I don't know what they mean when they say 'swing hard' anyway. Rolling Jazz Dflat 2014 Thread

TERRY WALDO "The Soul Of Ragtime"
Available March 25th, 2014 on Tompkins Square

Ragtime. The word itself evokes images of corny movies, bad record covers, overblown caricatures with baggy pants, cigars, funny hats, and those elastic bands around the sleeves.

Forget that.

Tompkins Square has released music across many genres : Folk, gospel, jazz, blues, old-timey, British pop, American Primitive, Cajun, Greek, singer/songwriters. But this is the first Ragtime album released by the label, from perhaps the most important living artist in the genre, Terry Waldo.

Terry's new album 'The Soul of Ragtime' is the culmination of decades of performance and study. Ragtime is one of America's truly unique and precious art forms. Comprised of original and traditional tunes, the album is stylistically so varied that to simply label it "Ragtime" is nonsensical. At times dissonant, rollicking, spacey, gospel-influenced and complex, "The Soul of Ragtime" celebrates tradition but moves the entire enterprise forward in surprising ways.

Terry Waldo has literally written the book on Ragtime. 'This Is Ragtime' is a definite history of the music, originally published in 1976, with a new version published in 2009 by Jazz At Lincoln Center, forward by Wynton Marsalis. Marsalis says about Waldo, "What he's done for Ragtime - in terms of the integrity of the approach, and the knowledgeable approach, and the playing of it - is the greatest service that can be done for any art."

Terry Waldo 'The Soul Of Ragtime" Available March 25th, 2014.
Hear/Post A Track: https://soundcloud.com/tompkinssquare/just-a-closer-walk-with-thee

I reviewed the James Brandon Lewis album on OKeh; also talked about his self-released 2010 debut, which is quite interesting at times.

Ethiopian keyboardist Hailu Mergia sounded real Jimmy Smith like last night live at a free gig at the Kennedy Center. Mergia's the taxicab driver whose mid-80s solo album was discovered and reissed by Awesome Tapes from Africa. He melds that jazzy organ sound with Ethiopian modal sounds nicely. He's backed now by Brooklyn guys, some of whom played in the "Fela" show band and one who was in Antibalas.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/keeping-jazzs-rhythm-with-a-shutter/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20140226

Great old-school photos of Miles, Duke and others by Aram Avakian and described by Aram's daughter Alexandra

誤訳侮辱, just checked out that interview you posted with Dave Rempis upthread. Good piece (I've seen him and Daisy play a few times in Europe), but I'm interested in why you have a problem with the word "scene" in relation to Chicago. I don't know the city but it seems like a perfectly innocent word to me.

"scene" can convey to some a phony aspect where musicians can't be themselves, but I don't know much about the NY one and its traits that are being referred to and compared to Chicago's

In that case, I was avoiding the word "scene" because to my mind, especially in NYC jazz, it has a "seeing-and-being-seen" aspect that I feel/felt is less emphasized in Chicago. It's more collaborative, less showboaty.

ArtistShare newsletter: Gil Evans Project live at the Jazz Standard,the recording of which will be fan-funded, material, from 40s to late 60s, incl. newly discovered, prev. unissued. Also: Maria Schneider Orchestra at Lincolm Center (plus: Ute Lemper's Neruda Project, Fabian Almazan)
http://www.artistshare.com/newsletter/3-6-2014.html

Come to think of it, I liked the Gil Evans (Centennial) Project's Newport 2012 set, which gets a surround sound mix here; good on headphones: http://www.npr.org/event/music/170167531/ryan-truesdells-gil-evans-centennial-project-on-jazzset Original mix posted here:
http://www.npr.org/event/music/158020421/ryan-truesdells-gil-evans-centennial-project-live-in-concert-newport-jazz-2012

nice, thanks for posting!

Could someone recommend a jazz site/blog for keeping up with popular new jazz? Guardian seems cool but I wouldn't know http://www.theguardian.com/music/jazz+tone/albumreview

Some jazz sites publish 1000s of reviews every month, this is not what I need.

The ArtistShare newsletter is good on the jazzers in their loose joint, like the xpost Gil Evans Project--here's a new update on their May shows, also GEP live video, Robin Eubanks and others (register and get even more,oowee)http://www.artistshare.com/newsletter/4-8-2014.html

Saw the Cookers last night at Iridium. David Weiss and Eddie Henderson on trumpets, Billy Harper on tenor sax, Donald Harrison on alto sax, Dave Kikoski on piano, Cecil McBee on bass, Billy Hart on drums. They were great, and there were maybe 50 people in the audience. Oh, well.

Also picked up a 4CD Proper box, Big Ben, gathering Ben Webster stuff from the 1930s to the early '50s. I've never listened to Webster, so for under $30 I feel like this is a good starting point.

Great lineup, wish I could have seen it, made it a deck of 51 in the audience. Suspect maybe people out of town or staying in Saturday night with the holiday.

omg

http://www.npr.org/2014/04/20/303773614/first-listen-brian-blade-the-fellowship-band-landmarks

I tried to listen to this but it played The Boards of Canada instead.

OK, I see.

Brian Blade album is v enjoyable. Is there something new by BoC up there too??

Blue Oyster Cult?

Oh, you mean Boards of Canada. That was from last year. Maybe it is targeted ad for you.

Oh sorry that was me making a joke about the way the first track sounded.

I doubt there's another person within a three block radius of where I live now that knows who Mary Halvorson is. Brooklyn and Queens are very different animals.

Oh ha

Got interrupted listening to this. Starting again. Meanwhile see that I have some two year old Newport sets on the NPR app from Gretchen Parlato and Conrad Herwig which I will listen to next.

Not jazz, but I guess the audio for that Ted Leo Aimee Mann collabo already came and went over there.

But there is a Tiny Desk.

From The Wire's newsletter:

http://www.thewire.co.uk/2013/12/17/460x200xMarshall-Allen.jpg.pagespeed.ic.ItFlQKNLKj.jpg

Armin Büttner, a Swiss Sun Ra collector who provided some historical information for Val Wilmer's article on Marshall Allen's experiences in postwar Paris in The Wire 363, has formed a one off label, Little Rocket*, with fellow Swiss Sun Ra fan Hubi Horst to issue a new album by the current director of The Sun Ra Arkestra. *http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/

Two Stars In The Universe was recorded in Poschiavo in Switzerland during the 2012 Uncool festival, where The Arkestra performed as part of a music theatre production, Oedipus-Akhenaten. It features the saxophonist, who turns 90 in May, in a series of duets with Arkestra member Kash Killion, who plays cello, sarangi and bolong. It has been produced in an edition of 250 copies pressed on 180 gm vinyl with hand printed silkscreen covers.

The album was recorded in the living room of Cornelia Müller, who runs the Uncool festival, and according to Büttner: "Marshall and Kash played beautiful improvised music for two and a half hours without ever talking about what to play next and visibly having fun doing so. We just sat there in awe not daring to interfere or make any suggestions. Apart from choosing the tracks for release we did not do any editing or much post production. The end product is a surprisingly quiet (for Marshall that is) moody, melancholy, beautiful record of many colours.

"Besides alto saxophone and flute Marshall also plays one of those old cheap Casio keyboards. I always think he is channeling messages from Sun Ra with it. If you listen to his Casio playing on "Cosmic Blues-Life Of Two", hearing the rattling sound of its keys struck by Marshall, you'll notice that he uses the same wobbling up and down hand movements that he uses when producing the freaky alto sounds he is known for."

The album will be launched during The Arkestra's forthcoming concert in Zurich on 22 May, the 100th anniversary of Sun Ra's birth, and is available by mail order direct from the label. Email dj at crownpropeller.ch for details. Büttner has posted a promo clip on YouTube filmed during the recording. Watch it below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KUMI7X7Xl8

Also from The Wire:

Saxophonist Charles Gayle will be honoured with a lifetime achievement award by Arts For Arts in New York, at the 19th edition of Vision festival. Gayle will also play three sets on the evening of 11 June: as a trio with Daniel Carter and Miriam Parker, as the Charles Gayle Quartet with Dave Burrell, William Parker and Michael Wimberly, and with his Vision Artist Orchestra, with a stint in the middle by poet David Henderson.

This year's Vision festival also includes performances by Mary Halvorson, Henry Grimes, Matthew Shipp, a trio of Peter Brötzmann, William Parker, and Hamid Drake, and many others, plus panel discussions on the legacy of Amiri Baraka. The festival runs 11–15 June. More details here.
http://artsforart.org/event/vf19/schedule

7:00PM - 8:00PM - Charles Gayle Trio + Dance

Daniel Carter – reeds
Miriam Parker – dance
Charles Gayle – bass
Michael T.A. Thompson – drums

8:15PM - 9:00PM - Charles Gayle Quartet

Charles Gayle © Luciano Rossetti©Phocus

Charles Gayle – tenor saxophone
Dave Burrell – piano
William Parker – bass
Michael Wimberly – drums

9:45PM - 10:45PM - Charles Gayle & The Vision Orchestra
Charles Gayle – piano, conduction
Kidd Jordan, Hamiet Bluiett, Ingrid Laubrock – sax
Ted Daniel – trumpet
Steve Swell – trombone
Jason Kao Hwang, Mazz Swift – violin, viola
Nioka Workman – cello
Shayna Dulberger – bass
Andrew Cyrille – drums

on first listen the Brian Blade album is lovely as usual, if not as stunning as Season of Changes. i'll have to give it some good non-streaming listens when it comes out.

i feel like the Fellowship tracks that deviate from their 'standard' mode are really important to the records, like say the pygmy samples + drum solo from the first record. Season of Changes is sequenced amazingly, there's the no-solos 'Stoner Hill' (one of my favorites ever), the heavy backbeat track, the solo sax + drone tracks leading into the killer closer. the new one doesn't have nearly as much of that, but the songs are really nice anyway.

Still haven't gotten a chance to listen to this properly. Is Steve Cardenas on it? Didn't hear any guitar on what I got to listen to yesterday.

Also another guy told me a little while ago that Jon Cowherd pronounces his last name pretty much like Noel Coward.

Heard from another source that Cardenas likes to use the Harmonic Major scale, as namechecked on the Theory thread. Not saying that this is a reason for anyone here to use or not use that scale, just saying.

R.I.P. Steve Backer, championed Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, and Henry Threadgill (among others) at Arista and RCA.

there's definitely some guitar, though not on every track (i think so, only listened to it once). NPR mentions Marvin Sewell (not familiar) and Jeff Parker (!), definitely no Rosenwinkel.

Oh, Martin Sewell's good too, on Jason Moran's fairly ingenious jazz-bluesoid Same Mother; also did some things in the same vein with Cassandra Wilson, but Moran takes it further.

In a very good way!

Lots of good free music tonight at the QJOG Spring Jazz Festival. Check out the stellar lineup:

http://www.flushingtownhall.org/events/event.php?id=1167

So xpost Landmarksseems like the great outdoors, though lower case: not dark, but not bright, in terms of treble; mostly midrange to bass, with sensuous sonorities, held notes, drones both fluid and hovering, like walking through spring air and shin-high grass, under canopies of trees (nothing too intimating, mostly old groves and orchards, not currently being worked much, or not visibly), as bass and drums keep me on my toes, while never showboating. Horns change enough, especially in the long excursion through "Ark.La.Tex," that corner of the map. Good to listen to during this tornado week, if a little redundant. Sorry, I'm a jaded ol' Southerner. The album's a grower, and this track, especially, keeps developing right to the end.
The guitars infiltrate; at one point, they're all folded into reverb. In his NPR interview this weekend, Blade says he writes on guitar, then sits down behind his drums, to study this thing "this guy brought in" with everybody else in the band. Out today, but still streaming here at the moment: http://www.npr.org/2014/04/20/303773614/first-listen-brian-blade-the-fellowship-band-landmarks

The guitars show up occasionally.

Dang--somebody go see this and tell me about it please, on Thursday May 15:
Fay Victor’s Herbie Nichols Sung (Thursday) Herbie Nichols was a pianist and composer of spellbinding insight, mostly overlooked in his postwar prime and later claimed as a cult hero. He isn’t an obvious source of material for a singer — but then Ms. Victor isn’t an obvious kind of singer, as she has proved time and again. Putting her own lyrics to Nichols’s compositions in this inaugural Brooklyn presentation by the Sound It Out series, she enlists Michaël Attias on alto and baritone saxophones, Anthony Coleman on piano, Ratzo Harris on bass and Michael Sarin on drums. At 8 p.m., Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, 58 Seventh Avenue, at Lincoln Place, Park Slope, 718-622-3300, bqcm.org; $20, $15 for students. (Chinen)

Don't know if I can go but I know someone who might.

And in fact, he is going. Maybe I should try to tag along.

After looking at that list was reminded for the second time this week that there are two bass players in town with names that are pronounced the same- Sean Conly and Shawn Conley. Almost posted that on the RONG DUDE thread.

Looking at that listing, I mean

What makes you so interested in that particular gig, don?

I'm intrigued by the idea of singing Nichols--hopefully not scatting only, but even so (with results to be YouTubed,pleeeze).

Apparently there is another bass player who does that gig who went to Hurting's alma mater. Wonder if he knows him.

https://twitter.com/JazzIsTheWorst

<3

Jazz is The Worst ‏@JazzIsTheWorst Jan 10
Hank Mobley's playing is the musical equivalent of a flaccid penis.
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Jazz is The Worst ‏@JazzIsTheWorst Jan 9
Hank Mobley was a pioneer of mono-dynamic unexpressive emotionless jazz, which is what most Jazz today is based on
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WAHT

hmm, actually I just put on No Room for Squares for the first time in a while, the band is great but he might have a point about Hank's solos