The dog trots freely thru the Rolling Jazz Canto Thread 2016

Really good article comparing Snarky Puppy to Weather Report, Return to Forever, and the early '70s Maynard Ferguson band (who I've never heard).

those are good comparisons as far as "because we can" as a reason for existence.

(i'm reaaally not a fan, but it's true that high school musicians love them, and i probably would have loved them in high school)

I'm not a fan, either. I found their music pleasant enough while researching an article on them, but immediately deleted it all from my iPod once I turned in the piece. They're like Dream Theater to me: talented as hell, super nice guys, zero interest in ever listening to them.

I have avoided so far because I figured it was something like that.

totally. and i listened to Dream Theater in high school, because i was very concerned about being able to play well (and have been moving farther and farther away from that ever since).

cross-posted this to the rap thread but Corey Fonville is amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm38BpDahNs

Got this CTI Records 40th anniversary box set on eBay for $19 and free shipping:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FhtXiVuVL.jpg

Just got the Herbie Mann 2CD Live at the Whisky 1969: The Unreleased Masters in today's mail. Over two hours of brand-new music by the Sonny Sharrock/Roy Ayers/Steve Marcus/Miroslav Vitous/Bruno Carr band, plus Linda Sharrock, and they do versions of "Black Woman" and "Portrait of Linda in Three Colors, All Black." Can't wait to check it out tomorrow.

I set up a conversation between saxophonist Melissa Aldana (whose new album Back Home is really good, and comes out today) and one of her biggest influences, Sonny Rollins. Here's the link.

curious to hear what the 2cd is like, sounds like a great band

That Aldana/Rollins conversation is great!

thought i'd post this one from a now-old Herlin Riley record that i go back to all the time. the thing that Wynton does at 1:34 is so sick:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ8WvqIyhlA

I have his newest album in my iPod but haven't listened to it yet.

ooooh i didn't know he had a new one. what's the deal, is it on Criss Cross again?

It's called New Direction; it's on Mack Avenue.

thanks. don't know many of those guys (looks like at least some are Lincoln Center?) but will definitely check it out.

i'm always waiting for that last track on Herlin albums where he goes full New Orleans:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy3-A5lKtF4

This interview with tuba player/baritone saxophonist Howard Johnson, who played with Charles Mingus, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp and tons of other people, is really worthwhile.

A new interview? Cool! Everything I've read before with him has been great.

great interview, ty

Feel like I read most or all of that before, despite the recent date. Still a great interview in any case, and did not know or had not registered the part about Walter Sear before.

Believe that interview is 3 years old. Still well worth reading though.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cdl-aYnW8AAVvQ8.jpg

I interviewed Cecil Taylor for the new issue of The Wire. Digital edition will be out later today, physical version in a couple of weeks. He was...something.

great photo!

he's 87, huh. Richard Davis is 86. can you believe Roy Haynes is 91? is he the last drummer of his generation still around?

can you believe Roy Haynes is 91? is he the last drummer of his generation still around?

Tootie Heath is still playing.

Have you interviewed him, Phil?

Heath? No, but I did review his most recent album (with Ethan Iverson). It was okay.

Will have to read that Cecil interview! From Scott McDowell's weekly e-newsletter, here's Thurston Moore's Underground Jazz Top Ten, originally published in Grand Royal, reposted here in '08, maybe, and the downloads I tried didn't work, but certainly heartfelt descriptions and detailed notes: http://rootstrata.com/rootblog/?p=1801
The only one I hadn't heard of was Ric Colbert; McDowell adds:

It's full of impassioned playing, the band interconnected and very free, yet rooted in sturdy post-bop, punctuated by Colbeck's counterintuitive logic and note-hopping runs. Dyani's bass solo opening of the title track followed by the brassy fanfare of Ric's opening statement is chills-inducing, an intensely vulnerable passage of music, like there's something serious at stake. It's a beaut.

Ric Colbeck played on two Noah Howard records in the late '60s as well as Dave Burrell's La Vie de Boheme, all three beautiful gems in their own right. There's also an unreleased record under Ric Colbeck's own name that was scheduled for the Pixie label with the all-pro dream team of Sunny Murray, Sonny Sharrock, Byard Lancaster, Joel Freedman, Bennie Maupin and Sirone. It's criminal.

Rewind several years to 1963. after kicking around London playing traditional jazz, Ric sailed a small vessel with five friends from France to Miami. In a January 17th, 1970 interview with Melody Maker (posted on Richard Morton Jack's blog Galactic Ramble along with a bunch of other information on Colbeck), perhaps the only interview he ever gave, Ric tells the story:http://galacticramble.blogspot.com/2011/10/ric-colbeck-player-of-exceptional-power.html

"We landed there in September '63 on the day of the March on Washington. I went to Canada and hitch from Vancouver to Toronto, where I played with some local bands. There wasn't much happening, so I went to New York in 1964.

I had to have a job because of the work permit situation so I worked in a hip record store in the village and started to meet some interesting people.

Noah (Howard) and I started playing together, and I was living in Brooklyn with Rashied Ali on the next floor. It was all starting to happen, with a lot of people like Byard Lancaster, Dave Burrell, Sonny Sharrock and Norris Jones coming into town.

We played in a lot of lofts and at Slug's -- that was the main centre of activity. There was a lot of playing going on in cats' pads on the Lower East Side, with Trane and Pharaoh and Dewey Johnson [I imagine this is actually Dewey Redman -- .ed] all rehearsing there.

I think that the greatest single experience was to be able to hear Trane with three or four different bands at different stages of development. He was a very spiritual musician, who inspired a whole generation of players.

The experience of playing in New York is invaluable. Every musician should go there because that's where the music comes from, and there's something there that makes you play. You can't shuck--you must keep on going.

After one week in New York your playing changes. It's a very vibrant city when compared to London, where everything closes down early. If a musician is really serious he has to go and check out America. It's the genesis of what's happening.

It seems that you have to pay your dues in the States and then work in Europe. There's not much work in New York -- a lot of people won't come to hear the music because it reflects the state of the country and they don't want to be confronted by it. The music isn't deliberately programmatic--its' just the way we play, with that intensity."

Not much is known of Ric Colbeck's career after the early '70s, at least that I'm aware of. By all accounts he suffered from alcoholism, and that's what did him in finally, in 1981.

http://gallery.tinyletterapp.com/895a071ca3ab7365d5812792255f29a4cfaf5ed3/images/9029b574-bded-4b0e-8c28-b8e3d1de414c.jpg

can you believe Roy Haynes is 91? is he the last drummer of his generation still around?

Tootie Heath is still playing.

Jimmy Cobb too, 87 years old and still touring.

Is Haynes the last living person to have played with Charlie Parker?

No; Sonny Rollins played with Parker on Miles Davis's Collectors' Items album.

just a couple of months ago i could have said paul bley too. :(

slowly working my way through this long 1968 interview with Elvin Jones:
http://www.bangthedrumschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/ElvinJones.WalkToParl.1968.pdf

By all accounts he suffered from alcoholism, and that's what did him in finally, in 1981.

A contemporary of Colbeck's told me he had committed suicide. Very sad. I always loved his playing on those Noah Howard records. Never was able to find a copy of his record as a leader (and the lineup on that unreleased date looks unbelievable).

[I imagine this is actually Dewey Redman -- .ed]

I don't understand the presumption here -- is there documentation that Redman was actually there, or is the editor not familiar with Dewey Johnson? Johnson's another criminally underrated trumpeter. Amazingly enough, there's some footage of him on a Jimmy Lyons date:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpPraEdnKjY

Colbeck's playing on those two Noah Howard albums - Noah Howard Quartet and At Judson Hall, both on ESP-Disk - is great. He should have been better known, for sure.

i spent two days reading interviews on here. they are old but you get to hear from people you never see interviewed.

http://www.nationaljazzarchive.co.uk/stories?p=23

great time waster. my apologies to the tons of olde tyme british people interviewed who i skipped.

also this one with buddy rich and louie bellson together is a HOOT!

http://www.nationaljazzarchive.co.uk/stories?id=106

Thanks for those! Definitely gonna waste some time there today.

In scrolling through the list of interviews I saw Lou Donaldson. Looked it up and yet, he's still around! 89 years old! He never recorded with Charlie Parker, but I'd be surprised if he didn't play with him informally at some point.

Yeah, he played the Jazz Standard not too long ago. I thought about going.

nice John Bonham diss in that Buddy Rich interview. :)

B.R.: Listen, I had a surprise one time. Kathy, my daughter got me out to see Led Zeppelin, when they played Madison Square Garden. I wasn't too anxious to go, but I went, to please Kathy. We sat fairly much in the front; and for what seemed to be the first year that they were on there, I endured it—not a change of tune; not a change of a melodic line, but the heavy organ, the heavy guitar and the drum. The finale was a drum solo—and he had maybe two million dollars' worth of drums up there; I think Carl Palmer's the only other guy I've ever seen with so many drums. He started playing, and during the course of his solo a cat came out in a loincloth, with a torch; he started dancing, and the drummer was playing the tom–toms, or whatever he was doing. Obviously he had asbestos in position, because this cat set fire around the set of drums. Now, I don't know what that does for a drum solo, but it scared the hell out. of me—I thought the joint was on fire! I'd no idea what was going on. But when you have to sort to that, you're saying in essence to the audience: "I don't really play that well, but look how brave I am."

Could you perhaps call it hot music?

B.R.: Not to me. It was a flaming bore!

Did Zeppelin play live shows with organ?

Oh, looks like they did

it would make the story even better if it was actually Deep Purple or something.

When Buddy Rich opened for the Who, after hearing Moon, Buddy came up to him and said, "People pay you to play like that?!"

Cecil Taylor has some pretty contemptuous things to say about rock drummers in my Wire story.

Ha! Seriously can't wait to read that. Will there be audio on the site (like with the Bill Dixon interview)?