What was the latest Jazz gig you've been to?

[Serial_Apologist]

So Medieval music should have been pretty dissonant by using that logic !

It was! That was one of the reasons music academia during the Victorian period and well into the c20 never went further back than Palestrina for exemplary compositional models for student composer to mug up on. Vaughan Williams was one of Charles Villiers Stanford's pupils, along with Holst, Bridge and John Ireland. His model for students was Brahms - he told Ireland his music was "All Brahms and water, me boy". Because Ireland didn't "get" Brahms Stanford put him onto studying Palestrina and composing exercises in that style. This was one of the things the helped put Vaughan William and his generation onto Tudor music, part of the process of having to break with Germanic models in order to establish "English" national styles - The Lark Ascending, Tallis Fantasia and all that. Later parallels with British jazz musicians wanting to break with America are purely coincidental!

The music involved a computer programme that was devised with a workshop in Paris who specialise in using IT in musical situation and the notes implied that the programme changed the music as the musicians were playing. I would have liked to have known if this meant the orchestra was improvising and whether ths meant the orchestral parts changed with each performance.

The encore was a ballad which threatened to sound like Body & Soul but I think this was accidental....maybe part of the programme.

It's a shame in a way that you don't appreciate free improv more - Evan Parker has been investigating this concept of spontaneously responding to real performance time recording and playback for a good 25 years with his Electroacoustic Ensemble, in part taking his cue from Stockhausen's work in the 1960s; nothing to do with AI and I happen to think some of the most interesting results have been in that field.

[Ian Thumwood]

SA

The processes employed by the orchestra have nothing to do with free improvisation. I am aware if Evan Parker's project but that did not entail AI dictating what was being played. This was a lot more than blips, beeps and instruments being distorted. I will try to find an article about this because I understand that this is the first time this approach has been employed by a big band. The software has not been available to do this before. It is not about how electronics are used to manipulate the music. It is about how the AI dictates what is being played based upon the music written by Steve Lehman and orchestrated by the chap leading the ensemble. I have no idea how this is achieved but I sensed the music initially stemmed from Lehman's playing style. It owed a bit to the kind of writing he produced on the Mise en Abime album.

You would have enjoyed the concert and the results were very different from the negative responses you usually read about AI and music in the press.

[Serial_Apologist]

SA

The processes employed by the orchestra have nothing to do with free improvisation. I am aware if Evan Parker's project but that did not entail AI dictating what was being played. This was a lot more than blips, beeps and instruments being distorted. I will try to find an article about this because I understand that this is the first time this approach has been employed by a big band. The software has not been available to do this before. It is not about how electronics are used to manipulate the music. It is about how the AI dictates what is being played based upon the music written by Steve Lehman and orchestrated by the chap leading the ensemble. I have no idea how this is achieved but I sensed the music initially stemmed from Lehman's playing style. It owed a bit to the kind of writing he produced on the Mise en Abime album.

You would have enjoyed the concert and the results were very different from the negative responses you usually read about AI and music in the press.

I see, thanks. You could well be right as I do rate everything I've heard so far by Steve Lehman.

Pop over to the Soweto Kinch link on the OP for last night's Sounds, by the way - we might even agree about last night's fare being pretty good!

[Ian Thumwood]

Steve Lehman is one of the few current jazz musicians I feel is making a difference to the music. Seemed a nice bloke too.

[elmo]

Prompted by this page I have been listening to Steve Lehman on you tube, this is pretty impressive stuff much more interesting than the bland stuff that passes for jazz now. I like the use of electronics with the orchestral work - my faith has been restored somewhat.

this is really good

https://youtu.be/-xZLUyCRz58?feature=shared

elmo

[Serial_Apologist]

A new monthly gig downstairs at a well-upholstered bar/restaurant on the Upper Norwood triangle shopping centre had the altoist Tony Kofi and his apparently regular Hammond organist Liam Dunachie performing mainly standards and 60s Soul jazz numbers, accompanied by hosts Georgia Mancio and drummer Dave Ohm. So quite a prestigious operation - Mancio has received quite a lot of attention on jazz programmes in recent times; whilst not particularly enthusiastic for the crop of British vocalists who came up in the wake and manner of Claire Martin and Tina May I do quite like Georgia. Tony plays very much in the manner of Sonny Stitt, pushing a lot of Parker phraseology reminding one of the pre-Free Form Joe Harriott. All very retro, the Hammond a tad over the top, but one appreciates once again having live jazz in the vicinity after several years of absence, and the place was packed and enthusiastic, the audience mostly in their 30s and 40s: next month's gig (guitarist Sam Dunn and (ex-Loose Tubes) bassist Steve Watts fully booked already.