Rolling Jazz Thread 2020

https://jazztimes.com/features/profiles/how-jazz-is-coping-with-covid-19/

Not exactly sure which thread this should go in but I've been getting into the new album by bassist Michael Olatunjo, featuring everyone from Angelique Kidjo to Lionel Loueke to Joe Lovano. He describes it as "cinematic Afrobeat", and it took a little while for me to adjust to the pop elements, but there's some really good playing and good upbeat grooves: https://michaelolatuja.bandcamp.com/album/lagos-pepper-soup

https://saraserpa.bandcamp.com/album/recognition-2

Sara Serpa's brilliant wordless vocals led soundtrack to an experimental doc about Portuguese colonial history in Africa.

That new Moses Boyd album is great. I really love how the more modern (hip-hop influenced?) rhythms work with everything else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5QVcYeT74I

(Note to self: catch up on recent links.)
Hi PBKR, you might dig this thread:
the shape of acid jazz to come: MOSES BOYD's Dark Matter

I have been completely obsessed with the Milestones at the beginning of this set
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sayOJKN6yuo

The "Lost Quintet" period is interesting and sort of uneven, but this has to be one of their best sets I've heard. The way the pulse starts to break down during the end of the Shorter solo and then completely disintegrates during Chick Corea's solo blows my mind every time -- I'm pretty sure they are internally keeping time throughout but it's impressively hard to follow. Dave is an absolute beast on this.

I just ordered a copy of the CD The Lost Quintet, which claims to be the final show by that band, from Rotterdam - apparently it includes a 25-minute version of "Sanctuary." It's fascinating the way Davis would just let them go as far as they wanted, and then reel them back in when he returned to the stage.

ooh, nice

I've also been checking out a few other sets from the same quintet -- it's interesting, too, how even in July of 69 at Antibes you hear a lot more ties to the williams-hancock-shorter-carter-davis quintet, but within a few months they've moved much further away from it

Yeah, it's an incredibly stark difference from the summer shows where they're playing "Round Midnight" and "I Fall In Love Too Easily" to the fall shows where they're introducing "Bitches Brew" to the set and just going out into space.

Thanks for that man alive, what a great document. I'm super into that zone of slipping between straight time/metric modulation/free time. Obviously the previous quintet dealt with that at times, but that concert is so liquid, and I remember the later live recordings being much more in that intense free mode. I wish that musical phase was longer and better documented for sure. Also, topless DeJohnette!

actually, on second thought I'm not sure it's really a temporal thing in 1969 assuming the dates are correct -- at Newport the same month (July 69) they *rock out* a lot more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8tjjPfa0vg

Thinking about starting a Miles Lost Quintet listening/discussion thread -- would there be interest in that? I've been

I'm down

*raises hand*

Good enough for me. I guess next step is I need to compile a chronology of lost quintet sets available for listening/viewing somewhere on the free internet. Thinking about going chronologically.

i'm in

T/S: the lost quintet (Wayne Shorter/Chick Corea/Dave Holland/Jack DeJohnette) vs the 1971 European tour sextet (Gary Bartz/Keith Jarrett/Leon "Ndugu" Chancler/Don Alias/Mtume)

I find Gary Bartz's playing to be very uninspired tbh -- it works well sonically for the stew Miles was creating as a time, but I find very little interesting about him as a player

I'll also take Chick over Keith any day. But I think Miles was going for something different after the Lost Quintet - more of a unit, less of an assembly of *artists*.

Wayne > Steve Grossman > Gary Bartz

more of a unit, less of an assembly of *artists*

Exactly; the main reason I love that band is Henderson, Chancler and the two percussionists. At times they drove the funk even harder than the 1973-75 band.

https://brandonseabrook.bandcamp.com/album/exultations

fab new album by inspired noise-jazz merchant Brandon Seabrook is out. Featuring Gerald Cleaver on drums and diddley bow player Cooper-Moore (i'll cop to not knowing wtf one of them is).

That's a really good album. I reviewed it here.

I first heard Seabrook as a part of the CP Unit and always thought he was the best thing about the CP Unit! Brilliant guitarist.

new mulatu astatke w/ black jesus experience today! had no idea this was coming out even.

Thinking about starting a Miles Lost Quintet listening/discussion thread -- would there be interest in that?

Yep.

Late to the party but the Anna Högberg Attack LP is excellent indeed.

I don't think I need the actual album, but this is a hell of a cover:

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3912651398_16.jpg

https://spiritualjazz.bandcamp.com/album/spiritual-jazz-12-impulse

01. John Coltrane - A Love Supreme Pt. I - Acknowledgement
02. Elvin Jones - Fantazm
03. Max Roach - Lonesome Lover
04. Yusef Lateef - Sister Mamie
05. Freddie Hubbard- The 7th Day
06. McCoy Tyner - Three Flowers
07. Elvin Jones - Half And Half
08. McCoy Tyner - Groove Waltz
09. Archie Shepp - Le Matin Des Noire
10. Michael White - The Blessing Song
11. Alice Coltrane - Turiya And Ramakrishna
12. Phil Woods - Taste Of Honey
13. Pharoah Sanders - Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah
14. John Klemmer - Constant Throb Pt. 1
15. Pharoah Sanders - Thembi
16. Marion Brown - Maimoun
17. Alice Coltrane - Journey In Satchidananda

yeah awesome photo. I have the first volume of this series, and it's really good iirc, but I have never even heard any of the others--does anyone rate any of them particularly?

nothing says "spiritual jazz against racism" quite like phil woods' ersatz-grecian rendition of "taste of honey"

I have the first volume of this series, and it's really good iirc, but I have never even heard any of the others--does anyone rate any of them particularly?

I bought the CD version of two Japanese volumes, which appear to be sold out:

https://spiritualjazz.bandcamp.com/album/spiritual-jazz-8-japan-pt-1

https://spiritualjazz.bandcamp.com/album/spiritual-jazz-8-japan-pt-2

yeah those are cool, in my case i've used them as references and then tracked down the albums that feature tracks i've liked best.

not sure why anybody needs help finding recommendations for spiritual jazz on impulse or blue note. the one focused on steeplechase is like a nice mix tape, but again almost everything here is also worth tracking down on the original records imho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCSZ0roaS_Q

it's taken 12 volumes to get to A Love Supreme?

The early volumes included a lot more cool obscure shit...or maybe I've dug deep enough now that more of what they're releasing seems obvious to me. I can't be sure anymore. I think I'm gonna buy their Blue Note compilation, though; it looks like there's a lot of good stuff on there. I've created a Spotify playlist with all the tracks.

beautiful photo, classic application of karate hikite

new kahil el zabar album is dope

agreed, absolutely dope organ sound on it

does anybody know if there's a recording available online of

Bill Dixon Ensemble ‎– Live At Bennington College 1969
w/
andrew cyrille
arthur doyle
sam rivers
et al.

?

can't seem to track one down

Both audio and video recordings exist, but neither are online, afaik. This was part of a dance piece; Dixon was hired alongside dancer-choreographer Judith Dunn (who wrote the uncredited liner notes for Dixon’s Intents And Purposes) for Bennington’s Dance Divison in 1968.

His archives were donated to New York University, so that’s presumably where these (and many, many other) tapes currently reside.

It’s possible, and likely, that the audio was broadcast on Ben Young’s “Bill Dixon Radio” show on WKCR in the ‘90s. If so, any recording available online would be taped from that broadcast. There was a 1968 (I think, from the University Of The Streets) orchestra piece of Dixon’s that made the rounds about 10 years ago, accompanied by a brief interview snippet about the notation on Intents And Purposes.

i was hoping you'd see my post and response. thanks for this info.

at least part of the bennington performance is here fwiw:

https://www.discogs.com/Bill-Dixon-Ensemble-Live-At-Bennington-College/release/11628429

and respond*

Yeah, I remember seeing that release. It’s obviously a bootleg, but also has horrible sound quality, from what I’ve read.

right and also i'm just not going to pay those stupid euro bootleg prices, the whole scene just bums me out

been on that kahil el zabar album since yesterday, so good I'm going to have start listening to everything else by him now.

thank you to deej for mentioning that album. I keenly regret skipping an Ethnic Heritage Ensemble show in February

new kahil el zabar album is dope

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Friday, 10 July 2020 17:02 (three days ago) link

agreed, absolutely dope organ sound on it

― calzino, Saturday, 11 July 2020 08:39 (two days ago) link

Thanks for this. I was really digging this today.

fuck yes to david murray, this record is just what i need right now