The dog trots freely thru the Rolling Jazz Canto Thread 2016

cool! will the "Ritual" song be on?

RIP Paul Bley.

I can't find any tracklist anywhere

(xp obv)

"das rein instrumentale Album" http://www.ragazzi-music.de/fire16.html
guess no Ritual - hasn't been released yet though? saw them play it live and rly want to hear again

First jazz purchases of 2016 - three CDs by Gary Bartz:

Libra/Another Earth (2 albums on 1 CD)
Harlem Bush Music: Uhuru and Harlem Bush Music: Taifa (2 albums on 1 CD)
I've Known Rivers and Other Bodies

stumbled into some Christian Scott live videos that i'm enjoying:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h03Q_TYs7KM

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

Was just looking up NYC jazz club seating capacities, 'cause Kamasi Washington is coming back in February (a re-scheduled show; he was supposed to be here for Winter Jazzfest but he broke his ankle) and he's playing the main room at Webster Hall, which holds 1500 people. That's more than Birdland, the Blue Note (where I saw him last year), Iridium, the Jazz Standard, Smalls, Smoke, and the Village Vanguard combined.

well it just moved, right? i think they announced that today.

Well-chosen excerpts!
http://www.npr.org/sections/ablogsupreme/2016/01/05/462061538/paul-bley-influential-jazz-pianist-has-died

well it just moved, right? i think they announced that today.

No, I think it was gonna be there all along; it was a special WJF-affiliated show, rather than just a set wedged in with all the others.

Christian Scott, being from New Orleans, has a tad of that city's street funkiness in his sound

This box looks amazing; I would love to hear that Art Ensemble of Chicago + Free Jazz Orchestra piece. But $125 (before shipping) is out of my price range.

wow, just music & limbus 4 on there too! didn't know the art ensemble were back in germany in '70... the lester bowie composed piece they recorded as part of the baden-baden free jazz orchestra from the previous year is epic

Some cool tribute-oriented stuff at Club Bonafide now through the weekend and at the Jazz Standard next week

bumped into this after i cycled through the new matmos on soundcloud (which is also great!)
https://soundcloud.com/hausu-mountain/andrew-bernstein-thought-forms-iii

also, i'm late to the party but this aaron diehl album is lovely.
whole thing is great but this is the standout
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdxyvjdMSew

Christian Scott, being from New Orleans, has a tad of that city's street funkiness in his sound

i couldn't get with him for a long time because it sounded like he was specifically trying to distance himself from that sound. but his current band is really great, his playing seems more dynamic (i.e. he'll go high & loud sometimes), and yeah that first song on the Tiny Desk performance has a Mardi Gras Indians vibe (the live version more than the record).

xp
I am also late on that Diehl album, some beautiful compositions/playing on there and it really does soar into space in places.

x-post--Scott has his drummer adding both drum & bass midi sounds and djembe ones, and a guitarist adding fusion n rock licks, but I like him best when he's drawing from that Mardi Gras Indian feel and or he's drawing from old-school era Miles Davis

Kamasi Washington lands at #8 on the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll. Highest position for a jazz album in that poll's history?

Probably. But the album got dissed a bit in the Christgau, Ann Powers, Joe Levy, Greg Tate discussion

Mostly by Christgau, who came off like an out-of-touch old fuck (which he is, so that's not exactly a surprise). I mean, here's the full discussion for those who don't want to search it out on the Voice site:

Ann Powers: Nothing on this list shocks me. How 'bout you guys?

Robert Christgau: I would say the Washington was a sleeper, but it doesn't shock me at all.

Greg Tate: I saw more people under thirty at his Blue Note shows than I've seen at any Blue Note show in the last twenty years. [Note: I was there too and can verify this.]

AP: That definitely was a huge NPR Music favorite. Every kind of music person at NPR is into Kamasi Washington.

GT: Another great Compton story.

RC: So Greg — as opposed to its positive cultural ramifications, you actually listened to the Kamasi Washington three-CD set?

GT: I did.

RC: Well, I listened to it once, I don't mean that. But do you listen to it because you think it's really good jazz?

GT: I listened to it, and I watched him play it in concert and on various YouTube videos, certain tunes.

AP: I listened to it not a lot — a few times, because it's super long and there's a lot to listen to — and it certainly resonated with me, but I haven't had the chance to see him live. It's all about live, right?

GT: I think the album definitely holds people. I step outside of myself enough to weigh its impact on people younger than me who didn't hear all the music that it derives from — the early-Seventies freedom swing, Charles Tolliver, McCoy Tyner, Lee Morgan, the Black Jazz label from Oakland. All that stuff is in there. For me, it's interesting hearing some cats that are young reclaiming that as their jazz tradition. That's where I came in. The jazz was actually speaking to me in my nascent moment, sixteen, seventeen, in Washington [D.C.]. And for it to have all the political intentions of that music, too, the Afro-collective community intentions.

RC: Afro-collective community I'm all for. That music? Not interesting. I think it's the Afro-collective community part that got it into the Top 10.

GT: It's also the Thundercat and Kendrick Lamar connections. You couldn't have asked for a better trifecta of hype that descended on them at the right time. Seeing them live, they totally live up to it, especially with Thundercat and his brother in the band.

RC: I had a student file her final paper on Kamasi Washington, and she actually consulted with Greg, and to my great surprise, she concluded at the end...that it wasn't such a good record. What was great about it was the live show and the spectacle of it...she appreciated it in the end more as a spectacle than as jazz. That I'll buy. I wasn't there and I suspect I would've been moved by that situation, too.

GT: It wasn't just spectacle — it was definitely hardcore, funky blues riffing, which you haven't heard in New York. New York jazz has gotten very chamber-ish. I don't even mean the Jazz at Lincoln Center side of it.... Everyone's getting real contemplative. This is some fire music with some funk up under it. It's just a roaring sound out of six or seven cats, which I love. There's just a looseness and a freedom to it that I haven't heard in a long time, especially in a New York club.

But, you know, if you're looking to Robert Christgau for thoughts on jazz, you're an idiot anyway. It's never been a genre he's had time for in any serious way.

i never ever understand critics who levy the "too long" argument.

I love that Christian Scott album now, for some cloth eared reason I didn't like it on my first listen.

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/01/14/arts/14ROVA/14ROVA-superJumbo.jpg

NYT review

I had "The Celestial Septet" with Cline and Rova on cd, but didn´t like it too much. This sounds interesting though.

This new-ish Esperanza Spalding song is pretty cool imo. I'm not sure that it fits in this thread, exactly, but I don't think there's a rolling psych-funk thread. I think Matt Stevens is on guitar. Also classic for the Youtube comment "...this kind of variety gives bands like Ulver a run for their money".

The new Sonny Rollins album - the fourth in his Road Shows series of live collections - comes out in April. Most of the material is from 2001 and later, but there's one surprise: a version of "Disco Monk," from his Don't Ask album, from 1979. He hasn't played that song since that tour, so it's kind of interesting to hear it preserved here.

This is fun:
http://www.npr.org/2016/01/19/463589100/comedian-jon-benjamins-jazz-album-is-full-of-real-untapped-un-talent

interesting to read greg tate's thoughts on kamasi, was just listening to burnt sugar last night and thinking how much better than kamasi it sounded

Really interesting interview with Stanley Jordan (who I admit I've never listened to).

omg this Jon Benjamin thing

NPR: Yeah! He knows what he's doing.

JB: He really does. But that's just not as interesting.

NPR: Do you think it lacks the complete sense of free-form surprise that you're after?

JB: He's not taking any risks. He just knows how to do it.

NPR: How safe, to actually—

JB: [Laughs.] I feel bad for people like that.

Benjamin is so much more right than he knows.

This Kamasi Washington story from the New York Times Magazine is fantastic - really in-depth and provides a massive amount of context and history of L.A. jazz and '70s spiritual jazz. Really a great piece, well worth reading.

oh rad, that's adam schatz! Great guy!

I want to put together a mixtape of the kind of newish kind of jazz (is it jazz? or jazz-influenced stuff) spanning Sons of Kemet to Bohren and Der Club of Gore, Girls In Airports and Go Go Penguin. Might put some earlier stuff like Pat Metheny Group's 'Offramp' on there. So nothing really 'free' or too abstruse but still kind of skewed, minimalish, atmospheric. Is there much else I should include?

Dawn of Midi.

Melt Yourself Down, Fire! Orchestra, Supersilent kinda thing?

Vijay Iyer, whose music I don't like as much as a lot of other jazz critics do, gets profiled in this week's New Yorker, because if the New Yorker is going to profile a jazz pianist, it's either going to be Vijay Iyer, Brad Mehldau, or Ethan Iverson. (Note: This comment is about marketing and image-making, not about race. And Iyer is keenly aware of how he's perceived and how he's promoted; he even mentions it in the article. But he doesn't seek to change it, because that's how you get your grant money to dry up and blow away.)

Phil,
It's up to you to spread the word about Benito Gonzalez.

My first thought when I read your otherwise apt comment was "what about Jason Moran"? Sure enough: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/03/11/jazz-hands

I actually wouldn't be surprised to see something on Cecil Taylor, to coincide with his appearances at the Whitney Museum in April. But if they do run something, it won't be as in-depth as this story on Professor Iyer, I'll guarantee you that.

I have it on good authority that a certain musical funny man, member of a famed jazz family, likes to tease his friend Ethan Iverson by calling his band "The Bad Pus."

Huh, didn't know Iyer was teaching at Harvard these days.

Yeah, somebody I know was up there for a little bit for another reason, teaching in a clinic, I think, and mentioned it to me.

Just got an album featuring alto saxophonist Ricardo Tejero, tenor and baritone saxophonist Colin Webster, and Marco Serrato and Borja Díaz (aka Spanish avant-doom band Orthodox) on bass and drums. It's called Spain Is The Place, and it's coming out next month on Raw Tonk. Skronk doom, basically. I'm into it.

That sounds goooood

http://www.benitogonzalez.com/itinerary.php

Pianist has a couple of Baltimore dates among the NY and Senegal ones...

Thanks for the tip about him James Redd

https://soundcloud.com/astral-spirits-records/rosso-corsa-excerpt-from-amaranth-by-icepick-as018

An excerpt from the track "Rosso Corsa" off the upcoming Amaranth LP by Icepick. Amaranth features the first studio recordings from Icepick (Nate Wooley, Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten & Chris Corsano) and builds upon their debut cassette "Hexane" on Astral Spirits in 2014.

"Amaranth" is also one of the first vinyl LP releases on Astral Spirits. Out January 22, 2016 in an edition of 300 LP's.

http://www.stereogum.com/1914711/the-10-best-jazz-albums-of-2016/franchises/2016-in-review/

I'm hoping Stereogum will be open to more jazz coverage in 2017.

Some ace albums on there, and am even tempted to try the one with the awful hash tag title if Ron Carter is on board :p

I thought of Battle Trance as contemporary 'classical'/compositional music but it's really really great.

(Obv the greatness matters more than the classification + there are obv jazz influences so)

I wasn't sure either, but I initially reviewed it for the New York City Jazz Record so I figured it counts. (Its genre fluidity is why I paired it with the Borbetomagus album, obviously.)

Oh ha, I didn't notice that you were the author. Good stuff!

that JD Allen Americana album is growing on me and it segues nicely into older jazz blues type albums I have been listening to earlier today by Archie Shepp and Ben Webster.

can't remember if this was posted but it is excellent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE-w9kPIhg8

there has been loads of top class stuff on ECM this year, especially the Wadada Leo Smith/Vijay Iyer and Jack DeJohnette releases. But another that has sneaked up on me recently is the Wolfgang Muthspiel - appropriately titled - Rising Grace one, it is a real slow burning piece of beauty.

it has Brad Mehldau on board and in top form which probably helps

Jazz thread, please tell me: Do I want/need to go see The Bad Plus live early next year in a room that holds ~100?

You might, rabbit, you might.

I saw them in 09 (?) at Wayne State and thought they were great so I think that's a yes? I haven't kept up with most of their albums since then, though, although the one with Joshua Redman sounded good. xp

Saw The Bad Plus once in City Hall Park across the street from J&R Music World about a decade ago, but at the time I wasn't really into what theiy were doing. But I have seen Ethan a couple of times doing some excellent playing with his friend Tootie Heath (who apparently refers to this band as "The Bad Pus" ) so I say go.

I've seen them about a dozen times and they've ranged from good to spectacular; generally better in small rooms imo

same, otm. although maybe the best i've ever seen them was in a theater on the tour with Wendy Lewis on vocals.

why would you not go, is it hella expensive?

$50+ tix (times two if I make it a date night)
2 small kids = baby$itter
general laziness / it's easier to stay home and half-watch Flip Or Flop while refreshing twitter

currently leaning toward going, tho

aight makes sense

I'd definitely go though, always good to get out and hear live music

if you've never seen them before, i would say definitely but a $150 to $200 night out is tough no matter how you slice it

yeah, i would definitely like to go. i saw Jeremy Pelt in this venue a few years ago and it was pretty darn intimate/amazing. it's like watching a concert in your living room, kinda.

pitched a story on 'em in another town in hopes of parlaying that into a list spot here. we'll see...

ilxor andy k turned me on to this

really fantastic

https://yussefkamaal.bandcamp.com

love that record--"lowrider" is a mega jam imo

The new Forebrace album Steeped, like their last one shows a lot of Last Exit influence and their more hard edged stuff is excellent. Probably not a great album but definitely a work in progress.

I interviewed Portuguese saxophonist Rodrigo Amado for Bandcamp.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2016/12/la_la_land_s_clich_d_confused_depiction_of_jazz.html

Not surprising I guess

I interviewed Kamasi Washington's bassist, Miles Mosley, for Bandcamp. His album Uprising comes out 1/27; it's not a jazz disc, more of a '70s funk/R&B album, but with massive, fuzzed-out, almost Hendrixian bass solos on pretty much every track. It's really good.

speaking of The Bad Plus, pretty enjoyable set w Frisell at Newport, still here (get it while you can, never know about npr jazz staying up)
http://www.npr.org/event/music/158004697/the-bad-plus-with-bill-frisell-live-in-concert-newport-jazz-2012

There is a great bit of audience interaction on Joe McPhee's Flowers live album where he explains that when he was in the army he couldn't quite explain to his fellow soldiers why he had a watercolour tribute to Ornette Coleman in his locker door rather than the standard girlie pics.

ha

I played drums on a little New Orleans jazz album earlier this year: https://darrensterud.bandcamp.com/releases

Somehow I missed that the Bad Plus even released an album this year, much less Bad Plus-ed Prince:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjtvIi_T0lY

(or more likely i knew and forgot)

Oh damn, Alphonse Mouzon passed away.

https://youtu.be/psfHjIVd8VI?list=PLHlcpNxyojhFStR2pUzMsxZmcYE_OTu2r

How'd you miss that?

Stuck in electronic music land I guess

Ha, I missed it too. The NPR clip with Frisell is good btw!

Flag posting both of you for that

Da Capo al Fine

(Aka new thread for new year)

My fav bass player at the moment is the young German livewire dude by the name of Noah Punkt, his work with Protean Reality and his Ordnung Herrscht album are both quality imo. I'm not usually too bothered about no-wavey influenced stuff but there is something about his style I love.