Rolling Jazz Thread 2020

This is a really good piece.

Wow

Think about that kind of thing all the time.

i really hated it but i'll only say that i really didn't appreciate the snide dismissals of george shearing and buddy rich

Yeah that wasn't good imo. Sounds like his main beef is with hacky writers of tv & movies. He should try watching some movies about painters and see if the level of understanding gets any better or less cliched.

The visual arts get an equally shitty rep from pop culture portrayals yeah, dunno why that would make criticism invalid?

Yeah, I like Shuja Haider a great deal, but this is not one of his better pieces. I don't think it's meant to be a particularly serious effort, but if you're going to tackle the negative portrayal of jazz fans you need to go a bit deeper: The Committments, Jerry Maguire etc. In a UK context, I can understand the residual dislike of the 80s style mag approach to jazz, which was often fetishistic and ignored contemporary developments. He does touch on the racialised and class aspects of this, but it's something that could be developed further.
Having said all that, we also have to accept that real life jazz fans can be awful snobs. At Vision last year, I found myself stuck behind some blowhard who loudly expressed his disdain towards Patricia Nicholson's compering (I'd like to see this jabroni putting an incredible festival together for 25 years) and groaned performatively when Quincey Troupe gave shout outs to Whitney Houston, Beyonce et al during his set. That sort of nonsense makes me embarrassed to be a jazz fan. Unlike your movie jazz guy, this guy clearly knew his jazz, but his refusal to see the connections to black pop smacked of the old white-guys-as-arbiters-of-authenticity trope.

Lawrence Leathers tribute streaming right now from Dizzy's is cooking. What a band.

By which I mean Spike Wilner's (augmented) Smalls Sextet right now I guess.

JC Styles emceeing. It might has well be Smalls or Mezzrow.

People keep switching out instruments every couple of minutes. Right now only one I recognize is Mimi Jones on bass.

Daughter of jazz drummer Jimmy Cobb—last surviving member of the historic ‘Kind of Blue’ band—has launched a crowdfunding project to cover her father’s medical and living expenses. https://t.co/G4fqK0p5ZV

— Ted Gioia (@tedgioia) February 3, 2020

https://www.wbgo.org/post/legacy-lawrence-lo-leathers-lives-joyous-tribute-and-new-foundation#stream/0

Will not forget how to spell JC Stylles name again.

Chinen on the next Newport:
https://www.wbgo.org/post/ageless-masters-fiery-and-comers-newport-jazz-festival-unveils-its-first-wave#stream/0

https://amirthakidambi.bandcamp.com/album/from-untruth

missed this last year, really hits the spot

i know you guys aren't generally into more accessible vocal jazz covers but i am digging the new Kat Edmonson and this cover of "When You Wish Upon a Star" particularly. Yacouba Sissoko on kora and Deep Singh on tabla!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRj_0FTa0SM

American Masters, starting Tues.:
Discover the man behind the legend. With full access to the Miles Davis Estate, the film features never-before-seen footage, including studio outtakes from his recording sessions, rare photos and new interviews.
https://aptv.org/schedule/detail.php?epid=2378952

I caught Billy Harper’s quintet last night in SF. I’d hoped to get a chance to see him for years and he did not disappoint. He sounded fresh and full of energy, with a good band behind him. Very lucky happenstance.

This Moses Boyd album is hot hot hot. Love this stuff. London is a happening place right now.

https://youtu.be/eiAV0zQipLY

yep it's a brilliant album. Boyd on where he was at when he was making it:

As its title suggests, though, Dark Matter is concerned with more than just movement and sound. “I was reflecting on what had been going on at the time of writing, and it was Brexit madness and the Windrush scandal,” Boyd says. “There was a constant cloud around me. I was thinking, ‘Am I even British if they can deport people like my [West Indian] grandparents? Do we even matter if Grenfell can burn with people in it, and then get covered up institutionally?’

This Afropunk interview with him is good: https://afropunk.com/2020/02/moses-boyd-afropunk-interview/

Now UK jazz is having a sustained spell of creativity y'all should check out pianist Alexander Hawkins. He's recently been touring with Braxton and their band has been getting rave reviews and I think some of his albums are underrated, like his trio one, step wide, step deep and his solo from last year.

Speaking of UK Jazz, went to see Yazz Ahmed at Church of Sound last Friday and that was a stellar show, moving away a bit from her more abrasive earlier stuff into spiritual jazz w/ copious middle eastern influences. Warning: there are certain bits of the new album that sound a bit like Zappa, if that's an immediate turn-off.

trigger warning: Zappa influence

Just discovered an album I didn't know about from last year - the self-titled debut by Tenor Triage, a group featuring Michael Eaton, James Brandon Lewis, and Sean Sonderegger on tenor saxes, Brad Jones on bass and Calvin Weston on drums. It came out in September on Ropeadope. It's pretty good, raucous (as you might expect) semi-harmolodic jazz-funk. Bern Nix was in the group too, but died before they could record this album.

new jeremy cunningham album is great ft jeff parker makaya mccraven and others

I've been meaning to check that one out.

Yeah, damn; there's some heavy shit on that album

Great chordless trio in my neighborhood tonight.

John Ellis, Ricky Rodriguez and Jimmy Macbride.

that Yazz Ahmed album from last year is indeed splendid

Ok, help me because I can't remember the name of this tune. Thinking it's a hard bop classic, I can hear the original with trumpet, but it's driving me crazy. 32 bars with a bluesy A section.

I feel a little shameful because I was hate-watching Stanton Moore, but it's ok because David Torkanowsky is one of my very favorite piano players. Here's the tune:
https://youtu.be/Z7wSxD7RDkM?t=1007

I prefer the Stan Moore who played in Zakary Thaks.

Name that tune though

totally loving The Complete Blue Note Recordings of the Tina Brooks Quintets at the moment, which I think is something that has been out of print for a while. He was obviously a huge talent whose career was sadly pissed away because of his heroin addiction and rep for unreliability, so my awareness of him wasn't so good before hearing this collection.

I need to check that set out; I don't know Brooks' work very well.

it features some star studded quintets including Sonny Clark, Freddie Hubbard, Art Blakey, Paul Chambers, Lee Morgan.. poor guy was such a mess and apparently a bit awkward and shy as well that he only managed to have one album released in his lifetime.

Name that tune though

Ah ok, figured it out -- Herbie Hancock's Driftin'.

Off his very first record as a leader. I was thinking it would be a horn player's record or maybe Art Blakey, because I could hear the trumpet & sax in my head, and was looking up Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan tunes (and it is Freddie Hubbard & Dexter Gordon in front).

https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/

this label is on fire rn!

https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/to-cy-lee-instrumentals-vol-1

The music of "To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1" contains naturally elegant orchestration wrapped around something visceral and primordial. Swirled inside the 11 pieces are shades of Japanese Min’yo folk, Celtic folk, the Ethio-jazz of saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya and hints of the pan-human ‘ancient music’ that sat underneath Arthur Russell’s melodies on First Thought, Best Thought. The music is filled with space, inspired, he says, by computer games and Japanese animation, particularly Joe Hisaishi’s.

this is exquisite

nice! was just going to ask about that one--it hasn't crossed my radar at all, but Mekurya, Arthur Russell, and Castle in the Sky are all among my favorite things and I didn't expect to ever see them grouped in a music blurb

btw, I don't care where we talk about IA, but there is this thread if you missed it: International Anthem: S/D

bookmark added

Listening to this Alabaster DePlume now. Excellent and heavy as hell. I can totally hear the Ethio influence.

Also, why wasn't I named Alabaster DePlume, ffs?

yeah Whiskey Story Time is Ethio-folk as fuck. Very nice.

Supposed to go see Christian Scott at the Blue Note in NYC tomorrow night. No news of a cancellation yet...

Yeah this is great, IA strikes again. Interesting that they're signing London records now.

Was supposed to see Jamie Branch tonight, weighing out if I should go out or not. May be the last chance to see live music for months. I'm honestly kind of shook and don't know how to process at the moment.

That Keyon Harrold story made the news. It's getting around.

Countering that news, a little bit, this is coming up:
In 1977, the first Jazz Alive New Year's Eve special was broadcast live from The Cookery and The Village Gate. The tradition continues with Toast of the Nation, NPR's annual holiday special that rings in the New Year with jazz.

This year features some of the best jazz collectives performing today. Hear four solid hours of festive music from the Catherine Russell Trio (recorded live at Dizzy's Club at Jazz At Lincoln Center), The Jazz Gallery All-Stars (recorded live at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), KOKOROKO (recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall in London) and Pink Martini (recorded live from bandleader Thomas Lauderdale's home).
News followed by links to prev. live sets from all participants:
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/28/948032453/toast-of-the-nation-202
Will listen for the sake of KOKOROKO and Jazz Gallery All-Stars, whom I didn't know about, but incl. Miguel Zenón, alto; Melissa Aldana, tenor; Joel Ross, vibraphone; Charles Altura, guitar; Aaron Parks, piano; Ben Williams, bass; Kendrick Scott, drums; Jessica Boykin-Settles, vocals.) Will give the other bands a shot also.

Couldn't find a good thread to bump for this, but there's a new Maceo Parker album in 2020 and it's a great example of the form (the form being Maceo Parker albums). It's also one of his New Orleans-y albums, in terms of the players and the tune selection.

new thread?

Rolling Jazz Thread 2021