What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Joseph K]

I anticipate a lot of disagreement by saying I don't happen to think Extrapolation has Surman at his best.

Not knowing much or anything of Surman outside that album, I'm not really in a position to disagree - other than to say, if that's not Surman at his best, his best must be absolutely beyond incredible! I especially appreciate his performance on 'Binky's Beam', where his playing reaches places of ecstasy, and his playing in general is the perfect foil for John, who is able then to play things very effortlessly cool (in contrast to his subsequent few albums, Devotion and the first Mahavishnu one, where he takes the ecstatic role).

He himself said he had had to struggle with McLaughlin's complex charts on that session, my view of which is that it was a brave initial move in a direction others would push further with varying degrees of success - notably Weather Report, but also a number of British fusion groups in the 1970s and 80s - which I tag ""After you", "No, after you" - basically applying the idea first developed by free improvising groups a decade or so earlier such as the New York Arts Ensemble and our own Spontaneous Music Ensemble, where everyone is listening out for cues to re-shape the ongoing flow and then handing on before completing their own idea - as though Debussy might have improvised Jeux! The result is a further elaboration of the basic interactive principle often remarked on here by translocating the give-and-take of free improv back into pre-structured changes, and to succeed depends on maintaining the level of interest. The danger is that the tacit expectation inherent in not entirely dispensing with a pre-structured background imposes pressures that can cause the dialogue to sag: it is a hard balance to achieve then sustain, as Zawinul and Shorter would discover, hence Weather Report's growing reliance on pre-composition and their free jazz aficionados feeling let down.

Yes indeed. There is a fair amount of music I love that could be described as existing in the interstices between free improv/jazz and more structured jazz. But I think Weather Report were showing signs in a particular direction of funk fairly early on - Sweetnighter from 1973, for example, though then there is still plenty of space for improv to occur.

[Jazzrook]

Charles Mingus with Charles McPherson, John Handy, Lonnie Hillyer, Jaki Byard & Dannie Richmond playing 'Orange Was The Colour Of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk' at Monterey in 1964:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=H31IsmZgneo

JR

[Tenor Freak]

I keep on being impressed by his performance on John McLaughlin's Extrapolation - I must check out his own music some time.

As it happens one of the early 70s vinyls I was given includes this one and I think I'll give it a spin shortly.

[Tenor Freak]

John McLoughlin - Extrapolation

[Joseph K]

John McLoughlin - Extrapolation

I'm currently listening to Monk's album Monk's Music, featuring the famous call from Monk to Coltrane to begin his solo on 'Well You Needn't'.

[JasonPalmer]

Listening to jazz record requests via the website, good headphones plugged into my ipad, bliss

[Tenor Freak]

Carla Bley - Tropic Apetites

[elmo]

Paul Desmond with Ed Bickert Guitar, Don Thompson Bass, Jerry Fuller Drums in Toronto 1975.

Paul at his most lyrical playing "Darn that dream"

https://youtu.be/1_AAPRJxhvU

elmo

[Joseph K]

Thelonious Monk & Gerry Mulligan - Mulligan Meets Monk

Thus concludes my listening, for now, to this Monk boxed set.

[Tenor Freak]

Miles Davis Sextet - Milestones

[Tenor Freak]

Don Cherry and The Jazz Composer's (sic) Orchestra - Relativity Suite

[Serial_Apologist]

Ian Carr's Nucleus - Solar Plexus

The fourth and, to my mind, best of the 1970 albums, though others prefer its predecessor, Belladonna.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lXLt3NCp_m7X4DM4vFPGD2h0GbTd_Qnrk

[Tenor Freak]

Miles Davis - Live/Evil

[Joseph K]

Miles Davis - Live/Evil

I've been listening to Bird's 'Yardbird Suite', which I'm transcribing.

[Jazzrook]

Miles Davis with Barney Wilen, Rene Urtreger, Pierre Michelot & Kenny Clarke at the Olympia, Paris, November 30, 1957:

https://freshsoundrecords1.bandcamp.com/album/in-concert-at-the-olympia-paris-1957

JR