The Good Shepp pours Source on the Bollani.

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  • Ian Thumwood
    Full Member
    • Dec 2010
    • 4248

    #16
    The selections on JRR were interesting but I have to ay that the Herman track wasn't too bad. Taken in context, I did not mind it and it was interesting to hear the young Joe Lovano. The Evan Parker trio did suggest Jimmy Guiffre to me.

    The most intriguing track was the Lucky Millinder record. I am fascinated by this band which evolved out of the Mills Blue Rhythm Band of the 1930s which Millinder led at one point. I have a double CD by this band which was worth the money for three tracks . (Apollo Jump, Mason Flyer and Little John Special) In my opinion, these three tracks are sensational and outline was a terrific band this was as well as nicely demonstrating just how influential Basie was in the mid forties. they are magical records for me , a bit like Ellington's Blanton era recordings, the Decca Basie recordings, Andy Kirk and McKCP whose music I really love and amongst my absolute favourite jazz records. Hearing Gillespie solo on these tracks is like being taken to a special place within the music - it feels like Dizzy's trumpet is kicking down the door towards the future of jazz. However, the band also made a number of excellent records with Sister Rosetta Tharpe which are also worth seeking out. The odd thing about this band is that the bulk of the repertoire is R n' B - some of which is OK. You get the notion that be bop was the main musical direction in the late 40s but I think it is only half the story as jazz also went in another direction. It isn't too difficult to draw a line between Millinder and Rock n' Roll in the 1950s. I just find it strange that Millinder gets over-looked when people write about Rock and that there is a failure to recognise that it was bands like Millinder's which propagated this music.

    It is fair to say that there is a fall off in the standard of Millinder's recordings and that it is equally true that many people have said the band never managed to capture it's ability in the studio. I would love to know if there are other instrumental arrangement associated with this band and where are they? Given that two of the tracks feature some scorching trumpet solos by Dizzy Gillespie , you are left by thinking what might have been. I think Apollo, Flyer and Special are amongst the most exciting big band records made in the 1940's. Shame that nothing else ever came close to these records even if the commercial stuff does have it's charm.


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    • Ian Thumwood
      Full Member
      • Dec 2010
      • 4248

      #17

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      • Ian Thumwood
        Full Member
        • Dec 2010
        • 4248

        #18

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        • Serial_Apologist
          Full Member
          • Dec 2010
          • 37861

          #19
          Originally posted by Ian Thumwood View Post
          You get the notion that be bop was the main musical direction in the late 40s but I think it is only half the story as jazz also went in another direction. It isn't too difficult to draw a line between Millinder and Rock n' Roll in the 1950s.
          If you saw "Bird" you'll recall that he returns to the club where he was regularly showcased, following a period of, er, "woodshedding", to find that the joint has gone over completely to R&B, which a honking tenor player writhing around theatrically onstage to an audience in uproar. There's some twangy proto rock'n'roll electric guitar from 1943 from my Lp "52nd Street" near the start here that I like to use for illustrative purposes:

          HI, we would like to present you something new musically speaking. Our tracks are not present in the YouTube library. Our music library contains thousands of...

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          • BLUESNIK'S REVOX
            Full Member
            • Dec 2010
            • 4318

            #20
            Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
            If you saw "Bird" you'll recall that he returns to the club where he was regularly showcased, following a period of, er, "woodshedding", to find that the joint has gone over completely to R&B, which a honking tenor player writhing around theatrically onstage to an audience in uproar. There's some twangy proto rock'n'roll electric guitar from 1943 from my Lp "52nd Street" near the start here that I like to use for illustrative purposes:

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZKjA3yjUXw
            The Apollo...and Big Jay McNeely, who played a multi coloured lacquered tenor and did roll on his back. (As did Ron Coltrane after eighteen pints of Enfield "Harvester Hops"). No reason to be surprised at the R&B/Bop divide and symmetry. Parker loved the Clovers especially their guitarist, T Bone Walker and Charlie Christian were boyhood friends and learnt from each other, and there was that entire 40s West Coast club blues overlap scene with the Liggins brothers, Floyd Dixon, Charles Brown et al. Ben Webster played on R&B records, Elmo Hope played piano for Doo Wop groups, Johnny Griffin, Elmo and Philly JJ were the early Atlantic house band (Joe Morris). ITZA small world...

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            • Serial_Apologist
              Full Member
              • Dec 2010
              • 37861

              #21
              Originally posted by BLUESNIK'S REVOX View Post
              The Apollo...and Big Jay McNeely, who played a multi coloured lacquered tenor and did roll on his back. (As did Ron Coltrane after eighteen pints of Enfield "Harvester Hops"). No reason to be surprised at the R&B/Bop divide and symmetry. Parker loved the Clovers especially their guitarist, T Bone Walker and Charlie Christian were boyhood friends and learnt from each other, and there was that entire 40s West Coast club blues overlap scene with the Liggins brothers, Floyd Dixon, Charles Brown et al. Ben Webster played on R&B records, Elmo Hope played piano for Doo Wop groups, Johnny Griffin, Elmo and Philly JJ were the early Atlantic house band (Joe Morris). ITZA small world...


              John Etheridge took part in a "what is your greatest recording?" series a few years ago, and cited one of the takes (don't now remember which) from that amazing 1941 "Live at Minton's" session with Charlie Christian, Joe Guy, Thelonious Monk and Kenny Clarke as illustrative of that semi-permeable divide between blues and Swing at that stage when both forms were feeling their way into something else, commenting at the way Christian's solo, one of the longer ones, proceeds as a succession of Lester Young line-inspired "calls" followed by raw blues "responses". That to-and-fro between the raw and the sophisticated tended to get lost among the next generation of modern guitarists, Kessel apart, until we get to Wes, I suppose, and never re-sought full articulation until we get to the generation influenced by Jimi Hendrix, which included Etheridge, McLaughlin and Ray Russell. There was another sub-lineage that went via Derek Bailey, believe it or not, into Eugene Chadbourne and that bunch of San Francisco semi-jokers in the 1970s/80s, but we often think of them as outside jazz and more to do with free improv and alt avant-garde.

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              • Ian Thumwood
                Full Member
                • Dec 2010
                • 4248

                #22
                Of all the many, magical soloists who died prematurely, I always felt that none had more capacity to change the history of jazz than Charlie Christian. Without doubt, he would have been part of the milieu of soloists associated with Parker and I wonder if he would actually have made jazz guitar less polite by surviving into the next decade. As SA alludes, I think something was lost in the next generation of guitarists and players like Barney Kessel, Tal Tarlow, Herb Ellis and Johnny Smith seem pretty tame in comparison. OF that ilk, I much prefer someone like Tiny Grimes.

                Oddly enough, I started reading Lewis A Erenberg's "Swingin' the dream" last night as I work my way through a pile of books I have acquired this year. The interesting point in the opening chapter about this book is that it goes right back to the early 30's to explain the social, economic and political issues which were important in leading to the developments in jazz in the period between the wars. There are some intriguing insights such as the race riots in Chicago in 1919 which ensured that white and black communities in that city did not fraternise to the extent of New York which emerged as the cultural melting point. One thing I wasn't aware of was the lack of work opportunities which meant many people remained in further education and the effect this had with a generation of musically literate musicians in the later 30s and 1940s.

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                • Old Grumpy
                  Full Member
                  • Jan 2011
                  • 3656

                  #23
                  Just listened to J to Z 08.12.18

                  Come Sunday (Ellington) featuring Mahalia Jackson, is really something.



                  OG

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                  • Serial_Apologist
                    Full Member
                    • Dec 2010
                    • 37861

                    #24
                    Belated birthday greetings to Archie Shepp!

                    He was 85 - yesterday. Verging now on veteran status British free jazzer Pat Thomas has posted this youtuber in which Mr Shepp talked about how he came to meet John Coltrane and eventually got to play on Ascension:

                    http://www.archieball.com From The Hang: Archie Shepp, the veteran saxophonist, educator and activist discusses John Coltrane and Albert Ayler

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