Rolling 2011 thread where I buy and listen to jazz albums for the first time ever

Gil Evans, oh hell yeah. I played "Live at the Sweet Basil" on a long drive recently and the time flew by. Not your great-grandpa's big band.

the simple fact is there are particular things you can do with large scale ensembles in terms of harmonic complexity and multiple parts that is just not possible with smaller combos. they have a wider tonal palette (in the case of Ra, they also have a wider rhythmic palette haha).

John Coltrane & Don Cherry - The Avant-Garde
Miles Davis - Black Beauty
Joe Henderson - Big Band
Charles Mingus - Oh Yeah

^^ these, for reasons stated by others (note ilxor-style dbl carrot #credmove). the avant-garde is a personal favorite. maybe not coltrane's finest hour, but cherry & the rest of the band are great on it.

(note ilxor-style dbl carrot #credmove)

NICE!

xpost yeah, i mean, a lot of stuff like ellington or gil evans is even *more* psychedelic to my ears than the 60s "out" stuff. just sort of this bottomless sound that can be as heavy as any doom record, or as light as, i dunno, ambient eno.

Sounds good, I think we're getting a good consensus on that list of records.

Any comments on these, folks?

Peter Brotzmann - Born Broke
Peter Brotzmann - The Brain of the Dog in Section
Peter Brotzmann - Medicina
Ornette Coleman - Tomorrow Is the Question
John Coltrane - Stellar Regions
Miles Davis - 'Round about Midnight
Cecil Taylor - Trance

(The album title Stellar Regions is a huge carrot for me, btw, in case that's not obvious.)

'round about midnight is essential miles/coltrane/adderly. title track (well sort of the title track) features one of coltrane's best-ever solos.

oops addderly isn't on that record. still essential!

Derek Bailey - Ballads

have to say, I've never been able to get into this one. the standards with out improv flourishes concept doesn't really do much for me. I would definitely recommend the aforementioned topography of the lungs or his solo aida album over it.

aida is out of print, however. but it can be found online, of course, and it's totally worth looking up.

Ornette Coleman - Tomorrow Is the Question

pre-Atlantic, pre-Haden/Higgins. I'd put it down about 10th on the Coleman depth chart, which for him is still great.

the simple fact is there are particular things you can do with large scale ensembles in terms of harmonic complexity and multiple parts that is just not possible with smaller combos. they have a wider tonal palette

otm - globe unity, jazz composer's orchestra, there's a lot of great out large ensemble jazz records out there. but if, you're like Phil and just don't like large jazz ensembles, then, it might not be worth your time. There's too much music.

Large-ensemble free jazz is a very different thing from "big band music," though. I wrote this about large ensemble free jazz stuff for Perfect Sound Forever back in '03.

Re the short list above: The only Brötz on that list that I've heard is Medicina and it's just okay. Stellar Regions is one of the very few studio recordings by Coltrane's final band w/Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane and Rashied Ali, and is excellent. 'Round About Midnight is essential. Trance is a single-disc boiling down of the 2CD set Nefertiti, The Beautiful One Has Come, and you really need to hear the whole thing.

xp - yeah, Phil, we know, but you've posted before about not liking large ensemble jazz - free or big band - or am I misremembering that?

I always have to pop in and say Ole Coltrane is absolutely essential for "Ole" along. Double bass baby.

Albert Ayler's New Grass is great. It's an odd record deserving of more love.

x-post That should say "Ole" alone.

Still nine hours left of the Roy Eldridge 100th birthday tribute http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/wkcr/

If you want to hear some cool stuff done with a big band, check out this album:

http://i060.radikal.ru/0912/4f/9100e7dcd3bb.jpg

The first tune on it (a version of Mongo Santamaria's "Afro Blue") especially is a good example of the sort of massive, epic sound you can't get with a small band.

This is another good example of an album which, at heart, has pretty traditional big band arrangements, yet gets quite adventurous results out of them:

http://storage.canalblog.com/43/04/500408/29169852.jpg

yeah, and something like africa/brass is coltrane (and eric dolphy's) version of the big band sound. always thought it was kind of their attempt to update the ellington "jungle" sound of the 20s/30s.

Still trying to think of suitable punishment for the big band haters: maybe a baritone sax playing "Moanin'" in one ear and a trombone playing "Caravan" in the other.

unperson saying he also doesnt like big bands doesnt make this seem any less wtf to me

*the more you know* big bands developed because prohibition drove dancers away from bars & into larger dancehalls which required louder performers

Hate to be boringly obvious but Sketches of Spain does the large ensemble thing for me.

thats not really 'big band' tho, its all orchestrated

yeah, gil evans is a league of his own -- he used "big" bands, but he's not really big band.

Sketches is the only Miles/Gil Evans album I like. Miles Ahead and Porgy & Bess do nothing for me, never have.

'porgy & bess' is amazing. 'prayer (oh doctor jesus)' is one of my favorite things miles ever recorded

miles ahead was def the lesser of the 3 but i cant imagine them doing 'nothing' for someone o_O

one of my favorite things ever is the brief little "here comes de honey man" from porgy and bess. must've listened to it hundreds of times.

thats not really 'big band' tho, its all orchestrated

― *kl0p* (deej), Monday, January 31, 2011 2:08 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

so orchestration doesn't equal big band? could you explain this a little more for a n00b like me? serious question.

big band implies the tradition of the dance bands & swing bands created by paul whiteman & his band, its the template duke ellington ran with & that defined popular music for p much 2 decades

but people are defining it much more loosely on this thread

gil's orchestration was much closer to contemporary classical music

but people are defining it much more loosely on this thread

― sarahel, Monday, January 31, 2011 4:16 PM (21 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what bands did i not cover in that description, aside from gil's

'charlie parker with strings'?

Mingus Ah Um might be the best way in, perfect mix of big band style arrangements in a smaller ensemble setting

or turn up 'Sing, Sing, Sing' really loud

ok that makes sense (xp about Gil Evans)

no, i think people are also using the term "big band" to refer to large ensemble recordings from the 60s and 70s that aren't "big band" - just bands that are big

to whom are you referring

phil posted:
I'm gonna speak in ilxor's defense here - I don't like big bands either. All those dudes blowing in unison remind me of chained-up oarsmen on a slave ship in some old movie. No thanks.

UH

i mean which bands. im sure there are, like, one or two others, maybe some 3rd stream ish, but im pretty sure that 'big bands' from that era, to the extent that they did exist any more, were in the big band tradition im talking about itt

anyway, I just want to post again about how awesome Ayler's New Grass is -- one of these tracks is reminiscent of the Benny Hill theme

deej - bands from other eras, that have lots of musicians in them!!!

can u name one

bands from other eras that are large that don't sound like Big Band? Dude, there are tons -- I mean, Anthony Braxton and Bill Dixon to thread.

Darcy James Argue's Secret Society?

brass bands