What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Ian Thumwood]

Sarah Hanahan summoning the spirit of Jackie Mac on this energetic performance of Mr McLean's "Little Melonae"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b4bKSUCpL4

Bruce

I wondered what you thought of Emmet Cohen? I bought one of his recent CDs (Future Stride) which promised an approach to stride piano akin to Jaki Byard or Jason Moran but was seriously disappointed. The album was very well received on J-Z but Cohen struck me as being more similar to someone like Dick Hyman and I had no idea what his natural identity was as a pianist. It is pleasant enough although somewhat wierd for a contemporary jazz record released in 2021. Last week SA made a scathing comment about the Wynton Marsalis track played on J-Z yet I think that the reality is that the approach to treating jazz as a museum piece is far more widespread and, in my opinion, the likes of Cohen are far, far more culpable than WM. I am not necessarily in agreement with SA regarding styles of earlier styles of jazz being performed and the samples of Tubby Skinny that often get posted on here underscore for me just how vital New Orleans jazz can still be, to take on example. Tubby Skinny sound "authentic." By contrast. the Cohen CD does seem like the product of someone with all the technique who has come through a jazz education process but if effectively producing a facsimile of jazz. There was no emotion in the music and he was too much of a chameleon to sound sincere.

There is a real lack of consistency here as people are quick to unfairly knock Wynton whereas Emmet Cohen's disc struck me as a cynical exercise in nostalgia and, in my opinion, deserves genuine opprobrium for churning out something that strikes me as being very remote from what jazz sounds like at it's best. Had Cohen been around in the 30s-50s, no one would have noticed him. If you are going to take your cues from a pre-Herbie approach to jazz, I would much rather listen to someone like Gerald Clayton who has something new to say and is the real deal. I have not heard anything beyond Emmet Cohen than this record and I think his true voice will hopefully emerge. As things stand, "Future Stride" struck me as being rather pointless - I don;t often feel like that about Wynton.

[Ian Thumwood]

Comingback from Doha last month, this track was one of the selections you could listen to. Not quite sure where you would place Manu Dibango but this re-working of an old French folk song is incredible. I love this arrangement, The re-harmonising through the electric guitar reminds me a bit of Miles yet the vocals on right on point . The song builds up the excitement level and simmers a long nicely without over-boiling.

[Serial_Apologist]

Bruce

I wondered what you thought of Emmet Cohen? I bought one of his recent CDs (Future Stride) which promised an approach to stride piano akin to Jaki Byard or Jason Moran but was seriously disappointed. The album was very well received on J-Z but Cohen struck me as being more similar to someone like Dick Hyman and I had no idea what his natural identity was as a pianist. It is pleasant enough although somewhat wierd for a contemporary jazz record released in 2021. Last week SA made a scathing comment about the Wynton Marsalis track played on J-Z yet I think that the reality is that the approach to treating jazz as a museum piece is far more widespread and, in my opinion, the likes of Cohen are far, far more culpable than WM. I am not necessarily in agreement with SA regarding styles of earlier styles of jazz being performed and the samples of Tubby Skinny that often get posted on here underscore for me just how vital New Orleans jazz can still be, to take on example. Tubby Skinny sound "authentic." By contrast. the Cohen CD does seem like the product of someone with all the technique who has come through a jazz education process but if effectively producing a facsimile of jazz. There was no emotion in the music and he was too much of a chameleon to sound sincere.

There is a real lack of consistency here as people are quick to unfairly knock Wynton whereas Emmet Cohen's disc struck me as a cynical exercise in nostalgia and, in my opinion, deserves genuine opprobrium for churning out something that strikes me as being very remote from what jazz sounds like at it's best. Had Cohen been around in the 30s-50s, no one would have noticed him. If you are going to take your cues from a pre-Herbie approach to jazz, I would much rather listen to someone like Gerald Clayton who has something new to say and is the real deal. I have not heard anything beyond Emmet Cohen than this record and I think his true voice will hopefully emerge. As things stand, "Future Stride" struck me as being rather pointless - I don;t often feel like that about Wynton.

I still feel the same about Kansas Smitty's version of "High Noon" on today's J to Z as I did last week's WM track, i.e. how you yourself would appear to judge Emmet Cohen. I don't understand the meaning of "authentic" applied to musicians today playing styles redolent of the 1920s or 30s - that term just seems a meaningless definition applied to something so far away in time. How is it any different from Tubby Skinny? My feeling is it is inauthentic to improvise a music of different times other than for museums, academic demonstration or period drama inclusiveness purposes. With classical different principles apply as different eras are interpreting fixed notes and score instructions. One wonders how many of these retrospectivists will likely end up on their death beds regretting how much of their creative time they wasted!

[Tenor Freak]

Bruce

I wondered what you thought of Emmet Cohen? I bought one of his recent CDs (Future Stride) which promised an approach to stride piano akin to Jaki Byard or Jason Moran but was seriously disappointed. The album was very well received on J-Z but Cohen struck me as being more similar to someone like Dick Hyman and I had no idea what his natural identity was as a pianist. It is pleasant enough although somewhat wierd for a contemporary jazz record released in 2021. Last week SA made a scathing comment about the Wynton Marsalis track played on J-Z yet I think that the reality is that the approach to treating jazz as a museum piece is far more widespread and, in my opinion, the likes of Cohen are far, far more culpable than WM. I am not necessarily in agreement with SA regarding styles of earlier styles of jazz being performed and the samples of Tubby Skinny that often get posted on here underscore for me just how vital New Orleans jazz can still be, to take on example. Tubby Skinny sound "authentic." By contrast. the Cohen CD does seem like the product of someone with all the technique who has come through a jazz education process but if effectively producing a facsimile of jazz. There was no emotion in the music and he was too much of a chameleon to sound sincere.

There is a real lack of consistency here as people are quick to unfairly knock Wynton whereas Emmet Cohen's disc struck me as a cynical exercise in nostalgia and, in my opinion, deserves genuine opprobrium for churning out something that strikes me as being very remote from what jazz sounds like at it's best. Had Cohen been around in the 30s-50s, no one would have noticed him. If you are going to take your cues from a pre-Herbie approach to jazz, I would much rather listen to someone like Gerald Clayton who has something new to say and is the real deal. I have not heard anything beyond Emmet Cohen than this record and I think his true voice will hopefully emerge. As things stand, "Future Stride" struck me as being rather pointless - I don;t often feel like that about Wynton.

Not thought about Emmet Cohen that much, TBH. I have watched a few videos on the 'Tube taken from his weekly livestreams. He seems to get a wide range of horn players and singers on his shows; these days, being a Youtuber is likely to pull in more money than working as a gigging musician. One session that I quite enjoyed was with multi-reeds player Scott Robinson. He plays a nice version of "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" on bass saxophone here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mf6RIdH2JQ

Now, that is a conventional, mainstream "classical" rendition of the song - though there is a slight twist right at the end. When I looked up Scott Robinson (another name new to me, but he's been in NYC for decades) I saw that his own work as a leader is very much in the avant-garde/free jazz world, though he has also played a very wide range of styles. This is a musician who has worked with the likes of Buck Clayton, Hank Jones, Frank Wess and so on up to Henry Grimes, Roscoe Mitchell and Marshall Allen.

https://pirecordings.com/artists/scott-robinson/

So, I don't think that, when the time comes, hopefully many many years from now, Mr Robinson would be laying on his death-bed regretting his artistic choices. Or indeed Scott Hamilton. I don't think any working musician does actually. I am reminded of Ian's remark that the American approach to free jazz/improvisation is based on working from a tradition, whilst the European approach is a "year zero" iconoclastic one. I prefer the American approach myself; it seems more amenable to experimentation and free expression than the European approach but then again I'm no expert on this.

My interpretation of Julian Joseph's comment on last week's J to Z was that he sees the music as a continuum of styles where each generation brings something new to it, whether it's rhythm, outside influences, or harmonic ideas. It's possible to reach back to any era and take inspiration, but that doesn't just mean treating it like a museum piece because you can only create music in the present moment. I'm not sure Julian meant it as praise necessarily for Wynton's doctrinaire approach to it all. After all JJ's own choice of record of the year was one with electronic sounds and a rhythm that is of its time, but still had sufficient roots back to earlier styles to be recognisable as jazz. Getting back to Wynton: recently I heard some cuts from the Lincoln Center orchestra when Wayne Shorter joined them for a concert to play his compositions. Their ensemble playing, though technically superb, sounded stilted to my ears, and rooted in an earlier era stylistically to Wayne's. It didn't seem to have dawned on them that this is a composer who had played with some of the leading groups of their time and had helped move the music forward. You can't play Shorter in the same way that you would with Ellington but that was exactly their approach.

The "electronics" on the Steve Lehman seem to be limited to a couple of synthesisers and some effects on Lehman's alto (judging by the effects board he has) - more to add texture than anything else, it seems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMcos7eQh3o

Full-length concert here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drk1yJZbgl8

[Ian Thumwood]

Bruce

That is an excellent post and I concur with all of it. Jazz is a broad church and can cover a multitude of bases and I think the whole notion of what is "innovation" is so nebulous as to have little meaning. I am really sceptical about musicians regreting their choice of style as if they have some kind of epithany that playing more contemporary would have been the right route to take all along. Back in the first half of the 1990s I used to go to watch an octet of ex-pro musicians perform at what was the Abbey Hotel in Romsey and their repertoire reflected the West Coast jazz of their youth. Interestingly, they had a pianist you was younger than me who was exceptionally talented and had apparently picked up how to play almost immediately after hearing Oscar Peterson on a record. What was interesting was that although he was a brilliant jazz pianist, he had no interest in jazz piano other than Oscar Peterson. He was not even curious enough to check out the instrument beyond that. I still find this attitude really difficult to understand but a lot of musicians are wired like that. On the other hand you get players like Scott Robinson who are musical obsessives and who not only perform in the complete range of jazz styles ( I am most familiar with hin through his association with George Gruntz) but as someone is obsessive about musical instruments full stop. Robinson is well known for his collection of all sorts of bizarre saxophone related instruments. I always think of hm as a kind of jazz equivalent of the late Wilf Lund.

I get what SA is saying although my take is that if you are into jazz, you have to buy the whole package. Experimental stuff like Steve Lehman interests me but so do 1930's Territory Bands . It is never a case of "either / or." Sometimes I feel the need to indulge on Blue Note classics, other times I need to hear a big band in full roar. If I am working late at home, an ECM record hits the spot. In my opinion, the situation is more nuanced. A band like Tuba Skinny are innovating. The music is probably more free-flowing than 78 rpm records would have poriginally allowed but I think the choice of repertoire is fascinating insofar that they can pick up standard NO compositions as well as that of the city's favaourite sons like JRM. However, they also play music outside this range with pieces as diverse as those by Memphis Minnie and obscure bands like the St Louis Crackerjacks. They are not producing museum pieces , rather breathing new life into compositions from when jazz was the popular music of the day. This is as much a part of "jazz culture" as continuous innovation. Whilst there were bands in the 1930s like Fletcher Hednerson, Benny Goodman , Duke Ellington and Count Basie inovating in their own way, there were others such as Tommy Dorsey and especailly Bob Crosby favouring a more Dixieland approach. There were the same arguments then with the likes of John Hammond fanously hating Bob Crosby's band yet no one has an issue with that now as all these bandleaders have become part of the music's heritage. The arguments on 80 years ago are not important. Leaving a legacy in music is. SA's argument is a rehash of this kind of debate. As Bruce said, if you can bring your identity to earier styles, this still makes it relevant.

The issue i have with Emmett Cohen is not that he isn't a good pianist (he clearly is.) I think the main problem is that he has no individual characteristic. His playing takes on a range of styles. Personally, I would prefer to hear someone like Jaki Byard do this or even someone like Don Pullen. Both were far more rewarding pianists to listen to. I listened to some of his Youube broadcasts last night which I was totally unaware of. The whole concept of developing a profile like this on Youtube shows just how music has moved on in the way that it is marketed. For me, this is the crux of the issue as I just feel that Cohen is very much of product of how music is consumed these days. He ticks all the boxes from a marketing perspective - indeed the cover of his latest CD has him sporting a Man Bun ! For me, it is totally cynical but maybe not quite as much as the Chinese -American jazz pianist who wears provocative clothin that, from recollection, Joseph was enthusiastic about. There is so much of this stuff on All About Jazz where the musicians are all young and good looking and try to project a wholesome image for the music. I don't agree with SA regarding the onward pursuit of innovation in jazz although conversely I do not feel that SA is sufficiently critical of the way jazz is now being marketed and presented which is more of a problem in my eyes. There is a massive swathe of contemporary jazz which has no interest for me anymore as there seems to be a convetor belt of younger musicians who are promoted and who do not leave a legacy. I fear that someone like Cohen will fall into this category where the music is "too nice and too polite." It lacks the earthiness of Tuba Skinny, for example.

Many younger players from America seem in thrall of earlier generations to the extent that a lot of recent jazz can seem pointless. keith Jarrett recently made a comment in an interview along the same lines that innovation in jazz is a thing of the past. Getting into jazz in the 1980s was excellent as there was so much new music as well as musicians from earlier generations enjoying renewed exposure. I don;t find that kind of excitement in the music anymore. Why do you need another Jackie Mac clone when the original was perfect ? It is very difficult for jazz to remain relevant and if you want to discover the jazz that really matters these days, you have to delve deep before you hit upon it. Personally, I have rarely listened to so little new jazz as I have this year.

[Tenor Freak]

Most innovations in our music have already been realised. The best that contemporary players can do is to add small refinements or develop a signature style because they are standing on the shoulders of giants. There's a film of Warne Marsh, speaking in 1980 which is even more bleak than this: according to Marsh, nobody had topped Bird's 1947 quintets. And that was during what we might consider a far more golden age of the music than now. Recording technology has meant that jazz burned through several stages of development that took the Europeans some 300 years. There's only some 22 years between the Hot Fives and Bird's Savoy dates.

As for Cohen, right now he has 161,000 subscribers on Youtube and 756 videos. I think he's sincere about his love for this music and is keen to share it - as I say, being a Youtuber can generate more money than playing gigs. It's just a fact of life now for some working musicians, and he has more outreach than he would otherwise have had. The same goes for Bob Reynolds or Adam Neely. Jay Metcalfe of the Better Sax channel has 341,000 subscribers. Including me. And he is a player who is mediocre in the sense that, whilst technically proficient, he's really a jobbing pro with no well-recognised style of improvising but who can live in the South of France from his various commercial ventures arising from the Youtube channel.

I think you were alluding to Connie Han, who is a gifted musician who seems to be comfortable wearing skimpy outfits for performing; but she has the chops to keep your interest beyond that. Is she really much different to Yuja Wang, or Katia Buniatishvili, or a host of other female artists? As shallow as it is, it's a reality of making a dent in the business, especially for female musicians. There's only a small number of us (myself included) who are happy to go to see a bunch of ageing blokes in jeans and old jazz festival T-shirts or whatever to perform unpopular music. The point is, that what may appear to you to be cynical marketing is to me, a means to an end of making a living playing one genre of music.

[Tenor Freak]

NP: Wayne Shorter, Speak No Evil. Recorded 59 years ago today and still fresh.

[Tenor Freak]

NP: Dexter Gordon, A Swingin' Affair.

[Ian Thumwood]

Bruce

Good evening

I get where you are coming from but I find that if someone in jazz is hyped up and over-marketed, I tend to be a bit put off. I would rather discover someone myself as opposed to have someone's PR company recommend them on my behalf.

You are right about the fact that the Classical world has long since gone down this route. It will be interesting to see how long the Classical world will continue to publicise the likes of Yuga Wang as they mature although she never looks like she is getting older! At least the Classical world has a long history of going down the route of promoting glamorous women to perform music. It seems a relatively new thing in jazz and may have started with Hiromi even if her strangler's hands are a bit off-putting! When I have seen her perform live, the impression of her being a kind of jazz Pokemon quikcly vanishes as she is an extremely physical and visceral pianist.

For me, the Connie Han thing is a step too far. I am not influenced by how glamorous a jazz musician looks and I have a theory that when you step into jazz, the performers are effectively distilling their personality down to an individual sound that can often be recognised. I like listening to jazz without knowing what a performer looks like and, from past experience, think that a negative perception of a musician's personality can put you offf their music. The worst example of this for me was the pianist Kenny Werner who I can no longer listen to having experienced him hold a "masterclass" which became sufficiently unsavory to earn him a ban at Vienne. He was so "wrong" by how he presented himself and the language he used in front of kids and women that I would purposely avoid his music. I think the only person I have encountered who came close to being as bad was Tigran Hamasyan who was incredibly rude to the French students he was supposed to be coaching, (He shared the personality of a mutual piano playing acquaintance from Southampton but was even worse! ) After these two experiences, I find that I need to divorce the personalities from the music and the whole marketing process that tries to project non-musical elements to improve the appeal is a non-starter for me. It is the sound the musicians produce which is important and not the fact they have nice legs! For the most part, I do not want to know what the musicians are like as people nor am I keen for jazz musicians to sexualise the music. That seems really disrespectful to jazz's heritage and not really appropriate in 2023.

I think jazz has flirted with photogenic musicians since the 2000s since singers have become more fashionable. Connie Han has certainly taken this to another level yet I think there are plenty of female jazz musicians who are producing better "quality" jazz without going down the road of maximising the amount of lipstick worn and minimising the length of their skirts! One of the greatest writers about jazz musicians was the late Gene Lees and I can remember a chapter in one of his books about the steretypical be-bop musician and especially that of being a "troubled artist." It would have been fascinating to know how he would have considered the likes of Connie Han. I doubt he would have been enthused by this kind of approach.

In my personal opinion, I find it hard to see many of the younger crop of musicians leaving much of a legacy. As you rightly say, a lof of the jazz vocabulary has already been explored yet I still think that there are some terrific musicians out there who are making valid contributions to jazz without resorting to either man buns or short skirts. If I see that someone has a shiny PR job done in relation to their latest release, I would be more inclined to avoid than have my curiousity piqued. Indeed, it would be better if I had no idea what the musician looked like or how they presented themselves as the music is the important thing! That is why part of me still has a sneaking admiration for a label like ECM who minimalise the presentation so that their audience focuses on the music.

[eighthobstruction]

.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfNi5kHmewo Lee Morgan/Clifford Jordan Live in Baltimore 68....

[Serial_Apologist]

I may be wrong but I hardly think most jazz fans would ever have been drawn towards buying an album by having a sexually objectivised model on the front, even back in the bad old days of the 1960s, when the model so presented would not have been the artiste herself, and probably not even named on the sleeve. Even on pop sleeves; were Dusty et al presented in sexualised pose modes? Heavily made up, fashionably coiffed etc., stereotyped in line with fashion, which jazz never was about apart from the big band era.

[elmo]

Jackie McLean, Kenny Dorham, Bobby Timmons, Teddy Smith, J C Moses in 1962 playing Jackie's composition 'Melanie' - superb soloing from Kenny, Jackie and Bobby Timmons. Nice to be reminded of what a fine drummer J C Moses was.

https://youtu.be/t0S1HsK5SBY?feature=shared

elmo

[Jazzrook]

Alan Shorter(flugelhorn) with Gato Barbieri, Charlie Haden & Muhammad Ali playing ‘Parabola’ from the album ‘Orgasm’ recorded in 1968:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=yc0m8Yb0RUI

JR

[eighthobstruction]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6Kdb5xoYhU creamy rippling smooth straight ahead....masterly done....Ben Webster/Johnny Hodges Cellar Sessions 1960

[eighthobstruction]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pMyMBRpx4o My favourite Herbie Hancock album Crossing (and all works before his albums became ordinary poroduct....The one track side one top draw....I think showing how important Herbie was to MIles Davis or/and vice versa....the relaxed feeling , I believe comes from Miles not being involved....