What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Jazzrook]

Miles Davis Quintet, live in Sindelfingen, 1964:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B08cCFj6WRs

JR

[Stanfordian]

'Night Dreamer'
Wayne Shorter with Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman & Elvin Jones
Blue Note (1964

[elmo]

This one isn't what I'm listening to now but what I hope to be listening to next week.

French Sony is issuing the Thelonious Monk (solo) Paris 1954 sides including a previously unissued Hackensack and some trio sides with Jean Marie Ingrand bass and Jean Louis Viale drums - Well you needn't, Round Midnight, Off Minor, Hackensack/Epistrophy. Plus another Round Midnight with Gerard Dave Pochonet on drums in place of Viale.

Unissued Monk from his most creative period - got to have it!

Released on Sept 29th.
elmo

[Stanfordian]

‘Seven Steps to Heaven’
Miles Davis with George Coleman, Herbie Hancock/Victor Feldman, Ron Carter, & Tony Williams/Frank Butler
Columbia (rec. 1963

[elmo]

Bobby Bradford - John Carter Quintet "Comin On" Hatology

I have always found the work of these two original, expressive and somewhat underrated. Usually portrayed as being in the shadow of Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry they actually have very much their own voices and on this album backed by the superb Richard Davis and Andrew Cyrille makes this album a high spot in their careers. Although recorded in 1988 this music is just as relevant and vibrant as the day it was recorded.

elmo

[Serial_Apologist]

Bobby Bradford - John Carter Quintet "Comin On" Hatology

I have always found the work of these two original, expressive and somewhat underrated. Usually portrayed as being in the shadow of Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry they actually have very much their own voices and on this album backed by the superb Richard Davis and Andrew Cyrille makes this album a high spot in their careers. Although recorded in 1988 this music is just as relevant and vibrant as the day it was recorded.

elmo

I had the good fortune to be introduced to Bobby Bradford by Trevor Watts at one of the later Bracknells, where he was performing. Very friendly bloke - full of Ornette reminiscences. I got so engrossed all three of us missed half of the Evan Parker trio with Alex Schlippenbach and Paul Lovens just across in the main tent!

[elmo]

I had the good fortune to be introduced to Bobby Bradford by Trevor Watts at one of the later Bracknells, where he was performing. Very friendly bloke - full of Ornette reminiscences. I got so engrossed all three of us missed half of the Evan Parker trio with Alex Schlippenbach and Paul Lovens just across in the main tent!

SA
Envy you seeing and speaking to BB, unfortunately never saw Bobby or John in performance but you have jogged my memory of owning a Watts/Bradford Quartet album on Emanem which is languishing in the elmo record archives - I shall devote the afternoon to tracking it down.

Thanks
elmo

[Stanfordian]

‘Hi Voltage’
Hank Mobley with Jackie McLean, Blue Mitchell, John Hicks, Bob Cranshaw & Billy Higgins
Blue Note (1967)

[elmo]

This one isn't what I'm listening to now but what I hope to be listening to next week.

French Sony is issuing the Thelonious Monk (solo) Paris 1954 sides including a previously unissued Hackensack and some trio sides with Jean Marie Ingrand bass and Jean Louis Viale drums - Well you needn't, Round Midnight, Off Minor, Hackensack/Epistrophy. Plus another Round Midnight with Gerard Dave Pochonet on drums in place of Viale.

Unissued Monk from his most creative period - got to have it!

Released on Sept 29th.
elmo

Have just played the previously unissued tracks from this album - Monk recorded these tracks the day after he arrived in Paris with a French(pick up) rhythm section he did not know and had only rehearsed once with in the afternoon. Monk plays well and there are some very interesting quirky moments in all the tracks. The bassist and drummer sound pretty pedestrian but to be fair they probably had little idea of Monk's music as these were still early days.
In the middle of Monk's solo on Well you needn't Monk stops playing and points at the drummer, taken aback he keeps playing looking over at the bassist who gives a shrug and they both stop playing. Monk continues to point at the drummer who then takes a short rambling solo during which time Monk fixes his gaze on the audience and when it finishes Monk continues his solo as if nothing had happened. A similar occurrence during Monk's solo on Off Minor he shoots off into the wings and downs a large glass of cognac and 32 bars later picks up his solo where he left off.

Monk was turning out some wonderful stuff in the mid fifties and this has plenty of fine moments in spite of the less than perfect conditions under which Monk was placed.

Recording quality is pretty good and priced at around £6 is well worth the money.

elmo

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

When the Messengers played the UK along with Monk quartet in 1964 (ish), Wayne Shorter said he went up to Monk's hotel room to find him chucking £5 notes out the windows to passing "bobbies" as they were "too poor too buy their own guns".

When I saw him (Bristol) he danced off stage and sat in the seat row just behind us! Listening to Charlie Rouse. This was the tour where a strung out John Ore was leaning over to 45%, suddenly jerking upright and not missing a note. Class.

BN.

[Stanfordian]

'Dippin’'
Hank Mobley with Lee Morgan, Harold Mabern Jr, Larry Ridley & Billy Higgins
Blue Note (1965)

[Ian Thumwood]

Been playing David Rothenberg's "Berlin Bulbul" after hearing a documentary on Radio 4 where he was featured similarly improvising in clarinet and bass- clarinet both with live Nightingales and with nightingale song electronically manipulated by Johan Erel. The result is pretty impressive and very reminiscent of the kind of stuff Jimmy Guiffre recorded with Paul Bley.

I am a bit sceptical about the use of electronic sampling and manipulation of recorded "sounds" but this recording is a massive success. At times the music recalls John Surman's explorations of bass clarinet yet the best material on the disc has a free jazz logic about it whilst being totally unpredictable. Curiously, the nightingale and clarinet seem to be partners in a duet, Rothenberg's probing explorations being entirely in sympathy with the bird. Some of the sampling distorts the calls in to percussive sounds and a few tracks feel like the samples are providing an erratic accompaniment on brushed symbols. Other tracks have quite a menacing feel about them. All in all, this is a very compelling record.

I would recommend Rothernberg's book on bird song if you can still get hold of a copy. It is something of a classic amongst birdwatchers and a fascinating read especially insofar that he approaches birdsong as a jazz musician. The most famous practitioner of using bird song was Oliver Messaien but Rothenberg's approach is perhaps more accessible due to the fact that he seems to be having a dialogue with the birds - something which is most apparent on the live tracks recorded in a park in Berlin.


About five years ago the drummer Jeff Ballard produced a record by a trio that included Miguel Zenon and the guitar of Lionel Loueke. The best track on this disc was a "tune" based upon a notated bird call. It is staggering how "musical" this approach is even thought the rhythm and harmonies are unlike normal music. Probably the most "accessible" outside music I have heard.

[Jazzrook]

The 1957 album 'Dakar' with John Coltrane(tenor sax); Cecil Payne, Pepper Adams(baritone sax); Mal Waldron(piano); Doug Watkins(bass) & Art Taylor(drums).
It was first reissued under John Coltrane's name as 'Dakar' in 1963.
Here's Teddy Charles' 'Cat Walk':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8eLPhsDzRE

JR

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Milt Jackson, Lucky Thompson, Hank Jones, Wendell Marshall, Kenny Clarke....the Savoy albums Roll 'Em, Jazz Skyline, etc etc. Fabulous. A perfect Sunday morning only added to by Theresa May melting faster than a tutti fruiti on a Piedmont pavement.

BN.

[Stanfordian]

'Quiet Kenny'
Kenny Dorham with Tommy Flanagan, Paul Chambers & Art Taylor
New Jazz (1959)