Make a Jazz Noise Here

[Karl Henning]

Jeffrey, how are you doing with Monk?

[Octave]

Apropos the Keith Jarrett 'American Quartet' (the posts that occasioned my thinking of them are copied below from the Non-Classical Listening thread), I remembered that one musician who's championed that short-lived group recently is Ethan Iverson, most known as the pianist for The Bad Plus (a group I don't care for, but Iverson himself seems like a very sharp guy and a very good writer and interviewer to boot, whose Do The Math blog is probably required reading for fans of jazz/beyond, though everyone here probably knows that for years now). 

I haven't done the digging to find what I dimly remember reading from him about the American Quartet, but here is his interview with Jarrett from 2009:
http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/interview-with-keith-jarrett.html
and lo and behold, in chasing down the link, I find that the very newest Tweet from Iverson says he's going to interview Jarrett again tomorrow, and he's soliciting questions:
https://twitter.com/ethan_iverson
That's a weird little coincidence.  Especially considering I haven't thought about Jarrett's jazz music in at least a few years.  Here's a little morsel from that 2009 interview:

EI:  So, at one point, going between jazz and classical felt like more of an embouchure change than it does now? Is it beginning to even out?

KJ:  It really depends. When I was getting ready to record Mozart I couldn't have mixed both. And in general, that's the case. I generally don't mix things. But I've seen how it seems to work this time, and I'm just taking advantage of it. Probably I'm in better shape than I was before, due to some of the patterns Bach forces upon you. The jazz player doesn't ever play these patterns: they don't come up; certainly not in the left hand. And working on the fingering puts you in a hypnotic state, playing the same phrase down one half step at a time or down a scale, and you're doing the same fingering but it isn't the same fingering, depending on how many black keys are involved. And Bach has this crazy ability to change key in the middle of a scale. So you've changed harmonic center in the process of playing what you thought was a simple scale so you can't take your eyes off the music. And even with the bass line, if you stop looking you think you know what it is, but he always thought it out so well that it's not always not predictable, but his note is always better than yours.

EI:  Do you work out your fingerings early on, or keep experimenting?

KJ:  I've had all kinds of experiences. With the Shostakovich, I just played it and played it and played it. When I realized I was going to record it, I had to say to myself, wait: I've got to find an edited version of this with fingerings! Because what I normally do is find different fingerings every time I play, probably. I just improvise that part of it. It works sometimes, but it doesn't work in the studio, when you don't want to do a second take. So I went through three different editions of the Shostakovich and ended up with absolutely no fingering: the Urtext, with no fingerings at all, and that's always what I prefer in the end. With the Bach, I've been able to stick with that. I don't even like making a mark on the page...

And those posts from elsewhere which got me thinking about this music....

That is a good appetite whetter - but if you like this music you should check out the two boxes that compile all the recordings from this band:

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While I like all of his bands, the European Quartet and the Standards Trio in particular - the American Quartet that recorded mainly on Impulse is where the band says something which transcends Jarrett.

re: Keith Jarrett's 'American Quartet' and Impulse recordings:
Agreed!  Almost certainly my favorite music from him, barring some of the solo improvisation and several other things.  Their ECM studio record SURVIVORS SUITE was a major jazz favorite of mine for a while.  The mysterious opening with all those folk/ethnic (?) instruments; moaning recorders of various sizes; Haden's thick, hypnotic, oily bass resurrecting a mid-60s Coltrane-style vamp in slow motion; Dewey Redman's heroic emergence with the cyclical theme on tenor.   I am not sure how I would feel about it today, but I have vivid memories of enjoying that album many times.

I really wish all those Impulse recordings would get reissued as a single box; those are two sets I lost, and the orange one has become tres cher.

[Bogey]

[San Antone]

That Coltrane is excellent.

Listening to a 2011 release from Tunnel Six.  They also have a new CD coming out, Alive.

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[Octave]

Brought over from the Listening thread, because I wanted to inquire about it:

I consider it Classical listening but it may belong in the Diner

Ellington | Black, Brown and Beige



This is the original version, which I think is better than the revised version from 1958.  One reason, is that Johnny Hodges was sick during the recording of the second one - and his absence from Come Sunday is a deal-breaker.  But. also, Ellington revised the structure of the work due to some bad (unfair and wrong-headed, IMO) reviews, and I feel the original organization is superior.

1. My search skillz have been quite iffy lately, but could you help me locate this?  Doing basic keyword searches at Amazon isn't turning up the one you picture.  I cannot read the label insignia on the cover pic.
2. Does anyone know if there are any other editions presenting the same recordings, and if so, are they in better sound?  Just curious, as the Ellington discog can get to be a mess with such a proliferation of comps, gray-market items, etc.  I am irritated beyond belief that I cannot get an affordable non-CDR edition of the Fargo concert, for example.  Of all the things to basically be OOP!  Jeez.

[San Antone]

Brought over from the Listening thread, because I wanted to inquire about it:

1. My search skillz have been quite iffy lately, but could you help me locate this?  Doing basic keyword searches at Amazon isn't turning up the one you picture.  I cannot read the label insignia on the cover pic.
2. Does anyone know if there are any other editions presenting the same recordings, and if so, are they in better sound?  Just curious, as the Ellington discog can get to be a mess with such a proliferation of comps, gray-market items, etc.  I am irritated beyond belief that I cannot get an affordable non-CDR edition of the Fargo concert, for example.  Of all the things to basically be OOP!  Jeez.

I don't think it made it to CD - that photo was just something I grabbed from the web.  The original came out on 78, but there are a couple of different CDs that look like "grey" market things, like you say.   I have a tape of it that I got from somewhere when I was living in New York.

You are right about the Ellington catalog.  The one with Mahalia Jackson is basically the revised one from 1958 but the CD has some of the music from the earlier one, I think.  It is kind of a Frankenstein recording.

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[Octave]

You are right about the Ellington catalog.  The one with Mahalia Jackson is basically the revised one from 1958 but the CD has some of the music from the earlier one, I think.  It is kind of a Frankenstein recording.

Thanks for that info; I have been needing to replace my Mahalia BBB for years now, many years.  What you say about the earlier version makes me hungry to hunt that down; I'll do some footwork and report back if I find anything.

[San Antone]

Thanks for that info; I have been needing to replace my Mahalia BBB for years now, many years.  What you say about the earlier version makes me hungry to hunt that down; I'll do some footwork and report back if I find anything.

I'm pretty sure this is what is out there for the BBB Carnegie Hall concert from 1943.

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[Karl Henning]

"Bonus track" doesn't sound like 78 rpm talk (just mulling that image's provenance).

I'm pretty sure this is what is out there for the BBB Carnegie Hall concert from 1943.

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Is this your recommendation, san anton'?

[Octave]

And (SA): is that Carnegie Jan 1943 concert completely separate from the BBB recording you mentioned?  It sounded like the original BBB was a studio recording, though you didn't say so.

[San Antone]

According to Wiki the only recording from the original BBB was done by the stage crew onto 78 acetates made at the concert.  These went around unofficially until 1977 when Fantasy Records (I think) put out the first commercial recording.  That is probably where this CD came from.  The audio quality is not the greatest but it does have the entire BBB as played at that concert.  Other "original" release have excerpts.

From the sound of it this is the same thing I have, although I don't have all the other tracks.

I bought it.

The Fargo concert has also been released.  Both are on MOG and I'm guessing Spotify as well.

[Octave]

Thanks for that, SA; I wasn't sure what was what when it came to originals, order, etc.

I see that "another" edition of FARGO with a familiar cover is due this June....real compact discs, me hopes!  A blazing show, that was.  I don't know how to speak of "overrated" with Ellington's music and recordings, because the mythos is just so thick and the music is so good....but FARGO is a blazing night of music.  I also intend to get HIS MOTHER CALLED HIM BILL soon.

[HIPster]

Thanks for the tip on Fargo, Octave.

Yes, blazing is right on with that one!

My go-to (non 78's) Ellington is this one:

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[J.A.W.]

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but those Duke Ellington 1940s Carnegie Hall Prestige sets suffer from heavy noise reduction, which suffocates the music.

[Bogey]

Philharmonic Hall, NYC 1964

[Mirror Image]

I've got to say that I really have become disillusioned with the state of jazz right now, especially here in the United States. In Europe, I think it's doing very well with so many great musicians coming out of the woodwork. I keep thinking that so many of these jazz musicians are getting away from tradition and actually being able to swing, which is what jazz, IMHO, should always do, unless, of course, there is a ballad being performed. I mean the reason why guys like Miles or Monk are still being talked about and listened to is because these guys lived and breathed new life into the genre and their art is timeless. I have yet to hear one jazz musician from the current crop that have the same stature and originality as any of the jazz greats from the 40s, 50s, or 60s.

[Octave]

The Schools---the universities, the conservatories---destroyed the music.
Ah, but what great intonation everybody has!

[Mirror Image]

The Schools---the universities, the conservatories---destroyed the music.
Ah, but what great intonation everybody has!

HA! I think the style of 'jazz' means something completely different to everyone but, for me, the genre plateaued with the advent of bebop.

[Bogey]

[Octave]

Hey, I should get that Armstrong collection.  Do you like the music?

I've been thinking of getting the JSP/Davies transfers of the Hot 5s/7s, even though I own that nice hardback-book edition from Columbia from a number of years back.  I've heard that the Davies transfers have a decisively different flavor to the Columbia transfers, and I believe it, since everything I have heard from Davies' hand is Transfer Magic, notably those boffo early Benny Moten discs (Frog UK) and the great great great Jelly Roll Morton box (JSP).  It's [the Hot 5s/7s] just such raw, tubthumping, life-affirming music, and in Armstrong's own case, so brilliantly, fluidly played...I really know almost nothing whatsoever about his music after WW2, it's a shame.