What Jazz are you listening to now?

[SimonNZ]

^First heard the Cloud Dance album a year or two ago and was completely knocked out by it.

now:



Martial Solal / Lee Konitz / John Scofield / Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen - Four Keys (1979)

[king ubu]

Bean is superb as always. A fine album - I have it as a download only so I don't know the details, but it's obviously put together from different sessions (hence the album title, I guess ), including a couple of live tracks at the end.

Well, of course Bean is superb 

It's his Felsted album (#1-6) with various bonus tracks (the next bunch of studio tracks are from "Coleman Hawkins and His Confreres", a Verve platter, and then there are the live cuts which I don't know where they're from, maybe they're real rarities, that does occasionally happen, even with them pirates 

An official reissue of the Felsted catalogue through Mosaic fell through, so the pirates jumped in ... the Lonehills are hardly ever preferrable if you have alternatives (I guess that does include streaming and downloading, after all) ... Fresh Sound put out a fairly nice box of the catalogue, Lonehill or another of those cheapo labels (Fresh Sound is a bit better, or rather they do their own new productions and their reissues are taken care of in a much nicer way, though most of them fit the same "public domain in Europe/no royalties" niche) has it's own edition on fewer discs with somewhat less nice presentation, but ultimately not a big difference.

Here's the Fresh Sound:
https://www.freshsoundrecords.com/felsted-recordings-albums/5596-the-complete-stanley-dance-felsted-mainstream-jazz-recordings-1958-1959-9-cd-box-set.html

Martial Solal / Lee Konitz / John Scofield / Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen - Four Keys (1979)

Ooooh, those Solal MPS albums are such a nice bunch! Other than the early SABA one with Koller and Zoller and "Suite for Trio" I think none of them ever made a reissue (or in some cases maybe odd cheapo vinyl reissues) ... never on CD for sure. I have collected all of the non-CD ones on vinyl by now, I think.

Thread duty:



The Baker is nice but I think not nearly amongst the best of his many glorious late recordings. Just five tunes in around 100 minutes, so things get stretched (I guess Chet needed a break) a bit too much, but then the longest tracks (Shorter's "Black Eyes" and Beirach's "Broken Wing", they make up disc 2 together) are the finest, just because they're really good tunes. The band is okay, Jean-Louis Rassinfosse on bass of course was a true follower, Phil Markowitz on piano is not my favourite accompanist of late Chet's (Catherine on guitar first, Graillier on piano second... but then Markowitz is on the glorious "Broken Wing" album, which again I do rank amongst the finest of late Chet's works), and the drums are really not needed for this group (Charlie Rice).

The Hubbard is hands-on, funky, driven, with plenty of that self-conscious, cocky, sly trumpet playing, but also with moments of fragility here and there, and a wonderful ballad take of "Here's That Rainy Day". Billy Childs is the outstanding sideman here, Hadley Caliman alas cannot really shine all that much (some tracks are in quartet, and the leader is just so darn strong), while Larry Klein on bass is solid and Carl Burnett's banging drums rub me the wrong way now and then.

So, of the four, the personal favourite would be the Griff & Lock, just because I can never get enough of either of them ... the best is probably the Shaw I'd guess, a hair before the Hubbard, and the weakest the Chet, but I'd rank them all in the * * *1/2 to * * * * region in the end, * * * *1/2 for the Shaw.

[king ubu]

jaimie branch - Fly or Die | CD is still on the way, but buying via bandcamp I'm playing the DL now via my nice little bluetooth speaker ... and I'm in the second spin now, right in a row - great stuff, a suite with a wonderful flow and lots of great moments, lyrical, groovy, whimsical, captivating, spell-binding ... and Tomeka Reid kicks asses (like, all of them, almost!)

[SimonNZ]

Ernie Henry - Seven Standards And A Blues (1957)
Stan Getz - Reflections (1963)



Denys Baptiste - The Late Trane (2017)
Vijay Iyer - Far From Over (2017)

also tried to listen to Django Bates' Saluting Sgt Pepper, but couldn't take more than ten minutes of it

[Alek Hidell]

Well, of course Bean is superb 

It's his Felsted album (#1-6) with various bonus tracks (the next bunch of studio tracks are from "Coleman Hawkins and His Confreres", a Verve platter, and then there are the live cuts which I don't know where they're from, maybe they're real rarities, that does occasionally happen, even with them pirates 

An official reissue of the Felsted catalogue through Mosaic fell through, so the pirates jumped in ... the Lonehills are hardly ever preferrable if you have alternatives (I guess that does include streaming and downloading, after all) ... Fresh Sound put out a fairly nice box of the catalogue, Lonehill or another of those cheapo labels (Fresh Sound is a bit better, or rather they do their own new productions and their reissues are taken care of in a much nicer way, though most of them fit the same "public domain in Europe/no royalties" niche) has it's own edition on fewer discs with somewhat less nice presentation, but ultimately not a big difference.

Here's the Fresh Sound:
https://www.freshsoundrecords.com/felsted-recordings-albums/5596-the-complete-stanley-dance-felsted-mainstream-jazz-recordings-1958-1959-9-cd-box-set.html

Thanks for the info, king ubu! Long may you reign. I need more Hawkins in my collection (him and about a hundred others).

TD:


I'm a fan of several of these musicians, but this one is sorta meh so far. But then, I'm listening in a rental car whose AUX jack has a constant, annoying whine accompanying the music (playing on my iPod). Need to give it a fairer chance, I guess.

[SimonNZ]

Paul Bley - Ramblin (1967)
Paul Bley - Solemn Meditation (1958)



John McLaughlin - Live At Ronnie Scotts (2017)
Kenny Burrell - Ellington Is Forever (1975)



Anouar Brahem - Blue Maqams (2017)

[San Antone]

Tune selection aside (I could do without pop songs like "Wonderwall"), Mehldau's trio is hard to beat from the current crop.

[San Antone]

Tune selection aside (I could do without pop songs like "Wonderwall"), Mehldau's trio is hard to beat from the current crop.

A 2016 recording and one that I think is much better because of the song slections:

[James]

https://www.youtube.com/v/mYMnG0ON8zc

[SimonNZ]

Andrew Hill - Strange Serenade (1980)

[San Antone]

Andrew Hill - Strange Serenade (1980)

Andrew Hill is probably my favorite jazz pianist/composer, especially those great Blue Note recordings.  But these later ones are good listening as well, lots of solo piano stuff, and Time Lines is truly a great late record.

[SimonNZ]

Andrew Hill is probably my favorite jazz pianist/composer, especially those great Blue Note recordings.  But these later ones are good listening as well, lots of solo piano stuff, and Time Lines is truly a great late record.

I played Time Lines for the first time just the other day, and agree its superb - as is the one playing now. There seems to be a general recieved wisdom out in the world that the early Blue Note big names were never as good in later years and hardly worth the effort of investigating further, which I've found in almost every case to be grossly unfair and manifestly untrue.

[San Antone]

I played Time Lines for the first time just the other day, and agree its superb - as is the one playing now. There seems to be a general recieved wisdom out in the world that the early Blue Note big names were never as good in later years and hardly worth the effort of investigating further, which I've found in almost every case to be grossly unfair and manifestly untrue.

Because the consistent quality of those '50s-'60s Blue Note recordings, a veritable golden age of jazz, fans have a tendency to fetishize them.  You're right many of those same musicians continued to record for labels like Pablo and others, some European labels like Black Saint, and those are often of equal quality.

[SimonNZ]

Max Roach - M'Boom (1979)

^Checking out the discography of Freddie Watts, drummer on the Andrew Hill album I played earlier, I'm led to this remarkable album which incorporates all manner of world/ethnic percussion practices.




Richard Davis - Epistrophy & Now's The Time (1972)

[SimonNZ]

M'Boom - s/t (1973)
Milt Jackson - And The Hip String Quartet (1968)

[Mirror Image]

Now playing:

[Spineur]

A 2016 recording and one that I think is much better because of the song slections:

I love this Mehldau album !
TD
I re-listen yesterday to Nina Simone

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She may not have the most beautiful jazz voice, but her expressivity and musicianship are exceptional.

[San Antone]

Some interesting music here.

[San Antone]

I re-listen yesterday to Nina Simone

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She may not have the most beautiful jazz voice, but her expressivity and musicianship are exceptional.

Nina Simone was one THE GREAT jazz stylists!

[Karl Henning]

http://www.youtube.com/v/18IWWDkRdmc