What Jazz are you listening to now?

[king ubu]

Two new releases by pianist Matthew Shipp who is releasing his stuff as fast as Anthony Braxton or David Murray were doing a while ago ... both are very good, both free sets with sympathetic partners, yielding pretty different results. The duo with Roscoe Mitchell was recorded in summer 2005 at the festival in Sant'Anna Arresi (some day I've got to visit it!) and the grand master of the saxophone is in striking shape, churning out those endlessly variated lines that kinda overtake themselves, so dense it gets. The set is 46 minutes, split into seven parts for easier reference I guess, but it's really just one segment that builds and evolves.

The trio with Daniel Carter (who is heard on tenor, alto, soprano, flute, clarinet and trumpet) and William Parker is a true unit - they did a talk before about "Art, Race, and Politics in America" and their complicity definitely shows in the 55 minute set (three parts, the first two flow into each other). The mood is pensive, dark, though not bitter, things get really intense as well, even at quiet moments this still burns. Excellent indeed, and I even enjoy William Parker here, whom I usually find pretty boring.

[king ubu]

Back to Cecil Taylor ... not sure about the set on the right, it says (p) 1999/2018 but I couldn't find anything about a release in 1999 (the label is Black Sun Music, their website says not much - record label secretiveness is annoying), the discogs entry says CD-R but my copy looks like a proper CD. What we deal with is the 55 minute solo set performed on 14 May 1999 at the Uncool festival in Poschiavo in the Swiss mountains. Alas I never was at that festival during the few years it existed, it seems to have been very special.

The first disc is from 20 February 2008, a duo gig in Berlin with Tony Oxley - that's the configuration I saw Taylor live in, the only one alas (he was scheduled to play Willisau again a few years back but cancelled). The disc is 78 minutes long and at times has a playful air to it, at others it gets intense as was usual with CT. Good stuff.

[SimonNZ]

Thomas Chapin - Night Bird Song (1999)
Uri Caine - Gustav Mahler in Toblach: I Went Out This Morning Over the Countryside (1998)

[king ubu]

Thomas Chapin 

[king ubu]

First listen in this configuration ... and reading Ashley Kahn's pleasant liner notes (he feels more like a really thorough compiler to me, don't think he ever really presented anything thought-provoking) along ... the Paris and Stockholm sets have been fixtures in my house for 20 years (I remember spending a fortune for both the 4-CD sets, which also contain the - quite wonderful - October tour sets from the same places with Sonny Stitt on sax) ... Copenhagen I may indeed have never heard before, but I'm still of the opinion that they ought to have picked different concerts (Scheveningen for one, which yielded that terrific take of "So What" that was released on the silly Anniversary/Deluxe reissue of "Kind of Blue", which I got when it was around for 45-50€, even though I'd wanted to stay away from it ... hah!)

Either way, the music is as amazing today as when I first discovered it, Coltrane's playing often mind-boggling, Wynton Kelly picking it up, Chambers/Cobb keeping everything in good shape and swinging hard (and Chambers providing a few good solos). Miles is elegant, restrained maybe, keeping his statements short, then leaving the floor to Coltrane (and as one reads, exiting the stage even). Mighy, mighty good, no doubt!

[SimonNZ]

Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble - Cape Town Shuffle: Live at Hothouse (2003)
Ganelin Trio - Strictly For Our Friends (1984)

[SimonNZ]

Don Friedman - Waltz for Marilyn (2007)
Satoko Fujii - Toward, To West (2000)

[Mookalafalas]

First listen in this configuration ... and reading Ashley Kahn's pleasant liner notes (he feels more like a really thorough compiler to me, don't think he ever really presented anything thought-provoking) along ... the Paris and Stockholm sets have been fixtures in my house for 20 years (I remember spending a fortune for both the 4-CD sets, which also contain the - quite wonderful - October tour sets from the same places with Sonny Stitt on sax) ... Copenhagen I may indeed have never heard before, but I'm still of the opinion that they ought to have picked different concerts (Scheveningen for one, which yielded that terrific take of "So What" that was released on the silly Anniversary/Deluxe reissue of "Kind of Blue", which I got when it was around for 45-50€, even though I'd wanted to stay away from it ... hah!)

Either way, the music is as amazing today as when I first discovered it, Coltrane's playing often mind-boggling, Wynton Kelly picking it up, Chambers/Cobb keeping everything in good shape and swinging hard (and Chambers providing a few good solos). Miles is elegant, restrained maybe, keeping his statements short, then leaving the floor to Coltrane (and as one reads, exiting the stage even). Mighy, mighty good, no doubt!

Nice read.  I don't have this, but have the volumes with Stitt, which are some of my tippy-top drawer recordings. I'll try to hunt this down. To be honest, I've always been a bit too conservative for Trane. I am so old-school I prefer Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, and some of the Duke's old sidemen to Trane. I've been listening to Kind of Blue for almost 35 years, and always preferred the Adderley solos, even on that! But for some reason you've persuaded me to go back and give Coltrane another shot.

TD:
one of my all time favorite disks. But haven't played it in many a moon...

[Mookalafalas]

Through the miracle of the internet, I got the "Final Tour" album.  Admittedly, I am in a well-lubricated, post-work state of mind, but am enjoying the album enormously.

After more lubrication, I feel inclined to wax more eloquent. 
    Sound is excellent.  Wynton Kelly is beyond excellent. Miles is in rare form. There is the irritating problem that the repertoire is puny, but still excellent. My favorite album from this whole era is the one with Sam Rivers on sax, but this one is as good as by beloved Olympia with Sonny Stitt disks...

[SimonNZ]

Tobias Delius - The Heron (1999)
Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio - Live at the River East Art Center (2005)

[king ubu]

Through the miracle of the internet, I got the "Final Tour" album.  Admittedly, I am in a well-lubricated, post-work state of mind, but am enjoying the album enormously.

After more lubrication, I feel inclined to wax more eloquent. 
    Sound is excellent.  Wynton Kelly is beyond excellent. Miles is in rare form. There is the irritating problem that the repertoire is puny, but still excellent. My favorite album from this whole era is the one with Sam Rivers on sax, but this one is as good as by beloved Olympia with Sonny Stitt disks...

Interesting ... but how, if you're too conservative for Trane, can you prefer the Rivers album? 

Rivers went farther out than Miles enjoyed ... and it seems he was unwilling to deal with it. He had tried to hire Wayne Shorter (who was and is a sublime musician of course!) ever since Trane left, but Shorter went with Blakey, who made him musical director and pushed him up front ... and only became part of Miles band when he, Shorter, felt he was ready. The "in-betweens", of which George Coleman was the one who left the most substantial body of work with Miles, were all kind of steps back I guess (stylistically at least Rivers was not, of course). Hank Mobley was with the band, so was Jimmy Heath (but being on probation he wasn't allowed to leave whatever state - NY I assume - he was put in and thus had to let the job go) ... and I think Frank Strozier was with the group as well at some point just before they recorded "Seven Steps to Heaven", which is kind of the other end after "Someday My Prince Will Come" - both excellent albums, but neither of them able to compete with all the masterworks in Davis' catalogue. In between, there were the live recordings w/Mobley (I *love* the Carnegie Hall concert and have come to really appreciate the Black Hawk material - bit concert stage vs. regular club gig, Mobley is on fire on some of the Carnegie Hall tracks and the Adagio from "Concierto de Aranjuez" probably beats the studio version ... at the Blackhawk, it's more about the emerging Wynton Kelly Trio and their in-the-pocket groove ... hip shit, but nothing that screams in your face how great it is).

Stitt, among the four interim sax players (or I think seven in total? so there was at least one more ... Frank Haynes maybe? I read the full list of names once but it's been years), was certainly the most conservative, a bebop musician that just about started to explore organ/soul jazz - but adding his mighty bebop bite to it. However, I really do love those live recordings with Stitt (Paris and Stockholm have been around for ages, both in the respective 4-CD-sets from the 90s which also contain the recordings with Coltrane, more recently, Amsterdam has also been released, again with the Coltrane part, which is probably the weakest of the March/April tour, the band just sounding tired ... the Zurich set w/Trane on TCB is highly recommended though, one of the greatest takes of "All Blues" ever, there).

Somehow, Stitt (sometimes just going through the moves though, but even doing that he was usually still pretty good) being more mellow and not all that thought-provoking a player, Miles is playing much, much more, and a new musical axis is established between him and Wynton Kelly, who was great already on the spring tour with Trane. Miles really plays hard on those recordings with Stitt ... and he does so on some of the 1961 material with Mobley, too. 1962 was mostly pause for health reasons - hip operation or something, after one of his horrible car accidents, I think? Dude was one crazy MF.

In 1963, a new chapter starts, still kind of interim, but the young new rhythm section (Hancock-Carter-Williams) really gels on the live recordings from 1963 and 1964, and George Coleman is another sax player I really like although again he was too conservative for Miles' band at that point (in 1960/61 I guess it would have been similar, but he matched with Kelly nicely, there's a Left Bank recording of Coleman and the Kelly trio from later in the sixties) - but at his best, he was amazing nonetheless. Fast forward to November 1964, the amazing concert at the Berlin Philharmonic with Wayne Shorter on saxophone - and that new chapter really gets exciting!

--

Thread duty:



The one on the left is Jason Moran's Bandwagon, "Thanksgiving at the Village Vanguard" (rec. Nov. 2016), played on Sunday. Caught the new Blue Note film by swiss director Sophie Huber in a Sunday matinee pre-screening (actually Shorter and Hancock are part of it) and with Robert Glasper speaking, somehow I felt like listening to some JaMo (his early albums were all on BN and probably kick ass of anything Glasper did, though I quite enjoy Glasper in smaller doses, also saw him live last year, kinda hip hop jazz, which makes sense) ... and then reading that Lorraine Gordon (1922-2018) has died, it all made sense ... she had married Alfred Lion in 1942 and then Max Gordon in 1949, the later ran the Village Vanguard until his death in 1989 (the only time the club was closed for a day or two), and she continued to run it until recently.

Tonight, I started with Wadada Leo Smith sitting in with Harriet Tubman (that is Brandon Ross-g, Melvin Gibbs-b, JT Lewis-d), and am now continuing with the other two Moran discs I recently bought. Not sure I'm going to make the third one (below), but if not tonight, then tomorrow, probably. "Mass {Howl, eon}" is a trio with Graham Haynes (cornet, electronics) and Jamire Williams (drums) recorded in June 2017. "Bangs" (pictured below) is another trio, with Ron Miles (t) and Mary Halvorson (g), recorded in October 2016. All three of the JaMo albums came out in 2017 I think, and he's selling them for pretty much himself, but first impression is they're probably worth it (the Village Vanguard set for one is great!)

[Brian]

This week for my drive to work and back home I have the car loaded up with classics:

Tenor Madness - Sonny and Trane
The Complete Concert by the Sea - Garner 2CD
Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers
Ben Webster & Associates (this is the one with Hawk, Ray Brown, and an epic 19 minute jam on In a Mellow Tone)
The Nina Simone Philips box set
Art Tatum Lionel Hampton Buddy Rich Trio

[SimonNZ]

Dave Douglas - In Our Lifetime (1995)
Joey DeFrancesco - Organic Vibes (2006)

[SimonNZ]

Zusaan Kali Fasteau and Donald Rafael Garrett - Memoirs of a Dream (2000)
Orrin Evans - Listen to the Band (2000)

[George]

Zusaan Kali Fasteau and Donald Rafael Garrett - Memoirs of a Dream (2000)
Orrin Evans - Listen to the Band (2000)

The woman on that cover looks a lot like Martha Quinn. 

[XB-70 Valkyrie]

Tobias Delius - The Heron (1999)
Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio - Live at the River East Art Center (2005)

Wow, lots of interesting recordings in this thread. That Kahil El'Zabar has a crazy violin solo by the late Billy Bang.

[king ubu]

After having decided to go to Willisau jazzfestival one night this year, basically to hear James Blood Ulmer & The Thing (although I don't think their common album - also a festival set - is all that great, but I want to catch Ulmer while I can!), I started checking out the Lucerne sax player that will perform in trio with Jim Baker (p) and Frank Rosaly (d) for starters ... I think I mentioned that trio's release on Hat Hut further up? Anyway, Christoph Erb is his name and he's been running a Chicago series on his label Veto. The series runs as Veto/Exchange and basically features him on tenor and bass clarinet in various combinations with musicians such as Fred Lonberg-Holm, Keefe Jackson, Frank Rosaly, Jason Roebke, Jim Baker, Tomeka Reid, Jason Adasiewicz, Josh Berman etc. I am still waiting for my copy of the Bererberg Trio disc, but other than that the entire run is here (one, 012, is not part of the series ... and that one I'd bought at a concert of the group when it was brand new).

Full listing including line-ups (006-008 are OOP):
http://www.veto-records.ch/exchange/

The five first ones mark Erb's spring 2011 visit (001-004) as well as kind of a prologue (005) recorded in concert at Willisau jazzfestival 2010, without Erb (but wiht a few other Swiss musicians meeting up with a few Chicagoans). Very good stuff, for sure! 001 has Erb in trio with Jim Baker and Michael Zerang, 002 is a short but very good solo album by Erb (26 minutes I think), while 003 "SACK" is a quartet with Lonberg-Holm on cello and guitar, Roebke on bass and Rosaly on drums. The tenor/cello combination works very, very well, and thus doing a duo with Lonberg-Holm a few weeks later (004 "Screw and Straw") was a very good move.

Looking forward to exploring 006, 008-011 and 013-015 (and indeed hoping 007 will make it here soon) ... great series, that's for sure!

[king ubu]

A 3-disc-set of live music by Gordon Beck spanning two decades (1964-1984) has just been released ... and when ordering it I saw this reissue of his 1969 classic "Gyroscope", with Jeff Clyne on bass and Tony Oxley on drums - the parcel with both arrived yesterday. First spin, probably a wee bit too much of Bill Evans in there for my taste (I kinda do like Evans of course, but I don't need others to sound like him), but it's good!

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Donny McCaslin, Soar. Tight, kinetic, sinewy, all-around a cut above.



[asin]B000ERU7JI[/asin]

[SimonNZ]

Milt Jackson - Jackson's-Ville (1956)