Rolling Jazz Thread 2023

I love some Jaki Byard, it's awfully sad the way his life ended.

Pi Recordings is selling 100 (well, 99 now) autographed copies of Henry Threadgill's upcoming autobiography Easily Slip Into Another World via Bandcamp. $45 plus $5 for shipping in the US.

ARTEMIS returns with the May 5 release of In
Real Time, a marvelous follow-up to their 2020 debut that highlights the improvisational strength of its members as well as their respective gifts as composers. The album showcases a new lineup with founding members—pianist Renee Rosnes, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, bassist Noriko Ueda & drummer Allison Miller—joined by newcomers Nicole Glover on tenor saxophone & Alexa Tarantino on alto saxophone, soprano saxophone & flute. Pre-order & hear the single “Lights Away From Home.”

You may have seen this on her thread, but just in case:

Multi-instrumentalist, singer & songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello makes her Blue Note debut with the June 16 release of The Omnichord Real Book, a visionary & deeply jazz-influenced album that taps into a broad spectrum of her musical roots. The Omnichord Real Book features a wide range of guest artists including Jason Moran, Ambrose Akinmusire, Joel Ross, Jeff Parker, Brandee Younger, Julius Rodriguez, Mark Guiliana, Cory Henry, Joan As Police Woman, Thandiswa, and others. Pre-order & hear the expansive lead single “Virgo.”

Heard this on the radio today. This kills. I need more Booker Ervin in my life. Dude named Gildo Mahones on piano? Sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILhyDtvL4g8

only other Ervin I've heard is THE QUEST with Dolphy and Mal Waldron, but that's pretty killer too

he did loads of good stuff with Jacki Byard as well

indeed -- was just checking out THE TRANCE w/ jaki on keys

https://ingrid-laubrock.bandcamp.com/album/the-last-quiet-place

love the new Laubrock, apparently the concept running through the album is "we are all too online" lol. Don't really care about that, she's consistently good.

Oh man, the Booker Ervin 'book' records with Alan Dawson on drums are fantastic, enjoy.

The Laubrock record really is beautiful — so are her recent Contemporary Chaos Practices and Dreamt Twice, Twice Dreamt. I just interviewed her for DownBeat; it'll probably be in the next issue.

the Booker Ervin 'book' records

oh, it's a series! thanks for the tip

xp

yeah Dreamt Twice, Twice Dreamt was brilliant as well, it was like an improvised soundtrack for a Hitchcock movie or something. Well that was the impression it made on me at the time, will have to have another listen.

New album by the Dave King Trucking Company on Bandcamp:
https://daveking.bandcamp.com/album/old-tv

Dave on piano as well as drums, Chris Speed in the mix

A pen pal got me onto this:

Legendary trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith debuts his all-star ensemble Orange Wave Electric with the exhilarating Fire Illuminations. This scintillating album features Nels Cline, Brandon Ross, Lamar Smith, Bill Laswell, Melvin Gibbs, Hardedge, Pheeroan akLaff and Mauro Refosco.

My reply:

Just now auditioned it on Bandcamp, thanks for the tip! Big Fun yas, though no surprises within Milesian perimeters, though of course MD and these guys have set the bar very high, but attentive, thoughtful w/o ever getting introverted, esp. struck right off by guitars erupting from big earthy groove whenever it seems almost more comfortable than combustible, on epic"Ntozake Shange," also Smith's trumper is particularly full-bodied and sparkling on "Tony Williams," also dig effects of short vs. long tracks. Smith was excellent guest w Ross and Gibbs' jazz power trio Harriet Tubman, on my gateway to HT. thee bodacious Araminta

Thanks again! Will get back to your linked Arcana, which I can already tell will be more surprising, when I have more time.

Ross's Breath of Air, with Charles Burnham and Warren Benbow, made my 2022 Top Ten via s/t Burning Ambulance arrival: https://breathofair.bandcamp.com/album/breath-of-air

Also good to hear Nels Cline unchained! (While still on Wilco's payroll, I hope.)

Hey unperson, while hoping not to pick at a sore subject, are you doing jazz releases of the month anywhere? I miss your insights!

from the controversial opinions thread:

On paper it should be extremely my thing and I like him fine in other contexts but I have never enjoyed a single album Wadada Leo Smith has made as a leader. This post inspired by two different jazz friends haranguing me this week to listen to the recent thing with Nels Cline, which on admittedly distracted first listen just sounds to me like very capable electric Miles cosplay. I'm open to recommendations and not giving up yet, but I've probably listened to a dozen of his records and none of them ever stick

― Paul Ponzi, Sunday, April 2, 2023 10:24 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

xpost

Yeah, I'm still doing my Stereogum column. This one ran earlier than usual in March, because I was moving across the country. I'm writing April's column now, and it'll probably go up next week.

Thanks unperson! Don't know why I didn't notice it when it went up.

Hope the move has gone okay.

re: PP's challop about WLS...

I really love the record with Naqvi and Cyrille from last year, in terms of his recent output.

I think that certain records of his feel a lot more essential to me than others— I discovered him through the bevy of Tzadik releases in my college radio station's freeform section, and I admit that I still think the 90s era Tzadik records are my faves of his.

Did the station get promo service from Tzadik? I thought Zorn didn't do that, but maybe he did in the early years.

xp WLS's first album (creative music -1) is one of the coolest solo recordings I know, he uses space and silence and instrumental textures so beautifully and effectively here. as a big fan of don cherry's mu series I really love his later ed blackwell duo as well

xxxpost Well yeah,

on admittedly distracted first listen just sounds to me like very capable electric Miles cosplay

From ilxor.com/Rolling Jazz 2021 (re Wadada Leo Smith, to start with):

Welp, somebody just sent me Sacred Ceremonies, and I've so far given up, after the first six tracks: Graves is of course the ideal collaborator, constantly (but never obtrusively) spinning fresh ideas around and behind the trumpet, but a lot of times I wish he'd challenge or just bust through these repetitive, frequently draggy-ass lines---at first it works as contemplation, but then what the heck, not nearly fuck, zzzz. Maybe I'll try some more of it.

Listening to more Wadada on bandcamp (think I may have already mentioned his cogent contributions to my beloved https://harriettubman.bandcamp.com/album/araminta):

from The Year of The Elephant, by Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet, here is the robustly Milesian work-out,

1.Al-Madinah 10:01

Malachi Favors Maghostut - bass

Wadada Leo Smith - trumpet & flugelhorn

Jack DeJohnette - drums & synthesizer

Anthony Davis - piano & synthesizer

https://wadadaleosmith.bandcamp.com/album/the-year-of-the-elephant

And a couple of lively, warm, distinctive, sometimes exploratory, always emblematic free jazz trips w Braxton:

from Organic Resonance:

1.Tawaf (Cycles 1-7) 11:48

https://wadadaleosmith.bandcamp.com/album/organic-resonance

Now you might think 11:48 that feels more like 4 would be enough, not pushing your luck--but personally, I find that the variety (incl. some lyricism and dog-keening) certainly benefits from added time, and vice-versa, of course---goes into second plane of my attention sometimes, but pulls itself back into the foreground, often enough:

from Saturn, Conjunct the Grand Canyon in a Sweet Embrace:

1. Composition No. 316 28:4

Wadada Leo Smith - trumpet, flugelhorn

Anthony Braxton - saxophones

https://wadadaleosmith.bandcamp.com/album/saturn-conjunct-the-grand-canyon-in-a-sweet-embrace

― dow, Tuesday, May 11, 2021 2:41 PM (nine months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Almost as long as that last one, but tensile and interactive with no claustrophobia---think the strings are my faves here, but he's always responsive, and I'm always ready for those drums to jump in and out---really good live sound too:

Taif: Prayer in the Garden of Hijaz 27:57

Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith - Trumpet

Anthony Brown - Percussion

Del Sol String Quartet

https://othermindsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/om-live-taif-prayer-in-the-garden-of-hijaz

― dow, Tuesday, May 11, 2021 4:29 PM (nine months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've been listening to some of his and Henry Kaiser's Yo Miles! tribute-based band albums, reissues and first releases, both on Cunieform's bandcamp pages: they're fun, not trying to beat Miles at his own game, but appropriately employing some of his and crew's more conversational approaches--shrewd-to-incisive comments from the guitars, bass, and keys for inst, w 0 bravura asshole Fusion solos, from them or anybody else---in fact, it's not really about solos, for the most part, although Greg Osby's alto and John Tchicai's soprano and tenor do provide tasty rations of such, and Smith flexes reflections of translucent punctuation.

This is a (non-Cuneiform?) collection of band originals from (then) OOP albums---current fave is the wah-wah shuffle, "Who's Targeted?", which also takes evasive action, and Smith also gets bluesy as hell on his hovering intro to "Miles Star."

https://henrykaiser.bandcamp.com/album/yo-miles-shinjuku

participants on this and/or other Yo Miles! bandcamp albums also include:

Kaiser, Mike Keneally and Chris Muir on electric guitars; Michael Manring on bass; Steve Smith on drums; Karl Perazzo on percussion; Tom Coster on keyboards,and sometimes Zakir Hussain on tabla, Dave Creamer on guitar, and the ROVA Sax Quartet .

Will have to check the one w Naqvi and Cyrille and those cited by Left, thx for mentions.

because I was moving across the country

wait, excuse me???

wait, excuse me???

Yep; I live in rural Montana now. If you subscribed to my newsletter, you'd know that already!

Re Wadada: He puts out way too much material to come to grips with all of it. Some of my own favorites include Divine Love (ECM, late 70s); Sun Beans of Shimmering Light, a 2021 collaboration with saxophonist Douglas R. Ewart and drummer Mike Reed; Fire Illuminations, which if nothing else allows you to hear Melvin Gibbs and Bill Laswell playing together, something I never thought would happen; and Lebroba, a trio disc with Bill Frisell on guitar and Andrew Cyrille on drums. I got to see that band live at Lincoln Center; they only played for about 15 minutes but it was incredible.

Thanks unperson, slowly going through some really cool records from that round-up (Daniel Ake, Lukas Traxel, and the Kendrick Scott)

Drummer-led saxophone trios are always better than saxophonist-led sax trios for some reason.

It's a fantastic sounding record too (the Kendrick Scott)

From the studio video, love to see that they're all in the same room without baffles or anything, that's the way

Oh I guess that's not actually the same version of the first track that's on the record, so it might not have actually been how it was recorded, but oh well. They both sound great.

The Kendrick Scott record — with Walter Smith III on sax — came out in March, and now this month Smith has a record out with Scott on drums (and a generally killer band: Taylor Eigsti on keyboards, Matt Stevens on guitar, Harish Raghavan on bass, and Ambrose Akinmusire on trumpet on two tracks). It's also excellent.

Thanks for the heads-up.

The Lukas Traxel album might sound even more incredible, with the same instrumentation. Very intimate.

Yeah this is sick

Matt Stevens? Cool.

I was in New Orleans with the fam and did Preservation Hall. Shannon Powell was the guest, which made it more than worth seeing. Not my typical style of jazz but a very fun live show, and one of the few places in NOLA where you can bring kids to see jazz in a venue.

Nice, you never know who you're going to get at Pres Hall but Shannon is who you want. :) I hope he said "wowwwwwww" a lot in reaction to his own playing.

My latest Stereogum column is up. I interviewed the members of GoGo Penguin, who aren't really sure they're a jazz group, and reviewed a bunch of great new records including the latest from Wadada Leo Smith, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Brandee Younger, Walter Smith III, Fire! Orchestra...

That Walter Smith III record is great. I prefer the Kendrick Scott one if we're comparing, but the big standout on first listen was "Amelia Earhart Ghosted Me", it reminded me of my fave Mega Man 2 deep cut, fr:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iKZXyXX_Ys

my friend recorded this album that just came out, he did an amazing job on the engineering, it's interesting, sometimes really trad sometimes more adventerous. jake b.'s day job is being one of the four freshman.

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

Cool, it feels like every Madison/Milwaukee/Minneapolis jazz musician I know has released an album on that label. :) They're like the Criss Cross of the upper midwest.

Yeah, Shifting Paradigm is doing good work.

So there’s a new issue of Jazz Times out, and boy, it is cuckoo nuts. Contents include:

—A self interview by the new publisher CEO, including one page where he lists all the jazz musicians he has allegedly worked with or just hung out with
— Four pages of screenshots of tweets criticizing the Wayne Shorter obituary with “Good Bye!” superimposed
—two “doctors” on the masthead including a “jazz psychiatrist”. They also get long essays introducing themselves .
—no jazz news
—no reviews
— oh, and a “rebuttal” article by Steve Coleman

Ugh. A year or two ago I met a guy who had just recently reduced his role there, Lee Mergner. I talked to him a little bit, can’t remember much about it except him mentioning his tussle with Stanley Crouch.

Oh and the story is the content is now advertorials placed by artist management. No reviews are a permanent policy.

lol wtf

Mergner was a very good editor and publisher. The two guys who succeeded him were ok, one better than the other, but they burned out quickly. I had a long conversation about this whole fiasco with a label head I know who had a very good relationship with Mergner and a decent one with the successors. Apparently the new owner isn't just determined to turn JT into his personal fiefdom and a hatchet with which to attack anyone who's ever pissed him off in jazz world; he's also gutted the other titles he bought into the bargain, several of which had small but devoted audiences and were way more profitable than JT. This is an Elon Musk-level suicide plunge.

Almost want to pick up a copy as a cultural artifact

Interviewed William Parker for my Cecil Taylor book this morning. He's got some stories. A few things will have to remain off the record, but others will be very intriguing to readers, particularly the backstory behind the "quartet" shows in 2007 (the Feel Trio — Taylor, Parker, and Tony Oxley — plus Anthony Braxton).

One cool thing that we talked about before the interview proper began was that he just recorded an album with Jon Batiste, the New Orleans pianist who was Stephen Colbert's bandleader for several years. Apparently, Parker has known Batiste — and Christian Scott, and several other New Orleans musicians of the current generation — since they were kids, because he used to go down there once a year, probably at Kidd Jordan's behest, and teach for a week or so. He told me he recently saw Christian Scott and was greeted as "Mr. Parker," and when he asked Scott how they knew each other, he told him, "I was in your class when I was 11 years old."

RIP Kidd Jordan btw