Rolling Jazz Thread 2019

I listened to Heavy Metal Bebop in high school because of the title (and because we played Some Skunk Funk), but it's my ground zero for why effects on horns are almost always bad.

Also a rare Terry Bozzio appearance before he became a professional drum soloist (I never really got into Zappa).

Jim Black is doing a week at The Stone starting tonight; well worth the Jackson imo!
http://thestonenyc.com/calendar.php

Sigh, changing from Apple Music to Spotify means I lose access to the Pi Recordings catalogue :(

Is there something I should especially focus on in the next ten days?

Henry Threadgill, Steve Coleman, Tyshawn Sorey, Miles Okazaki, Dan Weiss imo.

You might check the new Allison Miller & Boom Tic Boom, which unperson linked above---very appealing review by Kevin Whitehead on this morning's Fresh Air, with excerpts well-chosen to match his comments:
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/28/698903730/all-the-parts-fit-together-like-clockwork-on-allison-millers-glitter-wolf?ft=nprml&f=

Just found out that Ed Bickert passed on Thursday. I listened to him a lot in Grade 10. RIP:( https://ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/jazzblog/rip-ed-bickert

Listening to him this weekend for the first time. Great stuff. Doesn’t hurt that he plays with an excellent bass player, Don Thompson. Apologies for thinking that there was only room for one good Canadian jazz guitarist and that guitarist was Lenny Breau.

Also---Sonny Greenwich? Heard him only a little bit, long ago, but seemed good, kinda out there.

Thanks Youtube for recommending this banger of a clip with Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Mingus, Roy Haynes, and Archie Shepp (etc) on Ed Sullivan, it was new to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzGj_-5FGT8

about as cool as it gets.

Buried in the announcement of a pair of April gigs at the Jazz Standard was the announcement that JD Allen's next album will be called Barracoon and be released in June; it features a new trio (Ian Kenselaar on bass, Nic Cacioppo on drums). He'll be playing at the Standard with them, plus Liberty Ellman on guitar.

Got a promo of the upcoming Art Ensemble of Chicago album, We Are On The Edge: A 50th Anniversary Celebration, today. It's a 2CD set (1 studio, 1 live, 70 minutes each) out in late April on Pi Recordings and features a ton of guests:

Roscoe Mitchell – sopranino, soprano and alto saxophones
Famoudou Don Moye – drums, congas, djembe, dundun, gongs, Congo bells, bendir, triangles, Thai bells, shakers
Moor Mother (Camae Ayewa) – voice, poetry (Disc One #3, 4, 10)
Rodolfo Cordova-Lebron – voice (Disc One #1, 6, 9)
Hugh Ragin – trumpets, flugelhorn, Thai bells
Fred Berry – trumpet, flugelhorn
Nicole Mitchell – piccolo, flute, bass flute
Christina Wheeler – voice, Array mbira, autoharp, Q-Chord, Moog Theremini, sampler, electronics
Jean Cook – violin
Edward Yoon Kwon – viola
Tomeka Reid – cello
Silvia Bolognesi – bass
Jaribu Shahid – bass, tuned brass bowls
Junius Paul – bass
Dudù Kouaté – djembe, tama/talking drum, calabashes, kanjira, whistles, chimes, bells and small percussions (Disc One only)
Enoch Williamson – bongos, congas, djembe, kenkeni, okonkolo, Congo bells, chekeré, shakers, tama/talking drum
Titos Sompa – vocals, congas, mbira, Congo bells, cuica, shakers
Stephen Rush – conductor

Just heard this great version of “Stella By Starlight” on WKCR with the melody played on a bass but I can’t figure out who was the leader, because the jock didn’t say and they didn’t update the playlist. Damn you, Pledge Week!

Maybe it was Paul Chambers but can’t seem to locate such a recording, especially since it is overshadowed by his playing it with Miles.

It wasn't this, was it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xCwCjYQwJ4

Not 100% sure, but it’s certainly close enough, thanks!

What about The Comet Is Coming, now streaming on NPR?

#FirstListen: Stream The Comet is Coming's (@cometcoming) 'Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery' before it comes out March 15. https://t.co/b5qfLSNn84 pic.twitter.com/dTEyL5mfaR

— NPR Music (@nprmusic) March 7, 2019

yes!

I can't tell whether I am going to go for the gimmick or not.

The TCIC album is really good. I didn't like their stuff at first but it's grown on me quite a bit. I interviewed all three members for a feature that'll be out next week on Tidal's website.

listening to both the new vijay iyer/craig taborn + alexander hawkins piano albums today. Love the hawkins one best at the moment.

Last night on the radio: didn't catch the titles, but first a Hank Mobley septet, incl. the aforementioned Sonny Greenwich, and Lee Morgan, who wrote this theme of some sharp-edged curvature--ace of spades, cut and folded from sheet metal, at least as played---from around the same time as Mobley's employment w Miles, sounds like; maybe this is what got him hired---followed by the steady jolt of a strict funk note--jackhammer meeting great resistance, but persisting---over which layers kept tilting and shifting: this was Bill Warfield and the Hell's Kitchen Orchestra, an octet, so one more than Mobley's group, duh, but more of an expansion and flourish (yet no BS) than Mobley's meld. Only seeing one album by this Warfield crew, Mercy Mercy Mercy---good? Anybody here heard them live?

Hell's Kitchen Funk Orchestra.

Wow, really into TCIC so far. It soundss fantastic.

Yeah, sounded great on first listen.

Here's a link to my TCIC feature.

Thanks!

unperson, enjoyed your Branford interview. I met him long ago in New Orleans and it's always entertaining to hear him talk shit (actually what most struck me is his lack of snobbery about basically any kind of music).

Also, I only say this with love, but you should really change the name of the podcast to "Yeah, Yeah" ;)

Also, I only say this with love, but you should really change the name of the podcast to "Yeah, Yeah" ;)

Oh, I have definitely had this thought, trust me.

the new christian scott is so so so so so good https://christianscott.bandcamp.com/album/ancestral-recall

otm

My album of the year so far, probably.

Weirdly, it reminds me (in overall vibe rather than style per se) to Shafiq Husayn's 'Shafiq En' A-Free-Ka' (which resonance led me to learn that there is a new Shafiq album out later this week!).

Anna Webber still my aoty, but Christian Scott is definitely up there

the Scott album is astonishing

I don't love the sound of processed trumpet, it just never sounds as cool or modern as it wants to, but I do love the percussion on this record.

Makaya is playing around the corner from me tonight, I should really go, right? I'm gonna go. I'm going.

Listening to that Christian Scott album a whole bunch. Most of the percussion on this is looped, right? Is that something that’s becoming more common in jazz?

There are def loops, the whole thing is very layered and constructed in a non-jazz manner. I guess it depends on what's considered 'jazz', but I think everyone these days is more comfortable with using software and production to various degrees.

I'm listening to the last Makaya album, which I had not fully dug into before (possibly because it's 90 min!), but it is indeed great.

Very glad I went, MM blew me away even more than I expected. It was his trio with Matt Gold on guitar and Junius Paul on bass (who has an impressive collection of tights).

More solo-based than his records, but no one ever really drops out. Hugely dynamic, everything is beat-based but in a way that avoids feeling idiomatic or cliched at all. He's so amazing at this certain 12/8 flow, where every note of the triplet is voiced...that's usually an Afro-Cuban thing, and it feels like that, but there isn't a specific clave, it's always moving and shifting. Dave King is good at this too (and he's actually playing here tonight in a duo, but I'm not making that).

Voted in the Down Beat critics' poll this week - well, about half of it, anyway. They've got a million stupid categories, many of which I have no opinion on at all. "Rising Star - Flute"? How the fuck should I know. Oh, well. It's hard for me to believe Anthony Braxton isn't already in the DB Hall of Fame, so I voted for him.

Would love to go to Birdland tonight to see Gabrielle Stravelli and then the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra but don’t think I can make it.

Two bands I really like - flugelhornist John Raymond's trio Real Feels (with Gilad Hekselman on guitar and Colin Stranahan on drums) and pianist Aaron Parks' Little, Big (with guitarist Greg Tuohey, bassist David Ginyard, and drummer Tommy Crane) are playing a co-headlining show at Rockwood Music Hall on Friday night. Looking forward to that.

https://www.challengerecords.com/products/15517942371680

frisell and morgan, another record from the village vanguard date that produced an earlier record, playing monk and james bond themes

sounds beautiful, the resonance of frisell's chords is amazing

the strange duality of despising Bond movies with every atom of my body but always being blown away by renditions of You Only Live Twice!

well John Barry was always the most defensible part of that franchise

I always quite have quite a strong emotional response to renditions of JB. There was a Midnight Cowboy break on a techno album from last year that did the same, despite being nothing special tbh!

I interviewed Dwight Trible for Bandcamp. Lots of people are hearing him on Kamasi Washington's albums, but he's done a lot more than that.

The new Joshua Abrams is rather lovely. He's playing his guimbri a fair bit and the overall method is one of slow build and gradual spreading tones.