What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Ian Thumwood]

One of the best albums i have heard this year is Gary Clark Jrs 'This land' and have been playing again this evening. It fascinstes me as it had beem difficult to understand that the Blues were still relevant. This disc covers si many bases as well as blues and also takes it's cues frim Motown and R n' b. It is a staggering album.where every track hits home.

The fascinating thing about it is how it recasts the lyrics into a vitriolic attack on Trump so that the songs strike me as having as much bite as country blues from 1920s. It is truly contempotary and as edgy as any Rap. Probably the most authentic new album i have bought since James Brandon Lewis. I discovered it in the playlist flying back from Doha this year. You can find some excellent on Qatar Airways playlist but no need to fly out there anymore since getting married.

Listening alot to Jose Mari -Chan this week who is the Phippines answer to Cliff Richard but not so edgy ! Not sure i can convert my wife to Thelonious Monk.😏
.

[Jazzrook]

One of the best albums i have heard this year is Gary Clark Jrs 'This land' and have been playing again this evening. It fascinstes me as it had beem difficult to understand that the Blues were still relevant. This disc covers si many bases as well as blues and also takes it's cues frim Motown and R n' b. It is a staggering album.where every track hits home.

The fascinating thing about it is how it recasts the lyrics into a vitriolic attack on Trump so that the songs strike me as having as much bite as country blues from 1920s. It is truly contempotary and as edgy as any Rap. Probably the most authentic new album i have bought since James Brandon Lewis. I discovered it in the playlist flying back from Doha this year. You can find some excellent on Qatar Airways playlist but no need to fly out there anymore since getting married.

Listening alot to Jose Mari -Chan this week who is the Phippines answer to Cliff Richard but not so edgy ! Not sure i can convert my wife to Thelonious Monk.😏
.

Many thanks, Ian. Another one for the ‘wants list’!
Here’s an impressive video of ‘This Land’:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=9KgNaRQ_J-c

P.S. If this doesn’t convert your wife to Thelonious Monk, nothing will!

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=0o7vrg-r6Xg

JR

[Ian Thumwood]

Jazzrook

What i love about this track is that it was inspired by a property dispute with a white neighbour who resented the fact that Clark had moved into the neighbourhood and was resentful of him. It is as relevant as a Rap diss track and harks back to artists like Sleepy John Estes or Bukka White who also mentioned genuine people in their music. Mr Williams is a real person. All the tracks are a powerful as this albeit some are more in the direction of soul. We have very similar tastes and am sure you will love thisakbum. The extended edition is rhe one to go for. No filler on this record. Rhe latest record is also supposed to be goid but This Land is a masterpiece. Bluesnik will love this record too.

I was not aware of the video which is equally powerful.

Thanks for posting.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I like the politics and lyrics but not the guitar & general sound and what seems to me an overproduction, but I am of "an age" . But Clark's vocal sound reminded me of William Bell, of whom I'm a great fan back from the Stax beginnings. And lo and behold, Gary and William Bell together! On the occasion of Bell getting a very belated Gammy for Born Under a Bad Sign. This I do like. Both.

http://youtu.be/X0d2XNe3iik?feature=shared

[Ian Thumwood]

I am usually adverse to overproduced music. Not quite convinced that this applies to Gary Clark but i feel he is relevant at a time when the blues are at risk of sounding archaic. Clark sounds like an artist from 2024 , addressing issues relevant to today's society just as artists did in 1920s.

i have been playing Haydn piano sonatas today. The earlier pieces don't seem too more advanced than Scarlatti but i really love the clarity of his music. I am amazed Haydn is never cited by jazz musicians. Haydn would have loved jazz.

[elmo]

Miles Davis & Gil " Porgy and Bess"

This album was a revelation for me when I was about 17. I was travelling back to Wales by bus (can't remember where I'd been) and we stopped for an hour for a changeover in Gloucester. I went for a walkabout and came across a small record shop it only had one modern jazz album 'Porgy', at that time I was nuts about "ESP and Miles Smiles" and not really interested in musicals so 'Porgy' was not on my list, anyway I bought the album and it was a revelation, the orchestration was wonderful I had not heard anything like it. My mind was opened to the beauty of jazz orchestration and Gershwin's opera and also some of Miles most lyrical playing. I was a secondary modern school kid and in our school we were never encouraged musically. Classical music was not meant for the likes of us but Miles and Gil opened the world of great music for me.

Here is "Bess you is my woman now"

https://youtu.be/X8nK9PDB_jE?feature=shared

elmo

[Jazzrook]

Miles Davis & Gil " Porgy and Bess"

This album was a revelation for me when I was about 17. I was travelling back to Wales by bus (can't remember where I'd been) and we stopped for an hour for a changeover in Gloucester. I went for a walkabout and came across a small record shop it only had one modern jazz album 'Porgy', at that time I was nuts about "ESP and Miles Smiles" and not really interested in musicals so 'Porgy' was not on my list, anyway I bought the album and it was a revelation, the orchestration was wonderful I had not heard anything like it. My mind was opened to the beauty of jazz orchestration and Gershwin's opera and also some of Miles most lyrical playing. I was a secondary modern school kid and in our school we were never encouraged musically. Classical music was not meant for the likes of us but Miles and Gil opened the world of great music for me.

Here is "Bess you is my woman now"

https://youtu.be/X8nK9PDB_jE?feature=shared

elmo

Wonderful, elmo - will have to dig out my copy which I haven’t played for years.
On the subject of jazz & classical music I recently came across this paragraph in Alan Zeffertt’s excellent book ‘Past a Joke’ about growing up in Portsmouth and attending Portsmouth Grammar School:

”In 1948, the guest at the school’s Speech Day was the famous conductor, Sir Adrian Boult. After his address, he asked the assembled throng if there were any questions. I rose and inquired of the distinguished knight what his views on jazz might be. “It should have been strangled at birth along with its protagonists and adherents,” he sneered. The headmaster dutifully shook with laughter, a number of the staff smiled, some of the boys tittered.
I was summoned to the headmaster’s study later and admonished for insulting our visitor with trivia. It was as if I had brought the school into disrepute. My own reaction was equally ridiculous for I vowed, henceforth, never again to listen to classical music. (Indeed, it was not until my present wife gently showed me the error of my ways, some twenty years afterwards, that I relented and began to collect classical records. But jazz is still my first love. And I’ve never forgiven Sir Adrian Boult.)”

I suspect that this prejudice against jazz still exists among many classical music fans.

JR

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Miles Davis & Gil " Porgy and Bess"

This album was a revelation for me when I was about 17. I was travelling back to Wales by bus (can't remember where I'd been) and we stopped for an hour for a changeover in Gloucester. I went for a walkabout and came across a small record shop it only had one modern jazz album 'Porgy', at that time I was nuts about "ESP and Miles Smiles" and not really interested in musicals so 'Porgy' was not on my list, anyway I bought the album and it was a revelation, the orchestration was wonderful I had not heard anything like it. My mind was opened to the beauty of jazz orchestration and Gershwin's opera and also some of Miles most lyrical playing. I was a secondary modern school kid and in our school we were never encouraged musically. Classical music was not meant for the likes of us but Miles and Gil opened the world of great music for me.

Here is "Bess you is my woman now"

https://youtu.be/X8nK9PDB_jE?feature=shared

elmo

It is indeed a wonderful record, I remember Guy Barker on R3 way back analyzing Gil's writing/arrangements and it was a revelation. I'd had that record forever and there were things I'd never been aware of.

My Welsh Miles school memory was taking the Milestone EP into a lunchtime music appreciation society meeting, definitely no Chuck Berry or Little Richard, and playing it. You had to make some sort of introduction and I confidently said something about modality - of which I knew nothing, just something I'd read in Jazz Monthly. Anyway, it went down well but I think it was the only jazz record they ever played. Welsh Grammar schools were also the bastions of middle class ignorance and class arrogance.

[Ian Thumwood]

I had almost the opposite experience with Porgy & Bess. I discovered tge Gil Evans and Miles Davis version when i was 17. It was a revelation for me and started my addiction for Evans' work. However, it was so one jazz album that opened my ears to classical music. I never listened to Debussy before then. Peter Hurt's Lost for words album then got me into Messaien.

[Ian Thumwood]

The other thing i feel needs to be said is that the situation in schools regarding jazz has changed tremendously. My old school now has a jazz group whereas when i wanted to do this in 1983 the assistance came from an English teacher. There was no interest in jazz and stuff like Carousel was considered radical. I thought thr music educatioj at school was sh/t but i did nit appreciate how bad it was until i took lessons with Monty Worlock. Music was to be endured at school when i was there but feel it was probably even regressive back then.

Jazz is pretty much established as much as classical music in schools and i think the importance of the latter is greatly diminished in schools. Some of the above stories would never happen these days. Jazz has almost like another string to the bow these days. My 15 yo nephew plays drums and his repertoire is all rock and pop. This is also reflected in his text books where pop music is treated list pop music. I find it fascinating . He told me that the jazz modulws for drumming are considered to be difficult.

I would also add that the Porgy and Bess score was only published in 1990s and this added to it's mystique. I bet many college bands now play this music and the workings of the music are familiar to college students in the way it wasn't 30 years ago. It is probably as staple repertoire in colleges as Beethoven.

When i first heard Porgy & Bess, i thought that the use of different instruments made a massive difference. However, the voicings and Evans' harmonic language are equally important. The score would still sound good with a conventional big band and there was more to his writing than using non jazz related brass and woodwind. His memodic writing is very distinctive too.

[Jazzrook]

Strange how Sonny Rollins’ 1956 masterpiece ‘Blue 7’ is rarely, if ever, heard on the radio. Probably too long for JRR at over 11 minutes, but here it is now with Tommy Flanagan, Doug Watkins & Max Roach:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=59aXJ8GvMYE

JR

[Ian Thumwood]

Quite unteresting to see some of the Best of 2024 jazz recordings listed on sites like All About Jazz. I have not seen a good proportion of any of these discs receive a review. What i have also found is that many releases are no longer appearing on CD. There does seem to be a great deal of music which is getting under reoorted. I find it perplexing just how much new jazz was issued in 2024 and esoecially more avant garde stuff. Lots of stuff by the likes of Ivo Perelman for example who i have never heard before.

[Tenor Freak]

There's a Youtube channel called Gil Evans Inside Out https://www.youtube.com/@gilevansinsideout/videos which breaks down a lot of Gil's techniques for arranging. It does provide a lot of insights into some of those gems. I think you would like it Ian.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Intriguing, well to me anyway, from an Argo album by Bill Leslie c. 1962. Leslie was a tenor player who played at one time with Louis Jordan and later with Larry Young in his soul period. This is an OK album "Digging the Chicks" sic which is built around women's names, Margie, Rosetta etc. But at the end of the record he cuts to Ornette's "Lonely woman" on his saxello. It's quite a crossover for a basically straight ahead tenor player in 1962, but I like it...as Mr Emery used to say.

http://youtu.be/wmJrx9eV4hA?feature=shared

[Ian Thumwood]

Wayne Shorter Blue Note box set.