Kamasi Washington - The Epic

Not familiar with Polar Bear at all. The review makes me want to hear them. I was confusing the name with Panda Bear, which was causing a visceral revulsion - "No fucking way am I listening to one of the assholes from Animal Collective's fucking 'jazz album'!", like that.

Ha! Yes, I can understand that instinct. They're pretty well known in the UK (London based) but I have no idea what their profile is in the States.

if you like that, the Sons of Kemet album from a couple of years ago is also amazing: two drummers (including the bandleader from Polar Bear), clarinet, and tuba (playing basslines, basically).

lots of thoughts on this thread, but instead i'll just post this video which showcases his sound in a nice minimal duo setting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPnpEEj9siU

would be curious to hear your thoughts Jordan!

my fav jazz albums of the year are :

milford graves & bill laswell - space-time redemption
&
matana roberts - COIN COIN chapter three river run thee

This kamasi album is cool, but i think i'd rather listen to original 70's jazz albums.

oh yeah i really love "perspectives" and "tantric" where the background gets really amorphous around his trumpet playing

btw http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21105-stretch-music/

― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Wednesday, October 7, 2015 8:57 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hey i dug your review brad

enjoying the album too

1) I'm pretty tired of the idea that Wynton is synonymous with square & embarrassing. The jazz wars are over, he's made a ton of music, and a lot of it is good. I came around to some of the septet music through the back door after getting immersed in New Orleans music for a long time. It's not always my favorite take on it, but he comes by it honestly and it's mostly about hearing Herlin Riley play:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nayYQXtddXE

And really, N.O. brass band music ruined me when it comes to most jazz. There are no questions of who it's for, what's the point, is it cool, (a lot of the questions being discussed in this thread) etc because it's a living music with a clear cultural function, and it bangs super hard.

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

2) I like the Kamasi Washington album but haven't heard the whole thing. Love the parts with strings & vocal backgrounds like 'Askim'. It reminds me of Alice Coltrane, Mwandishi, etc which definitely seems of a piece with Flying Lotus's taste in jazz (which is why it makes sense on Brainfeeder). And this is why there's a minor backlash, right? Because it's a pretty referential & retro album, except it's being done in 2015 by musicians who have absorbed everything. And it's on a cool electronic label and has gotten a lot of attention, but I get why people that are deeply invested in modern jazz might get grumpy about this being the one jazz album that non-jazz people hear all year.

3) The last FlyLo is the version of this that really sounds like 2015 imo. A lot of the same players but chopped up & compressed (in more ways than one) in a new way. This is like the flipside where you get to hear everyone play uninterrupted (and maybe for too long?).

4) I kind of like the super-dense, maximal sound of this album that has the drummers hitting really hard at times to cut through. I also kind of don't like it because one of the nice things about jazz is when the instruments are all given lots of room to breathe in the mix. It definitely sounds like a lost ambitious '70s record at times though.

Yall seriously have me adding Wynton albums to my Amazon cart. These are strange days.

That Herlin Riley guy is great.

I'm pretty tired of the idea that Wynton is synonymous with square & embarrassing. The jazz wars are over, he's made a ton of music, and a lot of it is good.

otm

1) I'm pretty tired of the idea that Wynton is synonymous with square & embarrassing.

I don't think anyone's saying that. His music never struck me as squarebarrassing, but his and Stanley Crouch's (ultimately failed) attempts to erase from history whole movements in the music is indeed something they should be profoundly embarrassed about.

i was responding to this mostly:
there's a part of me that nags 'you're gonna find this pretty embarrassing in a few years'. i LOVED wynton marsalis' blue interlude when i was a kid so i'm speaking from experience there.

wynton's a great player who's made some excellent records! i think his status as the "authority" on all things jazz (as in the ken burns doc) is a little unfortunate, but you take that away, the dude's music is very much worthwhile. and really, i feel like a lot of that "authority" thing is more the way burns presented him rather than his own vibe. the interview on do the math from a few years back is great: http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/interview-with-wynton-marsalis-part-1.html

I hated the way he would talk about dudes that were either old or dead by time he was even born like he knew them in Ken Burn's Jazz thing....

"Man...now when Bird would come in the club, you just knew no one had that tone he had" blah blah blah "it was like this" *takes out trumpet and plays some riff*

haha i kind of loved that tbh

burns doc had a lot of problems obv but ultimately i really enjoyed it (though lol i think i only saw the first 5 parts, i don;t think i made it past bird)

Huh I'm really surprised by how much I'm enjoying this Christian Scott album. Never liked him before (and there's nothing about him that sounds like a New Orleans trumpet player) but this is really nice. It incorporates production/electronics really naturally and has a cool take on the two drummer thing (one of them, who I first saw play with Donald Harrison when he was like 12, is always on percussion & sample pads it appears).

yeah this thread is turning out some nice recs. Haven't checked out new jazz in some time. listened to the Christian Scott last night after reading brads review.

ok i completely respect the ambitiousness of this record, but its boring af. the chord progressions are pretty standard jazz and nothing really stands out about the arrangements. it seems like a genre exercise and doesn't really have any of the *magic* of a later mingus, sanders or alice album. good effort though.

Of the people not completely enamoured with this album, that is the most incisive post so far on this thread so far.

I'll just say so far again...

also it doesn't groove at all.

Of the people not completely enamoured with this album, that is the most incisive post so far on this thread so far.

Because he said "chord progressions" instead of being more general? Lol

"the most ambitious jazz album go arrive in ages,..." -Apple Music

*to arrive

Sometimes people can be more succinct with less ego

also it doesn't groove at all.

uh y'all were describing this as funk pls explain

Just tried to listen to his version of Cherokee and had to turn it off tbh

I'm sure I'll like some of the stuff on here when I dig in more but blech

ha i kinda liked "cherokee" but it might've been that it provided a little breather from all the heavier stuff.

That version of "Cherokee" worked better live than on record, but yeah, it's definitely weird and semi-out of place.

bringing back that vocalese

Xpost - Brad I've been referring to the love show he's currently doing. It's a lot different from the album

Live show

Making a playlist of all the songs that don't feature Patrice Quinn. Nothing personal, I just think I've decided after a few semi-regular listens that the lead vox on this thing are serious vibe killers.

One thing I really like about this thread is that it has a lot of new jazz recs, which is something I've been out of the loop on.

That's what I said :) thread success.

Yeah, good call on the Ambrose Akinmusire.

I really like this Makaya McCraven but it's got really annoying fake crowd noise

Just bought the new Christian Scott after listening to a couple of tracks. Nice.

if you like that, the Sons of Kemet album from a couple of years ago is also amazing: two drummers (including the bandleader from Polar Bear), clarinet, and tuba (playing basslines, basically).

Their new one is great.

Sons of Kemet have a new one?!

new video by sons of kemet :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPFRBTS39Vo

Hot damn they do.

Fucking love that first album. Will pedal home via HMV on the off chance they have it.

That track is awesome.

for folks who are interested in retro '70s-style prog-jazz from this year I recommend Escondido Sessions by the Brian Ellis Group: http://open.spotify.com/album/4bd3e1VbBFLGkPFOtLbiDk

re cover art :
was an eyebrow raising moment when i found out that the picture is kamasi standing in front of a graffiti/wall mural.
i thought the art had been done specifically for the release.
(or was it ?)

Yeah, good call on the Ambrose Akinmusire.

― o. nate, Wednesday, October 7, 2015 9:29 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

cool! glad you like ambrose.

also appreciated 誤訳侮辱's thoughts on him upthread

Davu Seru is well worth checking out everything he does in interesting tho he's def improv/free/spiritual hat

http://www.davuseru.com/

well if you guys like that Sons of Kemet thing then you might like this (cool video though):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KsxTgYdQNM

was an eyebrow raising moment when i found out that the picture is kamasi standing in front of a graffiti/wall mural.
whaaaat that's crazy (cool)

shadow photoshopped out or something I assume