Rolling Jazz Thread 2018

enjoying the new Chris Lightcap – Superette alb, pretty much a load of bog standard psyche-rock jams, but good - might be a bad way of summarising it! Idk, that was my first impression - but I still like it.

That one slipped past me, but it's got Nels Cline and John Medeski on it so I'll give it a listen.

Peter Brötzmann was interviewed by Red Bull Music Academy:

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

An interesting Twitter thread from trombonist/composer Jacob Garchik:

Still think it’s bizarre that we walk around with several hundred Tin Pan Alley songs memorized but we don’t know the words. And no, I’m not gonna learn the words! What would be the point?

— Jacob Garchik (@JacobGarchik) October 24, 2018

Yeah, I think about that a lot (not that I have all those tunes memorized).

I think it's sort of the point of the Bad Plus, in a way.

I mean, tbf, I think a lot of jazz players DO listen to and study vocal performances of songbook tunes? And even the Real Book includes a lot of material from outside that repertoire.

I made a conscious effort to learn a lot of those old Cole Porter and Gershwin tunes so I'd recognize them in their twisted-up, mostly superior instrumental versions by jazz guys. It's made me a better jazz listener, I think. I can hear two bars of Art Pepper and know "oh, it's 'You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To.'"

Richard Davis always made us learn the lyrics.

Did you have to sing them onto his answering machine before you could receive full credit?

i love hearing how the educational jazz sausage is made -- more deets!

Richard Davis always made us learn the lyrics.

― change display name (Jordan), Wednesday, October 24, 2018 4:53 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Larry Ridley did the same. I think there's something to it -- these were written as songs to be sung, the first instrumental performances were likely imitating or evoking vocal performance, and even later, more abstracted instrumental performances are playing with the idea of the song. And the lyrics are a big part of what dictated the vocal phrasing in the first place. Otherwise you're sort of learning variations without knowing what the original was.

That said, I think standards in general were way overemphasized when I was in music school, and too much focus on the same set of 100-200 tin pan alley songs tends to hold jazz back imo. Today I feel like maybe that's already much less true, as I hear a lot more artists that manage to pull away from the gravity of the past.

New Esperanza Spalding sounded p sweet this morning.

xp admittedly I'm a moldy old fig, but I think contemporary jazz could stand to hew a little closer to the "gravity of the past"

I don't really get that opinion, there are plenty of really good players out there playing trad standards if that's your thing.

But is anyone outside of (maybe?) Downbeat writing about them?

And I'm not bemoaning the dearth of people playing trad standards (which sounds boring to me), I just think the knowledge of that particular corpus and its fundamental use as a jumping-off point for improvisation is a useful tool, just as knowledge of a simple Chuck Berry riff can lead to a psychedelic sidelong jam. I'm not waiting for Shabaka Hutchings to bust out "Embraceable You" or anything (though I bet that would be nice)

Really loving Universal Beings by Makaya McCraven
feels like some Hutchings influence here compared

hahaha influenced in that he actually plays on half the record apparently!

Christian McBride's New Jawn is a fantastic album, best thing I've heard by him so far.

https://wearethreefour.bandcamp.com/album/estrela

there's a nice off-kilter tropicalia quality to Portuguese guitarist Norberto Lobo's alb here.

I saw this Eric Hofbauer tour on Monday night (solo set + trio with Denison and Kruger + trio +1 [with Linsey Wellman here]): https://www.erichofbauer.com/shows. It was wonderful, the kind of guitar noodling I could listen to all day by a jazz virtuoso who could thrown in a standard like "Dexterity" (reminiscent of Lenny Breau's interpretation) while also getting into spaces that were almost reminiscent of Derek Bailey. I bought his 2016 solo CD Ghost Fret, which also seems v good.

I like Hofbauer a lot. His Prehistoric Jazz albums (interpretations of pieces by Stravinsky, Ives, Messaien, and most recently Ellington's "Reminiscing In Tempo") are great. He wrote a piece for my site about an early Seattle trumpeter/composer, Frank Waldron, back in June.

We used to be co-workers, actually. I saw "Prehistoric Jazz" live and it was great.

Really loving Universal Beings by Makaya McCraven
feels like some Hutchings influence here compared

― Greta Van Fleek (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, October 26, 2018 11:52 AM (four days ago)

this album is awesome

yeah i'm super into it...amazingly strong all the way through for how long it is

NPR are streaming the new Sunwatchers album

― Dinsdale, Thursday, January 25, 2018 4:25 PM (nine months ago)

wild

xp
I read Nate Chinen's review in pitchfork and was intrigued, thought I'd sample a couple tracks on bandcamp and ended up listening to the entire thing

Looking forward to checking out that new Christian McBride and going through some of Sonny Fortune's solo stuff. I love him on Agharta and some '70s Elvin Jones records, but have never really checked out anything else.

Ok I'm not feeling the McBride or Sunwatchers, but loving listening to Sonny Fortune. Starting at Last Night at Sweet Rhythm, which feels exactly like catching a great set, and going backwards.

Haven't listened to them in a long time (my friend had 'em, and he don't get around much anymore), but in the 70s we dug Long Before Our Fathers Cried, Awakening, and Waves of Dreams (those last two on Horizon, which provided lush cover art and sometimes insanely-for-a-jazz-label swag, like gatefold pouches full of highest-quality-printed pix, notes, sheet music...)

insanely-for-a-jazz-label-*lavish,* that is.

I've only ever heard Fortune on other people's albums (Miles, McCoy Tyner), will check out those 70s albums if they're on Spotify.

not on spotify but the awakening album is AAAAAAAAAAAmazing particularly sunshower
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fH_FANAywg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f40QEnMm9Y

yooooo homie :) :) :)

Roy Hargrove dead of cardiac arrest at 49. Holy shit.

What?!

Listening to a lot of Hargrove today, obviously. I never paid much attention to him in the 90s (except for the Habana album, which was amazing), but I did get to see him live once, at Sonny Rollins' 80th birthday concert. His hard bop style is reminding me a lot of Lee Morgan - virtuosic and could play basically anything. He's got a real feel for Latin grooves, too.

Never saw him, I am somewhat embarrassed to admit.

I was actually thinking about going to see him at the Jazz Gallery next month. Now I'm wondering if the rest of the band - Jaleel Shaw on alto saxophone, Orrin Evans on piano, Eric Revis on bass and Nasheet Waits on drums - will do some kind of tribute to him.

no doubt. Actually haven't been to the Jazz Gallery since they moved.

There was never really a Hargrove album that I connected with deeply, but his parts/phrasing/multi-tracking on D'Angelo's records are just perfection. Wouldn't be the same without him.

I saw Hargrove play with Herbie, Michael Brecker & Terri Lyne Carrington during their 'Directions in Music' tour. Can't remember who played bass. The show was fantastic, much better and more fun than the CD released at the time. It was at Chicago's symphony hall, and 2/3 of the audience, who I assumed were symphony season ticket holders, got up left the second the set came to a close. Then the band came back on and they jammed out Chameleon and a few others tunes for another 30 minutes. The band was just having a blast, and it carried through to the audience that was left.

Did see Terell Stafford recently at least. And used to see a bass player who worked with Terri Lyne Carrington all the time when he and his brother lived in the neighborhood. Sorry, that's all I got.

I've liked Stafford's last couple of albums a lot. I should see him one of these days.

I saw him in an interesting context, at the Jazz Vespers at St. Peter's. Would be good to see him properly in a club.

Yes, their name was what drew me in, but the Austrian trio Cowboys From Hell - sax, electric bass, drums, and loads of electronics - are pretty good. Jazz, rock, dub, and synthwave all swirled into one big roar that's kind of like a cross between The Thing and Shining (the Norwegian industrial-jazz-metal act), with a dash of crazed fusion and the occasional burst of funk bass. Their new album Running Man came out on Friday; I'm listening to it on Spotify.

Brad Mehldau Trio's record from this year (Seymour Reads the Constitution!) is really great. Feels effortlessly so, they're all so good.

Side note I was listening to 'Great Day', which I now know is a Paul McCartney song, but had to check because that melody really sounds like Cruisin' (Smokey Robinson).

New Szun Waves live album is v enjoyable: https://szunwaves.bandcamp.com/album/szun-waves-live-from-space

heck yeah

I interviewed JD Allen for the Burning Ambulance podcast.