What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Serial_Apologist]

Really Big is fantastic too. Forgot I had that disc I cannot find stuff so easily these days as my partner has stored all her cosmetics and hand bags in my CD cupboard!

She''ll have to make it up to you.

(Get it? make it up to you?? Oh never mind.........)

[Jazzrook]

Some astonishing tenor playing from Booker Ervin on the 27-minute ‘Blues For You’ with Kenny Drew, NHOP & Alan Dawson at the Berlin Jazz Festival, 1965:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=g7QFFFju3n8

JR

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Re nothing too significant but I was vaguely listening to a US jazz station (San Diego) and this came on, Grant Stewart (tenor Sax) playing "I waited for you". I was in another room and I thought it was Rollins and Jim Hall but no not really. It's very pleasant but it made me think of the hundreds of fairly anonymous tenor players who have come up in the last forty years and are somehow making a living. Teaching I surmise for most. Their equivalents in the 50s never had that.

Anyway it's what it is.http://youtu.be/i8gInjAmYoQ?feature=shared

[Ian Thumwood]

Grant Stewart is Canadian and his resume is quite impressive performing with a number of great jazz musicians in the Bop idiom. I tend to agree with your assessment but would argue that this music is still markedly better than so much of the stuff that is grabbing the attention of the media.

I think that the way jazz is perceived in 2024 is a little depressing. From a technical perspective the current musicians gave technique in abundance and I wonder about the recording quality issues making these kinds if records more appealing to radio stations where sound and production quality matters so much.

Part of me is annoyed that players like this are overlooked and the other part makes me wonder how relevant jazz is today. I am glad this stuff still exists even if it will never match the work of players like Sonny Rollins. Last year I bought a Dave Stryker record which was also mainstream but the string quartet that supported the jazz quartet was well beyond what someone like Joe Lipman wrote fir Charlie Parker. It was not innovative but it was really well devised . It will not change jazz yet I felt it demonstrated that there is still a lot of really worthwhile jazz that us being produced.

Even if you look at some of the freer jazz produced by a label like Clean Feed, there are musicians throughout Europe who are relatively unknown who are making excellent records in avant garde idioms which a technically brilliant. This already has a heritage of over 60 years .

i am not sure that there is much room left for innovation these days but I am not sure that it matters. I think that is is original programming and composition which will pique the interest of jazz audiences in future.

[Jazzrook]

Re nothing too significant but I was vaguely listening to a US jazz station (San Diego) and this came on, Grant Stewart (tenor Sax) playing "I waited for you". I was in another room and I thought it was Rollins and Jim Hall but no not really. It's very pleasant but it made me think of the hundreds of fairly anonymous tenor players who have come up in the last forty years and are somehow making a living. Teaching I surmise for most. Their equivalents in the 50s never had that.

Anyway it's what it is.http://youtu.be/i8gInjAmYoQ?feature=shared

I have his excellent 2006 quartet album ‘In The Still Of The Night’(currently only £427 on Amazon!)
Here’s a video of him playing the title track.
Grant Stewart deserves a hearing on JRR sometime.

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

JR

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Yes, he's a very good player within his choice of style. What surprises me listening to more of him is how committed to that era he is, some of the recordings themselves almost seem to be of that date - Listening to him now play Fool to want you or Scene is clean, it could almost be a date straight from Prestige 1957. Not that I object to that era. Smiley face

But I've also been listening again to George Coleman with Miles on concert dates and he really did push it, hugely impressive. Why he didn't have more solo dates in his "flush" is a mystery. Maybe no writing of note unlike Wayne?

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes, he's a very good player within his choice of style. What surprises me listening to more of him is how committed to that era he is, some of the recordings themselves almost seem to be of that date - Listening to him now play Fool to want you or Scene is clean, it could almost be a date straight from Prestige 1957. Not that I object to that era. Smiley face

But I've also been listening again to George Coleman with Miles on concert dates and he really did push it, hugely impressive. Why he didn't have more solo dates in his "flush" is a mystery. Maybe no writing of note unlike Wayne?

From various bits and pieces my conclusion would be that George lacked self-confidence at that time, what with the premium Miles always insisted on matching up to earlier band members, feeling outflanked by Trane along with contemporaries then gaining greater attention as innovators. Herbie Hancock was not exactly kind in many remarks over the years almost implying that he and Tony were impatient and waiting on the arrival of Wayne Shorter.

[Ian Thumwood]

The jazz of 1950s and 60s really set the standards of what the mainstream jazz should sound like. I feel that it is put jazz in a bit of a dilemma in 2024 because the Hard Bop does not necessarily feel contemporary but alot of the contemporary alternatives sound trivial in comparison. In my opinion jazz started to tail off in innovation in the early 2000s and I personally have lost interest in jazz since the 2020s. I rarely buy new jazz discs nowadays as I prefer earlier kinds of jazz than what of offered today.

Labels like Crisscross seem to offer a perpetuation of more orthodox jazz but the lime ups seem to feature a decreasing pool of musicians. You also have labels like Smoke Sessions which offer more of the same albeit that label seems very much of a last hurrah from jazz legends of 70s and 80s. Even innovative labels like ECM either offer a parody of their former serves or you have labels like Clean Feed which demonstrate the ubiquitous state of highly skilled avant gardening.

I wish the more mainstream jazz had a bigger profile or at least people like Wynton arguing that this is how it should be done. Given the way that musicians are being squeezed out of pop music , I feel music as a whole faces a challenge. Quite salutary to have listened to Stevie Wonder's excellent 'Songs in the key if life' this week . This is a pop album where the jazz influence is at the forefront . If this album was released today, it would probably be marketed as jazz....it is certainly just as credible as alot of stuff deemed to be jazz today. I just feel tastes have changed massively amongst the record buying public and the qualities that make Jazzrook enthuse about Grant Stewart are probably not valued today.

[Serial_Apologist]

The jazz of 1950s and 60s really set the standards of what the mainstream jazz should sound like. I feel that it is put jazz in a bit of a dilemma in 2024 because the Hard Bop does not necessarily feel contemporary but alot of the contemporary alternatives sound trivial in comparison. In my opinion jazz started to tail off in innovation in the early 2000s and I personally have lost interest in jazz since the 2020s. I rarely buy new jazz discs nowadays as I prefer earlier kinds of jazz than what of offered today.

Labels like Crisscross seem to offer a perpetuation of more orthodox jazz but the lime ups seem to feature a decreasing pool of musicians. You also have labels like Smoke Sessions which offer more of the same albeit that label seems very much of a last hurrah from jazz legends of 70s and 80s. Even innovative labels like ECM either offer a parody of their former serves or you have labels like Clean Feed which demonstrate the ubiquitous state of highly skilled avant gardening.

I wish the more mainstream jazz had a bigger profile or at least people like Wynton arguing that this is how it should be done. Given the way that musicians are being squeezed out of pop music , I feel music as a whole faces a challenge. Quite salutary to have listened to Stevie Wonder's excellent 'Songs in the key if life' this week . This is a pop album where the jazz influence is at the forefront . If this album was released today, it would probably be marketed as jazz....it is certainly just as credible as alot of stuff deemed to be jazz today. I just feel tastes have changed massively amongst the record buying public and the qualities that make Jazzrook enthuse about Grant Stewart are probably not valued today.

As I've said before jazz by virtue of its collective origins and survival against many odds remains a radical musical form while possibilities for an improvement in "the human lot" are expressed within its musical procedures, and while circumstances remain favourable to both ends of that equation. It starts innovating from where the last lot left off. Otherwise jazz, like capitalist politics and consumer patterns, will just go on reviewing, reviving and recasting ("recollected in tranquillity?) its own past. I hope it manages to keep going - and not just as merely another genre choice for talented young people to make themselves music careers - that's why I keep an eye on what is coming up, which is a lot less than in the days when all else was put aside as I tore into my latest copy of The Wire. While drawing external contemporary influences into musical practices that are as strong as any in terms of their creative potential will help sustain jazz as a distinct form, the music will assume the characteristics of a holding operation pending wider social and political change.

[Ian Thumwood]

The Amazing Bud Powell volume 1

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Curtis Fuller/Sonny Red Quintet from a Savoy album "Jazz it's magic". This is Fuller's "Soul Station" which immediately reminded me of Trane's "Blue Trane", the voicing in particular. Fuller's date was 5 September 1957, Trane's was 15th September...do ze maths?!

And Curtis was of course memorably on Blue Trane.

http://youtu.be/U9lTpzUEtc8?feature=shared

[Jazzrook]

Curtis Fuller/Sonny Red Quintet from a Savoy album "Jazz it's magic". This is Fuller's "Soul Station" which immediately reminded me of Trane's "Blue Trane", the voicing in particular. Fuller's date was 5 September 1957, Trane's was 15th September...do ze maths?!

And Curtis was of course memorably on Blue Trane.

http://youtu.be/U9lTpzUEtc8?feature=shared

Another fine Curtis Fuller Savoy album is ‘Images’.
Here’s ‘Judyful’ with Yusef Lateef, Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Milt Hinton & Bobby Donaldson on June 7, 1960
I love Lateef’s blistering tenor solo on this.

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

JR

[Ian Thumwood]

Shai Maestro quartet...

I am a bit ambivalent about this group. They are obviously taking their cues from Tomasz Stanko. The music is impressive but this is typical of so much ECMs recent output. Retuning to this music again, it is noticeable how much reverb in this production. The music almost seems unnatural.

I do not mind this music yet it is very polite.

[Old Grumpy]

Following the advice of the Jazz reviews in September's BBCMM I am listening to September Night by the Tomasz Stanko Quartet.

Brings recollections of a Gateshead International Jazz Festival performance at the (then) Sage Gateshead. The MC (the late John Cumming of Serious) memorably suggested Stanko should be awarded the Nattiest Headgear Award for his signature cap.

This is a superb recording with both up tempo virtuoso runs and the characteristic laid-back, airy Stanko sound. All four members of the quartet are on top form. A delight to listen to.

https://ecmrecords.com/product/september-night-tomasz-stanko-quartet/

[Ian Thumwood]

I love Stanko and saw him in Southampton on presumably the same tour. It is a strange experience seeing ECM artists perform live as you appreciate how significant Manfred Eicher's production is. It is like an extra musician.

I was tempted by this disc. I rarely buy ECM records these days but have appreciated records they have released which are live. The Paul Bley trio is an excellent example and so much better than what comes out if the studio.

It has morphed into a parody of itself. The most interesting musicians on ECM are now in 70s or 80s or dead. Not convinced by the recent signings either. Take away the production value, the records sometimes underwhelm. I love their output from 70s and 80s yet became less enthused by the late 90s.

ECM used to lead the way with jazz 40 years ago. Things have moved on. When they sign a major jazz name these days, you always feel that the album will diminish the musician's standing. Too much melancholy and lack of interest on Eicher's part in making the music really burn. I sometimes see ECM as being the jazz equivalent of Everton who have the uncanny knack of making good footballers become sh/t with the team's glory days being long ago. Whilst I enjoy a good laugh at the expense of Everton (who doesn't) , the demise of ECM is quite sad. Feels a bit like the Basie band if the 1970s....the playing is superb but the music no longer appears relevant.