"If you don't want to play, tell a joke or dance" Jazz D-Bags Thread 2009

http://thebadplus.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341cb9b653ef01053625da15970c-pi

Successor to:"If That Arm Heals, It Ought To Be Broken Again" 2008 Jazz D Minor Bags Thread
Title comes from http://thebadplus.typepad.com/dothemath/2008/12/steve-lacy-on-monk.html

Doppelganger of this thread: "If you don't want to play, tell a joke or dance": 2009 Jazz D-bags Thread

But in any case, you got it!

aw yeah, there should just be a thread devoted to sweet jazz pics from the LIFE Magazine archive:
http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f?q=jazz+source:life&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djazz%2Bsource:life%26start%3D20%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN&imgurl=e66c38b486bee352

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f?q=jazz+source:life&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djazz%2Bsource:life%26start%3D20%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN&imgurl=e66c38b486bee352

except apparently i can't post one. :(
http://images.google.com/images?q=jazz&q=source%3Alife

not sure if this one is the right one or the other one is the right one but i will say that the best two jazz albums of 2009 so far are the only ones i've heard. both are on songlines, which always gets the year started out right:

The October Trio + Brad Turner, It Looks Like It's Going to Snow (kind of mannered and cerebral but pretty music, guess I'd call it post-bop, slides into polyphony nicely, 16 1/2-minute "Progress Suite" is highlight)

Brad Shepik, Human Activity Suite (global warming-themed post-bop, lots of hot guitar licks, use of "indigenous" structures from all seven continents, somewhat too "themey" but still pretty solid interplay)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=gjm&q=tell-that-to-your+new-leader&btnG=Search

hmm, will investigate those, thanks! i kind of want to get into more recent jazz this year ... i'm pretty well caught up through 1965 ....
here's all about jazz's 2008 overview: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=31497
xpost

Dang, can't got on the good foot this year: I mean this http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=go-tell-that+your-new-leader+sting+miles&btnG=Search

ha

Go tell that to your new thread. Oh wait.

Miles Davis tells some story in his autobio about when Daryl was playing with both him and Sting at the same time. Miles knew that when push came to shove Daryl was going to go with the bigger paycheck that His Pompous Blondness could provide. So when Daryl came to him one day and said "Listen, I can't make the gig next week," Miles replied "Tell that to your new leader- Sting!"

-- Redd Harvest (louder...), February 6th, 2006. (later)

"Tell that to your new leader- Sting!" = my new all-purpose riposte. There's nothing it doesn't trump!

-- brianiast (lyriclas...), February 6th, 2006. (later)

I'm going to start using that as an all-purpose comeback.

xpost, fucker

-- Jordan (jordan...), February 6th, 2006. (later)

Tell that to your new leader -- Sting!

-- brianiac (lyriclas...), February 6th, 2006. (later)

should i go see paul motian w/bill frissell & ron carter y/n? motian's one of those guys i'm afraid is going to die before i see him, but every time he has a residency i always dither and never quite get to it...

(and i always put two s's in frisell's name. it looks wrong when it's spelled right.)

i've never seen them, but i'd go if they were playing around here! ron carter! dunno, with freddie hubbard passing away, i'd catch these older dudes while you can ... Frisell is playing in my neck of the woods in a couple months but it's not with those guys ...

The first time I heard Bill Frisell was in a cab. We asked the driver what was playing and he told us and we asked "You mean like Lefty Frizell?" He explained that one had an 's' and one had a 'z', one was from Texas one was from Colorado. Cab driver turned out to be Chip Stern.

So, I just read Ben Ratliff's Coltrane: The Story of a Sound. He describes how Coltrane's influence has filtered down through the generations of musicians, listeners and collectors (and how the Internet provides more of a level playing field for exposure). Reminds me that I didn't notice that much of a parent-child heritage of rock til working in CD stores in the mid-90s. I wonder if it's different with jazz across the generations? There were always those crucial teachers, here and there, but what's yall's experience in your familys? (My Dad played clarinet in high school swing bands before going off to WWII, and sometimes played air guitar,but never collected many records (though many years later, had me put together monster swing mixes from Benny Goodman's orchestral hit machine etc for an exercise class of Dad & homies)

Sorry, don, but I kind of hated that book, because he hammered too hard on the one note of "Ooh, Coltrane, went too far out, set a bad influence and ruined jazz for decades." The Lewis Porter bio is much more even-handed, respectful and contains plenty of actual musical examples, technical stuff about reeds, really good explanations of things like what "modal" means in different contexts, etc.

Jesse, I would steer clear of the Blue Note and wait until Motian plays at a slightly more palatable place like the Vanguard.

This place has some really good acts even if you have to sit on a folding chair and drink wine out of a paper cup: http://www.jazzgallery.org/live/. I'm definitely going to try to make that Rodriguez Brothers show- Ernesto Simpson is my new Best Drummer Ever.

my band played in switzerland after toto bona lokua, and ernesto was on drums. pretty sick. he got back on his drums when we were parading off and started playing some second line shit.

/suzyesque name-dropping

steer clear of the Blue Note and wait until Motian plays at a slightly more palatable place like the Vanguard.

i know what you mean about the blue not. but i think i can actually squeeze in a show next week, which isn't something i can count on. maybe i'll try to see this, and then try to catch him again with another band at a nicer place.

the blue, not. the blew not.

the bleu not

The penultimate time I went to the Bleu Not was to see Ahmad Jamal. I thought I'd save a few bucks by sitting at the bar, but I really couldn't see or hear too well so that didn't work out so good. I talked to a few musicians since then and they complained about the stage, the way they were treated, etc. I swore I'd never go back but then in July 2007 Cachao was playing and I figured he was getting up in years so I made an exception.

teh Bleu Not = European for "The Blue Emergency"

James, that is not at all what Ratliff said about Trane; he quoted a few aholes like Crouch as part of a spectrum of viewpoints. Anyway, I just mentioned the book because the way he traced relationships and influences got me to thinking about kids getting into their parents' records etc.

So the Village Voice just got rid of Nat Hentoff, although I think he hasn't done much jazz writing in the Voice for awhile. He had been there since 1958.

http://www.woebot.com/2007/12/jazz_1.html

can we talk about how much i hate this overrated brit critic dude

jk hes had some interesting posts in the past but his review of jazz as a genre is ughguhguhkdfgshgkuf

"Ellington's music would appeal to fans of the deep-space astral melancholia of Techno or the hollowed-out wallow of RZA's productions."

I don't have time to read that right now, but I remember that he is a beloved figure around here- I don't remember any beefs with him before you.
(xp)

Anyway, on a similar note, I got rid of my copy of the Ratliff Coltrane book so I couldn't tell you exactly what my problem with it was except that I thought it was ultimately kind of patronizing. I found one review here which seems to be about right http://www.fairfieldweekly.com/article.cfm?aid=5336. I had to dig pretty hard to find it though, most reviews of this book on the intraweb describe it as near perfect, apart from a few grouches at organissimo.

i dont have any real beef w/ him -- i just think that jazz review is relentlessly corny -- the kind of thing that if it were me writing about his pet genres (grime? music concrete? i have no idea) he would be all up in arms about. harmfully reductive, unearned snobbery sorta emerges pretty frequently while reading it

OK, I just clicked on it again. I like looking at those covers, but there is a lot of annoying text in between to scroll over.

Hey, The Bad Plus has been playing at the Village Vanguard this weekend. Somebody should go over there and tell them "We don't talk about your music much, but we sure do love your blog- we even got our thread title from it."

Am listening to Sonny Rollins on the radio on some Dan Morgenstern program on WBGO. Sonny sounds great but- I hate to be uncharitable- I wish Bob Cranshaw had never had those back problems and had kept playing upright.

Oh, there goes Sonny with the quoting- a few notes of "Frere Jacques" before he ends the tune.

Hm, the Lewis Porter Coltrane book has been mentioned before here

I thought Ratliff's Coltrane book was decent -- didn't blow my mind or anything, but I found it to be fairly even-handed. Speaking of which, has anyone read this: http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Ear-Conversations-over-Music/dp/0805081461/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231516561&sr=1-1
I think I've read most of the pieces here -- originally published in the NY Times. Might even still be available to read over on their site.

Jordan, that was a really long post on that other thread. I'm impressed.

?

oh, that thread. well, you know, i was in college.

No problem. It was classic Early Posting Style.

You've got to dig it to dig it, you dig?

"Speaking of which, has anyone read this: http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Ear-Conversations-over-Music/dp/0805081461/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231516561&sr=1-1
I think I've read most of the pieces here -- originally published in the NY Times. Might even still be available to read over on their site."

I helped Ben proofread this (I'm thanked in the back), so I have read it. the versions that ran in the Times were decidedly shorter, I believe.

anyway, I thought this was pretty good, except for maybe the chapter with loony Ornette, who I take slightly less seriously every time I try to read his proclamations on music.

Ornette is a kook! But a SOULFUL kook! One thing I remember from the Sonny Rollins feature is him talking about 350 or so live recordings stretching back to 1948 he has ... and Sonny didn't want to listen to any of them. I would like to listen to them, though!

Hm, was wondering what was going on at the bad plus blog, but was too lazy to click directly.

Has anyone heard that Kurt Elling version of the second song on A Love Supreme, "Resolution," where he sings the saxophone part with lyrics? More than just a stunt.

i saw him do that at a show in '99 or '00 and it blew my college freshman mind.

I took it out of the library by accident last month and it woke me out of my middle age stupor.

did the d-bags ever talk about the bad plus and wendy lewis's 'for all i care'?

it's not out in the u.s. yet

Jazz D-bag alert. Nearly two week long Roy Haynes festival now running on WKCR.

I just tuned in and they were playing the shittiest quality Charlie Parker recording I have ever heard.

That is because usually when you tune in to Phil Schaap and he is playing it, he is talking about it at great length so you don't actually ever get around to hearing it.

About an hour ago I just heard some medium quality Stan Getz recordings where you could barely hear the drums.

This morning on my alarm clock I heard some cool very recent stuff Fountain Of Youth stuff with ILM Jazz D-bag favorite Jaleel Shaw demonstrating some Coltrane maneuvers.

Right now their playing some great stuff with Sarah Vaughan. Richard Davis on bass.

And Ben Ratliff put Marcus Gilmore in his list of Jazz Stars Of The Future or whatever it was called.

That's his grandson.

Great thing about tribute to a drummer like Roy is that you get to hear all kinds of different stuff by all kinds of people. I had forgotten he had played with Monk.

Who the heck is Bev Kelly?

amazon says she is an Anita O'Day influenced singer who only released a handful of records.

So here's the deal from the Washington Post on the (not open to the public) jazz inaugural event in DC:

Details also were announced for a jazz-centered "Celebration of America" at the Kennedy Center on Monday. The show emerged from a conversation between Wynton Marsalis and former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor, according to its producers. The talent includes Dave Brubeck, Cassandra Wilson and Dianne Reeves; Angela Bassett will host. Tickets are not available to the public.

So Sandy baby (as a drunken John Riggins once called her at some function) is a jazz fan and hangs with Wynton Marsalis...Weird

At which event is P-Funk going to sing "Chocolate City"?

Speaking of P-Funk, I think George Clinton channeled this once: What Is Jazz?

Now they are playing some Music Minus 1 album, without any piano. You can certainly hear George Duvivier's bass though. They really are thorough with these tributes.

Some of this Music Minus 1 thing is also at a slow as molasses tempo, presumably to help the student musician who would have purchased it. I love hearing superslow walking bass from some masterful old cat like Percy Heath on "Blue Haze" or Pierre Michelot on the Elevator To The Gallows soundtrack.

That is obnoxiously, if not Asperger-ally thorough.

One would think so. Sounded pretty good though. Now they're back into a classic, Blues And The Abstract Truth. I guess I'm having the same realization with Roy that I had with Freddie Hubbard- he's on so many good albums and so many shopworn classics of which I didn't bother to pay attention to the credits and realize that he was on them.

How could you forget Haynes with Monk? The Five Spot, maaaaaaan!

I don't know, I usually focus on whether Wilbur Ware is there or not and I forget who is playing drums. Cf. this article from our favorite blog.

I went out to hear some live music and one of the cats playing was a guy who played with a cat who played with Roy who is often mistaken for the other cat's brother and now I am back listening to the marathon. I'm trapped in the Roy Haynes Zone and can't get out.

Otherwise I may have to turn in my Jazz D-bag card over the Five Spot contretemps.

I haven't found any ILM discussion of est's (Esbjorn Svensson Trio's) Leucocyte from last year. I borrowed this from the library and I kind of like it, especially the title track--and especially the minimalist ending to the title piece. The piece begins with more of a jazz-rock fusion feel that I'm not mad about. I like that they use distortion, though sometimes I'm not completely sold on the distortion they use. On first listen, the first track, and first part of the CD generally, sounded more traditionally jazz to me than it do on succeeding listens. There are more unusual timbral things going on than I noticed at first. They are kind of obvious too, so I probably just wasn't listening very closely the first time(s) around. Anyway, if nothing else, "Leucocyte" (which is spread out over several tracks) is worth checking out.

(And of course I only just now discover that he died last year, which is sad news.)

Roy Haynes's son Graham on now. Festival is drawing to a close tomorrow. Don't know what I will do with all the extra free time.

Now Marcus G is there too.

"Snap Crackle" and it's over.

Django's ninety-ninth birthday today.

Vocal version of "Stolen Moments" is pretty cool.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-newman23-2009jan23,0,1853572.story

David 'Fathead' Newman dies at 75; jazz saxophonist Ryan Donnell / Associated Press

Maybe he should get his own thread...

And he has

I'm stilling listening to Leucocyte. Parts of it seem boringly derivative, but overall I think it's pretty good. Nobody else (on this thread) has heard it?

This is not from my favorite part of "Leucocyte," but fwiw. . .

It was good enough for All About Jazz.

i just got "live at the monteray jazz festival" by john handy...fucking WOW how awesome.

woah rockist what is that clip from?? cool

One of these days I'm gonna watch that clip.

woah rockist what is that clip from?? cool

Are you just pretending interest because I keep going on about it?

It's from est (Esbjorn Svensson Trio): Leucocyte. I might start a thread about it actually.

no i liked it, i don't come on this thread very often but that was cool.

e.s.t. (Esbjorn Svensson Trio): Leucocyte

Two of Chuck Mangione's musicians die in Buffalo plane crash R.I.P Dudes.

Saw something on the local news here about that because the guitarist Mellett grew up in the Washington D.C. area. Sad

Next year's thread title

wow, even the good reviews here are really patronizing and lame:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-02-11/music/jazz-consumer-guide-little-innovations-run-the-world/

hmm yeah ... that always seems like it should be a good column, but it never really inspires me to buy anything. Is that Sonny Rollins Road Show thing good? Seems like it could be cool, but it has such godawful cover art ...

Man, I'm so not trying to read that.

Looks like one of those guys from the plane crash was married to Dizzy's daughter.

ugh, depressing ...

in less depressing news, here's my latest favorite discovery:
http://thebadplus.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/03/09/old_and_new_dreams.jpg

i really like old & new dreams

had no idea it existed until it popped up on emusic ... suffice to say, if you dig Ornette, this is a good one to have, even though he's not on it.

God I love that band. I have the two they did for ecm, but not that black saint one. So it's pretty great, huh?

Yeah! Sweet, swinging jams in the early Atlantic Ornette mold. Whole thing just has a nice interactive vibe, with everybody playing nicely off each other, no one really dominating.

Though right now I'm really digging the Blackwell/Haden interplay ...

Speaking of Rollins, wonder if There Will Never Be Another You ever came out on CD? Probably not a legit one anyway, since he sued to have the record deleted. Great live set though, with "To A Wild Rose" and the title performance (a roller coaster valentine) The Golden Number was a great set of Haden duets.

To be fair, the Voice has had some very good jazz writers over the year: including Gary Giddins, Francis Davis, and that salt-and-pepper curmudgeon team that get a lot of people's goat these days.

Is that Sonny Rollins Road Show thing good

Bought this unheard as part of a gift for my Dad. He told me he liked it and that he had a Rollins podcast with a similar title. He's usually pretty honest with me about the music I buy for him. Art Ensemble of Chicago are not his thing I learned through a bad guess long ago.

cool, maybe i'll buy it -- honestly, I don't know if I've heard a Sonny Rollins record I actively disliked, regardless of era ... still, this cover
http://www.sonnyrollins.com/images/sonnyrollins.roadshows.jpg
blecch

Another death. R.I.P.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-louis-bellson17-2009feb17,0,3130907.story

Louie Bellson dies at 84; Duke Ellington called him 'the world's greatest
drummer'
By Don Heckman

February 17, 2009

Louie Bellson, a jazz drummer and bandleader who combined remarkable
instrumental virtuosity with far-ranging compositional skills, has died. He
was 84.

According to his wife, Francine, Bellson died Saturday at Cedars-Sinai
Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications of Parkinson's disease
following a broken hip in November.

Bellson's long, productive career stretched from his teens -- when, in
competition with 40,000 other young players, he won the Slingerland National
Gene Krupa drumming contest -- to the tours and seminars he continued until
2008.

Best known as a superlative big band drummer as a result of his work in the
1940s and '50s with Tommy Dorsey, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Harry James,
Duke Ellington and others, Bellson was also an adept small group player. His
more than 200 recorded appearances as leader and sideman encompass sessions
with Jazz at the Philharmonic, Woody Herman, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie,
Louis Armstrong, James Brown and dozens of others, including Ellington's Big
Four alongside guitarist Joe Pass and bassist Ray Brown.

"What makes Bellson so special," former Times jazz critic Leonard Feather
wrote in 1991, "is his overall musicianship. A gifted composer and arranger
who has written everything from jazz instrumentals to ballets, he can
incorporate his role logically instead of banging away without regard to the
dynamic or melodic structure of the work in progress."

Bellson often said that he regarded his tenure with Ellington as one of the
significant points in his career. Performing with the orchestra in the early
'50s triggered a forward leap in his development as an instrumentalist and
his confidence as a composer.

A pair of his best-known big band works, "The Hawk Talks" and "Skin Deep"
became popular staples of the Ellington repertoire -- but not without some
initial reservations from Bellson.

In a 2006 interview he said he had written "The Hawk Talks" with Harry James
in mind.

"Harry was called 'The Hawk,' " Bellson recalled. "But I wrote it when I was
with Duke, and it took a lot of coaxing from [trombonist] Juan Tizol to make
me bring it to Duke. I told Juan, 'Are you crazy? You want me to bring music
in to a place with Duke and Billy Strayhorn? Geniuses like that? No way.' I
brought it in anyhow and lo and behold, Duke recorded it right away.

"But it was Duke who taught me how to write. How to be original. How to know
what to do with the rhythm section, with the horns."

Ellington returned Bellson's high regard, noting, "Not only is Louie Bellson
the world's greatest drummer . . . he's the world's greatest musician!"

Other artists concurred. Oscar Peterson described Bellson as "the epitome of
musical talent. . . . I consider him one of the musical giants of our age."

Bobby Colomby, former drummer for Blood, Sweat & Tears, pointed to Bellson's
pioneering work with the difficult technique of employing two bass drums,
saying, "Louie had awesome, jaw-dropping technique. And I really don't think
he was ever fully appreciated for what an amazing drummer he really was."

Bellson was born Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni, on July
6, 1924, in Rock Falls, Ill. Drawn to percussion as early as age 3, he was
urged by his father, who owned a music store, to study keyboards, harmony
and theory.

After winning the Krupa drum competition, he was offered a job in Ted Fio
Rito's dance band at Los Angeles' Florentine Gardens. A few months later,
still in his teens, he was hired by Goodman.

After serving in the Army for three years, Bellson returned to the Goodman
band in 1946 for a year before moving on to play with Dorsey and James. The
arrival of bebop, however, shifted the jazz world's orientation toward
smaller groups and a different style of rhythm playing. He was an
instrumentalist and percussionist, more than simply a drummer, and
immediately sought ways to adapt his own technique to the newly emerging
styles.

"I was used to driving a big band -- four solid beats on the bass drum," he
explained to the JazzTimes. "Coming from that to bebop, I still liked to
drop bombs now and then. Then Lester Young came to me once and said, 'Lou,
just play titty-bop, titty-bop and don't drop no bombs.' That's when I got
it, putting all that energy up into the right hand, playing on the cymbal.
And I loved it. The left hand was syncopated, and the bass drum could be
syncopated also, because a good bass player playing four beats to the bar
took care of that basic beat."

While performing with Ellington from 1951 to 1953, Bellson met and married
singer Pearl Bailey. Their interracial marriage, rare for the early '50s,
coincided with Bellson's presence as the only white member of the Duke
Ellington Orchestra.

He spent the next few decades alternating between leading his own small
groups and big bands, serving as Bailey's music director and occasionally
returning to work as a stellar sideman. A stint with Basie in 1961 was
followed by a return to Ellington, performing the Concert of Sacred Music
that Ellington described as "the most important thing I've ever done."

After Bailey's death in 1990, Bellson continued his growing activities as a
jazz educator while leading various-sized ensembles, including a pair of
on-call big bands available for performances on both coasts. His most recent
recordings include "The Sacred Music of Louie Bellson and the Jazz Ballet"
and "The Louie and Clark Expedition 2" with trumpeter Clark Terry.

Bellson wrote more than 1,000 compositions and arrangements, including
ballet music, sacred music, "The London Suite," the "Concerto for Jazz
Drummer and Full Orchestra" and a Broadway musical, "Portofino," in addition
to his numerous big band charts and small ensemble pieces. He wrote more
than a dozen books and booklets on drums and percussion.

He received a Jazz Masters Award from the National Endowment for the Arts in
1994; a Living Jazz Legends Award from the Kennedy Center for the Performing
Arts in 2007; a Jazz Living Legend Award from the American Society of
Composers, Authors and Publishers; and an American Drummers Achievement
Award from the Avedis Zildjian Co.

He is survived by his wife of 16 years, Francine; daughters Dee Dee Bellson
and Debra Hughes; two grandchildren; two brothers and two sisters. A Los
Angeles-area service is being planned, followed by a funeral and burial in
Moline, Ill.

n✧✧✧.ob✧✧✧@lati✧✧✧.c✧✧

Heckman is a freelance writer.

I haven't looked to see if there's a separate thread.

RIP -- Got a bunch of records featuring him.

RIP, i never studied him hard but he always seemed like a great drummer and a great dude.

even though the big band heyday is obviously 30s-40s, one of the best things about exploring later stuff by Basie/Ellington/et al is hearing the drums recorded well

cool Monk article/photos here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/arts/music/22chin.html?_r=1

Fascinating article--the hours Monk spent practicing and discussing is impressive. Some of what got recorded is pretty wild:

The tapes include jam sessions and off-the-cuff interactions among dozens of musicians, famous and unknown. One night in 1961, Mr. Stephenson said, Smith’s microphones caught the drama of a drug overdose by the pianist Sonny Clark, who was squatting in the stairwell at the time.

Yeah, yikes! (re: the Sonny Clark episode ...) I assume that isn't when Sonny died -- he died of an overdose right? Anyway, yeah, I'm going to have to pull out that Town Hall Monk concert. I generally prefer his small group or solo recordings, but Town Hall 59 is solid. Has a real sense of teetering on the edge of chaos (as maybe that article attests to), but everybody pulling through. You can really hear the overall concentration that everyone's putting into it. When it swings, it swings, though!

Went to see Randy Weston last night, which was almost like seeing Monk himself.

i'm gonna be in nyc the weekend of march 6th, it would be nice to catch some good jass. on that friday i'm debating if i should see the SF Jazz Collective (lovano, dave douglas, eric harland, etc.) for $$ at Lincoln Center vs. going to see one or more of my friend's gigs for cheap.

If I ever make it up to nyc, this guy

http://secretsociety.typepad.com/

is going to be prioritized if possible. Doesn't look like he's got a show your weekend, though.

If you were coming the next weekend, you would be able to spend dollars to see this http://iridiumjazzclub.com/talent.php?talent=596&month=3&year=2009

Hm. Looks like Ernesto Simpson is playing that weekend at Cachaca with Manuel Valera Trio. Plus special guests!

nice, thx for the heads up

Should be a pretty good show, especially if one of the special guests is Ernesto's running buddy Samuel Torres. I don't know if he is going to haul all seven conga drums down there, but he's the kind of guy who can steal the show playing a little kid's maraca.

going to see the Fantastic Merlins tonight at the Turf Club in St Paul

I guess they are NYC by way of St Paul, sort of combine free jazz/improv with chamber music...or uh..."third stream" as they used to say I guess?

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=84187743

anyway hear they are awesome very excited as they are playing with the always great Fat Kid Wednesday, who feature JT Bates a fucking god on drums

http://www.myspace.com/fatkidwednesdays

Hey jazz d-bags, got any recommendations for great online streaming jazz stations?

WBGO, although the stream always asks for a donation when it starts. WKCR, although it's not strictly jazz 24-7 and I listen to the actual FM version, not the stream. It does become 24-7 jazz for things like the Roy Haynes tribute, which went on for two wonderful weeks.

WWOZ (out of New Orleans) streams. it's not all great, but a lot of it is.

I gotta check that one out, thanks.

Yea, WWOZ has some good programs. WPFW, the Pacifica station in DC streams programs. I like Larry Appelbaum's Sunday 4 to 6 (I think) Eastern time show, and the Latin shows on from 6 to 10 and the Brazilian show from 10 to 11 or so. Larry's the Library of Congress engineer who found the Monk, Coltrane at Carnegie hall tape (I know him, met him back when we were both at the U of MD). There are some good programs on most days and nights

Not officially jazz, but I saw the Master Musicians of Jajouka from Morocco and Lebanese oudist Marcel Khalife and band last night at a special preview of "Arabesque" the Kennedy Center 3 week Arab music, theatre, and more festival, and they were jazzy in feel. That is the Jajouka horns and drums were noisy, and Khalife's son and acoustic bass player have definately learned jazz improv techniques.

Khalife's sons that is, the pianist and the percussionist

Jazz station out here http://kuvo.org is ridiculously hit and miss -- maybe that's the way it is with all of them? I think it just depends on the DJ ... some of them seem very knowledgeable and others just seem like they graduated from DJ school and have no connection with the music.

this might be a possible thread title for 2010, via Harper's: Drummer Louie Bellson, whom Duke Ellington called "the world's greatest musician," died. Bellson once recalled the advice of tenor-saxophone legend Lester Young, who helped him learn to play bebop: "'Lou, just play titty-bop, titty-bop, and don't drop no bombs.'"

Ha, I read that. I think he cut back, but he still played some bombs anyway, like when they told Chuck Rainey not to slap on "Peg" and he hid behind some partitions when he was recording so they wouldn't see him do it.

Thanks for the recommendations. I'll have to check those out.

Wish I had more to contribute to this thread, but I am nowhere near being a jazz d-bag. I'm just dipping my toes in the water, really. Been listening to Miles off and on for years, but just starting to branch out from there. So far I've really fallen for what I've heard from Sonny Rollins (Way Out West, Tenor Madness, Saxophone Colossus), Wayne Shorter (Speak No Evil), Herbie Hancock (Head Hunters, Thrust), and Joe Henderson (Page One, Power to the People). This is Jazz 101 for you guys, but gotta start somewhere, right?

You seem to be doing fine.

gotta recommend the rollins @ the village vanguard albums if yr feeling those other rollins lps

Yeah, my path to jazz d-baggery was to just start paying attention to the credits on various records ... like, buying stuff that has Wynton Kelly on it, or Ron Carter, or Bobby Timmons, etc. Everything starts connecting, et voila, you are a jazz douchebag.

That's pretty much what I've been doing. Saw the Hancock credit on Power to the People and that led me to Henderson. Ditto with the Shorter.

I'll look for those Village Vanguard albums next, Rollins is by far my favorite discovery of the bunch.

yeah hes a real personal one for me too -- never really gets a lot of love for being revolutionary / idiom-defining / paradigm shifting cuz well he kinda wasnt -- but hes so singularly melodic -- like dude came up with the best / coolest / greatest little melodies. every lick he plays is A++ and creative & interesting, never sounds melodically lazy

Hey jazz d-bags, got any recommendations for great online streaming jazz stations?

TSF Jazz has been pretty good the few times I've listened.

Anyone besides me ever shell out for these?
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51pQcVqWlgL._SL500_AA240_.jpg
Four 9-disc volumes (I've only got Vols. 2-4) for relatively cheap, covering the years 1895-1951 ... Can't tell you how much enjoyment I've gotten out of them, from a historical and musical standpoint. Each disc is a pretty sweet mix of jazz that gives you a much broader picture of the various trends happening throughout certain time periods. Much more complex than, you know, swing to bop ... Tons of obscurities that are worth hearing, alongside more established tunes/artists.

I was a double dipping D-bag tonight and ended up hearing two very cool versions of "Four" tonight, the first by uknown-to-me-until-last-week-and-probably-unknown to-most-people jazz guitar master Jack Wilkins, the second by hooskrush jazz vocalist Annie Ross.

Haha, I bought all four of those 9 CD boxes from their creator late last year after Allen Lowe's great posts at organissimo. I bought the book of American Pop as well, although that CD seems to be out of print. I've only got around to listening to most of the first box, but what I have heard I enjoyed a lot and learned a lot, and yeah it's pretty amazing.

WBGO just cannot get the Rodriguez Brothers Robert and Michael and their non-brother Ricky straight.

Yeah, I bought the Devilin Tune set from Lowe, too -- three of them for $100 I think. Wonder if he has copies of the first 1895-whatever set now -- he didn't have them when I talked to him. Is that one worth having? Seems a little more "historic" than the others, but who knows, the other ones are so well sequenced that it is probably a pleasant listening experience. Anyway, yeah, the ones I've got: unreservedly recommended!

I think that other oneis a little more concise, nine CDs instead of nine times four CDs and covers some different areas- it has Robert Johnson singing "Hellhound On My Trail" for example. I just bought a Bert Williams CD on Monday to get "Nobody" which is on American Pop but not on Devilin Tune.

One thing, the first box seems to have a picture of Bessie Smith on the cover, but no tracks by her. They do have Mamie Smith however.

Syncopation rules the nation. You can't get away from it.

http://movieimage5.tripod.com/godfather/godfather43.jpg
Dude could swing ... RIP, dogg.

oh, weak!

maybe this will work ... lotta work for a joke ...
http://glennkenny.premiere.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/04/17/moe_greene.jpg

Where's the dolphin street?

http://www.wicn.org/files/imagecache/SotW/files/sotw_image/Green%20Dolphin%20Street.jpg

I believe Mr. Atoz is in that one.

I wonder how many more versions of "Hard Harded Hannah" there are on awaiting me on Vols. 2-4 of That Devilin' Tune?

I nominate Branford Marsalis for the 2009 Jazz D-Bags Lazy Coaster Award. I got his new album Metamorphoses in the mail the other day - it features nine tracks. The bassist wrote three; the drummer wrote two; the pianist wrote two; Branford wrote one, and the best track on the thing is a version of Monk's "Rhythm-a-Ning." I think if you're gonna slap your name on an album that's not a collection of standards, you should write more than one of the pieces performed. (Yeah, yeah, Nefertiti and probably a zillion other examples.) I'm not saying it's a bad album, either, mind you. I just think the bandleader should have if not the majority then at least a plurality of the compositional credits on an album.

Art Blakey probabiy didn't write most of the tunes on his albums either.

This morning WKCR was playing a crazy-sounding R&B Christmas tune from the 50's that turned out to be by Sun Ra!

Hey Oilyrags, thanks for the link you e-mailed me! I don't check that e-mail regularly so I just found it this morning, much appreciated.

This Venezuelan cuatro player coming to the Jazz Gallery next week seems like a must see for Latin Jazz D-bags.

Excellent, Jon, I hope you enjoy it.

any of you dbags want to start a little regular jazz exchange program? on the down low? i'd be into it ...

RIP Cachaça Jazz 'n' Samba Club :(

oh, i guess i should have gone there last weekend :/

That was it, you were the dealbreaking missing customer.

my jams of the moment. both these records are KILLING IT!

http://cover6.cduniverse.com/CDUCoverArt/Music/Large/superd_1285378.jpg

http://www.progreviews.com/reviews/images/JM-Extra.jpg

Jordan, I saw Ernesto Simpson last week and told him that you dissed him by not going to his gig.

I saw Davu Seru/Milo Fine/Paul Metzger this weekend, doing some pretty awesome free/improv. Fine is an amazing pianist.

Davu Seru is one of the best drummers currently on earth.

On a whole nother tip, saw Jordan's band Mama Digdown's Brass Band, which was super great as well, sort of New Orleans jazz mixed with R&B but with an old marching band style lineup w/tuba and everything.

yeah speaking of, jordan when are u guys hitting up chicago again??

OK guys, Here's your chance

missed the bad plus when they played here last month -- could not be helped! but i am seeing some decent (for Colorado) jazz this year. Saw Bill Frisell with Ron Miles couple weeks back and will see McCoy Tyner next week. :D

Please to open the link to the Martin Williams parody of other jazz writers on this page: http://wfiu.org/nightlights/fab-jazz/

Saw Bobby Sanabria and Quarteto Ache last week out in Ft. Washington, MD outside DC. Not that well publicized, there were only 40 people or so there. A good but not great show anyway (two hours with an intermission) but I found Sanabria's pitch to get more people out next time annoying. Sounding like Wynton Marsalis he talked about jazz being America's music, and Latin sounds being created in NYC blah blah blah. That "America's music" thing bores me. Oh, he's a got a new cd coming out-Kenya-- he and an orchestra redo the Machito effort with that name from 50 years ago.

I agree with most of what Bobby says, it just gets a little tiresome that he says pretty much exactly the same thing exactly the same way every time.

He also has his parental and professor's schpiels's memorized--teach your kids about the music, teach them to salsa dance and they'll learn manners, this music represents the best of this country and on and on.

He's got some good students, so I guess it must work.

x-post

But the blues is America's music too. And yea Kool Herc is from the Caribbean but rap is America's music too and then there's rock and rnb and gospel. Just play the drums and percussion Bobby please...or at least come up with a new talking bit

any d-bags heard this? http://dustedmagazine.com/reviews/4999 sounds kinda amazing!

diz in the 40s = SOLD!!

Jazz Times magazine in trouble

http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2009/06/losing_a_jazz_mag.html

for non-77ers, forks posted this pretty ridiculous archive of live shows from Small's: http://www.smallsjazzclub.com/index.cfm?itemCategory=32334&siteid=272&priorId=0&banner=a

Jordan, I'm gonna plug your band, Mama Digdown's tour here:

June 16th - Dick's Den, Colombus OH
June 17th - Bertha's Restaurant & Bar, Baltimore MD
June 18th - Chick Hall's Surf Club, Bladensburg, MD (outside Wash. DC)
June 19th - Turntables on the Hudson @ Water Taxi Beach, Queens, NY
June 20th - Mermaid Parade, Coney Island
June 20th - Flatbush Farm, Brooklyn, NYC
June 21st - Rose Live Music block party, Brooklyn NYC

Some nice moments at this Duke Ellington Jazz Fest event (and Paquito D'Rivera sat in with some of 'em) near the Washington Monument for free-

Buckwheat Zydeco 1:00 pm
Donald Harrison & The 3D Experience 2:15 pm
Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue 3:30 pm
Nicholas Payton Quartet 4:55 pm
Irma Thomas & The Professionals 6:25 pm

Mingus Big Band was burning it up last night. I wish l had stayed for the second set to hear Donny McCaslin's twenty minute tenor solo.

Lovano with Masada (playing Zorn's Book of Angels material):

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=33270

This could be a winning combination. (I'm not exactly a Lovano fan, but some of what I've heard has come really close. I think with more time I could get to like some of his playing, but this might be the ideal opportunity.)

Lovano and drummer Brian Blade are the other two musicians on bassist John Patitucci's new album Remembrance; I got that in the mail the other day and am thinking about checking it out.

I saw Lovano walking down the street on Saturday after his gig at Lincoln Center and talked to him for second. I felt a little guilty that I was going to the afterhours show at the same place he had just played but he told me "hey, we're here tomorrow!"

I always liked Lovano in John Scofield's quartet, and also in Paul Motian's trio with Bill Frisell. I guess he just goes well with guitar.

Is that album he did w/ Esperanza Spalding and Francisco Mela- what were they calling it, We 5- out yet? I heard it from the horse's mouth that they are going to be back at the Vanguard in the fall to promote it.

Attn: Latin Jazz D-bags. Eddie Palmieri is at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola through the weekend. For best value, go to the second set and then stay for the hang set with Chembo Corniel. For those who like guest stars, last night Steve Turre showed up near the end of Eddie's set and played a little bit with both bands.

a bandmate of mine saw lovano last week w/lewis nash, said it was killing

masada with lovano instead of zorn and adding uri caine? could be really cool.

OK, Jazz D-bags. When I looked at the long list of guys playing on the Tim Ries Rolling Stones Project CDs they were to a man excellent musicians. But when I listened to it what did I get? As should have been expected: snoozion fusion.

I am now the age of the average jazz fan, according to a recent NEA report.

Your internet skills are pretty impresssive for a 90-year-old

Ha.

That reminds me of this thread

anyone heard this lot's album yet?

http://www.myspace.com/troykaband

the track on the myspace has just gone from 'not really doing it for me' to 'hm, i really don't like this' as i type this post

http://jazztimes.com/articles/24943-jazztimes-to-resume-print-and-online-publishing

Jazz Times finds new publisher and will resume the magazine

listened to The Stone Flute by Herbie Mann this AM...really different for Herbie...kinda odd/ghostly/floaty vibe to it...reminds me of the first Joe Zawinul record or maybe In A Silent Way....sonny sharrock plays on it

Happy Birthday to octojazzarian Dr. Billy Taylor. Saw Junior Mance lunchtime shows yesterday and today and both times he ended with Dr. T's composition "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free."

Shook Billy's hand at the Kennedy Center about a year ago.

that herbie mann record sounds interesting

acoustic ladyland have got a new record about. apparently they don't sing, anymore: this seems a shame.

would there be any value in a separate 'hey, look at THIS jazz record that is, surprisingly, on spotify' jdb thread? i have a couple i would post here but can't run it on this machine, annoyingly

vandermark 5 playing here in a couple of weeks, any bags seen 'em live? i like most of what i've heard on record...

also, upthread "extrapolations" is a great album. I don't even like mcglaughlin, but that album is really on. fantastic drumming.
also, spacy herbie mann with sonny sharrock, i must hear this....

Went to see Dafnis Prieto at the MoMA Summergarden on a whim on Sunday evening. The storm forced the concert inside, and there were way too many people there (people like free shows), so we ended up standing at the back. I'd never heard him before but have read high claims for his drumming skills. He did impress, but the music left less of an impression.

here's the spotify tag for 'extrapolation', f'rinstance:

spotify:album:4EoYftSjmlz9sGTigoteCa

sadly, i can't actually work out how to embed it properly, because i'm a dupe.

ok lets do this thing

john mclaughlin's 'extrapolation' (John McLaughlin, guitars; Tony Oxley, drums; John Surman, baritone sax, soprano sax; Brian Odgers, bass)

Who was in Dafnis Prieto's band, o. nate?

Who was in Dafnis Prieto's band, o. nate?

The sax player, Peter Apfelbaum, I've also seen with Omar Sosa, and both times he's basically been no better than competently professional to my ears. The other two I'm not familiar with at all: Manuel Valera on piano and Charles Flores on bass. Both were good but didn't really do anything super memorable. Flores was given a nice long bass solo at one point. I left early though, so I might have missed the best stuff.

There's a NY Times write-up here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/arts/music/28moma.html

I saw DP last year and had a some what similar experience: technically he's a great drummer and the music was good, but some of the players I wished weren't there. Well, one at least.

Yeah, I think sometimes there's something a bit alienating about technical virtuosity - it can get in the way of an emotional response. I think I feel that way listening to Keith Jarrett sometimes.

(o. nate, since you were mentioning plena before on the salsa thread, and since I don't know how often you look at that thread, I just want to point this new Truco & Zaperoko CD out.)

(And for the rest of you, they definitely borrow from jazz at least, although the traditional percussion is probably the most interesting part.)

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a listen.

enjoying keith jarrett's somewhere before, with charlie haden and paul motian

according to amg those are "two future members of his classic quartet." didn't even know dude had a 'classic quartet'

jarrett, haden, motian, and dewey redman. some of those 70s albums are pretty awesome.

sup JDBs, can I play too? I really have no idea about anything, but I know I like these, the former a bit moreso than the latter:

http://www.stonesthrow.com/uploads/images/product/detail/inspiration-information-3.jpg

https://www.newamsterdamrecords.com/jelly/data/Picture/Maximum_Height=383/DJAalbumsmall_1_1.jpg

what else might I like?

i don't know what either of those sound like but i'd like to hear the darcy james record.

guys, i've been really digging on john ellis' last few records. he has a great way of balancing elements (modern jazz vs new orleans jazz, tunefulness vs abstraction), writes great tunes, and has awesome bands (aaron goldberg and jason marsalis are regulars). some good stuff on his myspace: http://www.myspace.com/johnellisband

I'd also like to hear Darcy James record or go to see him and them. His blog is certainly linked to a lot.

listening to the track 'redeye' on DJA's myspace now, it sounds very post-rockish

'zeno' is pretty awesome

i wish he didn't have to call it a 'steampunk big band' though

Ha. When I read the article linked to by this post I searched and the word "steam" appeared twice, but no following "punk". Then I needed to refresh my memory of what steampunks looked like by examining the image posted in this post by Tracer Hand.

so what does the mulatu astatke one sound like?

Jordan, the DJA is kind of post-rockish, if post-rock sounds like what I imagine it does.

The Astatke record has lots of Ethiopian instruments. Jazz and folk parts are woven together in ways that often seem tangential, but always carry a certain logic. It has a very colorful sonic palette.

To give you a better idea, this is kind of how the first track goes: It opens with an Ellingtonian piano backed by a wibbly synthesizer and smothered cymbal crashes, until a guitar fuzzchord breaks through the mix and sends them away, quickly followed by hand percussion, then a duet between a woman singing, presumably in Amharic, and a stringed folk instrument. Then those exit, and a full rock-band vamp comes in and the piano returns for a solo. The duet and rock sections alternate, and we get some funky violin and some barrel-house piano and a harp later on.

The rest of the record has just as many ideas going on, but everything is given enough room to breathe that it never feels overstuffed.

eric harland, damn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pmMT3HTtjM

Just got David Ashkenazy's Out With It in today's mail; it came out last week on Posi-Tone, a label I've never heard of before. Ashkenazy is the drummer; the front line is Joel Frahm on sax, Gilad Hekselman on guitar and Gary Versace on organ. Two originals by Ashkenazy, six other tracks including versions of Wayne Shorter's "Children of the Night," Bill Frisell's "Strange Meeting" and the oldie/standard "Too Young to Go Steady." Oh, and a version of the Beatles' "I Want You" that almost ruins the whole thing for me. Leave the fucking Beatles catalog alone - interpretations only disappoint fans and piss off Beatle-haters like myself. Anyway, that misstep aside, it's a good album, weirder than one might expect (almost heading into David Torn/Tim Berne territory at times).

didn't phil minton (of all ppl) do a version of 'i want you'?

RIP Rashied Ali! Actually don't have much after his Coltrane days, though I luv that one he did with James Blood Ulmer ...

Just saw that myself. RIP.

No way. Fuck. I met him at the Vision Festival one year - we hung out and talked for awhile, leaning on someone's parked car. If somebody wants to check out a fine latter-day Ali album, Live at Tonic with Louie Belogenis and Wilber Morris, on DIW, is a killer.

cool, thanks for the recommendation ... I like Rashied's account of the Interstellar Space sessions: "I'd been playing with him not that long anyways, and I'm like, 'What the fuck?' And you know I would get in there, and I would play, and he would go, 'How do you like that?' and I would say, 'Well, I wasn't quite prepared for it.' And he'd say, 'Well, you want to do it again?' and I'd say, 'Yeah, let's do it again.'"
from here: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=243

how does a cd by an a-list artist come out on a reasonably major label and have this cover:

http://img.amazon.ca/images/I/512loEltXkL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

Go vote in the Down Beat readers' poll: secondhand link (because I already voted)

oh i was hoping it was a poll about bad album covers

So now that we've had some time to digest it, what do we think of For All I Care (Bad Plus with Wendy Lewis)? The band's playing is fantastic, of course, and they do creative things with these arrangements, but I'm not 100% sold on Lewis' vocals. Her voice just seems too... ordinary to be fronting a trio of virtuosi. I also just don't think her voice really works for all the material, especially something like "Lithium". She does really seem to come to life on "Barracuda", which also features a pretty fascinating musical arrangement. Ultimately, I think the interpretations of modern classical pieces on there might hold up best for me. The Babbitt is especially interesting. Any Bad Plus is better than no Bad Plus, of course, and they were incredible live.

oh i was hoping it was a poll about bad album covers

i loved the bad plus and wendy lewis record — my argument pro was something about how coming at it from a different tradition lets them play 'barracuda' and 'comfortably numb' and 'feeling yourself disintegrate' without the burthen of ironic distance — i did get distracted and end up listening to yes for months, though, so that's probably a point against it

i haven't listened to it very much because the last time i saw them (w/wendy) was the best show i've seen this year, and the record just can't compare.

i arrived late to see them (opening for charlie haden) at the royal festival hall, just as they were embarking on some kind of long, drifty, modal final piece; door policy there is you wait until the artist finishes whatever they're playing until you're allowed in, so i sat at the bar sweating for all of fifteen minutes listening to them through the speakers, and then they let me in just as they left the stage

it was not the best show i have been to this year

But the Bad Plus has been doing versions of pop songs for a long time. Their interpretations of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Life on Mars" are especially great IMO. I'm not convinced that doing more literal 'covers' with a singer is actually bringing something more to the songs in this case. If anything, it seems to be reining them in a little.

it does rein them in, but it also makes the interpretations more sincere and emotive i think (or at least puts to rest the 'are they or aren't they being ironic' question). the show i saw had a really nice balance of the trio killing it by themselves and then doing the vocal tunes. the vocal set felt like a different band, or at least a band playing behind a singer, but it was just as good in a different way.

....so I did see Vandermark 5.
Good show, not mindblowing, but a nice night out.

damn, not bad, mel torme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEeAS4poGDA

otm. He's no Traps, The Drum Wonder, but still.

Does anyone have any favorite John Hollenbeck CDs? I liked something I heard by him (with Matt Moran) on the radio a while back, but am otherwise unfamiliar. (I do see he has something new.)

i like the claudia quintet. "semi-formal" had some nice tortois-y and reich-y moments. haven't heard the newest one.

i just listened to some samples of the above record to remember what it sounds like, and it only made me want to listen to the dave holland quintet.

I emailed the head of Sony Legacy's publicity department because, as you may or may not have heard, they're putting out a giant box of all 50-some of Miles Davis's Columbia albums in November, in mini-LP sleeves (but with some bonus tracks appended), and I wanted to know if the box was gonna contain the U.S. or Japanese versions of Agharta and Pangaea, because the Japanese versions have more music on 'em...only about 3 1/2 minutes' worth on Pangaea, but nearly ten minutes' worth on Agharta. Unfortunately, it appears the U.S. versions are the ones in the box.

There hasn't been much of a publicity blitz behind it, but the third and final John Coltrane box from Prestige, Side Steps (it contains all his sideman work except the Miles Davis Quintet albums), comes out next week. Or at least it does if you order it from Concord; Amazon lists it w/an October 6 street date.

oh cool, was wondering when that would be out. I've enjoyed the first two boxes quite a bit -- not as earth-shakingly awesome as his 60s stuff, obviously, but a lot of nice stuff.

The Sonny Rollins album The Complete 1963 Paris Concert (Spanish import, came out last year) is incredible. 65 minutes of top-level stuff by the Rollins/Don Cherry/Henry Grimes/Billy Higgins band, including a 23-minute "Sonnymoon For Two."

Anyone else get Frisell's Disfarmer? I've been listening a lot. (Been in my car stereo for a little while.) I don't think it's his best work, and it contains few surprises, but it's good and there are some really nice moments. Many of them seem to be due to Scheinman and Leisz, admittedly. History, Mystery was probably better.

Though I've been playing them less, the Ribot-featuring Zorn releases O'o and Filmworks XXIII El General may be more interesting. Very enjoyable.

Yeah, I've been won over re For All I Care.

Also OMG the Detroit Jazz Festival lineup: http://www.detroitjazzfest.com/09lineup.html

And it's all free! I'll have company this weekend so can only do one night. Am thinking of Booker T/Coryell/Escovedo on Sunday.

I think I'm actually a little ashamed of the Toronto and Montreal festivals now.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/blackplasticbag/2009/09/04/jose-james-bohemian-caverns-travesty/

Recent Michael J. West Washington City Paper posting about jazz vocalist Jose James. 2 other DC bloggers who generally rave about A Tribe Called Quest/Native Tongue era rap also were raving about him. What I've heard online ain't bad, I'm just not as enthusiastic as these folks.

With all of the talk of jazz needing young listeners, and in particular young African American listeners, it is unconscionable that Jose James—who sang a marvelous set at Bohemian Caverns Thursday night, is not the talk of the jazz world.

James, 29, doesn’t sound like a jazz singer. Oh, his throaty baritone and rapid “vocalese” (lyrical improvisation) is in the same lineage as Eddie Jefferson, but his delivery full of is dark and earthy and philosophical inflections that place it more squarely in the realm of neo-soul Michael J. West

this chris morrisey stuff (bass player leading a group w/dave king and michael lewis) sounds great: http://www.myspace.com/cmquartet

also lol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcaYhGEzKD8

Thanks for the Sonny Rollins Complete 1963 Paris Concert recc -- I like that band a lot, it's the same one from Our Man In Jazz, right? I've got that and a bootleg from the same tour ... there's a really wonderful long version of Ellington's "Solitude" where Cherry and Rollins just kinda dance around each other and then come together nicely at the end ...

All The Squares Go Home

can yall talk about fav records this year? im totally behind on my jazz bs

stuff i've heard that i like (not counting brass bands):

john scofield, piety street (if you like trad gospel and tastefulness, and jon cleary, which i do)

the bad plus, for all i care

stuff i'm interested in that i've only heard a couple myspace tracks from:

james darcy argue's secrety society, infernal machines - don't get the "steampunk big band" tag at all (lame), it sounds like a largish jazz group that's really into post-rock or the tied + tickled trio.

robert glasper, double booked - i want to like this, since it's chris dave's main jazz outlet (which means total state-of-the-art drumming...deej, in case you don't know, he's the first-call guy for maxwell, badu, & mos def). from what i've heard though, nothing really catches me in the songs besides the drumming. also apparently has mos def and bilal singing through shitty vocodors.

kind of a wacky deal on the new 5-CD Coltrane Side Steps box set if anyone's interested: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?type=product&id=2038868
$11.99 - my order came to just under $15 with shipping/tax. Hopefully it's not a fluke!

I've been enjoying Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, Steve Swallow & Antonio Sanchez: Quartet Live! quite a bit.

I'm enjoying the new Vijay Iyer Trio disc, Historicity, a lot. Iyer's piano playing hasn't always connected with me in the past - I like him with Burnt Sugar, but a lot of his stuff with Rudresh Mahanthappa just feels too distanced and intellectually rigorous to be really enjoyable. This one's really good, though.

Oh, I'll look for that.

I'll second James Darcy Argue, which sounds kind of like Gil Evans grunge, and add Mulatu Astatke & the Heliocentrics' Inspiration Information 3, which is very colorful, with lots of jazz, pop, and Ethiopian folk elements weaving together in odd ways, one of my favorite records of this year in any genre..

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/ask-a-jazz-musician/

hey jazz D-bags please vote for five album runs here if you are so inclined:

"The Best Five Album Runs BEFORE TIME BEGAN" (Jazz poll voting thread VOTE HERE)

kind of a wacky deal on the new 5-CD Coltrane Side Steps box set if anyone's interested: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?type=product&id=2038868
$11.99 - my order came to just under $15 with shipping/tax. Hopefully it's not a fluke!

― tylerw, Sunday, October 11, 2009 8:30 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark

holy shit!! i bought this immediately. thanks dude!

The 6-CD Fearless Leader box and 5-CD Interplay box are available new from third party Amazon sellers at $15.98 and $12.99 respectively. Combine them with the Best Buy Side Steps and you've got everything from the 16-CD Prestige box for under $50 delivered. Mine are on their way.

ha yeah, mine just showed up, so it's not a mistake ... nice set! this new one I actually haven't heard much of.

kind of a wacky deal on the new 5-CD Coltrane Side Steps box set if anyone's interested: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?type=product&id=2038868
$11.99 - my order came to just under $15 with shipping/tax. Hopefully it's not a fluke!

― tylerw, Sunday, October 11, 2009 8:30 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark

holy shit!! i bought this immediately. thanks dude!

― mark cl, Thursday, October 15, 2009 7:44 AM (5 days ago) Bookmark

sooo glad i bought this. it arrived yesterday. for one, it's fucking awesome. and yea it was $14 total - i checked bestbuy's site yesterday and it's back up to $60.

don't know if it was a legitimate sale or if someone just f'ed up, either way thanks a lot for the tip tyler

ha! yeah, so glad I got it. It really wouldn't have been something on top of my "to-buy" list at $60, but you can't go wrong for $15. Some of this stuff sounds fairly inessential, but I loooooove the Red Garland sessions. So laid back and groovy.

yea definitely, the red garland stuff is prob my favorite too

Recently I heard this crazy guitar that sounded like Jimi Hendrix on a Charlie Parker record! Finally I found out the musician in question was George Freeman, brother of Von and uncle of Chico. I tried to look him up in some extensive Jazz Guitarist encyclopedia and he wasn't even there. Hurting's guitar teacher was though.

just noticed that the new disc by ted sirota's rebel souls is $7 on amazon mp3 (while the cd is $17). will be buying this, i loved 'breeding resistance'.

http://www.amazon.com/Seize-The-Time/dp/B002K9P25C/ref=dm_ap_alb3

The new Ayelet Rose Gottlieb album is maybe too solidly jazzy for me (maybe a reason for more of you to be checking it out). I find it surprisingly less tuneful than Mayim Rabim, which at times has a near-pop catchiness, despite all the sophisticated structural things happening in it. These are just tentative impressions though. It seems like an album that's going to take a bit more work for me to get into, and I haven't given it a really careful listen yet. I definitely remain interested in Gottlieb as a vocalist and a composer. Predictably, some of my favorite moments are when she goes off in more cantorial, or anyway eastern, directions, but that doesn't happen too much on this new album.

http://www.ayeletrose.com/

Dying to see this David Kikoski trio show tonight at Smalls with Boris Kozlov and Jeff "Tain" Watts but don't know if I can make it.

!!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/arts/music/11vault.html?_r=1&hpw

Cool! Although somebody should tell somebody that the song is called "They All Laughed."

Took my dad to see McCoy Tyner play with the Howard University jazz big band at the Kennedy Center last week. A sweet but short set (I think the sold-out early show was longer). Tyner looked a little frail walking on and off the stage, but his fingers were working fine on the keys. The Howard U kids were pretty impressive.

Did he play "Walk Spirit, Talk Spirit"?

Uh, I forget. I know he did "Blues on the Corner" and a song with "Peace" in the title. I should e-mail my dad, he'd remember.

Went to Wolfgang's Vault to listen to the jazz, but inner teenager trumped outer jazz D-bag and got distracted by 1978 Attractions/Rockpile shows. Still definitely want to hear Basie w/ Lambert, Hendricks and Ross.

I might pay to download some of the Mahavishnu Orchestra shows they've got posted.

OK, now a quarter of the way into the Basie. Joe Williams just showed up and he is in fine form.

NYC Jazz D-Bs, I'm recommending to you to go down to Smalls in the next two days to see the trio comprised of Ethan Iverson, Ben Street and Albert "Tootie" Heath. Also, if you can, go and hang out by Tootie a little bit, he is a very funny guy. This applies especially to underemployed copy editor Jazz D-Bs and to overstretched law student Jazz D-Bs.

great interview with Tootie on Do the Math.

Would like to go to that Flushing Town Hall concert that's mentioned there- apparently they do it every year- but I can't. That Kitano's show might also be worth seeing, especially since there is no cover on Thursdays.

Hm. That Kitano show of Wednesday with Don Friedman, Martin Wind and the Dutch drummer and flugelhorn player is worth checking out too, I caught the end of their act last night before the Iverson/Street/Heath trio.

Well that whole interview was amazing. It may be the best thing ever linked to in the long history of these threads linking to Do The Math blog.

Hurting, you should go to one of those Tootie Heath shows and ask him about your guitar teacher, who appeared on one of his albums.

Oh hey, yeah. I don't hardly read any ILM anymore. But in re my late teacher, this is pretty good:

http://img.xiami.com/images/album/img88/42988/2510631236657309.jpg

However this has my favorite Ted solo
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1145/1417067125_ab93a0fb08.jpg?v=0
("Pot Belly")

OK, thanks.

RIP, jazz.com?
http://jazztimes.com/articles/25325-ted-gioia-president-and-editor-of-jazz-com-steps-down

Maybe he shouldn't have written that ill-advised When We Were Cool book that Matos hated.

So I made it up to Kitano last night to see Tootie play with the Swedish guitar player. He had some nice tricks- playing with one stick and one mallet, playing on some little chime thing that sounded like an kitchen timer going off.

Looks like Jimmy Heath just wrote a book: http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/1926_reg.html

Now I wanna get that Bobby Timmons Live! album.

yeah! that looks great. Didn't even know it existed. Mainly know Timmons from his sideman work with Adderley and Blakey ... Think the only album I have of his is The Prestige Trio Sessions. Heath's stories about Timmons are funny/sad.

Earlier this year at a Mingus Big Band show I realized that the familiar song "Moanin'" was different from the Mingus "Moanin'" but I didn't know who wrote the other one until this week.

Who was the Swedish guitar player? I just discovered this Swede guitar guy I like named Gustav Lundgren.

Tomas Janzon. He was pretty good. Played a nice version of "Moanin'" which I'm not sure if he really knew, later he said it was "a little tribute to Tootie Heath, 'Impressions of "Moanin'"', 'Impressions of Impressions of "Moanin'"'" I wish I could have stayed for the whole set but it was getting kind of late and I had to get up early this morning and then was going to stay up late again since we were going to the Met. And while I was sitting there at the Met tonight I realized that Tootie must have had a triangle on his kit that he was playing, striking it with that metal thing with the loop in it.

Coleman Hawkins birthday festival on WKCR today.

cool, thanks james!

is phil schaap doing it

He probably will be this evening, during his Traditions in Swing show, 6-9PM Eastern Time.

Wow, who just played that drum solo?

i don't know but that was craaazy

this is a good program

It is. Was that "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good To You" and now it's "Cocktails For Two"?

OK, the sports show is over and the music is back.

Phil Schaap just played the famous version of "Body And Soul" four times.

I cannot stomach him.

You're missing out. Get over it.

He's a weird dude, for sure. But I think jazz needs weird dudes!

You might not want to hang out with him and have listen to all this stuff 24-7, but for these birthday celebrations and marathons he is the man.

Phil Schaap just played the famous version of "Body And Soul" four times.
And I think he's gonna play it again.

& why not?

He didn't. He kind of jumped over it.

I've been trying to listen to him for years - Bird Flight used to be the only thing on when I would drive to work and I still couldn't take it.

Bird Flight can be annoying, maybe because of the time of day it's on, when you don't have so much time or patience to listen to all that talking. The Saturday night show I like a lot better.

btw, jazz d-bags, I've started a little Jazz Week over on my blog: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com Some rare-ish recordings from the past 50 years or so. Coltrane/Dolphy '61 up now, Alice Coltrane, Wes Montgomery, Don Cherry, others to come!

cool!

btw i kind of love phil schaap

doesn't mean that i can listen to bird flight everyday but i still think he's kind of great. and yea traditions in swing is the better program.

are Schaap's shows podcasted? Does Schaap know what podcasts are?

I think the answer is no, yes.

So what about this new Scott LaFaro book and album?

I've been listening to a lot of stuff on a small label called Posi-Tone, from Venice, CA. Players I've never heard of doing not-super-innovative semi-funky soul jazz (lots of organ combos), which I'm enjoying without feeling the slightest need to chide the players for failing to "move The Music forward."

it's new stuff?
not new stuff, but killer:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/louis-armstrong-in-2-minutes-53-seconds/?src=twt&twt=artsbeat
Love seeing Louis as a younger guy -- most of the footage I've seen of him is from that later years ...

it's new stuff?

Yep. Here's a link to their site:

http://www.positone.com

I particularly recommend the Wayne Escoffery and David Ashkenazy albums.

Hm. I've seen Wayne Escoffery with the Mingus Band and he is good. I'd also like to hear that Jim Rotondi album.

There's a twenty-eight-page-and-counting thread over at organissimo about the new Monk bio. Looks like the (disputatious) consensus is that it's good.

I'm reading it now. It is good -- not OMG REVELATORY, but good solid biography, a clear pic of time/place/context. The notes section is 100 pgs.

I have the Monk book, too, and what I've read of it is good. I put it aside for freelance work, though, and then picked up the new Stephen King doorstop, so I don't know when I'll get back to it. What I read I enjoyed more than John Szwed's Sun Ra book, for what that's worth.

I liked Szwed's book about Miles, haven't got to the one about Sun Ra yet.

i thought szwed's ra book was readable & informative -- its been awhile since i read it tho

Has anyone picked up Terry Teachout's biography of Armstrong, "Pops"?

No, but am interested in that one too. Have the Giddins book, "Satchmo," but never really got around to reading it properly. It always seemed too short to really do the subject justice.

Hm, Wayne Escoffery is leading a quartet at Smoke this weekend with Ben Riley on drums.

But tonight Vanderlei Pereira's Blindfold Test is playing there. Don't think I can make it, but perhaps some Ilx0r who lives nearby should go.

Teachout is doing a reading from that book Monday night at 7:30 at Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble.

Finally made it to Smoke, but this morning, for the Jazz brunch.

Does anyone have any favorite John Hollenbeck CDs? I liked something I heard by him (with Matt Moran) on the radio a while back, but am otherwise unfamiliar. (I do see he has something new.)

― _Rockist__Scientist_, Friday, August 28, 2009 6:15 PM (3 months ago)

I just got Eternal Interlude from eMusic and am really enjoying it. Reminds me of Gil Evans.

There's a new Bill Dixon double LP out this week on Broken Research. It's $35, and vinyl-only, but more than worthwhile if you're a fan. Dixon on trumpet with a little reverb, but no processing; Aaron Siegel on bass; Ben Hall on drums. Four long, drifting pieces (the shortest is 12:36; the longest is 17:45). Very beautiful, highly recommended.

thinking about going to see mccoy tyner at new year's. he's playing in a band with ravi coltrane, francisco mela, and esperanza spalding. it appears spalding usually sings and i (and my friends) am not much for jazz vocals. what are the chances that she'll be singing the whole time vs. just playing bass in a good band? anybody seen this combo?

Saw Esperanza Spalding in another context and she sang but not that much. Also, it wasn't jazz vocals where you are singing Johnny Mercer lyrics and approaching cabaret. Don't know about that combo but have seen everybody you mentioned except Ravi, who I would like to see. I think you should definitely go.

Thinking about invoking exception of my No Blue Note policy to see Eddie Palmieri and La Perfecta II.

Esperanza and Francisco worked together last year on the first version of that Joe Lovano project, Us Five, I think it was called. I think they put out an album, but I doubt that will give you any indication of what this is going to be like.

I've seen Tyner and Ravi before (separately) and they were both very good. What I've heard of Spalding's vocals (from her web site) was pretty inoffensive, but just boring enough that I'd feel pretty lame sitting through an hour of it with these other guys in the background. I can't imagine that would happen, exactly, but who knows.

I'm telling you, you won't get an hour of it, you'll get a few minutes of it. The Beatles didn't feature an hour of Ringo vocals.

If they reunite at this point they might.

But seriously, thanks for the input.

No problem. Now that I think of it, after the Hamburg days, The Beatles probably didn't ever again play a show with one hour of John+Paul+George+Ringo vocals put together.

Looks like I might shell out for the latest Signal to Noise, partly to see what kind of shit Matthew Shipp is talking now (which means I'm succumbing to what seems like it might just be a cheap marketing ploy but it's not as though I'm not interested in hearing more of his music anyway):

http://www.signaltonoisemagazine.org/images/221_STN_56_cover_mockup.jpg

That looks like a Masonic Temple in the background.

Also, I like but don't quite love the Mulatu Astatke/Heliocentrics album, which I was lucky enough to find in the library yesterday.

Shipp's new/upcoming solo album 4D is good. I've got a lengthy interview with him in the can where I tried hard to steer him away from his usual Source-style rhetoric and toward some actual discussion of music and why he does what he does. With a little luck it'll be out in early 2010.

I just got Mihaly Dresch's Argyelius as a Christmas present. It came out in 2006, but his stuff is hard to find in the US, and it didn't make much of a splash that I can see. Excellent stuff though.

(unperson, fwiw (nothing to any of you I suppose) I accurately guessed he was a Sagittarius based on his speech style during an interview I saw. He seems really uber-Sagittarian to me.)

The real danger of my buying Signal to Noise again is that it might once again lead me to buy things that are just too experimental for me one way or another.

On the other hand, I'm glad I bought the previous issue, because the Sun Ra material was worthwhile, especially the review of the recent spate of archival releases which I haven't seen talked about all that much (certainly not on ILM).

I didn't know that, but it may explain something about why he and I get along so well. My birthday's 10 days after his.

So I went and saw Gilad Hekselman's regular thing at Fat Cat the other night - well worth the $3 cover. He had Sam Yahel on guitar and Marcus Gilmore on drums. Hekselman has a really nice style I think - he uses the whole range of the guitar in a very exciting way that reminds me a little of Pat Metheny and a little of George Benson - sort of refreshing to hear a non-understated guitarist. Their set got a little boring but you kind of expect that from a fat cat set b/c the musicians seem to sort of use it as a chance to try stuff out and stretch a little, and they don't take it too seriously.

Did you play any backgammon or checkers or stratego while you were there, Hurting?

Also you should check out Nir Felder, although I guess you just missed his 27th birthday party at 55 Bar last night.

Stratego! That used to be my game.

Then maybe that can be your gateway to jazz, Rudipherous.

"See what Charlie Parker was doing in his solos, it's sort of like the kind of thinking that goes into playing Stratego. Whereas Sonny Rollins is more like Othello. . ."

Actually, I am content with enjoying the 1% (?) of jazz that I really enjoy. I just splurged on some Sun Ra and am sitting here listening to that Mulatu Astatke/Heliocentrics CD, etc. If I come around to enjoying more of it, great; if not, great. Actually, I've been thinking lately that I don't think there is any genre I like as little overall that I have listened to so much and tried to approach through so many different artists and sub-genres.

Also you should check out Nir Felder, although I guess you just missed his 27th birthday party at 55 Bar last night.
I guess you could also go see the three guitar attack of Gene Bertoncini, Paul Meyers and Ed Laub at Kitano tonight but that is probably exactly the kind of guitar playing you don't want to hear.

"See what Charlie Parker was doing in his solos, it's sort of like the kind of thinking that goes into playing Stratego. Whereas Sonny Rollins is more like Othello. . ."
Ha

New thread: "You already know how to play. Now play wrong and make THAT right": Jazz D-Bags Thread 2010