Rolling Jazz Thread 2020

I feel like there have been a ton of versions of "Lonely Woman," but that's 60 years old.

oh man this dolphy solo on “head shakin” though

Smalls livestream is great right now.

Guy who inspired this thread is playing: Math & Music: The Severed Alliance. Some Recent Academic Approaches (Do Not Read If You Hate Drums)

Man International Anthem is having such an incredible year. My copy of the new Exploding Star Orchestra showed up today and it is absolutely pushing so many buttons for me, I like the vibe so far.

steve potts holy grail being reissued on CD and LP:

https://www.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/potts-steve-musique-pour-le-film-d-un-ami-lp/FFL.062LP.html

Checked out the Karuna Trio's (Adam Rudolph, Ralph M. Jones & Hamid Drake) Imaginary Archipelago after flipping through Ted Gioa's EOY list. It's a solid Codona impression, and more besides. Also belatedly caught up with Dan Weiss / Starebaby's latest, which drove home, in reverse, why I struggle with instrumental metal: the players are almost never as virtuosic and imaginative as they are here.

Hearing Hamid Drake again reminded me of how much I enjoy his playing. If anyone's heard it, how's Every Dog Has Its Day But It Doesn't Matter Because Fat Cat Is Getting Fatter (great title btw)?

karuna trio sounds promising!

I've heard the Mat Walerian record. It's free jazz, but very meditative - he's big into Japanese philosophy and that kind of Zen-ness shows up in his work, but not in a kitschy way. All of his records are at least worth hearing.

Sounds cool, thanks.

Is that this?: https://esp5037.bandcamp.com

Yep, that's the one.

enoying that. did mat walerian write his own wikipedia page?

I liked the first piece a lot. Vibe reminded me a bit of Sonoluminescence Trio, which also includes William Parker.

The Jazz Standard, one of NYC's best clubs, has closed. The last time I was there was at the end of January, to see Vijay Iyer, Linda May Han Oh, and Tyshawn Sorey; I wrote about it here.

Ugh. RIP. I had no use spent so much time at that place, no words.

well fuck

on the other hand, Birdland is reopening?
https://www.birdlandjazz.com/calendar/

Interesting. I watched a lot of those Sunday night virtual shows.

Really enjoying the Okuden Quartet (Walerian/Shipp/Parker/Drake) record, thanks. Calm, spacious free jazz is the best free jazz.

sure, on wednesday

Have you guys been watching the Smalls feed on Friendbook? Good stuff. Really good piano and guitar duo right now.

NY Times Jazz Top Ten--I'm ignorant of most, but thrilled to see Dialectic Soul incl.! Playlist at end: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/02/arts/music/best-jazz-albums.html

Currently enjoying the Susan Alcorn album from that list, it's got a good vibe and the pedal steel is really great in that context.

Yeah, that's a great record. Didn't make my own year-end list, but I liked it a lot.

Briefly dipped into the unfamiliar-to-me releases on that list and the Lloyd, Gamedze and Alcorn are all sounding great.

That is a seriously stacked band on the Charles Lloyd album

How that Ron Miles record mentioned on another thread? Didn't know he had a new one.

Okay, hadn't looked at the lineup on that Charles Lloyd record until just now but yeah.

Dezron Douglas/Brandee Younger album is really pleasant and enjoyable: https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/force-majeure

I like that, it's very pretty and simple and it swings a bit as well.

Yeah, it's a really nice record. I saw them perform as a duo opening for Tony Allen in 2019.

What a likeable album!

one of my fave swinging bass-player+1 duo albums is the classic Ray Brown/Duke Ellington one This One's For Blanton. I'm not saying it sounds like this one, but similar vibes.

With all due respect to John Surman, the interplay between Anouar Brahem and Dave Holland on Thimar makes me wish they'd done a proper duo LP. Bass + plucked strings is an underused configuration, to be sure.

I haven't heard the Ellington/Brown but it's an appealing premise.

Ray Brown swings so hard even your eyes are trying to tap their toes!

It's nothing you haven't heard before but Matthew Halsall's Salute to the Sun is the kind of flutey, chilled out spiritual jazz I'll never get sick of:

https://matthewhalsall.bandcamp.com/album/salute-to-the-sun

This Brandee Younger album is exactly what I've been wanting to hear lately (of course it's on IA).

Speaking of bass in duos, Vince Giodano played that and tuba in Zoom-type settette w Loudon Wainwright and guitarist David Mansfield: early jazz tunes from their recent I'd Rather Lead A Band, which also incl. VG's other bass instruments and his Nighthawks (he and the band did a lot of music for Boardwalk Empire, which is where they first worked w LW). Sounds pretty good! Also lots of informative commentary on the songs:
https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2020/12/02/941234800/fresh-air-for-dec-2-2020-loudon-wainwright-iii-and-vince-giordano?showDate=2020-12-02

Yeah, good stuff. I didn’t notice you on the Loudon Wainwright thread yesterday.

Also, speaking of Duke, yall know Money Jungle, w Mingus and Roach right? You may have the 7-track original, or the good-sounding late 80s Blue Note LP w a few bonus tracks, like I have--but I wanna get this 15-track CD:

https://www.discogs.com/Duke-Ellington-Money-Jungle/release/7620539

There may be later editions that are even more inclusive---one of the few where I'm lured by alll the alt-takes, but several prev. unreleased titles have gradually emerged as well.
Of course the latest SOLD OUT vinyl fetish vinyl More Perfect Than Evah remaster has 0 bonus material.

It's nothing you haven't heard before but Matthew Halsall's Salute to the Sun is the kind of flutey, chilled out spiritual jazz I'll never get sick of:

https://matthewhalsall.bandcamp.com/album/salute-to-the-sun

― pomenitul

Patrick Forge just played a track off this album on his NTS show. Gorgeous stuff.

Heh, p4k reviewed the Dezron Douglas / Brandee Younger:

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/dezron-douglas-brandee-younger-force-majeure/

Just saw childhood friend Nic Cacioppo (son of composer Charles Cacioppo) mentioned as the drummer on the JD Allen Trio record that came out this year. Going to have to pick it up, sounds pretty good!

He's great on it (and on Barracoon from last year).

Archie Shepp and Jason Moran have a duo album coming out in February; the first track was posted on YouTube on Friday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzU75hKYvLA

Good to know, unperson. He had a lot of competition when we were growing up, always getting second chair to another good friend. The latter ended up getting horrible tendonitis that multiple surgeries couldn't resolve, and now works for A&R for some record company. Glad Nic was able to stick it out.

New Charles Lloyd had me going back through his last few releases, what a run for an octogenarian. That 'I Long To See You' release by his country/folk band w/Frisell is just gorgeous.

Great to know about Shepp-Moran, thanks! Shepp and pianist Horace Parlan also made at least a couple of duet albums drawing on deep river music, Trouble In Mind and Goin' Home.

Sittin’ In: Jazz Clubs of the 1940s and 1950s, recently published by Harper Design, is a testament to the bygone American nightlife culture that thrived at midcentury — years before the full realization of a Civil Rights Movement, but well into a more casual arc of racial integration.

The book, a featured item in the WBGO December fund drive, amasses hundreds of souvenir photos, handbills and other memorabilia from clubs across the continental United States: iconic rooms like The Three Deuces on 52nd Street in Manhattan as well as lesser-known spots like Gilmore’s Chez Paree in Kansas City. Through the images and ephemera — and several in-depth interviews, with Rollins and others — the book presents a complicated portrait of America in the two decades bracketing the second World War.
...This is a difficult book to classify. In a way, it’s a coffee table book, because of all of these incredible images. But it’s also a really keen work of jazz history and scholarship...That last bit opens an interview w author:https://www.wbgo.org/post/sittin-jazz-clubs-1940s-and-1950s-opens-portal-past-and-dialogue#stream/0