.... can not speak to Bird or rocks

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Alyn remembers Dave Brubeck with an interesting assortment of requests ...


Geoffrey explores a major shift in jazz that drove perceptions and practices over the decades ....

n the week that marked the seventy-fifth anniversary of Benny Goodman's famous Carnegie Hall concert, Geoffrey Smith considers the evolution of jazz in concert, from Spirituals to Swing to Jazz at the Philharmonic, with star turns by the likes of Lester Young, Charlie Parker and Dinah Washington

Julian offers a mix, including the trio of Garbarek, Gismonti and Haden ....

ulian Joseph features a set given by American Vibraphonist Christian Tamburr with his Quartet, recorded at the Pizza Express Jazz Club Soho, London as part of his UK debut. Julian also interviews the Mobo nominated Roller Trio as their UK tour begins.

Jon3

Reinterpreting the music of a legend can be a perilous business, but pianist Django Bates gives a masterclass on the subject with his Belovèd Trio. Charlie Parker is the band's touchstone, although they weave originals by Bates into their setlist too. This concert, recorded in Sheffield, features music from their recent second album and was a late entry into Jez's favourite gigs of 2012. The band is a highly attuned unit, with the music evolving through shifting feels, textures and tempos. Bates is on great form at the piano, and Peter Bruun (drums) and Petter Eldh (bass) propel things along with subtlety and a constant sense of exploration.

Also on the programme, Jazz on 3 drops in on one of the country's more unusual music venues: the home of improvising bassoonist Mick Beck, which for many years has hosted performances by the great and the good of the free music scene.

i have really enjoyed Django Bates and his trio interpreting Parker tunes ....

and this ........

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

This week everyone’s talking about Django – no, I'm not referring to Quentin Tarantino’s bloody new thriller – instead to British jazz composer and equally thrilling pianist Django Bates. Find out why Belovèd might just be the band that unchains him from the ‘Loose Tubes composer’ moniker, as Bates’ piano mastery shines in this stunning trio performance.
As you will hear from this gig it’s astounding how much the group has developed since it first began to reimagine Charlie Parker's music 3 years ago, and Bates admits it has really become to feel like ‘his trio’. Highlights include ‘Billies’ Bounce’ where Parker’s famous blues is ingeniously fragmented and gradually deconstructed over complex rhythmic playing from Peter Brunn on drums and Petter Eldh on bass. Sensitive moments come on ‘Ah Leu Cha’ and the Bates-penned ‘Senza Bitterness’, where his cascading lines and flourishes at the keyboard really dazzle. Django also drops into the studio to talk about his recent jazz dreams and dancing around after a day's work, while I probe his influences by putting him to the MP3 shuffle test, revealing disco, Mexican orchestral music and plenty in between.
Also on the programme, we travel to the home of improvising bassoonist Mick Beck, whose back room doubles as one of the country’s most unusual and interesting free-music venues.

newsletter for Jon3 tonite

[Serial_Apologist]

Very much looking forward to this - we've had quite a lot of Django B lately while blind tenor and bass clarinet man Mick Beck hasn't been on for as long as I can remember.

Once at a Mick Beck gig where I was present, the publican ordered the band out at the interval, saying Mick's drummer was carp. God knows how far they'd come...

[Stephen Whitaker]

I'd like to boast that nearly 20 years ago I was partly to blame for a poorly attended but wonderful Django Bates gig in Chester.

[Serial_Apologist]

I'd like to boast that nearly 20 years ago I was partly to blame for a poorly attended but wonderful Django Bates gig in Chester.

I was once the only audience at a gig. "You get to get all the requests", the remarkably sanguine pianist told me.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

I'd like to boast that nearly 20 years ago I was partly to blame for a poorly attended but wonderful Django Bates gig in Chester.

good ... how about a few more gigs then?

[Quarky]

newsletter for Jon3 tonite

Django Bates is a bit of a mystery for me. Jezz Nelson plays a lot of his piano trio music on Jon3, and listening to the Sheffield Concert last night, he is clearly a very considerable pianist, although I will have to listen to a lot more before making a judgement.

However, I did dig out Alyn Shipton's podcast on Django, recorded 2011, and this concentrated on his composer side. The compositions seem to be Kaleidoscopic, coming at all angles, and there seemed to be good stuff there mixed up with some dross.

So is Django Bates the most significant British Jazz musician currently active? Or is he just another jazz pianist who also composes - but the compositions will probably be soon forgotten?

[Tenor Freak]

I thought that was a super piano trio gig so thanks Jezzer for that one.

With Django there's a strong streak of anarchism which I think he puts in to break things up and becoming too polished. This trio gives a good example of that - after all there are loads of phenomenal piano trios out there at the moment, and if he played all the music straight it would just sound like the others; it may as well be Jarrett playing Bird (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Once I had a saxophone lesson with Iain Ballamy who showed me some of Django's writing for the Delightful Precipice orchestra - it really was very hard music to play, so there's no doubting Django's chops. He gets bored showing off.

Django may well be right up there in terms of internationally-significant British jazz musicians, yes (just waiting for Ian to disagree now)

[Ian Thumwood]

Bruce

I agree with you regarding Django Bates. I've been a fan ever since the days of Loose Tubes and he is always entertining live. He is one of my favourite players from the UK and I know that Kenny Werner spoke really highly of him at a workshop I went to. His band Human Chain were also very good (whatever happened to the brilliant Mondesir brothers?) and whilst I like Iain Ballamy's playing too, I'm not too fond of his current group "Food" - just don't really like Noe=rwegian jazz these days and the fact that it is on ECM makes me even less inclined to explore.

Wonder if you ever remember when Django Bates was in Ken Stubb's band "First House ?" I think the saxophonist emigrated to Australia but he was anothe rartist Eicher experimented with before kicking him in to touch. I used to love ECM records in the 1980s as they helped defined that decade for me , alomng with bands such as Loose Tubes. Shame that the label isn't quite so interesting these days.

[Serial_Apologist]

Bruce

I agree with you regarding Django Bates. I've been a fan ever since the days of Loose Tubes and he is always entertining live. He is one of my favourite players from the UK and I know that Kenny Werner spoke really highly of him at a workshop I went to. His band Human Chain were also very good (whatever happened to the brilliant Mondesir brothers?) and whilst I like Iain Ballamy's playing too, I'm not too fond of his current group "Food" - just don't really like Noe=rwegian jazz these days and the fact that it is on ECM makes me even less inclined to explore.

Wonder if you ever remember when Django Bates was in Ken Stubb's band "First House ?" I think the saxophonist emigrated to Australia but he was anothe rartist Eicher experimented with before kicking him in to touch. I used to love ECM records in the 1980s as they helped defined that decade for me , alomng with bands such as Loose Tubes. Shame that the label isn't quite so interesting these days.

Ken Stubbs - I was asking around the other night what had happened to him. I remember being bowled over by First House on a BBC broadcast, then seeing them at Bracknell - people were talking excitedly about "the new Elton Dean" and "this new drummer from Manchester" Martin France - but then being underwhelmed by their ECM LP - the first of two iirc. But then, my disillusionment with ECM recording techniques predates yours by quite a few years, Ian.

[Ian Thumwood]

Voila:-

http://kenstubbs.com/

Gone to Aus and involved in music education.

I used to love ECM but they started to go off the rails around 1990. For about five years that was the only music I would listen to and whilst I have bought a few records since then (Jarrett, Motian, Abercrombie, Charles Lloyd, etc) there isn't quite the excitement about the records where you never really knew what might pop up. The label seems to have moved too far from jazz and the musicians I loved have now grown old and their best music is perhpas behind them. I don't think Eicher has his finger on the pulse and othe musicians have caught up with the ECM crew from a technical point of view. I'm sometimes tempted by the odd ECM release but I don't get the buzz that I used to or as the likes of Criss Cross, Greenleaf or Delmark do at the moment.

(Where is Charles, btw???)

[Serial_Apologist]

Voila:-

http://kenstubbs.com/

Gone to Aus and involved in music education.

I used to love ECM but they started to go off the rails around 1990. For about five years that was the only music I would listen to and whilst I have bought a few records since then (Jarrett, Motian, Abercrombie, Charles Lloyd, etc) there isn't quite the excitement about the records where you never really knew what might pop up. The label seems to have moved too far from jazz and the musicians I loved have now grown old and their best music is perhpas behind them. I don't think Eicher has his finger on the pulse and othe musicians have caught up with the ECM crew from a technical point of view. I'm sometimes tempted by the odd ECM release but I don't get the buzz that I used to or as the likes of Criss Cross, Greenleaf or Delmark do at the moment.

My problem was always with ECM's recording techniques, starting some time after Jarrett's Koln concert, when, however good the music, the strange experience of double bass right by my left ear and the rest of the band sounding as if somewhere down the far end of a large reverberant space had a distancing effect that somehow deprived listening of involvement - as it would if the band were so separated "in reality". Listening to Kenny Wheeler's "Deer Wan" the other day for the first time in a long time, I was strongly reminded of this

(Where is Charles, btw???)

Indeed where? Without checking, it seems a long time. Hope he's OK (or "okay" )

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Charles is in his own phrase - about the place ... and ok ....... recent personal message ...

[Tenor Freak]

Wonder if you ever remember when Django Bates was in Ken Stubb's band "First House ?" I think the saxophonist emigrated to Australia but he was anothe rartist Eicher experimented with before kicking him in to touch. I used to love ECM records in the 1980s as they helped defined that decade for me , alomng with bands such as Loose Tubes. Shame that the label isn't quite so interesting these days.

Not only do I remember Ken Stubbs I also remember seeing Ken Stubbs play live on a couple of occasions, once with First House who were playing support for Ornette at the Town & Country Club in 1986. Bates wasn't at that gig so they played as a trio. Can't say that I remember much about them.

As for Eicher's production techniques I agree he can sound stereotyped. Check out an interesting experiment - Arild Andersen's group Masqualero who recorded in Rainbow Studio with Kongshaug but produced their first LP themselves. Same musicians, studio and engineer but some faster tempos as ECM but a lot more energy, and less reverb.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

it is difficult is it not, listening to the Brubeck Quartet and not swooning to the solos of Desmond when he hits his stride ... thanks to Alyn a fitting tribute to Brubeck and sweet programme

ditto to Geoffrey, mostly the Carnegie but a bit of JATP that lets us hear Parker and Young soloing in proximity, such a treat

on to Julian for good vibes and Jon3 for Django Bates