What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Ian Thumwood]

The first Monk album I bought (second hand) was "Monk plays Ellington" when I was 15 or 16 (1960). I still think its wonderful even though it was a Riverside "ease into Monk" project. The cover, at least on mine, is Henri Rousseau's "Repas d' Lion", which has its own charm. Rousseau painted "Africa" via the Paris botanical gardens!

http://youtu.be/vIO1qMwZ7As

I think that is a terrific album. Monk and Ellington are so similar in the way they tackled the piano and this was an akbum that had to be made. I would also agree about the painting but have to say that the painting he did of the rugby players is something that has always made an impression of me. I find it very nostalgic. Shame they are playing the game for post thugs as opposed to a proper sport like football or cricket! Still, it reminds me of playing football with my nephews in the park in Hillingdon when I was small.

I went to the Anvil in Basingstoke least night to hear the Bpurnemouth Symphony orchestra to perform Debussy's "Prelude a L'apre-mid d'un faune" followed by Bartok's secon piano concerto. I cannot find the name of the pianist but the performance of the Bartok was pure electricity and the audience was buzzing afterwards. This is the most strident of he three contertos he wrote for piano and it is full of energy. Hearing it live made me appreciate just how much this piece of music actually swung at moments. It is an incredible compositions even if you take into account the fact that is was written by proobably the greatest composer of the 20th century.

The second half featured Elgar's 2nd symphony. Previously i am only aware of the Cello Concerto, the rather ridiculous P&C marches and the Engima variations even though they are pieces I have not heard for years, Listening to this symphony was therefore a totally new experience for me and I am afraid to say that I thought this sympony was dreadful. Struck me as a over-long piece of nonsense. There are no really strong themes in the composition which felt like it was never going to stop. I was really surprised that it was written as late as 1911 as it could easily have passed off as something from the late 1800s. The piece was not well received at its debut and the passage of 112 years has left is sounded a bit irrelevent and a curioisty from our imperialist past. It was the least interesting composition on the programme and although this was new territory for me, I had not expected to be quite so under-whelmed. Having listened to some of Amy Beach's music last week, I have to say she was more than a match for him yet is totally obscure - although I also believe Elgar is unknown outside of the UK and the US and his music remains an uncomfortable curiousity for other nations. It seems wierd to me that an English composer could produce something like this in 1911 when the rest of Europe was looking towards the future with their classical music.

I think the Elgar merits a degree of mischief on the Classical board.....

[Serial_Apologist]

I think that is a terrific album. Monk and Ellington are so similar in the way they tackled the piano and this was an akbum that had to be made. I would also agree about the painting but have to say that the painting he did of the rugby players is something that has always made an impression of me. I find it very nostalgic. Shame they are playing the game for post thugs as opposed to a proper sport like football or cricket! Still, it reminds me of playing football with my nephews in the park in Hillingdon when I was small.

I went to the Anvil in Basingstoke least night to hear the Bpurnemouth Symphony orchestra to perform Debussy's "Prelude a L'apre-mid d'un faune" followed by Bartok's secon piano concerto. I cannot find the name of the pianist but the performance of the Bartok was pure electricity and the audience was buzzing afterwards. This is the most strident of he three contertos he wrote for piano and it is full of energy. Hearing it live made me appreciate just how much this piece of music actually swung at moments. It is an incredible compositions even if you take into account the fact that is was written by proobably the greatest composer of the 20th century.

The second half featured Elgar's 2nd symphony. Previously i am only aware of the Cello Concerto, the rather ridiculous P&C marches and the Engima variations even though they are pieces I have not heard for years, Listening to this symphony was therefore a totally new experience for me and I am afraid to say that I thought this sympony was dreadful. Struck me as a over-long piece of nonsense. There are no really strong themes in the composition which felt like it was never going to stop. I was really surprised that it was written as late as 1911 as it could easily have passed off as something from the late 1800s. The piece was not well received at its debut and the passage of 112 years has left is sounded a bit irrelevent and a curioisty from our imperialist past. It was the least interesting composition on the programme and although this was new territory for me, I had not expected to be quite so under-whelmed. Having listened to some of Amy Beach's music last week, I have to say she was more than a match for him yet is totally obscure - although I also believe Elgar is unknown outside of the UK and the US and his music remains an uncomfortable curiousity for other nations. It seems wierd to me that an English composer could produce something like this in 1911 when the rest of Europe was looking towards the future with their classical music.

I think the Elgar merits a degree of mischief on the Classical board.....

I agree very much about the Bartok PC, but I have to say not at all about Elgar 2, which requires a bit more getting to know before trashing. What you say about No 2 would apply more relevantly to No 1, which he composed in 1908. In No 2 there is already an ambivalence about the "imperialistic" gestures, which is highhlighted by the ways in which they were contrasted with other passages of anguish and unease that undermine all the confident swagger. Picture Elgar, trying only half-successfully to live up to the social background into which he had married from a humble Catholic background, and the chances he, as a composer whose undoubted gifts went unrecognised by the British establishments, musical and social because of this, in the unlikelihood of any any enounter likely to have challenge the set beliefs and values of his upbringing, other than his own conscience - which we know he had, from reading about how he viewed the way the Pomp & Circumstance marches had been used by the establushment to justify the horrors of WW1.

But never mind - Bartok is (in my view) THE one of the first half of the 20th century - I agree, combining the (some thought irreconcilable) influences of Stravinsky and the Schoenberg school, and through the eastern folk influences that offered both straight composers and jazz a new harmonic language, by way of "exotic" modes and time structures which composers before Bartok had used largely in the manner of foreign tourists home from strange lands, although some of the 19th century Russians had made a start in this direction. Whenever I hear the 5th string quartet, particularly the first and last movements, I seem to be hearing a man pouring the notes down onto manuscript paper with the same level of energy and inspiration a jazz musician like Coltrane poured through his saxophone.

PS - I now see yo have started a separate thread in which you have backed up your arguments as presented her more fully. I stick by what I have put here: I don't believe Elgar should be blamed for the ways in which he and other cultural figureheads of the past (such as William Morris) have been used to justify British nostalgia as a substitute for a fundamental critique of capitalism and Britain's colonial role.

[Joseph K]

Dunmall & Bianco - Homage to John Coltrane

It's only disk 2 I have (see the last post of the what's the latest jazz gig you've been to thread) but on the basis of the first track, this is an incredible album! I've had to stop it after the first track though because I see Ian has written something and I don't want to read and listen to music (particularly this music) at the same time!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I agree very much about the Bartok PC, but I have to say not at all about Elgar 2, which requires a bit more getting to know before trashing. What you say about No 2 would apply more relevantly to No 1, which he composed in 1908. In No 2 there is already an ambivalence about the "imperialistic" gestures, which is highhlighted by the ways in which they were contrasted with other passages of anguish and unease that undermine all the confident swagger. Picture Elgar, trying only half-successfully to live up to the social background into which he had married from a humble Catholic background, and the chances he, as a composer whose undoubted gifts went unrecognised by the British establishments, musical and social because of this, in the unlikelihood of any any enounter likely to have challenge the set beliefs and values of his upbringing, other than his own conscience - which we know he had, from reading about how he viewed the way the Pomp & Circumstance marches had been used by the establushment to justify the horrors of WW1.

But never mind - Bartok is (in my view) THE one of the first half of the 20th century - I agree, combining the (some thought irreconcilable) influences of Stravinsky and the Schoenberg school, and through the eastern folk influences that offered both straight composers and jazz a new harmonic language, by way of "exotic" modes and time structures which composers before Bartok had used largely in the manner of foreign tourists home from strange lands, although some of the 19th century Russians had made a start in this direction. Whenever I hear the 5th string quartet, particularly the first and last movements, I seem to be hearing a man pouring the notes down onto manuscript paper with the same level of energy and inspiration a jazz musician like Coltrane poured through his saxophone.

PS - I now see yo have started a separate thread in which you have backed up your arguments as presented her more fully. I stick by what I have put here: I don't believe Elgar should be blamed for the ways in which he and other cultural figureheads of the past (such as William Morris) have been used to justify British nostalgia as a substitute for a fundamental critique of capitalism and Britain's colonial role.

EP Thompson's ("Making of the English Working Class etc) big book on William Morris is a wonderful corrective to decades of apolitical coverage of Morris and eye opening about how committed, sharp and "hard" he actually was. Not sure if it's still in print.

[Jazzrook]

Thelonious Monk with Gigi Gryce, Percy Heath & Art Blakey playing 'Gallop's Gallop' in 1955.
Gryce had trouble with part of this intricate tune and Monk said to him: 'You have an instrument, don't you? Either play it or throw it away.'
Gryce finally managed to play it.
(From Robin Kelley's biography of Monk.)

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=nUruy3V6GFA

JR

[JasonPalmer]

Pink Champagne
Song by Joe Lee Wilson

This simply jazz collection is actually pretty good. A charity shop find.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Pink Champagne
Song by Joe Lee Wilson

This simply jazz collection is actually pretty good. A charity shop find.

This is the version of "Pink Champagne" that most of my aged generation will probably remember best? Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames from his second 1960s album...It was originally a smash R&B hit for Joe Liggins in 1950...

http://youtu.be/PSB-0CBrYUs

[Jazzrook]

This is the version of "Pink Champagne" that most of my aged generation will probably remember best? Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames from his second 1960s album...It was originally a smash R&B hit for Joe Liggins in 1950...

http://youtu.be/PSB-0CBrYUs

... and here's Joe Liggins' 1950 version:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=cwwSYp5EPCo

JR

[JasonPalmer]

Thanks, will give them a whirl sometime. Pink champagne playing just now on cd, coincidence.

[JasonPalmer]

You may want to check out another song....big jay mcneely, the deacons hop https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3MKwU-EW6mk

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

You may want to check out another song....big jay mcneely, the deacons hop https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3MKwU-EW6mk

Complimenting Ian's class struggle with the Bourgeois Elgar (hiss), here's Cornelius Cardrew's "The Founding of the Party!", presumably Maoist, to lead the working class in Leninist principles, something I'm sure Sir Keith Stumbler would approve.

He was a brave guy Cardrew, despite this injunction being borderline & hilarious parody. Onwards!

http://youtu.be/eIDJzvU1PcE

[Serial_Apologist]

Complimenting Ian's class struggle with the Bourgeois Elgar (hiss), here's Cornelius Cardrew's "The Founding of the Party!", presumably Maoist, to lead the working class in Leninist principles, something I'm sure Sir Keith Stumbler would approve.

He was a brave guy Cardrew, despite this injunction being borderline & hilarious parody. Onwards!

http://youtu.be/eIDJzvU1PcE

It was never established who killed Cardew [sic] in the hit-and-run accident that happened near to his home late one night. There are theories he was murdered, possibly by state secret agents, but notwithstanding to what, if any, extent his later compositions and musical activities could have been judged subversive, he and the group he supported for a time did strongly and openly support Irish Republicanism.

[JasonPalmer]

Not impressed by summer jazz cd of that simply jazz collection, switched to a box set of blues.

https://www.discogs.com/master/963630-Various-The-Ultimate-Encylopedia-Of-American-Blues-Classics

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

It was never established who killed Cardew [sic] in the hit-and-run accident that happened near to his home late one night. There are theories he was murdered, possibly by state secret agents, but notwithstanding to what, if any, extent his later compositions and musical activities could have been judged subversive, he and the group he supported for a time did strongly and openly support Irish Republicanism.

He called out Enoch Powell as a racist and far more, mid speech in a HoC session, from the public gallery, and was immediately thrown out. I can forgive a lot for that

[Ian Thumwood]

Strange hearing the Tiny Bradshaw tracks. He is a name I have read about but you never hear any of his records. It is quite fascinating to see how many swing era musicians / bandleaders crossed over the r n'b and roll & roll. Bradshaw is the obvious example but there are other musicians like Big Jay McNeely and Bull Moose Jackson who plunged into that milieu in the late 1940s / early fifties. Loads of the big bands adopted an r n'b policy in the late forties but the wierdest transformation was Jess Stone who composed "Shake, rattle and roll" yet had been a pioneering bandleader himself in the 1920s. (His recording of "Starvation Blues" in about 1927 is an exceptional record.)

I was listening to a CD by Ealr Hines' big band of the 1930s / 40s and particularly love the track "Jelly, Jelly" which I believe featured the guitar of Rene Hall who played with that band. (No personnel on album sleeve.) Hall was an arranger for the likes of Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye.