Rolling Jazz Thread 2022

really enjoying melissa aldana's 12 stars

More Miles from xpost The Heat Warps: the same run of shows that gave us Black Beauty (not incl. among these tapes, because officially released:

OTD in 1970, Miles wraps a 4-night stand with the Grateful Dead at Fillmore West.

“What’s the use? How can we possibly play after this? We should just go home and try to digest this unbelievable shit." -Phil Lesh https://t.co/pW1gDy4zqg

— the Heat Warps (@theheatwarps) April 12, 2022

Really enjoying that Yamamoto.

Actually a septet, he corrects later, says he's in denial of Dominique Gaumont's departure:

Today’s tape: The Miles Davis octet ends a brief California run with 4 nights at the Troubadour.

Oscillating between waves of unreal intensity and stretches of near-silence, this is the final tape before the Japanese tour that produced Agharta & Pangaea. https://t.co/ofDrjBoA9n

— the Heat Warps (@theheatwarps) April 14, 2022

How did I not know about Jessica Williams?!

David Bianculli: For over 30 years on our show, we have played recordings by pianist and composer Jessica Williams. We were sorry to learn that she passed away last month on March 10, a week before her 74th birthday, after a period of declining health. She leaves behind dozens of great solo and trio recordings. For several years, Jessica Williams was the house pianist at the Keystone Korner jazz club in San Francisco, where she played with jazz giants, like saxophonists Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz and Charlie Rouse, and drummers Philly Joe Jones and Tony Williams, both of whom she became close to. McCoy Tyner and Dave Brubeck were among the jazz pianists who singled her out for her spectacular playing.

In 1994, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for composition. After years of trying, we finally were able to bring her to Philadelphia in 1997 to play on FRESH AIR. In a few minutes, we'll hear that performance and the interview she did with Terry. But first, a brief appreciation from our executive producer, Danny Miller.

So Miller plays some favorite Williams tracks, then she demonstrates some ideas she got and adapted from Monk, Garner, Rollins, and, lately stride pianists---good talk, good-to-fairly dazzling music, much more of the latter:
https://www.npr.org/2022/04/15/1093047427/remembering-jazz-pianist-and-composer-jessica-williams

I'm not familiar with her at all either! Will definitely listen.

Same here. I hadn’t heard about her at all until my kid’s piano teacher told me of her passing.

My new Stereogum column is up. One commenter fixed on my use of the phrase "highly complex composition in the 'Brooklyn jazz by white people' tradition" but, come on, you can't deny that it's a tradition, school, whatever. I even defined it in a parenthetical - "(long, post-Tim Berne melody lines; intricate tumbling rhythms; sculpted electronic noise; more juxtaposition than harmony)". It's a thing. And I wasn't even defining it pejoratively!

Cool, but couldn't you describe a fair amount of jazz by black people the same way? In the same age group, but---maybe more in Chicago than Brooklyn?

Where black people making that kind of music are more concentrated, that is (or that's just where I here it more from, while not living in either city)

xp yo Sund4r Another guitar trip 4 U, 4 any1 who can dig thee 1981 Middle Eastern answer to 1969 John McLaughlin x Dick Dale's proud roots, lacking a better description, and I'm disgusted with myself for not saying more in these Pazz & Jop comments for 2014:

Omar Khorshid and His Group
Live in Australia 1981
Post-surf electric Eastern modal clarity in waves, wires (duh), and other forms.
Sound quality doesn't bother me at all, though if I knew his studio, suppose it might. Can always turn it up. The excitement of music and audience def cuts through.

Haven't got time to check if this is the whole thing, but here's at least some of the live album, with other excerpts also on YouTube:
http
://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrQSA0buXmU&list=RDJrQSA0buXmU&start_radio=1&rv=JrQSA0buXmU&t=2

The "In the Garden" clip is wonderful!

Man, thanks for the Omar Khorshid mention, I wasn't familiar with him, he's awesome. Egyptian surf-Morricone guitar, good stuff. His tone is great and his solos are astounding. Like check him out here from about 2:55 on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STw2KAShz7E

Oh, you're welcome---also, I finally thought to check Amazon and see that he's got several albums there, incl. the Australian show.

Today’s tapes: Miles begins a 3-week tour of Japan with a pair of thrilling nights in Tokyo. 🇯🇵

Intensely funky and frequently disorienting, these 2 tapes capture a band intent on rebirth and on the path to assuming its final form. https://t.co/MlyAlmw1bL

— the Heat Warps (@theheatwarps) April 22, 2022

I love this shot of Mingus and Max Roach *in the audience* at Newport. Who’s set were they watching? 1962. pic.twitter.com/zsRX6WB6FD

— Brad Farberman (@BradFarberman) April 22, 2022

Reminding me of this good 1961 album:

Newport Rebels
Charles Mingus
Max Roach
Eric Dolphy
Roy Haynes
Jo Jones
Jazz Artists Guild
...AllMusic reviewer Scott Yanow states: "In 1960 bassist Charles Mingus helped to organize an alternative Newport Jazz Festival in protest of Newport's conservative and increasingly commercial booking policy. The music on this LP (which has been reissued on CD) features some of the musicians who participated in Mingus's worthy if short-lived venture".[2]

Actually recorded in a New York studio, I think, but quite lively even if not live, and dig full cast:

Personnel
Roy Eldridge (tracks 1, 3 & 5), Booker Little (track 2), Benny Bailey (track 4) - trumpet
Jimmy Knepper (track 1), Julian Priester (track 2) - trombone
Eric Dolphy - alto saxophone (tracks 1 & 4)
Walter Benton - tenor saxophone (track 2)
Tommy Flanagan (tracks 1, 3 & 5), Kenny Dorham (track 4) - piano
Charles Mingus (tracks 1, 3 & 5), Peck Morrison (tracks 2 & 4) – bass
Jo Jones (all tracks), Max Roach (track 2) - drums
Abbey Lincoln - vocals (track 4)

Via the same links, check also (as we heat warp through electric Miles appearances from 1969 to 197?) the Brazil '74 shows with his three-guitar band (yo Sund4r)

dow, are you behind this site? I'm listening to the 1975.05.25 Rio gig right now and it sounds amazing.

That Paul Motian documentary is awesome. I could watch movies about these dudes playing jazz in NY all the time. I do wish they do some side thing and put together a collection of full performances via playlist on Youtube also. Seems kind of a cool thing that can be with so much archived material, probably take licensing to get the ECM stuff to happen.

Steve Swallow and Carla Bley are pretty awesome. I think they are pretty interesting people and have been tied to a whole lot of good music. That 1 hour interview one of the NY jazz school did with Swallow about his history is really good - he played with some of the OLD timers (pre swing) playing in Dixieland bands.

Looks like an interesting music scene and this documentary is a pretty neat look in.

I don’t really like a lot of Motian’s music under his own name (that trio with Frisell and Lovano made some of the least compelling music ever) but the documentary was pretty interesting. I liked him with Jarrett, with and without Redman.

I've never really had time to check out much of his stuff. I'm sure some of it is better than others but probably worth a hearing.

From the video, you can see Motian is a really different drummer. He does seem to like go from zero to smacking the crap out of some drums and cymbals. It kind of reminds me a bit of those odd rhythmic spikes someone like Monk would play. It's like listen to the beat HERE.

The guy I would like to know more about is Jack DeJohnette out of that ECM scene etc. That guy took a very different direction considering where jazz was at with fusion to go make some different spectrum stuff with the European ties. He's got a few different regular bands or at least worked together for quite a few years.

dow, are you behind this site? I'm listening to the 1975.05.25 Rio gig right now and it sounds amazing.

*1974.05.25

I was gonna say, don't think they've gotten to *those* '75 gigs yet, if he went back through Brazil after the (currently featured) Japan gigs, which, in his case, might be possible---and no, I'm not behind that site, except in the sense of running along behind, trying to keep up!

In 1970, just four months before his death, the avant-jazz saxophonist played two concerts to a rapturous crowd in France. A new 5xLP set collects the complete recordings for the first time.

New Chloe Jackson-Reynolds coming out this week.

I interviewed Flora Purim for Bandcamp. She's got a new album out, her first studio recordings in almost 20 years. Some interesting stories about Miles Davis, Chick Corea, George Duke and others.

Nice!

Preview tracks sound great. Glad to see Airto is still with us too, although apparently he doesn't play on this? I guess he is 80.

(although so is she, amazing)

Airto's on it. He's not playing the cuica, thankfully.

boooo

Would FP you but what's the point really

"What if we trapped a monkey in a paint can and shook it on the beat?"

Never change.

When I die and go to hell, I will hear soprano sax/cuica duos forever.

Today’s tape: The Miles Davis septet hits Kokura with a remarkably funky, downright jubilant pair of set featuring an “Ife” for the ages.

A night/day difference from the Agharta/Pangaea shows recorded just 2 days later.https://t.co/PSn8sLvqbl

— the Heat Warps (@theheatwarps) April 28, 2022

xpost Airto said that he and his friends loved Stan Getz, but considered the bossa nova albums to be "comedy records."

The East Village Other, 1966 pic.twitter.com/eTfr2bhZXN

— Kehinde 🇳🇬 (@kalonge93) April 28, 2022

xpost Airto said that he and his friends loved Stan Getz, but considered the bossa nova albums to be "comedy records."

Wait, Bryan McCann wrote a 33 1/3 about Getz/Gilberto and nobody told me?

That book has a lot of great context on Brazilian cultural history and the birth of bossa nova, and then its popularization in the States. It goes well beyond the circumstances of that particular record.
I'm listening to last year's compilation Directions in Music 1969 to 1973: Miles Davis his musicians and the birth of a new age of jazz. I already knew three of the tracks and I'm sure people on this thread would know more. The path the compilers chose seems to have been to emphasize the multiplicity of, uh, directions that the music took; there's almost nothing that you could imagine on a Miles album. So it's eye-opening but certainly not a smooth, coherent listen.

I can believe it. Some other stuff I’ve read by him is amazing.

His book Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular Music in the Making of Modern Brazil is incredibly good.

I can't believe I've never heard of this album before now, but I'm listening to "Night Train" saxophonist Jimmy Forrest's All The Gin Is Gone and it's fantastic. Forrest started out as an R&B player before turning to hard bop, and this album features Harold Mabern on piano, Grant Green (making his debut!) on guitar, Gene Ramey on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums. It was recorded in 1959, but wasn't released until 1965. It's on Delmark, and is easy to find on all the streaming services.

Damn reminds me I used to see that in the Delmark catalog, but let myself fall of their mailing list----he also did Live At The Barrel with Miles Davis, and it's been around under several titles, vinyl and CD---here's some (with an mp3 link, also a download option right under the vid, like that's an official YouTube feature now, though I
m guessing not--some other tracks from this are also posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElgNAg2OtJ4

I'm curious and want to to know where to look on Larry Goldings' long discography. I'm betting a bunch of those records are worth hearing as I really like Bill Stewarts drumming with John Scofield, his drums really breathe and kinda got his own style. That trio record Golding did with Scofield and DeJohnette is really agressive too.

Goldings has done a bunch of records with Stewart on drums and the guitarist Peter Bernstein. I'm kind of curious to what that band sounds like and considering they got like 10+ records together or with some others, how it has changed over that long a period of time. Any takers?

Haven’t listened to all those records but did see that trio live and they were pretty damn good.

Brave New World Trio featuring David Murray (ts), Brad Jones (b) and Hamid Drake (d) will release their first album Seriana Promethea on May 20.

Album coming from virtuoso youtube sensations DOMi & J.D. Beck (sounds like Thundercat on there too), on Anderson Paak's label:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmRppchB8vs

Much respect to @thomaspinnock for this superb cover story on the electric period!

The roll call of former band members he interviewed for this piece is amazing but to be quoted among them is truly surreal. pic.twitter.com/lAuz3AxRH9

— the Heat Warps (@theheatwarps) May 7, 2022