What Jazz are you listening to now?

[SimonNZ]

^The Modern Jazz Quartet and The Oscar Peterson Trio - At The Opera House (1957) - I don't know this. But cool, something to look forward to. 

Strong sets from both, though not downright essential.

and playing this now and immediately loving it:



and I'm excited to see its got a version of "Move" I haven't heard before

I see Gary Burton is also with him on the Unforgettable Guitar album. Have you heard that one or rate it as highly?

[NikF]

Strong sets from both, though not downright essential.

Cheers. It's nice to know they exist, and at this stage I'm treating anything unheard as a bonus, with an extra bonus if I find them rewarding in some way.

and playing this now and immediately loving it:



and I'm excited to see its got a version of "Move" I haven't heard before

I see Gary Burton is also with him on the Unforgettable Guitar album. Have you heard that one or rate it as highly?

Glad to hear you're liking Jazz Winds! It definitely has something about it.

No, I don't have 'Unforgettable Guitar', but I was always going to buy this but never got around to it -

Move! The Guitar Artistry of Hank Garland

[asin]B00005B7RS[/asin]

Apparently it contains three albums in a broadly similar vein, one of which is 'Unforgettable Guitar'.

[king ubu]

The great Randy Weston died yesterday, aged 92 - he left us with so much fine music, I'll be eternally grateful for that. And I am very, very sad about the news, his age notwithstanding. He was one of those that seemed to be here for eternity. Glad I was able to catch him live twice - once a magnificent night with his African Rhythms Trio (Alex Blake on bass and Neil Clarke on percussion), about ten years ago, then more recently in duo with Billy Harper.

NY Times obit:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/obituaries/randy-weston-dead.html

Played this one last night:



And now I'm going through a track here and there from his 50s and 60s albums, including:



Now this one in full lenght - what a band: Kenny Dorham, Coleman Hawkins, Wilbur Little, Roy Haynes (and on one cut each guests Clifford Jarvis and Brock Peters are added):

[SimonNZ]

That NYT obituary is interesting for highlighting his belief in the central Africanness of Jazz.

Do you know which of his albums are the best for showcasing this side of his discography?

[king ubu]

That NYT obituary is interesting for highlighting his belief in the central Africanness of Jazz.

Do you know which of his albums are the best for showcasing this side of his discography?

I'd say that from around 1960 on, you can basically feel it throughout. But to be more specific:

Uhuru Afrika (Roulette, 1960) is a large-scale opus exploring African roots, Langston Hughes himself wrote the narration to go with it ... and it features a star-studded large band to boot (incl. Clark Terry, Benny Bailey, Freddie Hubbard, Slide Hampton, Quentin Jackson, Jimmy Cleveland, Julius Watkins, Budd Johnson, Yusef Lateef, Kenny Burrell, Ron Carter, Max Roach, Olatunji, Candido etc.). In 1963 Weston followed up with what's more or less a pure Highlife album (again with a mighty fine band incl. Ray Copeland, Jackson, Cleveland, Watkins, Booker Ervin, Johnson, Aaron Bell on tuba, Charlie Persip, Frankie Dunlop a.o.). Arrangements on both were done by his most important collaborator, Melba Liston (who as a trombone player can be heard on "Little Niles", United Artists, 1958).

There's some good mid-sixties stuff, too: African Cookbook (Atlantic) and Monterey '66 (rel. only in 1993) with basically the same band, except that Booker Ervin is sold as "guest star" on the later ... these include Big Black on congas (the studio album also Harol Murray on percussion) added to the usual line-up (Ray Copeland, who was also a favourite trumpet player of Monk's, Ervin, on the Monterey concert also Cecil Payne, then Bill "Vishnu" Wood on bass, and Lenny McBrowne on drums). There's some chanting, there's some dark hues, there's some afro-carribean elements (on one of his very earliest albums, Weston does a traditional calypso tune that later became famous as "St. Thomas", played by Sonny Rollins) ... strong music for sure! From the same time, there's another live album made at the Both/And in San Francisco with Frank Haynes no on tenor (no baritone), otherwise the same group (Copeland, Wood, McBrowne, Big Black). Those have plenty of strong 60s vibes to them and I really like them (the last one was reissued by Fresh Sound on the "Trio & Sextet - From 52nd Street to Africa" CD, coupled with the 1958 Newport set in trio, where Weston does his most famous tune, "Hi-Fly").

In the seventies, the discography gets scattered - Weston made some wonderful solo albums ("Nuit Africaine"/"African Night" on Enja/OWL/InnerCity to name one), there's also "Carnival" from Montreux 1974 with another great band (Billy Harper tears it up on tenor, Don Moye is on drums and percussion, William Allen on bass and Steve Berrios on percussion). Weston also got the chance to make Tanjah, a bid band album he produced himself (Polydor, 1973) with again a fantastic bad (incl. Copeland, Watkins, Al Grey, Harper, Budd Johnson, Carter, Ahmed Abdul-Malik etc., and again with some narration and chants and plenty of percussion ... fantastic album that gives a great snapshot of what Weston's music is about.

From the late 80s on, he made a terrific series of albums for Gitanes/Verve France, incl. Volcano Blues (arranger Melba Liston gets co-billing without being heard as a player, Teddy Edwards is on this), Saga (possibly the best of the bunch), the somewhat ambitious double album The Spirits of Our Ancestors (these three all have been made with mid-sized ensembles including Talib Kibwe, Billy Harper, Benny Powell, the last one mentioned has guest spots by Dizzy Gillespie and Pharoah Sanders and features Dewey Redman, Idris Muhammad and Idrees Sulieman as well) and the three portraits album that kicked off the series (all with Jamil Nasser on bass, Muhammad and percussionist Eric Asante - one dedicated to Monk, one to Ellington, and one to his own stuff), a strings album (arr. by Liston again, semi-successful I'd say), encounters with the Gnawa Musicians of Morocco (there's a full Gnawa album with Weston sitting on the short final track, and then they appear again on the final album of the run, Spirit! The Power of Music (Universal France by then, 2000). Then he also made the solo album I love most, I think, Marakkech in the Cool of the Evening. This entire run is brilliant I think (and the CD reissue of "Tanjah" as well as the "Monterey '66" disc fall into that place/label group, too).

Later on, with no big label to promote his stuff, the discography gets a bit scattered again, with releases on various labels including his own outlet. The latest (rel. early 2018) is a double album recorded solo in Montreux 2001. Before that, there was an ambitious kind of jazz history (rather: mythology), "The African Nubian Suite", which is somewhat peculiar as the africa-centricity of the narration is a bit too much - I can dig it as Randy's take on things, but as a historian I'm double-guessing plenty of the story to be honest) ... there is also a fine album by the trio which I heard him in concert with the first time, Zep Tepi (Random Chance, 2006 - Alex Blake on bass and Neil Clarke on percussion), and there was one final release on Universal, a duo with Billy Harper (the second group I heard live), The Roots of the Blues - which I guess is kinda their low end theory - it's deep in every respect.

This, by no means, is a complete discographical runthrough ... but it gives some pointers I hope 

While typing, I was spinning "Saga", btw:

[SimonNZ]

Great info as ever, KU. Thanks for taking the time. I'll be playing some of those soon.

[king ubu]

Great info as ever, KU. Thanks for taking the time. I'll be playing some of those soon.

Sure! Actually while re-playing "Saga", I should have mentioned that the african aspect is really part of the Weston sound by that time. There's percussion, there's grooves ... there's typical jazz solo stuff as well (like one track has a long chase between the tenor or Billy Harper and the alto of Talib Kibwe, who acted as musical director in Weston's band for many years).

And with Benny Powell in the band, the former Basie trombone player (he was around for the "Dance Sessions" in 1954 already and part of the finest of "new testament" band editions, including the albums "April in Paris" and "Atomic Mr. Basie" and many, many others), Weston had true jazz history in his band, besides himself.

--

Oh, forgot to mention: yesterday's last night listen:



Currently available in its Enja version as "Nuit Africaine" - a solo album from 1975, and a wonderful one (though maybe "Blues to Africa" on Freedom has a slight edge in my house ... and definitely the later "Marrakech in the Cool of the Evening" ranks higher with me).

[king ubu]

a terrific album of Weston's working trio with Alex Blake (bass) and Neil Clarke (African percussion - a kit made up of usual drum-kit parts and some frame drums and stuff)

[king ubu]

Randy Weston on CTI? Seriously now? (We still miss his A&M album though, best with trumpet solos by Herb A. himself    ) - The one commercial sin and artistic miss? Well, not quite, it's much better than we'd be willing to believe really (and hey, I'm not saying CTI was all bad, but it's high-gloss image aimed at a broad public was certainly a mismatch with anything Weston stood for).

We get a shorter followed by a long track on each half of the album, Freddie Hubbard (t), Grover Washington Jr. (ts, before he got all baby-faced) and Hubert Laws (fl) are the featured soloists, all CTI household names, Don Sebesky has his hand at somewhat inept arrangements that kind of take the edge off the music, domesticate the wild(er)ness of hhow it should sound. There's even a topless pic of Weston in the fold-out, and the band is filled with more typical CTI names of the times: Billy Cobham, Ron Carter and the usual studio horns (Romeo Penque, Wayne Andre, Marvin Stamm ...) - Weston himself plays rhodes in addition to his piano.

It's kinda weird that this pretty streamlined album features Randy's own liner notes where he explains his debt to African music and gets quite specific about the Ganawa (Gnaoua) Music of Morocco ... but either way, the result is much better than you had a right to ever believe, so just lean back and enjoy (but get 20 other Weston albums first!)

[king ubu]

This disc reunites two late 60s albums recorded in Paris with Henri Texier (b), Art Taylor (d), Niles Weston (cga) and Reebop Kwabu Baah (cga, cowbells, chants) - dark, intense, brooding stuff ... glad I was so good in buying Weston's disc about 20-15 years back, I even have some of his rarer LPs ("Rhythms and Sounds" on Cora and "Randy Weston Meets Himself" on Pausa).

[SimonNZ]

Benny Carter - Cosmopolite (1956)
Ray Brown - Jazz Cello (1960)



Stan Getz - Cool Velvet (1960)
Herbie Mann - Flute, Brass, Vibes And Percussion (1961)

[king ubu]

[SimonNZ]

Charlie Ventura - Blue Saxophone (1956)
Count Basie - The Count! (1955)

[XB-70 Valkyrie]

Absolutely loving my 2 LP set of Chet Baker and Bill Evans. I was a bit disappointed at first to see that it was not just CB and BE playing together (trumpet + piano is a rather rare combination), but rather included several other musicians (top-notch ones at that: Kenny Burrell, Pepper Adams, et al). However, the interplay among them is incredible, and the material and mood are mesmerizing. Can't wait to digitize LP 2 soon!

[Alek Hidell]

Lessee ... today was:

   

Lotte Anker / Craig Taborn / Gerald Cleaver: Floating Islands (2011)
Susie Ibarra: Folkloriko (2004)
... and, well, you can pretty clearly see the third one. It's from 1999.

[king ubu]

I have that Lotte Anker disc ... and I need the (any, actually) Foxes Fox, I think!

--

Lately, when I wasn't trying to cope with Stockhausen (all Sunday at Lucerne Festival):



Finally got the Dexter box a few weeks ago, as the price went down enough that custom wouldn't hit ... started exploring the first two session with Drew/NHOP/Tootie, and the second is pretty good indeed (for the first one, Tootie was forced to play a rock kit that sounds much too bright ... only one tune made the album culled from the two dates, which appeared as "The Apartment" on Steeplechase). The Aeby is from after I'd left London when the Intakt in London festival took place last April ... it's pretty fine I guess, but not really to my taste (but I bet I'd prefer it over most of EST and The Bad Plus, which is where I'd roughly put it, which again may be a bit unfair).



The keeper of these is the McPhee/Edwards/Kugel - they did a tour (which by chance ended in Bruges at a place called Parazzar, which means "par hasard" of course) ... the Detail set is your typical free jazz set of the time (early 80s), though of course it's nice to have some more Johnny Dyani.



Now exploring this twofer, a recent acquistion - original albums showed below. Don't think I quite agree with Scott Yanow's put-down (2 and 2.5 stars) on Allmusic ... maybe this is relaxed, but I don't find it dull at all. Okay, a strong saxophonist would have been more interesting, but then we don't have that much music by Kenny Dorham, so I'm really enjoying it!

[SimonNZ]

Dizzy Gillespie and Stuff Smith - s/t (1957)
Buddy Rich - Just Sings (1957)

[SimonNZ]

Oscar Peterson - Soft Sands (1957)
^Have I heard Oscar sing before? I dont think I have. Very Nat King Cole.

Kid Ory - Song Of The Wanderer (1957)



Stan Getz - '57 (rec.1953)

[Alek Hidell]

Buddy Rich - Just Sings (1957)

Really? I didn't even knew he sang.

I don't own anything by him. I know he was extremely talented but I guess I've always expected his music to be full of show-offy drum solos and such - Buddy Rich and his faceless supporting cast. And I associate him with a kind of big-band sound, which is not a favorite with me. Should I reconsider?

[SimonNZ]

Really? I didn't even knew he sang.

I don't own anything by him. I know he was extremely talented but I guess I've always expected his music to be full of show-offy drum solos and such - Buddy Rich and his faceless supporting cast. And I associate him with a kind of big-band sound, which is not a favorite with me. Should I reconsider?

I don't know his discography well but of what I've heard it's quite varied in terms of showy or not and there's enough of both to gravitate toward  what you'd like including work with small combos.

He's got a wonderful singing voice and could easily have justified more than a mere three albums with vocals accross his career. And I'd recommend that one.