Comeback, madcap funster!

[Serial_Apologist]

Sat 17 June
4.00 Jazz Record Requests
Alyn Shipton introduces requests from across the jazz spectrum, including a recording of Joe Williams singing the swing classic The Comeback alongside the Count Basie Orchestra.

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

No JLU this week to follow, just Verdi grease.

12.00 Geoffrey Smith's Jazz
Though bebop was the radical, revolutionary face of post-war jazz, it could also be madcap fun. Geoffrey Smith explores the pop side of bop in pieces from Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman, Slim Gaillard and Charlie Ventura.

Charlie Ventura was allegedly a strong inspiration for Ronnie Scott when he was first discovering Bebop, representing as he did a populist bridge between the old and new worlds of jazz.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08v8p3j

Mon 19 June
11.00 Jazz Now
Soweto Kinch presents Monocled Man in concert at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival, and Emma Smith talks to the band's leader, Rory Simmons.

Glad to see this lot still going - well worth tuning in for, imv. Sort-of an atonal Dave Douglas, from memory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YflHEbRgDE

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08v8sm5

Adventurous listeners may also be interested in joining our World Music fellow-travellers in the following:

Tues 11.00 Late Junction
Max Reinhardt presents a collaboration session capturing the first meeting of Ghanaian kolongo player King Ayisoba, dub producer Adrian Sherwood and improvising reeds player Tom Challenger. Recorded at the BBC Maida Vale studios, the performance also features multi-instrumetnalist Skip McDonald, aka Little Axe. Plus a new work from US composer Michael Pisaro and electronics trio Colectivo maDam, cult American band Sun City Girls, and a recitation by pianist and vocalist Shirley Horn*.

Which, unless this is a different Shirley Horn, could be interesting, given that Ms Horn has been deceased some twelve years! (Unless they mean a different Shirley Horn, of course ).

[Ian Thumwood]

Interested to see the Billy Strayhorn track on JRR which I am not aware of. I have been listening to a lot of Ellington over the last few weeks including some old favourites like "The New Orleans Suite" as well as "...and his mother called him Bill. " Part of this was prompted by snapping up an album called "Blues in Orbit" which I was half familiar with and had the impression was something of a neglected masterpiece. Listening to the whole record again, it is a bit of an anti-climax, the repertoire being largely given over to blues and of some of the orchestration was quite interesting, much of the material seems to have been cooked up during the recording session and the "arrangements" fleshed out during the intervals / breaks . My perception was totally wrong and I think anyone coming to this record as a first "Ellington" disc is going to be under-whelmed. The music is ok to listen to but doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The better material is actually found on the numbers that did not materialise on the original release. It is ok-sih but of you were looking for this kind of thing, the album called "The big sound" released under Johnny Hodges' name is far superior.

By contrast, the Strayhorn album has been one I always considered to be one of the best. My opinion has been revised to really consider this album as on a par with the material made between 1940-2 which is usually considered to be Ellington's most creative period. The 1967 session benefits from improved fidelity and demonstrates just how good Strayhorn was. There is not a duff track in this disc and the arrangements absolutely fantastic. I had always considered Strayhorn as something of a modernist and it is surprising to hear a stereo recording of an arrangement like "Raincheck" to appreciate just how dissonant it is. The best part about the Ellington / Strayhorn collaboration is that nothing is voiced quite how your imagine and harmonies never resolve as expected. The fact that the whole band is pulled along by a great rhythm section that includes Sam Woodyard (his absence is very much felt on "Blues in orbit" where the drumming border on monotonous) and this means that the harmonic language is likely to be overlooked by a casual listener. The arrangement span a 25 year period and the record almost seems to underscore the fact that Strayhorn's death led Ellington to adopt a more personal approach to composition afterwards. As a whole, "Bill" is a landmark recording and about as good as Ellington gets. It was so good that even "My Little brown book", hitherto more familiar from the Coltrane / Ellington collaborations, was missed from the original release even if it is one of the best things on the whole 2016 CD release.

[muzzer]

"Bill" is probably my favourite Ellington disc of all, apart from the Complete Indigos. Strayhorn's contributions are still relatively undervalued imho.

[Ian Thumwood]

Good to hear "Just a mood" again. This track is so great that you have to shake your head in disbelief that the trumpeter is Harry James - a musician who seemed to become increasingly tasteless after his tenure with Goodman. The quartet track is absolutely terrific and good to hear Teddy Wilson and Red Norvo in tandem as they both seem to have the same musical temperament. James' trumpet playing is a masterclass in restraint and taste and these are characteristics you would not normally associate with his later work even when he modelled his later bands of Basie's and had the good taste to employ the like of Ernie Wilkins to write his charts.

I am still returning to listening to Ellington this week and the recent disc in the car has been "Such sweet thunder" which is considered something of a masterclass in composition yet not quite as familiar as it should be. Listening to this disc, I do not think that I can ever recall an Ellington disc that leant so much towards Classical music. There is one track where he mixes a clarinet with the violin and the effect is immediately like some early 20th century chamber composition. I find this record fascinating and, in my opinion, it must rank as his least accessible because what both he and Strayhorn were doing was moving jazz orchestration away from it's more populist ambitions. I think that Ellington had been edging towards something like this throughout the 1940s but I cannot recall another record where the experimentation seem so absolute. It was a shame that the album was short and that the alternative takes take the shine off the release. As far I a know it, only one composition "Star-crossed lovers") seems to have enjoyed a life outside of this record and maybe the experimental nature of the writing ( as opposed to the idea of a suite - hardly new for the Duke in 1957) has meant it is slightly inaccessible for people less familiar with his band.