What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Stanfordian]

Bobby Hutcherson with Joe Henderson, Grant Green, Duke Pearson, Bob Cranshaw & Al Harewood
‘The Kicker’
Blue Note (1963)

Will be playing this CD this evening.

[Ian Thumwood]

Ian, I can understand what you mean about conservative. However I'm listening to the Live in Montreux album from the set and loving it. At around £12 for 5 well packaged CDs it's proving to be a steal.

The only album I've not greatly enjoyed so far is the one of him playing overdubbed duets.

Steve

Wondered if you were aware of this new documentary film about Bill Evans which sheds some light on his later performances too. It is an interesting article and explains the impact of drugs on his career / dip in form. This is the third documentary film on a major jazz musician I am aware of being produced in the last 12 months. Curious that they never seem to get shown in the UK. I think Evans was unfortunate that jazz moved at such a pace in the 1960s that he went from being at the forefront of what was possible in jazz piano to the mainstream within 10 years. However, I think that this applies to a good percentage of musicians from such as Freddie Keppard in the 1920's onwards. I sometimes that that there is no music with more "unfinished business" than jazz because it evolved so quickly between 1917-1970 that large elements of the music never got fully explored or realised their potential.

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/bill-evans-time-remembered-the-life-and-music-of-bill-evans-bill-evans-by-troy-dostert.php

[CGR]

An enjoyable new CD, 'Satori' from a Sax player called Josephine Davis. If you like Rollins's piano-less trios with a very post-Coltrane-ish edge then you'll probably like this. Its even got a sort of reworked version of Doxy on it.

This was one of those impulse buys from Amazon. For some reason one of those YouTube 'Recomended' lists, that I usually ignore, contained a promotional video for it.

[Stanfordian]

Hank Mobley with Freddie Hubbard, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers & Art Blakey
‘Roll Call’
Blue Note (1961)

For tonight

[Stunsworth]

Wondered if you were aware of this new documentary film about Bill Evans which sheds some light on his later performances too. It is an interesting article and explains the impact of drugs on his career / dip in form. This is the third documentary film on a major jazz musician I am aware of being produced in the last 12 months. Curious that they never seem to get shown in the UK. I think Evans was unfortunate that jazz moved at such a pace in the 1960s that he went from being at the forefront of what was possible in jazz piano to the mainstream within 10 years. However, I think that this applies to a good percentage of musicians from such as Freddie Keppard in the 1920's onwards. I sometimes that that there is no music with more "unfinished business" than jazz because it evolved so quickly between 1917-1970 that large elements of the music never got fully explored or realised their potential.


https://www.allaboutjazz.com/bill-ev...oy-dostert.php

Ian, thanks, I wasn't aware of that.

Speaking of substance abuse, I recently finished reading Art Pepper's autobiography. It's amazing that he could stand up, never mind play.

[Serial_Apologist]

I think Evans was unfortunate that jazz moved at such a pace in the 1960s that he went from being at the forefront of what was possible in jazz piano to the mainstream within 10 years. However, I think that this applies to a good percentage of musicians from such as Freddie Keppard in the 1920's onwards. I sometimes that that there is no music with more "unfinished business" than jazz because it evolved so quickly between 1917-1970 that large elements of the music never got fully explored or realised their potential.

Well, what about classical music between 1900 and 1910?? Think how for example Arnold Schoenberg's music changed from sounding much like Wagner's in the "Gurrelieder" of (mostly) 1902 and "Erwartung", composed in 1909; or Stravinsky composing a symphony in 1907, much of whose soundworld is little advanced on that of Schumann, and "The Rite of Spring" begun just 3 years later and completed in 1913? One could cite numerous other examples. Authenticity meant that modern classical music became more complex and less easy to digest, like the times in which it has existed; complexity stopped being viewed as at the forefront when those promoting and selling it made the balance sheet the bottom line, and as some aesthetician said, art began consuming itself, or its own past. Jazz's evolution was rehearsing in a more compressed timeline what classical modernism had done between roughly 1900 and 1950, while dong it in its own terms, of course.

[CGR]

Hank Mobley with Freddie Hubbard, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers & Art Blakey
‘Roll Call’
Blue Note (1961)

For tonight

Great stuff. Those old Blue Note recordings still do the trick.

[Stanfordian]

Lee Morgan with Billy Higgins, Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley, Herbie Hancock & Larry Ridley
‘Cornbread’
Blue Note (1967)

A treat for this evening.

[Stanfordian]

Great stuff. Those old Blue Note recordings still do the trick.

Hello CGR,

Sheer bliss! Blue Note recordings comprise around 80% of my Jazz collection

[Serial_Apologist]

Lee Morgan with Billy Higgins, Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley, Herbie Hancock & Larry Ridley
‘Cornbread’
Blue Note (1967)

A treat for this evening.

I had one track from this for many years, taped from an edition of JRR, then I saw it in vinyl form at Ray's Records a couple of years ago and bought it, only to find the quality of the pressing to be awful, groove skipping and distorting in the louder bits. If this is what the lauded vinyl revival is about, I'm having none of it!

Oh, and some nice playing from all, but not one of their best, imo.

[Stunsworth]

Great stuff. Those old Blue Note recordings still do the trick.

I'm listening to (and downloading) a lot of them on Qobuz these days. The 24/96 downloads sound wonderful.

While I've been waiting for my turntable to be repaired I've been buying the D'Agostina reissue series. Can't wait to give them a spin when it's returned.

[CGR]

Ian, thanks, I wasn't aware of that.

Speaking of substance abuse, I recently finished reading Art Pepper's autobiography. It's amazing that he could stand up, never mind play.

I was listening to Pepper's live performance of Anthropology from the Vanguard set yesterday. He starts on clarinet and switches to tennor sax and then finishes on clarinet. 13 minutes of amazing music from the the whole quartet. The 9cds make up a fantastic musical experience.

[Stanfordian]

Art Blakey with Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, Bobby Timmons & Jymie Merritt
'The Big Beat'
Blue Note (1960)

[Jazzrook]

Charles Mingus Sextet 'Live in Rotterdam 1970'(CROSS ROADS):

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

JR

[Stanfordian]

Dexter Gordon with Donald Byrd, Kenny Drew, Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen & Art Taylor
'One Flight Up'
Blue Note (1964)

For later tonight