Rolling Jazz Thread 2013

Well not all, not yet(?), but most of the ones I enjoyed.

Filling a gap in my own knowledge - checking out Woody Shaw's Columbia albums on Spotify, starting with Rosewood.

I always had trouble getting into Woody Shaw -- he seems to be kind of revered among players, but I don't quite feel it. Same with Tom Harrell.

I'm definitely liking him. I can see why people claim he's overshadowed by Freddie Hubbard - he's definitely in that Hubbard/Lee Morgan, post-Clifford Brown lineage of hot trumpeters. By the end of the day I'll know if I need to pick up that Complete Columbia Albums box. Some people are selling it on Amazon for $16 - for a six-disc set, you can't really beat that price.

hi jazz guys

phil linked a kinda depressing but good essay about the state of jazz and how it's not really a living culture anymore

also spotify told me i should listen to Erroll Garner and obv he is old jazz but how delightful, what a great piano player

The essay in question

The paragraphs that spoke to me the most, because of all the theoretically perfectly listenable yet in fact totally spirit-crushing albums I get sent:

It’s a bubble to this extent: almost no educated lay listener can name even a half-dozen jazz musicians active today. Most of the names they would mention – singers like Diana Krall, Nikki Yanofsky, Michael Bublé, even instrumentalists like the pop-jazz trumpet player Chris Botti – would not normally be mentioned in positive terms by most jazz fans. The names fans do get excited about – the trumpeter Dave Douglas, the saxophonists Donny McCaslin and Chris Potter, the guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel – could not mean less to a general audience. And frankly they’re not missing much.

Well, that’s harsh. All the musicians I just named are clever improvisers. They keep finding inventive little things to do. This season electric keyboards are big. Last year, or perhaps it was the year before, it was turntable DJs in otherwise straight-ahead acoustic bands. For several years before that, pianists were banished in favour of guitars as the main chording instrument in a band. The constants have been odd time signatures and long, intricate vamps. It’s a little dry, but they all seem to be concentrating mightily while they play. Everyone’s playing is so clean and tidy you could eat off it. And if a half hour later you’re hungry again, because by God you will be, there’s always more of the exact same on offer.

Jazz isn’t dead, it has simply ceased to matter to the broader culture. If you live in any medium-sized Canadian city I could take you to hear some jazz tonight, played competently or better. New York keeps getting reinforcements as musicians arrive from around the world to play the latest orthodoxies. Here on my iPod I have a new album by a Chilean tenor saxophonist in her mid-20s, Melissa Aldana, called Second Cycle. Aldana plays with a kind of ostentatious bookishness. In the opening bars of her first solo she quotes “I Mean You,” a Thelonious Monk tune from 1948, and “Chasin’ the Trane,” a John Coltrane line from 1961. Eventually she quotes a few dozen other old tunes. So apparently they have iTunes in Chile now. Her trumpeter, Gordon Au, is genuinely clever, relaxed and unpredictable. I’ll be keeping an eye out for him. The drummer is a chatterbox, always with the snare drum rat-tat-tat, but so are most drummers these days. It’s a perfectly good session. It’s certainly jazz. I find myself thinking that a lot as I listen to recent recordings, often because Peter Hum mentioned them on his blog. “Yes,” I say to myself, “that is definitely jazz.” Then I try to imagine urging it on my friends who are not big jazz fans, and I can’t imagine wasting their time with it.

They keep finding inventive little things to do.
that's cold

also It’s certainly jazz.

that's a shitty dismissive excerpt (it would be easy to write reductive "it's certainly _____" reviews about any kind of music), but there's a some truth in there, sure. i don't listen to much new jazz anymore, but there are still fresh strains, right? the article even mentions austin peralta but doesn't talk about brainfeeder or how some jazz musicians are engaging with the vanguard of hip-hop/electronic/r&b.

and just because no one cares doesn't mean it's not still a living tradition.

totally! seems vital afaict -- i just thought those two sentences were really condescending to the people who play this sort of music and i singled them out for ice coldness, not because i thought they were true.

hmm, actually reading the article now, i pretty much agree with the stuff about the old hard knocks/apprenticeship system vs the academic system having largely replaced it.

feel like i had a unique mix, since richard davis tried to create that old-school serious atmosphere within a university. not everyone appreciated that, i did. not that it turned me into a great (or even good) jazz musician, but i learned tons of lessons that stuck with me.

I think there's a lot wrong with that essay although it has some good points

there's definitely something to the fact that the university has replaced the club as the main training ground of jazz, but I'm not convinced it's such a mournful transition. It's funny that he picks Iverson as an example, since Bad Plus are one of the better examples of a jazz group being "relevant" to young audiences in recent years. I think he's probably wrong about bjork fans not downloading jazz bjork covers actually (mehldau radiohead covers seem pretty popular with radiohead fans), in fact I think he misunderstands the way this generation listens to and experiences music.

Also I find his "through the 90s" version of the narrative weird, since the standard cranky critic narrative used to be that some time in the early to mid 60s musicians increasingly abandoned jazz "tradition" (and their audiences) for the avant garde, and then came jazz fusion, leaving a split between dried up old "traditionalist" dudes playing to dwindling crowds and return to forever packing mid-sized venues for noisy garbage. And then came the 80s and the Marsalis retrenchment -- a laudable but slightly limp imitation of the past. I don't really believe that there's a huge decline in the number of Americans who could name more than three respected jazz musicians between the 90s and now, and if there is, it's probably more because of Herbie doing Rockit and shit like that.

there's definitely something to the fact that the university has replaced the club as the main training ground of jazz, but I'm not convinced it's such a mournful transition.

Based on what it's turned the music into, you bet it is. I think that guy doesn't go hard enough on young (and not-so-young) players and their total inability to write a memorable melody. The fewer normal people listen to jazz, the fewer jazz musicians feel obligated to write music normal people might like.

I don't think it's "turned the music" into anything. Like I said, the kind of decline you're talking about (assuming it's a decline) happened before jazz moved to academia. A lot of the talent went to fusion and avant garde, and those who were left mostly played things boring and retrograde (probably in part to please the fans who were pissed about the changes). What are the great non-fusion, non-out jazz records of the late 70s/early 80s? Jazz wasn't a college sport yet at that time.

Well, based on what I heard today I would definitely nominate Woody Shaw's Columbia albums as holding it down for non-fusion, non-out jazz in the late '70s and early '80s. I'd have to do a lot more listening than I've done to nominate more people (other than, say, Keith Jarrett), but I'm sure there's tons of stuff I've just never heard.

Woody Shaw is not a guy that comes to mind with the phrase "memorable melodies"

Actually, you know who was writing great melodies in the 70s and 80s? George Benson. Chuck Mangione. Grover Washington Jr. I.e. guys that jazz critics shat on. Jazz critics insist on things being in the smallest, most impossible box -- you can't make money, you can't go pop, you can't go outside, you can't go fusion, you have to come up in the clubs under the tutelage of magical old black men, even if those clubs are disappearing and the social function they once served is no longer relevant and they're basically just guidebook stops for tourists. You can't go pop but you have to write "memorable melodies."

Eh we should just listen to what we like, do our bit to support it---spread the word, thank the players, actually spend some money on it--- "normal" people can like it or not, I hear jazz influences in various approaches to jam, hip-hop, dancetronica, metal, etc., which lured some of their fans to various albums actually labeled as Jazz when I worked in a CD store, when there were such things, whether at my suggestion or not. And even those who were like "No! My parents like jazz, not me!" didn't forsake the jazzy non-jazz (they just stopped buying everything, as Napster etc. got more easily accessible).

Just last week I wrote about a saxophonist I like a lot, and compared him to Grover Washington Jr. And you wanna talk pop? He plays in John Mayer's band!
Http://burningambulance.com/2013/08/05/bob-reynolds/

“Yes,” I say to myself, “that is definitely jazz.”

Reminded me of what Bill Dixon said in reference to Montgomery Burns' Jazz: "Now, what they did was to present jazz music as jazz music — not as music but as a genre of music. Some of us think we do music and actually believe that."

don otm

Lol Montgomery Burns jazz

New/upcoming albums I'm gonna be auditioning today:

Gavin Templeton, In Series (Templeton on alto sax, Perry Smith on guitar, Matt Politano on piano, Sam Minaie on bass, Matt Mayhall on drums). Now playing - so far it's exactly the "odd time signatures and long, intricate vamps...a little dry, but they all seem to be concentrating mightily while they play...so clean and tidy you could eat off it" described above. I'm on track 3 and can't remember how track 1 went.
Bryn Roberts, Fables (Roberts on piano, Seamus Blake on tenor and - ugh- soprano sax, Orlando LeFleming on bass and Johnathan Blake on drums). I like Blake and Blake, so I'm looking forward to this one.
Dave King Trucking Company, Adopted Highway (Chris Speed and Brandon Wozniak on tenor saxes, Erik Fratzke on guitar, Adam Linz on bass, King on drums). I liked this group's last album; it kinda rocked, a little.
Ivo Perelman, One (Perelman on tenor sax, Joe Morris on electric bass, Balazs Pandi on drums). Pandi is a Hungarian drummer whose background is in metal and hardcore punk; this is Morris's first time playing electric bass on record. I anticipate Painkiller-esque loudness, but at great length, 'cause this is Perelman, and he likes to fill up a CD.
Steamboat Switzerland, Zeitschrei (Dominik Blum on Hammond C3, Marino Pliakas on bass, Lucas Niggli on drums). All compositions by drummer Michael Wertmüller. I anticipate lots of free skronkin'.

Hurting 2 too

OK, so far I've made it through the Templeton (totally unmemorable except for one semi-skronky sax solo, and I can't remember anything else about the track or the album) and the Roberts (way too much soprano sax for my liking, but a couple of nice tunes and Roberts is a pleasing if not immediately striking pianist) and the Steamboat Switzerland (seemed designed to be as annoying as possible - lots of lengthy, high-pitched squealing sounds from the organ) and am now listening to the Perelman, which is pretty much what I expected it to be - a loud free jazz blare-up. Perelman is not a subtle player, like, ever.

Went to see Nick Hempton (alto and tenor sax) at Smalls tonight - record release show for his new album. (I interviewed him last week.) It was a fun show; all material from the new album, plus one song from his first. For the second set, they were joined by the trombonist who plays on the new record.

q:

what are, like, the bands now?

reading through ol freejazz-stef's review site, i'm kind of weary of the one million and one duo and trio and etc etc recordings. is it partly an economic thing? rare to maintain a stable band now, since that would call for regular gigging or even touring?

Yeah, there are hardly any "bands" now, except The Thing. (Who have a new album coming in October, mercifully without a stunt-casting vocalist.)

Think there are some big bands, often on a Monday or a Sunday night.

Thanks for the Bob Reynolds tip. I'm enjoying this. It's excellent packing music.

What other not-difficult-but-not-fluffy jazz releases should I check out? This is the sort of thing I could throw on a lot, I think.

I had a really gifted private student who was a big John Mayer fan. He actually got me interested in looking into Mayer's work a little more. (I haven't done so yet but this gives me more reason to do so.)

(The guy was coming to me to learn theory and to read notated music and for some basic classical chops. He wouldn't have needed me to help him with his guitar skills, otherwise.)

Check out Nick Hempton, the guy I saw last night. His new album Odd Man Out is really good. Here's a Spotify link:

http://open.spotify.com/album/771eKFYIhlUdTt9DDqm7Mt

you should just read 誤訳侮辱's site, he reviews those all the time

Link?

burningambulance.com

Fair warning, I also write about metal a lot.

i don't think that's a minus for sndr

Right, I want to take tentative steps into this jazz thread, and further into current jazz as a whole.

My current 'status' as a jazz fan is appreciative but naive dilettante. I have a load of Miles Davis albums gathered over 15+ years, plus the usual bits from similar eras - albums by Dave Brubeck, Jon Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Vince Guaraldi, Lee Morgan, Weather Report. I also have a couple of Giles Peterson compilations of British 60s stuff (Michael Garrick etc) which I love. Then there's a massive gap through the late 70s, all the 80s, and the 90s (bar Modern Day Jazz Stories by Courtney Pine), until the mid-00s, when I have various things by e.s.t, Polar Bear, Jaga Jazzist, Acoustic Ladyland, Portico Quartet, Dave Douglas, Empirical. This year I'm loving the Melt Yourself Down album, which is only tangentially jazz, but still...

I want to know what's new and good (doesn't everyone?). I guess Polar Bear and the related groups that orbit them are my favourite thing; stuff that feels contemporary and now but without being gimmicky or self-consciously difficult.

Speaking of The Thing, I need to check out all their stuff: The Cherry Thing, with Neneh Cherry, was a fave of 2012. Nothing else satisfies in quite the same way, although it's somewhat like Jayne Cortez & the Firespitters, who sometimes featured Ornette Coleman. I'm also instantly intrigued by these excerpts of previously unreleased live sax trio S.O.S.--John Surman, Mike Osborne, and Alan Skidmore. Never cared much about Surman before (on McLaughlin's Extrapolation and a few others), but Whitehead seems right about intimations of a pre-World Saxophone Quartet: the harmonies, the folk motifs, at least in soundbites, are tantalizing. Download and links here: http://www.npr.org/2013/08/20/198076754/looking-for-the-next-one-reveals-an-underappreciated-sax-trio

Anybody heard the S.O.S. studio album? Only one, according to Whitehead.

there are definitely bands, right? robert glasper trio, the bad +, the inbetweens, tarbaby, vijay iyer's group, that darcy james argue band? is the dave holland quintet still active, or jon hollenbeck's claudia quintet?

Don't forget that Wayne Shorter Quartet that's been mentioned before.

Was just gonna say: http://www.npr.org/event/music/208274665/wayne-shorter-quartet-with-herbie-hancock-live-in-concert-newport-jazz-2013

I just got a new Claudia Quintet album in the mail and it had 40% membership turnover from the last album. So I'm kinda disinclined to count that - seems more like a convenient name he's using than an actual cohesive working band. But yeah, there are definitely working bands around—the JD Allen Trio is still functioning, there's the Vijay Iyer Trio (who do nothing for me, but they're out there), Tarbaby, the William Parker Quartet convenes from time to time, Matt Shipp has a steady trio...

Best Thing records IMO are their two Japanese live albums with Jim O'Rourke and Otomo Yoshihide. Some awesome improv guitar noise on there, as well as some stunning moments of tense quiet. Also the one they did with Barry Guy on No Business, Metal (not that easy to get, but there's a fantastic live clip on youtube). Their own albums are really good, but the extra element brings out the best in them.

Gustafsson's best this year (so far!), and one that will definitely appeal to those who dug Cherry Thing, is the Fire Orchestra. That's his heavy psych rock trio augmented by two amazing female singers and a top drawer big band of Scandinavian jazz/improv players. Fantastic big band free jazz/improv/avant-rock/blues...

Wayne Shorter album seconded - it's a beaut.

New album by Roscoe Mitchell, John Edwards and Tony Marsh on Cafe Oto's label is fantastic too. An intense listen, but well worth it. Mitchell is still amazing; his compositional sense is some next level shit.

That Fire! Orchestra album is killer—reminds me of Burnt Sugar in some ways. I disagree that the Thing require guests to achieve their full potential. Bag It! and Action Jazz are my favorites, though Garage is really good too. I also liked Gustafsson's album with Colin Webster on Rune Grammofon.

and how could i forget my favorite band, the brian blade fellowship.