Album For Today

[Jazzrook]

One of the most powerful and exciting editions of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers playing Sonny Rollins' composition 'Evans' from their overlooked 1957 album 'A Night in Tunisia'(BLUEBIRD). Does anyone know if Rollins ever recorded 'Evans'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m51iL37piPs

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

great line up eh

a good question for discography geeks jazzrook

[Ian Thumwood]

I've dug out an old Branford Marsalis album "Braggtown" and given it a spin. Until recently this was one of the long standing regular groups on the contemporary jazz scene when Jeff "Tain" Watts left. I've not heard the latest incarnation of the quartet but this is a blistering album by anyone's standards. I defy anyone to find a track as swinging as the opening "Jack Baker" where Brandford's tenor tears into a repeated motif like a rottweiller on crack and powered by the barrage of drums beneath that threatens to overwhelm but just about stays on the side of sanity. BM seems somewhat cast as something of a mainstream player (especially by those who never really listen to his music) yet this music sometimes feels like an amalgam of Art Blakey bombast and the unpredictable cacophony of Cecil Taylor's "Conquistador. " There are moments when Calderazzo's piano playing boils into splintered fragments and clusters and the four members of the quartet seem to explode off into their separate orbits. On tracks like the opener and the fantastic "Blakzilla" as well as "Black elk speaks" the music serves as an alarm call to remind the jazz fan that the freer aspects of jazz can be performed at breakneck tempos and with the kind of aggression that recalls late-period Coltrane.

There is also another side of the disc that is more relaxed and some of the more probing material like the soprano feature "Hope" have no less vitality. There is even a rendition of some music by Henry Purcell which , with it's ground base, has a stately quality about it that sounds totally natural. You can still recognise the music as Purcell yet it fits as a piece of jazz and the soprano solo builds up such a sense of architecture you wonder why jazz versions of Classical composers are rarely this successful.

All in all, whilst the mellow moments are hugely satisfying and serve as a model of how to perform "great jazz", the wilder tracks are performed with such testosterone filled aggression that you are left wanting more. Watts is a towering genius of the drums - a kind of amalgam of the belligerent approach to soloists that Art Blakey could lay down on records like "Free for all" but with the atomic precision of someone like jack DeJohnette. Branford Marsalis is one of the musicians that I seem to lose track of from time to time but whenever I return to him you appreciate just how good his is and baffled why he is so over-shadowed by his brother. In my opinion, there is no difficulty in distinguishing whose music is more significant but his records come as timely reminders that jazz does not have to prostitute itself to remain relevant. I would imagine that BM is steadily building himself a library of recordings that , with the likes of Brecker, Murray, David S Ware (championed by Marsalis, for what it is worth) , Liebman, Lovano, etc matter as representatives of the tenor tradition over the last twenty years.

[Serial_Apologist]

There is even a rendition of some music by Henry Purcell which , with it's ground base, has a stately quality about it that sounds totally natural. You can still recognise the music as Purcell yet it fits as a piece of jazz and the soprano solo builds up such a sense of architecture you wonder why jazz versions of Classical composers are rarely this successful.

Back on track I see, Ian.

Purcell washes blacker...

[Jazzrook]

I'm glad to have finally tracked down a copy of Elvin Jones' elusive 1968 trio album 'The Ultimate'(BLUE NOTE). Some of the finest ever playing from Joe Farrell, Jimmy Garrison & Elvin IMHO:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKjMV7iQKrk

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

that is a great album Ian

and congrats Jazzrook on your catch ... a fine piece of work also available on The Complete Blue Note set ...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

aw shit look what i just found on youtube!

[Jazzrook]

Astonishing that this Johnny 'Guitar' Watson instrumental,'Space Guitar', was recorded in 1954 when he was only 18. Sun Ra should have recruited him!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gJg7_FgVTI

[Ian Thumwood]

Marking APC papers for RICS at the moment and have the Mile Davis live in Europe 1967 triple CD set on. The music on this set is staggering - I'm inclined to suggest it is even better than the studio recordings by the same quintet. To put things in Quantity surveying parlance, was there any other band who recorded some much "real music / m2." There have been some fabulous "live" recordings that have surfaced over the last ten years but this box set must be the absolute pinnacle. Essnential listening and still relevant nearly fifty years later.

[PUSB]

Marking APC papers for RICS at the moment and have the Mile Davis live in Europe 1967 triple CD set on. The music on this set is staggering - I'm inclined to suggest it is even better than the studio recordings by the same quintet. To put things in Quantity surveying parlance, was there any other band who recorded some much "real music / m2." There have been some fabulous "live" recordings that have surfaced over the last ten years but this box set must be the absolute pinnacle. Essnential listening and still relevant nearly fifty years later.

That is an astonishingly good record. I have the two later ones and while they have some good moments, the first of those bootlegs is the best. Shorter, in particular, is extremely good on that recording - this seems to me to be him at his very best.

[Jazzrook]

Some stunning tenor playing by Sam Rivers from Tony Williams overlooked 1964 debut as leader 'Life Time':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFMsDnJpc14

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

current lid flip was on Jon3 a week or so back



very delighted with it as part of monthly emusic scoop!

[Ian Thumwood]

I'm lost for words at how good the Jason Roebke record "High / Red / Centre" is and have listened to nothing else since Saturday. The more I listen to this record , the more is resembles the kind of small groups that Ellington used to put out on the 1950's / 60's but with a line up that includes the likes of Jason Adasiewizc, Josh Abrams, Keefe Jackson and the incredible trombonist Jeb Bishop, the music sometimes dissolves in to more free-ish territory. I love Ellington's music and some of the ballad compositions on this disc do recall the type of tunes that used to feature Johnny Hodges. "Ten nights" is a stand out. That said, the up-temp stuff is blistering with the band slamming the dissonant riffs in tunes like "Candy Time" like someone succeeding in ramming a square peg in to a round hole. The music has the full-blown excitement of some of the best Mingus yet the wobbly eccentricity of Eric Dolphy. Added to this, I have been amazed by the straight-down-the middle drumming of Mike Reed which drives the charts in a fashion very much akin to the great drummers of the Swing Era whilst all sorts of chaos is let loose amongst the horns. The samples on Amazon give you a good example of what to expect. "Dirt cheap" starts off in an avant garde fashion before continuing in to the kind of agreeable lope that Ellington ensembles revelled in and "No passengers" is an off-kilter bop theme that reminded me a bit of George Russell.



Previously, I have enthused about Josh Berman's terrific "Here now" and this octet features some of the same individuals. If anything, this is better and , as the liner notes explain, the band honed it's skills in a series of gigs that preceded the recording session. Although the line up of this octet fluctuates, the music is at once tight and cacophonous. This is a hugely impressive recording.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Billy Hart Quartet: One is the Other (2014)

[Jazzrook]

From the unjustly overlooked 1964 live album 'Miles in Tokyo': www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xkiPPSVRvE
As far as I know this is the only issued recording of Miles Davis's short-lived quintet with tenorist Sam Rivers.