Speaking as someone who applauds anyone who manages that leap, I like to think that the hybrid genres and musical examples that draw on some jazz influence at least help to move its fans (at least some of them) in a direction that leads to an appreciation of the subtleties of jazz itself, with its requirement for an extended attention span and more focused listening ability in order to follow the musical developments. A "gateway drug", as it were. To some extent that's how it worked in my case. Digging what Deodato and his band did with "ASZ/2001 Theme", say, and then catching on ever so gradually to material that was more low-key and sophisticated. I think that youth homes in on dynamics, high velocity, acceleration, high drama, grand gestures, and overstatement. The other 90% of what music has to offer takes longer for most listeners to feel. What I worry most about in that regard is the overly casual approach to music listening in general, on account of so much recorded music being ubiquitous and taken for granted. Or as if it doesn't really hold attention unless there's a video, or a live stage show. Really, just the fact that there's an audience that listens to instrumental music and live performances by groups of humans playing in real time is a major breakthrough, these days. It seems like hair-splitting to fret over the possible nefarious effects from introducing "fusion" elements of more popular genres into the mix. I mean, "smooth jazz", I'll listen to it with immense appreciation and enormous relief, compared to nonstop faceless bombastic dreck driven by machine beats. Especially if it's competently played.
There's a big difference, as you know, between the fusion and eclecticism of John Zorn and that of Kamasi Washington. I don't think Zorn is diluting anything, if anything he's concentrating relentlessly. And I think he doesn't give a fig whether someone else calls his music something other than jazz entirely. There are plenty of contemporary musicians who are comfortable with leaving genre behind. Now whether you or I consider some of the more popular hybrid musics to be treacle is another matter. I was in a facebook discussion the other day and a well known avant garde musician told me he'd been offered a job with Willem Breuker Kollektief years ago but he told them 'I don't play circus music' and declined the offer. I listen to the music I enjoy and always try to operate in the key of be natural.
I am often mulling this over. There is a dichotomy wherein human culture often celebrates the ‘innovators ‘ ( like say Monk) but often only after some period of time -after enough critical approval by “ people in the know” -.. but really most people just want to listen to hard bop as evidenced by record cd sales etc. Its difficult for humans to go somewhere new Even though they really admire those that can. Also when you have hybrid forms of music (which can be a vehicle for innovative music) like say Food - Quiet Inlet (Stronen/Ballamy/Molvaer/Fennesz) You might think it would spin people into a wide array of other genres, but really i think it only serves to broaden the genre you had as your entry point. So your jazz genre is more likely widened but you probably are not going to delve into electronic music. Again humans generally dont want to go outside their comfort zone. I mean how many of us have to push ourselves ( and its not common to do this) to try to learn a record that seems unobtainable but you do it because the rewards can be rich. I Dont think this sort of behaviour ( which a lot of us do ) is common
That's a Breuker composition, recorded I don't know when but presumably after his death by the surviving band. He's not in that video. As noted in the post that started this off, Jazz has absorbed many different folk musics and although this has aspects of what you might call circus music it's not like any circus I've ever been to except Breuker's. Here's an older film of Leo Cuypers with the Breuker Kollektief to give you an idea of their range. YouTube Breuker's imagination ran from Kurt Weill to ICP, if you've heard of them. He started that organization with Mengelberg and Bennink, but left because he wanted to write music for an ensemble and they were more to the anarchic and improvised side. Breuker is also featured on the famous Peter Brotzmann blast, Machine Gun, on FMP. Finally, there's nothing wrong with playing the people's music. Just don't be an imitator or dumb it down. The musician who declined to play with Breuker left me with the impression that number one he was turning his nose up at what Breuker's group was doing and second that it was beneath him to play it. I think he may have been uncomfortable with the theatrical elements of a Kollektief performance. They're not for all avant gardists. He found the right place for himself, in any event.
Out of the pool, sipping some anejo and, sitting comfortably in the main listening room, enjoying some very fiery playing. John Carter & Bobby Bradford Quartet – Flight For Four International Phonograph Inc. – FDS-108, Flying Dutchman – FDS-108 Tracklist 1 Call To The Festival 9:30 2 The Second Set 8:42 3 Woman 7:10 4 Abstractions For Three Lovers 6:39 5 Domino 7:57 Credits Alto Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Clarinet – John Carter (3) Bass – Tom Williamson Design – Robert & Barbara Flynn Design [Reissue Cover & Label] – Carrie Cook Drums – Buzz Freeman Producer [Original] – Bob Thiele Reissue Producer, Transferred By, Liner Notes – Jonathan Horwich Trumpet – Bobby Bradford Written-By – Bobby Bradford (tracks: 3), John Carter (3) (tracks: 1, 2, 4, 5) Notes Recorded January 3, 1969 in Los Angeles. Glossy deluxe gatefold edition. Includes two double-sided inserts containing both the original liner notes as well as those prepared for this reissue.
I’m in the mood for some Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers today — spinning a trio of my favourites; all classics, every one a masterpiece . . . 1959/2014 Music Matters Ltd. – MMBST-84003, Blue Note – ST-84003 Blue Note The Definitive Vinyl Reissue Series – KPG&RR@CA 1965/2019 (SRX) Music Matters Ltd. – MMBST-84170, Blue Note – ST-84170 Blue Note The Definitive Vinyl Reissue Series – KPG&RR@CA 1966/2019 Blue Note – ST-84193 Blue Note 80 Vinyl Reissue Series – KPG@CA
Just Archie and Horace but very entertaining. It’s an album of jazzy blues takes on traditionals like “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”. The Steeplechase reissues currently available are nicely done.
Tracklist Naima John Coltrane 7:45 Revelation Herbie Hancock 18:48 Dance Of Magic Norman Connors 27:07 Made By – Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd. Recorded At – Nemu Jazz Inn Alto Saxophone – Gary Bartz Bass – Reggie Workman Drums – Norman Connors Flugelhorn – Eddie Henderson Piano, Electric Piano – Elmer Gibson Notes Recorded 19 July, 1975. 500 albums pressed.
DAVE Digs DISNEY - The Dave Brubeck Quartet (Columbia/Legacy) 2CD - remaster Alto Saxophone – Paul Desmond Bass – Norman Bates (2) Drums – Joe Morello Piano – Dave Brubeck Dave Digs Disney was The Dave Brubeck Quartet's 4th studio album for Columbia - recorded in 1957. The 2CD Legacy edition includes mono & stereo versions of all tracks recorded at the sessions plus a a 16 page booklet. CD 1 - THE MONO ALBUM - includes all 6 tracks that were on the original LP plus two bonus tracks. CD 2 - THE STEREO ALBUM - includes all 6 tracks that were on the original LP plus the same two bonus tracks that were on disc 1 (one being a previously unreleased alternate take) plus 5 other additional alternate takes. All these tracks are presented in stereo except for alternate MONO version of 'One Song'. I like these recordings more than I thought I would. Both mono and stereo versions are well worth hearing but the biggest attraction for me was getting to hear the fuller and punchier sounding mono versions. Everything here was mixed and remastered in 2011 by Mark Wilder.
I recall the first time I heard Art, it was at a friends, we were spinning vinyl on his very hi-end table/system. It was like a revelation, I couldn't imagine how I hadn't heard his wonderful music before.
I will have to pull a few of these titles from my friend's 'for sale' boxes and give them a listen. Right now, another John Carter is on the CD player for the first spin of the day, playing slightly louder than the morning traffic, air conditioners and pool pump nearby. I put some new strings on my Huss & Dalton guitar the other day, so plan to spend a little time with it today. Other than that, expect we have another dry, very hot day in store, so, after I do a few last minute tax returns, I hope to be in the pool much of the afternoon. ( I better get started soon.) Hope everyone is staying safe. John Carter – Shadows On A Wall Tracklist 1 Sippi Strut 12:49 2 Spats 8:48 3 City Streets 7:27 4 And I Saw Them 10:32 5 52nd Street Stomp 7:30 6 Hymn To Freedom 6:10 Companies, etc. Credits Bass – Fred Hopkins Bass Clarinet, Flute – Marty Ehrlich Clarinet – John Carter (3) Drums – Andrew Cyrille Keyboards, Electronics – Don Preston Organ – Bill Marshall Producer – Jonathan F. P. Rose Trombone – Benny Powell Trumpet – Bobby Bradford Violin, Vocals – Terry Jenoure Vocals [Gospel] – Jackie Simley, Michael Starr, Rochelle Shorts Notes Recorded April 1989 at A&R Recording Studio, NYC. CD lists incorrect running times for all six tracks (correct times listed above).
Myra Melford Trio (Trio M) - The Guest House (Yellowbird YEB-7721 2) Rarely have I been so impressed by a group or an album on a first listen as I was with this. Thanks to some members on this thread, I`m getting acquainted with Myra Melford and her music, starting with this amazing album. This piano trio is one of the best I heard. The playing is stunning and the "connection" between the musicians is just perfect. Ten tracks on the album, all very good and all written by either one of the band members, Myra Melford on piano, Mark Dresser on bass and Matt Wilson on drums. Great, great album. I`m looking forward for more Melford`s music.
I think the idea of being a "jazz musician" is over. You're just a musician. As @ATR mentions, there have been plenty of jazz musicians in the past and there are plenty of musicians now who kind of strained against "jazz" as a label anyone and didn't necessarily think of themselves, or didn't want to be pigeonholed as "jazz" musicians. But they still came up in the jazz tradition, and it was sort of an apprentice/guild sort of practice. Maybe you had some training in a from a teacher or in a high school program in classical music, maybe you played in an army band, you maybe got a little early work playing R&B, maybe you grew up with church music. But in your teens or early '20s you hit the road with jazz groups playing clubs six nights a week, three sets a night, on bills with other jazz bands, and you worked your way from band to band in search of better opportunities, maybe you had the vision and ambition to try your luck as a leader. And from Louis Armstrong to Ornette Coleman, that was the way the knowledge and practice of jazz was passed down. I think that started to change with the slow fading of jazz as popular music in the '60s and '70s and the rise of rock and soul, the closing of clubs and the moving of jazz into concert halls. There was no longer the kind of work for lots of musicians playing night after night after night, and it didn't pay as well. On top of that, the next generation and the next generation after that didn't come up with Lester Young and Ella Fitzgerald and Thelonious Monk or even Louis Jordan (who had, after all, playing in Chick Webb's band) or Nat Cole, as musical heroes. Their musical heroes were Stevie Wonder or the Rolling Stones or Joni Mitchell of Jimi Hendrix (a generation later maybe it would be Outkast or Prince or Jay Z). There wasn't so much work in jazz and jazz wasn't so much a music that was around them in their formative years as it was a music that they learned, often not as much via an apprentice/guild kind of model on the road but often, at least in part, in a scholastic setting -- Esperanza Spalding was a child prodigy classical violinist who took up music after seeing Yo Yo Ma on Mr Rogers, she was concertmaster of the Chamber Music Society of Oregon at 15, she dropped out of high school early and got a GED so she could go study music at Portland State and then later Berklee (where she was immediately hired as an instructor after graduating). Kris Davis has a degree in jazz piano from the Univeristy of Toronto and a degree in classical composition from CCNY. Cyrus Chestnut has a degree in jazz composition and arrangeing from Berklee. Brad Meldau studied jazz and contemporary music at The New School. Bill Frisell studied at Berklee. Julian Lage, child prodigy trained at the San Francisco Conservatory and Berklee. John Hebert, he has a masters in jazz performance from William Patterson University. And steady work isn't so much in the clubs, or at least not on the road alone, but in the schools where many of them work as professors and adjuncts. In a lot of these cases you were learning from the same masters maybe in previous generations you might have worked for on the road, who were serving as faculty. And it's not like you didn't also go out and play in front of audiences. But I think the nature of who becomes a jazz player, what their backgrounds are, their relationship to the jazz tradition, the role jazz played in their formative musical years, and how they come to be practiced in the art of jazz, is, on average, very different now than it was a generation or two ago (of course, pretty much everything is very different now than it was a generation or two ago), whereas I think there was more of a continuity of how one became steeped in the practice of jazz (and who took up the practice of jazz) during jazz's first two generations or so, its for 60 or 70 years, than there is between the way it happend then and the way it happens now. And those differences are reflected in the music.
THE JIMMY GIUFFRE CLARINET - JIMMY GIUFFRE (Atlantic) CD - 24-bit mono remaster - issued via Warner Jazz Best Collection 1000 series. Jimmy Giuffre - clarinet Bud Shank - alto flute Buddy Collette - alto clarinet / flute Harry Klee - bass clarinet / bass flute Harry Edison / Shorty Rogers / Jack Sheldon - trumpet Bob Cooper - tenor saxophone / oboe Dave Pell - tenor saxophone / English horn Marty Berman - baritone saxophone / bassoon Jimmy Rowles - piano / celeste Ralph Peña - bass Stan Levey / Shelly Manne - drums Another little gem from Jimmy's batch of excellent Atlantic titles. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Correction to detail in DAVE Digs DISNEY post * Dave Digs Disney (1957) was Dave Brubeck Quartet's 3rd studio album for Columbia. The 4th studio LP recorded/released was Jazz Impressions Of Eurasia (1958).
Presumably at these schools people formed relationships that carried on outside of the scholastic environment? I assume the collectives like the Pi label artists who play on each others recordings and club dates like Tyshawn Sorey and Marilyn Crispel et al must have met at a school? There seem to be a number of jazz collectives who help each other out these days which is similar to the classic 50s and 60s dates where the artists all played in each others albums but now they meet in school rather then in the clubs?
I have an OP of this and I love it now but it took me a few listens to get comfortable with the foot tapping. Did you have a similar initial take Jackie?
