Rolling Jazz Thread 2024

"Blakey taught me how to play the drums when I play. Rhythm is it. It’s what makes soloists different, what makes Sonny Rollins or Bird so great. I understood how time worked when I left Art.”

– Branford Marsalis

I've now listened to all 2 hours of the David Murray/Questlove/Ray Angry album 'Plumb' now that it's streaming (what, was I going to buy the vinyl for $150?). It's good! Questlove isn't a jazz drummer, but I like the tension of hearing him in this context, since his whole thing is minimalism and not overplaying or stretching out. And when he plays a groove there's so much detail and weight in it. And just consistency of sound, it's kinda crazy how you can hear every Roots record in his bass drum (but it's also nice to hear the inconsistencies in this mode, he's human too).

Ray Angry is really the mvp, I'd never heard him before. Great keyboard & synth sounds (which is super rare for jazz pianists!), and he's really holding it all together on every cut with the basslines & chords, especially since they're all jams.

Thanks for the thoughts on that, I was curious when it came out but kind of stopped caring when I saw the only option was the $150 vinyl (not even a digital download option either, afaict).

Not to derail the thread, but this particular release (along with a few others I encountered in 2023) irks me where we've come to a point where the options are sort of pulling to the two extremes - either streaming only or catering to the vinyl fetishists at a ridiculous price point, with nothing in between. Like, hey guys, I dig your music and I'd really like to support you with more than the meager portions of pennies my streams will get you, but uh $150 ain't it dudes.

Agree 100%. If I could have bought that release on Bandcamp, I would have. But I wound up only listening to some of that, because when something is only on streaming platforms, my attention span gets a lot shorter — I'll listen to a track or two, then bail. If I put a CD on, I let it play through. Similarly, if I put a Blu-Ray in the player I'll watch a movie front to back. If I pull something up on Netflix, I might watch 15 minutes, get distracted, and quit.

Last year, Concord reissued Woody Shaw's debut album, Blackstone Legacy, on vinyl. It's a long double LP, so they had to cut a couple of minutes out of two of the longer tracks to fit it on a single CD (which I own). But fortunately, HDTracks.com had the digital files for the remastered reissue, giving me everything at full length.

Thanks for posting about Plumb I had no idea it was streaming, it's cool, man I love Murray and Ray Angry is great...not sure it really needs to be 2 plus hours, seems like it could been pretty great album as a normal length cd but what do I know

Jordan otm on Plum--where all the tracks are like 13-14 minutes long, except for all the tracks that are like 4 minutes and change, except for the one that's like 2:30, and it all seems right---can see how you might have to listen in chunks, unperson, but keep goin' back in!

from end of the year Noms thread:

Tracks:
Jason Kao Hwang--Dragon Carved Into Bone
Susan Alcorn, Septeto del Sur--El Derecho de Vivir en Paz
Alex Sadkin--Parker's Mood
Alex Sadkin--Bird of Paradise
(16/40)

JKH: electric violin, electric guitar, drum kit: fluid, fluent, digging in.
SA: pedal steel & combo: Chilean folk melodies x improv, with vocals on this one track, the best, I think.
AS: come for more from jazz pedal steelist xpost Dave Easley and drummer Jay Bellerose, stay for whole crew on "Parker's Mood," where everybody has the blues, especially that violin, and troubled ballad "Bird of Paradise." (For the second half Flight, Sadkin employs different line-up, more conventional-looking, but I didn't listen to much of that.)

From Rolling Psych Freak Drone 2023:

Co-sign on this year's Sunwatchers, fastnbulbous: once again they made my Uproxx ballot, and will be on others. This afternoon at nice quiet library, dipped a toe in two (out of three) of this year's 75 Dollar Bill reissues, from the beginning. A couple ov faves so far:

When my guitar part finally breaks form it’s just to signal the end. As for the long track that takes up the whole first side of this tape, it was named in homage to Najeeb, a young Tunisian man with Down Syndrome I’d met a few years earlier while traveling in Kairouan, Islam’s 4th holiest city. Najeeb would hang out at the cafe all day and the other guys would buy him sodas while he’d crack them up with fantastical and occasionally lewd bits about physical love, flying airplanes and tourists. Never missing an opportunity for a send up of the local religious piety, he’d attempt to order a drink you couldn’t get at this cafe, or anywhere as far as I know, وسكي بالحبرورش or “Whiskey with Hail." - CC

https://75dollarbill.bandcamp.com/track/whiskey-with-hail

I had seen Karen and Andrew playing around town and admired their playing, and finally got to meet them while playing amplified strings in a Tony Conrad ensemble circa 2012, right around when Rick and I were starting to play together. They were probably the first people to come rehearse with us and appear here on what has become our most often played (and recorded song) “WZN#3."
Andrew Lafkas: contrabass on "WZN#3"
Karen Waltuch: viola on "WZN#3"

https://75dollarbill.bandcamp.com/track/wzn-3

https://artsfuse.org/285195/the-18th-annual-francis-davis-jazz-poll-the-state-of-our-union-could-be-better/

Jazz critics poll of 2023 releases (with separate breakouts for Latin jazz, jazz vocalists, and more) . reissues . 159 critics contributed.

the top 10 of the top 50 albums list with Lewis at #1

James Brandon Lewis /Red Lily Quintet, For Mahalia, With Love (Tao Forms) 303.5 (47)
Jason Moran, From the Dancehall to the Battlefield (Yes) 226 (32)
Steve Lehman & Orchestre National de Jazz, Ex Machina (Pi) 201.5 (30)
Tyshawn Sorey Trio, Continuing (Pi) 191.5 (32)
Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Dynamic Maximum Tension (Nonesuch) 186 (30)
Matana Roberts, Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the Garden (Constellation) 183 (29)
Kris Davis, Diatom Ribbons Live at the Village Vanguard (Pyroclastic) 179 (28)
Henry Threadgill Ensemble, The Other One (Pi) 159 (27)
Jaimie Branch, Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((World War)) (International Anthem) 154.5 (23)
Myra Melford’s Fire and Water Quintet, Hear the Light Singing (RogueArt) 133.5 (24)

Chuck Eddy is one of the critics. Didn’t think he was so into jazz.

He has gotten into jazz big time the last few years.

https://accidentalevolution.wordpress.com/2024/01/05/150-best-albums-of-2023/

Chuck Eddy list with 3 of top 4 being jazz ; plus long essay -

Jason Moran From the Dancehall to the Battlefield (Yes)
Allen Lowe and the Constant Sorrow Orchestra America: The Rough Cut (ESP-Disk)
Clairvoyance is the Dance Vol. 1 (Huveshta Rituals Belgium)
Lakecia Benjamin Phoenix (Whirlwind)

And oh yeah, there’s jazz too. Which, for all I know, Richard Meltzer might still listen to, to this day. And even if he doesn’t, it never died! I count at least 16 albums on my list (almost 11% — exact same percentage as metal, if you want a horse race), including three (= 75%) of my top four and 10 (= 25%) of my top 40. Read the credits and you’ll deduce that I clearly have a thing for saxophones, which is not to suggest other lead instruments aren’t honored as well.

The top two, especially, are illuminating. 48-year-old Houston pianist Jason Moran’s From the Dancehall to the Battlefield and 69-year-old Long Island (mostly alto) saxophonist Allen Lowe’s America: The Rough Cut are both loaded with blues and rags — you can tell; it’s right there in their song titles. Hillbilly music, too. In other words, they update the rock’n’roll of more than 100 years ago...

Half an hour of Cecil Taylor's big band, which appeared annually at Iridium for about five years in the early 2000s:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1eCgBMMkmE

As I discovered when writing my book, this band was amazing, as close as Taylor ever got to Ellington-level orchestration, but no albums have ever been released even though a lot of the shows were recorded.

I was there for some of them!

Not in NYC for any of this weekend's multiple impressive Winter jazz conference gigs or the global ones at Drom & Lincoln Center alas. Today there's an impressive one-- Esperanza Spalding, Brandee Younger, Irreversible Entanglements, The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis. Website doesn't list Shabaka H, but he was listed elsewhere as part of this 6pm gig today at le Poisson Rouge

Sounds good, afraid I will be missing the whole thing once again as per usual.

Question for unperson, anybody: "Someday We'll All Be Free" and another track on on Eye of I sound like they incl. uncredited trumpet---could it be Kirk Knuffke's cornet, not making the Bandcamp annotations---or is JBL overdubbing the high end of his tenor, perhaps with pitch tweaking, other effects?
This and For Mahalia are currently my most played albums of any genre, any year.

Yeah, that's Knuffke. I don't know why he's not credited on the Bandcamp page for the album.

Wow, thanks! Also, the Glide reviewer keeps referring to Hoffman's "violin,' when credits have only "Cello/Pedals," which is certainly what it sounds like. But is violin on there as well or instead??

I have revived my podcast and interviewed pianist Ethan Iverson, who has a new album out on Friday. (It's good!)

Will listen. I got introduced to Joseph Branciforte on Pablo Held's podcast today, he's a recording engineer who has done a ton of records for Ben Monder, Tim Berne, etc. But he's also made a pair of gorgeous records with Theo Bleckmann where he's doing all the music live in a Max/MSP looping environment he made:

https://josephbrancifortetheobleckmann.bandcamp.com/album/lp2

And here he is covering this crazy Ben Monder tune on Rhodes and Moog, and he's also a ridiculous drummer? Come on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyBQTg3d6u8

Great interview, really enjoyed it. I like the 'singles' from the record too, looking forward to hearing the whole thing. The tunes are the most 'Bad Plus-y' I've heard from him in a long time, but that also makes the drumming sound a bit safe and me want to hear what Dave King would do.

I included some quotes from the podcast in my latest Stereogum column, which just went up. I cover some high-profile albums therein (Mary Halvorson, Keyon Harrold), but there are some lesser-known artists like Muriel Grossmann, Kirsten Edkins, and Tetragone that I hope people will check out, too.

This is coming in April, and as a huuuuuge fan of their first record, the sample bit just got me totally pumped

https://astralahmed.bandcamp.com/album/wood-blues

There's also a 5CD [Ahmed] box set coming out in April on the Swedish label Fönstret. I haven't heard it, but the label head tells me it's coming, so...

All I can see is this:

https://ahmedquartet.bandcamp.com/album/super-majnoon

which is also deeply exciting to me

lol sorry, I got stoned— that last record came out this year! I had no idea because the group has several different Bandcamp pages.

Yeah, the 5CD set hasn't been announced yet, as the band haven't even signed off on the masters. But it's in process.

Cool!!

Jimmy Cobb on this Great Jazz Trio record has the greatest jazz bass drum sound I've ever heard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLXieFOtKUM

Gig at LPR was really good, particularly JBL/Messthetics and Irreversible Entanglements. Shabaka was a bit of a snooze though. Really not sure about this wafty new age direction he's going in. Too much of this tasteful ambient jazz about - it has none of the beauty or intensity of the spiritual jazz tradition it claims to be extending.

Lol, I must have been looking at a Discogs page for the wrong album because I kept listening to this going "how the fuck does Jimmy Cobb suddenly sound like Elvin", but of course it's Elvin Jones & Richard Davis on that Great Jazz Trio album. I was pretty blown away by "Eddie Gomez" too, makes much more sense now. What a record.

https://ahmedquartet.bandcamp.com/album/super-majnoon

Just a note that this is an insanely good record, bought it last night.

So I heard a song on the radio last night that I liked and Shazamed it and it was Joey Alexander — who I vaguely remember as the child prodigy who popped up on TV and elsewhere some years back. Didn't realize he had a going adult career. No idea what his critical standing is like, but I liked the vibe of the song. Anyway, this was the track (the studio version).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQM2a350TF4

Got tix to see the Blue Note Quintet on Fri, in addition to Kendrick Scott I'm most looking forward to hearing Joel Ross again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYJMflZEjJo

(some insane playing on this session, first time seeing video of Kush Abadey, I wasn't familiar with him until that new Ethan Iverson record)

James Brandon Lewis has two albums coming out this winter/spring: a new quartet disc on Intakt with pianist Aruán Ortiz, bassist Brad Jones, and drummer Chad Taylor (I think it's their third album together), and a collaboration with the Messthetics (guitarist Anthony Pirog and bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty, both formerly of Fugazi) on Impulse.

That quartet is absolutely superb - saw them in London in November. Ortiz is such a fantastic pianist - managed to get a seat a foot away from him. Just a marvel too watch. Rest of the band not too shabby either, ha! Chad Taylor is one of the greatest drummers alive, deserves all the flowers.

Yeah, the quartet is great, and Lewis's duo project with Taylor is fantastic, too.

The Blue Note Quintet show was stunning, highly recommend catching the tour if you can. It's hard to imagine a better drummer than Kendrick Scott, he can play anything but has a Brian Blade level of musicality & restraint. Joel Ross delivered too (especially his dancing when he lays out and goes to the back of the stage). They really sounded like a band too, mostly originals until the last tune, which was a Monk tune smashed up with a Charlie Parker blues worked into the form.

Gerald Clayton kept triggering clips of jazz musicians being interviewed (Wayne Shorter was the only one I really recognized by voice), sometimes it was just a bridge between tunes and sometimes one person would play under the audio. Didn't always work imo, but it was a good way of not having any dead air or having to address the audience until the end. Wonder if they'll make a record.

Have we talked about this record here?

https://billorcutt.bandcamp.com/album/a-mouth-at-both-ends

Friend of mine just played the trio on the radio and it blew my top off.

hmm, will peep

Fuck yeah

(brings back seeing Herlin play this tune from a few inches away a few summers ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI4M7qzOTHo

Really enjoyed this Vinnie Sperazza post featuring legendary jazz drummers on early r&b singles. Heard Billy Hart talking about the same thing recently, how his first gigs were in r&b bands, which led to playing with singers, which led to all of the modern jazz gigs (and how the jazz bandleaders all hired him for his r&b and pop background).

The new Iyer/Oh/Sorey album is predictably great. What a fantastic trio.

Haven’t listened but can imagine.

Yeah, it's good. I've got an interview with Iyer running in my next Stereogum column, which will probably go live next week.

Been going in on some Al Foster records after being inspired by this Dan Weiss clip:
https://www.instagram.com/p/C3LYW6kAwbk/

I went back to Joe Henderson's "So Near, So Far" Miles tribute record with Foster and John Scofield, and it's just as great as I remember. Foster is so creative and tight, especially with the hi-hat, I wouldn't be surprised if Bill Stewart got a lot from him.

I got to see Henderson and Foster play together, with George Mraz on bass, in 1997. It was great.

Wow

My latest Stereogum column is up; I interviewed Vijay Iyer, and reviewed new albums by James Brandon Lewis, Sullivan Fortner, and others. Lotta Scandinavians this month, so be warned.

I enjoyed your Rufus Reid interview (tried to go through that complete Monk set but wasn't feeling it for some reason, even though Billy Drummond is great)...it's really something how every musician talks about Sullivan Fortner these days, I've heard the same thing recently from Brad Mehldau, Aaron Parks, etc.

Some interesting records in there, especially that Otis Sandjo record.

The two tracks out from the upcoming Potter/Mehldau/Patitucci/Blade record are masterful, can't wait for that one.

I'm waiting to get the full album from the label. It's a hell of a lineup for sure.

https://wapo.st/49GLa8S

Washington Post interview with Iyer focusses mainly on Compassion album and recent live show with no mention of Arooj Aftab one

So the new Shabaka has dropped and... I'm really underwhelmed.

I'm all for beauty, but this current wave of chilled out ambient jazz just feels aimless and banal... over reliance on "vibes" but not much substance... I'm sure it's nice to put on while you do yoga, but Don Cherry it ain't!

Floating Points has a lot to answer for.

I like it! I've already heard the whole album (reviewed it for The Wire) and it's a whole lot better than the Andre 3000 thing, or the Vijay Iyer/Arooj Aftab/Shahzad Ismaily thing, or about half of what's come out on International Anthem in the last year. The tracks with two harp players are really beautiful, and it's got some really good guest vocalists. There's nothing aimless or haphazard about it — it's a tight record (11 tracks, 47 minutes) with a ton of guests including Jason Moran, Nduduzo Makhathini, and yeah, Andre 3000's on it but you wouldn't notice unless someone told you.

Haha. I'm feeling this more from the UK side of things, although I like a lot of it (the last Alabaster de Plume stuck with me, the previous Shabaka record didn't). The Ambrose Akinmusire LP is post-ECM ambient jazz done right (and I was gratified to see that Jakob Bro subbed for Bill Frisell on his tour, since Bro kicked off my obsession with this sort of thing and I felt like the AA record fit into that universe).

xp
How does it compare to Afrikan Culture? I never felt v compelled to listen to that a second time, but a fuller band would be more enticing

To me, the Ayer/Izmaily/Aftab thing is probably the best example of this kind of thing, especially live there was a continual bass pulse that kept if from being too floaty. Maybe I give this the benefit of the doubt cause I know that Iyer is a serious musician and not just slumming, which I think Hutchings does a bit (e.g. your interview with him where he says he wants to play “stupid sax” because he thinks playing complex music serves capitalism or something).

Yeah, aimless applies to Andre 3000's jams, but not so much the Shabaka. There's obviously intention and structure there, but it does seem to stop just as it's starting to go somewhere. Caught his set at NY Winter Jazz fest and found it pretty dull. There's no tension or bite to make the ostensibly beautiful sounds really soar.

I get why this chilled out minimalist/ambient thing is all the rage but I find it a total snooze! Can't help but feel there's a lot of reliance on spiritual jazz signifiers to give the music a sense of depth. At worst, it's some phoney new age bullshit.

Good to see I'm not the only one underwhelmed by the Iyer/Aftab/Ismaily - I like all the people involved, but I wonder how much lies behind studied ECM tastefulness. I'm also finding IA incredibly frustrating, particularly in its choice of UK acts. Doesn't seem right that a mediocrity like Alabaster DePlume, with his insufferable wide eye naif routine, gets to work with amazing Chicago musicians.

I get why this chilled out minimalist/ambient thing is all the rage but I find it a total snooze! Can't help but feel there's a lot of reliance on spiritual jazz signifiers to give the music a sense of depth. At worst, it's some phoney new age bullshit.

Moor Mother had a hilarious tweet the other day:

Just imagine if some of the folks playing spiritual jazz was actually spiritual

— poetry (@moormother) February 21, 2024

(Her new album is amazing, btw; Iyer's on it, and a bunch of other people. Not "jazz" exactly, but really, really strong stuff.)

Ha I saw that! She's OTM.

Very excited for her new album. She can do no wrong!

curious to hear the new shabaka album

i'm not familiar with all of his work, just sons of kemet and the comet is coming, but he has popped up on some other stuff. i like him, but there've been several times where i immediately clocked it was him because...he plays the same licks all the time? like i could hear a certain phrase and it's just immediately recognizable

Haha. I'm 100% in favor of that, my favorite horn player (Derrick "Kabuki" Shezbie) has 5 - 10 licks he deploys with the utmost sound, feel, & musicality and no one else can play those licks like him.

I think there's a conceptual divide where some musicians think true improvisation is playing something you've never played before, without a net, and others feel that's what the practice room is for and that you shouldn't try to play everything you hear if you don't know where it's going. Idk, I think licks = words and it's all in how you use them. Talk with them rather than recite a prepared speech.

yeah to be clear i'm not against it or criticizing him really, it's just SO noticeable to me compared to a lot of other horn players

i like him, but there've been several times where i immediately clocked it was him because...he plays the same licks all the time? like i could hear a certain phrase and it's just immediately recognizable

Allow me to introduce you to the work of Fred Anderson...

Ha I saw that! She's OTM.

Very excited for her new album. She can do no wrong!

(I have also had the distinct privilege of seeing her a LOT since we are both Philly jawns)

On the ambient turn... this review of Winter Jazz Fest makes some good observations. His argument - comforting music for troubled times - is solid enough, but that's the problem. If there's a time for jazz to be angry it's now. A lot of this new age ambient jazz comes across as hippy escapism. It's also not very interesting musically. I put on a Carlos Nino album and think that's cool, some nice grooves, some nice sounds, but it doesn't keep me engaged. But then that's maybe the point - it's background music to chill to. Perhaps I'm not temperamentally disposed to blissed out Californian vibes.
Of course any revolutionary movement needs collective joy, beauty, love - that's why the latest Irreversible Entanglements is so powerful. And I get that Shabaka, for example, has released plenty of politically charged music before (The third Sons Of Kemet album in particular) and has every right to follow his bliss. But still...

Sorry, didn't include the link: https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2024/02/28/jazz-ragas-for-restless-times/

I don’t really understand the fuss over Niño and am lukewarm on Hutchings’ latest efforts, but I am a little skeptical of the idea that a sound being projected onto some musicians betrays their stance on social or political issues.

That said, could it be possible that by making music that is calming, comforting, even contemplative, there is a desire for futurity being projected into the world? Why does music have to be “angry” to be read as in tune with political and social demands? And isn’t that more a problem with the subjective listener than the music itself?

To clarify, I'm not arguing that all music should be angry, noisy and political. Free jazz has always looked after the spirit - music as a healing force and all that. And it's always had space for the contemplative. By its very nature, jazz and improvised music is inherently subversive, a liberation technology as Moor Moor puts it. Or at least, any jazz and improvised music that is alive and real, and not just industry hyped pseudo spiritual jazz or sub ECM muzak.

And I'm not questioning Shabaka's political commitment - I really admire the way SOK brought anti-colonial, anti-racist politics to the edge of the mainstream. That glorious FUCK THE TORIES FUCK THE FASCISTS bit in My Queen Is Ada Eastman needs to be blasted from rooftops.

My beef is really with the wider ambient trend and the marketing of it. Again, it ties back to another recent Moor Mother tweet about flooding the market with ambient and soft indie so people remain asleep.

Yeah sorry I don’t buy that

What is “real” spiritual jazz? Does Camae Ayewa get to decide that for us?

Shiroishi has made deeply political records, full of feedback, skronk, and wailing that gets to the center of the goddamn earth. He also is one of the leaders of Fuubutsushi, a group that definitely makes ECM-style “vibes” music, albeit with a political bent, given samples used and song titles.

This whole oppositionality to what is seen as a burgeoning “trend” seems to me to be more about certain people acting like cops about what people can and can’t enjoy based on whether it meets some very subjective ideas of what spirituality is and can be.

Isn't "spiritual" a notoriously vague, even vacuous, term? To the point that people are often mocked for self-describing with it? It's kind of funny to assert that some people have this quality and others don't. Also I know everyone itt knows that original spiritual jazz was strongly detested for decades because genre purists thought it was "phoney new age bullshit" (not always without reason!)

By its very nature, jazz and improvised music is inherently subversive, a liberation technology

more like jazz music has always been an idea onto which the white jazz critic cannot resist projecting his politics, his ideas about authenticity, his hang ups and squabbles with other critics, ya feel me

and i don't mean that as a personal attack, and to be clear i really like having you around, Stew, but i think if there's been any kind of through line or 'essence' to jazz, it has to be this more than anything else

more like jazz music has always been an idea onto which the white jazz critic cannot resist projecting his politics, his ideas about authenticity, his hang ups and squabbles with other critics, ya feel me

Agree with this 100%. It's a major problem. Amiri Baraka's essay "Jazz and the White Critic" remains a crucial text even in 2024, and you can always read Frank Kofsky for a tragic lesson in what not to do and who not to be.

Absolutely, and as a white jazz critic I'm well aware of these pitfalls and try my best to avoid them or at least learn from mistakes. The Baraka essay is a touchstone and in my writing and teaching I draw on what musicians like Moor Mother William Parker, Pat Thomas et al have to say, as well as thinkers like Fred Moten, Edward George and Rashida Philips. Jazz has had a profound impact on my politics. As a friend puts it, music is why I'm not a Tory.

Obviously I'm not claiming every jazz musician is politically radical, but I don't think it's hard to see the liberatory potential in a music based on improvisation, freeing up melody, harmony and time, expressing your individuality etc. Which is why more conservative kinds of jazz don't do it for me, aesthetically or politically. But I wouldn't call them inauthentic.

'What is “real” spiritual jazz? Does Camae Ayewa get to decide that for us?'

Of course not, but I don't think she's trying to be prescriptive about what spiritual jazz is. Rather, the point is that "spiritual jazz" has become a marketing term, both for the reissues market and new releases. There's lots of deeply spiritual jazz that's just too radical or intense to fit the commercial idea of "spiritual jazz", i.e. modal, groove-based music modelled on the more accessible aspects of Alice/Pharoah's classic Impulse! sides. It says a lot that a musician of the "revolutionary spiritual school" like William Parker is too much for the posh rare groove tastemakers.

I think there's a British class dimension to this that maybe needs explaining... my beef is largely with privately educated white British musicians and tastemakers, including Floating Points, who let the "spiritual vibes" do a lot of heavy lifting for their bland expensive wallpaper music.

'This whole oppositionality to what is seen as a burgeoning “trend” seems to me to be more about certain people acting like cops about what people can and can’t enjoy based on whether it meets some very subjective ideas of what spirituality is and can be.'

People can enjoy what they like, but it's not the critic's job to just hold their hands up and accept any old nonsense.

Big fan of Shiroishi and the sheer variety of his music is stunning. And I think the political charge makes a big difference, putting those crystalline ECM sonics to radical uses.

Obviously I'm not claiming every jazz musician is politically radical, but I don't think it's hard to see the liberatory potential in a music based on improvisation, freeing up melody, harmony and time, expressing your individuality etc. Which is why more conservative kinds of jazz don't do it for me, aesthetically or politically. But I wouldn't call them inauthentic.

The last sentence here is crucial. Because yeah, I listen to tons of free and out jazz, but I also listen to tons of early 70s CTI recordings, and dudes like Hubert Laws, a flutist equally conversant in jazz and classical, blending both of those with psychedelic funk production, is making music that's totally authentic to his experience of the world. And Afro-Classic is a fucking incredible record as a result. Could you throw some of it on alongside the Andre 3000 record?

Somewhat related to this, I've heard sizable chunks of the next Kamasi Washington album, and...it's not really doing it for me in the way The Epic or Heaven and Earth did. Was I just infatuated at the time? Did I buy into the hype cycle? I don't think so — my excitement when I heard that album was real, and I'd already heard Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane and all the rest of the influences he was clearly drawing upon. More to come...

Got it. I guess the problem I have is that while I agree with you pretty sturdily on yr complaints regarding Floating Points and the ilk, I bristle at the idea that anyone can diagnose what counts as “spiritual” jazz or “spiritual” music, and find Ayewa’s tweet to be wrong-headed, because the spiritual experience is one that is entirely subjective and not within the realm of rationality. That is to say: some people might find something in FP or Carlos Nino that I don’t. I personally think ‘descension (out of our constrictions)’ is a heavy spiritual record, and that NIS are lumped in with the more wallpaper stuff in the AQ article feels like the writer isn’t actually listening to the music, because last year’s record is pretty damn spiritual too, just not as ecstatic. Not all spiritual experiences are based in ecstasy or transcendence.

Now, I agree that the marketing of “spiritual” jazz is super fucked, but this isn’t anything new— the more accessible side of spiritual jazz has always been pushed harder! I heard Alice Coltrane for the first time as a 17 year old and it totally blew my mind, but within a few years I knew that it was the tamer side of the spectrum . (That isn’t a knock on Alice, of course).

Totally agree with you on NIS. I think there are certain superficial connections with the new age/ambient stuff but that's as far as it goes. Heavy stuff with loads going on.

I do wonder if there's a bit of mischievous humour to that Ayewa tweet - she does shitpost from time to time!

x-post - I think the psychedelic funk influenced stuff is pretty radical in its own way. Some amazing arrangements and textures there. I know some people have been sniffy about Washington, but those records are really enjoyable and he puts on a great live show. I also appreciate the way he's given props to his community, hipped people to Horace Tapscot et al.

Not exactly related to the above, but when I saw Makaya McCraven recently he had 3 violinists in addition to his harpist and cellist and flute/sax player, trumpet, bass, etc and a dj guy I know who had seen McCraven at Big Ears once, said he felt this show was too sedate. I enjoyed it and to my ears at times it felt like McCraven was going almost for a Sketches of Spain meets Curtis Mayfield soundtrack feel. More sedate-- yea, but I liked it.

Coupla unrelated things (other than the general subject). I finally got around to reading that utterly amazing Kramer interview/more-or-less essay in "The Believer." I appreciated his depiction of the personal path from loving nothing but free/experimental music to settling into loving nothing but Bill Evans and Nelson Riddle. Sometimes I get so used to listening to jarring music that more sedate music becomes a bit more jarring. I think I was playing a playlist of The Book Beri'ah, and the moments that made me perk up were not the skronky or metal bits, but when it would suddenly downshift into something more subtle.

Second, I saw that Julian Lage did a gig with Joey Baron recently, and it reminded me that I didn't know what Baron was up to lately, which brought me to this:

https://downbeat.com/news/detail/blindfold-test-joey-baron

I love ears so attuned that they can recognize a drummer just from how they hit the cymbal or snare. (I also had somehow never heard Tyshawn Sorey!)

(I also had somehow never heard Tyshawn Sorey!)

His albums on Pi Recordings are incredible. Not on streaming services, though. The Inner Spectrum of Variables, Verisimilitude, Mesmerism and Continuing are the ones to start with. The latter two are collections of standards, but the way they play them really is transformative. I love the pianist in that group, Aaron Diehl. He draws from old-school jazz, like the 1930s and 1940s, and really makes it work. He's on a level with Jason Moran in my estimation.

Agreed re: Sorey. Mesmerism is a transformative listening experience.

Sorry for the self-promo, but I lead a ten-person jazz-adjacent proggy band that just announced our first LP, out in full in early May; maybe people on here will/might dig at least some of it (three long tracks)--I have hired a publicist, so unperson be forewarned, haha:
https://kunudusuvuntu.bandcamp.com/album/pita-parka-pt-i-xam-egdub

i'm 100% here for ilxors plugging their own jazz-adjacent music in the rolling jazz thread fwiw. looking forward to checking this out

Also xp, yes Josh In Chicago, that Kramer article in the Believer is so good! I could use a re-read--remember it being a fittingly bizarre, digressively eye-opening blast

Re: "I appreciated his depiction of the personal path from loving nothing but free/experimental music to settling into loving nothing but Bill Evans and Nelson Riddle. Sometimes I get so used to listening to jarring music that more sedate music becomes a bit more jarring," I can't help but think of Nels Cline, when promoting his 2CD set The Lovers, enthusing about the arrangements on Stan Getz's Focus

Yeah, I got sent your album yesterday; I'll definitely check it out.

Seconded on Unperson's Tyshawn Sorey recommendations. Would add Pillars, which is absolutely incredible, as if Bill Dixon and Tony Oxley had made the greatest drone metal album of all time.

Just got a hurt-feelings email from a free jazz player I wrote about in BA last year, asking me to take down the article about them because it was overly harsh. I re-read it and it was nothing of the kind, just a (mostly favorable) assessment of a young musician who hasn't fully developed their own personality yet, with some additional discussion of how young players pop up all the time and some of them last and some of them don't. I probably shouldn't have, but I responded, saying basically, "If I didn't like your work and think it was worth people's attention, I wouldn't have written about you at all," wished them well, and didn't even acknowledge the takedown request.

cheer up zoh amba

not listened to Pillars in ages, it's brilliant.

Tyshawn's collaboration with King Britt is a lot of fun too and the one my students connected with immediately.

On a related note, the new XT/RP Boo is a great curveball (at least, a curveball in jazz/improv terms, not the artists themselves). Footwork + jittery free improv/jazz is a great combination. See also Jana Rush's reworking of Lonely Woman.

https://feedbackmoves.bandcamp.com/album/yesyespeakersyes

Not sure how I stumbled on this one, but this release of a Mars Williams/Hamid Drake live set from '96 at the Empty Bottle is making my morning. https://corbettvsdempsey.bandcamp.com/album/i-know-you-are-but-what-am-i

Thx for heads-up, RIPs to Williams as well as documenter/recordist M. Ritscher (grimly/righteously back in the news as a self-immolating protest precedent back in '06)

Thanks for the reminder. That's the first vol of a series of Mars Williams archival releases CvsD have just announced: excited to hear them all.

Equinox single from Gilad Hekselman live album sounding good this morning
https://giladhekselman.bandcamp.com/album/life-at-the-village-vanguard

Really nice Swedish straight-ahead sax/piano/bass trio album (Gilbert Holmström on tenor, Peter Jansson on bass bar one tune,
Kresten Osgood on drums) that reminds me of what has excited me in recent re: Chris Speed's trio on Intakt with Chris Tordini and Dave King (s/o to one of my fave bass players here in Toronto, Dan Fortin of Bernice, for the heads-up via snooping on his BC fan page): https://gottaletitout.bandcamp.com/album/easy-to-remember

Catherine Sikora/Susan Alcorn sounding good this foggy morning

https://catherinesikora.bandcamp.com/album/filament

Not jazz per se but this is a really cool record, found just by looking to see what Susie Ibarra's been up to:
https://www.goldenhornet.org/insectum

Short (25 min!), sounds amazing, each track is interpreting a different insect sonically.

I wrote about Louis Armstrong for BA this week.

Catherine Sikora/Susan Alcorn sounding good this foggy morning

https://catherinesikora.bandcamp.com/album/filament🕸

I wrote about Louis Armstrong🕸 for BA this week.

Hat Hut has put out a previously unreleased Cecil Taylor live recording from February 1980.

He and his band recorded four sets between February 8 and 10. The second set, which bled from late 2/8 into early 2/9, was released as It Is In The Brewing Luminous, from which I took the title of my forthcoming book, In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylor. This new release is the third set, from the night of 2/9. The band is Taylor on piano, Jimmy Lyons on alto sax, Ramsey Ameen on violin, Alan Silva on bass and cello, Jerome Cooper on drums and balafon, and Sunny Murray on drums.

Amazing! What an era of the Unit.

Hat Hut has put out a previously unreleased Cecil Taylor live recording from February 1980🕸.

He and his band recorded four sets between February 8 and 10. The second set, which bled from late 2/8 into early 2/9, was released as _It Is In The Brewing Luminous_, from which I took the title of my forthcoming book, _In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylor_. This new release is the third set, from the night of 2/9. The band is Taylor on piano, Jimmy Lyons on alto sax, Ramsey Ameen on violin, Alan Silva on bass and cello, Jerome Cooper on drums and balafon, and Sunny Murray on drums.

I've always loved the Hot Fives and Sevens. Never found them corny at all. Thrilling, actually. In my brief jazz school days I thought the bebop-centric approach of my school was all wrong and that people should be transcribing Louis Armstrong and Johnny Hodges and Lionel Hampton so they could learn the basics of how to play a solo that someone actually wants to listen to before they start getting all baroque with their improv.

tbf some of the professors probably would have agreed with that. Like one of them was really big on learning not only the original version of the melody of any standard, but learning to sing the words.

Same. Connecting back to the idea that you're playing a song, not just an abstraction of a song or a vehicle for soloing.

Believe such a luminary as Lester Young recommended learning the words, as do many others.

I’m even in favor of learning the words when technically they might not have existed in the original version as in, say, the Jon Hendricks lyrics for Monk tunes.

In those famous and mysterious Lee Konitz levels of improvisation I believe the first two or three if not more are devoted to working with the melody.

To go further, you can always play the changes or something similar, but how often do you get to play that particular melody? Plus a melody might have some kind of jump or leap in it that might be physically difficult for you to play if you haven’t practiced it, which will get you out of your comfort zone pretty quickly but will make you feel good when you can do it smoothly.

Otherwise one can just get by with the bare minimum solo which is sort of a modified bass line but not in a quarter-note rhythm, at least in my case.

Which reminds me to callback that I think people could and should learn to play walking bass lines by listening to Walter Page with Count Basie.

as in, say, the Jon Hendricks lyrics for Monk tunes

i don't normally like to hand out fp's on the jazz thread, but you've put me in a tough position

O RLY?

Do you think that was an insult to Monk or to Jon?

on my part or ... ?

Like I don’t get what exactly offended you

i was just being silly because i don't care really care for them but obviously monk liked him enough to put him on a record

i am not offended, sorry, i was just trying to be lighthearted

Oh okay.

Thing is that I do know some jazz dudes who WOULD take offense, don’t feel like going into detail right now.

In Walked Budo

Suddenly in walked budo
And then they got into something

Recently listened to Mark Turner on Pablo Held's podcast, and he was saying how approaches learning to solo on an unfamiliar standard or new tune by soloing in half notes first (and demonstrating on the piano).

lol I'm actually kind of with Budo on the added lyrics thing

Why do you people hate fun vocalese?

Recently listened to Mark Turner on Pablo Held's podcast, and he was saying how approaches learning to solo on an unfamiliar standard or new tune by soloing in half notes first (and demonstrating on the piano).

Why do you people hate fun vocalese?

I know they're two different things, but there's a reason scat singing and scat porn have the same name. Shut up and learn an instrument.

Never change, ILM.

Yeah I have also heard people say "Just play the root of every chord and hold it, then do the same with the third, then the fifth, then the seventh etc." Then switch between them but in whole/half notes. That makes sense to me. I'm very pro-chord tones and very anti-scales.

Yeah. CST is kind of a blight

Jamey Abersold ruined a generation of musicians imo

It has its place, it has its use but it really… maybe I should just relink Ethan Iverson’s posts about Jeff Goldblum’s jazz album.

https://ethaniverson.com/received-wisdom-jeff-goldblum-chord-scales-the-ireal-book-and-kamasi-washington/

https://ethaniverson.com/received-wisdom-jeff-goldblum-chord-scales-the-ireal-book-and-kamasi-washington/

― The Ginger Bakersfield Sound (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, March 7, 2024 3:16 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is good, but I think the scalar/blues dichotomy he sets up is totally false. Bach isn't scalar either, and neither is Stravinsky, and Charlie Parker was listening to and absorbing all that stuff too.

Chord-scale playing isn't bad because it's not blues, it's bad because it's not musical.

It’s not, um, idiomatic

Other than deliberately modal jazz I don't think any good music has ever been written by applying scales to chords.

I mean I could probably rant about this forever, but part of the reason G Lydian sounds like shit in Out of Nowhere is not just that it's not "bluesy," but that the sharp 4 doesn't really have any obvious relationship to the chord that comes next, either as a chord tone or as a leading tone. But there are ways you could make it work! Like resolve the sharp 4 before you hit the next chord. You could even do that in a "bluesy" way. You can make any note work. But not by meandering around through a chord scale.

Btw per the self-deprecation thread, I appreciated that Mark Turner stated "I'm not talented, which just means I need to put the work into every single aspect of playing." He didn't say he sucks or pales in comparison to anybody, just that he knows people who are great with less effort, people who the music just seems to flow through.

Other than deliberately modal jazz I don't think any good music has ever been written by applying scales to chords.

WEREN’T

Well yeah, and to the extent they were, they knew how to do it interesting ways because they already knew how to play music, how to create a melody, how to phrase, etc. So using the mode was like an interesting experimental limitation rather than a jumping off point.

I appreciated that Mark Turner stated "I'm not talented, which just means I need to put the work into every single aspect of playing." He didn't say he sucks or pales in comparison to anybody, just that he knows people who are great with less effort

There’s an episode of Columbo where Falk says something similar about detective work

There's some Mark Turner stuff I really like, specifically the Fly Trio

kudos p4k I guess but this amaro freitas record is nice

Saw that the saxophonist Wally Shoup died recently. Always liked this disc he played on with Nels Cline and Chris Corsano:

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Nels_ClineWally_ShoupChris_Corsano/ImmolationImmersion

kudos p4k I guess but this amaro freitas record is nice

It's really good. Lots of guest players, too: Jeff Parker, Brandee Younger, Shabaka, Hamid Drake. I've been a fan of his since his second album (this is #4); he really sounds like no one else out there, a kind of middle ground between McCoy Tyner and Matt Shipp but with a pounding heavy northern Brazilian sense of rhythm.

I’m only halfway through my first spin but it’s really good so far

Chris DeVille wrote a cool piece for Stereogum about becoming a jazz fan, pegged to the James Brandon Lewis/Messthetics album that comes out this week.

Is it strange that reading about the JBL/Messthetics stuff always gets me excited, and then I find the tracks totally unremarkable?

And i like JBL!

I was just thinking the same thing

the Freitas album is sick, thanks for mentioning it

Listened to the Chris Potter/John Patitucci/Brad Mehldau/Brian Blade record a few times while traveling yesterday, it's great. I wonder if it will seem a little too straight-ahead for people in 2024 - no gimmicks, no big concept, just a record of originals played by the masters. It almost has a coziness to me because of that, feels sorta like a '90s record, but they're all just so in tune with each other and confident and killing, it's a pleasure to hear.

A jazzbo friend of mine said he thought it was kind of boring and by the numbers by their standards, but I'll def give it a listen.

I constantly confuse John Patitucci with John Petrucci, and wonder why all these jazz dudes are hanging with the Dream Theater dork.

I think that's what I'm getting at...like, yes, it is in a sense (especially if you're looking for something that *sounds* new or not like other jazz records). But their standards are so high that a 'boring' record from them is still beautiful. The details of their playing together are always worth hearing, and they make it look so easy.

no gimmicks, no big concept, just a record of originals played by the masters

This is almost exactly how I described it when writing it up for Stereogum this morning.

Aging rock act on new album: This time we wanted to go back to the basics

Listened to the Chris Potter/John Patitucci/Brad Mehldau/Brian Blade record

Scanning too quickly I read that as John Petrucci for a second and was like, uh.... then I saw Josh made the same mistake.

Just four guys in a woodshed

Throw John Pizzarelli in there

I had it on in a rental car when I was driving some co-workers somewhere, and there were moments when I could hear how it might sound a little 'smooth' to a civilian, and I wanted to say "no you don't understand, these guys are legends in the game, Brian Blade is crushing it here".

My latest Stereogum column is up. I wrote about the Black Art Jazz Collective and reviewed albums by Alice Coltrane, Charles Lloyd, James Brandon Lewis & the Messthetics, Chris Potter, Ivo Perelman, Cassie Kinoshi, Amaro Freitas, Fire!, Ill Considered and Cornelia Nilsson.

Some of you will have seen this already, but there's a Gofundme to help the great Steve Beresford out as he's going through a tough time. It's awful that a genius musician like Steve should be in such a position. An absolute pillar of the improvised music community who has played with everyone from Zorn to The Slits and is hugely supportive of younger musicians.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/musician-needs-a-hand

Would also recommend the latest album by his piano trio with Valentina Magaletti and Pieropaulo Martino - came out towards the end of last year so slipped through the tracks a little, but it's a terrific set.
https://valentinamagaletti.bandcamp.com/album/naize

I wish the Messthetics album had more improvisation and/or funkier. I think Anthony Pirog is doing a Danny Gatton thing and at the risk of revoking my DC credentials Gatton didn’t do much for me, skilled as he was.

Drummer I've been following for a while, Steve Lyman, has a record coming out with Donnie McCaslin, Jimmy Chamberlin (yes, the pumpkins drummer) Austin White and others

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJe-fGIQL5U

(note, track is quiet for like the first 45-60 seconds)

He's a crazy good drummer, interesting to hear him put his multi-tempo concept thing into a musical context. It's too bad the drums sound kinda shitty on these tracks (not the playing, just the mixing). :(

Yeah I agree it's not the ideal sound - his drums sound much better in his videos imo!

Also, he apparently claims he is *not* using the "vector system" on that track, which just makes me thing maybe I don't really understand what the vector system is, lol

Enjoyed then new Mehldau/Blade/Potter/Pattituci a lot on first listen, although I got a bit fatigued after the first 3 tracks. Very strong spirit of Wayne Shorter coming through in the compositions and playing.

The Charles Lloyd record is a beauty, what a brilliant rhythm section (Moran/Grenadier/Blade). Haven't heard Moran in a minute, especially as a sideperson, and with the Potter record it's just a bounty of Blade.

90 minutes though, whew. This easily could have (and should have imo) been two albums.

Lloyd put out three albums the other year, and I don't think that experiment was particularly successful — Blue Note probably didn't want this one split up.

Ah, makes sense.

There are a lot of vibey tracks on here and I'm into that, but 'Booker's Garden' is a highlight. Some really crazy playing around the pulse, but so locked-in and together too.

The Julian Lage acoustic guitar album (w/Dave King still on drums) is really really nice.

I guess it's not all acoustic, but there are a lot of acoustic tracks. And he's been posting live videos of a bunch of the tunes (different takes from the record obv), and most of those are acoustic.

Just found out Emmet Cohen's playing here with his trio this weekend, I'm gonna go.

Ari Hoenig on fire right now!

This Herbie Hancock tour announcement reads like it was written with AI. As someone who used to work with the Relix folks (and even wrote a few pieces for the magazine), this makes me very sad.

Jazz legend Herbie Hancock has dropped a new slate of dates, which will take him on the road in the early fall. The impending run of concert appearances will occur throughout the U.S.’s Southern region and up the East Coast. Along the way, the headliner and his unannounced group of instrumental accompaniment will perform 12 concerts, leading up to a tour closer at the esteemed Massey Hall in Toronto on Oct. 1.

Hancock and company’s newly dropped schedule begins on Sept. 13 with the first of three Sunshine State appearances, which will roll out nightly with ensuing into Sept. 14 and 15. From there, the billed act moves onto Auburn, Ala., for a Sept. 17 follow-up at a TBA venue. Descending into the South, the tour will take the notable member of the Miles Davis Quintet to Nashville, Tenn., for an evening at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.

From Music City, Hancock’s next live show arrives at the Wilson Center in Wilmington, N.C., on Sept. 21, with Sept. 22 presenting another gig, which time in Norfolk, Va. Another pair of North Carolina concerts prelude East Coast dates, following up shows in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, conjuring in Newark, N.J., before the Toronto finale.

News of Hancock’s September 2024 tour arrives after the announcement that the artist will pay tribute to 50 years of Head Hunters on Wednesday, August 14, at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Adding to the intrigue, the event is billed to include a reunion lineup featuring Harvey Mason, Bennie Maupin, and Bill Summers, with Marcus Miller standing in for the late Paul Jackson.

holy shit, someone should get fired for that

Can you fire AI?

much like a bad middle manager, everyone hates AI, AI does a terrible job over and over again yet keeps getting chances and continues to fail upward

A collaborative program subtitled “Weaving Strands of Sound from Addis to Chicago,” that might answer the equation of AACM x Ethiopiques. The evening features an expanded version of cellist Tomeka Reid and double bassist Silvia Bolognesi’s Hear in Now group (bonus all-stars: violinist yuniya edi kwon and drummer Chad Taylor), in musical conversation with Qwanqwa, a supergroup of Ethiopian experimentalists. This could get great. (Wed 4/3, 8p @ Roulette, Downtown Bklyn - $25/$30)

Saw this on the Dada Strain email. I saw Ethiopian group Qwanqwa on their last US tour 2 years ago by themselves and they were great. This collaboration with them was probably good too. Qwanqwa are touring the US now too. Gonna see them in Alexandria, Virginia near Washington DC.

they are playing minneapolis later this month, i'm definitely considering going

with Marcus Miller standing in for the late Paul Jackson

Is this meant to imply that Herbie normally tours with a dead guy on bass?

RIP Tootie Heath

Oh! RIP. Great musician and very funny person.

new shane parish solo acoustic record (cf. tompkins sq. thread) w/ covers of "lonely woman" and "journey in satchidananda"

https://shaneparish.bandcamp.com/album/repertoire

RIP Tootie

voodoo chili recommended the new Josh Johnson album on a different rolling thread, but anyone who liked that rad Anna Butterss album or recent Jeff Parker stuff (JJ plays on the Enfield Tennis Academy record) would prob dig this: https://joshjohnsonmusic.bandcamp.com/album/unusual-object

The Emmet Cohen Trio show last weekend was fantastic, truly. He told some good Tootie Heath stories too (although of course he kept saying that all the best ones were wholly inappropriate to tell on stage).

Also really enjoyed watching this set w/Tootie, for the stage banter alone. He really had some deep New Orleans elements in his playing, moreso than any of the other famous Philly drummers, it's interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgAkz3uM-pM

Also had a good time going through the recordings Vinnie Sperazza mentions here:
https://vinniesperrazza.substack.com/p/for-albert-tootie-heath

That Josh Johnson album sounds great so far, a lot like Sam Gendel except less anti-jazz.

I'm liking it exponentially more than that new Kenny Garrett electronic record, sorry Kenny.

I went to see (ahmed) tonight, last night of a four-night residency at Cafe Oto in London. They were incredible and relentless.

very jealous

I do hope they reissue those earlier [Ahmed] LPs

Did anyone get that CD box set? I thought at first it was a straight reissue of the aforementioned LPs but I guess it's actually a recording of a 2022 residency.

I bought one at the show but haven’t unwrapped it yet. A friend who’s heard it was raving about it.

I saw Makaya McCraven and Greg Ward in a local dive bar the other night, playing highlife, it was a treat. They were reviving this band:
https://occidentalbrothers.bandcamp.com/album/likambo-te

(the guitarist Nathaniel Braddock was really great too, he was working hard since they didn't have a vocalist)

Oh I remember Occidental Brothers. I just did an an ilx search to further refresh my memory (!) and saw I wrote in 2009 that the group did a kitschy but nice highlife version of New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle."

Too bad they didn't have with them the vocalist who is on a number of cuts from that new Bandcamp album release - Samba Mapangala. He's Congolese but later moved to Uganda, Kenya, and then the US

Another major historian and curator, Michael Cuscuna, has passed away. (He was being treated for cancer for a while.) Good guy, and given the work he was doing until the end and his wealth of knowledge (much of which was gained from his own research and lifelong experiences), it feels like a major loss.

Yeah it really is a loss to jazz (as the owner of so many records he produced, reissued, etc.)

My latest Stereogum column is up. It includes an interview with Kenny Garrett and reviews of new albums by Jeremy Pelt, Matthew Shipp, Isaiah Collier, Dave Douglas, Melissa Aldana and others. Plus a gratuitous shot at Bill Frisell!

Leave Bill Frisell alone!

That Jeremy Pelt track sounds great, will have to check that one for sure. That Miles Davis interview at the bottom hits hard (the endless debate).

A little Frisell goes a long way

Could probably pick a few threads to post this in, but excited to check out the debut from Beings, There is a Garden, out on No Quarter soon:

https://beingsnyc.bandcamp.com/album/there-is-a-garden

I mean, this lineup!

Zoh Amba - saxophone, vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonium, piano
Steve Gunn - electric guitar
Shahzad Ismaily - bass, synth
Jim White - drums

wow!

Saw Terence Blanchard with the E-Collective, Turtle Island Quartet, & guest opera singers Justin Austin & Adrienne Danrich. The night was billed as "Fire Shut Up in My Bones: Opera Suite in Concert. The main portion of the night was pieces from the opera with backing visuals , but the concert opened and closed with Blanchard and the musicians doing other compositions. He made a reference to Wayne Shorter re the first one. Blanchard's trumpet sounded strong throughout and especially touching on the operatic suite. Blanchard's jazz and the operatic vocals ended up meshing together pretty well. I wasn't wowed by electric guitarist Charles Altura whose playing was more prominent on the non - opera suite efforts. Too '70s rock-jazz fusion for me. Longtime drummer Oscar Seaton seemed better when he was trying subtle things as opposed to just pounding hard. Would like to see the full opera version with dancers, orchestra, costumes and sets.

"Fire " the opera recently re-opened a few weeks ago at the Met in NY (after its initial 2021 run) and got a mixed review

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/arts/music/met-opera-fire-shut-up-in-my-bones.html?unlocked_article_code=1.nk0.6ll_.FitoGw3e1o-i&smid=url-share

I think “Fire” was filmed by the Met for its Live In HD Program so it may rerun at a movie theater near you or a DVD come out.

I would have gone but I saw Marc-Andre Hamelin play at the Library of Congress last night doing Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata, an essential trip for me.

Not particularly interested in the opera but I've enjoyed Blanchard's last couple of albums with his group.

I wrote about the new Tomeka Reid Quartet album in this week's Burning Ambulance newsletter.

"I like in and out."

me too! lol

I interviewed Kamasi Washington for Stereogum. I love the fact that the longest section of this interview is him talking about working with Gerald Wilson.

Nice.

I don't know if I've ever seen this much effort put into a video by a jazz (adjacent) group:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VABfAOXrQgQ

All my Bandcamp purchases today are old albums from the 80s on Italian jazz labels:

Hamiet Bluiett, Resolution
Baikida Carroll, Shadows And Reflections
Billy Harper, Black Saint and In Europe
Beaver Harris, Beautiful Africa
The Leaders, Unforeseen Blessings
Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, Peace And Blessings
Dannie Richmond, Dionysus
Woody Shaw, Time Is Right

not from this year but i'm digging pianist Rodney Franklin's album In the Center. i had never heard of him. sounds like he veered pretty quickly to smooth jazz, but this album, his first, is really cool and varied. most of it would fit well with late 70s soul jazz like lonnie liston smith - some disco-funk, one with vocals, a couple spiritual jams. the closer, "life moves on" is a killer

Does Tomeka Reid still live in DC? Had no idea she released something on Cuneiform.

I saw Reid a couple weeks ago doing a great composed tribute to Duke Ellington at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater.
Right now I’m in Brooklyn at the Long Play festival and saw a fantastic set by Darius Jones doing his Fluxtet music. He killed it was so great. At the end he did some Pentecostal vocalizations over a string ostinato. Very moving.

Having dinner right next to Ingrid Laubrock and Tom Rainey

!

Incredible interview with Charles Gayle from a Buffalo, NY newspaper in 1970(!). Reveals more about his early life than I ever knew before. I wonder if the tapes he talks about are still in the ESP archives?

RE: Laubrock/Rainey, I was in Brooklyn for Bang On A Can's Long Play Festival, where both were on the bill: Rainey in the DoYeon Kim Quartet and Laubrock had written a string quartet that was premiered there. Great festival, a smaller more manageable Big Ears in a cooler city (Sorry, Knoxville).

I kicked off this month's Stereogum column with a deep dive into the history of Last Exit (Bill Laswell's jazz-metal improv band featuring Peter Brötzmann, Sonny Sharrock, and Ronald Shannon Jackson), since their catalog has basically doubled in size in the last couple of years thanks to a half dozen live recordings he's put up on Bandcamp for subscribers. Lots of great albums reviewed, too.

Reid is Chicago-based but moving around a lot due to visiting professorships and touring. I'd love to hear the Ellington material and also the expanded Stringtet. 3x3 is absolutely superb.

Finally got to the new Charles Lloyd, wow it's great. Listened to it twice straight through.

Some Charles Lloyd videos available here from 1994 at the North Sea Jazz Festival. They seem to be opening up their archive. There's also a great video of Joe Henderson playing "Recorda-me" from the same year, but it's cut off when the bass solo starts. The entire playlist is being updated regularly.

First listen of Ghosted II (Ambarchi / Berthling / Werliin): long and drifting percussive pieces, pleasant reverie, Afro-jazz style bass and fuzzy keyboards, some pulse but could have more, the two pieces after the first are more peaceful and astral, the fourth is some kind of synthesis. Not particularly going anywhere but still good headphone music.

This new Charles Lloyd is probably my favourite since 'Canto'

The new Nubya Garcia album, Odyssey, is being announced tomorrow. It comes out September 20. It features strings and a few guests including Georgia Anne Muldrow and esperanza spalding, and I have to say after listening to it once or twice that it sounds astonishingly like Kamasi Washington's music. But not what he's doing now, with the synths and stuff; this sounds like rehashed The Epic, minus the choir. Even Garcia's playing is simpler, more KW and less Dexter Gordon than it used to be. I get it; she's toured opening for Khruangbin and now she wants to move into those big rooms on her own, and this is a legit way to aim for that kind of crossover success. But it's surprisingly blatant.

Okay, so I'm playing that Beings album I mentioned upthread (Zoh Amba, Jim White, Steve Gunn, Shahzad Ismaily) and it is fantastic, I love this.

Agree, it's very good

The Wire has published an excerpt from my upcoming Cecil Taylor book, all about the making of the Dewey Redman/Cecil Taylor/Elvin Jones album Momentum Space. Includes stories of Taylor being a manic cokehead and a catty bitch. Here's the link — enjoy!

I got to imagine the hardest part of writing a book on Cecil is choosing which manic cokehead/catty bitch stories to tell

Is there going to be a US distributor for the book or will I have to mail order it from Germany?

Working on that now — Wolke doesn't currently have a US distributor. I will have 20 contributors' copies, though, some of which I will absolutely sell to people.

Loved that excerpt, lol. Will definitely need to hear that album, and congrats again on the book.

Currently into Molly Miller Trio - The Ballad of Hotspur, fantastic L.A. guitar record with Jay Bellerose on drums. Folky & spaghetti western-y at times, recommended if you were into the recent Jeff Parker or Dave Easley records with Bellerose.

Previous records are great too! Also very Ribot-esque at times.

It's a cliche but every L.A. jazz record seems like it could be part of a movie soundtrack.

really annoying to hear him knock dewey redman like that

(many xps)

i'm guessing eye rolls abound throughout the book

still excited to read it

Really enjoying this new live record by Johannes Enders (Tied + Tickled Trio, German saxophonist, beautiful sound), Renato Chicco (organ player I'm not familiar with), and Jorge Rossy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkuNIiQO5v8

My latest Stereogum column is up. I interviewed Nasheet Waits, and reviewed albums by Julius Rodriguez, Nduduzo Makhathini, the Jihye Lee Orchestra, and a bunch of other folks, including that incredible archival Charles Gayle/William Parker/Milford Graves live set.

Will have to check out Nasheet, he's incredible and mysterious of course. Mark Turner's Dharma Days is a big Nasheet album for me.

That William Parker/Cooper-Moore/Hamid Drake preview track rules.

(I mean the Nasheet Waits solo album)

Love Nasheet Waits, not mentioned in the piece but he's great in McBride's New Jawn band

Yeah, those New Jawn records are great — we talked about that, and how it shows a whole different side of McBride, but there wasn't space.

I have no idea that McBride could or would go that hard until their Tiny Desk set

Huh, it wasn't surprising to me! He's always had some out stuff on his records and can clearly do it all/is interested in it all, but maybe he gets pigeonholed as a traditionalist?

Yeah, he absolutely does get pigeonholed that way, including by me. And I mean, I should know better — the only time I ever saw him live was at Sonny Rollins' 80th birthday concert, where he held it down with Rollins, Roy Haynes, and Ornette. But I still think of him as basically a really good swinging bassist, not someone with a real interest in the fringes. The guy I always think of as a real can-do-anything type is Eric Revis, who's been in Branford Marsalis's band for twenty-plus years but also worked with Brötzmann, is in Tarbaby, has done some really wild shit on his own records, etc., etc.

i really like christian mcbride