Never mind about Ella - get Carter!

[Serial_Apologist]

Sat 25 March
4.00 Jazz Record Requests
Alyn Shipton delivers another selection of jazz highlights, including classic tracks by American singer Betty Carter and the more contemporary sounds of UK pianist Neil Cowley.

http://www.alynshipton.co.uk/blog

5.00 Jazz Line-Up
UK pianist Neil Cowley talks to Julian Joseph about his musical inspirations and creative process, in an interview first broadcast last autumn.

Well worth missing iimss...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07y9nln

12.00 Geoffrey Smith's Jazz
Geoffrey Smith celebrates 100 years since the birth of celebrated vocalist Ella Fitzgerald with highlights from her Songbook series, including classic tunes by irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart and Duke Elington

"Joe you have no idea, how long I've had to wait,
Joe you have no idea, how long I've had to wait,
It is the greatest thrill, being on this swingin' date.

"Ella Fitzgeeeeerald, it's so good to see you,
Ella Fitzgeeeeerald, it is so good to see you,
'Cos baby girl, I luuuuurve everything you do!"

(Thaddeus comes in, and the two cats scat).

- Ella Fitzgerald's and Joe Williams's intro to "Party Blues", Count Basie, 1956, on an EP I borrowed off of a school mate at age 15; but you won't be hearing this I imagine.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/bo8k4ld5

Sun 26 March
6.45 Sunday Feature: Hitting the High Notes
The story of jazz in the postwar era is one of revolution and rebellion. But a big part of it was the mini-epidemic of heroin use that emerged among jazz musicians. Sally Marlow [who she??]examines the relationship between heroin and jazz.

People might be interested?

Mon 27 March
11.00 Jazz Now
Soweto Kinch presents a concert by Texas-bred/New York-based Snarky Puppy.

One for Ian - I wouldn't think.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08jdyr4

Back to my MJQ records...

[Ian Thumwood]

SA

Snarky Puppy are ok if you consider them to be a pop act but I don't think they offer anything to what Herbie Hancock was doing in the 1970's. If you are going to blend funk with jazz, I think MM & W did this much better twenty years ago.

You didn't mention that Jazz Now also includes a review of the label ACT which is a kind of cuddly version of ECM and has now been going for 25 years. I didn't realise that the label had been going so long and have been pretty dismissive of it in the past. I have a couple of the discs by Vijay Iyer which are terrific but they are seemingly very different from much of the label's European perspective. I have seen quite a few of these groups perform live and the music always strikes me as strange because it is so divorced from the American tradition. A number of their roster have now migrated to ECM to record more "mature" albums and it is difficult to escape the idea that it is a label that promotes new talent or musicians who are a bit under the radar. This probably explains why it seems to underwhelm . Apart from Iyer, the most interesting artist on the label is the singer You Sun Nah whose music I tend to listen to a lot when I am in the gym. For me, she is the most interesting artist on ACT but this is largely through the fact that her voice is probably the purest one I have encountered in jazz and her range is staggering. I would imagine she is an acquired taste but having heard her twice in concert I have been amazed. Her voice is an incredible instrument with a range and projection which is almost super-human.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Sally Marlow of the R3 program on Jazz et drugs is a PhD researcher into addiction etc at Kings College London. Could be good, she interviewed a few US musicians including Benny Golson and seems to know her field. Hopefully not the romanticised BS that too often goes with this turf.

BN. They wuz aspirin, yer Honoor!

[Old Grumpy]

Snarky Puppy have been recommended to me as a must see. They certainly seem to have a significant following. Their forthcoming Sage Gateshead gig is in the large hall (Sage One) and Sage have even created a mosh pit at the front.

OG

[Serial_Apologist]

Sally Marlow of the R3 program on Jazz et drugs is a PhD researcher into addiction etc at Kings College London. Could be good, she interviewed a few US musicians including Benny Golson and seems to know her field. Hopefully not the romanticised BS that too often goes with this turf.

BN. They wuz aspirin, yer Honoor!

That would be all right if it were aspiring. You know - upwardly mobile, Donna et Mobile, high as a kite - just what the bankers ordered.

[Serial_Apologist]

Just this moment listening to The Hooter, the Brian Dee track (from 1961 btw), I was unpleasantly struck by the poorness (?) of its recorded quality, some flutter there, together with the tinkly out-of-tune piano used. I have noticed flutter on some recordings on that label at around that time - side one of the Jazz Messengers' Caravan being one example, not ironed out on the CD re-issue I recently obtained. Oh, and I hadn't realised Riverside had ever recorded any British jazz!!!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Just this moment listening to The Hooter, the Brian Dee track (from 1961 btw), I was unpleasantly struck by the poorness (?) of its recorded quality, some flutter there, together with the tinkly out-of-tune piano used. I have noticed flutter on some recordings on that label at around that time - side one of the Jazz Messengers' Caravan being one example, not ironed out on the CD re-issue I recently obtained. Oh, and I hadn't realised Riverside had ever recorded any British jazz!!!

Agree about the piano. Riverside as Jazzland (its companion label) released the two Joe Harriot sessions (Freeform and Abstract) and the Don Rendell/Bond Roarin' album in the States. Atlantic also issued some similar British jazz and Bluenote issued the Dizzy Reece/Tubby Hayes Blues in Trinity.

I thought the Oliver Nelson track was the pick of JRR. The guy who moderates the Organissimo site in the States recently went right through Nelson's entire catalogue on line. Impressive to take it session by session and see how much ON packed in, both playing and composing/arranging.

BN

[Serial_Apologist]

Agree about the piano. Riverside as Jazzland (its companion label) released the two Joe Harriot sessions (Freeform and Abstract) and the Don Rendell/Bond Roarin' album in the States. Atlantic also issued some similar British jazz and Bluenote issued the Dizzy Reece/Tubby Hayes Blues in Trinity.
BN

I really should have known Jazzland was a Riverside subsidiary.

[Alyn_Shipton]

Yes, we had a lot of trouble making that track (There It Is from the Hooter) broadcastable at all - the copy of the album was in poor shape.

[Jazzrook]

Sally Marlow of the R3 program on Jazz et drugs is a PhD researcher into addiction etc at Kings College London. Could be good, she interviewed a few US musicians including Benny Golson and seems to know her field. Hopefully not the romanticised BS that too often goes with this turf.

BN. They wuz aspirin, yer Honoor!

'Hitting The High Notes'(Radio 3) was one of the most intelligent and illuminating discussions on jazz & drugs that I've heard.
Glad I recorded this wonderful programme.

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

Indeed JR, a brilliant programme that told us a lot of stuff some of us knew nothing about previously. What jazz has done for medical science, eh???

[Quarky]

Snarky Puppy have been recommended to me as a must see. They certainly seem to have a significant following. Their forthcoming Sage Gateshead gig is in the large hall (Sage One) and Sage have even created a mosh pit at the front.

OG

They pass Oddball's test for listenability. I certainly find the commercial aspect of any Jazz "offering" the most difficult to absorb, and not let it get in the way of the listening experience.

But most Jazz has a commercial aspect, to some extent, unless listening is restricted to the Vortex programme.

[Serial_Apologist]

They pass Oddball's test for listenability. I certainly find the commercial aspect of any Jazz "offering" the most difficult to absorb, and not let it get in the way of the listening experience.

But most Jazz has a commercial aspect, to some extent, unless listening is restricted to the Vortex programme.

I guess you mean Cafe Oto's?

(The Vortex is largely pretty softball stuff these days).

[Ian Thumwood]

The interview with the very personable founder of the ACT label was interesting irrespective of some factual errors concerning Miles Davis' pre-CBS years. It made interesting listening as he clearly suggested that he was open to all sorts of music and didn't have a purist's ear for jazz. I can appreciate the difficulty in running not only a record label but also one dedicated to jazz in the 2010's. I was surprised to find that Loch was 75 years old and his "more contemporary" approach belied someone who got in to jazz through Sidney Bechet. If he was taking inspiration from what went on in the 1960's it seemed more likely that he would be tipping his hat more towards The Beatles than Miles and Coltrane. I don't mind some pop music yet it is a bit disconcerting when people who you feel should be batting for jazz seem to want to take kudos by associating with demonstrably popular acts.

From the records selected, it is also apparent that he has built up a "house style" and maybe has conjured up something which does have a very European identity. I suppose that Vijay Iyer must be one of the two musicians he mentioned who had left the label - with hindsight it seems hard to see where the American's music actually fitted in because it is demonstrably more hard-edged than any of the other samples played. None of the tracks were at all objectionable and probably exactly the kind of "jazz" that would appeal to someone not entirely devoted to the music.

It is a shame that the interview did not delve deeper in to the label as I would have been intrigued by some of the other musicians on it's roster. I suppose that it does offer something fresh yet the music seems about as hard hitting as the kind of stuff GRP put out in the 1980's. I don't really buy the idea that EST's music is forever (it already sounds very dated) yet the samples and other records I am familiar with do show ACT as having an identity as strong as Blue Note or even ECM. The unfortunate aspect for me is that whilst it may seem refreshingly different, a lot of the music has no guts. Loch made a comment about not wishing to sign "Second division American artists" ( a sly dig at the Dutch label "Cross Cross", perhaps?) although the Wolny track was a photocopy of jazz as opposed to being the real thing. I am not convinced that ACT represents the best of jazz in Europe or even half decent European jazz. When you think of the calibre of players that Europe produced from the 1960's onwards, I wonder how many people would swap John Taylor, Bobo Stenson, John Horler , etc for a record by Wolny ? Aside from Iyer, I would admit to liking Youn Sun Nah. I wasn't tempted by anything he Loch discussed. Mayne I am getting a bit old for this kind of stuff ? Even though I like Nah's sining and think she has an amazing voice, I am not convinced what she is producing is jazz. She is not a jazz singer in the same way that the likes of Ella, Sarah Vaughan, Norma Winstone or Dianne Reeves might be classed as singing jazz. Maybe because she is so different makes her music appealing. The rest of the label seems a half-way house - mixture of contemporary jazz, pop music and the kind of stuff that would have been played on the Test Card on the television back in the 1970's. Whilst the music is distinctive, it doesn't come of the freer jazz scene like so much of the better ECM stuff in the 1970's and 80's which nailed this kind of approach. Even if you equate Manfred Eicher as being like the Arsene Wenger of jazz record production who revolutionised the music but whose best years are largely behind him, ACT still can't manage get anywhere near that level of quality. If you like, ACT seems a bit like the jazz record label equivalent of Bournemouth - you can't bring yourself to dislike what they do but no one takes them seriously even if they have a few decent players.

The difficulty for a label like ACT is that you can find all sorts of really obscure and fascinating European jazz on YouTube and the easy availability of what Jez would call "Cutting Edge" on line must make it very difficult indeed for a label like ACT. This leads me to act who is this label marketed at? I very much doubt this label will be on the list of many fans over the age of 45. i.e. the people after the generation of people who grew up in the 1980's jazz boom.

Anyway, I found the interview fascinating and perhaps revelatory insofar as what many fans probably consider to be at the forefront of jazz today. It made good listening even if I didn't agree with his arguments or assessments of the value of particular artists. I would recommend this interview on the I-player.

I didn't think that the BBC were really allowed to promote different record labels and was a bit surprised to see this article in Jazz Now. I would welcome the chance to hear other proprietors interviewed and to perhaps hear some differing perspectives as to how the music is to be presented. Labels like Blue Note (EMI) and ECM already seem over-represented in the media but the likes of Criss Cross, Delmark, Sunnyside, High Note seem more adept at putting out discs which are more faithful to the tenets of jazz.

Surprised that no one else commented on this interview although I think Jazzrook would probably need smelling salts afterwards!!

[Serial_Apologist]

The rest of the label seems a half-way house - mixture of contemporary jazz, pop music and the kind of stuff that would have been played on the Test Card on the television back in the 1970's. Whilst the music is distinctive, it doesn't come of the freer jazz scene like so much of the better ECM stuff in the 1970's and 80's which nailed this kind of approach. Even if you equate Manfred Eicher as being like the Arsene Wenger of jazz record production who revolutionised the music but whose best years are largely behind him, ACT still can't manage get anywhere near that level of quality. If you like, ACT seems a bit like the jazz record label equivalent of Bournemouth - you can't bring yourself to dislike what they do but no one takes them seriously even if they have a few decent players.

You're on form tonight, Ian!

Thanks for mentioning the Loch interview. I missed this programme on Monday & been a bit busy for a change. Will catch up tomorrow if I can.