"Weird Means Something You Never Heard Before": Rolling Jazz D-bag Thread 2015

i love that you have rows of shonen jump

Thanks so much for having us, Scott! (And I think you'll really like Nightcaller)

In other news, JD Allen has reformed his awesome trio (with bassist Gregg August and drummer Rudy Royston); their fifth album together, Graffiti (sixth if you count August's album Four By Six), comes out next month.

Pitchfork reviewed the new Kamasi Washington album today, and overall they did a pretty good job of it, even throwing in the names of a few other jazz albums their readers should check out, but even though we all know damn well the only reason they ran it was because Washington played on Kendrick Lamar's album, three whole paragraphs of Lamar-related throat-clearing seems a little excessive when all that needed to be said was, "Kamasi Washington is a saxophonist who played on rapper Kendrick Lamar's new album."

Went to Jazz Standard last night to see drummer Johnathan Blake's "Gone But Not Forgotten Quartet" (named for his most recent album) with Chris Potter and Mark Turner on saxophones and Ben Street on bass. A really good set, all other people's tunes, including one by Blake's father, a violinist.

Spun The Epic last night, pretty good, I don't love the strings and choir vocals, they push the record into a kind a 70s-spangley outfit-show band territory, the tunes with actual lead vocals I enjoyed more than I thought I would, as long as I don't listen to closely to the lyrics, and basically, the record is just too long, but I mean the real meat of the record his playing & the band. Which in general is really great, for all the references in the Pfork review it doesn't feel overtly throwback. I'm sure I'll spend more time with it and I bet the band would be great live.

Side note: glad that the Pfork review shouted out the Pharaoh Sanders & Sao Paulo Underground records from last yr, when I was reading some of the pre-release hype of Washington's record I was thinking of those ones, which are really great and I don't know how many people have heard.

I've only heard one of them, because the other is vinyl-only (no digital files). But the one I heard, I liked a lot.

I have a thing for piano trios at the moment and have been loving the new Omer Klein album, well not that new - it came out in Feb but it isn't like modern piano trios get a media blitz. I previously got into him via his and bassist Cohen-Milo's Tzadik releases. I just love his piano style which I could lazily describe as Israeli/Duke Ellington, talking of Duke there is a wonderful interpretation of Azure on here as well.

oh it is called Fearless Friday

The Pitchfork review of Cecil Taylor's In Berlin '88 box is pretty good. I wonder how much jazz coverage they're planning to add to their mix, and whether they'll be any better at recognizing the genre's breadth than they are with metal ("We cover all kinds of metal - black, death, and doom!").

That is a good review, and is otm re: the 2CD European Orchestra coming back into print.

My only quibble with the review is "Then the set promptly went out of print" -- the box did, but the individual discs were available from 1989 until around 2007 or so.

The only parts of the set (aside from the physical box itself) that promptly went out of print were the two massive books (replete with photos, information, and recollections of the festival) that accompanied it -- and disappointingly, neither is reproduced for the download.

Was Legba Crossing available separately? Cause when I dug into the box (for The Wire), that was probably the disc that impressed me the most.

It was; I found my copy used, but I remember seeing it listed in the Cadence/NorthCountry catalog.

And yeah, it's a great disc, seriously underrated in his catalog (likely because he doesn't actually play on it), and definitely one of the more intriguing listens in that box.

What is it, orchestral? Describe please.

It's a large group, maybe 15 pieces or so, but it's not the constant high-density/high-velocity thing one might expect from a Cecil-related project. It's billed as his "Workshop Ensemble," and I only recognize two names -- pianist Paul Plimley, who went on to do great work as a leader; and violinist Harald Kimmig, who came as close as any musician did to filling Jimmy Lyons' shoes in Cecil's group (on Looking (Berlin Version) Corona, not on this set). But there's a sensitivity to dynamics here that I haven't heard -- in this particular sense -- on other Cecil records.

It's almost theatrical - there's one main vocalist, but there are moments where the whole group starts howling like a Greek chorus, and the music is very sparse, not a continuous thundering roar like most large "free jazz" ensembles. A bunch of little splinter cells playing, then going silent, then some other folks pick up the thread. Listening to it, you can absolutely imagine a really great dance group doing something fantastic with it.

Thanks, guys! That last bit rang a bell---I just now Googled Cecil Taylor choreography, and found several thing---incl this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAbAD8R3_9

Weird---I'll try again---it's captioned Cecil Taylor Unit With Dancers Live In Germany, on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAbAD8R3_94

Also his Perfect Sound Forever interview, where he talks about the early influence of dance:
http://www.furious.com/perfect/ceciltaylor.html

Yeah, I interviewed André Martinez, who was in the band at that time (early '80s) for Burning Ambulance. There's some more video, and some Soundcloud live stuff, at that link, plus a lot of really interesting stories from Martinez.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6568888/bruce-lundvall-blue-note-records-veteran-beloved-label-executive-dead-at-79

Yeah, I interviewed André Martinez, who was in the band at that time (early '80s) for Burning Ambulance. There's some more video, and some Soundcloud live stuff, at that link, plus a lot of really interesting stories from Martinez.

― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Tuesday, May 19, 2015 9:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's a great interview! Love the story about Cecil's reaction to Martinez' house remodeling.

And Martinez' playing on the Burning Poles video is fascinating, especially to hear him with Oxley.

An unearthed "Gingerbread Boy," rowdy and more adventurous than any version I can remember, from Miles Davis at Newport 1955-1975: The Bootleg Series Vol. 4---anybody heard all that yet?
http://www.npr.org/2015/05/26/409719330/songs-we-love-miles-davis-quintet-gingerbread-boy-live-at-newport

Yep, that was released a few years ago on this:
http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/miles-davis-quintet/music/vinyl-12-new/NJF3670702.html

And yeah, '67 was that band at its most adventurous/its peak.

I've got the Newport set. The '66/'67 stuff is great; so is a short '69 set where Wayne Shorter didn't show up (though that's already been released on Bitches Brew Live). The '71 and '73 sets are the real meat, for me, though, especially the '71 band with Ndugu Chancler on drums; that lineup was only together for one European tour and is totally un-documented, except on bootlegs.

In other news, I went to Birdland for the first time on Sunday, to see a group of all Posi-Tone artists: tenor saxophonist Tom Tallitsch was the leader, joined by David Gibson on trombone, Mike DiRubbo on alto sax, Brian Charette on piano (he's usually an organist), Peter Brendler on bass and Mark Ferber on drums. All but Gibson played on Tallitsch's new album All Together Now, so that's what they were celebrating, but they played some interesting versions of rock songs that don't appear on the record - they adapted Fleetwood Mac's "Gold Dust Woman" in a cool bluesy way, and closed with a version of Frank Zappa's "Uncle Remus," which surprised me because I'd been talking to Charette about George Duke's '70s MPS albums before the set, and he recorded that tune on The Aura Will Prevail.

Kamasi Washington performs music from The Epic on Jazz Night In America. Starts at 9 Eastern, tonight:
http://www.npr.org/event/music/402062824/kamasi-washingtons-the-epic-in-concert?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nprmusic&utm_term=music&utm_content=20150527

"Askim": KW ripping holes in gutbuckets, amidst blissful strings, choir, with several drummers, a couple keyboardists, Thundercat's bass, others. Chat says one of the drummers set 30 mics, and sound is very clear.

Turntables and samplers coming to the fore, drums more hip-hop now and then, live choral theme recurring (damn who was that trumpet soloist) Volcano

Cool how the conga player, Tony Austin and other kit drummer, Miles Moseley on acoustic bass and the synth vamper come up with transitioning grooves behind soloing trombone, trumpet--and now keytar (Thundercat's back in there too).

ballad about his grandmother, "Henrietta Our Hero," sung by Patrice Quinn--"Had no armor, no weapon, but a power"---with his father, Rickey Washington, on flute, and a cast of thousands rolling and out, with no overload. Contemplation's rhythm.

Man, his father can play the hell out of the flute. This show will be posted tonight or tomorrow, says NPR host.

This is running 'til 11 Eastern. And NPR's Patrick says they recorded over two hours more.

Brandon playing a very nasty electronic keyboard solo now, lots of brown and yellow/YOLO

from the Funkadelikized portion to this section, incl. Miguel's improvised string cues---"like Phil Jackson calling plays," as one of the participants observes in chat, now that he can see more than he did on stage---and Leon Mobley's hand drums-- what we used to call "Afro-Cuban" (is that still a thing) to more of a Pharoah-meets-Sun Ra interlude. Can see how this kind of intense derivation might be too much in a three-disc studio album, but works pretty well in this concert experience (will check album).

Ascensionof voices, briefly! Will shut up now, they're almost through anyway.

na ga liveblog this, but:
Frisell group, "Up and Down The Mississippi"
http://livestream.com/jazz/Bill-Frisell-Highway-61-Friday

I didn't want to use Amazon, so I went elsewhere, and every online store I checked (Best Buy, DeepDiscount, Ninja Tune, ImportCDs, Dusty Groove, Barnes & Noble) had the Kamasi Washington set on back-order. Nobody selling it on eBay, either. I finally found it at Grooves Inc., a German site I've been buying from a lot lately; got the Sonny Rollins Complete Live at the Village Gate 1962 set I've been talking about on Facebook (six CDs of material that became Our Man in Jazz) and the complete studio recordings of the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet (so many alternate takes of "Mildama"!) from them. Anyway, good for Washington and Brainfeeder; they've obviously garnered a pretty sizable wave of attention for the album.

I picked it up the other day in my local HMV for £12; £3 cheaper than Amazon.

Really impressed so far; enjoying disc three the most, perhaps.

I wrote about the Sonny Rollins Complete Live at the Village Gate 1962 box for Burning Ambulance.

this Do the Math interview with Nicholas Payton is a really great read:

http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/interview-with-nicholas-payton.html

talks about coming up in New Orleans, good Brian Blade and Elvin Jones anecdotes, etc

this rang pretty loudly for me too:

I'm saying all White musicians who make a living playing Black music have a moral obligation to speak about racial injustice. By being silent on such issues, they are de facto supporting the supremacist and oppressive forces that enable privilege to them as White musicians while marginalizing people of color. And using Black culture to make financial gains without regard for the Black people who create it is racist.

I was just thinking today of how few white music stars have written songs criticizing the way police and prosecutors treat black people. "Hurricane" was one star taking up the cause of another, as was pointed out at the time of its release---but that's part of the point: even if he's got the means and acquires big name support, and the case gets thrown out, try., try again, if you've decided that you must make an example of him. The song covers the part of the process that had already happened by 1975, and of course he ended up spending decades in prison, despite the Madison Square Garden benefit, despite much long-term grassroots support thereafter. Not to say he was an angel, not to say he was even innocent, necessarily---but when the rest of the prosecution's case(s) fell apart, they went back to the race card: if nothing else, he was *motivated* to avenge the recent death of another black man, by killing whites. This argument was thrown out of court, and---despite any headline-grabbing aspect of Dylan's motives, despite the rich male sneering at "Miss Patty Valentine," other stuff---the song's point seemed sharper than ever.
Even better: Springsteen's "American Skin (41 Shots)," about Amadou Diallo, with a furious reaction from Lord Mayor Guiliani and the police establishment. Seems like it might be fairly risky for somebody playing a lot of monster concerts in that neck of the woods, especially in them days (or for that matter, if somebody wanted to screw with the Rolling Thunder Review, prob could have shook down Ramblin' Jack etc.)
Can't think of any white jazzers who have stepped up like that, maybe I'm missing somebody?

Oh yeah, should count "The House I Live In," performed by Frank Sinatra in a 40s film short about a schoolkid attacked for being Jewish in the wrong neighborhood. He left out the line (by Lewis Allan AKA Abel Meeropol, who also wrote "Strange Fruit" and adopted the Rosenbergs' sons) about "black and white," but singing away the bullies with "all races and religions" was enough to inspire the very young Sonny Rollins, who later recorded it, and also enough, as Tarfumes has observed, to "get him on HUAC's shitlist." Nervy move for someone whose early solo career still seemed like a pop bubble to many.

Just watched the first half of the HBO Sinatra documentary last night; they showed a clip from that movie. It wasn't subtle.

Not at all! I'm sure HUAC would agree. Prob still on YouTube.

Allaboutjazz.com mostly sucks these days, but this interview with pianist Dave Burrell is great.

I've been listening to Texas raised vocalist Leena Conquest who has sung with bassist William Parker. I like she and her band's takes on Curtis Mayfield

The fusion-y-jazz-rock cuts on the new Terence Blanchard album don't do much for me. He also has spoken word and more on it. Need to listen to this more.

Just found out Christian Scott is playing NYC on Thursday night - I haven't thought about him in forever. I feel like he was the Kamasi Washington of 2012, or tried to be, anyway...released an ambitious 2CD set that blended genres in a non-sucky way, but never quite got the attention of non-jazz writers.

Kamasi Washington tour dates:

July 30 Neumos, Seattle, WA
July 31 Pickathon Festival, Happy Valley, OR
August 6 Chop Shop, Charlotte, NC
August 7 Motorco, Durham, NC
August 8 Richmond Jazz Festival, Richmond, VA
August 9 San Jose Jazz Summer Fest, San Jose, CA
August 20 The Sinclair, Boston, MA
August 22 Blue, Portland, ME
August 24-25 Blue Note Jazz Club, New York, NY
August 26 Howard Theatre, Washington, DC
August 27 World Café Live, Philadelphia, PA
August 29 Soundstage, Baltimore, MD
September 15 Smith Center, Las Vegas, NV
September 18 Harlow's, Sacramento, CA
September 19 Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, CA