"If That Arm Heals, It Ought To Be Broken Again" 2008 Jazz D Minor Bags Thread

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I didn't like The Bad Plus too much when I saw them performing outside City Hall across the street from J&R once but everything you've ever linked to in the blog is amazing. I guess I've gotta give them another chance.

James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 16 May 2008 14:51 (sixteen years ago) link

I can listen to Phil Schaap for about 90 seconds before I want to reach through the speaker and throttle him. He is the absolute world-beating king of the jazz d-bags. That being said, he comes across in that article as slightly less pathetic than Rodney Bingenheimer, and very nice to lonely old jazz players the rest of the world has forgotten.

unperson, Friday, 16 May 2008 15:26 (sixteen years ago) link

jazz is 95 percent wack. smack a sax player. i need some sessions i could call actual phrases that are coherent on a simple level. jazz heads are fucking wackos unless theyre down, which seems exceedingly fucking rare as it turns into an academized specialization

usic, Friday, 16 May 2008 15:36 (sixteen years ago) link

i heard this miles davis and the lighthouse allstars from 53 i think and they seemed on then, heard it again when i was 20 and it seemed dead, empty

usic, Friday, 16 May 2008 15:38 (sixteen years ago) link

listen to some new orleans jazz

Jordan, Friday, 16 May 2008 15:49 (sixteen years ago) link

Jordan, are you turning into a Moldy Fig?

James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 16 May 2008 15:54 (sixteen years ago) link

yeah i'll read th thread

usic, Friday, 16 May 2008 15:59 (sixteen years ago) link

moldy fig?? wtf is u on

usic, Friday, 16 May 2008 15:59 (sixteen years ago) link

haha, maybe! i do listen to (and play) more traditional jazz than modern these days, because that shit is funky.

Jordan, Friday, 16 May 2008 16:00 (sixteen years ago) link

I've been enjoying some songs by Build an Ark lately, off their late '07 album Dawn. They're a big improvising collective out of LA that plays very direct, spiritual music (sample song title: "You Yourself Are the Key to the Universe") sometimes with vocals, sometimes without - perhaps a bit of a throwback to the ethos (if not the sound) of late-period Coltrane - but they're a bit more mellow and West Coast sounding than Coltrane. Some lovely textures.

http://www.myspace.com/buildanarkdawn
http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=61154

o. nate, Friday, 16 May 2008 16:44 (sixteen years ago) link

Some band photos here:

http://www.undomondo.com/2008/04/build-an-ark/

o. nate, Friday, 16 May 2008 16:47 (sixteen years ago) link

what about old jazz lyrics? who were the greatest in the 30s-63. some of those songs are magic

usic, Friday, 16 May 2008 17:08 (sixteen years ago) link

Most of the songs that later became known as jazz standards started out as songs from musical comedies written for the stage or screen.

I've been wanting to read this book:

The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty by Wilfrid Sheed

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812970187

o. nate, Friday, 16 May 2008 17:23 (sixteen years ago) link

Yeah, me too.

James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 16 May 2008 17:26 (sixteen years ago) link

Here's a rave review from Garrison Keillor, of all people, in the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/books/review/Keillor-t.html

o. nate, Friday, 16 May 2008 17:28 (sixteen years ago) link

I'm listening to the radio show embedded on the bottom of that page. Dude is giving an hour-long monologue on what date Charlie Parker was recorded making a primitive overdub on a Benny Goodman 78 disc. WAS IT 1944 or 1941?!!! I think this guy might be king of the jazz d-bags. Fun stuff.

-- tylerw, Thursday, May 15, 2008 11:53 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

He's like that every show too. Some kind of weirdo jazz aspie for sure, and almost unlistenable, but an immense wealth of knowledge.

Hurting 2, Friday, 16 May 2008 17:32 (sixteen years ago) link

And I find Iverson kind of boring as a player but I'd like to read that Tristano article as soon as I have time.

Hurting 2, Friday, 16 May 2008 17:34 (sixteen years ago) link

I sat next to PS once at the bar at Dizzy's, and he talked to the bartender a little but nothing too much. I was a little afraid he was going to go into one of his big spiels even while off-mic.

James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 16 May 2008 17:36 (sixteen years ago) link

What was the last Iverson thing that was linked to, Why Miles Didn't Like Oscar Peterson?

James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 16 May 2008 17:37 (sixteen years ago) link

My favorite PS shows are the ones with a guest.

PS: "So you subbed a few nights with Charlie Parker at the Half Note in December of 1941, and the drummer for those dates was Kenny Clarke. Now due to the recording quality it's difficult to make out, but it sounds to me like Clarke's snare is a bit higher-pitched than normal. Was he using a different snare that night, or did he perhaps tune it higher than usual? I do know that the weather was unseasonably humid at that time."

85-year-old Bass Player Who Has Played on Thousands of Sessions: "???"

Hurting 2, Friday, 16 May 2008 17:45 (sixteen years ago) link

lol

(i've never heard this guy)

Jordan, Friday, 16 May 2008 17:52 (sixteen years ago) link

Haha. One time I saw Doc Pomus in the audience at a Lonnie Mack show and I asked him some dumb question about something. He said "People are always asking me questions- one guy got mad at me and said 'You mean you don't KNOW who played saxophone on that record made in 1963?' I've been on thousands of record dates- how the hell do I know?"

James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 16 May 2008 17:59 (sixteen years ago) link

Jo Jones was impressed. So he said, ‘Madame, you’ve got yourself a new babysitter.’ ”
!

And when Schaap asked him if he remembered the name of the song that Benny Carter opened with at the Apollo seventy-four years ago, Lucie said, “I know, Phil, but do you?”

“Sure, it was ‘I May Be Wrong (But I Think You’re Wonderful).’ ”

“That’s right.” Both men laughed.

“And you played the first notes,” Schaap said. Indeed, they were the first notes played in the Apollo when, in 1934, the theatre opened
!

James Redd and the Blecchs, Monday, 19 May 2008 13:19 (sixteen years ago) link

Bilal Sunni-Ali and Raja C are doing a Sun Ra tribute at Ruta Maya next Sunday.

Oilyrags, Monday, 19 May 2008 14:22 (sixteen years ago) link

Sorry, that's Cosmic Intuition with special guests Bilal Sunni Ali and Raja C

Oilyrags, Monday, 19 May 2008 14:24 (sixteen years ago) link

the new Brian Blade Fellowship is so great, really simple and deep. not a lot of solos or long tracks. the beat on "most precious one (prodigy)" is so heavy.

Jordan, Tuesday, 27 May 2008 16:24 (sixteen years ago) link

Ah crap, I spaced out on the space jazz. Well, they were pretty good about 8 years ago when I saw 'em.

Oilyrags, Tuesday, 27 May 2008 16:28 (sixteen years ago) link

crazy interview w/kurt rosenwinkel: http://campstudio.blogspot.com/2008/05/real-rosenwinkel-now.html

random snippet:

My friend Chris V.V.V.B. told me he heard Larry Grenadier take a solo on a Mike Stern record (this was in the early 90s) and it shot him (Chris) into this whole like Irish Leprechaun World, and that's what made him learn Jazz on the Double Bass. It seems like you probably know the Leprechauns. Like you've found peculiar feel-zones and worlds in the corners of what the insensitive listener might just label (and potentially dismiss) as Jazz, you discover little Goblin doors in what most people would just see as a regular hill.?

Kurt Rosenwinkel: sometimes all i have are the goblin doors. i realized today while riding my bike that if i could make something good, music, that would be really meaningful beyond my life, that i would run my bike into an oncoming car and obliterate myself if that's what it took. i would do that for it.

i think that fact might make it difficult for me to find stability or happiness but i know it's true.

in outer space it's either lasers or free float. guidance. thrusters are so byzantine; crude. they won't ever get you where you need to go. ok maybe in a spacecraft but that's just a very crude analogy for the space travel we do as human beings. in our minds. who hasn't been afraid of the dimensions there? humanity seeks comfort but also gets used to wider circles of knowledge, little by little over eons. i feel like i have lived eons. what else would you call it when some of the lives you have lived are like postcards or dreams. sometimes i can't tell the difference between dream and memory. time seems ancient even in my own memory. just as ancient as anything. egypt. my own personal fictions. my lived life is a personal fiction. ancient egypt is just as close or far, really to my thoughts, to my dreams, to my memories. past life experiences? hell yes! even within my living brain!!
i haven't really got a fucking clue who i am. anyway, knowing is over. starting is learning. i don't want to be someone who knows.

Jordan, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 18:22 (sixteen years ago) link

Nobody told me Esperanza Spalding was gonna be on Letterman.

James Redd and the Blecchs, Thursday, 5 June 2008 16:49 (sixteen years ago) link

i didn't know about her before today, but i'm watching some youtube stuff and she is bad.

Jordan, Thursday, 5 June 2008 19:43 (sixteen years ago) link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7jZCjNz_kQ (letterman)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ulxSAiWR70

Jordan, Thursday, 5 June 2008 19:55 (sixteen years ago) link

I went to see the Flamenco guitar player Niño Josele last year and it turned it the rest of his band was Esperanza Spalding and Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez. It was like a very good-looking, super-charismatic three-headed monster up there.

James Redd and the Blecchs, Thursday, 5 June 2008 20:33 (sixteen years ago) link

i am going to try to catch a set of Roy Haynes tomorrow before i have to go play a gig!

Jordan, Friday, 6 June 2008 18:16 (sixteen years ago) link

Awesome. I was just looking at the Roy Haynes box set, thinking about getting it. Got some other stuff instead, including the Brian Blade and the Esperanza Spalding and Sarah Vaughan, Duke Ellington Songbook, vol. 1.

If you get a chance to talk to Roy, tell him you heard good things about his grandson.

James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 6 June 2008 18:45 (sixteen years ago) link

i won't, but i'm trying to set up an interview for one of my bros (for possible documentary use!).

Jordan, Friday, 6 June 2008 18:48 (sixteen years ago) link

Also got an Anita O'Day sampler which is pretty good.

James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 6 June 2008 20:23 (sixteen years ago) link

OK, now onto The Complete Atomic Basie.

James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 6 June 2008 21:37 (sixteen years ago) link

The new Jenny Scheinman instrumental disc Crossing the Field is good, as expected. I'm curious about the vocal disc Jenny Scheinman but haven't heard it yet. The instrumental stuff has a big Americana flavor but in a very eclectic way - "jazz" seems a bit too limited as a description: elements of rock, folk, and classical are almost as prominent. Bill Frisell seems to be a big influence, also Tom Varner's The Window Up Above: American Songs 1770-1998.

o. nate, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 19:36 (fifteen years ago) link

atomic basie is so so good.

Jordan, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 19:39 (fifteen years ago) link

Got the new Wadada Leo Smith Golden Quartet disc in the mail today. It's a whole new GQ, with Vijay Iyer and Ronald Shannon Jackson.

unperson, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 21:17 (fifteen years ago) link

I saw Jenny Scheinman recently sit in with Robbie Fulks and Robbie Gjersoe. Robbie F did a funny thing where he sang a song about her in the voice of country singer John Anderson.

James Redd and the Blecchs, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 22:02 (fifteen years ago) link

atomic basie is so so good.
I'm big fan of Walter Page and Jo Jones, but this New Testament band is pretty good too.

SPeaking of whom, I just watched this thing called Dizzy's Dream Band, which features lots of name players, including a young and skinny Jon Faddis. Very special guest Max Roach takes a hi-hat and does a little tribute to Jo Jones and then Papa Jo himself walks on, waves and walks off. The other very special guest is Gerry Mulligan,who is presented here as a Bird protégé. And I always thought of him as a West Coast lightweight.

James Redd and the Blecchs, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 22:10 (fifteen years ago) link

you can't fuck with sonny payne!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZMnEsWvktA

Jordan, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 22:13 (fifteen years ago) link

btw, roy haynes' group was great the other night, although i had to leave just as they were getting nasty on "windows".

Jordan, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 22:17 (fifteen years ago) link

(xpost)
Yeah, he's breaking it up pretty good right now on "Fantail."

James Redd and the Blecchs, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 22:20 (fifteen years ago) link

Who else was playing with Roy?

James Redd and the Blecchs, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 22:21 (fifteen years ago) link

The other very special guest is Gerry Mulligan,who is presented here as a Bird protégé. And I always thought of him as a West Coast lightweight.

seems like Bird liked West Coast lightweights! i think he was always extolling the virtues of mulligan, chet baker, paul desmond -- who isn't west coast, but might be considered lightweight by some jazz d-bags.

tylerw, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 22:22 (fifteen years ago) link

jaleel shaw on alto, somebody wong on bass, and i didn't catch the piano player's name (though he was my favorite). he gave the bass player a whole unaccompanied tune to himself (on "darn that dream"), which was cool since the audience was staring at roy the whole time and not his young sidemen, but i could only stay for 45 mins so i was itchin' for roy to throw down before i had to go.

Jordan, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 22:28 (fifteen years ago) link

Google cache tells me it was this guy you saw.

I saw Jaleel Shaw last year in a band led by Johnathan Blake.

James Redd and the Blecchs, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 22:35 (fifteen years ago) link

I wish I could say more about him, but I was paying more attention to the other sax player, Donny McCaslin and the bass player, Hans Glawischnig.

James Redd and the Blecchs, Thursday, 12 June 2008 02:05 (fifteen years ago) link


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