ILX0RS: JAZZ IS THE TEACHER. YEAH, IT'S A JAZZ THING >> THE ILM JAZZ LISTENING CLUB! [NEW CHOICES EVERY WEDNESDAY!]

i've been digging some of Gil Evans' non-Birth of the Cool early stuff, mainly arranging for Claude Thornhill. There's a version of "Polka Dots and Moonbeams" that's pretty breathtaking.

There's no way to hear Ben Neill in Canada, is there? It's not even on iTunes! Shame, since the one track on Youtube makes me think that I would enjoy the album.

please book me for a week.

Sundar, pm me and I can assist.

pfunk, would you be ready with your picks if we make this Jazz thread a Wednesday update? (makes sense, with your Funk now on Tuesday, and the others looking like: Brazilian on Thursday, HipHop on Friday, Prog on Saturday, R'N'B on Monday)

If so, you're on in 15 mins!

forks, you're due as per:

pfunk: 30 April
a hoy hoy: 7 May
local garda: 14 May
ward fowler: 21 May
Cave17Matt: 28 May
Nom Nom Nom Chomsky (WmC): 4 June
tylerw: 11 June
Sparkle Motion: 18 June
forksclovetofu: 25 June
tannenbaum: 2 July

yeah sure, no probs. Got an SST poll to do but I can fit this in, just need to find album pics, spotify links etc but I'll get it done within an hour. Ask a mod to change your first post stating its WEDNESDAY then. I think having a club on each day is pretty good.

in my calendar!

xpost: cool. + hope someone gets together a Classical and/or Reggae Sunday -> would be perfect to round things out.

oh shit, need to change the dates on the schedule: ITS A WEDNESDAY now folks:

NEW DATES:

forks, you're due as per:

pfunk: 28 April
a hoy hoy: 5 May
local garda: 12 May
ward fowler: 19 May
Cave17Matt: 26 May
Nom Nom Nom Chomsky (WmC): 2 June
tylerw: 9 June
Sparkle Motion: 16 June
forksclovetofu: 23 June
tannenbaum: 30 June

Week 2
Album
#1 Pharoah Sanders - Karma (1969)
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tFTMaqlQ5VI/SbkFsPfcMtI/AAAAAAAACAU/tBbm75qmAiY/s320/01.jpg
Spotify Link

AMG Review
Pharoah Sanders' third album as a leader is the one that defines him as a musician to the present day. After the death of Coltrane, while there were many seeking to make a spiritual music that encompassed his ideas and yearnings while moving forward, no one came up with the goods until Sanders on this 1969 date. There are only two tracks on Karma, the 32-plus minute "The Creator Has a Master Plan" and the five-and-a-half-minute "Colours." The band is one of Sanders' finest, and features vocalist Leon Thomas, drummer Billy Hart, Julius Watkins, James Spaulding, a pre-funk Lonnie Liston Smith, Richard Davis, Reggie Workman on bass, and Nathaniel Bettis on percussion. "Creator" begins with a quote from "A Love Supreme," with a nod to Coltrane's continuing influence on Sanders. But something else emerges here as well: Sanders' own deep commitment to lyricism and his now inherent knowledge of Eastern breathing and modal techniques. His ability to use the ostinato became not a way of holding a tune in place while people soloed, but a manner of pushing it irrepressibly forward. Keeping his range limited (for the first eight minutes anyway), Sanders explores all the colors around the key figures, gradually building the dynamics as the band comps the two-chord theme behind with varying degrees of timbral invention. When Thomas enters at nine minutes, the track begins to open. His yodel frees up the theme and the rhythm section to invent around him. At 18 minutes it explodes, rushing into a silence that is profound as it is noisy in its approach. Sanders is playing microphonics and blowing to the heavens and Thomas is screaming. They are leaving the material world entirely. When they arrive at the next plane, free of modal and interval constraints, a new kind of lyricism emerges, one not dependent on time but rhythm, and Thomas and Sanders are but two improvisers in a sound universe of world rhythm and dimension. There is nothing to describe the exhilaration that is felt when this tune ends, except that "Colours," with Ron Carter joining Workman on the bass, was the only track that could follow it. You cannot believe it until you hear it.

#2 Bobby Hutcherson - Components (1965)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41cuekNXy%2BL._SS400_.jpg
Spotify Link

AMG Review

Perhaps the single album that best sums up Bobby Hutcherson's early musical personality, Components is appropriately split into two very distinct halves. The first features four Hutcherson originals in a melodic but still advanced hard bop style, while the latter half has four free-leaning avant-garde pieces by drummer Joe Chambers. Hutcherson allots himself more solo space than on Dialogue, but that's no knock on the excellent supporting cast, which includes Herbie Hancock on piano, James Spaulding on alto sax and flute, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, and Ron Carter on bass. It's just more Hutcherson's date, and he helps unite the disparate halves with a cool-toned control that's apparent regardless of whether the material is way outside or more conventionally swinging. In the latter case, Hutcherson's originals are fairly diverse, encompassing rhythmically complex hard bop (the title track), pensive balladry ("Tranquillity," which features a lovely solo by Hancock), down-and-dirty swing ("West 22nd Street Theme"), and the gaily innocent "Little B's Poem," which went on to become one of Hutcherson's signature tunes and contains some lyrical flute work from Spaulding. The Chambers pieces tend to be deliberate explorations that emphasize texture and group interaction in the manner of Dialogue, except that there's even more freedom in terms of both structure and tonal center. (The exception is the brief but beautiful closing number, "Pastoral," an accurate title if ever there was one.) Components illustrated that Hutcherson was not only the most adventurous vibes player on the scene, but that he was also capable of playing more straightforward music with intelligence and feeling.

#3 Lonnie Liston Smith & the Cosmic Echoes - Expansions (1974)
http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm181/karl_ktarn/5-20.jpg
Spotify Link

AMG Review
When Lonnie Liston Smith left the Miles Davis band in 1974 for a solo career, he was, like so many of his fellow alumni, embarking on a musical odyssey. For a committed fusioneer, he had no idea at the time that he was about to enter an abyss that it would take him the better part of two decades to return from. Looking back upon his catalog from the period, this is the only record that stands out — not only from his own work, but also from every sense of the word: It is fully a jazz album, and a completely funky soul-jazz disc as well. Of the seven compositions here, six are by Smith, and the lone cover is of the Horace Silver classic, "Peace." The lineup includes bassist Cecil McBee, soprano saxophonist David Hubbard, tenor saxophonist Donald Smith (who doubles on flute), drummer Art Gore, and percussionists Lawrence k*ll*an, Michael Carvin, and Leopoldo. Smith plays both piano and electric keyboards and keeps his compositions on the jazzy side — breezy, open, and full of groove playing that occasionally falls over to the funk side of the fence. It's obvious, on this album at least, that Smith was not completely comfortable with Miles' reliance on hard rock in his own mix. Summery and loose in feel, airy and free with its in-the-cut beats and stellar piano fills, Expansions prefigures a number of the "smooth jazz" greats here, without the studio slickness and turgid lack of imagination. The disc opens with the title track, with one of two vocals on the LP by Donald Smith (the other is the Silver tune). It's typical "peace and love and we've got to work together" stuff from the mid-'70s, but it's rendered soulfully and deeply without artifice. "Desert Nights" takes a loose Detroit jazz piano groove and layers flute and percussion over the top, making it irresistibly sensual and silky. It's fleshed out to the bursting point with Smith's piano; he plays a lush solo for the bridge and fills it to the brim with luxuriant tones from the middle register. "Summer Days" and "Voodoo Woman" are where the electric keyboards make their first appearance, but only as instruments capable of carrying the groove to the melody quickly, unobtrusively, and with a slinky grace that is infectious. The mixed bag/light-handed approach suits Smith so well here that it's a wonder he tried to hammer home the funk and disco on later releases so relentlessly. The music on Expansions is timeless soul-jazz, perfect in every era. Of all the fusion records of this type released in the mid-'70s, Expansions provided smoother jazzers and electronica's sampling wizards with more material that Smith could ever have anticipated.

3 different decades, 3 different styles of jazz. Was so hard trying to choose just 3 but I couldn't leave out Karma. So poor Archie Shepp missed the cut, you all prob know the Mingus I would've picked and at the last moment Hank Mobley was dropped. Hopefully the 3 I havent went for you will like.
I need another shot at this tannenbaum, put me down for next shot after yours!

Hope you all enjoy these 3 albums. Nothing to difficult or "free" about them but definitely not too easy to listen to either.

oooh componants looks like something i would v. much love to hear once i stop pissing about with angry loud depressed white dudes listening poll.

dude! love and really know both the Pharoah Sanders and Lonnie Liston Smith well. Ace choices! And Bobby Hutcherson is new to me, so will give it a listen tomorrow.

i like all three of those records a bunch. great trio of records for people to hear if they've never heard them.

Pharoah's "Creator Has A Masterplan" and Lonnie "Expansons" (title track) will bring you closer to the God you don't believe in.

music is my god.

It was murder choosing just 3! So I went for the decades thing. I figured the better known stuff might get picked by others so I narrowed it down to 5, dropped the Shepp and after getting the Hank Mobley all sorted and ready to post I changed it to Bobby H.

Ok this Hutcherson is FUCKING AMAZING. I feel like I should be walking at night in the rain listening to this.

those Hutcherson/Hancock records are something special. Actually not all that familiar w/ Components though (I listen to Happenings the most), but I'll dig it out and listen. I know it's good!

I dont think you will be disappointed

Did you ask a mod to add this weeks albums to the thread title?

Hey Sam wait til you hear the other 2 albums.

I've heard Karma many a time. Will go into it when its not 4 in the morning.

psyched for these, I should also say I am enjoying Birth of the Cool and the Ellinton/Coltrane, though need to listen to them more...

i hope you enjoy my picks

Wow, the Hutcherson is fantastic! A good reminder that as long I don't listen to too much of it at once, I pretty much like anything on Blue Note. Still, this is outstanding even for that label. Freddie Hubbard is maybe wildly underrated?

Karma is of course amazing. I'll listen to Lonnie later. Somewhat wary about that one--tried to get into him a few years ago and it was just too syrupy, but I never tried Expansions.

Lonnie Liston Smith's discography is a journey into syrup, with each becoming more over-sweet than the last. Expansions (and Visions of A New World, just after it) are still in the not-too-sweetspot.

Astral Travelling, Cosmic Funk, Expansions and Visions Of A New World are all I have (and are great) heard a few albums from after it and they were a bit disco and not very good so i have never heard what came after it.

Is the 76 live album any good? I heard it was pretty great but I've never seen it around.

Sadly I think I tried Astral Traveling and didn't like it. But I was a different person then, very suspicious of anything "cheesy".

I posted about the Hutcherson before I even got to the second side: that is truly a brilliant album, an inspired choice.

I dont like Cheesy either and I never found it cheesy at all.

And glad you love the Bobby Hutcherson.

Blue Note must be the greatest record label of all time.

yeah, I scare-quoted Cheesy to indicate that my definition of it has shifted.

I think I'd agree on Blue Note. Surely they're the most ideal label of all time anyway, the one to aspire to.

Agreed.

I read that Alfred Lion knew what a session was going to sound like before Van Gelder pressed record. If you listen to enough Blue Note albums, I think this becomes apparent, and problematic...I mean to say that consistent excellence slides into consistent sameness on occasion. But that's about my only complaint with Blue Note as a label.

I have no problem with consistent brilliance myself!

Yeah, it only bothers me if I try to listen to too much BN in a short span of time. Taken individually the vast majority of it is good to genius. Also, even though I know where you're coming from, the "sameness" argument is maybe harder to make in light of this specific album.

Yeah, I wasn't referring to this album in particular--I haven't even heard it yet! One of the best things that Lion & co. did was record & support Hutcherson, Rivers, Hill & Taylor even though they weren't ever going to do the same kind of business that his stalwarts were going to do.

There's lots of great obscure Blue Note artists.

btw I might want to do one of these

the main criticism of Blue Note might be that they kind of milked a lot of artists dry -- Jimmy Smith in particular. He put out more than two dozen records in like 4 years, I think! I guess they were enthusiastic about him ... but really, you only need 3 or 4 Jimmy Smith records in your life. He's great, but there's not a lot of variety.

root down is my jimmy smith jam

btw I might want to do one of these

― Turangalila, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 21:08 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

pfunk: 28 April
a hoy hoy: 5 May
local garda: 12 May
ward fowler: 19 May
Cave17Matt: 26 May
Nom Nom Nom Chomsky (WmC): 2 June
tylerw: 9 June
Sparkle Motion: 16 June
forksclovetofu: 23 June
Turangalila: 30 June
tannenbaum: 7 July
Pfunk: 15 July

Oh, I could do one too, assuming there are plenty of reminders between now and 22 July!

Love Donald Smith's (Lonnie's brother) vocals on Expansions, the bubblin' bassline, the propulsiveness yet calm air.

Lonnie was one of the players on Pharoah Sander's Karma as well

And I enjoyed the Lonnie Liston Smith quite a bit. While I can tell why my younger more cynical self would have balked at a song like "Summer Days", it was perfect for a lovely day. Also, Cecil McBee is one of my favorite bassists.

That's what made me choose the Lonnie Liston Smith (do not confuse with Lonnie Smith) because he's on Karma and I thought it was a nice link. Plus the Bobby Hutcherson had Herbie Hancock and Freddie Hubbard on it rather than picking one of their best known albums.

a hoy hoy: 5 May
local garda: 12 May
ward fowler: 19 May
Cave17Matt: 26 May
Nom Nom Nom Chomsky (WmC): 2 June
tylerw: 9 June
Sparkle Motion: 16 June
forksclovetofu: 23 June
Turangalila: 30 June
tannenbaum: 7 July
Pfunk: 15 July
Elephant Rob: 22 July

if anyone else wants to curate a week, just private message me and I'll maintain a list off-thread, rather than clog the thread up with updates to the schedule :) /or just wait till July before requesting.

I'll post a monthly reminder, so as you long as you check in once in a while you should be okay to see when you're up

You could PM the person a week beforehand?

will do for the June and July ones.

The 2nd half of Components is where the album really comes alive for me.