Rolling Jazz Thread 2022

It’s in German though right?

Yeah, I replied to that tweet saying I’m waiting for a translation, as my wife can read German but has no interest in Braxton.

David Kikowski is dueting with this monster bari player I never heard of before named Jason Marshall at Smalls right now and it is sounding amazing.

This guy: https://www.bestsaxophonewebsiteever.com/bari-sax-master-jason-marshall-players-dont/

From my Brussels buddy John W.: ...yesterday I learned of the existence of this Black Belgian woman,Peggy Pierrot, and I listened to last night's podcast (her playlist is at the link below; the podcast went online even though she herself couldn't go on mic because she's home in bed with Covid; I assume her occasional voiceover readings in both English and French had been recorded in advance). As you would expect from her inclusion of tracks by Drexciya and Detroit-homeboy allies like the Aquanauts, she's into the underwater-aquatic end of Afrofuturist myth. But in her mix she achieved a terrific balance between Detroit electro beats, what people are now calling "spiritual jazz" (one highlight being the Joe Henderson / Alice Coltrane track; another being "Old and New Dreams" by the Old and New Dreams Quartet, and in context it wasn't just Dewey's Chinese musette that sounded spooky, but even Blackwell's drumming) and the music of the whales[!] without being goopy NewAge sentimental about it. If a link to stream the podcast shows up, I'll alert you. Meanwhile, here's her playlist:
http://www.q-o2.be/en/event/songing-with-our-ancestors-live-radio-session-with-peggy-pierrot/
Live radio session with writer, radio dj and educator Peggy Pierrot.
From Drexciya and other Detroit techno bands, to historians and science fiction writers, to Solomon Rivers, author of speculative and literary fiction such as The Deep, the Atlantic Ocean – known here as the Black Atlantic – has been the crucible for stories of loss and flight, abduction and rebirth. This radio program invites us to dive into this black ocean in search of these sounds and stories.

Playlist of the Radio Show:

Vangelis -Sauvage et Beau, le chant des baleines
Clipping – The deep
Ed Blackwell / Don Cherry / Charlie Haden / Dewey Redman – Old dream and
new Dreams
The comet is coming – The Prophecy
Drexciya – Intro: Temple Of Dos De Agua
the Aquanauts – Aquatic Kamikazi
Drexciya – Hydro Theory
Earth – Sonar and Depth Charge
Joe Henderson & Alice Coltrane – Water
Shabaka and the Ancestors – The Sea
Mr. Bubble – Bubble Beats
Sun Ra – Lanquidity
Le chant des baleines – Killer Whale, Orcinus Orca
Ras-G – Been Cosmic
Le chant des baleines – narwhal Whale, Monodon Monoceros
Sons of Kemet – in remembrance of those fallen
Extracts from The deep by Rivers Solomon in french and in english.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FKahqdmWUAMfgUz?format=jpg&name=small

beautiful album is this.

Recently posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxM980ocuCw

🖼

beautiful album is this.

Just got my download of the Peter Brötzmann/William Parker/Milford Graves live set, Historic Music Past Tense Future, recorded 3/29/02 at CBGBs' 313 Gallery. Available from Black Editions on vinyl and digitally, though the former is likely to sell out fast. It rips, of course.

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0994075720_10.jpg

So we were talking about Michael Brecker's overplaying---here's an exception I should have thought of: not brilliant, but it works (and I'd like to hear an all-instrumental version of this song),
Garland Jeffreys, "I May Not Be Your Kind"---from Ghost Writer(1977)

Oops!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knPYobziFmg

New Kamasi Washington tune:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzrkerz1SW8

Sounds like Kamasi Washington. He should make the trumpet player a full-time band member.

"Sounds like Kamasi Washington" is enough for me, tbh.

Btw, unperson, looking forward to your book arriving later this week!

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

Note that Ted Gioia's brother, Dana Gioia, was once the US poet laureate, and is also a notorious fucking asshole.

...and that's how you get the gig

xp

Which one?

Making a Rational Funk joke about the Julian Lage video (which is great)

Oh, okay. I miss the days when I would see Jorge all the time. And would also see a friend from Mexico who studied with Randy Vincent who also taught Julian Lage and would tell him about this kid who was really talented.

I overlooked his trio album from last year, need to give that some time.

Speaking of Dave King, just got tix to see the new Ben Monder + Chris Speed version of the Bad Plus at a small venue here next month.

Cool.

I feel like the Bad Plus are on the downward slide and just don't want to admit it yet. I mean, swapping Orrin Evans in when Ethan Iverson left/was fired is one thing, but to bring in Monder and Speed, neither of whom has shown much interest in the past in being part of a steady, hard-touring band... it feels kinda desperate, and I don't see it lasting very long. Plus, it's too big a structural change. People (rightly) think of TBP as a piano trio, so to now become a sax-guitar-bass-drums quartet runs the risk of alienating a whole lot of the audience, many of whom were originally drawn in by piano-trio covers of rock songs and only incidentally converted to fans of original jazz music...which was still presented in piano trio format!

This has nothing to do with the merits of the music, of course. I hope they make a record soon, 'cause I'd love to hear it. Monder's skronk on top of a rhythm section that hard-hitting? I'm 100% on board for that.

A guy I know produced this. I really like it

https://theofficialcowmusic.bandcamp.com/album/live

Yeah, I'll listen to Monder play on anything but I don't get how this is still the Bad Plus.

The Bad Minus Plus Plus Plus

Add Ben to (X)

Finally got the Courvoisier/Halvorson album from last year: https://sylviecourvoisiermaryhalvorsonpyroclastic.bandcamp.com/album/searching-for-the-disappeared-hour . It really is marvellous, almost like a bizarro world Undercurrents. The connection between the two of them is really strong throughout, no matter how intricate they get.

Ah! you mean the Jim Hall Bill Evans Undercurrents, I take it:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61gr6T-rTuL._SL1200_.jpg

Yes, exactly. Obv a lot further out.

The Courvoisier/Halvorson album is so, so good.

I feel like the Bad Plus are on the downward slide and just don't want to admit it yet. I mean, swapping Orrin Evans in when Ethan Iverson left/was fired is one thing, but to bring in Monder and Speed, neither of whom has shown much interest in the past in being part of a steady, hard-touring band... it feels kinda desperate, and I don't see it lasting very long. Plus, it's too big a structural change. People (rightly) think of TBP as a piano trio, so to now become a sax-guitar-bass-drums quartet runs the risk of alienating a whole lot of the audience, many of whom were originally drawn in by piano-trio covers of rock songs and only incidentally converted to fans of original jazz music...which was still presented in piano trio format!

I'm inclined to agree with all that, yeah. On the other hand, they've gotta eat, and I'm looking forward to hearing the new lineup play the old material. Also since I've seen both Chris Speed's trio with Dave King and Broken Shadows (including Chris/Dave/Reid) recently, it'll be interesting to hear how different they sound in context as 'The Bad Plus'.

Also I guess TBP did do that record with Joshua Redman already, but that's one of their projects I've listened to the least.

I really like a few things on that Redman/Bad Plus record, I actually enjoyed it more than some of their other material.

love this one especially
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmQTZb81qQ8

Youtube has been very concerned that I should watch this Ari Hoenig video, and I'm glad I finally did

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1zPpLdc-Go

Can't tell who he is playing with there.

Credits say:

Tom Ollendorff - Guitar
Conor Chaplin - Bass

Not familiar, but they're great, especially that trading with the bass player.

Francis Davis comments on the year in jazz, and his own ballot, a little longer than usual, as he says, with several I hadn't heard of, looking good:
https://artsfuse.org/244710/the-2021-jazz-critics-poll-only-the-best/

Saw a great Christian Scott Atunde show last night

Speaking of 2021, here's one I should have mentioned the, from my forthcoming blog round-up:

The cover of Leni Stern’s Dance is a winter curb full of musos, looking for the bus. Sure, that’s always a big part of the roving life, whether coups and pandemics happen to be on at the moment or not: guitarist Stern, of Munich, Manhattan, and Mali, for instance, has seen all that, also The Big C, and just so far, of course. Her lines, whether building to solos or not, are always headphones, finding what they need in the mesh and tapping, digging in, birds on the wire and then some. Dance sees Stern again fronting her cross-cultural New York quartet, featuring brilliant Argentine keyboardist Leo Genovese and the bone-deep rhythm duo of bassist Mamadou Ba and percussionist Eladji Alioune Faye, both originally from Senegal. ..Along with Genovese, Ba and Faye, the album features one of Leni’s confreres from her days playing in Salif Keita’s band, Haruna Samake, who added his harp-like kamele n’goni to three tracks from afar and co-wrote one song with Leni, the buoyant “Kono” (“Bird”).

Along with “Yah Rakhman,” co-written by Leni and Faye, other highlights of Dance include the freshly arranged, richly harmonized traditional West African griot tune “Daouda Saane” and the hard-grooving, Genovese-penned “Kani” (“Spicy Pepper”), which features some characteristically piquant solos by the pianist. The track list also includes Ba’s atmospheric “Maba” (an homage to his great-great-great grandfather, a heroic figure in Senegalese history), Faye’s hopping, skipping instrumental “Hale” (“Children”) and Leni’s tuneful vocalise “Adjouma” (“Friday,” a tribute to multicultural New York City)

...As Leni explains, the band has gone from strength to strength. “It has been a real love affair between the keyboards and the rhythm section! The guys love Leo and all his fire. They always say, ‘Leo is so baaad!’ The West African rhythmic vocabulary – as well as its sense of form and call-and-response – can be challenging for any musician who isn’t native to the music, but Leo seems to relish that, finding it to be a fun way of connecting to the African roots of his South American heritage. And, of course, there are lots of European classical influences on South American music. The richness of Leo’s harmonic approach and his modern jazz idiom really add to the music, which you can hear on his new tune, ‘Kani’.
https://lenistern.bandcamp.com/album/dance">”https://lenistern.bandcamp.com/album/dance

Finally got around to the Shepp/Moran from last year and it's really nice, genuinely raw and moving at moments.

Also finally got around to hearing the Love Supreme Live in Seattle (on a Valentine's day playlist, along with Battle Trance's Blade of Love - both her picks fwiw) and wow, I did not expect the recording to sound that good. It seems to go pretty far out.

Nate Chinen this morning, with Lee Morgan updates, accompanied by excerpts from Lighthouse box: new doc, mainly from POV of his wife-killer, but apparently not just complaints? Or her words/take only. Dunno, will have to look up more about this. Also, a fan went looking to pay his respects, and How a jazz legend's resting place was lost and found, 50 years after his tragic deathhttps://www.npr.org/2022/02/16/1080984321/lee-morgan-50th-anniversary-death-gravesite

wife who was also his killer, I meant.

https://chetdoxas-whirlwind.bandcamp.com/album/you-cant-take-it-with-you

this is another 2021 release I've just caught up with. Would recommend if you like those 50's/60's Jimmy Giuffre trios.

Battle Trance for v-day, Sund4r you found a real one!

Sex Mob (AKA Sexmob, on Bandcamp), Theatre and Dance
Another pick for 2021 list, a reissue, from 2000, not quite top tier, because occasionally a tad bleary, world-weary, hungover, even jizzed-out (during some originals, not the Ellington), yet all of that's quite appropriate, as you will see---from Steven Bernstein's backstory: merch community
Theatre and Dance
by Sexmob

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Black and Tan Fantasy 00:00 / 04:28
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1.
Black and Tan Fantasy 04:28
2.
The Blues 04:51
3.
Night Creature 06:09
4.
It Don't Mean a Thing 03:39
5.
The Mooche 04:09
6.
Harlem (excerpt) 05:24
7.
Dirty Charity 04:25
8.
Mattress Blues 04:16
9.
Queen Mae 04:48
10.
Overture and Out 00:23
about
Reissue. Originally released in 2000.

In Nov/December 1998 I was touring with the Donald Byrd Dance Company for their epic staging of “The Harlem Nutcracker” which featured Duke Ellington’s arrangements of Tchaikovsky’s holiday classic, along with new arrangements by David Berger that continued in Duke’s lineage. Not only was the piece beautifully conceived and executed, but the band included many legendary musicians (some who had played with Duke) including Britt Woodman, Jerome Richardson, Jerry Dodgion, Marcus Belgrave and Art Baron. I knew that Donald Byrd had expansive tastes in music, and at a party at the end of the run, I gave him the 1st Sexmob CD, which had just been released. A little while later Donald contacted me, he had been turned on by the music and made me an offer couldn’t refuse…. To reimagine Duke Ellington’s music in the image of the “old 42nd St”, full of sex shops, peepshows, hookers and grime. … I know its typecasting.. but it was a perfect assignment. FYI, I listened to Duke Ellington’s music every day for approximately 30 years, starting in 1981.. it was as close as I ever got to a strict religious affiliation.
Donald gave me complete freedom in the recording, just giving me approximate timings for the pieces. I decided to use rhythms from across the decades of 42nd St’s reign as the smut capital of NY, brought the arrangements in, and Sexmob went to work...
he work, entitled “In A Different Light:Duke Ellington” was premiered at the Joyce Theatre Feb 29, 2000. Donald’s vision of capturing the feeling of the old 42nd St including outfitting all the dancers with giant prosthetic breasts and enormous hanging phalluses (each dancer having a different coordinated color pattern on their apendages). This made for an incredible spectacle, but limited the number of venues willing to present the piece…story of my life.. the blessing and curse of a band named “Sexmob”
There is a funny story about a workshop/preview of the piece where Stanley Crouch was on the moderating panel. You can imagine what he had to say!
The final 4 pieces on this CD were written for a production of Mae West’s 1926 play entitled “Sex”…yes more typecasting. The play was was presented by The Hourglass Group, and directed by Elyse Singer. It premiered in Dec 1999 at the Gershwin Hotel, and it was the first restaging of the play since it opened in 1926. The music manages to sound like classic Sexmob while being very “era specific”… Tony overdubs banjo, and Kenny sounds like a mix of Baby Dodds and Dave Grohl. Well, maybe not.

released April 1, 2021

1-6 Composed by Duke Ellington
7-10 Composed by Steven Bernstein /Spanish Fly Music ASCAP
All music arranged by Steven Bernstein
Steven Bernstein Arranger, Composer, Conductor, Primary Artist, Slide Trumpet
David Bias Sleeve Design
Jim Black Drums (Track 6)
Danny Blume Engineer, Mixing
Duke Ellington Composer
Chris Kelly Engineer, Mixing
Briggan Krauss Sax (Alto), Sax (Baritone)
Bubber Miley Composer
Irving Mills Composer
Gene Paul Mastering
Tony Scherr Banjo, Bass, Engineer, Mixing
Kenny Wollesen Chimes, Drums
Julie Lemberger Cover photograph
Read more, hear it all here:
https://stevenbernstein.bandcamp.com/album/theatre-and-dance

Oh sorry, didn't mean to incl. all that stuff before his story and track list etc.!

blade of love is one of my fave albums of the decade

Battle Trance for v-day, Sund4r you found a real one!

<3

A bit more on 2021 releases, from the blog round-up

Poet-novelist-songwriter-performer Anthony Joseph, of Trinidad and Tobago and Britain, gets compared to Linton Kwesi Johnson, but The Rich Are Only Defeated When Running For Their Lives is electrified by his own kind of speech-song, going back and forth from one to the other, syllable to syllable when he chooses, on the beat and calling it to free jazz, including splatter bop and Caribbean elements, whirling imagery—but then there's that show-stopping sound: dirt hitting the lid of his father's coffin. He's the immigrant in reverse, stepping around a now-unsettling setting in "my hip waistcoat," also in the apparently patient, good-humored, steady gaze of old and new friends and relations. Later he recalls other voices in the UK recalling when they eventually could call it home, and his own path toward that. The music always adapts to, is always just the right part of, each situation, and of him.

https://anthonyjosephofficial.bandcamp.com/album/the-rich-are-only-defeated-when-running-for-their-lives

The spirit of free jazz also recharges its now familiar subgenre elements on the latest albums by Rova and Ill-Considered, with both brainiac ensembles going raw soon enough, although IC's Liminal Space starts out relatively tame, and overall can't escape slightly disappointing comparison w 2020's East-West, which was astonishing, as I noted then:

1 hour, 47 minutes, 58 seconds, rolls right along, segmentation down in there, tiny mile markers: seconds of distorted audience sounds back in the headphones every now and then, even a little back-and-forth of musos and crowd at one point, also distorted: all part of the carnival scrim, incl dub-associated effects, on the fly or might as well be. Sax turns into a swarm of bassoons about 8 minutes in, bass gets more distorted, needs no other guitars as suggestions of Last Exit just behind the curtain---in the vast Jazz Park (don't stick your fingers in there) on a windswept gray-green summer's day. Later clearing for a Middle Eastern view of the Med, which comes back later still as slow modal ferris wheel, empty but still turning-- for a minute,'til the bass has enough, and everything gets zigzag funky---going to night skies, night sweats, emitting then melting down, the ECM Sound expansions--the bass goes toward a metal chant, everybody falls into a funeral procession, like Ishmael at the beginning of Moby Dick: it's a sign it's time to ship out, and so they do, finding more excitement, along the way, that is--finale is black helicopter blades too fast and shakey, but still cutting through waves ov grooves. I dunno if there might be some predictable bits in there very eventually, for a while--hazards of long live performance--but an edit might kill the sense of pace, of searching in the moment, however in the moment this actually is. (All three of those albums are on Bandcamp too.)