What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Ian Thumwood]

2our Thing" is a terrific album.

I have been listenng to "For Basie", a 1957 set led by Paul Quinichette with Jones / Green / Page from the original Basie band augmented by Nat Pearce - not a name that ever gets mentioned much in here. For me, the star player on this set of Basie classics is the trumpeter Shad Collins, a musician more famous for being a member of a number of notable big bands in the 30s and 40s but showing himself on this disc to be like a cross between Sweets Edison and Dizzy Gillispie. Quinichette was often unfairly maligned yet I think Collins is the star of this set. He doesn't seem to waste a note and the range of timbres he coaxes out if his trumpet combine to ensure that he steals the limelight. The rhythm section is as good as you would imagine (it was Walter Pages's last recording following a career that started in 1918!) This is something that would appreciate to Elmo, I am sure.

[Ian Thumwood]

i have been having a clear out at home and found an old CD I had bought by the blues guitarist Blind Blake. I think I must have bought it around the late 2000's when I was listening to alot of old country blues material. At the time I was somewhat indifferent to it and his guitar playing always struck me as being far more impressive than his singing. Listening again, I think that his guitar playing is really special, not some much for the reason that it packs the punch of someonelike like Blind Lemon Jefferson or Charlie Patton but because it more closely resembles ragtime piano playing of that era. in some respects, it is closer to jazz than most of his contemporaries.

Had Blind Blake produced one masterpiece I think he would have acquired the reputation his playing derserved but , judging by the compilation I have, there are compositions which have the clout of something like "Dark was the night, cold was the ground." His approach to music does seem to be more rooted in entertainment as opposed to social commentary and I feel that there is a bit emphasis on musical mastery. What is shocking is that, for someone who is alleged to have died as recently as 1934, almost nothing is known about him. He is a real man of mystery with even the accounts of his death by his blues contemporaries being exagerated tales which, after research in 2011, seem to be very far from the truth of him passing due to pneumonia. There is even doubt over his real name and the last recordings he made for the Paramont before the label went pop in 1932 are apparently by someone else! In my opinion, the guitar playing seems pretty advanced for those times or atleast what was recorded in the late 1920s. Blind Blake is a name that seems forgotten to some extent.

[elmo]

Sonny Rollins day today at elmo's, At the VV, Newk's Time, Now's The Time and the wonderful Saxophone Colossus " Strode Rode with Tommy Flanagan, Doug Watkins and Max

https://youtu.be/L7G4DciALDs?feature=shared

elmo

[Serial_Apologist]

For those who find listening to still extant past editions of J to Z, JRR and Freeness convenient, make the most of Sounds while it lasts because it looks possible it may go the same way as the iPlayer - see the thread I've just started.

[Roger Webb]

Mats Eilertsen 'And then comes the night', Ayumi Tanaka 'Subaqueous Silence', Bobo Stenson 'War Orphans', Tord Gustavsen 'The Ground', very much all ECM piano trio stuff and perfect for a bit later. Hoping to go over to Paris to see Tord Gustavsen Trio live at 'Sunrise' in Paris later in the year.

[Ian Thumwood]

I like that Bobo Stenson disc and was tempted by his latest CD. It is a bit disappointing how ECM have very much evolved in to a limited house style. Most of the more instesting musicians on that roster have either passed on or, like Stenson and Surman, are in their 80s. "War Orphans" is a brilliant record and I love the interpretations of the Ornette tunes. The opening number s excellent too,

I have been listening to a lot of classical piano music this past week includong working my way through the complete Naxos Villa -Lobos piano series. He was a strange composer. Some of his music is almost childlike in it's simplicity but other compositions must be unplayable. He goes from producing cafe music trhough to pieces which have a rhythmic drive only rivalled by jazz. In my opinion, he is an interesting character and under-rated. I have just started listening to the Bachianas Brazileiras which probably will takea bit more lisening to to appreciate.

The other composer I am really struck on is Karol Syzmanowki.Joseph made a comment about a year ago that his piano music was "rubbish" and "not very highly rated.2 Having gone through the 4 CDs by Martin Roscoe, it is clear that Symanowski was an incredible composer for the piano. I bought the manuscript of his Opus 1 and 3 but they are above my ability albeit platable enough to see the comparisons with Scriabin albeit I think there is the folk element of Bartok and colours of Debussy to throw in tothe mix. I cannot believe that he is never cited as an influence on jazz. The piano works need to be better known and then Joseph's comment about connecting Scriabin with Coltrane could be extended to Syzmanowski although I am not quite sure who you could compare him with. Sometimes his music has the all on assault of Cecil Taylor although they sound totally different. There is a similar impression of both the Pole and Taylor being all over the piano. SA made a comment a few weeks ago in relation to Phineas Newborn playing Ravel and how much os a challenge Ravel's music is for the piano. I am not as enthused by Ravel as I once was and have to say that I find Syzmanowski to be far more sophisticated and more of a musical challenge. Ravel's "Debussy out of Faure" approach seems less exciting to me these days. I don't think you can get any better than either Scriabin or Syzmanowski for piano composition in the 20th century - I really like Debussy, Messaien and even Bartok's piano music but the Russian and the Pole have the sprawling, harmonic approach( which is almost like walking on egg shells when it comes to Syzmanowki's relation to dissonance) that i feel leaves jazz piano wanting to rise to the challenge.

Martin Roscoe's Syzmanowki series and SOnia Rubinsky's Villa-Lobos set have really been off my player this year. I am very impressed eve though unfamiliar composers like Prokoviev and Shostakovich are also getting the nod ahead of a lot of jazz. Early 2th century classical music is akin to jazz in 50s / 60s, in my opinion, It is difficult to see much that is better in classical piano before or after this time span.

[Serial_Apologist]

I like that Bobo Stenson disc and was tempted by his latest CD. It is a bit disappointing how ECM have very much evolved in to a limited house style. Most of the more instesting musicians on that roster have either passed on or, like Stenson and Surman, are in their 80s. "War Orphans" is a brilliant record and I love the interpretations of the Ornette tunes. The opening number s excellent too,

I have been listening to a lot of classical piano music this past week includong working my way through the complete Naxos Villa -Lobos piano series. He was a strange composer. Some of his music is almost childlike in it's simplicity but other compositions must be unplayable. He goes from producing cafe music trhough to pieces which have a rhythmic drive only rivalled by jazz. In my opinion, he is an interesting character and under-rated. I have just started listening to the Bachianas Brazileiras which probably will takea bit more lisening to to appreciate.

The other composer I am really struck on is Karol Syzmanowki.Joseph made a comment about a year ago that his piano music was "rubbish" and "not very highly rated.2 Having gone through the 4 CDs by Martin Roscoe, it is clear that Symanowski was an incredible composer for the piano. I bought the manuscript of his Opus 1 and 3 but they are above my ability albeit platable enough to see the comparisons with Scriabin albeit I think there is the folk element of Bartok and colours of Debussy to throw in tothe mix. I cannot believe that he is never cited as an influence on jazz. The piano works need to be better known and then Joseph's comment about connecting Scriabin with Coltrane could be extended to Syzmanowski although I am not quite sure who you could compare him with. Sometimes his music has the all on assault of Cecil Taylor although they sound totally different. There is a similar impression of both the Pole and Taylor being all over the piano. SA made a comment a few weeks ago in relation to Phineas Newborn playing Ravel and how much os a challenge Ravel's music is for the piano. I am not as enthused by Ravel as I once was and have to say that I find Syzmanowski to be far more sophisticated and more of a musical challenge. Ravel's "Debussy out of Faure" approach seems less exciting to me these days. I don't think you can get any better than either Scriabin or Syzmanowski for piano composition in the 20th century - I really like Debussy, Messaien and even Bartok's piano music but the Russian and the Pole have the sprawling, harmonic approach( which is almost like walking on egg shells when it comes to Syzmanowki's relation to dissonance) that i feel leaves jazz piano wanting to rise to the challenge.

Martin Roscoe's Syzmanowki series and SOnia Rubinsky's Villa-Lobos set have really been off my player this year. I am very impressed eve though unfamiliar composers like Prokoviev and Shostakovich are also getting the nod ahead of a lot of jazz. Early 2th century classical music is akin to jazz in 50s / 60s, in my opinion, It is difficult to see much that is better in classical piano before or after this time span.

I agree about Villa-Lobos and Szymanowsky. The former's music often reminds me of Milhaud's, and not only in respect of the love both had for Brazilian folk and popular musics. Given that Milhaud was secretary to the French Attaché at Rio, it has surprised many commentators that they never seem to have crossed paths. I am surprised if as you say JosephK said what you say he said about Szymanowsky's piano music, though he is something of a Marmite composer, going from Chopin's, Strauss's and Reger's influences to a blending in of Debussy, Ravel and Scriabin in the "exotic" period around WW1 such as "Métopes" - which took the music close to Bergian atonality, especially in the Third Piano Sonata with its thrilling fugal finale, to the later conscious nationalism of the 20s and early 30s when he statedly admitted the influences of Stravinsky and Bartok... and to my ears Prokofiev. I guess the answer to your question as to why jazz people seem not to have mentioned this composer as an influence comes down to.a few better-known modernists, Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartok and Messiaen, having proved sufficient, though in the case of our own John Taylor, Norma Winstone once told me that he would often take to playing pieces at home by English composers such as Bax and Moeran, and I can clearly hear them alongside Bartok and Messiaen in his own harmonic and rhythmic language. JT arranged a setting by Walton from one of the Shakespeare films, "Touch Her Soft Lips and Part". I often hear the later Frank Bridge in much post-1960 jazz both sides of The pond, though this could be a case of correlation rather than causation. Pete Saberton mentioned Roussel and Prokofiev alongside Bartok, Messiaen and Schoenberg to me, and the pianist Geoff Williams, who we heard backing Andy Sheppard in the early 1980s band Sphere, and who for me comes closer than any British pianist to Don Pullen, used to regale me with the latest Messiaen and Lutoslawsky works he'd heard.

Today I re-listened to the tape I made at the time of the Surman/Mangelsdorff/Jones concert recorded for Charles Fox's programme in April 1986 at the Shaw Theatre in London, in the hope that I might apprciate it more than I did at the time, in the light of hindsight, but I have to say it disappointed me as much as it did at the time. Part of the issue is down to Mangelsdorff's idiosyncratic use of the plunger mute, part of it to the fact that Surman was not playing with the same adventurousness he had shown in The Trio ten years earlier and sounds quite "mainstream", the same applying to Dave Holland who sticks to conventional bass lines most of the time, partly to most of the numbers played being at the same plodding medium tempo, and the fact that Elvin Jones adopts a conventional swinging backing approach, sometimes bordering on the bombastic, rather than garnering the challenging surge of the Coltrane years. So I haven't changed my mind about that, at the time most celebrated get-together, and still think it was hyped. For collaborations with Americans, Surman's with Jack DeJohnette was far more imaginative. I shall probably get slated for saying this!

[Roger Webb]

I agree about Villa-Lobos and Szymanowsky. The former's music often reminds me of Milhaud's....!

And if you like Milhaud's jazz-inflected style you might like another of Martin Jones's complete surveys of piano music for Nimbus, the three CDs of Jean Françaix's piano music NI 5880/2.

Also, re. the Villa-Lobos series on Naxos, another that's worth having a listen to is a companion disc 8.557765 that gives us some of the chamber music, incl. the Quintette instrumental for Flute, Str. Trio and Harp.....was there ever a better evocation of the Brazilian rain forest than the 2nd movt. Lento?

[Ian Thumwood]

Roger

Thanks for the "head up" about Villa-Lobos, I have to say that his music reminds me most of Egberto Gismonti as opposed to any other classical composer.


Struggling to find this CD. I had bought the guitar works CD for my niece to encourage her with the guitar lessons but I think she prefers Taylor Swift!


I think Villa Lobos was in Paris when Milhaud was in Brazil.

[Serial_Apologist]

Roger

Thanks for the "head up" about Villa-Lobos, I have to say that his music reminds me most of Egberto Gismonti as opposed to any other classical composer.

Heitor Villa-Lobos: 1887 - 1949

Egberto Gismonti: 1947 -

Surely the other way round?

[Roger Webb]

Roger


Struggling to find this CD.

Villa-Lobos Mobius chamber music cd, brings it up on Google from eBay, WoB and Amazon....the last most applicable here!

[elmo]

I really like Grant Green - a very distinctive sound and real blues feeling - "Blues in Maude's Flat from the "Grantstand" album by a great band, Yusef Lateef, Jack McDuff and Al Harewood. Yusef's solo on this is one of his best.

https://youtu.be/-n3VJQIKduU?feature=shared

elmo

[Ian Thumwood]

I really like Grant Green - a very distinctive sound and real blues feeling - "Blues in Maude's Flat from the "Grantstand" album by a great band, Yusef Lateef, Jack McDuff and Al Harewood. Yusef's solo on this is one of his best.

https://youtu.be/-n3VJQIKduU?feature=shared

elmo

Elmo

I lke his sounds too. There was an interview someone gave on the radio many years ago who described hearing Grant Green playing in a small chicken restaurant albeit he had no idea who it was at the time other than to hear just how good the guitarist was. This story has always stuck in my mind about this player. He was somewhat over-recorded by Blue Note yet, "in the field" he was capable of miracles.

[Tenor Freak]

Bobby Hutcherson and Harold Land - A Night in Barcelona from their 1970 LP San Francisco.

[Ian Thumwood]

I have been listene t the new Ambrose Akinmusire trio disc called "Owl Song" which features Bill Frisell and Herlin Riley. thes are three musicians I have always enjoyed and the reviews of this record have been really good. Someone did post on this "bored" a fw weeks ago that they had enjoyed it. Having played it once, on first listen I am really disappointed and was surprised just how introspective it is. It would not have seemed out ofplace on the ECM label. For musicians of this stature, I expected something really compelling and I have to say that the reocrd would have probably have been better as just a duo between Frisell and Akinmusire. The drumming is effectively acting like a metronome that glues the other two musicians together. I had expected something more akin to Paul Motian's trio yet this record matches that group's more introspective dynamics without breaking loose into the more aggresive realms of the other group. Struck me as a bit polite and with more focus on the trumpeter as opposed to being 3 equal partners. I will listen again but, at first listen, it is underwelming. Much prefer the Shostokovich 23 Preludes and Fugues that I bought at the same time which is seriously compelling music.