Make a Jazz Noise Here

[Brian]

I'm supposed to make my friend an Art Blakey mix CD. All my favorite Art Blakey drum solos, and all my favorite Art Blakey accompaniments. What am I missing?? It's gotta fit on one CD, that's why I have the timings down.

Here's my current playlist.

A Night in Tunisia (11:13) [from A Night in Tunisia]
I Mean You (7:58) [from Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers with Thelonious Monk]
A la Mode (6:47) [from Art Blakey!!!!! Jazz Messengers!!!!!]
Arabia (9:07) [from Mosaic]
Ruby, My Dear (5:25) [from Monk's Music]
Free for All (11:06) [from Free for All]
Hank's Symphony (4:36) [from The Jazz Messengers]
Afrique (6:54) [from The Witch Doctor]
Rhythm-a-Ning (7:21) [from Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers with Thelonious Monk]

I'm thinking of adding an all-drums track, like "The Freedom Rider" or something like "Tobi Ilu" from The African Beat.

[Artem]

What about Moanin'?

I'm not a big fan of Blakey's album with Monk, so I'd probably change it with something from "Like Someone in Love".

[Brian]

What about Moanin'?

I'm not a big fan of Blakey's album with Monk, so I'd probably change it with something from "Like Someone in Love".

Like you're weird for not liking Blakey's collaborations with Monk (what about Monk's Music?), I'm weird for preferring Mosaic, The Witch Doctor, and maybe even Roots and Herbs over Moanin'. Lee Morgan is truly inspired on Moanin', but I seem to be a sucker the Jazz Messengers when they include Wayne Shorter.

[Mookalafalas]

Drinking vodka after work.  Started listening to some jazz.  First Bill Evans, and then this.  Great sound, and great ambience.  It was recorded in the early 60s. Coleman Hawkins was already rather old, and it is mostly rather tame sounding (although not always!). Not as smoky and dark as some of his stuff, but this is rich, blue, pre-bop jazz, where you can just see the cigarette smoke spiraling up into the lights as you listen.  My favorite kind.   

[asin]B000040OHJ[/asin]

[early grey]

The latest addition to my 78 rpm catalogue is another 20 track collection of Duke Ellington recording listed as " Duke 2". I think it is amazing the range of sonorities he gets from a relatively small group of musicians, helped by the differing acoustic qualities of the studios the band records in, including two tracks recorded in London. Ivy Anderson is on 4 of the tracks including the standard "It Don't Mean a Thing....." The other standard is "Sophisticated Lady" with the piano-player showing off. I enjoy the way he has with major and minor. "Blues of the Vagabond"  has a minorish feel for 32 bars ( after an intro with banjo glissandi !) but then the mood is lifted with a new theme. "What Can a Poor Fellow Do?" has quite a lilt to it considering the bass is bowed throughout.

http://www.cliveheathmusic.co.uk/transcriptions_16.php

I have proposed that several important LPs (as they used to be)  were issued with the left channel as recorded interchanged with the right channel. These include "Miles Ahead" "Kind of Blue" and the Black Hawk Albums from Miles and from Shelly Manne. You will find the reasons for this belief on the LP page of my site as well as the page "Other Things". Maybe it doesn't matter but then again ? 

[torut]

Yesterdays from Miles Davis The Complete Live At The Plugged Nickel 1965, Amazon Prime streaming

[asin]B000002B01[/asin]

Miles's playing is weak due to the bad health condition at that time, but the group performance is great. I have an old issue of the "complete" set which is actually incomplete (the length of Yesterdays is 5:32), and now I am listening to the full recording of Yesterdays (15:05).

[Henk]

https://www.youtube.com/v/IJUFbW2qdd4

"In the Horizon of the Infinite.

We have left the land and have gone aboard ship!  We have broken down the bridge behind us, nay, more, the land behind us!  Well, little ship!  look out!  Beside thee is the ocean; it is true it does not always roar, and sometimes it spreads out like silk and gold and a gentle reverie.  But times will come when you wilt feel that it is infinite, and that there is nothing more frightful than infinity.  Oh, the poor bird that felt itself free, and now strikes against the walls of this cage!  Alas, if home sickness for the land should attack thee, as if there had been more freedom there, and there is no "land" any longer!" (Nietzsche, The Gay Science)

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Been finding time these days to enjoy some jazz written since the turn of the millennium. This one from 2014 gets my vote for outstanding jazz release of the year.

Stockton Helbing may not be a household name but from what I can tell he's more than content with his accomplishments to date. As a leader his discography is pretty small, with only five releases since 2005. His role as sideman/drummer is more ubiquitous, however.

For me, his role as leader finds him in almost rarefied territory - striding alongside some of the legendary names of the past in terms of song writing ability. He's also adept at scouting out talented sidemen to perfectly shore up a) the song writing loose ends and b) the playing.   

In short, the guy's a wizard.



[asin]B00KTKRMUM[/asin]
 

[Artem]

Somewhat obscure Japanese jazz trio or at least not the record that it is known for. The music is nice. It was reissued on CD last year.

[asin]B00L9EL4CY[/asin]

[escher]

For me, his role as leader finds him in almost rarefied territory - striding alongside some of the legendary names of the past in terms of song writing ability.

I'm very curious, because for my admittedly limited knowledge if there's one thing that I can't find in modern jazz is a composer or even single compositions worth of those of the greats of the past (Ellington, Strayhorn, Monk, Nichols, Shorter, Hill, Silver, Walton, Mingus, Golson, Moncur, Bley, maybe Grolnick etc). Even those who usually are mentioned (like Tom Harrell, Wheeler, Threadgill, Jessica Williams... I don't know) don't fully convince me. Sometimes I hear a nice tune but I can't name even a piece composed after the eighties (beside something made by the old guys above) that made me say "this piece deserves to be a standard" or simply "this is incredible".
Do you have any good example to reccommend?

[Dancing Divertimentian]

I'm very curious, because for my admittedly limited knowledge if there's one thing that I can't find in modern jazz is a composer or even single compositions worth of those of the greats of the past (Ellington, Strayhorn, Monk, Nichols, Shorter, Hill, Silver, Walton, Mingus, Golson, Moncur, Bley, maybe Grolnick etc). Even those who usually are mentioned (like Tom Harrell, Wheeler, Threadgill, Jessica Williams... I don't know) don't fully convince me. Sometimes I hear a nice tune but I can't name even a piece composed after the eighties (beside something made by the old guys above) that made me say "this piece deserves to be a standard" or simply "this is incredible".
Do you have any good example to reccommend?

Yes, finding modern day jazz that matches up to some of the past masters isn't easy but I've come across quite a bit that satisfies me greatly.

Perhaps the greatest of today's jazz comes from a group known as the San Francisco Jazz Collective (SFJazz Collective). Their CDs are available from their website or from Amazon. For the sake of brevity here are a couple of links which outline what they're all about:

http://www.sfjazz.org/about-collective

http://www.sfjazz.org/about

They're everywhere on YouTube so auditioning them shouldn't be a problem. Here's a video I picked almost at random:



https://www.youtube.com/v/TAVeKAkjfKk






Another modern great is Ahmad Jamal. Here's a guy who has actually peaked twice in his career - once during the decade of the 1950s (he's been around that long) and again in the 1990s. His 90s music is a dream (as is his 50s music. In between is spotty).

In the mid- to late-1990s Jamal released a trio of "Essence" recordings (parts 1, 2, & 3). These along with some other choice material from this era are divine. Other great Jamal releases include:

In Search of Momentum
It's Magic
Chicago Revisited/Live at Joe Segal's
Picture Perfect

Here's a worthwhile video. There's just over a minute of slow intro before the main course:



https://www.youtube.com/v/E1bP5zXqvg0


[asin]B000063WSX[/asin]


Then of course there's Stockton Helbing I mentioned above. I have four of his five albums as leader (I'll be ordering the fifth soon). He has a sort of "off kilter" kind of sound much (but not all) of the time but it's distinctive for sure.

Like the SFJazz Collective above you can order CDs straight from his website or from Amazon (his website offers free shipping!).

There's not much YouTube action devoted to him but I did fine a video here:



https://www.youtube.com/v/sUCSlSITGEE

[Robert]

Yes, finding modern day jazz that matches up to some of the past masters isn't easy but I've come across quite a bit that satisfies me greatly.

Perhaps the greatest of today's jazz comes from a group known as the San Francisco Jazz Collective (SFJazz Collective). Their CDs are available from their website or from Amazon. For the sake of brevity here are a couple of links which outline what they're all about:

http://www.sfjazz.org/about-collective

http://www.sfjazz.org/about

They're everywhere on YouTube so auditioning them shouldn't be a problem. Here's a video I picked almost at random:



https://www.youtube.com/v/TAVeKAkjfKk






Another modern great is Ahmad Jamal. Here's a guy who has actually peaked twice in his career - once during the decade of the 1950s (he's been around that long) and again in the 1990s. His 90s music is a dream (as is his 50s music. In between is spotty).

In the mid- to late-1990s Jamal released trio of "Essence" recordings (parts 1, 2, & 3). These along with some other choice material from this era are divine. Other great Jamal releases include:

In Search of Momentum
It's Magic
Chicago Revisited/Live at Joe Segal's
Picture Perfect

Here's a worthwhile video. There's just over a minute of slow intro before the main course:



https://www.youtube.com/v/E1bP5zXqvg0


[asin]B000063WSX[/asin]


Then of course there's Stockton Helbing I mentioned above. I have four of his five albums as leader (I'll be ordering the fifth soon). He has a sort of "off kilter" kind of sound much (but not all) of the time but it's distinctive for sure.

Like the SFJazz Collective above you can order CDs straight from his website or from Amazon (his website offers free shipping!).

There's not much YouTube action devoted to him but I did fine a video here:



https://www.youtube.com/v/sUCSlSITGEE

Jamal tried to kill himself in the fifties but was unsuccessful. Lucky for us....

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Jamal tried to kill himself in the fifties but was unsuccessful. Lucky for us....

Just googled that. Hadn't known about that! Lucky for us indeed.

[Artem]

I was gonna say, what is the point of looking for another Wayne Shorter or Duke Ellington in contemporary jazz. However, I think if you try you will find some musicians that are pretty good at imitating the past. But to me good modern jazz has obviously moved on in its own direction and is more concerned with expression and new approaches to the instrument and interaction within the band, rather than writing another "standard".

But, regardless of that here's Dave Douglas playing Schumann. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asFPDnfAhH8

[escher]

I was gonna say, what is the point of looking for another Wayne Shorter or Duke Ellington in contemporary jazz.

I'm not looking for someone trying to imitate them, also because ton of musicians were and are influenced by them. What I was saying is that I don't see great jazz COMPOSERS in the present who are worth of Ellington, Shorter, Monk, Nichols, Mingus, Silver, Strayhorn, Andrew Hill etc. Maybe I ignore a lot of stuff (it's perfectly possible) but I've listened at least enough of the most famous modern musicians who are also known as composers so I wonder how it's possible that in more than a quarter of a century of music I haven't still found a single personality that I think it's on the same level. And I'm not a nostalgic or against modernism.

[escher]

Another modern great is Ahmad Jamal. Here's a guy who has actually peaked twice in his career - once during the decade of the 1950s (he's been around that long) and again in the 1990s. His 90s music is a dream (as is his 50s music. In between is spotty).

I really like Jamal and also the recent stuff of him I've listened, but I've some difficulties to consider him "modern". And by the way do you consider him relevant as a composer?

[torut]

I'm not looking for someone trying to imitate them, also because ton of musicians were and are influenced by them. What I was saying is that I don't see great jazz COMPOSERS in the present who are worth of Ellington, Shorter, Monk, Nichols, Mingus, Silver, Strayhorn, Andrew Hill etc. Maybe I ignore a lot of stuff (it's perfectly possible) but I've listened at least enough of the most famous modern musicians who are also known as composers so I wonder how it's possible that in more than a quarter of a century of music I haven't still found a single personality that I think it's on the same level. And I'm not a nostalgic or against modernism.

How do you think of Maria Schneider?
And, which contemporary jazz composers have you heard and concluded to be not the same level as those composers? (No intention of arguing, I am just curious about your criteria.)

[escher]

How do you think of Maria Schneider?
And, which contemporary jazz composers have you heard and concluded to be not the same level as those composers? (No intention of arguing, I am just curious about your criteria.)

I've heard a couple of albums many years ago (I think Concert in the garden and Sky blue), I think it was nice but I don't remember great tunes like those written by Carla Bley (I was exploring the music of female jazz musicians). But she's probably one of those I have to listen much more, I know that she's one of the most respected bandleaders.
Anyway among those jazz musicians who are also respected as composer I've heard (at least to a degree, maybe I have listened some of their best stuff): Tom Harrell, kenny Wheeler, Muhal Richard Abrams, Henry Threadgill, 8 bold souls, John Carter, Pat Metheny (I admit I adore his little "In her family"), Ran Blake, Mulgrew Miller, Jason Moran, John Zorn, Tim Berne, Anthony Braxton, Anthony Davis, Dave Holland, Wynton Marsalis, Jane Ira Bloom, Jessica Williams, Charlie Haden, Claudia quintet, Dave Douglas, Ben Monder, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Jason Adasiewicz, Greg Osby, Vijay Iyer... just to name the first names I can remember now, and I should add some modern big band (but now I can't even remember the names of their bandleaders).
If I have to mention the writers of pieces I've liked the most in recent decades I would mention old school guys like Wayne Shorter, Kenny Barron, Cedar Walton , Andrew Hill and Don Grolnick, not exactly a selection of young talents (also considering that some of them are dead).

[Robert]

I'm not looking for someone trying to imitate them, also because ton of musicians were and are influenced by them. What I was saying is that I don't see great jazz COMPOSERS in the present who are worth of Ellington, Shorter, Monk, Nichols, Mingus, Silver, Strayhorn, Andrew Hill etc. Maybe I ignore a lot of stuff (it's perfectly possible) but I've listened at least enough of the most famous modern musicians who are also known as composers so I wonder how it's possible that in more than a quarter of a century of music I haven't still found a single personality that I think it's on the same level. And I'm not a nostalgic or against modernism.

Don't forget about Benny Golson

[escher]

Don't forget about Benny Golson

It's difficult to forget him 

I'm very curious, because for my admittedly limited knowledge if there's one thing that I can't find in modern jazz is a composer or even single compositions worth of those of the greats of the past (Ellington, Strayhorn, Monk, Nichols, Shorter, Hill, Silver, Walton, Mingus, Golson, Moncur, Bley, maybe Grolnick etc). Even those who usually are mentioned (like Tom Harrell, Wheeler, Threadgill, Jessica Williams... I don't know) don't fully convince me. Sometimes I hear a nice tune but I can't name even a piece composed after the eighties (beside something made by the old guys above) that made me say "this piece deserves to be a standard" or simply "this is incredible".
Do you have any good example to reccommend?