"Music doesn't go seasonable to me." Rolling Jazz Dm7♭5 Thread 2017

Love Junior Mance, I think I tracked down some of his records at one point to listen to more Mickey Roker. Also went through a phase of listening to the really gospel/blues heavy jazz pianists (Bobby Timmons, old Monty Alexander).

Are you familiar with Junior’s main drummer and best man, Jackie Williams?

Nope!

I haven’t really listened to recordings with him, but loved seeing him on gigs. Incredible sound and deep old school jazz groove, like seeing Jo Jones or something.

Here's something with Junior and Jackie, haven't really watched yet though
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXXgBx2Jdac

Jackie was/is part of some kind of lower case drummers collective with Tootie Heath, Billy Hart and some others, the late Ben Riley maybe.

He's got an old-school touch and style for sure.

Junior would often close with the Billy Taylor/Nina Simone song “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” and the part Jackie would play would (I assume unintentionally) sound something like what Ringo plays on “Hey Jude,” which was kind of awesome.

Have made a playlist full of 'modal monsters' and currently grooving to all the Horace Tapscott I can. Holy shit the live version of 'The Dark Tree'.

Just bought Live In Europe, a 3CD set on Clean Feed by Gard Nilssen's Acoustic Unity because it kicks so much ass I knew I needed to have a physical copy in my house. The first disc is the basic trio: Nilssen on drums, Andre Roligheten on sax, Petter Eldh on bass. On Disc 2, they're joined by second saxophonist Fredrik Ljungkvist, and on Disc 3, they're joined by two guest saxophonists, Kristoffer Berre Alberts and Jørgen Mathisen. I also bought the trio's first album, a studio disc called Firehouse.

Check out Live In Europe on Spotify

From NYTimes show listings (pub. Nov. 24)---anybody heard this band/album??

KATE GENTILE NEW QUARTET at the Jazz Gallery (Nov. 28, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.). “Mannequins,” Ms. Gentile’s remarkable album from earlier this year, shows her to be a drummer of caustic power and conflicting vectors; as a composer, she writes in layers that dance and shiver. She is bringing three-fourths of the band from “Mannequins” to the Jazz Gallery, where she’ll be joined by Jeremy Viner on tenor saxophone and clarinet, Matt Mitchell on piano and Kim Cass on bass.
646-494-3625, jazzgallery.nyc
GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

Nope

i tend to trust gio tho

The album's on Bandcamp:

https://kategentile.bandcamp.com/album/mannequins

I think I might have a copy here somewhere; the cover art looks familiar and I've gotten stuff from the label (Skirl) in the past.

Listened to the one track that's streaming on Bandcamp. Why do so many young jazz musicians write heads that sound like notes scattered on a tabletop like Scrabble tiles? Who started this shit, and how do we (critics, listeners) make it stop? Will burning down the music schools help?

(Fittingly, considering who's on piano here) Tim Berne?

Ha, idk, track seems cool to me.

Finally listened to the Rez Abbasi album twice today and, yeah, that's something else. I was a fan of 2005's Snake Charmer, and saw him live a couple of times and even hung out with him briefly, but never kept up for some reason.

Went to see Kate Gentile at the Jazz Gallery last night. Not my thing, but I had a nice conversation with her afterwards.

Ralph Towner album is lovely. Dude is 77!

Here's a chunk of the Kate Gentile Quartet set I saw Tuesday night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7aTlyOfrJo

liking this Joseph Shabason track a lot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCnLG6VoSTo

The Wire assigns genre-specific charts to individual writers for their year-end issue (the big top 50 is voted on by all the staff and contributors); they gave me the jazz list, so here it is:

1. Yazz Ahmed, La Saboteuse (Naim Audio)
2. Jaimie Branch, Fly Or Die (International Anthem)
3. Camilla George Quartet, Isang (Ubuntu Music)
4. Christian Scott, The Centennial Trilogy (Ropeadope)
5. Irreversible Entanglements, s/t (International Anthem)
6. Vijay Iyer Sextet, Far From Over (ECM)
7. Tyshawn Sorey, Verisimilitude (Pi)
8. Kamasi Washington, Harmony Of Difference (Young Turks)
9. Harriet Tubman, Araminta (Sunnyside)
10. JD Allen, Radio Flyer (Savant)

Interesting: I listened to the Branch a lot over the summer; I should probably pull it out again.

That and Harriet Tubman will prob be on my Pazz & Jop (maybe some of those others if I make time to listen)

The Branch album is great and the Harriet Tubman was just bubbling under my top ten, which is here:

http://thequietus.com/articles/23721-best-jazz-2017-top-ten-jaimie-branch-pat-thomas-alice-coltrane-nicole-mitchell

Thanks, Stew! Several there I hadn't heard of, well def check out Irreversible Entanglements (on bandcamp) for a start. Alice Coltrane sounds bluesy to me, or maybe it's mainly the voice of experience. Cosmic and transcendent (state of being as a work in progress for most if not all mortals) should mean you've been around, so that's part of her appeal.

thanks for highlighting that Pat Thomas album as well, Stew.

Collocutor was on the Vinyl Factory eoy list, sounds good to me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zShH8IJiUyI

A pleasure! Pat Thomas is incredible. Also really dug this 90s live recording of him with Lol Coxhill, playing wonky samples and synth as well as piano. The label, Scatter, has archived its releases on bandcamp - loads of great stuff to check out from Steve Beresford to a gorgeous Derek Bailey live set. https://scatterarchive.bandcamp.com/album/one-night-in-glasgow

Will check that for sure, thanks again. Somebody in Brussels just sent me this Swedish doc excerpt, mainly Don Cherry, Blood Ulmer, and Rashied Ali live (one of the comments says the doc also incl. shots of Moki Cherry's textiles, and judging from the visuals here, overall might be mainly about DC's life in Sweden, though he comments briefly here on scuffling in mid-60s NYC, cabaret cards, few gigs for the Coleman Quartet, food & lodging etc.) It's 9-10 minutes, but much content. h
ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S9eGFOcBEY&index=21&list=RD1JG4_4xQYck
(lot of other wild stuff on this page)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S9eGFOcBEY&index=21&list=RD1JG4_4xQYck

That post isn't playing on my Firefox, but it is on Chrome.

And that one I was raving about upthread (in this case, Jane Ira Bloom's Wild Lines: Improvising Emily Dickinson) is Top Ten too, far as I'm concerned.

RIP Sunny Murray. I revived his own thread.

A sequence of tweets from Vijay Iyer (apologies in advance if there are any formatting fuckups):

As we can all see, and as @ImaniUzuri and several others have pointed out, there are almost no women on this festival program. 1/ https://t.co/EYq7IoPYmy

— vijay iyer (@vijayiyer) December 9, 2017

Because of this, while I will honor our commitment tonight, I am donating my fee to Women of Color in the Arts, @WOCAonline 2/

— vijay iyer (@vijayiyer) December 9, 2017

When more women are given curatorial power in the arts, situations like this will ultimately be the exception, rather than the norm. 3/

— vijay iyer (@vijayiyer) December 9, 2017

So please consider making a charitable donation to an organization that is actively working toward that goal.https://t.co/3f8oMYeLek

— vijay iyer (@vijayiyer) December 9, 2017

Intrigued by this new venue 75 Club, at 75 Murray. Same address also seems to host some Wilbur’s Warehouse related events.

http://75clubnyc.com/
https://tribecacitizen.com/2017/10/12/a-new-jazz-club/

Even though you can’t play anymore, it must bring you some satisfaction to know that you gave people so much through your music.
Not really.
http://www.vulture.com/2017/12/jazz-icon-sonny-rollins-on-giving-up-playing-and-his-legacy.html

Amazing interview

Yes, very inspiring

And yet in parts surprisingly close to that New Yorker piece everyone got so pissed off about...

Which New Yorker piece is that?

This one:
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/sonny-rollins-words

Sonny himself thought it was funny.

That Vulture interview is iconic.

I got an assignment to review the new album by Swedish saxophonist Bernt Rosengren, and I liked it a lot - so much so that I ordered his three previous albums, all recorded with the same band and for the same label, from Sweden. They just arrived today, and I'm very much looking forward to checking them out. Two of them feature a mix of standards and originals, but one is entirely made up of pieces by other Swedish jazz musicians, which ought to be cool.

I wrote up the best jazz albums of 2017 for Stereogum.

thanks for the lists unperson, checking out these albums today

My friend who is a lover of clarinet music is going to be in NYC in January. What gigs shall I point him to?

Ken Peplowski, if he is playing.