Rolling 2011 thread where I buy and listen to jazz albums for the first time ever

seconding Mu and Brown Rice, definitely. Ed Blackwell! unfuckwithable

Brown Rice was one of those things I heard and was like "people call this a JAZZ record?"

also, here's a repository of totally amazing interviews & jazz writing by ethan iverson (pianist for the bad plus):

http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/contents.html

Been looking up some of you guys' recommendations. Looks like this one may be a bit hard to come across on CD...

World Galaxy by Alice Coltrane (Audio CD - 2004) - Import

4 new from $89.97
2 used from $171.40

O_O

World Galaxy has only been reissued on CD in Japan, hence the prize. Anyway, in my opinion you should get Alice's "Universal Consciousness", which is much cheaper. "Universal Consciousness" has a similar sound to "World Galaxy", but it's better. And it's more "jazz" too, if jazz means improvisation - World Galaxy mostly has just pre-written strings. It's not a bad album (the version of "A Love Supreme" on it is pretty great), but not worth the high prize you have to pay for it.

Aaaaand (surprise!) the music's fantastic, too.

xp to NickB

i'm sure a quick google search would reveal a galaxy of download options. xpost

Tumoas is right that Universal Consciousness is the better of the two (and I prefer Journey in Satchidananda to both)

journey's definitely the one to start with

Soliciting opinions on a few others I've seen in used bins lately:

Derek Bailey - Music and Dance (Is this even jazz? I believe it's on Fahey's Revenant label...)
Peter Brotzmann - Machine Gun
Andrew Hill - Point of Departure
Thelonious Monk - Straight, No Chaser
Sun Ra - The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra
Cecil Taylor - Jazz Advance

Machine Gun is a MUST HAVE.

What's it like?

It is one of the sacred texts of European Free Improv. You might not like it, but it will teach you about that whole scene.

eter Brotzmann - Machine Gun
Andrew Hill - Point of Departure
Thelonious Monk - Straight, No Chaser

go buy NOW

machine gun will blow your head off

would definitely rep for Machine Gun - it's awesome and "highly influential" on a bunch of music that came later that fused jazz with punk and noise.

Derek Bailey would loudly insist that his music was not jazz.

I wrote about all eight of the Jarrett quartet's Impulse! albums on my blog in '09; you can read that stuff here:

http://runningthevoodoodown.blogspot.com/search?q=keith+jarrett

xp - derek bailey is dead

Also saw:

Peter Brotzmann & Bill Laswell - Low Life

Derek Bailey would loudly insist that his music was not jazz.

― hey boys, suppers on me, our video just went bacterial (Hurting 2), Friday, January 28, 2011 3:09 PM (27 seconds ago)

xp - derek bailey is dead

― sarahel, Friday, January 28, 2011 3:10 PM (3 seconds ago)

Quietly, then.

I know that's why I said "would" and "was"

(xp)

machine gun will blow your head off
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/John_Zorn-Naked_City_%28album_cover%29.jpg

Machine Gun: Noisy, harsh, brief sketches of themes, but mostly eight guys blowing at the same time until the veins stand out on their necks. I think it's beautiful and cathartic, myself.

xp - Low Life is excellent, found that one for $1, chaching!

I think Low Life was $4.99, I may wait to see if it comes around at a lower price...

xp - well, it would be more accurate to say that he insisted - past tense - and that would get us into EFI vs. EAI history

though there's a funny story involving the Derek Bailey memorial concert that John Zorn organized.

I wrote about all eight of the Jarrett quartet's Impulse! albums on my blog in '09; you can read that stuff here:

awesome!

especially since the '73 - '90 essay on Do the Math (who are huge champions of those records) basically says "they're all great"

i have a friend who calls them "the double plus bad"

yeah those are cool essays on the impulse years -- i'm pretty unschooled when it comes to that period (and a lot of jarrett actually).

emil.y thanks for the link to the derrida/ornette text, think i'm going to enjoy reading that.

i have a friend who calls them "the double plus bad"

good story

The points of convergence and divergence between free jazz and free improv are, like, the most interesting thing in all of music to me. Bailey -- definitely not jazz. But he occasionally played on jazz records. (Tony Oxley's The Baptised Traveller, highly recommended.)

xp - oh, that's not the funny story -- the story was:

Zorn had kinda a long-standing beef w/Henry Kaiser (about what, I don't know, but Zorn is known for holding grudges), but because Bailey and HK were really close, it would've looked really bad if Zorn didn't invite Henry to play the memorial concert. The format for the concert, I believe, was a series of short duos. So, Zorn grudgingly contacts Henry, and asks him who he wanted to play a duo with, and HK says, gleefully, "I want to play with you, John!"

The Bad Plus are alright. I like their drummer a lot. I find something a little unimaginative about their arrangements, but I guess they're a decent way to come to jazz aesthetics/approach starting from rock.

eh, it depends on what type of rock you are starting from

but yeah, Hurting, that's largely my friend's problem with them: unimaginative and "safe"

Should I look into John Zorn? (Is he generally considered "jazz," or more just totally fucked-up experimental madness or whatever he typically does?)

John Zorn is extremely prolific.

Well, yes, that much I know.

He's done a lot of jazz albums and a lot of albums that aren't jazz.

but yeah, Hurting, that's largely my friend's problem with them: unimaginative and "safe"

that is dumb

why is it dumb, Jordan? It's the same problem that countless people have with Vampire Weekend. The Bad Plus are kinda the Vampire Weekend of jazz.

Like when I saw them live I remember doing "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" and at first it just kind of sounded like a transcription of the original for jazz instruments, and then when they would throw in little dissonances and off-kilter things they seemed like very predictable off-kilter things.

remember THEM doing

that comparison doesn't make sense to me, like, at all?

to me the bad plus do a pretty amazing job of combining a lot of things that could have been a mess - melody vs atonality, really precise rhythmic stuff vs free playing, respect for jazz vs a really sincere embrace of rock and pop. imo people get hung up on a couple of their "covers", and don't really listen to what they're doing.

also dave king is one of the very best & most singular drummers of his generation, along with chris dave and brian blade.

I think Mehldau does most of what they do much better.

you mean the trio stuff?

I mean pretty much everything where he has done rock covers including with the trio.

First off, I don't dislike The Bad Plus or Vampire Weekend -- pleasant, but not really my thing.

well, they are educated, nice, non-black boys playing traditionally African-American music, for one. They are critically acclaimed by the educated white boy East Coast tastemakers. Their music fuses different elements, as you mentioned. It is well-crafted. It is tidy. But it takes music that was originally associated with a certain ecstatic quality, and make it kinda tidy and mannered. And there's a lot of race-based baggage/connotations in this that many contemporary white guys playing free jazz have to negotiate/come to terms with. And maybe we don't want to go there in this thread.

takes music that was originally associated with a certain ecstatic quality, and make it kinda tidy and mannered

ok sorry no