Rolling Jazz Thread 2013

It's weird too, the way I perceive a lot of jazz seems to have changed, like it used to feel like this edgy sonic adventure for me, and now it feels more meandery and self-indulgent. I'm massively generalizing of course.

In my case, I will still happily go see a show, but sometimes have little inclination to put on an album or listen to the radio.

I'm sure it's also age -- I don't have that many opportunities to just sit down with a good pair of headphones and really get INTO a record, and sometimes jazz requires that.

Sometimes for me I think "I should be learning how to play these tunes, not just listening for enjoyment."

totally. but then every now and then i get burnt out on electronic music too, and i just want to hear people play instruments really well.

i guess i look at it as a common vocabulary that's there for musicians to communicate with & learn, but after a point it's like, ok, what are you going to do with it? maybe it's not the end goal. and these days everyone plays everything, but you still find some jazz musicians with that true believer mentality, where it's like a holy quest to develop your voice and lead bands and gripe about the state of jazz. and that's a beautiful thing in a way, but a rough career choice.

discovered there was a new bob james/david sanborn record bc of nate chinen's smooth jazz piece in the nyt; it's acoustic and brubeck-y, which would feel cynical if it weren't holy christ incredible. steve gadd on drums.

i don't really get him but i think of bob james as the smooth jazz guy who also hires good drummers ("take it to the mardi gras" etc). i once bought an acoustic trio record of his because it had billy kilson (who makes weird smooth jazz records of his own) on it.

i tried to listen to that a bit, it's nice overall but I can't take David Sanborn's saxy sax tone

Bob James is underrated though, at least among the anti-smooth-jazz crowd.

Only Bob James I've heard was Explosions, which is tremendous. Apparently, he never went back to that well.

the theme from taxi is a stone classic

I don't get burned out on jazz as a whole, but I definitely get burned out on certain types of jazz, mostly because I know (or communicate with via FB & Twitter) a bunch of other jazz critics and they all get worked up over the same artists at the same time, most of whom I hate or find boring/unappealing. So I go listen to unhip jazz for pure musical pleasure - stuff on Criss Cross or Posi-Tone, mostly, and some Fresh Sound New Talent releases. Shit that has no appeal to New York Times writers, and that is not represented by Fully Altered Media.

Hurting if you had come to Terazza tonight you might have cured your jazz blues. I think you would really like the drummer.

who?

Eric Doob.

Some great arco bass playing right now.

yeah, checking this guy out on youtube now, he is my kind of drummer

Does anyone else ever go through long phases of jazz "burnout"? Maybe it's just because I started listening to jazz so young and listened so obsessively, but lately I find most jazz just doesn't scratch the right itch for me.

i haven't, i think, but i've gone through long periods where i didn't listen to that much, and then came back and found it refreshing. but i've noticed that it seemed more gripping to me when i was younger and more in touch with performing. after a certain point i wasn't so much 'listening along', as if playing myself.

but then i kind of stopped doing that with other kinds of music too.

i think this might relate to my having an easier interest in free improv. around the time my jazz listening first dwindled in a big way, i was trying to get more into post-60s 'serious' jazz of various sorts, so, you know, buying matthew shipp and evan parker and whatever records, and got a little miffed that it often sounded to me like pointless playing - just playing whatever for whatever arbitrary reasons. when i came back to some more recent stuff in the past few years, though - and leaning a bit more euro, a bit less coltraney, and a bit less jazz-musicians-can-play-pop-see!! - it felt easier to just listen, let them be what they were and hear them with interest.

yeah I definitely think it has something to do with (not) playing for me too -- I used to really "ride" the solos partly because I wanted to tap into what made them work I guess. But it was a very visceral experience at the time. I used to just hole up in the college library basement where the listening stations were and I'd get pretty intense in the little cubicles -- probably was making ridiculous faces, twitching, moving in funny ways, etc. I was 100% serious about it.

I guess all intense musical enjoyment requires a little bit of fantasy and a little bit of suspension of disbelief.

Meanwhile back in Queens, just realized the eagerly awaited new house drum set has arrived.

sweet, what kind of kit?

Custom made, called Maelo, guy teaches at the collective I think.

fwiw enjoying the Farmers By Nature records, had never checked them out (Taborn/Parker/Cleaver)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zlnq9S07i9w

via checking out eric doob, i'm seeing this as n/a on trumpet and kevin mcdonald on bone

also if i haven't mentioned it, the Inbetweens have a great new album out:

http://theinbetweens.bandcamp.com/

(nyc guitar/acoustic bass/drums trio, dope mix of interplay/melody/psych/etc)

his drumming has a lot of "bounce" to it, which complements the trombone really nicely.

Jordan my band also recorded at Seaside Lounge and I know the guy who recorded that.

nice, it sounds good. the drummer of that band also plays with my homies youngbl00d br@ss band, the guitarist has done tours with another friend's band, etc.

Bass player in that video, Jorge Roeder, was also on the gig last night, which was the classic version of Victor Prieto's trio, without any guest stars, although there are many good configurations. Trumpet player in video just had a birthday a week and a half ago.

/jazzdb

My friend and neighbor, the awesome bass player Edward Perez, is bringing two different projects to Terraza 7 in Jackson Heights this week, tonight a Latin Jazz gig- featuring Eric Doob on drums- and then Friday his Peruvian project with a vocalist, Festejation. /street_team

Newport Jazz is streaming on this NPR page this weekend; no hours posted for these bills yet, but prob starts noon EST, though I'll be checking all through the morn. Can also check archives from prev. years here. The cast:
http://www.npr.org/event/music/156120628/newport-jazz-festival

Correction: Festejation gig- featuring Eric D on drums again- is tomorrow, Saturday, not tonight.

Robert Glasper Experiment kicking off NPR's Newport stream---audio only so far, but sounds good.

brisk, steady 'n' atmospheric---"I'm a reasonable man, get off my case/na na na, naaah", sez vocoder. Piano solo.

Been getting kinda snoozy---electronics compressed, now the piano's flowers---

Awright, waking up to the Bill Charlap Trio with Anat Cohen and Bob Wilbur--also a few audio glitches to keep me on my toes.

Unusual to have two distinctive clarinets: Wilber's blues tone--even spiraling through "Jitterbug Waltz"--times Anat Cohen's occasional interpolation of her saxophone approach--both players' vpices reflected in Charlap's rolling detail, Peter Washington's bass, Kenny Washington's drummms.

aww, "Summertime", too safe a choice! Sounds good though (of course).

maybe a little too pleasant a set, ultimately---here's the Terence Blanchard Quintet, with the return of Lionel Lueke's electric guitar: promising surges.

Lionel Louke provided the best solo so far, in any set--the rest of it got cluttered eventually--but here's the Mary Halvorson Quintet, briefly, with "Hemmorrhaging Smiles", which she promises will be "upbeat", and maybe one other.

Loueke!

"Hemorrhaging"! What a nasty word.

Halvorson's guitar is just sweetly flexible at first, then wave forms shimmer and smoke.

Rez Abbasi Trio, another micro-set: his guitar's stuttering cogently (leading with his thumb?), then fingerpicking, bending sustained notes--going to his Two Rivers project with oud, sax, drums, bass (arco at the start)

Two Rivers is Amir ElSaffir's band of course, sorry--a continuity of the Middle Eastern x jazz tonality and dynamics though.

AlSaffar's trumpet matches the oud, in between leaps into overview of the emsemble (dry air between swaying colors and textures)

ah god, edit. later

Back for the end of Danny McCaslin Group: earthy, skronky, lithe, tuneful enough, brushing by the beehive (fuzz,reverb). Now another stealthy excerpt from Amir Ali, who followed Rez Abbasi Trio and Amir ElSaffar's Two Rivers yesterday--this guy plays a 72-string zither, some other instruments, also I think he's the sinuous singer I'm hearing now (bass & drums in there too natch--jazz caravan yall)(No, the vocal's another bit from ElSaffar, is the announcer's latest claim). Next up: Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orchestra, Jim Hall Trio with former teen prodigy and still guitarist Julian Lage, and Wayne Shorter Quarter with Herbie Hancock.