What Jazz are you listening to now?

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

The truffaz you see it!

Erik T was featured and interviewed at length on France Musique at breakfast time this morning (imagine R3 doing similarly with - insert Brit jazz name here). I've never found him convincing and the Bluenote album featured, "Roll"? even less so. His "radical" reworking of his favourite movie themes. It all sounded limp and pointless. The Guardian said he now sees himself more of a pop musician with jazz influences. Hence Bluenote?

Weirdly, I once bought a new sealed CD of his from a Welsh market stall. The Swiss do travel!

[Ian Thumwood]

Quarky / Bluesnik

I have long lost sight of Erik Truffaz having encountered his music on two occasions in the past. The first was probably around the late 90s when one of his albums was being played in the HMV in Oxford Street which I used to visit prior to the advent of the Internet. It was a record that was far more influenced by electric - era Miles but what shocked me was how he had ended up on a Blue Note recording without ever been aware of his name. (I think this was a marketing ploy as he was singed by French EMI at the time and somene decided that he should be put out on the Blue Note label. ) The acoustic track suggested by Quarky is a marked improvement on what I heard back then yet it is still curious just how little traction Truffaz has with many jazz fans and especially outside of France.

I eventually heard him as part of a triple bill in Vienne around 2002 where he was part of a "Nu Jazz" evening that featured Bugge Wieseltoft and EST. This stuff was all the rage back then but, I regret to say, Truffaz' set was one of the worst concerts I have been to. It was truly dreadful. The group was augmented by a Tunisian singer who added nothing to the music which also featured a megaphone being pointed into the innards of a grand piano. I have to say that Truffaz came across a poseur and by the end of his set I made hiim marked down as a charlatan. It was really terrible and the music was all cosmetics with no "genuine" jazz being played. The following sets by BW and EST were not really much better and the whole evening was slightly disturbing as it was cast as being a futture vision of jazz although the results that evening were little better than Smooth Jazz. Thankfully jazz has moved on from this type of music. Several days later I recall speaking to a woman who was a producer for a jazz festival in Belgium and explaining that I thought the NU Jazz concert was awful . Her response was quite interesting because she stated that they needed these kinds of bands to engage a younger demographic and that the interest in the likes of Truffaz / EST / BW etc, etc because they could not longer rely on more familiar , mainstream names to generate interest and income. Alot of this stuff was heavily marketed at the time since jazz was no longer considered somnething that would attract audiences under the age 30. It was a case of either promote this stuff or go bust.

If I am honest, the tracks from the new album that I have been listening to are a marked improvement on what I have heard previously of his work and I feel obliged to Quarky for posting this, It reminded me a bit of Tomasz Stanko albeit without the same degree of menace and sense of brooding. Usually, Truffaz' music seemed to be an amalgam of Miles, Hip-hop and a more European aesthetic. From what I can recall, his music had a far bigger following in France than in the US and UK where his work has not gained anywhere near the same traction. It was funny going to Vienne and seeing the audience reaction to different jazz gigs as they seemed far more tolerant of artists like Truffaz. Musicians like the bassist Avishai Cohen are almost heralded as superstars and there seemed to be an acceptance things like Gypsy jazz was still relevant. By contrast, anything remotely avant garde or seemingly radical was embraced regardless of how good it was. I found French fans to be a little bit different in the music they appreciated and , without doubt, they would have made room for someone like Erik Truffaz as he plugged into an element of French nostalgia (even though he is Swiss) that does not really apply in the UK. I think an even better example than Truffaz was St Germain from around the same time. There was a point when you could not avoid the music from the album "Tourist" being used a background music in restaurants. The music evokes images of misty strolls along the Seine and New Wave cinema but the "jazz" element of St Germain is , again, something that is pretty cosemetic. It is like a photocopy of what jazz is supposed to sound like as opposed to being the real thing. All in all, I was surprised by the Truffaz track which was better than what I had anticipated.

[Quarky]

Thanks for the feedback - much more than I expected. Yes Truffaz at the pop end of the spectrum, but in this day and age.......
It was the first time I had come across Truffaz in the Radio France interview. Having nothing better to do, I decided to post on this board in the hope of some reaction. So I count that as a success.
I will have to listen to the interview again, as I believe the album "is in homage to the cinema".
There is a very sympathetic review on Presto Music:: https://www.prestomusic.com/jazz/art...k-truffaz-clap
"the selections on Clap! commemorates the movies whose soundtracks it emulates not through mere imitation, but via a solidly imaginative series of musical reinventions.......The soundtracks depicted belong to a list of French movies largely unseen outside of their local market..."

[Tenor Freak]

Claus Ogerman and Michael Brecker - Cityscape

[Jazzrook]

J.J. Johnson was born 100 years ago today(January 22, 1924).
Here's his :Aquarius' with Freddie Hubbard, Clifford Jordan, Cedar Walton, Arthur Harper & Albert Heath recorded in 1960 from the album 'J.J. Inc.':

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=_N35leZpK30

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

J.J. Johnson was born 100 years ago today(January 22, 1924).
Here's his :Aquarius' with Freddie Hubbard, Clifford Jordan, Cedar Walton, Arthur Harper & Albert Heath recorded in 1960 from the album 'J.J. Inc.':

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=_N35leZpK30

JR

We of our "baby boomer" generation were told we were born into the Age of Aquarius, weren't we? Fat chance - "Hair" today, gone tomorrow.

[elmo]

Booker Little, Eric Dolphy, Julian Priester, Don Friedman, Art Davis, Max Roach ' We Speak' from the album "Out Front"recorded April 1961.
Very apt title - they certainly spoke......Booker was a tragic loss.

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

elmo

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Jackie McLean "New Soil" Bluenote 5/1959. Jackie's opener for Bluenote after Prestige and the artistic space now given tells. Great band with Donald Byrd engaged and on board. Jackie here starting to push the boundaries in all direction's, this, Walter David's "Greasy" kicks off like something from Louis Jordan, the humour evident. Unique on Bluenote?

http://youtu.be/3VATrlmodWg?feature=shared

[Ian Thumwood]

I find it funny how Jackie McLean's records get cited as "pushing the boundaries" and the most obvious example. "New and old gospel" always gets over-looked. For ages, I was put off my McLean's strident reputation and it took hearing "Let freedom ring" about 20 years ago to make me appreicate what I was missing. The more celebrated group witj Hutcherson and Moncur always seemed to reach out more to Dave Holland's quintet of the early 2000s which shared the same line up. The "New and old gospel" record with Ornette playing his most convincing trumpet on record is an oddity. I always feel that people try to ignore this effort in McLean's canon.

[Tenor Freak]

Not playing RN but I recently got a copy of Grachan Moncur III's Evolution on vinyl and it's a great LP, especially that set-closer Monk in Wonderland with it's evil head and shifting 3/4 and 4/4 segments. I wish Hutcherson had done more piano-less dates as I always like his comping; and Lee Morgan does a fine job on what is nominally an "avant-garde" LP. It makes me wonder what he could have done had he been the trumpet on Out To Lunch rather than Hubbard. Jackie M is, as always, on fire.

[elmo]

Been listening to the marvellous blues and boogie pianists - here is one of the best

https://youtu.be/c4eQbeuX2Y0?feature=shared

elmo

[Ian Thumwood]

Listening to "Old and New Gospel" again it struck me that this record is more of Ornette Coleman coming to terms with Jackie McLean's approach as opposed to the leader coming to terms with freer jazz. I love the track "New Gospel" and think that Lamont Johnson is terrific on this track. The original intention was for Cecil Taylor to be the pianist on this session but he refused to work with Coleman as he considered his approach to playing the trumpet to be amateur and disrespectful to "genuine" trumpeters. That would have created a totally different album. Did Talor and Orbette ever perform together ? Although they are both notionally from the Avant Garde, they do sound like polar opposites. Despite his avant creditentials, I have always felt that Ornette was very much rooted in the blues. Probably more in similarily between Sidney Bechet and Ornette Coleman than the latter and the more atonal, informed and studious Cecil Taylor.

[Ian Thumwood]

Been listening to the marvellous blues and boogie pianists - here is one of the best

https://youtu.be/c4eQbeuX2Y0?feature=shared

elmo

I find it wierd that Yancey concludes the piece in the wrong key. Someone mentioned this previously as being a particular habit of his, It is interesting to consider pianists like Yancey and wonder whether he was self-taught. I like the relaxed feel of his right hand playing. My Dad used to have a compilation CD of these Boogie Woogie players and I must admit that these musicians are fun to listen to in small does but a little goes a long way. One pianist of that kind of ilk I really like is Leroy Carr. I do not think he was a great technician but there is a simple honesty about his playing that appeals to me.

[Serial_Apologist]

I find it wierd that Yancey concludes the piece in the wrong key. Someone mentioned this previously as being a particular habit of his,

That someone being me. I've often wondered if there was some superstitious reason connected with Eb - a kind of obsessive-compulsive thing. B that as it may I've often thought Monk drew his skeletal approach from Jimmy Yancey. Some of Yancey's most moving recordings were with his later-in-life wife, Mama Yancey.

For some reason URLs containing the lower case l never seem to link for this forum.

[Ian Thumwood]

That someone being me. I've often wondered if there was some superstitious reason connected with Eb - a kind of obsessive-compulsive thing. B that as it may I've often thought Monk drew his skeletal approach from Jimmy Yancey. Some of Yancey's most moving recordings were with his later-in-life wife, Mama Yancey.

For some reason URLs containing the lower case l never seem to link for this forum.

SA

I was thinking along the same lines too and wondered if there was something medical about the reason he always changes in key to Eb. It is a peculiar ouevre because there is bags of physical technique involved whilst not really sharing the same kind of sophistication as stride piano. He came from a vaudeville background where his father also worked. It is interesting that he was self-taught as I think a more formal education would have ironed out the oddity of concluding in the "wrong" key. The right hand playing seems more delicate that if typical of players in this style.

I quite like the fact that this approach to music is all his own. I can see the similarity with Monk although his eccentricities are more due to incorporating notes from outside the chord (accidentals) and also using whole tone scales. It fascinates me just how some people "hear" music differently. I was playing some Bartok childrens' pieces last night (Romanian Dances) and they have similar quirks such as scales based in A which only feature two of the three sharps!