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The Jazz Thread

Started by kalowski, February 05, 2021, 10:24:26 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

chveik

some of my favourite sixties jazz (excluding the people you've mentionned and the really famous albums although i bet you're aware of the majority):

hard bop / post-bop

Dexter Gordon - Go / Our Man in Paris / One Flight Up (top tier tenor sax)
Booker Ervin - The Freedom Book (he was a very important part of the Mingus band but also a great composer)
Bobby Hutcherson - Dialogue
Larry Young - Unity
Booker Little - Out Front (with Roach & Dolphy)
Hank Mobley - No Room for Squares
Jaki Byard - The Jaki Byard Experience (Roland Kirk is insanely good here)
McCoy Tyner - The Real McCoy

free / spiritual jazz

Eric Dolphy - Last Date
Andrew Hill - Compulsion / Point of Departure
Anthony Williams - Lifetime
Wayne Shorter - The All Seeing Eye
Frank Wright - Your Prayer
Sam Rivers - Contours
Philip Cohran - On the Beach
Eddie Gale - Ghetto Music
Horace Tapscott - The Giant is Awakened
Herbie Mann - The Wailing Dervishes

european free jazz

Manfred Schoof - European Echoes (free big band)
The Spontaneous Music Ensemble - Karyobin (young Evan Parker & Derek Bailey are on there)
Alexander von Schlippenbach - Globe Unity

new page list cunt

Thank you. There's a lot that I haven't listened to there[nb]In case you care: Ervin, Hutcherson, Young, Williams, Wright, Cohran, Gale, Tapscott, Schoof, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Schlippenbach.[/nb] and the last list is all new to me. Dolphy, the early Andrew Hill albums and Sam Rivers are three I've enjoyed most. I liked Fuchsia Swing Song by Rivers and Judgement by Hill and their albums you mentioned. There's some Frank Wright coming up on my ESP Disk route too.

ASFTSN

chveik's beaten me to it and has good taste!! I had a short list and it also had Last Date and Life Time on it!

Life Time in particular is so cool, a full ensemble with Bobby Hutcherson, Herbie Hancock, Gary Peacock etc but arranged so that there's very rarely more than two or three players improvising at any given time, a really sparse, mysterious record that goes nowhere near free jazz cliches. Last Date is also really interesting for crossing over the euro and US stuff as it has improv maniac Han Bennink drumming on it.


My remaining picks were:

Ornette Coleman - Live At The Golden Circle Vol 1

I banged on about this in my Ornette thread from a few years back. The uploader's used the cover for Vol.2 for some reason but that is indeed Vol.1!

Henry Grimes - The Call

The disappearing bassist's debut as a leader and actually preceeding his work on Cecil Taylor's Unit Structures I think. Just bass, drums and clarinet all the way through, skittering, spare, energetic so good. Grimes died of COVID in 2020, which does seem to have done for a few musicians from the 60s avant-garde. RIP.

Don Cherry - Symphony For Improvisers

Giant sprawling improv that doesn't shy away from a lovely lyrical refrain. Totally free but not harsh.

Marion Brown - Why Not?

Another pick for 'free but not without feeling' type stuff.

Bill Dixon - Intents and Purposes

Another Cecil Taylor-adjacent player, with a big ensemble playing in a style that's almost edging into modern classical. Bill Dixon's tones get dark on this and on a lot of his other stuff, and he always seemed comfortable in unorthodox lineups.

Thanks. There's a bit of overlap with a post I made last night at the bottom of the last page. I really enjoyed The Call. That Marion Brown album is another one on ESP Disk which I've decided to listen through. I'll check out Intents and Purposes too.

Quote from: Smeraldina Rima on June 21, 2021, 01:31:23 AM
Hope you can find something you like from it. If it's too intimidating: Bud Powell, Coleman Hawkins, Lee Konitz, Brown/Roach, Kenny Dorham, Julius Watkins, Paul Chambers.

I've found a pretty good way of listening through the 60s with better focus. Something I liked about the Ornette Coleman quartet and early Don Cherry albums was the bass playing by Charlie Hayden and Henry Grimes - which was unlike what I was more used to - and especially the solos on Where is Brooklyn?. It put Scott LeFaro in a different light too. So I listened to Henry Grimes' The Call and noticed that ESP Disk has lots of cool stuff on it starting from the mid 60s, some of which was mentioned earlier: Ayler, Sanders, Marion Brown. I enjoyed everything so far: Spiritual Unity by the Albert Ayler Trio, Pharoah Sanders' first, and The Call by Grimes. Also noticed that two of the bassists, Grimes and Gary Peacock from the AA trio, died last year. I should be alright for a limited route through the 60s now but I'll still be interested if you have any recommendations of labels, groupings of musical scenes and players, or favourite albums.

Video Game Fan 2000

That Jaki Byard record is wonderful.

I listened to all the Eric Dolphy I could earlier this year and I couldn't believe I'd not heard Last Date before. The first minute ripped my face off.

chveik

Quote from: Video Game Fan 2000 on June 21, 2021, 01:44:28 PM
That Jaki Byard record is wonderful.

I listened to all the Eric Dolphy I could earlier this year and I couldn't believe I'd not heard Last Date before. The first minute ripped my face off.

have you listened to his Last Recordings: Paris 1964 bootleg? the 30 minutes version of 'Springtime' is phenomenal and it saddens me so much that he died just afterwards.

Video Game Fan 2000

Quote from: chveik on June 21, 2021, 04:44:40 PM
have you listened to his Last Recordings: Paris 1964 bootleg? the 30 minutes version of 'Springtime' is phenomenal and it saddens me so much that he died just afterwards.

I haven't no! Thanks for the recc. I've been listening Dolphy in Mingus' band in Europe in 1964 a ton lately I'll check this out

kalowski

Quote from: Video Game Fan 2000 on June 21, 2021, 01:44:28 PM
That Jaki Byard record is wonderful.

I listened to all the Eric Dolphy I could earlier this year and I couldn't believe I'd not heard Last Date before. The first minute ripped my face off.
It starts with that utterly fantastic version of Epistrophy doesn't it? Blew my mind first time I played it. I'd not heard the Monk version at that point.

Video Game Fan 2000

Yes! It came on when I was at my desk and I think I flapped my limbs around like Kermit the Frog and hooted. Like hearing "Moonlight On Vermont" for the first time as a teenager, beautiful. I called my partner into the room and played it for her twice through.

Kankurette

After reading Viv Albertine's book and finding out that the Slits were into Sun Ra used to bung Space Is the Place on when travelling through a certain tunnel, as it lasted the exact length of their journey through the tunnel, I had a listen to it and it is absolute genius. So much going on in one piece. I have to be in the right mood to listen to it though.

I'm not a huge fan of jazz but it is nice to have on in the background sometimes, especially Nina Simone. Her version of Pirate Jenny is my favourite version.

buttgammon

Quote from: kalowski on June 21, 2021, 08:33:17 PM
It starts with that utterly fantastic version of Epistrophy doesn't it? Blew my mind first time I played it. I'd not heard the Monk version at that point.

Probably my favourite version of Epistrophy. I play this album at least twice a week and it still sounds so fresh and exciting.

With Dolphy in mind, I'm now listening to Andrew Hill's Point of Departure (mentioned up-page by Chveik - thanks very much) and really enjoying it. I'm not sure how I haven't heard this before! Smeraldina's list is going to keep me busy for the next while. I listen to jazz more than anything else these days, but there's still so many avenues I am yet to go down.

kalowski

Quote from: buttgammon on June 22, 2021, 12:08:35 AM
Probably my favourite version of Epistrophy. I play this album at least twice a week and it still sounds so fresh and exciting.
Ah, just got a copy of a Japanese reissue (as in, arrived today) and it's a beautiful thing
It's this version of anyone cares

https://www.discogs.com/Eric-Dolphy-Last-Date/release/3729026

kalowski

Quote from: kalowski on July 02, 2021, 11:26:36 PM
Ah, just got a copy of a Japanese reissue (as in, arrived today) and it's a beautiful thing
It's this version of anyone cares

https://www.discogs.com/Eric-Dolphy-Last-Date/release/3729026
Had to play this straight away again this morning. It's incredible.

buttgammon

Lovely! Glad to hear you're liking it. The opening to that version of Epistrophy is maybe my favourite single few seconds of music.

I've been listening to Freddie Hubbard for the first time in ages this morning, specifically his groove-driven fusion album Straight Life, which is probably my favourite of his.

kalowski

Really enjoying Speak No Evil at the moment - Wayne Shorter's Hard Bop record from 1966. What a line up: Shorter on sax, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Elvin Jones.

Albert Ayler's Bells was one of my favourites so far on ESP Disk.

kalowski

Spent the afternoon wallowing in the beauty that is Miles' Sketches of Spain.

Mobbd

I was down in That London this week and dropped into Honest John's in Ladbroke Grove - my first ever visit.

Such a great, great record shop and I intend to go back. They were playing Birth of the Cool as I went in, which is one of my all-time faves and in fact the record that nudged me fully into jazz about 20 years ago when I bought it almost at random from the old Avalanche Records in Edinburgh.

Anyway, I came out with Ayler's Spiritual Unitity (which I've wanted on vinyl for ages but it always seems a bit too pricey online), Coltrane's Giant Steps (typical price) and The Story of Moondog for £15 on the Honest John's label. Very pleased with my vinyl haul and I'd recommend any of these records (they're all classics of course and I suspect most of you know them already).

Mobbd

Quote from: kalowski on August 25, 2021, 04:40:24 PM
Spent the afternoon wallowing in the beauty that is Miles' Sketches of Spain.

That's a coincidence. Me too. Not quite wallowing in my case but I played it while painting a bedroom wall. It's really something, eh?

kalowski

Quote from: Mobbd on August 25, 2021, 09:32:00 PM
That's a coincidence. Me too. Not quite wallowing in my case but I played it while painting a bedroom wall. It's really something, eh?
Oh, yes. I wasn't actually wallowing, but failing to complete an Azed crossword.
My top three Miles are:
In a Silent Way
Sketches of Spain
Porgy and Bess

Mobbd

Quote from: kalowski on August 25, 2021, 09:34:24 PM
Oh, yes. I wasn't actually wallowing, but failing to complete an Azed crossword.
My top three Miles are:
In a Silent Way
Sketches of Spain
Porgy and Bess

In a Silent Way is very much up there for me. I'd then go for Bitches Brew (Side 3 is just something else) and the aforementioned Birth of the Cool if I'm allowed to drag just three of them from a burning planet. I bloody love those Workin'/Cookin' etc records too though. Oh, there's too many faves: his body of work is a gift to humanity.

buttgammon

In a Silent Way is one of my favourite albums by anyone, let alone Miles. I love the messiness and density of Bitches Brew, but they're also the reasons why I don't listen to it as much as some of his other stuff. On the Corner is another favourite; it reminds me of Can, and I love the hypnotic thickness of the grooves.

The enduring fascination with Miles is down to the many different directions he takes you in, both in his own music and in the wealth of brilliant material produced by his sidemen. I've been a big fan of his since I was a teenager and it still feels that in a lot of ways, my music tastes are still in thrall to him, and that's not just in terms of jazz either.

I've enjoyed listening to the ESP-disk albums as a way into the avant-garde '60s along with Albert Ayler's Holy Ghost set. I usually look up the supporting musicians that stand out to find other recordings where they led a band and it seemed almost every album from that label in that period included one or more musicians who had died in the last few years. I wrote and then edited down a post about it before that seemed weirdly morbidly detailed.

When I go into something unfamiliar (in this case '60s avant-garde jazz) it can be strange how it never really matches what I expected it to be (even if it's just an unknown room) and afterwards I feel a bit silly about my preconceived ideas and briefly more mindful of everything else in the world I must be completely ignorant of and misguided about. But that doesn't last. The word 'difficult' is applied to so many things that it gives an impression completely up to anyone's best or worst guess and I end up thinking 'oh, difficult like this. What was I worried about/ I hate it.' I'm not sure whether this is inappropriate, but with some of these albums I felt something I liked about them through my own vocal tics which had been getting more frequent and louder recently. Not that I'm claiming to be a great jazz musician. I still haven't listened to the European avant-garde jazz albums - if that's the way to put it - that were recommended and, not having learned from experience, can't imagine enjoying any of it.

Currently listening to Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album by John Coltrane which was released in 2018. This and following a recommendation to listen to Ballads at night have made things click for me with Coltrane he'll be happy to know. "Untitled Original 11383" and "Untitled Original 11386" sound amazing. Perhaps they were worked into something that came out earlier. The former opens the album as released and it reminded me a little of the sound of "Kary's Trance" on Inside Hi-Fi, which is something I might have thought when listening to something else by Coltrane before.

I think that 1956 version of "Kary's Trance" is my favourite introduction to any jazz recording and a fortiori any jazz album. Might have mentioned this before. The Billy Bauer guitar part almost seems like something from Jefferson Airplane or the Velvet Underground before Konitz starts playing:

Kary's Trance

kalowski

I've been rediscovering Miles' On The Corner. It's a marvellous pseudo funk beauty isn't it? Trying to synthesise Sly Stone through his own jazz trained ears results in what seems like no rules whatsoever, but no rules underpinned by an almost motorik bass sound. Supposedly not for me "I'm not playing for any white people, man. I wanna hear a black guy say 'Yeah, I dig Miles Davis.'" but certainly enjoyed by me

Mobbd

Bumpin' the jazz thread to mention Makaya McCraven as someone current and worth looking into.

I'm bopping out as we speak to his Deciphering the Message, newly out on Blue Note and streaming in its entirety on YouTube.

I believe these are recreations of old performances by Art Blakey et al but they're hardly the obvious choices and they don't seem to be heavily sampled but recreated with plenty of new improvisation (and notably fresh drumming) around them. Really pleasant (though I'm aware I have a personal tendency toward elevator music that not everyone here will like) and alive-feeling. Seemingly all Post and Hard Bob.

Incidentally, I learned about this from John Fordham's Jazz Album of the Month Guardian column, which is an easy thing to keep up with if (like me) you struggle to stay abreast of new jazz and tend to play old favourites all the time. Fordham's taste is maybe a little conservative but that's not inherently a bad thing since he's introduced me to loads of Third Stream-type stuff over the years and, let's face it, he knows what he's talking about. I pick up something new every three months or so through his column.

Petey Pate

Was recently listening to WFMU Give the Drummer Some and they played this track from a 1963 Freddie Hubbard-led album which is a rare example of John Gilmore playing outside of the Sun Ra Arkestra.


chutnut

I'm mainly into the more funky side of Jazz but I do like a bit of everything really.
Nowhere near as knowledgeable as the people in this thread but I like these a lot:

Longineu Parsons

Placebo

Bobbi Humphrey

Gary Bartz

Pharaoh Sanders

purlieu

Being me, I'm generally drawn to the more atmospheric end of things, hence my seemingly never-ending trawl through the ECM catalogue, but I do have a real desire to get into more '50s and '60s stuff (I have a couple of Miles Davis albums and that's it), so this thread will eventually be a massive help in that regard.

Nice to see some love for Eberhard Weber's stunning The Colours of Chlöe upthread, an astonishingly beautiful album, although I can't imagine the pressure of having a solo career begin on such an amazing album. His other work from the period is excellent too, particularly Silent Feet and Little Movements with his Colours trio, which are bouncy and jubilant without losing any of the beauty. The Following Morning and Fluid Rustle are strangely minimal sounding affairs which require very specific circumstances to work, but I do enjoy them both; the former having no rhythm section and large orchestrations from the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the latter being stripped back to bass, guitar, vibes and abstract vocals, and having quite an eerie tone at the time. After the sprightly The Following Morning in 1982 he moved towards more experimental works, a solo bass record, an album arranged for eight-piece brass band, and moving into more straight composition away from improvisation on a couple of sadly new age-leaning records. The '73-'82 period really is marvellous though. He suffered a stroke in 2007 and has been unable to play bass since, only keyboards, although he's remained incredibly mindful about it, judging on interviews, simply accepting that part of his life is over.

Keith Jarrett's Köln Concert was also mentioned, which is obviously a landmark record, although I actually prefer a number of his other live works, especially Paris Concert and the utterly stunning Vienna Concert. I've yet to really enjoy any of his band works, due to his nasal vocal improvisation over everything, although Changeless with the Standards Trio has some beautiful pieces on it. He seems to be coping with his lack of ability, post-stroke, far worse than Weber, and a couple of recent interviews I've read have been really quite bleak. Without his piano he doesn't seem to have anything.


Vijay Iyer Sextet's Far From Over is brilliant, mixing sparse, atmospheric pieces with loud, intense ones.


Shinya Fukumori Trio's For 2 Akis is another I've played a lot, very mellow, textural, spacious stuff.

buttgammon

The live recording of A Love Supreme from Seattle that resurfaced last year is absolutely phenomenal. It's the same quartet that played on the original album but augmented by some of the more out-there players who joined Trane later in his career, so you get moments of massive intensity when Pharoah starts blazing along.

Live at the Village Vanguard Again (just two long takes: one of 'Naima', another of 'My Favourite Things') is getting a lot of playtime at Chez Buttgammon at the moment too. How many great recordings of 'Naima' are there? especially when you consider Archie Shepp's version too!

poodlefaker

Love the version by Les Double Six; big influence on Robert Wyatt.