Re-imagining the Chicago School...

[Ian Thumwood]

It was nice to hear the Alex Welsh track on JRR over the weekend and to be reminded just how influential the Chicargo school of jazz that emerged in the 1920's once was. When I think about music from Chicargo it seems to be either about the scene with in the early twenties and the arrival of Armstrong from New Orleans as well as the Austin High School gang, the electrics blues scene that grew up in the 1950's or the Avant Garde movement that evolved in the 1960's. The music produced during jazz's first decade still seems potent to me yet I'm increasingly impressed by some of the musicians who have arrived on the current scene. In some respects, what is going on in Chicargo is perhaps even more exciting than what is going on in New York and very much in keeping with some of the more adventurous sounds that have stemmed from musicians as diverse as Fred Anderson or Ken Vandermark. I've expressed my enthusiasm for Nicole Mitchell and Jeff Parker before but last week I discovered the work of Josh Berman whilst working on my computer one evening. In a moment of serendipity, it is now possible to hear the music of the 1920's and the current Avant Garde mixed together under the leadership of the aforementioned cornetist.

I don't know much about Berman other than he often plays with vibest Adam Adasiewizc as well as being a fomer pupil of Brad Goode who is himself a terrific trumpeter in the Dave Douglas mould and who has similarly recorded works by earlier jazz composers like Langston Curl, Frankie Newton and Bix.
This offering by Josh Berman and hs gang is of "Jada" and seems a bit like Bob Brookmeyer's traditionalism re-visited -meets- Eric Dolphy's "Out to lunch." I thing this is absolutely terrific:-

[Tenor Freak]

For a moment there I thought you were going to discuss these tossers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago...l_of_economics

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

That'll be Ms. Ayn Rand then, the Norman Bates (total basket case) of US economics...Hey, its not a science, its a fking priesthood.

Anyway, I have long argued that the regional scene in US jazz is toooooo often neglected... Detroit in the bop fifties and avant garde sixties? Charles Moore? Why, it was as big as Wales....and three times as nasty on a Friday night.

BN, just passing.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

ian forgive me i changed your title spelling &c ....

lovely music ... as it happens i was chatting only yesterday with a chum in USA just returned from New Orleans, i uttered heresies about the appeal of the music from there , praising instead Chicago and Kansas, so very pleased for your introduction of this great music, new to me ...

like a MOPDTK implant in a trad band! wonderful!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Dont forget all those tenor players who came out of Chicago...Gene Ammons, Griff, Clifford Jordon, John Gilmore, the Von Freemans....et all.

A hip school. De Wyatt, a subject for a jazz series if R3 "did' jazz anymore.....

BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

Calum

Didn't realise that Chicago didn't have an "r" in it - although it did look a bit wrong!!

Over the last few months I've been checking out quite a few Delmark recordings just I had gone through the Crisscross roster last year. For me, I think Nicole Mitchell has been the star attraction and the album "Awakening" was a real eye-opener to just how good jazz is outside of New York even though I'd previously listened to a bit of Fred Anderson previously. I'm awaiting the arrival of her latest record which also includes Adam Adasiewicz on vibes and drummer Frank Rosaly. I've heard one track which sound tremendous but also seems to emphasize that the comparison to Dolphy is both lazy and inaccurate.

As far as Josh Berman is concerned, I'd never heard of him until a few weeks ago and that was actually as a member of Adasiewicz' group. I love the idea of mixing up more traditional elements of jazz with the contemporary but to pay hommage to the Chicargoans does seem particularly different as these musicians are neglected these days. By all accounts, Berman is a huge fan of this type of jazz as well as being associated with more adventurous styles of music and it's nice to hear the music respected and still performed in an contemporary fashion.

What I like about the Chicago stuff is that it seems totally to have by-passed the New Neo's and seems almost continuous with what went on in the 1960's. In some ways this makes it sound a bit more "legit" even though I think that New York still must be the epicentre of jazz.

It's interesting to hear that Chicago still has it's own identity rather like New Orleans. Even the West Coast stuff nowadays seems like a breezier version of the current New York mainstream. I would love to think that there is a current Kansas City scene where the blues and riff based jazz of the 20's and 30's has been re-imagined for the 21st Century but if it exists, I'm not aware of it.

[Alyn_Shipton]

KC was reimagined by Robert Altman in his film of that name, with some interesting jams. Or you can tune in to Jazz Line up on 21 July and hear the Buck Clayton Legacy Band and U S bluesman Michael Roach doing some authentic Turner/Rushing numbers with Buck's charts...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

...never managed to sit all the way through the later Altman ..... missed the music

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

This all came of a conversation I had with [John] Steinbeck once when we were standing in a men’s room somewhere. Steinbeck asked me why I didn’t play the banjo any more and I told him that went out with the high-button shoes. ∞

so said Eddie Condon

losing the banjo gets my vote ...

way to go Pee Wee!

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

this is an incredible track, captures that wartime grief/longing [forget the James Dean pics he was 13 in 44 but his image reminds us who was away ... all the young men]

[Ian Thumwood]

Calum

The Bobby Hackett track was terrific. He has alwas been a player I've been a bit sceptical about - rather like Ruby Braff whose playing I've never taken to either. However, that track was brilliant and I love the trombone of Jack Teagrden. You forget just how great he was and how dominant sounding the trombone sounds when he plays. Like you, Pee Wee Russell always grabs me from that coterie of player but the video clip also featured Lou McGarity (judging by the sound) who I also enjoy.

Eddie Condon was a bit of a bizarre character and i'm not even sure if he was a particularly capable musician. He seems to have been a great organiser and probably one of the most quotable figures in jazz yet I'm never quite sure that he wasn't an amateur who got lucky.

I think that Russell wasn't the only clarinet playing oddity from that era and perhaps we shouldn't overlook this bloke:-

[Ian Thumwood]

[Ian Thumwood]

This is even better!!!! A band with Adasiewizc and Berman together:-

[Ian Thumwood]

Mr Bluesnik

Just got back from the gym and checked on line to see if you had commented about the track "dagger" by Rolldown as I has expected you to be in firs of ecstacy given the fact that this band is taking it's cues from Jackie Mac's great quintet with Bobby Hutcherson and Gracham Moncur III about whom you share my enthusiasm.


Here is a link to information about this record, if you are interested:-



http://www.cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/rolldown.html


I would have thought that this track would have made your day!

Cheers


Ian

[Tom Audustus]

Wow. Interesting stuff. Thanks, just ordered the Berman cd from Amazon.

Takes me back to the sort of music, classical & jazz, I used to listen to when at University back in the 70s. Makes me want to grow my hair again (if I had any) and smoke stuff I shouldn't.

My wife tells of a lunch time student performance we went to when we were at Uni of a new piece for 2 violinists that was set out on two lines of music stands stretching across the stage area in different curves that met at stage left. The music manuscript consisted of two long pieces of paper that was carefully unfolded along each of the lines of stands. The musicians started at one end and moved along their music as it progressed. The programme note supplied us with the useful thoughts from the composer about how the piece had been inspired by his winter holiday in Shetland - all wind, rain, snow etc. - very poetic. The music was atonal (graphic score and all that!!!) with very long silences broken by the musicians abusing their insruments and playing the occaisional note as they walked sideways reading the score. The concentrtion in the audience was palpable.
We had not had lunch. About half way through my stomach gave out the loudest empty tummy rumble imaginable right in the middle of one of the intense silent periods. The acoustics of the Turner Sims hall at Southampton Uni are excellent and for a fleeting moment in 1976 I was the centre of artistic attention. It was my contribution to an aleatory musical experience.