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

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

Right now on Livestream: Jazz From Lincoln Center, feat. The Dexter Gordon Legacy---George Cables, Lewis Nash, Joe Locke, Gerald Cameron (?) (bass), Abraham Burton, Jimmy Greene, opening with "Cheesecake" (Gordon's highest term of praise, or one of 'em)
http://livestream.com/jazz/Dexter-Gordon-Hall-of-Fame
Robust, tuneful, boiling (yay Nash)

Gerald *Cannon,* that is.

So good overall, but George Cables' solos are triggering my Art Pepper jones---did Cables or Pepper ever perform with Gordon?

O hell yes, at least early on: "At the age of 15, Pepper played with Dexter Gordon in (Lester) Young's band," according to jazz.com/encyclopedia, and later too, I hope. The Legacy's now high-stepping through "Long Tall Dexter."

Wau. Hope this makes the cut:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/arts/music/jazz-at-lincoln-center-and-sony-music-team-up-for-blue-engine-records.html?_r=0

Hope tonight's show is released, that is.

Cables was on Gordon's 70s comeback albums, I think.

This is a quick, mid-year reminder that all available tracks mentioned on this thread (and a handful of album selections from each listed) are being posted as updated to the thread-specific Spotify playlist. I just did a top-to-bottom sweep prior to posting this message and have updated as of today with everything that's been added on Spotify since it was first mentioned.

59 tracks, 7+ hours.

ILX's Rolling Jazz 2015 Thread Spotify Playlist

Richard Brody ‏@tnyfrontrow 18h18 hours ago

Sonny Rollins and Don Cherry, in 1962, daring each other to go further out on the ledge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6e_z2dn69E

https://soundcloud.com/matana-roberts/01-untitled-n-1

more new matana roberts!

solo alto

cool stuff! she's coming to my town later this year and I look forward to hearing her

nice that's there's a spotify list of stuff itt!

I can recommend this one too, it's from a/the Danish jazz blog that mostly reviews Danish albums but this playlist is international http://jazznyt.blogspot.dk/2015/03/the-jazznyt-international-playlist-2015.html

Apart from this thread and the Danish blog, I don't know where to read about new jazz records - I've browsed some American magazines at the library and I used to subscribe to a Danish jazz magazine, but I guess it was a bit "nerdy" for my taste. I'd like some kind of overview of mainstream releases with reviews - not unlike what I get @P4k (like the reviews or not, it's a good overview of releases!). So any suggestions would be appreciated.

Try Bird Is The Worm - he does a weekly rundown, with links to stream tracks (usually Soundcloud or Bandcamp) wherever possible.

Looks cool, thanks!

Nytimes.com has a good range of jazz coverage.

http://burningambulance.com/
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2015/7/music

http://www.flowersinagun.com/category/jazz-2/
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/nate_chinen/index.html

good links, thanks!

Just saying that the new Tim Berne's Snakeoil album You've Been Watching Me is very essential.

Just got a package of the first six reissues from the Xanadu label. Listening to Albert Heath's Kwanza (The First), a killer 1973 set with all three Heath brothers, Curtis Fuller on trombone, Kenny Barron on piano (acoustic and electric), and Ted Dunbar on guitar. A nice mix of hard bop and slightly funkier grooves; highly recommended.

i DO like that album, hadn't thought of it in years; thanks for bringing it to mind

Interesting. Surely ilxor man alive has posted about that album somewhere here before. Believe Albert "Tootie" Heath has relocated to Santa Fe in the past few years.

Yeah, I wanna hear that album. Funny encounter with Heath, who grills his interviewer, for starters:http://www.npr.org/2015/03/14/392324106/albert-tootie-heath-drummer-extraordinaire-turns-the-tables

Thanks. Hopefully can listen to soon. Know from my own brief interactions with him and from two people who know him really well that he is very funny and is always ready to needle you/call you out if he thinks you are putting on some kind of act.

Haven't heard note one, but just saw that trombonist Ryan Keberle is leading a band of killer musicians/super nice people at Dizzy's tonight