Rolling Jazz Thread 2020

Nonprofit the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance (ALJA) teams up with today's foremost jazz, classical, and global artists alongside preeminent speakers for a "get out the vote" initiative, Notes 4 Votes , to be broadcasted on ALJA's Facebook page facebook.com/afrolatinjazzalliance this Sunday, October 25, 2020 (8:30pm EST). Notes 4 Votes spotlights performances and/or speeches from Terence Blanchard, Vijay Iyer, Carla Bley, Dr. Cornel West, Oscar Hernandez, Simone Dinnerstein, Steve Swallow, Dr. Shana Redmond, Matt Shipp, The Villalobos Brothers, William Parker, Kikirikí Biquéy, Ayodele Casel, Akua Dixon, Jen Shyu, Ganavya Doraiswamy, Crystal Joseph, Tiffany Austin, Mimi Jones, Caridad "La Bruja" De La Luz, Luis Perdomo, and more.

https://wfubaa.bandcamp.com/album/luke-stewart-exposure-quintet

tremendous album is this

It is really good. I interviewed Stewart about it (and many other things); when Bandcamp posts the feature, I'll link it here.

I see he's also in Irreversible Entanglements, also on that latest excellent James Brandon Lewis album, he's everywhere!

He really is. He's also got a band called Heart Of The Ghost that are really good, and he's in a trio with Jaimie Branch (trumpet) and Mike Pride (drums) that hasn't recorded anything yet, but I've seen them live.

lol, I literally just had this stream of thought: "Well, he did do some pretty incredible stuff with Miles in 1969... ... ... wait that was Chick Corea"

He did play with Miles though, often at the same time as CC?

He did play with Miles though, often at the same time as CC?

Yeah, Volume 3 of the Bootleg Series is a set of four concerts by the 1970 band:

Miles Davis – trumpet
Steve Grossman – tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone
Chick Corea – Fender Rhodes electric piano
Keith Jarrett – Fender Contempo Organ, tambourine
Dave Holland – electric bass
Jack DeJohnette – drums
Airto Moreira – percussion, flute, vocals

The same band is also on Black Beauty.

Also on Live-Evil and one of the Fillmore records, right?

Corea was gone by the time of the Cellar Door recordings that made up most of Live-Evil, and Miles Davis at Fillmore was edits from the performances that now exist in full on the Bootleg Series set I mentioned. There are two studio tracks on Live-Evil that have Corea, Jarrett and Herbie Hancock all in the band at once, though.

Yeah, he was okay with Miles, but seems not to have liked playing so much electric, and in somebody else's band.
xxpost Luke Temple! I wanted to showcase the collectivism of the sounds produced in that first meeting. With that in mind I listened back to the first recording and transcribed different movements, motifs, and themes, plus added a few original composition ideas. We then recorded these collective compositions, first in a private recording session, second in front of an audience at Elastic Arts, where the Quintet first met. Good plan! So he gets back with Chicago heads and it all works out, at least on these first two spacious performances. Wonder if Baker plays his ARP on any of the rest? Will have to check.

Sorry, I meant xxxp Luke Stewart, as referenced/linked above.

There is a Luke Temple with music on Bandcamp, but I haven't heard it.

I know the guys but this is p good on the post-rock/jazz fusion tip imo: https://internetcelebrities.bandcamp.com/album/celebs

And yeah, I like the Dan Weiss album a lot. Like that Monder gets some more space to solo and that there are more extended tracks.

My interview with Luke Stewart is up now. I was really fascinated by this quote (which is why I made it the closer):

To Stewart, the point is to break away from the hierarchy—still prevalent even in supposedly free music—of the composer and the musicians who execute his vision. “When you listen to a field recording of a pygmy ensemble in the Congo, the question’s never ‘Whose song is that?’ or ‘Who is that?’,” he explains. “It’s more ‘What is that?’, which I think is a better question to ask when it comes to music and doing this work of breaking down hierarchies. Because when you’re asking who, you’re placing it in an individual zone, where even if there’s an ensemble of five, nine, eighteen, up to a full orchestra of music, the question is always, who wrote this music? And even if they did write it, is that music still theirs if someone else is playing that music and putting themselves into that music? How much of it can you say is yours? The band is improvised, and it’s a group. It’s not just me, it’s this band, and it’s me versus the collective legacies of these four titans of music, so it’s like, the concept of instilling your will upon a musician, upon a person’s imagination, upon a person’s creativity and then calling it yours. That’s sort of the concept that I’m thinking about and trying to fight against…to highlight the non-hierarchical nature of free improvisational music ensembles and also in essence [challenge] the concept of the capital-C composer and how it affects our perceptions of music, for better or for worse.”

“When you listen to a field recording of a pygmy ensemble in the Congo, the question’s never ‘Whose song is that?’ or ‘Who is that?’,

Maybe it should be though?

Wasn't going to get into it but yeah, that example would be a lot stronger if he were referring to how Pygmies in the Congo think about their musicians.

P cool Gioia-recommended out jazz trio from Toronto: https://ovalwindowrecords.bandcamp.com/album/clich-s-vol-i-trio-music . Clarinet, bass, percussion, no chordal instrument. They do an Ornette tune and a Lacy tune in addition to some originals. I like Houle's clarinet sound a lot; he and bassist Meger sound like they're in different keys at times but I think it's pretty strong melodically and mostly stays rhythmically grounded.

new joel ross album is good

The next volume of the Spiritual Jazz compilation series is called Now! and it's all new tracks: not exclusives, but tracks from the past few years. Includes stuff from Angel Bat Dawid, Shabaka & the Ancestors, Idris Ackamoor & the Pyramids, Black Flower, Damon Locks, Makaya McCraven, Steve Reid, Jamie Saft, etc., etc. 24 tracks in all across two CDs or however many LPs. Out in January.

another decent Kahil El’Zabar album out (America The Beautiful) and possibly featuring one of the last appearances of Hamiet Bluiett.

Any of yall heard the new Thumbscrew?? Looking good here:

https://downbeat.com/reviews/detail/the-anthony-braxton-project

That Thumbscrew Braxton album's a good 'un.

In other news, I just got this seemingly obscure email:

Creatures of Earth,

It is impossible to transform a creature of gross animal nature into a perfected spirit by some mysterious act of creative magic. When the Creators desire to produce perfect beings, they do so by direct and original creation. The creators never undertake to convert animal-origin and material creatures into beings of perfection in a single step. In a certain sense, all fifty-six of the encircling worlds of Jerusem are devoted to the transitional culture of ascending mortals. The seven satellites of world number one are more specifically known as the “Mansion Worlds”. I am writing to tell you all that I have been to these Mansion Worlds. I have seen and learned of the knowledge. I have yet to divulge to the mortal space-time creatures of (Earth).

I am RED | eleven.thirteen.twenty

The Planetary Prince

I take this to mean that pianist Cameron Graves is releasing an album next Friday. If it's the record that was sent to me late last year under the title Seven, it rules. It's got Stanley Clarke and Kamasi Washington on it, among others, and it sounds like if Chick Corea played a Steinway with Return To Forever, and covered Meshuggah songs.

Just recorded a 75-minute interview with Tim Berne for the next Burning Ambulance podcast. It's gonna be a good one.

RIP Andrew White-Howard U grad, sax player w/ his own band, & 5th Dimension, Julius Hemphill, & many more. John Coltrane solo transcriber, independent label owner, performer @ dc space, Kennedy Center and elsewhere, author,

Looking at an old Jazz Times article on Andrew White— guy was eccentric but skilled

My latest podcast went up today - it's a long (75 minutes or so) interview with Tim Berne. Links to listen are below.
Osiris: https://bit.ly/3kq9B0r
Apple: https://apple.co/3nme99Z
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3pn4zp3

In recent ECM news, I really wish Elina Duni would stick to reworkings of (mostly Albanian) folk songs and give up on trying to be an urbane songstress – she just sounds superficial in that role.

anyone listened to the new sprawling Nels Cline lp? I was busy doing things while it was playing but caught some nice dubby/edm stylings.

Oh wow, I didn't know there was one. Thanks, listening now.

Which one? Bow Shoulder?

Share The Wealth

DC guitarist Anthony Pirog who has listened to some Nels Cline has a new trio effort out called Pocket Poem

Thx, calz. Just added it to my list.

First couple tracks are very good and psychedelic and free of EDM elements, somewhat to my relief tbh.

There are parts that are reminiscent of electric Miles/Macero. Acc to this, though, even a lot of these were the product of live improv, not studio prost-production: https://www.jazzhalo.be/articles/new-the-nels-cline-singers-share-the-wealth/

Petition to cancel critics who describe things as "atonal" when they clearly don't know what that means. Language is a virus, y'all: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/the-nels-cline-singers-share-the-wealth/

Petition to cancel critics who describe things as "atonal" when they clearly don't know what that means.

Here:
http://chng.it/HmCJwzPPwM

Haha someone signed.

Just added my voice to the chorus.

Together we can do it.

More inside than most contemporary jazz I listen to but the textura review tipped me off to this Rebecca Hennessy album that I just listened to and found really pleasant. Softer vocal songs for the most part but they branch out quite a bit. Kevin Breit, whom I like a lot with the Stretch Orchestra, does a great job on guitar/mandolin/banjo.

https://rebeccahennessy.bandcamp.com/album/all-the-little-things-you-do

That Cameron Graves record you mentioned upthread, unperson, is completely nuts. I kind of love it, though given my hangover at the moment, I'm going to save a more intent listen for another time.

Really incredible new solo piano album from Jamael Dean:

https://jamaeldean.bandcamp.com/album/ished-tree

Excited to hear that. The EP he put out earlier in the year is fantastic

Presumably she's been this way for a while, but singer Cassandra Wilson unfurled her MAGA flag on Twitter yesterday in a big way. So much so that I saw someone refer to her as "Qassandra Wilson" and laughed before I did the search and saw that...yep, she's got the brain worms all right.

what I don't get about that kind of thing, is why, after these four years, would you reveal that NOW?

As with Sidney Powell, now is when the legit crazies are coming out of the woodwork.

https://jazz.fm/grammy-awards-2021-jazz-nominees-list/

Some good nominees there. I would like to see Ambrose Akinmusire take it. That album is really something.

Yeah, I really love that record, it's a balm. (See, unperson? Not negative or despairing at all).