What Jazz are you listening to now?

[San Antone]

Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton Play The Blues

New York City's premier jazz venue got the blues last April when Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton performed together in Rose Theater at Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center for two sold-out shows dedicated to vintage blues. The extraordinary collaboration, billed as Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton Play the Blues, paired these musical virtuosos with members of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra as they brought to life a repertoire of songs selected by Clapton and arranged by Marsalis.

Two mature artists play the Blues - can't beat it.  There is a little stylistic friction between Clapton's electric blues-rock and Marsalis' New Orleans traditional jazz groove, but overall it is a fun thing to hear.

[San Antone]

Marsalis : Congo Square

Congo Square, a ground-breaking new work written by Wynton Marsalis with Ghanaian drum master Yacub Addy, debuted in Katrina-ravaged New Orleans in the spring of 2006 before a wildly enthusiastic audience in Congo Square (inside Louis Armstrong Park).

Congo Square was the only place in America where African slaves were allowed to perform their own music and dance in the 1700s-1800s, establishing the roots of American music. (Marsalis website)

Also

"Congo Square" Jazz Saxophonist Donald Harrison is the Big Chief of The Congo Nation Afro-New Orleans Cultural group which represents Congo Square in New Orleans culture. His father, Donald Harrison, Sr. was the Big Chief of four tribes and passed down the secret rituals and drum patterns of Congo Square to him. Harrison says, "That our culture is different than African culture but it has direct links to it. You have to start in New Orleans to understand it." His CD's, "Spirits of Congo Square", recorded in 2002 and, "Indian Blues", recorded in 1991 incorporate his concept of the swing beat merged with the Afro-New Orleans rhythms of Congo Square have influenced many jazz musicians. Donald Harrison currently spreads the culture and spirit of Congo Square by performing in a band called "Donald Harrison and the Congo Square Nation". The group performs all around the country, playing songs inspired by early drum patterns of Congo Square, and has recently been featured in the acclaimed series "Treme". Harrison and his band continue to show what the culture and history of Congo Square means to New Orleans and jazz music as a whole. (Wiki article on Congo Square)

Wynton Marsalis must have been composing Congo Square before the storm (Katrina) hit New Orleans but it ultimately became the work which allowed Marsalis to channel his response to the storm's aftermath and the US government's failure to adequately cope with the devastation.

[NikF4]

Wynton Marsalis  - Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson


Written for the Ken Burns film about Jack Johnson this recording by Wynton Marsalis is very fine.  A mix of country blues, early jazz and original Marsalis compositions it offers plenty of great blowing as well as composed songs.

I've read the book but forgot all about the film. I'll need to attend to that.

[San Antone]

I've read the book but forgot all about the film. I'll need to attend to that.

As far as I can tell the Ken Burns film about Jack Johnson is not available to stream but the DVD is available.





Marasalis : Blood on the Fields

Blood on the Fields is a two-and-a-half-hour jazz oratorio, by Wynton Marsalis. It was commissioned by Lincoln Center and concerns a couple moving from slavery to freedom.

Marsalis wrote a dramatic, episodic and generally thought-provoking three-hour work, utilizing the three singers plus 15 other musicians (all of whom have significant musical parts to play) in a massive 27-part suite. Hendricks is delightful (and the star of the catchiest piece, "Juba and a O'Brown Squaw"), Wilson has rarely sounded better, and Griffith keeps up with the better-known singers, while the musicians (particularly trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, baritonist James Carter, pianist Eric Reed and, near the work's conclusion, violinist Michael Ward in addition to Marsalis) are quite superb. It should, however, be mentioned that the use of group narration to tell parts of the story does not work that well, the music could have used a stronger and more complicated story (the last hour has very little action), and few of the themes are at all memorable; Marsalis in the mid-'90s was a more talented arranger than composer (despite Stanley Crouch's absurd raving in the liner notes). But as is true of all of Wynton Marsalis' recordings, this one deserves several close listenings.

It is unfortunate that Marsalis' Pulitzer award was tarnished by controversy related to the year in which it was submitted.  The work premiered in 1994 both as a live performance and recording, however, he made some revisions and it was submitted to the Pulitzer Committee in 1997, which is the year he won.

I don't care about any of that, instead I think that (while flawed) the music constitutes a major achievement.  His composition technique for his later extended works got better and better, but this one is well worth investigating.

[SimonNZ]

Rahsaan Roland Kirk - Natural Black Inventions: Root Strata  (1971)
Eddie Harrisan and Les McCann - Second Movement (1971)

[king ubu]

had a mostly classical weekend again for a change, "Don Giovanni" live and twice on disc, but some jazz, too:



Didn't know Misako Kano before, but have ordered the disc now ... some mighty good Thomas Chapin on it (I've borrowed it from a friend who found it after I'd hipped him to Chapin a few years ago). The Johnson Nichols disc is very nice, old-fashioned and boppish, but with guitar instead of piano it has a different vibe to almost all the other Nichols projects I've heard so far (Roswell Rudd's two albums use guitar, but a trio of trombone, guitar and percussion is of course not your typical hard bop line-up) - anyway, very good album that I'll have to play a few more times in the next days!

[San Antone]

The Majesty of the Blues (1989)

"Rhythmically, melodically and emotionally, he's hitting nothing but bull's eyes," the Village Voice said of this album devoted entirely to Wynton's own compositions. Two tunes for sextet, including the truly majestic title track, lead into "The New Orleans Function," a three part piece that pivots around a sermon on jazz, "Premature Autopsies," written by Stanley Crouch and delivered by Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr., and that features the playing of New Orleans music masters Dr. Michael White on clarinet, Danny Barker on banjo, Teddy Riley on trumpet, and Freddie Lonzo on trombone.

Wynton Marsalis went out on a limb with this record, which is interesting since in 1988 when it was recorded he was not the institution he has become since.  Risk taking took courage, especially the kind of risk he took with the "New Orleans Function" which comprises the last three tracks.  Scott Yanow of Allmusic.com hated it, "an endless "Sermon" about jazz, written by Stanley Crouch and narrated by Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr., drones on for 16 minutes and is unspeakably pompous, killing the momentum for the record."  But, I think Yanow misses the point of the work.  It uses the form and tradition of a New Orleans jazz funeral, a slow sorrowful procession, then a eulogy/sermon, with the "body" being celebrated Jazz itself, and ending with a "strut" for the return trip.  Hearing the added New Orleans grand ol' masters is a huge plus in my book (Yanow was less impressed), I just wish they were not hidden behind the preaching for most of the work.

Sure, this is something many people will shy away from.  But, it is interesting for at least one hearing; the music behind Wright is actually very good.  This is a Jeremiah Wright twenty years before Barack Obama made him famous outside of Chicago.

The two opening tracks offer excellent blowing and Marsalis' writing for the ensemble is in an Ellingtonian style.

[San Antone]

Wynton Marsalis : From the Plantation to the Penitentiary

AllMusic Review by Matt Collar
On "Where Y'all At?," the last track off trumpeter Wynton Marsalis' 2007 studio album From the Plantation to the Penitentiary, Marsalis delivers a spoken word tirade against everything from the demise of socially conscious hip-hop and misguided politicians to America's commercial and capitalist culture. He asks, "All you '60s radicals and world beaters, righteous revolutionaries, Camus readers, liberal students, equal rights pleaders, what's going on now that y'all are the leaders?!" It's a stunning track that perfectly states what the oft-quoted and often outspoken Marsalis is angry about. While musically he may be a traditionalist, here we find him in a vitriolic, forward-thinking mood. Long an outspoken figure in the jazz world and a lightning rod for debate over what constitutes the so called "jazz tradition," Marsalis is less concerned about the direction of jazz music here and more about the direction of American society. Obviously spurred on by the war in Iraq, the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina (which ravaged his hometown of New Orleans), and what he clearly views as a gluttonous, vapid, misogynist and deeply racist American culture, Marsalis has crafted a bluesy, cerebral, soul-inflected album reminiscent of work by such iconic artists as Charles Mingus and Nina Simone. Adding weight to these comparisons is newcomer vocalist Jennifer Sanon, whose Simone-meets-Blossom Dearie style, featured throughout, adds a warm, melodic pathos to Marsalis' stark, spiritual and '50s Beat-influenced songs. This may not be the most musically avant-garde or boundary-pushing album, but it is a deeply personal and grounded creative statement, which is fascinating coming from an artist of Marsalis' stature and mainstream popularity.

Marsalis is constantly searching to expand the reach of a Jazz artist.  Although he and his band are expert improvisers in the Jazz tradition, Marsalis is looking to say more than that.  From the Plantation to the Penitentiary is another of his extended works, a Blues suite.

[SimonNZ]

Randy Weston - African Cookbook (1972)
Charlie Mariano - Mirror (1972)

[San Antone]

He and She - Wynton Marsalis (2009)

AllMusic Review by Michael G. Nastos
Wynton Marsalis, ever the protagonist and explorer, brings his love of the spoken word and the adolescent relations of the male and female persuasion during He and She, a collection of instrumental mainstream jazz pieces with poetry as preludes. Inspired by the tone of the Jon Hendricks epic Evolution of the Blues Song, Marsalis uses math equations, the sun and the moon, and the budding affection of youth to frame his music -- mostly jazz waltzes -- into thematic conclusions based on getting along, and why the genders think differently. New pianist Dan Nimmer is a welcome addition to the quintet, while drummer Ali Jackson really shines and reliable saxophonist Walter Blanding asserts his increasing powers. Where the concept of these recordings is somewhat static and the music predictable according to the previous precepts of the trumpeter/composer, there's a lot to listen to and enjoy, even a bit of stepping out from the hard bop to post-bop comfort zone Marsalis has been mired in for over two decades.

Again Wynton Marsalis does something a little more than simply put out a great hard bop blowwing session. For sure there's plenty of that on He and She, but Marsalis usually has a concept for each of his recordings.  This one concerns relationships between men and women, and of course the Blues.

[king ubu]

Hmmmm, a friend who almost had a physical reaction to this handed it over ... and while it does not exactly create cramps on my side, since my youth I have not heard such cheesy keyboards - these kinds of sounds were once one of the reason why I got into classic (modern) jazz from the 50s and early 60s I guess, and took quite a while to approach jazz rock and any kind of fusion again. Anyway, this is one of the recent batch of Touchstones (50 for the 50th anniversary of ECM, second half yet to follow*) and I didn't have it on my own "to buy" list ... I'll give it a few more spins and if I don't grow to like it better, will pass it on again.

*) the full list can be seen here (website run by Universal Germany, distributor or ECM over here):
https://www.jazzecho.de/aktuell/news/artikel/article:253946/50-jahre-ecm-50-touchstones

[San Antone]

Hmmmm, a friend who almost had a physical reaction to this handed it over ... and while it does not exactly create cramps on my side, since my youth I have not heard such cheesy keyboards - these kinds of sounds were once one of the reason why I got into classic (modern) jazz from the 50s and early 60s I guess, and took quite a while to approach jazz rock and any kind of fusion again. Anyway, this is one of the recent batch of Touchstones (50 for the 50th anniversary of ECM, second half yet to follow*) and I didn't have it on my own "to buy" list ... I'll give it a few more spins and if I don't grow to like it better, will pass it on again.

*) the full list can be seen here (website run by Universal Germany, distributor or ECM over here):
https://www.jazzecho.de/aktuell/news/artikel/article:253946/50-jahre-ecm-50-touchstones

Umm, yeah - the '80s fusion probably found its worst practitioner in Jan Hammer.  I doubt when Mile Davis "invented Fusion" this was what he imagined; Weather Report is one thing, but this ....  The entire Fusion detour was, IMO, one of the worst unintended consequences of music history.

Thankfully, Abercrombie moved on to other things.

If you like two guitars, without rhythm section - here's one Abercrombie put out in 2013, a duo with Joe Beck, which has some pretty good swinging.



Coincidence - John Abercrombie & Joe Beck

His ECM albums may be more overtly modern and left-of-center but, based on a 2004 AAJ interview, when John Abercrombie is at home practicing, it's usually in the context of jazz standards. For those who feel such well-trodden material has little left to offer in the way of either challenge or modern interpretation, the guitarist's duet with Joe Beck, Coincidence, will go a long way to encouraging naysayers to reconsider.  (John Kelman in AllAboutJazz

I'd say most of the ECM catalog is good listening, but they also put out some real dreck from time to time.

[San Antone]

Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet : The Emarcy Master Takes

4CD collection.  CD2 is fantastic with four long jams, e.g. "Autumn in New York" is over 21 minutes.

[SimonNZ]

Don Shirley - The Don Shirley Point Of View (1972)
Don Shirley - Tonal Expressions (1955)



Don Shirley - Trio (1961)

[San Antone]

Hank Jones Trio (Wendell Marshall & Kenny Clarke) : The Trio (with guests)

Really good!

Don Shirley - The Don Shirley Point Of View (1972)
Don Shirley - Tonal Expressions (1955)



Don Shirley - Trio (1961)

Have you seen the movie "The Green Book"?

[San Antone]

Duke Ellington : The Great Paris Concert

AllMusic Review by Bruce Eder
This set came about, in part, as a result of Ellington's signing to Frank Sinatra's Reprise label in November 1962, with the ending of his exclusive contract to Columbia. Six numbers from the three Paris dates were initially edited and released by Reprise as part of the ten-song Duke Ellington's Greatest, but the bulk of the performances from those shows didn't surface until many years later as The Great Paris Concert on two LPs. The Great Paris Concert is raw and largely unedited, and depicts the full Ellington band in extraordinary form, oozing excitement -- from the saxophone showcase on opener "Rockin' in Rhythm," the various sections of the band take flight at different points throughout this set, which includes such contemporary numbers as Ellington's theme music for an all but forgotten television series, The Asphalt Jungle, and excerpts from Such Sweet Thunder. Johnny Hodges is showcased in several solos, most notably on "Suite Thursday," a work whose original studio incarnation he missed appearing on. Cootie Williams ("Tutti for Cootie"), Paul Gonsalves ("Cop Out"), Ray Nance ("Bula"), and Cat Anderson ("Jam with Sam") get their own moments in the spotlight.

Just GREAT - that's all that can be said.  GREAT playing, swing - GREAT Jazz.

[SimonNZ]

Hank Jones Trio (Wendell Marshall & Kenny Clarke) : The Trio (with guests)

Really good!



Have you seen the movie "The Green Book"?

No. Id seen the cover in the video store but didn't know what it was until looking into Don Shirley today. Somehow he's never been on my radar but those albums today really impressed me.

Is the film good?

[San Antone]

The remarkable thing about Ellington is that he not only wrote great jazz band compositions, but he didn't write a part for "alto sax', he wrote a part for Johnny Hodges, and so on, for each the section soloists.

Ellington is arguably the most important American composer for this reason.  Yeah, I am a jazzer at heart and experience, so I don't relate as strongly to European Classical music.  But, still, Ellington, Mingus, Marsalis (yes, I include him in this rarefied league) are have written and are writing American music that think is on a par with Beethoven, Mahler and Debussy.

So sue me.

[San Antone]

No. Id seen the cover in the video store but didn't know what it was until looking into Don Shirley today. Somehow he's never been on my radar but those albums today really impressed me.

Is the film good?

I haven't seen it, but have heard good things about it.

[Brian]

Conversely, I've heard bad things about the movie...

I do agree with your estimate of Ellington and Mingus, SA! My top five American composers would be (alpha order) Barber, Ellington, Gershwin, Mingus, Monk.