Album For Today

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

bit of retro delight

blow Gigi

[Ian Thumwood]

I've been playing the new Paul Giallorenzo album "Force majeure" which includes the stellar from line of Jeb Bishop and the berserk multi-saxophonist Mars Williams. Much of the material is based upon very simplistic ideas such as one chord or a tone row in one instance. Despite this, it is incredible what this band manage to generate with Williams being someome well worth rediscovering from the old Hal Russell days - not sure if he played in the NRG Ensemble at the same time as a certain Ken Vandermark.

This is a good , solid album and strays in to Jazzrook territory although I suspect that this might be something SA would enjoy too. Again, this illustrates just how vibrant the Delmark label is these days and, in my opinion, the "go to" label if you want passionate and exciting jazz.

[Serial_Apologist]

I've been playing the new Paul Giallorenzo album "Force majeure" which includes the stellar from line of Jeb Bishop and the berserk multi-saxophonist Mars Williams. Much of the material is based upon very simplistic ideas such as one chord or a tone row in one instance. Despite this, it is incredible what this band manage to generate with Williams being someome well worth rediscovering from the old Hal Russell days - not sure if he played in the NRG Ensemble at the same time as a certain Ken Vandermark.

This is a good , solid album and strays in to Jazzrook territory although I suspect that this might be something SA would enjoy too. Again, this illustrates just how vibrant the Delmark label is these days and, in my opinion, the "go to" label if you want passionate and exciting jazz.

Is it, as you seem to imply, anything like the later (often bombastic) George Russell Living Time orchestras? If so, I've rather outgrown that kind of stuff.

[Ian Thumwood]

SA

The music is actually nothing like George Russell. I posted a link to the music clip on youtube the other week which you believed was more like Harry Miller's Isipingo. I would suggest the one chord compositions combine snakey themes which are amazingly catchy as wall as acting as a springboard for some passionate improvisation. I feel that one element that is a strong appeal of this group is the ability to mix free / improvised music elements with an approach which swings as hard as Mingus or even Bobby Previte. The leader's piano has a pithy approach that recalls Monk whilst sometimes plunging in to Cecil Taylor styles.

I'm a bit sceptical of some Improvised music whilst fully appreciating the excitement of having a blank piece of paper to express themselves. The approach of these musicians is notable insofar that they are not afraid to swing nor offer some quite explosive solos. Mars Williams is something of a revelation. I'd forgotten about him despite being a regular feature on "Impressions" back in the 1990's. You will like this record, I think.

[Serial_Apologist]

SA

The music is actually nothing like George Russell. I posted a link to the music clip on youtube the other week which you believed was more like Harry Miller's Isipingo. I would suggest the one chord compositions combine snakey themes which are amazingly catchy as wall as acting as a springboard for some passionate improvisation. I feel that one element that is a strong appeal of this group is the ability to mix free / improvised music elements with an approach which swings as hard as Mingus or even Bobby Previte. The leader's piano has a pithy approach that recalls Monk whilst sometimes plunging in to Cecil Taylor styles.

I'm a bit sceptical of some Improvised music whilst fully appreciating the excitement of having a blank piece of paper to express themselves. The approach of these musicians is notable insofar that they are not afraid to swing nor offer some quite explosive solos. Mars Williams is something of a revelation. I'd forgotten about him despite being a regular feature on "Impressions" back in the 1990's. You will like this record, I think.

I forgot you'd previously mentioned him - sorry, Ian.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

brilliant quite brilliant and as rare as the tooth thing

[Ian Thumwood]

blast from the past....

shame I missed this one at the time as it sounds pretty sublime. I recall it got bad reviews in the "Wire" but what do they know. Sounds like an avant garde Anne Peacock:-

[Serial_Apologist]

blast from the past....

shame I missed this one at the time as it sounds pretty sublime. I recall it got bad reviews in the "Wire" but what do they know. Sounds like an avant garde Anne Peacock:-

Actually it's very much like the stuff Annette P was doing before she came over here in '74.

[Ian Thumwood]

I've been listening to a lot of new stuff of late but have been particularly impressed by tenor / soprano man Ari Brown's "Groove awakening." He is currently being touted as Chicago's leading tenor man, following in the footsteps of Vonski and Fred Anderson.This is a curious record as the accompanying piano / bass / drums percussion really takes backstage to the tenor player but the saxophone playing makes it a nonsense that Brown seems so obscure. His playing really reminds me of Odean Pope but you could also say that there is something of Pharaoh Sanders in the raspy quality of his sound as well as the inherent, lyrical logic of Dexter Gordon too. I suppose the title of the album is a giveaway insofar that the record is effectively all about groove albeit in a strictly jazz sense. The improvised lines are hugely memorable and there is assuredness and degree of confidence that makes a very good listen. I think that the interesting thing is that the style of jazz has a timelessness about it with Ari Brown's playing seeming totally relevant. It's nice that this music makes no endeavour to seem modish and of-the-moment and just goes about the business of making good music. One for Jazzrook and Bluesnik.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

pointed out by John Fordham

[Jazzrook]

Some rare piano & impassioned tenor playing from Coleman Hawkins in an amazing entirely improvised duet with Shelly Manne from the 1962 IMPULSE! album '2-3-4': www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6b6Vothdgg

[Serial_Apologist]

Some rare piano & impassioned tenor playing from Coleman Hawkins in an amazing entirely improvised duet with Shelly Manne from the 1962 IMPULSE! album '2-3-4': www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6b6Vothdgg

The people who kept on innovating regardless to the ends of their creative lives is a subject almost worthy of a thread of its own - Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and Coltrane being the three always cited.

[Ian Thumwood]

That Shelly Manne album is really thought-provoking. I was once loaned a copy by a college lecturer and although I was already a Hawkins fan, I think the approached on this record is quite staggering. The duet isn't the only interesting thing on this disc and the appearance of Eddie Costa is also an eye-opener. I'm not sure why Manne's stock seems to have diminished. Granted he was associated with the West Coast school which did produce some pretty weak records yet his drumming always swung, had integrity and appeared on a good number of the superior records from than oeuvre. As for Hawkins, I think he is rather like Sonny Rollins in that you can't place him in any one school or era of playing and is simply true to himself. His influence still seems to percolate through to many of today's players , perhaps more than someone like Lester Young who might have been considered more "hip" at one stage.

The idea about musicians who continued to innovate has been posted here before or on the old message board. Curious to reconsider Miles as perhaps his 1980's output now sounds suggestive that he wasn't quite as innovative as he seemed at the time. ("Behind the curve", as I once read in an article about his 1980's output.)

I'm not sure about Hawkins always pushing the music forward. Maybe the rest of the jazz community were still trying to catch up with him? I think he transcended whichever era he performed in or at least had an approach to the music which ensured he didn't sound out-dated.

I've always felt it quite interesting to see how quickly musicians who were often at the cutting edge of jazz soon became out-dated. The prime example for me is Chick Webb. A great drummer in the 1930's, I just can't imagine him fronting a big band in the next decade. Fats Waller seems the same and he was pretty much old-fashioned even at the height of him fame. Another is Fletcher Henderson who defined the swing era sound in the 1920's and 1930's but whose writing by 1940 had begun to sound out of date. Much of jazz piano in the 1950's quickly got surpassed by the likes of Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Andrew Hill so that you end up shrugging your shoulders when hearing some pianists who were considered "modern" in that decade. Dave Brubeck and Oscar Peterson almost immediately became mainstream and deviated little from the styles that made them famous.

[Serial_Apologist]

That Shelly Manne album is really thought-provoking. I was once loaned a copy by a college lecturer and although I was already a Hawkins fan, I think the approached on this record is quite staggering. The duet isn't the only interesting thing on this disc and the appearance of Eddie Costa is also an eye-opener. I'm not sure why Manne's stock seems to have diminished. Granted he was associated with the West Coast school which did produce some pretty weak records yet his drumming always swung, had integrity and appeared on a good number of the superior records from than oeuvre. As for Hawkins, I think he is rather like Sonny Rollins in that you can't place him in any one school or era of playing and is simply true to himself. His influence still seems to percolate through to many of today's players , perhaps more than someone like Lester Young who might have been considered more "hip" at one stage.

The idea about musicians who continued to innovate has been posted here before or on the old message board. Curious to reconsider Miles as perhaps his 1980's output now sounds suggestive that he wasn't quite as innovative as he seemed at the time. ("Behind the curve", as I once read in an article about his 1980's output.)

I'm not sure about Hawkins always pushing the music forward. Maybe the rest of the jazz community were still trying to catch up with him? I think he transcended whichever era he performed in or at least had an approach to the music which ensured he didn't sound out-dated.

I've always felt it quite interesting to see how quickly musicians who were often at the cutting edge of jazz soon became out-dated. The prime example for me is Chick Webb. A great drummer in the 1930's, I just can't imagine him fronting a big band in the next decade. Fats Waller seems the same and he was pretty much old-fashioned even at the height of him fame. Another is Fletcher Henderson who defined the swing era sound in the 1920's and 1930's but whose writing by 1940 had begun to sound out of date. Much of jazz piano in the 1950's quickly got surpassed by the likes of Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Andrew Hill so that you end up shrugging your shoulders when hearing some pianists who were considered "modern" in that decade. Dave Brubeck and Oscar Peterson almost immediately became mainstream and deviated little from the styles that made them famous.

Good points all - lots to think about: some innovations are more yielding of lasting ideas than others; others maybe take time to catch on? I dunno.

My own take on 1980s Miles was that some of his stuff, eg "Decoy", was radical and innovative in its use of textures layers and superimposed tonalities. "That's Right" - the least innovative track, is imv one of the greatest blues on record. Sco would be right to still be chuffed with his solo on that one. And I think "Tutu" proposed almost a new jazz sub-genre, one not yet based idiomatically on hip hop but aimed that way while creating something genuinely symphonic poetic in the process, as well as being a genuine collaboration with Marcus Miller. In the end "Amandla" didn't really mark any progress though the possibilities were there, and eponymous title and "Mr Pastorius" are among the loveliest ballads ever, iimss!!! - showing that the essence of Miles at his best was to remain himself while finding new aspects to that self in changing younger line-ups of his almost always impeccable judgement.

Swung
Swang?
Swong?

No - you're right - swung!

[Ian Thumwood]

S.A.

I also like "That's right" too! It's funny that I loved Miles' music at the time but have gradually become more critical. I think he effectively got let behind and the music started to change at such a rate in the 1980's with no one style being dominant that Miles got a bit marooned. I was shocked at how dated "Tutu" was when I played in last. Although nearly 30 years have passed since it was made (an marked a kind of electronic equivalent of the stuff he'd done with Gil Evans), it hasn't aged as sell as the quartet with Coltrane which was recorded 30 years before that.

It's quite weird how records age with the passage of time. I feel that Miles would have struggled to match someone like Dave Douglas had he lived on until the 1990's and records like the wonderful Bakaida Carroll track on JRR on Saturday illustrate how much better some jazz is that slipped through under the radar. Musicians who tend to follow the trends tend to date whereas those who are making the trends are often more interesting.

The examples of musicians like Hawkins, Rollins, Konitz, Bley ,Joe Henderson, some keith Jarrett, etc who seem only interested in the improvisation process as opposed to making a style statement sound more relevant and important to me as I get older. It's fascinating to see just how many styles of jazz have come and gone in fashion since I've been listening yet those musicians who choose to concern themselves with the musical process never really date. I think the secret is to try and get under the skin of improvisation and almost consider it as a musical puzzle, using phrases as a building blocks. With Miles, he was innovative up until the early 70's and only intermittently so afterwards. A lot of his music was simply cosmetic. Even on the funkier output, I don't think he was ever quite as savvy as say MM&W at their best. (Check out "Radiolarians" for some excellent "free-funk.") Some of his stuff was pretty lazy and I think he seemed to coast a lot. True, his sound was wonderful but it's not too much of a great leap to compare Miles' poppier 1980's stuff with the later material recorded by Louis Armstrong. For what it's worth, I think that Armstrong still sounded great later on even if the desire to explore had diminished by the time the All-stars were well in to their stride. There are some great moments from Pops in the 50's and 60s but no one can pretend it was as good as anything he produced in the 20's and 30's.

It's also quite interesting to hear how writers develop. I feel Wayne Shorter still has the ability to compose whereas someone like Gil Evans seemed to lose interest in writing by the mid 1970's. Bob Brookmeyer never seemed to belong to his own generation and his compositional style is very much part of the jazz syntax with composition in the second decade of the 2000's. Someone like Gerald Wilson is also interesting in that his style hasn't changed greatly yet the music still sounds vibrant and relevant when tackled by a younger generation of soloists.

I can take in all sorts of styles and characters in jazz and get enjoyment out of it. However, I am finding that my taste has started to consolidate around certain approaches which you might, for want of a better word, consider to be conservative but generally hang around the more African-American-"in the tradition" approach yet focussed on players who are really saying something new. I've been hugely impressed by Malachi Thompson and the new album by Ari Brown that I've given a lot of time to listen to of late sits squarely with the notion that there is still an awful lot to say with more orthodox jazz styles.