What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Serial_Apologist]

Miles Davis with Lester Young & the MJQ, European tour, 1956:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=s6kgN8kF-Cw

JR

Fascinating to listen to Lester through the bebop prism presented here.

[Serial_Apologist]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Simply-Jazz.../dp/B0002BPIPO

Jazzing the blues, unsure what disc that is but enjoyable background music.

Edit ... is disc 2 ... trying a cut and paste from amazon listing of disc 2

1 Lester Young - Jump Lester Jump
2 Jimmy Rushing - Jimmy's Round The Clock Blues
3 Illinois Jacquet - Illinois Goes To Chicago
4 Helen Humes - Airplane Blues
5 Paul Williams - The Hucklebuck
6 Tiny Bradshaw - Take The Hands Off The Clock
7 Hal Singer - Cornbread
8 Gatemouth Moore - I Ain't Mad At You, Pretty Baby
9 Otis Spann - This Is The Blues
10 Joe Williams - Everyday I Have The Blues
11 Big Jay McNeely - Pink Champagne
12 Jaki Byard - Pete And Thomas
13 Harold Land - Swingin' On Savoy
14 Doc Pomus - My Good Pott
15 Pete Johnson - Atomic Boogie
16 Tommy Brown - V8 Baby
17 Jack McDuff - Walkin' The Dog

Any preferences from among that lot, Jason?

[Joseph K]

Allan Holdsworth, I.O.U. - Live in Japan 1984

[JasonPalmer]

Sa, 2nd track particularly good but generally like it all.

Listening to that cd again right now....under my heated fleece on the sofa, relaxxxing jazzzzz

[Serial_Apologist]

Sa, 2nd track particularly good but generally like it all.

Listening to that cd again right now....under my heated fleece on the sofa, relaxxxing jazzzzz

[JasonPalmer]

Managed to catch some j to z while washing up, will try catch the whole program via online sometime soon.

[Ian Thumwood]

I have spent much of the last few weeks listening to Luiza Borac's second volume of the complete piano works of George Ensescu abing played the first volume to death before Christmas. I love discovering music about which I had previous been ignorant and finding it to be a revelation. The piano works owe alot to earlier forms of music with Enescu tipping his hat towards the baroque at one moment and then producing pieces like the "scherzo" which fizzes with life. I find him a difficult composer to categorise as he was primarily a violinist and also locked on to the same kind of folk music sources that appealed to his contemporary Bartok. In here notes to the second, double CD, Luiza Borac makes a claim for Enescu being perhaps he most undervalued composer in the classical canon. The two published sonatas seem to have the same kind of ambition as Scriabin and are "modern" in their use of harmony whilst having a kind of Classicism which eschews the overblown tendancies of befell music towards the last quarter of the 19th century. Enescu totally by-passed Impressionism and Serlalism and the impression nor was taken in by the Neo-Classicism of composers as varied as Poulenc or Martinu. I suppose you would describe him as fitting in to the same model as composers like Janacek and Bartok albeit less stridant than either of these two. I also bought a disc wind octet music by Dvorak, Janacek ansd Ensescu which is ok with the latter's music being the more interesting of the three.

I have loved listening to Borac's interpretation of this music and it does make you want to explore Enescu's music even further. I believe that he also worked as a violinist, a composer and was the mentor of Yehudi Menuhin. He seems to have had his fingers in all sorts of pies and was very much part of the music scene in early twentieth century France. During his time, he was well respected but his reputation outside of Romania these days does not seem to be so great. I have been hugely impressed. The compositions for piano are well beyond my ability but it is disappointing tosee that so much of this music is out of circulation. I think it would very much appeal to Bluesnik more than anyone else in here.

I have been exploring a lot of classical music since the Christmas holidays as I have started to appreciate just how muh there was that I had been ignorant about. The three composers who have made a bit impression on me in thelast 12 months have been John Field, Dominico Scarlatti and Alexander Scriabin. The more I listen to the latter, the more I feel that his approach towards modernism was more genuine as he effectively went on a musical journey from being heavily influenced by Chopin towards a style than was far more radical and hinted towards Messaien. I have been trying to sight read his Preludes as well as looking at "Vers la flamme" which is probably easy if you had three hands! I find myself in total agreement with Jospeh's comparison with Coltrane. Listening to Amy Beach's Gaelic Symphony and Piano Concerto on Friday, I think she was a decent enough composer and certainly no worse than many of her English contemporaries who are often lauded in the UK. However, you do understand why her style of music had run it's course and why the likes of Schoenberg, Debussy, Scriabin and Stravinsky had to find alternatives. I think that coming to classical music from jazz automatically makes you latch on to the more harmonically advanced composers like Debussy, Scriabin, Janacek, Ravel and Bartok more than the likes of Schoenberg who composed by a system. For me, jumping to those composers from jazz is obvious and I would feel obliged to add Enescu to that list even though he by-passed jazz as much as other developments in music in the first half of the 20th century. He just did his own thing.

Another composer I have just discovered is Karol Szymanowski. Initially I was put off by the singing on the 3rd Symphony which is an insurmountable problem for me but the symphony No 4 and the concert overture op 12 are so vivid I am struggling to understand why he has not had any adherants that I am aware of from the world of jazz. I have ordered a CD of his piano music which seems to align him as a Polish Scriabin. The music is hugely impressive and like Enescu, I am baffled why he is not better known. Like the Romanian, I think his music flies under the radar but people are pretty much concerted from the first listen.

I would recommend the Enescu piano music discs to anyone in here who is a fan of Bartok.

[Serial_Apologist]

I really need to hear more of Enescu's music - he's never had much coverage on Radio 3. What I have hard of his less populist crowd-pullers he seems to have taken Fauré as his main starting point harmony-wise and developed on from there. which was unusual, even in France, where Fauré was more of an educator and spiritual mentor on the next generation, starting with Ravel. The only other direct Fauréian influences I can think of are to be found in Charles Koechlin - and there it is one of a whole plethora of differently-styled influences, from Bach through Franck, Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky of the Rite period and Satie - and our own Frank Bridge; but that is by the by.

Schoenberg's influence (and that of Berg, Webern, and the 3rd Viennese School intakes of the Berlin and California periods) would be less easily assimilated by jazz than eg Ravel or Stravinsky until the freeing up of the 1960s, being less dependent on even measures tied to repeat diatonic or modal chord changes, along with the cadential obligation to resolve and release harmonic tension. The polytonal practices of Stravinsky and French composers of the interwar period, and the ways in which these were accommodated alongside rhythmic asymmetry and "exotic" time signatures were easier to adapt in jazz than wholesale atonality. So it is more apparent in British and European free jazz and especially free improvisation - John Stevens and Derek Bailey both claimed their admiration for Webern, and in Germany the influence of Bernt Aloys Zimmermann, an important post-Schoenbergian who collaborated with people like Schlippenbach, and of Hans Werner Henze, who aesthetically was more indebted than Zimmermann to both Stravinsky and Schoenberg, and was keenly interested in free jazz, partly for its political significance and engagement with radical politics. And the same can be said in America - Paul Bley's early 60s trio used Schoenbergian tone rows as part of a range of radical means to free up improvisation, and I think one can say that some of the experiments of leading lights in the AACM, especially Braxton, were Schoenberg-influenced, as well as by Stockhausen. Other more conventional jazz people have also made somewhat compromised partial usages of 12-tone serial methods, including John Dankworth and Shake Keane, during the 1960s. The whole issue of avant-garde classical influences on free jazz and improv (and vice-versa) is of course more complex than that of Schoenberg or any one particular figure.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I really need to hear more of Enescu's music - he's never had much coverage on Radio 3. What I have hard of his less populist crowd-pullers he seems to have taken Fauré as his main starting point harmony-wise and developed on from there. which was unusual, even in France, where Fauré was more of an educator and spiritual mentor on the next generation, starting with Ravel. The only other direct Fauréian influences I can think of are to be found in Charles Koechlin - and there it is one of a whole plethora of differently-styled influences, from Bach through Franck, Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky of the Rite period and Satie - and our own Frank Bridge; but that is by the by.

Schoenberg's influence (and that of Berg, Webern, and the 3rd Viennese School intakes of the Berlin and California periods) would be less easily assimilated by jazz than eg Ravel or Stravinsky until the freeing up of the 1960s, being less dependent on even measures tied to repeat diatonic or modal chord changes, along with the cadential obligation to resolve and release harmonic tension. The polytonal practices of Stravinsky and French composers of the interwar period, and the ways in which these were accommodated alongside rhythmic asymmetry and "exotic" time signatures were easier to adapt in jazz than wholesale atonality. So it is more apparent in British and European free jazz and especially free improvisation - John Stevens and Derek Bailey both claimed their admiration for Webern, and in Germany the influence of Bernt Aloys Zimmermann, an important post-Schoenbergian who collaborated with people like Schlippenbach, and of Hans Werner Henze, who aesthetically was more indebted than Zimmermann to both Stravinsky and Schoenberg, and was keenly interested in free jazz, partly for its political significance and engagement with radical politics. And the same can be said in America - Paul Bley's early 60s trio used Schoenbergian tone rows as part of a range of radical means to free up improvisation, and I think one can say that some of the experiments of leading lights in the AACM, especially Braxton, were Schoenberg-influenced, as well as by Stockhausen. Other more conventional jazz people have also made somewhat compromised partial usages of 12-tone serial methods, including John Dankworth and Shake Keane, during the 1960s. The whole issue of avant-garde classical influences on free jazz and improv (and vice-versa) is of course more complex than that of Schoenberg or any one particular figure.

" so much of this music is out of circulation. I think it would very much appeal to Bluesnik more than anyone else in here."

Thanks, I will listen up. A name I'm totally unfamiliar with. I did listen to a lot of Scriabin over Christmas and appreciated it.

On music being out of circulation, the early Soviet composers, contemporaries of say Shostakovich, are often fascinating. Most disappeared in the coming years, courtesy of the regime, but there are now a lot of later recordings on YouTube. It doesn't all work, some is overblown, but you wonder at what might have been achieved. Which is true far more widely.

[Joseph K]

I think that coming to classical music from jazz automatically makes you latch on to the more harmonically advanced composers like Debussy, Scriabin, Janacek, Ravel and Bartok more than the likes of Schoenberg who composed by a system.

You might like to check out some of Schoenberg's freely atonal pieces. I think his Erwartung he described as like one long written-out improvisation, which he composed very quickly over a few weeks. That and the second string quartet, the five orchestral pieces and the piano pieces op. 11, amongst several or more are well worth getting to know.

[Serial_Apologist]

" so much of this music is out of circulation. I think it would very much appeal to Bluesnik more than anyone else in here."

Thanks, I will listen up. A name I'm totally unfamiliar with. I did listen to a lot of Scriabin over Christmas and appreciated it.

On music being out of circulation, the early Soviet composers, contemporaries of say Shostakovich, are often fascinating. Most disappeared in the coming years, courtesy of the regime, but there are now a lot of later recordings on YouTube. It doesn't all work, some is overblown, but you wonder at what might have been achieved. Which is true far more widely.

Shostakovitch 1927 arrangement of Tea for Two - I think I read he took an afternoon over it; this was 10 years before the sense of proletarian humour bypass was instituted, jazz condemned as "bourgeois degenerate" and Shstkvtch for "formalism".

http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=Shostakovitch+arrangement+of+Tea+for+two+on+youtube#fpstate=ive&vld=cid.05369b64,vid:vSVbhGkGfyQ

(These new long URLs don't 'arf take a long time to transcribe!)

[Ian Thumwood]

Joseph / SA / Bluesnik

I did not like the vocals on the Erwartung but the opus 11 piano pieces are ok. I think that the language of the Opus 11 suite is familiar from a lot of Holiday film scores. It is not unpleasant and interesting although i am not quite as intrigued as i am by the likes of Janacek, Bartok , Debussy , Scriabin or Enescu. Oddily enough, there are moments where Enescu's piano music follows this same kind of "modernity" albeit he was never a Serialist. I am thinking in particular of the two piano sonatas.

Enescu studied composition with both Massenet and Faure but I find it fascinating that he was admired so highly by such as wide range of other musicians including Pablo Cassals, Yehudi Menuhin, Vincent D'Indy and even Ravi Shankar. Whenever I find an article about either his abilities as a musician or composer, it always seems to be in the superlative. His godson was Dinu Lipatti. I was aware of the link with Faure as one of the piano compositions is dedicated to the Frenchman. Faure also taught Ravel and I have always felt that the latter refracted his approach to Impressionism through the lens of Faure.


I have to admit that I love Faure's Requiem but think that his piano music is probably unique in classical music insofar that it takes a truly great pianist to make his music work. To appreciate his piano music, you need to hear a pianist like Kathryn Stott play it. She is superb. Faure also seems to me to be yet another composer who took inspiration from Chopin and who is clearly someone I would imagine many jazz pianists being interested in. He was far more than a teacher. Composers who write with a lot of colour in their music seem to have a particular appeal in jazz.

I really feel that the apogee of a lot of classical composition was in the late 1800s and first half of the twentieth century. There was so much going on in music at that time and it feels a bit like the 1980s in jazz when the last generation of players from the 20s, 30s and 40s were around, post- bop was in the ascent and jazz seemed to be exploring all kinds of avenues. As with jazz thirty years ago, the classical idiom in the period 1890 until the end of the second world war fired off in so many directions at the time time. You could select any number of composers from this era and make a case for them being under-appreciated. The exclusion of Enescu from such a list is probably due to the fact that he did not really change the course of music but he was a musician of immense stature in his time. I have been really impressed by the music of his I have discovered.

[JasonPalmer]

Enjoying jazz record requests from the schedule, always busy with family Sundays so Monday a good time to catch up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001hg3q

[Joseph K]

I'm learning this tune - was listening t'other day to the most well-known recording of it, Coltrane's, and this came up as a suggestion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goen0SXYPvM

[Stanfordian]

‘Out to Lunch!’ – Eric Dolphy
with Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, Richard Davis & Tony Williams
Blue Note (1964)