Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos

[Tenor Freak]

A while back Alyn played a Kurt Rosenwinkel track for me which featured this excellent Portuguese orchestra. <thanks>

Looking around Youtube I found their channel - and there's a variety of top names guesting with them including Mark Turner. The section playing is tight and focused; the arrangements are technically challenging but also swing.

Here's a corker:

[Ian Thumwood]

Bruce

I really liked that track and was surprised to learnt that there are big bands as good as that in Portugal. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

I saw Kurt Rosenwinkel in group that also included Brad Mehldau about 10-12 years ago but found it quite a boring experience. He has an amazing reputation but because he has spent so much time involved in education, it is rare that he puts out any records and, when they have been released, the results from the samples I have heard seem underwhelming, The most recent release he has put out ("Caipi" ) does include some guest musicians but the instrumentals are all multi-tracked by Rosenwinkel. You can listen to the samples of Amazon but it just sounds like slick, Smooth Jazz and seems best avoided. Post-Frisell / Scofield / Metheny, I find that the guitar is returning to the same kind of feel that it had in the 1950's where the music is slickly performed but a bit bland. I much prefer players like Jeff Parker and Mary Halvorson but even they can be a bit uneven and, in the case of Parker, I feel he plays much better in other people's groups such as those led by the late Fred Anderson or Nicole Mitchell. Other than that, I love players like Lionel Loeke who have a tendency to throw curve-balls which makes the music wild and uninteresting. However, Rosenwinkel , for me, seems a throwback although there are now younger players around like Julian Lage who seem to have arrived on the scene oblivious of developments on the instrument post-Hendrix and who struggle to hold my attention.

Mark Turner is a curious player. I understand why you like his playing but I think he is odd as he is an American who sounds like a European. You can hear in his playing where English players like Trish Clowes are coming from but I am not a great fan either. It is all a little bit too polite even if technically brilliant. The big band on that clip are more interesting than Turner's solo.

There seems to be a whole generation of American players these days whose work is taking the music to very high technical levels whether it is Mehldau, Rosenwinkel, Turner , Redman, Glasper, etc but seem very polite by the standards of earlier generations of players. The bite and edge in the music is being lost and you now have whole labels like ECM instrumental in emasculating the music. Having been listening to a lot of Andrew Hill of late, I find it fascinating that a large part of a generation of players now seems to be wanting to be far more reserved. What was highly considered in the 1980's now seems to be perceived in a negative fashion.

Wondered if you had checked out some of the contemporary Chicago players that have followed in the wake of Vandermark as, for me, this stuff is the perfect response to the current contemporary scene which I am finding increasingly bland.