Weather Report: I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC (1972) Interesting record, even just in the first track I went from worrying it would be the worst of several worlds, to kind of being carried away. (Parts of the record almost seems like a lost ECM album, and there's an occasional melodic sensibility---Zawinul's?--- that somehow reminds me of Pat Metheny.) I like the mix of textures, including free-jazz, musique concrète, and smooth-jazz sometimes back-to-back or on top of each other....at least the studio stuff, a bit less so the live side.
Charles McPherson BeBop Revisited I’m playing the Japan CD which I believe has the OJC mastering. The playing is superb in every way. And the sound is a beautiful RVG recording without usual distortion, except for the piano.
I've been delving into some of Wadada Leo Smith's music over the last couple of weeks -- the Golden Quartet records Golden Quartet and The Year of the Elephant, the solo album Kulture Jazz -- and at the same time I've been listening to Andrew Cyrille's new albums, Labroba, which features a trio of Cyrille, Bill Frisell and Smith. It doesn't sound anything like the Motion, Lovano, Frisell trio...but there are similarities -- airy, spacey music; bass-free trio led by the drummer, with Frisell and a wind-instrument player...but in a lot of ways its Smith's voice which is out front. And it's Frisell doing some of his looping and other kinds of playing, not so much the Americana or '60s pop stuff, which I find kinda cutesy. I really like Frisell but not so much when he's doing those little American miniatures......I need to spend more focused time with this record, I've mostly been playing it in the car when I'm coming and going, but my initial impression is that I really like it and want to hear it more.
The John Coltrane Quartet –Africa Brass Volumes 1 & 2 Label: MCA Records – MCAD-42001, Impulse! – MCAD-42001 Format: CD, Compilation Country: US Released: 19 Sep 1988 Genre: Jazz
From inventive moodiness to down right funkiness. Stanley Turrentine & Milt Jackson "Cherry" CTI Supreme Blu-Spec CD2
Miles Davis Quintet: Miles Smiles (Columbia/Legacy remaster) I’m really hoping that Mobile Fidelity get around to releasing this soon. Amazon is showing a date of December 21 now, but I take their release dates with a grain of salt.
If you listen to the Jack Johnson album you can hear what is meant by 'insert'. The edits aren't particularly smooth. What's nice about the Complete Sessions box is being able to hear the extended versions of the inserts and even multiple takes of them. They aren't given song titles on the album as they are on the Complete Sessions album and feature Jack DeJohnette rather than Billy Cobham with Sonny Sharrock on guitar and Chick Corea on rhodes with lots of echoplex and ring modulation. Calling them inserts reminds me of the movie with Richard Dreyfuss about the washed up movie director shooting porno films in his living room.
MJQ - Modern Jazz Quartet (Atlantic) black label mono I might be wrong but I think this is the first after Kenny Clarke left.
Helen Merrill: The Complete Helen Merrill on Mercury (Disc 1) One of the greatest voices in jazz history and always had a cracking band.
Insert is Columbia Records’ nomenclature for a re-recorded snippet of a song meant to be spliced into a previously recorded take to make the finished song. It wasn’t just Miles and Teo. The Dylan sessions used the term insert, as on the Cutting Edge deluxe edition box.
Oh no, the edits aren't smooth at all. I always thought the were meant to sound like aural "jump cuts" so to speak. I never listened to the sessions box however, but I do like the idea of hearing longer jams with Sonny Sharrock and Chick Corea doing their respective Echoplex and ring modulator things.
In Order to Survive - The Peach Orchard William Parker, bass Cooper-Moore, piano Rob Brown, alto sax Susie Ibarra, drums Assisf Tsahar, bass clarinet
NP Duke Pearson - Sweet Honey Bee (Blue Note) Liberty "Van Gelder" With the great front line of Hubbard, Spaulding and Henderson!
Thanks to you and others who've answered. I assumed something along these lines but wasn't 100% sure.
Two more interesting Best of 2018 lists -- from Stereogum a list that is pretty heavily titled to the UK avant garde; and from Jazziz a month-by-month list that's pretty good in that it pulls from across all of jazz's many styles. I've stayed away from a couple of albums that are showing up all over the plays -- Kamasi Washington's just because I haven't really dug any of his previous stuff, Makaya McCraven 's Universal Beings because I'm not big on most jazz-hip-hop fusions or groove heavy jazz, but I have sampled a bit of it and it's interesting, I'm going to give it a listen, and I guess I'll have to try again with Nicole Mitchell's music, which I seem to do this time every year when some album she's made is on everyone's list, but I haven't yet fallen for her music.
I have the Complete February 1972 Paris ORTF Performance 2-CD set on Domino; it's funny that in the notes, the writer Sheldon Cohen states, "During this period however, Evans was not at the height of his creative forces... While it is true that the February 6 concert will not be remembered as Evans' finest, the abundance of engaging ideas and sensitive playing, and the excellent sound quality of the performance make this an essential recording for Bill Evans enthusiasts." Well. I guess that I am enough of an enthusiast to believe that he was at the height of his creative forces, actually. Along with the February 4 performance in The Netherlands, released as Momentum by the Limetree label, I dare say that it's one of his greatest peaks. That trio was really hitting its stride then.
