What Jazz are you listening to now?

Started by Gurn Blanston, June 12, 2015, 06:16:31 AM

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SimonNZ


kishnevi

Quote from: sanantonio on August 04, 2015, 06:54:31 AM
It is possible.  My own mother thought her birthday was different from what records showed, which we only discovered after her death.  Back in the early decades of the 1900s I guess it wasn't as big a deal as we have grown used to since then.  Also, and I don't know if this is relevant, but both Armstrong and my mother were born in Louisiana.

My mother born in 1928 always insisted she was born on the fifth night of Chanukah.  In fact, while the fifth night of Chanukah fell on her English (secular) birthday in 1930, among other years, it occurred a week or more later than her secular birthdate in 1928.  And in fact it was only her birth certificate that confirmed the English date was correct...but at one point I wondered if perhaps she was in fact born in 1930.
This was in Boston.

Mirror Image

Now:



An absolutely gorgeous album, which, in my own view, is a collection of jazz-inflicted lullabies with a modern rhythmic/harmonic feel. The improvisational aspect of each of these songs is more or less an extension of a song's main melody, which is what I like and love to hear the most in terms of improvisation. All the best jazz musicians have a lyricism in their playing and, while Eick's career is really just begun considering he's still pretty young, I can hear an immense musical personality on the rise. Skala is the second of the three albums released under his own name so far.

Henk

Quote from: Mirror Image on August 04, 2015, 09:24:42 PM
Now:



An absolutely gorgeous album, which, in my own view, is a collection of jazz-inflicted lullabies with a modern rhythmic/harmonic feel. The improvisational aspect of each of these songs is more or less an extension of a song's main melody, which is what I like and love to hear the most in terms of improvisation. All the best jazz musicians have a lyricism in their playing and, while Eick's career is really just begun considering he's still pretty young, I can hear an immense musical personality on the rise. Skala is the second of the three albums released under his own name so far.

I consider this almost a definition of jazz, it's also mine, any jazz I listen to can be characterized that way. So free jazz is not real jazz, but about creating structures, an ascetic practure (although in many cases it doesn't sound so, like late Coltrane and in our times, Vandermark, Brötzmann and all those guys), which is pretty dull for the listener.

Mirror Image

Quote from: Henk on August 05, 2015, 12:31:52 AM
I consider this almost a definition of jazz, it's also mine, any jazz I listen to can be characterized that way. So free jazz is not real jazz, but about creating structures, an ascetic practure (although in many cases it doesn't sound so, like late Coltrane and in our times, Vandermark, Brötzmann and all those guys), which is pretty dull for the listener.

I hate free jazz. I never understood the attraction (not that this style has a huge following to begin with). Good jazz music, IMHO, should be melody-based and when it is, it seems that everything else just falls into place and sounds beautiful.

Henk

Quote from: Mirror Image on August 05, 2015, 06:21:12 AM
I hate free jazz. I never understood the attraction (not that this style has a huge following to begin with). Good jazz music, IMHO, should be melody-based and when it is, it seems that everything else just falls into place and sounds beautiful.

Completely agree.

James

Quote from: sanantonio on August 05, 2015, 06:55:01 AMFree jazz can be very good (but none of it is really 100% free, the band feeds off of each other's riffs, etc. - Ornette Coleman for instance); of course it can also be mediocre.  Just like the other kind. ;)


"Free jazz" to me means any music where improvisational direction and content is not restricted. This does not imply chaos, atonality, and 'free time', nor does it imply one-chord vamps for days, but can contain and utilize either or both when desired. Free playing can be any combination of any available elements available at any given time. Form, rhythm, harmony, dynamics, articulation, written music .. extremes, moderation.
Action is the only truth

Artem

I like all kinds of jazz, whether it is melodic or wild and free. Sometimes free jazz can be very emotional and even lyrical. Sometimes it is just the strength and the determined push of the players that I find attractive. I also like some of the modern jazz from Chicago scene or those associated with Fred Anderson and his Velvet Lounge club, like Hamid Drake of Harrison Bankhead. They can unite wild and lyrical sides of jazz music into very organic sounds.

However, recently I've been leavening more toward quieter jazz. One of the albums that I've put a few times over the past few days was
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Dancing Divertimentian

#68
Matt Criscuolo has cultivated a sax sound so unique it's virtually unclassifiable. NO ONE has anywhere near his sound: I might say it's sweetly honeycombed, but then there's the tartness; I might say it's sassy, but then there's the fanciful lyricism; I might also dub it "spreading the sauce on liberally", but then there's the right-on-the-dot intonation. 

Hearing it is best.

His solos are daringly technical with a Coltrane-channelling "free" flavor at times but nothing strays too far from the lyrical base. It's a winning mish-mash.

Guitarist Tony Purrone provides ideal foil. The give-and-take between the two is great fun to hear.   




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Veit Bach-a baker who found his greatest pleasure in a little cittern which he took with him even into the mill and played while the grinding was going on. In this way he had a chance to have the rhythm drilled into him. And this was the beginning of a musical inclination in his descendants. JS Bach

bob_cart

https://www.youtube.com/v/tsd_DWOJFwU
Probably the best piano player, the best trio and one of the best improvisations/compositions ever. Enjoy.

Bogey

Seeing a jazz forum I haunt does not have any problem discussing The Chairman in their 50 threads, I thought I would roll listening to this beauty on vinyl here:



The key to enjoying Sinatra for me is not only his vocals, timing, and the "attitude" he brings, but those arrangements by the likes of Count Basie, Nelson Riddle, and Billy May (and others) that back him.  In fact, this has led me to seek out their likes on their own albums.  Whenever I see one of theirs in the bin, I grab it.  Hey, if they were good enough for Frank....





There will never be another era like the Golden Age of Hollywood.  We didn't know how to blow up buildings then so we had no choice but to tell great stories with great characters.-Ben Mankiewicz

Bogey

There will never be another era like the Golden Age of Hollywood.  We didn't know how to blow up buildings then so we had no choice but to tell great stories with great characters.-Ben Mankiewicz

Artem

Just like the title suggests, it is a staring forward blues affair.

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Bogey

There will never be another era like the Golden Age of Hollywood.  We didn't know how to blow up buildings then so we had no choice but to tell great stories with great characters.-Ben Mankiewicz

George

Nice, Bill!

Haven't heard that one, but I am sure it's great!
"I can't live without music, because music is life." - Yvonne Lefébure

Bogey

Quote from: George on August 09, 2015, 05:50:56 AM
Nice, Bill!

Haven't heard that one, but I am sure it's great!

If you see it in your used bins go ahead and grab it.  However, I do not know how it would line up with your other big set.  Ellington is a difficult puzzle to put together when compiling his recordings.  Like another said on Amazon about one of the box sets:

Compiling and issuing a definitive Duke Ellington compilation is not an easy task, simply due to the fact that Duke recorded for at least a dozen record companies from 1924 to 1940. Hence, major label reissue projects are usually lacking: buy a Columbia set and you miss all of the great early 1940's recordings with Ben Webster; buy an RCA set and you miss all of the great tunes recorded for Brunswick and Okeh during the 1930's.
This set, released by the English label Proper, attempts to correct these omissions. The most rewarding part is an entire CD of rare and seldom-reissued material from 1932 through 1938, most of which was originally recorded for the Brunswick label. Great recordings of "Stompy Jones", "Reminiscing in Tempo", "Echoes of Harlem", "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue", and "Pyramid" that date from this time period are included in this set.
Another problem encountered in working with Ellington material is the massive amount of reworkings and re-recordings that he produced over the years. This set includes one version of each of Duke's major early works ("East St. Louis Toodle-oo", "The Mooche", "Black and Tan Fantasy", etc.) and most of these tunes are included here in their first recorded version.


There will never be another era like the Golden Age of Hollywood.  We didn't know how to blow up buildings then so we had no choice but to tell great stories with great characters.-Ben Mankiewicz

George

Quote from: Bogey on August 09, 2015, 05:59:04 AM
If you see it in your used bins go ahead and grab it.  However, I do not know how it would line up with your other big set.  Ellington is a difficult puzzle to put together when compiling his recordings. 

Indeed!

QuoteLike another said on Amazon about one of the box sets:

Compiling and issuing a definitive Duke Ellington compilation is not an easy task, simply due to the fact that Duke recorded for at least a dozen record companies from 1924 to 1940. Hence, major label reissue projects are usually lacking: buy a Columbia set and you miss all of the great early 1940's recordings with Ben Webster; buy an RCA set and you miss all of the great tunes recorded for Brunswick and Okeh during the 1930's.
This set, released by the English label Proper, attempts to correct these omissions. The most rewarding part is an entire CD of rare and seldom-reissued material from 1932 through 1938, most of which was originally recorded for the Brunswick label. Great recordings of "Stompy Jones", "Reminiscing in Tempo", "Echoes of Harlem", "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue", and "Pyramid" that date from this time period are included in this set.
Another problem encountered in working with Ellington material is the massive amount of reworkings and re-recordings that he produced over the years. This set includes one version of each of Duke's major early works ("East St. Louis Toodle-oo", "The Mooche", "Black and Tan Fantasy", etc.) and most of these tunes are included here in their first recorded version.


Good stuff. I have and enjoy that Proper set. It could use a proper remastering.
"I can't live without music, because music is life." - Yvonne Lefébure


Henk

Quote from: Mirror Image on July 28, 2015, 06:21:58 PM
Dizzy absolutely smokes It Don't Mean A Thing (If You Ain't Got That Swing). Never heard anything like it before or since.

This is such an insult to Gillespie. Dizzy never changed his music. Despite this his music always sounded fresh. He forms the counterpoint in jazz to Miles. But because Dizzy didn't need to change, I think he was a greater musician than Miles.

Mirror Image

#79
Quote from: Henk on August 12, 2015, 05:49:10 AM
This is such an insult to Gillespie. Dizzy never changed his music. Despite this his music always sounded fresh. He forms the counterpoint in jazz to Miles. But because Dizzy didn't need to change, I think he was a greater musician than Miles.

???

Oh boy...another translation error on your part, Henk. ;D When I say smoked, this means Dizzy absolutely ripped this piece of apart with his virtuosity. In other words, he owned this piece of music. It's a compliment, not an insult.