Rolling Jazz Thread 2019

That Niescier is really good. The Cage-inspired compositional strategies produce some fascinatingly odd results, but it never feels dry or overly cerebral. Having Gerald Cleaver on drums helps of course, but credit is due to the whole band for finding that sweet spot between body and head.

Unperson, really enjoyed the Herlin interview. Thanks for asking about Shannon!

Thanks! I really had a good time talking to him - I hoped my request for an explanation of New Orleans vs. New York rhythms wouldn't come off too "Drumming for Dipshits," but his explanation was really interesting to me, anyway.

Yep, that's exactly what I expected him to say, it's very true.

Just for fun, here he is playing my bass drum at a church service in Switzerland 11 years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwRC2QoEkyg

So the Lithuanian label NoBusiness and writer Ed Hazell have been working with Sam Rivers' daughter Monique to dig through her dad's archives and put out what's going to be a series of eight releases over the next couple of years. The first one is due out late May/early June - it's a live trio recording with Cecil McBee and Norman Connors, the same band heard on 1973's Streams, but this is from June 1971 and is even more intense. One half-hour track, one 45-minute track, total improv.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D6OpjFEXsAAAP5o.jpg

Marshall Allen, Danny Ray Thompson, Jamie Saft, Trevor Dunn, Balazs Pandi, Roswell Rudd
Ceremonial Healing

^^^

This is a pretty sick album

recorded in '16 and apparently contains the last recorded appearance of Roswell Rudd (rip).

Sounds interesting - I've just reached out to the label's publicist to see if it's going to be released on anything other than vinyl.

as much as I enjoyed blasting this out yesterday. I wouldn't be even slightly interested in paying £30 odd for it on vinyl. I presume they might be delaying the flac/mp3 downloads to maximize the profits from the collector market first, but that just drives ppl like me to slsk.

The MP3s I got from the label were tagged in a way that makes me think there'll be a 2CD version by the end of the year, but they have to allow a certain window to elapse first to keep it legally an RSD exclusive.

Apparently John Zorn's Tzadik label got fucked really hard by the PledgeMusic implosion - they used the site to fund a giant deluxe box set, but they're not getting the pledge money. So they're launching a limited edition series of LPs to cover their losses:

https://tzadik.limitedrun.com/

Allison Miller is playing here with violinist Jenny Scheinman, I should probably go? But it's on a weeknight and I probably won't, unfortunately.

Jenny Scheinman is worth seeing so yeah, go

The MP3s I got from the label were tagged in a way that makes me think there'll be a 2CD version by the end of the year, but they have to allow a certain window to elapse first to keep it legally an RSD exclusive.

― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Tuesday, May 14, 2019 6:57 AM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is good news

I'm having deja vu about posting this, but I'm listening to the new Lage Lund record and it's pretty cool, it's nice to hear Tyshawn Sorey in a fully rhythmic and idiomatic context (w/Larry Grenadier on bass).

Also enjoying looking up old Bad Plus videos from when Reid Anderson looked like a grunge dude (lots of flip flops and unbuttoned shirt cuffs), and Dave King hadn't gotten all fit and stylish yet.

Anderson was swinging on the flippity-flop.

wait dave king is fit and stylish now?

fit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3isNd6UGaDQ

And the last couple times I saw him, my gf remarked on the quality of his shoes (no socks), he was fully cuffed and had the top button happening, looking good imo.

Brad Mehldau - Finding Gabriel is really hitting me, kind of adventurous in a low key MOR way, a lot of electronics and synth textures, jazz-meets-Brian-Wilson vocal arrangements

ooh good I'm always happy to check out some new Mehldau.

That description literally makes me shudder, but I'm glad you're into it.

An album that surprised me this week is pianist Greg Foat's The Mage, which features Malcolm Catto (of the Heliocentrics), Clark Tracey, and Moses Boyd on drums on various tracks; saxophonists Duncan Lamont and Art Themen; and guitarist Ray Russell. (Those dudes are all British jazz vets who've also recorded tons of library music and whatnot.) The first track is a kind of Pentangle-meets-Wicker Man version of the hymn “Of My Hands” with a female singer (Kathleen Garcia), but there's some other stuff later on that sounds like if Stanley Turrentine had made a whole album of Pink Floyd (circa Meddle/Dark Side) covers for CTI.

https://aotns.bandcamp.com/album/the-mage

Do you like him in general (Brad M)?

well I like a lot of 3 sounds/Turrentine/Pentangle so that sounds fucking good as well!

his last alb Seymour Reads the Constitution was brilliant.

Do you like him in general (Brad M)?

I like the Art of the Trio records, but I don't listen to them often. It was mostly the "jazz-meets-Brian Wilson vocal arrangements" that hurt.

Lol Wilson can be a loaded term, I could have referenced Kamasi or Axelrod I guess

Cheers for the Foat recommendation. I liked the Hampshire Foat stuff without ever being bowled over by it. This is making me think of Ian Carr's Belladonna in places.

At 37 minutes, the Foat record does feel a little like cuttings. By which I mean if there's more lying about, I'd gladly hear it.

Ahmad Jamal’s quartet was INCREDIBLE tonight. Full review on Stereogum on Friday.

really enjoying the Greg Foat

Tried putting on the Mehldau at home and the first track got an instant veto from the other human present

Listening now though and the other tracks are much less obnoxious, although odd-time trap beats aren't particularly cute (but stock drum machine samples + amazing string section on track 5 kinda brings to mind the last Radiohead album, which makes sense with Mehldau).

Funny that the worst tracks on this are the ones with Mark Guiliana ripping (I guess because he was brought in to sell the most overblown/melodramatic moments). I like Mehldau in chill beatmaker mode though!

he's fundamentally uncool but I like em

also this Greg Foat is extremely my jam

Hadn't heard of Greg Foat until now but this does a great job at seemingly like a lost '70s mystic jazz-folk curio

Such stoner jazz! Nice to listen to at work but it veers into corny self-serious jam territory sometimes (as nice as the tones and sax players are)

(sorry, I feel like I'm really bringing spicy takes today)

I find that new Mehldau completely unlistenable :(

Shuffling an old Mosaic box - five CDs by the Teddy Wilson Trio - which has been put up on Spotify by the original label, Verve. I think a whole bunch of these sets have been similarly repurposed in the streaming era, once Mosaic's limited rights to the physical reissue have run out. Anyway, I'm not at all familiar with Wilson's work, but this is pretty nice. Kind of cocktail-ish, but the band (various bassists, with Jo Jones on drums most of the time) swings hard.

Bouncing around Spotify and I learned that Joshua Redman had a new record come out this year, and it's great so far. Greg Hutchinson on drums, who I love (although the drum sound on most modern jazz records is so anemic and boring).

Tried putting on the Mehldau at home and the first track got an instant veto from the other human present

exterior

That makes it sound great, but if you imagine a civilian drinking her coffee in the morning and all of sudden there is a choir with dense jazzy harmonies, a busy distorted trumpet solo, and even busier live breakbeats, y'know, it's a lot. Might be a little offputting!

Re: drum sounds, here's Greg Hutchinson on my favorite Christian McBride record, now that's a drum sound: https://open.spotify.com/track/6rBmuYSyOWxZYCPT2CLBoZ?si=JMczQkyrQBKqhrnJJQ5U3A

wrt Greg Foat, definitely corny and self serious at times but given the UK folk they are touching on that's kind of appropriate

digging it

Oh, I really like the sound of this Mehldau so far.

Currently liking the new dave douglas trio album with andrew cyrille on drums and someone good on piano.

Yeah, that's a good one - it'll be in my Stereogum column on Friday. Uri Caine on piano - it's a sequel to a Douglas/Caine duo album from 2014, but Cyrille really adds to the mix (more so than he's done on some of his own recent ECM work, honestly - Manfred Eicher encourages him to underplay to the point that he's barely present).

https://davedouglas.bandcamp.com/album/present-joys

could imagine Eicher just wanting every drummer to sound like Paul Motian, which is probably quite unreasonable despite the fact that he was pretty great.

Kevin Whitehead on Branford Marsalis Quartet's latest---first excerpt is ho-hum, but others get better and better: https://www.npr.org/2019/05/22/725697470/branford-marsalis-revels-in-jazzs-timeless-challenges-on-new-album

Suffering a bit from LDN Jazz fatigue, but the Cykada album is great.