"If That Arm Heals, It Ought To Be Broken Again" 2008 Jazz D Minor Bags Thread

ha

I've got a big (4500 words or so) feature on Bill Dixon in the July 08 issue of The Wire (it's got Mark Stewart on the cover). As an online-only bonus bonanza, you can visit their website to stream MP3s of my entire 75-minute phone interview with Dixon. Each question and its answer is a separate MP3, so you can listen to as much or as little as you like. The link is here.

The Downbeat interview/discussion with Vijay Iyer, Matthew Shipp, and Jason Moran (I think it was the May issue of this year) is worth checking out. (Of those three, I'm mostly interested in Shipp, although I don't know that I've heard much by Jason Moran.)

Moran does some nice work on Jenny Scheinman's new album, Crossing the Field - check out the extended blues-funk vamp "Hard Sole Shoe".

some vinyl i picked up:

George Russell Presents: Jan Garbarek - Esoteric Circle (dude ended up kinda being new agey on ECM in the 70s, but this is from 69 some kinda righteous norweigian fusion/free jazz with a pretty rock influenced guitarist)

George Russell Sextet - 1 lp comp of tracks from his three riverside records from around 61-62....features Don Ellis and Dolphy on most of it...just an AMAZING record, not really "out there" but not really normal either...i guess he invented some Lydian musical theory that had a lot to do w/coltrane and miles going to modal scales...anyway, their are nicely arranged and sort of trad bop but permutated in odd ways, sounds a bit "off" in a great way

Hurting, please to go to free Cindy Blackmon show at Newark Museum tomorrow and free Bobby Sanabria show and master class next week and report back.

I bet the Sanabria thing will be nice. I saw him down here leading a band once (and he also was featured in a videotape lecture thing about clave and stuff in a Smithsonian exhibit on Latin-Jazz). Informative and entertaining without being either simplistic or highbrow.

He almost verges on being a blowhard, but he ends up being a smart, funny guy as well as being a great player and bandleader.

i saw herlin riley about 10x last week. he is the best drummer.

I saw these guys from Bhutan last week for free in a specially built Bhutanese shrine building covered in artwork set up down on the mall grounds between the Capitol and the Washington Monument for the Smithsonian Folklife fest. All sitting cross-legged against one wall with two guys blowing didgerdoo-like long horns, two others on bugle/trumpet hybrid things, another guy on a weird funky little keyboard thing. It had an Asian goes free jazz vibe...

So, my dad is looking for eMusic recommendations based on what he's been listening to lately: "Melvin Gibbs, Harriet Tubman(both Miles-like guitar bass drums); Marc Ribot, Chocolate Genius (not too big on CG, he's a singer songwriter who happens to be black , but that's what I have been listening to) . Roscoe Mitchell. Lester Bowie."

I don't have eMusic, so I don't know what's in their catalog. Anyone wanna take a swing?

I dunno if emusic has Henry Threadgill's Very Very Circus, but it sounds like it's tailor made for your dad's stizzo.

listening to some lafayette gilchrist clips, sounds good. it seems like he does a way better job of mixing a love for rap and hard beats w/acoustic jazz than, say, roy hargrove (too jammy) or christian scott (too smooth). anyone have a favorite record?

Yeah, Matt does.

I read something really cool that Lafayette Gilchrist said about mixing and matching genres, something about how you can't just go and switch hats in your laboratory/studio and say "now I will be funky!" and record your funk track, the process has to be a little more organic. Maybe I'll post a link if I can find it.

Actually, I came to this thread to recommend a really intense album I got from the Dusty Groove bargain section, Richard Davis's Now's The Time. Really intense stuff, very free but without going to the Olatunji Concert Point Of No Return. With the great Hannibal Marvin Peterson on trumpet.

Going back to the eMusic recommendations question, sounds like Dad would like Burnt Sugar a lot.

OK, I couldn't find the exact interview I read before, but I found a couple of other good ones, he's very thoughtful and articulate. This one is especially interesting and relevant.

Ha, I guess the thing I was talking about was the first link in that link, where Lafayette took Strongo's Blindfold Test.

Both of those pieces are nice

agreed, thx

Just realized I coulda gone up to Bawlimore and seen Saturday night:

Lafayette Gilchrist & the New Volcanoes (Jazz) cd release concert at
Creative Alliance at The Patterson, 3134 Eastern Avenue
Baltimore Maryland 4

Doh!

"Going back to the eMusic recommendations question, sounds like Dad would like Burnt Sugar a lot."

See, this is the problem with trying to suggest things for my dad—He was the one who got me into Burnt Sugar. He already has all the Henry Threadgill he wants. He's a voracious jazz-eater, and everything that I've thought of to look for, either emusic doesn't have or he does.

does your dad have the art ensemble 1967/68 box on nessa?

so Dave Holland finally came out with a new album last month? haven't heard it but i'm kinda disappointed that it's not the quintet (piano instead of vibes, no Nate Smith on drums).

http://www.amazon.com/Pass-Dave-Holland-Sextet/dp/B001C5ZR5A

wow, nate smith has a smoothed-out r&b solo cd, but at least it sounds better than billy kilson's smooth jazz solo cd (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=85705487)

New Rudresh Mahanthappa sounds like it might be worth checking out.

Listening to some older Ralph Petersen Fot'et. Why isn't this band better loved?

some recent jazz purchases:
motian/frisell/lovano -- time and time again
nice stuff! only know a little of frisell's oeuvre, but i like this a lot. are there other recordings by this trio worth seeking out? was thinking about getting the motian/frisell/ron carter disc too.

bobby hutcherson -- head on
yow! from 1970 or so. kinda bitches brew-y in a big band avant-fusion way. actually, the bonus tracks might be better than the album itself. funkier anyway. got harold land on it too, so that is good.

Art Blakey & Jazz Messengers -- Free For All
can't believe i hadn't heard this one yet, but what the hey, art blakey's got like a gazillion records. wayne shorter, freddie hubbard, curtis fuller, reggie workman all going for broke. intense! similar to coltrane's quartet but maybe a little more swinging?

motian/frisell/lovano -- time and time again
nice stuff! only know a little of frisell's oeuvre, but i like this a lot. are there other recordings by this trio worth seeking out? was thinking about getting the motian/frisell/ron carter disc too.

I love this trio a lot. Monk in Motian, esp (assists from Geri Allen on one or two tracks.)

i like that band

xp, ralph peterson i mean

I think I like Frisell best when he's paired up with Don Byron, though. Couple albums with each cat as leader and the other guy in his band.

More xey postey

cool, will check out monk in motian. not sure that i entirely GET what this trio is doing yet, but it sure sounds nice.

A related question

Motian:

Moe-shun (aka Motion)?
Mo-tee-an?
Mo-tie-an?
something else entirely?

ha, i thought it was just pronounced "Motion" but now that you mention it ... i have no idea. you know, i have no idea what that guy has played on other than this frisell stuff and bill evans' trio.

Oh man! He and Charlie Haden were kind of joined at the hip for a while there. Check out the Liberation Music Orchestra discs - big bands (arrangements and conducting by Carla Bley) with freeish bits, latin bits, straight up heartwrenching lyrical bits....

ohhh, did not realize that he was the drummer on those records. have always wanted to check that stuff out, but have never really been sure where to start.

Whoops, I just looked at Wikipedia, and Andrew Cyrille is the drummer on the first LMO album, from 1968. But he's a badass, too.

New book out today by Ted Gioia about the Delta Blues which looks like it was almost titled "How a Jazz D-Minor Bag Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Delta Blues."

Motian pronounces it like the word motion but should be pronounced Mo-tee-an.

i don't think you can be wrong about your own name?

^^^

I'm trying to remember what I heard Maxine Gordon call him the last time I saw him, but I think she just referred to him as "my, my, ..." and made some kind of give-me-a-hug gesture with her arms.

Actually it might have been that other people pronounce it Mo-tee-un but it's actually "motion", it was a while ago that I read whatever it was. Plenty of people get their names wrong, Ralph Macchio from Karate Kid for instance pronounces his surname incorrectly if some interview I saw with him on television is anything to go by.

What am I saying? Her name is Lorraine.

this sounds interesting: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/arts/music/22berger.html?ref=arts

Does anyone have anything to say about Fred Hersch? I've had a few of his trio albums in heavy rotation lately. I really know nothing about the guy, but he's totally great. Is he sort of slept on?

Fred Hersch

GIVE US AN EXAMPLE OR TWO OF AN ESPECIALLY GOOD OR INTERESTING:

1. Movie score. "Prizzi’s Honor" (Alex North); "Altered States" (John Corigliano); "City Lights" (Charles Chaplin)
2. TV theme. "The Wild Wild West"
3. Melody. Aria from Cantata “Wachet Auf” (Bach), "Miyako" (Wayne Shorter), "Tomorrow Is The Question" (Ornette Coleman)
4. Harmonic language. 4-part writing (string quartets, choral music)
5. Rhythmic feel. “Serpentine Fire” (Earth, Wind & Fire); “Big Stuff” (Peter Gabriel); “Aqui Oh!” (Toninho Horta)
6. Hip-hop track. (no answer)
7. Classical piece. Brahms Piano Trio #1 in B major; Stravinsky “Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto; Brandenberg Concerti
8. Smash hit. (no answer)
9. Jazz album. Sonny Rollins “Live at the Village Vanguard”; “Mingus,Mingus, Mingus, Mingus”; Thelonious Monk “Alone in San Francisco”
10. Non-American folkloric group. Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares
11. Book on music. “Glenn Gould: Music and Mind” (Geoffrey Paysant); Stravinsky “Poetics of Music”

BONUS QUESTIONS:

A) Name an surprising album (or albums) you loved when you were developing as a musician: something that really informs your sound but that we would never guess in a million years: Joni Mitchell “Blue”; Stevie Wonder “Talking Book”;

B) Name a practitioner (or a few) who play your instrument that you think is underrated: Art Lande, John Taylor, Frederic Rzewski

C) Name a rock or pop album that you wish had been a smash commercial hit (but wasn’t, not really): (no answer)

D) Name a favorite drummer, and an album to hear why you love that drummer: Elvin Jones “A Love Supreme”

RIP Tony Reedus.

What a way to go.

Has anybody heard the new Spring Heel Jack album? I like the sound of it, based on brief clips.

yusef lateef is playing in mpls tomorrow nite, might go but it's really spendy...but anyway the city pages did an article on him and this quote made me LOL:

"Jazz is defined as doggerel, skullduggery, poppycock, coquetry, sexual intercourse," he said recently from his home in Massachusetts. "It has nothing to do with what I do."