What Jazz are you listening to now?

[San Antone]

Regarding Lou Donaldson, this Mosaic collection (OOP) is hard to find but contains some great stuff:



Over the course of some 20 albums that Donaldson would cut for Blue Note beginning with his first sessions in 1953, you can trace the course of popular jazz styles, from bop inflected quintets to soul jazz organ combos. The majority of this new six disc set covers the type of bebop fare that is the core of Donaldson's musical persona and much of this material has been available previously on compact disc, although there are a few items that could only be found previously on pricey Japanese imports.

[SimonNZ]

Wilbur De Paris - At Symphony Hall (1957)
Joe Mooney - Lush Life (1957)

I've got a real soft spot for Wilbur De Paris and feel that even though he's undemanding its unfair he's been so completely forgotten

The Joe Mooney has what may well be the most annoying electric keyboard I've ever heard



Carol Stevens - That Satin Doll (1957)
John Lewis and Sacha Distel - Afternoon In Paris (1957)

Carol sounds like she'd have a great voice and delivery, so its a pity she's just do-de-do-dahing all the lyrics (correction: side one is standards done scat, side two is with sung lyrics - a voice like Anita O'Day))

[JBS]

Whoa man! I don't have a lot of Lou's records - in fact maybe just the complete Night at Birdland series with Blakey and Silver - but like SA says, it's damn good to know that such a fine musician is still out there. Hope you can get that man a darn good pair of shoes.

He didn't come in today...I am off tomorrow...but this just happened, leavened by the fact I have little Rollins and wanted Amazon's free shipping...
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,24773.msg1193108.html#msg1193108

[king ubu]

A Sonny Clark day today (and Julia Fischer w/Britten, followed by Bruckner 6, Juanjo Mena at the helm of Tonhalle tonight), with plenty of music from all over his career, hopping around between many CDs, including stuff he made during his year at the west coast (Cal Tjader, Howard Rumsey, Larance Marable, Stan Levey) and prior (Buddy De Franco, Jimmy Raney in Paris) and Blue Note classics (by Jackie McLean, Lee Morgan, Johnny Griffin, Hank Mobley, Stanley Turrentine, Curtis Fuller, Bennie Green, and of course by Clark himself).

Depicted are two albums I've played in full (the Levey, which is still fairly new to me) and am currently playing (also in full), "Candy" by Lee Morgan, with Clark, Watkins and Taylor - haven't heard that one for many years - yet it is very good indeed! (Too much music around ...)

[NikF]

Shelly Manne: Three & The Two

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I met a Ukrainian aerialist who told me her father likes Giuffre and then specifically mentioned this. What a small world etc.

[NikF]

Wilbur De Paris - At Symphony Hall (1957)
Joe Mooney - Lush Life (1957)

I've got a real soft spot for Wilbur De Paris and feel that even though he's undemanding its unfair he's been so completely forgotten

The Joe Mooney has what may well be the most annoying electric keyboard I've ever heard



Carol Stevens - That Satin Doll (1957)
John Lewis and Sacha Distel - Afternoon In Paris (1957)

Carol sounds like she'd have a great voice and delivery, so its a pity she's just do-de-do-dahing all the lyrics (correction: side one is standards done scat, side two is with sung lyrics - a voice like Anita O'Day))

Wilbur De Paris is so 'forgotten' I'm unaware of him. But I'll seek to remedy that. Cheers, mate.

Distel with Lewis - a simple pleasure in the sweet spot of a jazz guitar era that's probably my favourite. 

[NikF]

Monk's Dream

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Still bustin' my chops.

[SimonNZ]

Wilbur De Paris is so 'forgotten' I'm unaware of him. But I'll seek to remedy that. Cheers, mate.

Nothing revolutionary - its Dixieland revival after all - but i find its always done well and is always enjoyable.

now:



Conte Candoli and Lou Levy - West Coast Wailers (1958)
Mary Lou Williams and Barbara Carroll - Ladies Of Jazz (1958)



Lee Konitz - The Real Lee Konitz (1957)
Billy Taylor - The Billy Taylor Touch (1958)

[king ubu]

More Sonny Clark: "Dial 'S' for Sonny" (1957), "Cool Struttin'" (1958) and "Leapin' and Lopin'" (1961 - his last and arguably finest) - what great music!

[king ubu]

Sonny Clark first went into the studio for Blue Note as a sideman with Hank Mobley - two more sessions followed, and although they're both great (arguably better than the first one) they both remained unissued at the time. The second of the sessions has Kenny Dorham, Mobley and Sonny Clark - three of my all-time favourites!

Below on the left is the alternate cover for the middle one above, the Mosaic box (middle) is where I have this music. And the recent reissue of the Time album by the Sonny Clark Trio is what I'm playing by now.

[SimonNZ]

Modern Jazz Quartet - No Sun In Venice soundtrack (1958)
Chris Connor - A Jazz Date With Chris Connor (1958)

I hadn't heard of that MJQ album before. its a fascinating work.



Wilbur De Paris - Plays Cole Porter (1958)
Jimmy Giuffre - The Four Brothers Sound (1958)



Wayne Marsh - s/t (1958)
Young Tuxedo Brass Band - Jazz Begins: Sounds Of New Orleans Streets (1958)

^I'd highly recommend that YTBB album, if that sounds like the kind of thing you'd be into



v/a - Historic Jazz Concert At Music Inn (1959)

[SimonNZ]

Bobby Short - The Mad Twenties (1959)
Ruth Brown - Late Date With Ruth Brown (1959)



Wilbur De Paris - The Wild Jazz Age: Music Of The 20s (1959)
Chris Connor - Sings Ballads Of The Sad Cafe (1959)

[king ubu]

My programme last night ... a fine mid-seventies post-Coltrane session by John Stubblefield with Cecil Bridgewater, Onaje Allen Gumbs, Cecil McBee, Joe Chambers and Mtume (quite a band!), then some late Milt Jackson (the first with the core band of Cedar Walton, John Clayton and Billy Higgins, plus guests Joe Williams and Joshua Redman together on three tracks and Redman on three more, there's a dozen on this generously filled disc ... the second has a good young lions band with Benny Green, Christian McBride und Kenny Washington, plus on a few tracks Nicholas Payton, Jesse Davis, Redman). Then ended the day with anohter masterly late work by the great Charlie Mariano ("Deep in a Dream" was one that really surprised me ... took me ages to get to "Silver Blue", which was praised as a worthy follow-up when it appeared - and it is ... the swiss rhythm section does a good job).



In addition, played lots of music by and with Urbie Green, who died on Dec. 31st (he was 92, I wasn't even aware he was still around, I'm afraid).

[San Antone]

The Complete Commodore/Decca Masters
Billie Holiday



Nice compilation.

[George]

The Complete Commodore/Decca Masters
Billie Holiday



Nice compilation.

Absolutely lovely set.

[SimonNZ]

John Lewis - Improvised Meditations And Excursions (1959)
Dick Katz - Piano And Pen (1959)



Bob Brookmeyer - Portrait Of The Artist (1960)

[king ubu]

Started playing this yesterday but it got too late eventually, so finishing with the Lee Konitz solo and the final jam (solos by Billy Taylor, Tommy Potter, Kenny Dorham, Konitz, J.J. Johnson [as "C.C. Siegel"] and Dizzy Gillespie ... the CD reissue (Japan only it seems, I just got the most recent one from Dec. 2018) is expanded and contains four (instead of two) tracks by Dizzy Gillespie's band (that was the fine unit with James Moody, Kenny Barron, Chris White und Rudy Collins), then the first jam, a 13 minute "Now's the Time" with the older generation (Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins) meeting a few original beboppers (that guy "Siegel", Tommy Potter and Roy Haynes) and Billy Taylor on piano, then we get two (instead of one) cut by Dave Lambert (with Taylor, Potter, Haynes), who died not too long after, in a most annoying way (the story isn't quite clear, but it involves the wee hours, a flat tire, a car not fully off the road, no lights, and Lambert being hit and killed by a truck passing by) ... and finally we get the Konitz solo and the final jam. One thing that strikes me: Tommy Potter's phrasing is so "bumpy", compared to the much more fluid playing of Chris White ... the original generation of bebop bass players (Potter, Curly Russell and a few others - not Ray Brown or Mingus or Al McKibbon I think) lagged behind a bit and was mostly playing anchors to the antics of the horns, the keys and all the bombs and other fancy stuff the drummers dropped (Roy Haynes being maybe the best example for "irregular" playing, not falling into any kind of patterns). But the bass players had to wait for Mingus (or go back to Oscar Pettiford, who was of course around, but not often in the recording studio when Bird or Dizzy or Bud were at work) to see their instrument's "emancipation", and only with Percy Heath and then Paul Chambers and his cousin Doug Watkins in the mid fifties things really started to change ... and whenever one of the older guys (Curly Russell is on a few c. 1955/56 Blue Note albums) is present in the hard bop era, the bass chores are turning out kinda conventional and less interesting than what you'd get with Heath, Chambers, Watkins, Wilbur Ware, Sam Jones etc. Anyway, not dissing Potter, he was alright, and so was Russell, but they're just not a bass players I could ever develop a real passion for.

[San Antone]

There was nothing lacking in Oscar Pettiford's playing. 

TD



Lorenzo Tio Jr was a major clarinetist among the early New Orleans Creole* community, both he and Armand Piron were members of  long-standing Creole musician families.  The Creole musicians, south of Canal St., "Downtown," were a different society than the musicians north of Canal, the Uptown musicians like Louis Armstrong and Joe Oliver.  The Downtown players could read music, prided themselves on knowing European classical and operatic music and held to a more formal tradition which stressed precision, intonation and other characteristics of European based band music.  They looked down on the "illiterate" musicians on the other side of Canal street whom they perceived as unschooled and unable to play correctly (so-called "blue" notes were seen as mistakes, or the result of someone without refined taste and skill).

The irony is that it was precisely because musicians like Louis Armstrong could not read that their improvisations were more dynamic and imaginative (Armstrong eventually learned to read when he played on the riverboats in Fate Marable's band).  The jazz that came out of New Orleans was a product of the Uptown non-reading community.  But when it became popular, the Creole musicians found themselves having to play it, and even hired some of the Uptowners, like Joe Oliver, to augment their groups.

The album above is a wonderful example of the best of the Creole bands and is well worthwhile investigating.

* Creole means generally a person whose ancestors included Europeans and African, e.g. mixed ancestry French-African or Spanish-African, or some European-Native American.  The term that was common in the 18th and 19th century was Gens de couleur libres (free people of color).

[king ubu]

There was nothing lacking in Oscar Pettiford's playing. 

Absolutely not - if you read that out of my post, I was being unclear. Big fan of Pettiford's and Mingus' playing! The Ellington line of bassists is actually quite interesting, there's far more than Jimmie Blanton - Wellman Braud was a great bass player already (as far as I know 20s and early 30s jazz the other similarly great bassist was Pops Foster, but I guess there must have been a few more similarly outstanding bassists), then there's Blanton, Junior Raglin, Pettiford, Wendell Marshall, Jimmy Woode - quite a run of amazing bass players!

--

Thread duty:



Earlier the Grant Green, a great, laid-back groove session, very soulful thanks to the leader and Herbie Hancock, and anchored by the fine team of Butch Warren/Billy Higgins - they were great with Sonny Clark and they were great with Herbie Hancock!

Now playing for the first time the second album (of three) by The Herbie Nichols Project (the third I've known for many years, the first one should be on its way now, it's rather difficult to find nowadays.

[SimonNZ]

Bobby Short - On The East Side (1960)
Buster Smith - The Legendary Buster Smith (1960)

Bobby does a version of "I Left My Hat In Haiti" which Fred Astair did in the film Royal Wedding, a song I've always liked but have never heard anyone cover



Joe Castro - Groove Funk Soul (1960)