JRR: testing the boundaries

[Tenor Freak]

Now that Alyn is running the show I thought I'd request some Steely Dan.

They snuck in some heavy jazz elements in their old LPs, and I have a couple of candidates which I think fit the bill.

Here's #1 - this is basically bebop:

[Tenor Freak]

This one has Phil Woods playing a blinding alto solo:

[Tenor Freak]

This one has Ray Brown on bass and Vic Feldman on vibes:

[Tenor Freak]

This is great:

[Tenor Freak]

Not the 'Dan but still a mighty version of a Trane classic:

[Tenor Freak]

I'm looking for the Hoops McCann Band version of Babylon Sisters (arranged by Vic Feldman) but nothing on Yewtuub....so here's another one (I have this LP):

[Tenor Freak]

...and here's the original and best version. Feldman plays not only the Rhodes piano solo but also the Clavinet part:

God I love this

[Tenor Freak]

A fully-fashioned jazz solo at the end courtesy of Pete Christlieb

[Alyn_Shipton]

We featured Fagen and Becker on my World Service show Jazzmatazz, so it's not out of the question, Bruce. Send me your requests...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

as a Steely Dan fan i can only congratulate you on this magnificent thread Tenor F!

a personal hit for me

[Ian Thumwood]

Intigued by these clips as Steely Dan's music is totally unknown to me. I have been playing a CD of "Earth, wind and fire" all day yesterday and it struck me just how differently this music would be considered by jazz fans in the 1970's in comparison with nowadays. I feel that jazz has taken on board so many influences from popular music since this time and that popular music has increasingly had less to do with anything remotely music that a group like Earth, Wind and Fire almost are in need of a radical re-appraisal. In short, EW&F sound like they are much closer to jazz nowadays than at the time the made their records. Granted, from a jazz persepctive, the groove has a lot less flexibility than most jazz but there is a very good groove there none-the-less. I would have to say that "white" pop music has frequently sounded pretty lame to me (especially since the 90's) and whilst there are artists like Kate Bush whose work I admire, most white rock bands are not "great" bands like EW&F. There are a few exceptions ( I've heard one American guitarist praise the Beasty Boys as a great band and some of this group's music isn't too far away from the kind of stuff put out by MMW) but I don't really think some of the more successful groups of the last 20 or so years have been too brilliant from a musical point of view. "Oasis" are just a pub band who struck luck with "Look back in anger" and sound pretty basic when you start to appreciate the grooves, horn writing, use of harmonic modulation and improvised solo's that you can hear on the EW&F CD.

Another thing which is interesting picks up on Calum's and SA' s negative comments about the recent Robert Glasper CD. I quite like some of the tracks but , to be frank, they are not in the same league as the EW&F recordings. The 70's group are not quite as dark in their output as Glasper but I'm inclined to suggest that the jazz quotient is probably higher.

So much appreciation of Rock music seems to be centred around British bands but it is interesting that , from a musical point of view, so many of these American bands filled with session musicians are producing the "real" music. There are some clips of Youtube , for example, with Paul Simon leading bands with people like Mike Brecker and Steve Gadd in the line up.

Bruce has raised an interesting topic and it would be fascinating to see just how far you could go with JRR selecting tracks by pop musicians where the music is effectively jazz. I think that the definition of what is or what isn't jazz changes through time as the music has evolved. I would say that this has always been a debatable issue as things from the past which may have been identified as jazz sometimes come across as being markedly divorced from it these days. The notorious debate about Bing Crosby several years ago springs to mind. I wouldn't call Crosby as jazz musician by any stretch of the imagination (at any point in his career) but the likes of Donny Hathaway would, by my definition, have to start being considered as having been hugely influenced by jazz.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i have somewhat resiled from my pov on that 'notorious' debate

eg

not to mention the mosaic box set which makes the point even more cogently ...

[grippie]

Bit more of Bing with the lovely Eddie Lang as accompanist on film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=958IVzSF55o


and Eddie Lang with Carl Kress

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=uhcrRuTsPFI&NR=1

[Ian Thumwood]

As wonderful as the music of Eddie Lang is, I still feel that Crosby is a crooner who had the good fortune to be backed by some exceptional jazz musicians as opposed to being in the heart of what jazz is about. I would argue that jazz was still struggling to find it's identity in the 20's/ early 30's and can appreciate why a broader definition of jazz might be deemed include his earliest work at least. However, the Steely Dan tracks (and some of the Joni Mitchell selections of JL) illustrate that by the 70's jazz had developed such a vocabulary that it could easily be encompassed in the work of more "savvy" pop-artists.

My point is this. I think that some of the better pop / rock artists can embrace jazz or even use this language for the purposes of the kind of music produced by EW&F which, to my ears atleast, sounds like a big band in the way that the brass and voices are used to punch out riffs. By all accounts EW&F used some talented musicians in their bands (I think Gene Lake has played drums in a recent edition of this band?) the knowledge of harmony and complex lines of the charts (check out the opening of "Jupiter") suggest a band which has a better "feel" for jazz than most popular singers from the 20's-50's who featured with many big bands / jazz groups and indeed practically every white, British rock / pop group. My other issue was that EW&F certainly sound more jazz-orientated with the passage of time which may have something to go with the decreasing sophistication of the record buying public. However, it is intriguing that EW&F could be argued to have more akin to jazz with the passing of time whereas many singer's of Crosby's and the followig generation seem to have less to do with it . Pop music at it's best involves a degree of musical intelligence and I suppose this is why I prefer to listen to groups where there is some improvisation or the harmonic language and / or groove has some awareness of jazz.

[charles t]

[Ian]: "Bruce has raised an interesting topic and it would be fascinating to see just how far you could go with JRR selecting tracks by pop musicians where the music is effectively jazz..."

Of which one of my all-time favorite example is Dick Parry's tenor solo on Pink Floyd's 'Us And Them' (even tho less than a minute... at 5.00" mark on this particular clip):

(Was fortunate to hear this tune live by the Floyd with Parry, here in Los Angeles).