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

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

that's not gonna fly

well, they are educated, nice, non-black boys playing traditionally African-American music, for one.

fuck off with that shit

I mean you want to talk about racial baggage you just chalked yourself up a few extra check-in fees.

(xpost)

i mean i don't even know where to start

excuse me? I mean, if you want to ignore the racial aspects of jazz, go ahead, but they exist, and I'm sure you know, it's a long-standing issue.

Back to old-school jazz (let's not derail too far, please) -- anyone heard Jazz Advance, that Cecil Taylor album I posted abt upthread? Is it any good, or are there other records of his that I should look to?

Right, the racial aspects, e.g white people deciding that jazz is about "a certain ecstatic quality" that black people bring to the music and that stiff boring white people fail to get.

i'm not saying that I agree with that argument, I'm just pointing out that that argument exists.

God forbid someone bring a "tidy, mannered" quality to the music of, say, Duke Ellington.

but we're not talking about Duke Ellington -- Jordan was talking about how The Bad Plus incorporates improv and free jazz.

Please can we move on from this derail, guys?

(Or else take this convo somewhere else: Racial issues in music, perhaps?)

Re: Cecil Taylor, I don't know much of his stuff but Conquistador! is one of my favourite jazz records of all time. It is very much what I like about jazz, though, and your mileage might vary - not here will ye find any of that cool smooth tuneful shit.

I'm just trying to explain why some people, including my friend, dislike The Bad Plus. And it's kinda related to why some people dislike Vampire Weekend.

There is a lot of great playing on Zorn's jazz records, but I wouldn't necessarily put them ahead of any of the recommendations already on the thread. If you want one disc by the original Masada quartet, I'd say Hei, because "Hobah" is mindblowing to me. I'd put higher stock in a couple other 2CD sets that were recorded early on after Zorn wrote the first book of Masada pieces, when all the NY downtown players were just seeing the material for the first time and bringing everything they had to it. Bar Kokhba: Masada Chamber Ensembles is a hodgepodge of different lineups (string trio, piano trio, clarinet/organ, trumpet/clarinet/organ/drums, etc). The Circle Maker has one disc of string trio and one disc of the same trio plus drums, percussion and amazing guitar by Marc Ribot.

I don't care for VW and may check out The Bad Plus at some point. Doesn't strike me as a priority for now. Regardless, I'd just prefer we not derail into 100+ posts on racial issues in jazz. Another thread, perhaps...

xp to sarahel

And yes, I realize the irony of me asking other ILXors not to derail threads (my speciality, oftentimes).

Right, the racial aspects, e.g white people deciding that jazz is about "a certain ecstatic quality" that black people bring to the music and that stiff boring white people fail to get.

― hey boys, suppers on me, our video just went bacterial (Hurting 2), Friday, January 28, 2011 2:08 PM (6 minutes ago)

Exactly -- it's definitely problematic.

Zorn's film music is pretty good. The Cobra stuff is also worth listening to.

Zorn strikes me as perhaps needing a whole separate investigation. Pretty unwieldy catalog. May check him out at some point...

your friend's ideas about race & aesthetics here are all twisted up imo. i'd love to stay and argue that the bad plus are neither co-opting nor watering down whatever your friend's idea of what free jazz should be, but i'm out for the weekend.

xp

this used to be a good thread