What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Jazzrook]

I also enjoyed the Dodo Marmarosa track. It’s a pity that most of his albums are almost impossible to find or very expensive. I see some greedy seller on Amazon is asking around £588 for his ‘Complete Studio Recordings’(Lone Hill).
Here’s Dodo Marmarosa with Lucky Thompson, Ray Brown & Jackie Mills playing ‘How High The Moon’ in 1946:

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

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

When it comes to Kenny Wheeler, we're all merry men

http://londonjazznews.com/2024/07/02...phil-merriman/

Before even listening to these tracks, half of which in any case are in my collection - and it's too nice a day to sacrifice by staying indoors - I just want to applaud Phil Merriman and draw attention to the excellence of his write-up as setting the kind of informed standard, insight and depth former jazz hosts and presenters on Radio 3 consistently used to offer in its good old days.

[elmo]

Steve Lacy, Mal Waldron, Buell Neidlinger and Elvin Jones in 1958 playing Monk's "Skippy" - not too many musicians in the 50's could play Monk's music, Lacy, Waldron and Co certainly could.

https://youtu.be/U-EiDtJzL9Q?feature=shared

elmo

[Jazzrook]

Carmell Jones with Jimmy Heath, Barry Harris, George Tucker & Roger Humphries playing ‘What Is This Thing Called Love?’ from the album ‘Jay Hawk Talk’(Prestige) recorded in 1965:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=EZphNQP8OP8

JR

[Ian Thumwood]

Steve Lacy, Mal Waldron, Buell Neidlinger and Elvin Jones in 1958 playing Monk's "Skippy" - not too many musicians in the 50's could play Monk's music, Lacy, Waldron and Co certainly could.

https://youtu.be/U-EiDtJzL9Q?feature=shared

elmo

Elmo

Some of the Monk tunes are actually easy to play but Skippy is very difficult indeed. The other tune which is complex is Horning In which is one of my favourite Monk themes. Most of his work is either based on Blues or uses contrafacts. Your comment is interesting although I do not necessarily agree with it. Where they are difficult, Monk's themes are tricky but they are nowhere as near as problematic as Herbie Hichols whose harmony and form are a real challenge. There are no comfortable progressions in his writing . Alot of Monk tunes are easy to play and imprivise on. They are easily the most fun pieces to learn if you want to play jazz and not too much of a challenge when it comes to expanding your ideas.

My piano teacher used to say that 'Round Midnight was the best composition in the jazz canon to improvise on.

[Serial_Apologist]

Elmo

Some of the Monk tunes are actually easy to play but Skippy is very difficult indeed. The other tune which is complex is Horning In which is one of my favourite Monk themes. Most of his work is either based on Blues or uses contrafacts. Your comment is interesting although I do not necessarily agree with it. Where they are difficult, Monk's themes are tricky but they are nowhere as near as problematic as Herbie Hichols whose harmony and form are a real challenge. There are no comfortable progressions in his writing . Alot of Monk tunes are easy to play and imprivise on. They are easily the most fun pieces to learn if you want to play jazz and not too much of a challenge when it comes to expanding your ideas.

My piano teacher used to say that 'Round Midnight was the best composition in the jazz canon to improvise on.

I've never enjoyed Herbie Hancock's version of 'Round Midnight from the otherwise rightly celebrated film of that name, finding it ridiculously pleased with itself, over-sentimentalised, and way over the top, with Herbie doing his best to imitate someone performing Liszt or Rachmaninov, To my ears the tune does not deserve that opulence, but fares best in ironic stark beauty as I think Monk intended - he always played it that way - played sparingly on its bare bones. And Herbie is normally among my favourite musicians!

Below is the 1950s pianist Billy Taylor's trio playing "I Know There'll Never Be Another You". it's strange how what one once thought the most wonderful thing in the world can later assume an ordariness owing to subsequently raised expectations. Run-of-the-mill probably describes most of this performance, which I first heard as a jazz newbie aged 15; but I still find the passage at around 3 minutes impressive where for two choruses Taylor exchanges left hand chord comping for a single line which is against the underlying metre while maintaining the Tristano-like legato improvising line in the right hand. I had only come across such metric superposition - 5 against 4 for instance - in early Scriabin pieces previously, and found it miraculous that someone could do this spontaneously - actually probably the easiest way - let alone by sight-reading, without possessing some sort of split brain! The rhetorical final fling with octaves still sounds as good as then, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kBbow-GJfQ

[Ian Thumwood]

SA

Thanks for pointing out the elements to listen out for on that track by Dr Billy Taylor. I thought that it was a terrific performance and really inventive.

My perspective is somewhat different. Pianists are the real heroes of jazz and the different facets of the choruses make this very interesting. You have to put this in the context of his contemporaries like Red Garland and Oscar Peterson to appreciate how great this performance was. I think Billy Taylor was highly considered by his peers and there is a good chapter about him in one of the Gene Lees books if you want to see just how important he was to jazz education.

It fascinates me that alot of what is good about a performance like this probably goes over most people's heads. My piano teacher used to play in a similar style and I would go to here him perform with his trio at Goblets each Wednesday night. He would have loved this performance as the harmonic journey and devices of playing notes un unison or the time signature effects are very clever yet the one quality he prized and which you have missed is the way this music swings.

Thanks for sharing this track . It has made my evening. I really enjoyed it in itself as well as reminding me of the evenings I spend listening to Monty Worlock who had legendary status in Southampton where he later wrote music for NYJO and played with Joe Harriot. He also studied with a teacher called Frank Sumner who was a pupil of Lizst. I think that Bruce would have known Monty too.

[elmo]

Elmo

Some of the Monk tunes are actually easy to play but Skippy is very difficult indeed. The other tune which is complex is Horning In which is one of my favourite Monk themes. Most of his work is either based on Blues or uses contrafacts. Your comment is interesting although I do not necessarily agree with it. Where they are difficult, Monk's themes are tricky but they are nowhere as near as problematic as Herbie Hichols whose harmony and form are a real challenge. There are no comfortable progressions in his writing . Alot of Monk tunes are easy to play and imprivise on. They are easily the most fun pieces to learn if you want to play jazz and not too much of a challenge when it comes to expanding your ideas.

My piano teacher used to say that 'Round Midnight was the best composition in the jazz canon to improvise on.

Ian

I take your point re complexity but the point I was trying to make really was that a lot of versions of Monk tunes at that period adopted playing the head and just running the changes rather than improvising more on the melody. I am somewhat limited on the technical aspects since I don't play or read music.

Here is a rare live recording by the Monk quartet with Steve Lacy sitting in recorded in 1960

https://youtu.be/DahHdBU710k?list=PLYHxPCD5JpoesPMNUdV8X-RtK6PYYYgJq

elmo

[Ian Thumwood]

Elmo

I seem to recall an interview with Bill Holman where he discussed the issue of playing Monk's and how playing slick harmonic changes with Monk tunes does not work. Monk's music is pretty traditional in the way changes work and the fact they are relatively orthodox helps to loosen the music to improvisation.

Monk's music is primarily melodic whereas Nichols is radically different because the music is far from orthodox. It is difficult to solo on. The harmonies are so related to the melody that it is hard improvise on. In my opinion Nichols was the most switched on jazz composer until Wayne Shorter.

With Monk the issue is that the improvisation needs to match the character of the composition.

I have loads of books by jazz composer of whom Monk is the most idiosyncratic. It fascinates me who people compose jazz. There are composers like Tom Harrell and Pat Metheny who are operating at a very sophisticated level of harmony. The other composers I have tried are David Binney and Dave Douglas and they strike me as being very sophisticated and offer challenges well beyond what you get with Monk. They are very difficult to play with odd changes and uneven number of bars.

I love the idea of jazz composition and it is something i Iike trying out on my piano. I have books of music by Monk, Nichols, Methley, Frisell , shorter, Henderson, Dameron and Dorham. It is fascinating to see how their approaches differ. Someone like Andrew Hill is also quite intriguing as the musical framework is quite sketchy and a bit like Monk.

I really want to try Elmo Hope's music but my guess is that it will be more bop influenced.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

My favourite version of *Round Midnight" is from a Prestige qrt session c.1956 with Donald Byrd and Barry Harris. It rarely departs from the melody and structure, it's bare bones but effective because of that.

[Jazzrook]

My favourite version of *Round Midnight" is from a Prestige qrt session c.1956 with Donald Byrd and Barry Harris. It rarely departs from the melody and structure, it's bare bones but effective because of that.

This wonderful version with Doug Watkins & Art Taylor, BN?

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=aBt-b3ZpwTw

JR

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Yep, that's the one! I found it on one of the double re released Prestige LPs back in the 1970s? There's also a superb ballad version of "When your lover has gone" by Art Farmer from that album. i used to.play a tape of that to death, sipping beer and watching the sea at night in Penarth. Very Welsh!

[Jazzrook]

Yep, that's the one! I found it on one of the double re released Prestige LPs back in the 1970s? There's also a superb ballad version of "When your lover has gone" by Art Farmer from that album. i used to.play a tape of that to death, sipping beer and watching the sea at night in Penarth. Very Welsh!

Your post(#8350) prompted me to order ‘2 Trumpets’ which also includes ‘When Your Lover Has Gone’ with Art Farmer, Barry Harris, Doug Watkins & Art Taylor.
Many thanks!

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

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

Henry Lowther, one of our very own, was 83 last Friday - apologies for I really should have mentioned this earlier!

Here is a Milesian Neffertiti period-influenced track from his 2017 eponymous album - nice Shorterish solo from the grossly underrated Peter Hurt and some near-atonal harmonies from "the other" Green (no relation) in the band:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do5aBPhfSwE

On the liner, Henry explains the track title as follows: "Lights is named after a former and somewhat mysterious set of traffic lights on London's North Circular Road. Known affectionately to North Londoners as the North Circ, the A406 is my favourite (sic) road anywhere ('I get my kicks on the A406!') and if you lived where I do you'd find yourself driving along it often. Until a couple of years ago there was a set of traffic lights at one point on the east-bound carriageway that appeared to serve no purpose whatsoever. They seemed invariably to be green until one one occasion many years ago as I was driving home at 2 in the morning they puzzlingly turned red for a short time and I had to stop. Sadly they have been removed and this tune is dedicated to their memory and also to mourn their passing"

[burning dog]

Henry Lowther, one of our very own, was 83 last Friday - apologies for I really should have mentioned this earlier!


On the liner, Henry explains the track title as follows: "Lights is named after a former and somewhat mysterious set of traffic lights on London's North Circular Road. Known affectionately to North Londoners as the North Circ, the A406 is my favourite (sic) road anywhere ('I get my kicks on the A406!') and if you lived where I do you'd find yourself driving along it often. Until a couple of years ago there was a set of traffic lights at one point on the east-bound carriageway that appeared to serve no purpose whatsoever. They seemed invariably to be green until one one occasion many years ago as I was driving home at 2 in the morning they puzzlingly turned red for a short time and I had to stop. Sadly they have been removed and this tune is dedicated to their memory and also to mourn their passing"

I love Henry Lowthers tone and style. I remember the North Circular from that era - IKEA induced traffic jams and "M Khan is Bent" painted on a bridge