He barely reviews the album, but it is an excellent read on Monk.
― calzino, Sunday, 12 March 2017 15:58 (seven years ago) link
Thanks, Phil. Do you know where the thread title quote comes from?
― Got Your Money Changes Everything (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 12 March 2017 16:02 (seven years ago) link
Of this thread, to be clear
― Got Your Money Changes Everything (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 12 March 2017 16:21 (seven years ago) link
my rushed post - whilst cooking and drinking - probably sounds a bit uncharitable. FTR I thought that was a really great piece that took me right down a'57 wormhole and made me forget it was an album review was what I meant to say.
― calzino, Sunday, 12 March 2017 16:22 (seven years ago) link
Google says it's a quote from Coleman Hawkins.
― Don Van Gorp, midwest regional VP, marketing (誤訳侮辱), Sunday, 12 March 2017 16:31 (seven years ago) link
Yeah, exactly. Found it in the Robin Kelley Monk bio.
― Got Your Money Changes Everything (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 12 March 2017 16:34 (seven years ago) link
really appreciating the stereogum column, 誤訳侮辱. i used to keep up with jazz new releases via seth colter walls's semi-regular roundup on rhapsody, but that seems to be now defunct. glad pitchfork is reviewing jazz now, too.
― Wozniak on Kimye's Baby (jaymc), Sunday, 12 March 2017 17:52 (seven years ago) link
The Arthur Doyle clip on Soundcloud was great!
― My Body's Made of Crushed Little Evening Stars (Sund4r), Sunday, 12 March 2017 19:11 (seven years ago) link
Just received this link to Art Ensemble taking Ayler's "Ghosts" for a ride and vice-versa: they do their own thing without obliterating thee original, if that's even possible. Wish they'd done a whole album of Ayler. With Lester Bowie etc, 22 minutes:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM-6-02mAz8
― dow, Sunday, 12 March 2017 21:10 (seven years ago) link
Just bought two more of those Complete Remastered Albums on Black Saint & Soul Note box sets: a third volume of David Murray and a second of Max Roach. (I have the first two Murray boxes, but don't have the first Roach box.)
The Murray includes Interboogieology, Live at Sweet Basil Vol. 1 and 2, Children, Southern Bells, and The Healers; the Roach has Pictures in a Frame, In the Light, Live at Vielharmonie Munich, Scott Free, Easy Winners, and It's Christmas Again.
Also picked up Cannonball Adderley's Complete Live in Tokyo 1963, a 2CD set with the band that included Nat Adderley, Yusef Lateef, Joe Zawinul, Sam Jones and Louis Hayes.
― Don Van Gorp, midwest regional VP, marketing (誤訳侮辱), Sunday, 12 March 2017 21:19 (seven years ago) link
Thanks for the Monk link - excellent stuff. I always think of Geoff Dyer's But Beautiful whenever I read about Monk. For all the dubiety I have about that book, this passage on Monk is magnificent.
"You had to see Monk to hear his music properly. The most important instrument in the group - whatever the format - was his body. He didn't play the piano really. His body was his instrument and the piano was just a means of getting the sound out of his body at the rate and in the quantities he wanted. If you blotted out everything except his body you would think he was playing the drums, foot going up and down on the hi-hat, arms reaching over each other, His body fills in the gaps in the music; without seeing him it always sounds like something's missing but when you see him even piano solos acquire a sound as full as a quartets. The eye hears what the ear misses...
Part of jazz is the illusion of spontaneity and Monk played the piano as though he'd never seen one before. Came at it from all angles, using his elbows, taking chops at it, rippling through the keys like they were a deck of cards, fingers jabbing at them like they were hot to the touch or tottering around them like a woman in heels - playing it all wrong as far as classical piano went. Everything came out crooked, at an angle, not as you expected...Played with his fingers splayed, flattened out over the keys, fingertips almost looking like they were pointed upward when they should have been arched.
He played each note as if astonished by the previous one, as though every touch of his fingers on the keyboard was correcting an error and this touch in turn became an error to be corrected and so the tune never quite ended up the way it was meant to. Sometimes the song seemed to have turned itself inside out or to have been entirely constructed from mistakes...
If Monk had built a bridge he'd have taken away the bits that considered essential until all that was left were the decorative parts - but somehow he would have made the ornamentation absorb the strength of the supporting spars so it was like everything was built around what wasn't there. It shouldn't have held together but it did and the excitement came from the way that it looked like it might collapse at any moment..."
― The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums (Chinaski), Sunday, 12 March 2017 22:03 (seven years ago) link
angelica sanchez,michael formanek,tyshawn sorey - float the edge
^^on first spin this is sounding rather good.
― calzino, Thursday, 16 March 2017 14:57 (seven years ago) link
I've downloaded it, but haven't listened to it yet.
In other news, I interviewed Paal Nilssen-Love (with bonus quotes from Mats Gustafsson) for Bandcamp.
― Don Van Gorp, midwest regional VP, marketing (誤訳侮辱), Thursday, 16 March 2017 19:04 (seven years ago) link
Late last night on the radio, a couple of tracks by Jeremy Pelt feat. Ron Carter woke me up. Attractive description of the album here, I'll have to check out the whole thing:http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2016/02/26/trumpeter-jeremy-pelt-collaborates-with-bass-great-ron-carter
― dow, Thursday, 16 March 2017 19:12 (seven years ago) link
Recently reviewed on Fresh Air, this is proving worthwhile:Frank Carlberg Large Ensemble, Monk Dreams, Hallucinations and Nightmares
― Brad C., Thursday, 16 March 2017 19:42 (seven years ago) link
https://f-a-t-a-k-a.bandcamp.com/album/a-field-perpetually-at-the-edge-of-disorder
interesting context for John Tilbury
― braunld (Lowell N. Behold'n), Sunday, 19 March 2017 22:16 (seven years ago) link
Yeah, that's a good one; I wrote about it for Burning Ambulance back in 2014.
― Don Van Gorp, midwest regional VP, marketing (誤訳侮辱), Sunday, 19 March 2017 22:20 (seven years ago) link
http://dcist.com/2017/03/local_jazz_legend_buck_hill_dead_at.php
Buck Hill could have been a jazz big name playing in NY and touring, but he instead stayed in DC working as a Postal Service letter carrier by day, sax blower by night
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 21 March 2017 03:55 (seven years ago) link
There's a 2LP/2CD set of previously unreleased Thelonious Monk music - his soundtrack to Roger Vadim's 1960 movie Les Liaisons Dangereuses - coming out 4/22 on vinyl (for Record Store Day), and digitally on 5/19. I'm listening to it now, and it's fantastic. The band includes both Charlie Rouse and Barney Wilen on tenor sax, Sam Jones on bass, and Art Taylor on drums; it might be the swinging-est Monk music of that era, and the two-saxophone thing is totally unique, I think. The songs aren't that surprising: "Rhythm-a-Ning," "Crepuscule with Nellie," "Well, You Needn't," "Pannonica" (in both solo and quartet versions), "Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-are," and "Light Blue," but there's also a blues improvisation called "Six in One" and a solo version of "We'll Understand It Better By and By." And the recording quality is beautiful. This is pretty much a must-own.
― Don Van Gorp, midwest regional VP, marketing (誤訳侮辱), Wednesday, 22 March 2017 18:02 (seven years ago) link
My latest Stereogum column is live. Includes my thoughts on the whole Robert Glasper/Ethan Iverson thing, plus track premieres from Christian Scott and his former guitarist Matthew Stevens (and trombonist Joe Fiedler), and lots of other good stuff.
― Don Van Gorp, midwest regional VP, marketing (誤訳侮辱), Friday, 24 March 2017 14:25 (seven years ago) link
Hmmmm I wish I liked that Christian Scott track better, the last record had a nice sense of an active rhythm section w/one of the drummers playing samples. This is more static and reminds me of some of those old Graham Haynes records. It's also in that uncanny valley zone where it's so close to beat-based music that it really has to sound amazing. Still curious to hear the rest of the record though.
― change display name (Jordan), Friday, 24 March 2017 15:39 (seven years ago) link
This album is definitely a programmed-rhythms mood piece, but eventually it seeps into your brain and takes over. It's his Tutu, in a way.
― Don Van Gorp, midwest regional VP, marketing (誤訳侮辱), Friday, 24 March 2017 15:42 (seven years ago) link
Get thee to Mezzrow, where still-back-from-the-dead Tootie Heath is playing tonight and tomorrow.
Also came to post that Cannonball Adderley's Fiddler On The Roof, which I heard on WKCR while waiting to pick up my daughter at band practice, is my new jam.
― And Run Into It And Blecch It (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 24 March 2017 16:14 (seven years ago) link
A good piece on that Monk soundtrack - http://wbgo.org/post/new-thelonious-monk-album-emerges-soundtrack-classic-french-film#stream/0
― Fastnbulbous, Sunday, 26 March 2017 14:56 (seven years ago) link
What did you guys think of the Darcy James Argue from last year? I bought it on Bandcamp's ACLU day, eager to hear a 12-tone big band album. I've been playing it a fair bit; it's all at least interesting. I don't know if I'm as sold on some of the funk moves and don't really know what to make of the spoken bits.
I've actually been really getting into this.
― My Body's Made of Crushed Little Evening Stars (Sund4r), Monday, 27 March 2017 17:28 (seven years ago) link
seeing 75 dollar bill and company tonight and jazz passengers tomorrow; living that roulette life
― Bobson Dugnutt (ulysses), Monday, 27 March 2017 17:46 (seven years ago) link
Seeing Supersilent (first NYC show since 2004!) and Matana Roberts (solo) tonight.
― Don Van Gorp, midwest regional VP, marketing (誤訳侮辱), Monday, 27 March 2017 17:49 (seven years ago) link
i'll be at supersilent as well, pretty psyched tho i hate that venue
― adam, Monday, 27 March 2017 18:14 (seven years ago) link
That lineup sounds amazing!
― My Body's Made of Crushed Little Evening Stars (Sund4r), Monday, 27 March 2017 18:23 (seven years ago) link
RIP Arthur Blythe, after a long battle with Parkinson's Disease.
― Don Van Gorp, midwest regional VP, marketing (誤訳侮辱), Monday, 27 March 2017 19:13 (seven years ago) link
I have only heard a bit of his 70's - 80's stuff Lennox Ave, Illusions + In The Tradition and they are all a+. I should listen to some more really.
― calzino, Monday, 27 March 2017 19:38 (seven years ago) link
The Giant Is Awakened is such a killer album.
― PURE, BEAUTIFUL OIL (Sparkle Motion), Monday, 27 March 2017 20:47 (seven years ago) link
I have his first four Columbia albums, and the two India Navigation albums that were combined onto a single CD.
― Don Van Gorp, midwest regional VP, marketing (誤訳侮辱), Monday, 27 March 2017 20:49 (seven years ago) link
75 dollar bill were great though first hour was definitely superior to second. lotta sound!
― Bobson Dugnutt (ulysses), Tuesday, 28 March 2017 15:08 (seven years ago) link
Supersilent and Matana on the same bill is straight up unfair.
― The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums (Chinaski), Tuesday, 28 March 2017 15:20 (seven years ago) link
It was a really interesting show. Matana played solo, without the video projections, loop pedals, and other stuff that she's been using lately. Just horn and two microphones, one of which she used to monologue. She talked about the death of her parents, how her dad got her into avant-garde jazz (which she hated as a child), and other stuff. She also got the audience to hum on pitch, and conducted us with one arm while playing sax that harmonized with our humming.
Supersilent were everything I hoped they'd be. They started out really quiet and beautiful, with Arve Henriksen taking the lead as one of the other dudes filled in very soft Fender Rhodes around him. Gradually it got into an early 70s Tangerine Dream zone, but then it started to get louder and louder. By the 20 minute mark Henriksen had put on a headset mic and was ranting into it while the music sounded almost like Autechre - really loud and pounding/scorching in an abstract and almost arrhythmic way. Crazy stuff.
― Don Van Gorp, midwest regional VP, marketing (誤訳侮辱), Tuesday, 28 March 2017 15:56 (seven years ago) link
If I wasn't already jealous...
I did se Matana do something similar at an ATP (GY!BE, I think) - very sultry, bluesy and beat. She was captivating.
― The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums (Chinaski), Tuesday, 28 March 2017 16:10 (seven years ago) link
Recently on Jazz Night In America: (Georgia Anne) Muldrow Meets Mingus (with Jason Moran and full band). She is with the Afrocentric current that flows through underground hip-hop, avant-R&B and psychedelic soul... a singer, rapper and beat-making producer. Fits the Mingus selections pretty well. Stream it while you can: http://www.npr.org/event/music/521222975/muldrow-meets-mingus
― dow, Tuesday, 28 March 2017 18:23 (seven years ago) link
She also got the audience to hum on pitch, and conducted us with one arm while playing sax that harmonized with our humming.
She did this when I saw her in 2013! About 40 cents above Bb iirc?
― My Body's Made of Crushed Little Evening Stars (Sund4r), Tuesday, 28 March 2017 18:24 (seven years ago) link
(I checked that with a tuner, to be clear. Not claiming to have identified the number of cents by ear, although I was lucky enough at guessing the approximate pitch.)
― My Body's Made of Crushed Little Evening Stars (Sund4r), Tuesday, 28 March 2017 18:28 (seven years ago) link
Which reminds me, this is posted now---another one from Night Lights, source of that Mal Waldron spotlight show I linked on last year's Rolling Jazz (still available, when I streamed it again recently):
In the 1980s a new generation of women jazz musicians emerged who expanded their predecessors’ push against the patriarchal boundaries of the jazz world. On this edition of Night Lights we’ll hear music from pianist Geri Allen, singer Cassandra Wilson, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, guitarist Emily Remler, and saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom, as well as recordings from women who were already jazz veterans, including Marian McPartland, Carla Bley, and Joanne Brackeen. The only one I hadn't heard: Emily Remler, whom I skipped during her brief career(RIP), because she carried on about Wes Montgomery in several interviews, and in general seemed like such a zealous noob---but the track here is pretty startling; I better start catching up.http://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/jazz-women-1980s/Still not really getting into Jane Ira Bloom though.
― dow, Tuesday, 28 March 2017 18:39 (seven years ago) link
There's only one Remler album on Spotify, and it's called East to Wes. It's...fine. Good band - Hank Jones on piano, Buster Williams on bass, and Marvin "Smitty" Smith on drums.
― Don Van Gorp, midwest regional VP, marketing (誤訳侮辱), Tuesday, 28 March 2017 18:47 (seven years ago) link
― Bobson Dugnutt (ulysses), Tuesday, March 28, 2017 10:08 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark
this isn't really jazz content but i have to ask -- did Mind Over Mirrors open? If so, that would explain the first hour being better than the second, haha! (Unless 75 Dollar Bill played for 2 hours?!?)
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Tuesday, 28 March 2017 19:16 (seven years ago) link
xpost The track selected for Night Lights may or may not be all that representative, but she's playing rhythm-as-lead, zigzagging between the others without jostling; seemed closer to mid-60s live Velvet Underground or McGuinn getting ready for "Eight Miles High" than to Wes, but yeah some of his influence in there as well---also seemed like a track Mary Halvorson might be into.
― dow, Tuesday, 28 March 2017 19:24 (seven years ago) link
xp to lechera: they played for two hours! but with a lotta very solid guest artists including jim pugliese, cheryl kingan and karen waltuch... most of the show was nine musicians. ended with everybody walking through the crowd shaking maracas and too much time on ilx but all i could think was http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f163/courtneykaehler/maracas.jpg
― Bobson Dugnutt (ulysses), Tuesday, 28 March 2017 19:30 (seven years ago) link
damn that sounds awesome1) i love maracas and 2) i am going to see them a week from saturday!!
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Tuesday, 28 March 2017 19:30 (seven years ago) link
to clarify, them = the band, not maracasi have my own maracas at home to shake whenever i please (tbh i injured my right elbow and broke a cymbal with my maraca-enthusiasm so i am taking it a little easier these days)
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Tuesday, 28 March 2017 19:37 (seven years ago) link
you should bring your maracas with you they might get a workout.Both sets were enjoyable but the second was more noisy and generally less filled with moments of rapture. They did a lot of 3-d sound, wandering in the audience type stuff.
― Bobson Dugnutt (ulysses), Tuesday, 28 March 2017 20:36 (seven years ago) link
am i on the outside in reading 75 dollar bill as "jazz"? I suppose they're technically "new music" or "instrumental" but i kinda lump all that stuff together these days, at least as far as my internal genre meter goes.
― Bobson Dugnutt (ulysses), Tuesday, 28 March 2017 20:37 (seven years ago) link
I def wouldn't call it jazz -- probably somewhere on the improvised/experimental spectrum, which is sort of a sonic catch-all whereas jazz has traditions and whatnot.
Showing up to the show armed w my maracas is both appealing and the most embarrassing possible thing I could do. Can't throw them in my bag without giving myself away, gotta commit or submit!
Did Mind Over Mirrors open?
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Tuesday, 28 March 2017 23:21 (seven years ago) link