What Jazz are you listening to now?

Started by Gurn Blanston, June 12, 2015, 06:16:31 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 5 Guests are viewing this topic.

kishnevi

#2240


I suppose best way to describe it is jazz influences melded with Maghrebi.

(BTW, although their family backgrounds are both Morrocan-Israeli, they are not actually related.)

SimonNZ

#2241


Billy Harper - Blueprints of Jazz Vol.2 (1997)
Count Basie - Kansas City 5 (1977)

NikF

Oscar Moore Quartet

[asin]B000003BBD[/asin]
"You overestimate my power of attraction," he told her. "No, I don't," she replied sharply, "and neither do you".

SimonNZ

#2243


Count Basie - For The Second Time (1975)
Geri Allen - Twenty One (1994)

king ubu

Since the last post, all Geri Allen and related:





Love the Geri Allen-Charlie Haden-Paul Motian trio! "Etudes" is a classic, but the other two are excellent as well. The Oliver Lake is showing what "young lions" should have done, hadn't marketing and big money interfered and pushed those clever neo-cons to the top ... Lake is of course the sax player (and flautist) with Trio 3, a collaborative unit with Reggie Workman and Andrew Cyrille. I was lucky enough to catch them live twice, once in trio, once with Irène Schweizer. They also made two albums with Geri Allen and one each with Vijay Iyer and Jason Moran (and they have a great new disc out, by just the trio again).



Allen was the first pianist to record with Ornette Coleman in one of his small groups since his very first sessions in the fifties. These are a weird bunch ... the music at times is almost pleasant, but at others it may drive some people nuts because it's so nervous. Sound is ugly, alas, but Allen does a nice job fitting into the tapestry - which is all for making Ornette sound good - I guess that's what he was into from the seventies on, with Prime Time in its various guises ... maybe this is kind of an acoustic take on Prime Time, not sure ... not his best by a clear margin, but not bad either.



The Charles Lloyd double disc, his 9/11 album, is solemn and pretty nice indeed, however Allen often sounds subdued - which I guess fits in with the concept here. Again, everything is very much together here, and if there is a source of irritation (in a good way), it's John Abercrombie's guitar. I prefer "Jumping the Creek" with some excellent alto playing by Lloyd. It's on top of the listening pile right now. The Mark Shim is a really cool one - I know I just put down the neo-cons, and this could certainly be put into the same drawer, yet it's totally un-clever and for real, in some respects a faux sixties Blue Note album, with good tunes and no intention of showing off chops every - it's his debut, yet he sounds like a seasoned pro - good one indeed!



Roy Brooks was one of the best hard bop drummers in the sixties, played with Horace Silver's quintet for several years - and one of the other sidemen in that period was a outstanding young trumpet player by name of Woody Shaw. Shaw is the only non-pianist partnering Brooks on his Enja disc, which offers two selections each from a series of concerts he hosted. First up is Randy Weston, followed by Shaw, Don Pullen, and finally Geri Allen. The Shaw double disc is from the final years of Shaw's foreshortened career, when he did no longer front his own working band. Here, he has Roy Brooks, Geri Allen and bassist Robert Hurst behind him, and very much with him, in a programme of Monk, Shaw, Shorter's "United" (a Shaw staple), a terrific take on good ol' "Star Eyes", and two trio features (Allen's "Eric", for Dolphy, with whom a very young Shaw had recorded in 1963, and "Theloniously Speaking" by Brooks). Excellent recording, organized by Brooks (just as the Duets), and released in 1997 on Blue Note (with cover art by Gil Mellé, who played quite a role in the history of the label, having been the one to introduce Rudy Van Gelder to Alfred Lion ... Mellé made several very interesting recordings for BN in the fifties and designed a few covers, too, before Reid Miles joined).



Allen also played piano and synthesizers on the majority of the tracks that made up Wayne Shorter's final Columbia album in the late 80s ... one for those that are not pissed by the fact that he stopped soloing in late Weather Report - actually I quite enjoy this period in his work, though it took me quite a while to get there.



Of the two Reggie Workman discs, both with Julian Priester and Sam Rivers, I have a clear preference for the former, which is dark-ish and concise, with Andrew Hill and Pheeroan akLaff completing the group. The later has varying line-upsranging from trios (Geri Allen-Workman-Gerry Hemingway, Workman-Hemingway-Elizabeth Panzer on harp) to septet with tabla and harp. Al Foster is playing drums on two tracks, Hemingway is on all of the others except for the drummerless one, Tapan Modak on tabla drums. Nice tracks on this second one for sure, but I am most often not that much of a fan of albums with constantly changing line-ups.

And just now, as I am finalizing this post, put on Charles Lloyd's second album with Allen, featuring Robert Hurst (who's on the Shaw set above) and Eric Harland (who's on much of the Shim disc):


Allen also played piano and synthesizers on the majority of the tracks that made up Wayne Shorter's final Columbia album in the late 80s ... one for those that are not pissed by the fact that he stopped soloing in late Weather Report - actually I quite enjoy this period in his work, though it took me quite a while to get there.

Es wollt ein meydlein grasen gan:
Fick mich, lieber Peter!
Und do die roten röslein stan:
Fick mich, lieber Peter!
Fick mich mehr, du hast dein ehr.
Kannstu nit, ich wills dich lern.
Fick mich, lieber Peter!

http://ubus-notizen.blogspot.ch/

SimonNZ

#2245
I don't think I've heard anything by the Allen-Motian-Haden trio before, but I'm really looking forward to getting acquainted.

now:



Count Basie - Prime Time (1977)
Geri Allen - The Printmakers (1985)

king ubu

Quote from: SimonNZ on July 01, 2017, 04:51:09 PM
I don't think I've heard anything by the Allen-Motian-Haden trio before, but I'm really looking forward to getting acquainted.

Maybe it would make sense to consider the Charlie Haden "Complete Remastered Recordings on Black Saint and Soul Note" box, which contains "Etudes"? It also contains the two Old and New Dreams albums released by Black Saint, and two more Soul Notes ("Etudes" was on Soul Note, though it was really just two names under the same roof) with Enrico Pieranunzi and Billy Higgins ("First Song" in trio and "Silence" with Chet Baker added). Good stuff!

"The Printmakers" is one of many Allen discs still on its way to me (several will take a detour via Germany, many marketplace vendors using amazon.de as a platform have stopped shipping outside of Germany, which is ridiculous, as many of them aren't even located in Germany).
Es wollt ein meydlein grasen gan:
Fick mich, lieber Peter!
Und do die roten röslein stan:
Fick mich, lieber Peter!
Fick mich mehr, du hast dein ehr.
Kannstu nit, ich wills dich lern.
Fick mich, lieber Peter!

http://ubus-notizen.blogspot.ch/

SimonNZ


king ubu




Sunday afternoon and evening listening went on with the final bits of Allen that are on my shelves so far. The two Ambrosettis were part of a recent Enja series in Japan, and part of a five disc order of albums by this brilliant Swiss trumpet player ... I was pleasantly surprised, was expecting more elegant post bop, but this is pretty varied, with Jerry Gonzales on the first and Greg Osby on the second joining in with Ambrosetti, Allen, Scofield, Formanek and Humair. They're all offering brilliant playing here!

The Redman is quite tame but still oozes personality and character. The Jarman is anything else than tame, starts out brilliantly but somehow loses focus a bit as it goes on, I think.

Es wollt ein meydlein grasen gan:
Fick mich, lieber Peter!
Und do die roten röslein stan:
Fick mich, lieber Peter!
Fick mich mehr, du hast dein ehr.
Kannstu nit, ich wills dich lern.
Fick mich, lieber Peter!

http://ubus-notizen.blogspot.ch/

SimonNZ

#2249
^Movies Too was on my list of favorites from the RVG project.

now:



Geri Allen / Charlie Haden / Paul Motian - Etudes (1988)
Geri Allen - The Nurturer (1991)

Ghost Sonata

"An invigorating spin through classic hard bop fury," claimed Rolling Stone.  Yup!

[asin]B001PN74GO[/asin]
I like Conor71's "I  like old Music" signature.


king ubu



Got the above today and it's as nice as the other albums (and the mere mentioning of the names) had me hoping. Now onto some more sentimental music. I will likely never get over my ambiguous feelings about this lightweight that (acts as if he) turned (into a) heavy(weight) after his comeback ... something rubs me the wrong way, though I get why many love his long run of ECM albums.

Es wollt ein meydlein grasen gan:
Fick mich, lieber Peter!
Und do die roten röslein stan:
Fick mich, lieber Peter!
Fick mich mehr, du hast dein ehr.
Kannstu nit, ich wills dich lern.
Fick mich, lieber Peter!

http://ubus-notizen.blogspot.ch/

SimonNZ

#2253


Walt Dickerson - Shades Of Love (1978)
Clifford Jordan - Half Note (1985)

SimonNZ



Doug Raney - Guitar Guitar Guitar (1985)

king ubu

That Clifford Jordan at the Half Note is lovely! Do you have his other Steeplechase albums? There are those with Cedar Walton, too ...

Last night, first one I played was this new arrival with Geri Allen on piano:



Then finally dug into the two Soul Note/Black Saint boxes by Max Roach last night ... so far I only knew the duos with Braxton and Taylor out of these - proceeding chronologically, I played these four:




The third one (double quartet) caught on much less than the other three ... no Odean Pope there, and a somewhat obnoxious electric bass. Fourth has the new bass player (Tyrone Brown) on electric bass and it works out quite fine indeed ... first two have Calvin Hill on acoustic, and the second may actually be the best of this bunch.
Es wollt ein meydlein grasen gan:
Fick mich, lieber Peter!
Und do die roten röslein stan:
Fick mich, lieber Peter!
Fick mich mehr, du hast dein ehr.
Kannstu nit, ich wills dich lern.
Fick mich, lieber Peter!

http://ubus-notizen.blogspot.ch/

SimonNZ

#2256
Quote from: king ubu on July 05, 2017, 12:49:10 AM
That Clifford Jordan at the Half Note is lovely! Do you have his other Steeplechase albums? There are those with Cedar Walton, too ...


I'll check those out, thanks. There seems to be an enormous amount of the SteepleChase discography I'm still woefully ignorant of.

playing now:



Kenny Burrell - A Generation Ago Today (1967)


king ubu

Quote from: SimonNZ on July 05, 2017, 03:06:58 AM
I'll check those out, thanks. There seems to be an enormous amount of the SteepleChase discography I'm still woefully ignorant of.

There's so much there on that label ... and lots of sameness that doesn't exactly make it easy to decide what to pick. But with Jordan, absolutely go for the twofer "Magic in Munich", which combines two initial albums that are amongst Jordan's finest ("Firm Roots" and "The Highest Mountain"), with Cedar Walton, Sam Jones and Billy Higgins.
Es wollt ein meydlein grasen gan:
Fick mich, lieber Peter!
Und do die roten röslein stan:
Fick mich, lieber Peter!
Fick mich mehr, du hast dein ehr.
Kannstu nit, ich wills dich lern.
Fick mich, lieber Peter!

http://ubus-notizen.blogspot.ch/

Alek Hidell

Here's a little bit of what I've been hearing lately:


Hugues Vincent / Yasumune Morishige: Fragment


Skogen: Ist gefallen in den Schnee

[asin]B0038M61I2[/asin]

[asin]B000004798[/asin]
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist." - Hélder Pessoa Câmara

SimonNZ

Welcome, Alek!


playing now:



Mike Mainieri - Blues On The Other Side (1962)