Kamasi Washington - The Epic

the ilx jazz poll says that

there's a difference between saying what you like vs. saying what is historically important. I am more often in the mood for spiritual hats than Duke, but no way would I say that the former is more important or central to the jazz canon than the latter.

i mean, i get it, once ken burns & wynton & crouch deify "trad" jazz (the idea that it's any more 'trad' than '70s fusion is a trick of perspective obv, there was a time when bebop was radical and a time when spiritual hat was radical and neither are true today) then someone needs to come along & find the 'jazz that seems cool still'. and so you end up w/ these alternative canons. that's good! my argument in the other jazz thread was merely that we should acknowledge that was happening, that when it comes to how people actually experienced the time things were a little different

Wellll...As someone who just recently packed his iPod full of Weather Report (pre-Jaco only), Jean-Luc Ponty, Stanley Clarke, Billy Cobham, George Duke and Al DiMeola albums, '70s-style fusion really hasn't become a "tradition" in the way you can still hear dudes making brand-new albums that sound like hard bop circa 1959. Part of this is because players who gravitated toward fusion tend to update with newer synths rather than continuing to use old equipment, they adopt contemporary production techniques (with the usual jazz musician's time-lag of being 5 years or so behind R&B producers, of course), etc., etc. And even "free" jazz, while you can still draw lines from Ayler et al. to what's happening now, has changed quite a bit. The biggest change came in the '90s, when players started exploiting CD storage capacity to release 60- and 70-minute pieces that never would have made it to vinyl in the old days. But the music has also gotten even more assaultive and unremitting - I mean, Ayler had melodies; Charles Gayle doesn't. I think contemporary free jazz is still "radical" in the sense that it'll send most people out of the room faster than any other form of jazz.

Hey deej you asked me how he was reaching out to non-jazz audiences, shit tons of indie rockers have zero idea who the fuck pharoah sanders is, this was that crowd

you also ignored all my posts about the actual show and how it was a lot more funk & rnb at times than pharoah sanders

Shakey he means JAZZ IS LIKE HEROIN TO ME ! ! ! ~~~~ ILM POST-1945 JAZZ ALBUMS POLL - THE RESULTS COUNTDOWN (now counting top 25!) but i do not recall anyone saying it

I know what he means! I voted in that poll

even as a pharoah sanders fan it wont surprise anybody to learn that it was the funky stuff that drew me in.

xp

i couldnt remember if you did or not. Phil did you vote? (i know deej didn't)

Nah, I don't vote in those gigantic-ass polls. I get 1/16 of the way through the book of nominations and my eyes glaze over.

I love when people who vote in polls complain that the results aren't canonical enough, never gets old

people who DON'T arggh

A lot of these jazz cannon type lists always seem to feature Ellington at Newport and omit at least 6 or 7 of his masterworks, at least this is an impression I get.

haha both groups complain! its what ilx polls are about! Theyre never dull thats for sure

xp

man, do you guys talk to each other like this based purely on opinions expressed on this fucking board? or did somebody fuck another guy's wife? sheesh…

on the last song, and the only thing I hear that seems outside of the 'Trane playbook is the persistent use of heavenly chorales, a la the end of the first side of what's going on.

i think the axelrod influence is just as big as coltrane

honestly guys, no matter what you think of washington he's a human being and doesn't deserve to be dragged into bickering about an ILM jazz poll, have a little decency

http://payload187.cargocollective.com/1/12/402674/6056932/WE_GOT_THE_JAZZ.jpg

do you guys talk to each other like this based purely on opinions expressed on this fucking board?

lol this is nothing you should see Whiney and deej go at it

Poll of SPIRITUAL HATS

i listened to this whole thing over the weekend! some great moments in there, and yeah some uneven-ness. i actually liked the vocal tracks! added a nice element i thought. i'm not entirely sure what everyone is arguing about here ...

does anyone?

its like the metal thread arguing that deafheaven are spiritual hat metal and not proper metal

hahaha

huh, well i don't know who deej is, I do know who the other gentleman is. I would say that it's peculiar that grown-ass men act like this, but I guess it isn't.

D-40

He has a point, I don't know why people have to get all personally offended. It's not unhealthy to interrogate one's own preferences and how they relate to a bigger picture. The people who respond with "it's all just music, man" don't get it.

is it too much to ask to actually listen to the fuckin album is my point. no shit there's cultural and critical elements to how music is received i'm not 12 yrs old

D-40 has a point, I mean

it's a facile point

Holy cow he already told you he's talking about the "reception" of the music, not the music itself. Maybe that's not valuable to you, I don't know I think it's interesting

How is it facile? Because it irritates you?

because it's a position he trotted out several years ago and has done so repeatedly, whether its relevant/accurate or not

Is it an appropriate avenue for discussion? Jeez.

I've ignored this so far bc I assumed it was the latest iteration of spiritual hat jazz

I mean c'mon this post is just a) I am ignorant and then b) am dispensing a handy, readymade argument I have against it anyway

and then c) basing that assumption on my own assumptions about the album's audience

Oh come on how many people bought/listened to this thing NCAA of the cover????

lol NCAA equals because

what's wrong with the cover?

It looks like a space rock album... It looks like a hipster album.. It does not look like most jazz album covers that are released these days

are you literally arguing for judging an album by its cover

brave, critical appraisal there tell me more

I'm saying if people were more inclined to listen to this because of the cover, why is it bad for someone to reject it based on the cover?

two groups of idiots that deserve each other imo

No no no Never mind, you sound grumpy.

You must be really special. You've never been inclined to check out an album because of the sleeve artwork? How is is bad? Or "idiotic"?

still not sure what the argument is -- people *should* check out an album if they think the cover art is cool? people *shouldn't* check out an album if they think the cover art is cool?

I'm not arguing that "people only like this album because it looks cool", I'm just acknowledging that it happens and that it's a worthwhile thing to discuss. Ppl getting all mad seem to think they're being accused of being racists or squares or something???

this thread got stupid

Fuck you

afaict the people who checked out the album based on the cover are doing so for the wrong reasons and don't actually like jazz, they just like spiritual hats, and should be judged accordingly as apostates before the altar of canonical jazz cats like Duke Ellington who btw is much better

this whole line of argument is stupid, it has nothing to do with the album in question and everything to do with D-40's tendency to engage in audience strawman ad hom criticism, which should be beneath us tbh

I preferred the posts on why people liked/disliked the music.

I like the cover - it looks great.