto Gismonti who I think is an amazingly brilliant improvisor. I also like players like Dino Saluzzi whose music takes a radical view of Argentine tango. You can see a connection with Jarrett's lomg-winded solo projects and I think it underscores Eicher's credentials which utlimately seems to favour tonal music to a more serialist approach. Just because these musicians express themselves more lyrically, I do not think there work should be diminished. Always surprises me just how little traction Gismonti's music gets in this board even with guitar fanatic Joseph. Few musicians have been able to combine naive/ folk ideas with technical brilliance to the same extent of Egberto Gismonti. If you are considering "free music" and "discovered sounds", something like "Duo Vozes" which matched Gismonti with the musical alchemist Nana Vascondelos much be a high point by anyone's reckoning. Shame that the newer additions to ECM don't really have this same maverick approach. Gismonti is certainly a musician I would recommend to Joe.

[Joseph K]

Gismonti is certainly a musician I would recommend to Joe.

Noted, Ian.

[Bryn]

I wonder if anyone else shares my fascination with ECM's output in the 1970s and 80s where it genuinely seemed concerned about making music that was indeed contemporary. Bryn's point about whether it was jazz is salient enough and I think that this was why Eicher branched out into his New Series. The music seemed more varied than is the case these days and I feel that no one was really too bothered that artists like Egberto Gismonti, Dino Saluzzi or Terje Rypdal were jazz as what they produced dovetailed so nicely with other more genuine jazz musicians. I have been enjoying a lot of this old catalogue over the last few months although stff like AMM III was completely off the radar for me at that time. A lot of the music on ECM at that time was really original and refreshing. I recall reading a book by Mike Zwerin where he effectively argued that ECM had single handedly dragged the technical level of musicians upwards around that time. These days, I think this is more of a norm and labels like ACT have effectively diluted a lot of the message ECM were putting out. The best music on that label still stands out even if there are players like Garbarek and Weber whose own material has not aged well .

What I do love about the music ECM sometimes put out is that it challenged the notions of improvisation and offered a more interesting alternative to the atonal Improv scene music which sounds great in the moment but perhaps hit and miss on recorded media. This is why stuff like AMM III never really appealed. It is more interesting to me for improvisors to take a longer and more tonal approach to improvisation. I have to say that I love Egberto Gismonti who I think is an amazingly brilliant improvisor. I also like players like Dino Saluzzi whose music takes a radical view of Argentine tango. You can see a connection with Jarrett's lomg-winded solo projects and I think it underscores Eicher's credentials which utlimately seems to favour tonal music to a more serialist approach. Just because these musicians express themselves more lyrically, I do not think there work should be diminished. Always surprises me just how little traction Gismonti's music gets in this board even with guitar fanatic Joseph. Few musicians have been able to combine naive/ folk ideas with technical brilliance to the same extent of Egberto Gismonti. If you are considering "free music" and "discovered sounds", something like "Duo Vozes" which matched Gismonti with the musical alchemist Nana Vascondelos much be a high point by anyone's reckoning. Shame that the newer additions to ECM don't really have this same maverick approach. Gismonti is certainly a musician I would recommend to Joe.

Regarding AMM III, both Keith and Eddie came from, and certainly in Eddie's case, remain closely associated with, Jazz. However, in AMM they wanted to move on, beyond the tonal restrictions of jazz. AMM III, though, is unlike any other manifestation of AMM. Both Keith and Eddie were and reman of a socialist outlook, Keith was, at that time, no longer as closely involved with the political organisation he had been very active in. He and Eddie had not played together for some time in advance of the period of AMM III. For me, AMM's "meta-music" holds much greater interest and musical rewards than the jazz from which it grew. I very much look forward to attending the current version of AMM during Eddie's birthday series at Cafe OTO in July. Much of the sort of jazz I have most time for and a concluding AMM gig on July 30th: https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/eddie-prevost-at-80.

[RichardB]

One of the great recordings of improvised music is IMO Derek Bailey and Dave Holland's Improvisations for cello and guitar, which ECM brought out in 1973.