Topic: What Jazz are you listening to now?

[king ubu]

Got to revisit that Basie & Zoot - it's a hoot! 

And while I'm at it, all of those gorgeous Pablo albums Zoot made with Jimmy Rowles!

[king ubu]

George Braith – Double Your Pleasure: Live at the University of the Street

way more than just oddball stuff!

[SimonNZ]

Duke Jordan - As Time Goes By (1989)
Gary Burton and Makoto Ozone - Virtuosi (2002)



Charlie Haden and Christian Escoude - Gitane (1979)
Count Basie and Oscar Peterson - Yes Sir, That's My Baby (1978)



Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and Sam Jones - Double Bass (1976)
Denny Zeitlin - Tidal Wave (1983)

[king ubu]

Martial Solal will celebrate his 90th birthday in one week - one of the most amazing piano players *ever*, and I guess one of the very small group that can be seen (amongst other things) as a true heir of Art Tatum's!



Decided to go with two collaborations last night, a wonderful album recorded with Sidney Bechet (and two bebop drummers, Al Levitt on the first session and that amazing and most elegant of dancers, Kenny "Klook" Clarke on the second), repertoire is not New Orleans warhorses but standards from the thirties, and the results are wonderful indeed!

The duo with Johnny Griffin is a slowly growing one, I remember how I was initially quite disappointed, but it's a fine album, a quiet one, that stresses the art of the dialogue (which is after all what duos should be about), rather than the ample flash that both of them have ...

Actually my only time to catch them live was in a trio: Johnny Griffin, Martial Solal and Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen - the youngest of the bunch and the first one to die shortly after. It was not a great concert, alas, but it was still great to catch these three masters (and actually NHOP really did shine a few times) ... would love to see Solal again, not sure if he's still regularly performing these days.

Griffin is, just as is Solal, one of my very favourite musicians ever!

[SimonNZ]

Cal Tjader - Plugs In (1969)
Herbie Hancock - Flood (1975)



Martin Taylor and Peter Ind - Triple Libra (1998)
Charlie Haden - Time/Life (2016)



Charles Lloyd - Of Course Of Course (1965)
Al Di Meola - Casino (1978)

[eljr]

This one just keeps getting better and better.



Jamie Saft / Bobby Previte / Steve Swallow
Loneliness Road

Release Date May 26, 2017
Genre
Jazz

[SimonNZ]

Herbie Hancock - Dedication (1974)
Flip Phillips - Quintet (1954)



Cal Tjader - West Side Story (1961)
Charlie Haden - First Song (1992)

that Tjader West Side Story was far more interesting than I was expecting - I'll have to check out that arranger

[king ubu]

My late night listen yesterday was this recent one by Kenny Barron ... not sure if I'm finally slowly starting to figure him out. Always enjoyed him, but he's likely never to become a top favourite.

[king ubu]

Last night the first two of of the four discs collecting Martial Solal's complete output for Swing/Vogue (other than the Jo Jaguar stuff which I don't know - it's supposed to be commercial "light music", thus it was excluded ... I bet it's fun!) - now his early works for movies:



Continuing with Solal, though only as a - prominent - sideman with Kenny Clarke's sextet playing arrangements by André Hodeir. Good stuff, though not for everyday listening (as I'd say generally for Hodeir).

[SimonNZ]

Clare Fischer - First Time Out (1962)
Joe Pass - Catch Me (1963)



Herbie Hancock - Mr Hands (1980)
Christian Escoude - Cookin In Hell's kitchen (1990)

and this unexpected and stunning album by Airto Moreira that I expected to be loosely jazz, but was something unclassifiable and wonderful:



Airto Moreira - The Other Side Of This (1988)

[king ubu]

Not Solal for the moment ... but piano nonetheless. Snatched one of those weird "box-sets" by Oldies/Collectables with five Les McCann Atlantic sets (one a twofer, one a a two-disc set, thus seven albums, studio ones, excluding "Invitation to Openness", which I still need to get, have heard it many years ago) ... and also just bought another of his Fresh Sound sets ... too bad that Michael Cuscuna seems to dislike his playing, thus there have been very few official reissues on EMI/Capitol back when they did all of those Blue Note and Pacific Jazz reissues ... either way, this one's in the player now:



for anyone wanting to check out early McCann, I suggest looking for the Fremeaux set with live recordings made in Paris in 1961 - seems to be OOP already, though it only came out in June 2016:
https://www.amazon.com/Live-Paris-Juillet-MCCANN-TRIO/dp/B01CPKRNUM/
That's some smokin' hot music!

[SimonNZ]

Warren Wolf - s/t (2011)

[king ubu]

more early Les McCann - live in summer 1960

[SimonNZ]

Ha! That Warren Wolf album has "Señor Mouse" on it and I hadn't realised until the tune started. I remark because that was the reason I played the Martin Taylor and Al Di Meola albums the other day, looking for other versions besides the sublime Burton/Corea.

set to play next:



Herbie Hancock - Directstep (1978)

[king ubu]

Herbie Hancock - Directstep (1978)

Are you working your way through the Columbia albums monster box? I did that once (not sure I actually completed it) and enjoyed the heck out of it, even the dubious albums (vocals, po[ o]p) kind of were fun/made sense in the whole course there.

[SimonNZ]

Are you working your way through the Columbia albums monster box? I did that once (not sure I actually completed it) and enjoyed the heck out of it, even the dubious albums (vocals, po

• p) kind of were fun/made sense in the whole course there.

Sadly, no, I don't have that box. Just checking out a random few I hadn't heard before, and learning more about the ones that were originally Japan-only. Really enjoyed the Flood concert album. And yeah, I'll probably be covering some of the disco crossover along the way (actually there's a bit of that on the last track on Directstep, but I liked the album anyway). So far the solo concert album Dedication was the only one where I thought I wouldn't need to hear it again any time soon.

[king ubu]

Sadly, no, I don't have that box. Just checking out a random few I hadn't heard before, and learning more about the ones that were originally Japan-only. Really enjoyed the Flood concert album. And yeah, I'll probably be covering some of the disco crossover along the way (actually there's a bit of that on the last track on Directstep, but I liked the album anyway). So far the solo concert album Dedication was the only one where I thought I wouldn't need to hear it again any time soon.

Missed the auto-format thingie about my "poop" above ... anyway, I went for the box early on, it went down to around 50-55€ at one point, but I already had paid more than twice that ... either way, it's a great trip with lots of dubious or so-so stuff, but also lots of fine things to discover that were indeed not easy to come by before! (And it still has me dream about a similarly monstrous box of all of Cannonball's Capitol output ... there's tons of pearls in there and those were to a large part available (again) in the past 20 or so years, but there's still vinyl-only stuff that you won't even easily find on the blogosphere ... and as with Herbie, it's all worth listening for sure)

Anyway, glad to see I was wrong about the Les McCann Paris 1961 set, it's still out there, guess I ended up with a wrong amazon link again earlier today - here's a good link to what seems to be the cheapest offer directly from evil a:
https://www.amazon.it/Live-Paris-1961-McCann-Trio/dp/B01CPKRNUM/

Now playing:



The vocals album ist mostly with band and Gerald Wilson arrangements, while "Pretty lady" is just the core trio (again/still with Herbie Lewis' towering bass and the light but never lightweight drums of Ron Jefferson - that trio is growing on me bigtime), and McCann is a decent singer with plenty of charm (great to hear him tackle that wonderful Buddy Johnson tune "Since I fell for You", and even more so Percy Mayfield's gorgeous "Please Send Me Someone to Love"!

[king ubu]

In 1963, Les McCann joined forces with labelmates The Jazz Crusaders, sharing keyboard duties with their pianist Joe Sample. McCann is heard on piano, electric piano and organ, Sample on piano and organ. The Album is somewhat goofy in that it's an all waltz programme, but it's fun, including some fake-exotica (McCann's "Damascus"), a golden oldies (Fats Waller's "Jitterbug Waltz") and some unlikely yurpeen tunes (George Gruntz' "Spanish Castles" is the opener, later we get to hear Toots Thielemans' "Bluesette", too), and some infectious contemporary tunes (Bobby Timmons' "This Here", Miles' "All Blues", which is usually notated in 6/8).

[SimonNZ]

Leroy Vinnegar - Jazz's Great Walker (1964)
Tim Collins - Castles and Hilltops (2011)

[SimonNZ]

Herbie Hancock - The Piano (1979)