t/s: hancock, carter, williams vs tyner, garrison, jones

I guess if we presume they're single entities, I'd have to go with tyner/garrison/jones, if for jones alone.

sometimes i get the sense - and this is a totally inflammatory not-really-seriously comment, so take w/ grain of salt, please - that elvin jones didn't really know exactly what to do w/ the force of coltrane's playing so he'd just end up doing crazy endless ebb-and-flow drumrolls. i think elvin jones, i think drumrolls.

when i think of tony williams, i think weirdly-placed cymbal accents and other things i don't know the technical terms of jutting out at JUST the right angles. dude was CONSTANTLY doing what elvin jones did occasionally w/ the whole set (on tracks like "out of this world") w/ like two drums.

i dunno, i don't know enough theory to back these statements up, it's just lots of listening.

jones + garrison just sound like ... jazz. i have their sextet recording, it's pretty good dense modal bop but that's it. tyner's good. i've got two or three of his post-coltrane albums. but again, it's just avant-bop.

williams and hancock are like next level 4-d brain jazz from the future, compared to jones + garrison.

Jones got a lot of shit for his drumming from technician folks, but a whole 'nother group - usually younger dudes - think the haters are out of line. I like Vahid's description of Tony's playing though.

someone said it already but all of mccoy's hammered hollow fourths and fifths can get numbing -- more circular than linear obviously, but sometimes inhumanly architectonic imho, like if albert speer designed a baha'i temple. a glib gloss, but jones and williams are both hard to divorce from their subsequent selves -- jones' 'let's just play, man' went from awe-inspiring to charming, where tiny tony's inherent precision, classicism curdled into something a little gross. between ron carter and jimmy garrison there is no comparison. garrison has his moments, but ron carter is just amazing. beautiful, perfect sound. literally one of the three or four greatest accompanists in all of jazz ever. retarded.

and as for the ballads, h/c/w are brilliant on everything on the carnegie hall "my funny valentine" and they were still pretty green as a unit. obviously all standard fare, but when the piano solos roll around whole new worlds open up, like a extra little trio records hidden in the middle of the longer tracks. you can hear them relax like "ah yes, these are my bros" and opposed to being on point behind the boss man's solos and chipping in grudgingly behind george coleman who you feel like maybe they didn't really dig.

williams is somehow more flexible and more propelling, and gives more genuinely jaw-dropping moments per minute, than jones.

+ there is the question - how else could a drummer have played behind Trane in that period (in a quartet setting?)

i can definitely take or leave 20 minute solos (with bonus bowing!!) from any bassist. tyner was kind of becoming redundant in that period, hancock too to a lesser extent.

q: could jones swing? could williams? i probably have the answer somewhere in my collection but maybe someone could point me to it

I've listened to "miles smiles" many, many times *just* paying attention to the rhythm section. The interplay on that record between Ron and Tony never fails to amaze me.

Coltrane's Ballads!

Coltrane's rhythm section - more stylists than virtuosos, I think? No one can fuck with Elvin on his own terms, no one, but I don't think there's any way he could do what Tony did (and I wouldn't want to hear him try).

Personally I'll take the latter, but I love those quintet records too.

Most of TW's later stuff was relatively straight-ahead, although he still plays some shit. Check out his 80s stuff or his last trio record (Young At Heart, I think).

Elvin playing it straight(er) - some old records he did with his brothers, Larry Young's Unity maybe, The Individualism of Gil Evans, probably some of his Jazz Machine records, etc.

williams on Footsteps alone was enough to make me doubt my earlier Trane/jones allegiance. however, in favour of jones etc. those impulse quartet sessions have a mood that i don't think miles's columbia sessions can match - the mood of something important happening, so hush.

i have live at the plugged nickel (the whole shebbang) waiting at home - had it for years but only ever unwrapped the first disc - anyone care to make a case persuading me to check the rest of it out?

you own it, and you want to know if it's worth listening to? that's crazy. it isn't work, you know.

I think Herbie's suffered from this only because pretty much every piano player in the Wynton-era and beyond ripped off his style almost note for note. I think he's recognizable, but maybe not as much as McCoy though (and there haven't been nearly as many McCoy clones out there). Williams, on the other hand, is very recognizable, at least in his 60's output.

The Tyner block chord is almost like the power chord -- it's a great trick but it becomes irritating after a while.

I think "Vonetta" from "The Sorcerer" is a pretty good example of the Hancock/Carter/Williams rhythm section playing beautifully on a ballad.

The Plugged Nickel stuff is almost fuck-you jazz. It's so fast, it almost becomes a drone. Someone had to do it though.

yes

i know. but i bought it at work (hmv) because i liked the studio albums, it was supposedly indispensible and it was on sale and i got 30% off on top of that.

the first disc didn't inspire me to listen to the rest of it, although i've now listened to it a few times trying to find a way in - my favorite part at the moment is a couple sitting at a table where the guy is telling Miles to "play it" or something and his lady tells him quite audibly "you're such an idiot" - i bet they play that to their grandkids.

it's definitely not welcoming, more so, and in a different way to, say, the Trane at the Vanguard boxset. so i suppose in a live context i've got to go with tyner, garrison, jones > hancock, carter, williams

in which of miles's bands was he the strongest link?

A fair point (unless you count being the impetus behind the whole damn project in his favor - he might not have been the best player on Bitches Brew, but would any of his sidemen have concieved such an album on their own? I say not likely), but on the PN box he's the only one regularly missing notes and letting phrases trail off aimlessly, is what I mean.

Both great great bands: as noted Miles is the weakest link while Coltrane is THE link. Different approaches. I prefer the Miles band but your preference probably says more about you than it does about either band.

Unfortunately, it became the typical jazz trumpet style. :(

the whole thing of rock fans who like jazz(me) is that the electric stuff now makes MORE SENSE than those wonderful coltrane-philly jo-garland-chambers sessions - i 'got' live evil right away, took me ages to fall in love w/ cookin' etc - it sounds like old music, simultaneously sentimental and acidic - rock history backwards (i guess the same is true of blues?)

Controversial statement: most jazz piano players today are amazing and boring.

as for sahara, it's always gd to have a few irrational faves in yr pocket

elvin jones is v. problematic for me - ditto art blakey - and sometimes those coltrane sessions w/roy haynes instead of elvin are like a breath of fresh air - i think this gives the lie to the notion that coltrane was TOTALLY the dominant voice - coltrane's music changes considerably every time he plays w/ a diff drummer - tho' of course he is the LEADER when is blowing for 30 mins or whatev

What do you mean by this?

http://static.flickr.com/53/160941785_91b363513a_m.jpg

The records that are interesting is looking at Wayne Shorter's Night Dreamer, JuJu and Speak No Evil where he works with Elvin Jones and groupings of either Tyner and Reggie Workman or Carter and Hancock. Those records are so good, especially Speak No Evil, which I think is as good as anything either Miles or Tranes' groups did.

It is too bad that some of those really ace Shorter and Hancock tunes did not get cut by the Davis group. But I suppose that for those two it probably was a whole lot smarter when it came to the publishing.

Wayne Shorter gets a bit of the short stick in the jazz world, as his best stuff is split up over so many groups. His tunes are great, not only as starting points for improv, they just stick in your head. The best stuff that Davis group did was his tunes. Shorter also had wrote some really catchy hard bop tunes when he was with Art Blakey.

I don't know how you could pick between Tony Williams and Elvin Jones as they were both really amazing and unique.

Wayne Shorter gets a bit of the short stick in the jazz world

Probably not in the money world though. My guess is he still has mad royalties coming in from the Weather Report albums.

Anyways, I choose Hancock/Carter/Williams. Any one of those three could've stepped up and led their own session, with their very own compositions; and often did. Whereas you couldn't say that about Tyner/Jones/Garrison. (But damn, Elvin Jones was a motherfucker.)

The best Carter/Williams/Shorter stuff I ever heard is this live 1967 CD where they just go intuitive and long thru all their familiar themes, including "The Theme" I think? So they win, because although Elvin Jones is just as good in his way as Tony, it's more egocentric and even more like, "Shit, I am playing nothing with something, how do I do this?" Both bands are great examples of what jazz does and why it can be so elusive to many--sometimes you put on "E.S.P." and it just slithers away, sort of like some half-good and very, very stylish "modern, super-modern" '60s movie that is actually a drag, until you remember how super-cool and beautiful Julie Christie is, and how beautiful San Francisco.

And, I always found McCoy Tyner heavy-handed, altho it really works once, on the great "Trident" with...yep, Elvin and Ron Carter, where the density and relative humorlessness of Tyner's playing somehow becomes funny as he pummels Jobim and Monk not *totally* into submission, and effectively uses the celeste in a drolly "jazz" context.

I don't know, I think Elvin's thing is way more immediate and soulful than Tony's. People who don't listen to jazz love Elvin Jones, and I'm not sure that the same can be said of TW.

ihttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ee/Miles_Davis-Filles_de_Kilimanjaro_(album_cover).jpg

More love for Speak No Evil.

I've always liked better both the earlier Davis quintet and the Classic 'Trane Quartet, both are a little more bluesy in a way that I prefer. I like Ron Carter lots in some other settings, Roberta Flack's First Take, that Jobim album- what's it called, Stone Flower?

Was this thread inspired by this thread?

i just like starting jazz threads because you get the best cross-section of people on them.

Other than Coltrane, I have seen each of these artists play, play together (in their subgroups) and play searately with others.

Things I had not considered until others brought them up--that Carter, Williams and Hancock were more likely to record and perform their own compositions (other than Tyner, of course, who is more than capable).

I think that unfortunately Tyner gets docked for being a lefty. his left hand is just naturally dominant and it shows through in those lovely block chords. I think that comparing Tyner and Hancock over the run of their careers is difficult because I think HH has had much greater lapses of taste than MT, but he has also risked and achieved more on individual albums in several genres.

I have never met such a strong "little" man as Jimmy Garrison, and his flamenco bass never fails to stun. Stylist over technician, yeah sure. Jones was a far more expressive drummer than TW. Hands down. TW was prettier, but Jones was a monster. Could Jones swing? What are you kidding? Grab any of the Atlantic recordings.

'when the band would be woodshedding at the Half-Note or other places like that in NY & NJ, the rest of the band minus Trane and Jones would leave for an hour and come back to find Jones and Trane symbiotically linked and pushing each other farther out.

I almsot spit milk through my nose when someone said that jazz cats don't honor Shorter. Who? Shorter is considered the dean of composers by most of the musicians I know and his playinng is still incredible.

The Pullen/Adams stuff (on Black Saint or Soul Note) I was never such a big fan, but when under Pullen's name on blue Note, I like a lot. My favorite Pullen recordings are the AfroBrazillian Connection dates and the duet with Famoudou Don Moye (Milano Strut). Pullen and Adams both died too young. My favorite work from both, though, was seeing them perform with Mingus over several years with Dannie Richmond on drums. Danny was never going to give Williams or Jones a run for their money, but I can't think of another drummer (other than Roach) suited for Mingus. So how about the Mingus/Richmond/Pullen rhythm section?

We go around in circles chasing tails.

I again almost spewed when reading pm's misuse of the concept of architectonics (the systematization of all knowledge) by using it to refer to clumsily to both architecture and Tyner's playing. I suppose he meant to say that Tyner's block chords were evidence of the structural system Tyner used to build his compositions and to say that compared to Hancock, Tyner can appear to be more clumsy--I take the attribute clumsy from his imputing a Baha'i' house of worship to the hand of Albert Speer. I think this unnecessarily insults Tyner's work. Extra points taken off for misusing and misspelling both "agonistic" and "shamans" in the same sentence. "Agonic shamen"? Bah.

For a very different reading of Shorter and his sidemen, pick up Moto Grosso Feio. Holland on bass, Carter on Cello, Corea on marimba, McLaughlin on acoustic guitars and TW (under contract restrictions recording as "Michelin Prell"). Some do not like ostinato as much as I do, but between this and Hancock's "Mwandishi" I do think the argument can be made that Miles's sidemen have put out a far more interesting legacy than Trane's.

As far as bass/drum pairings I will always choose Haden/Blackwell and Parker/Drake over Carter/Williams or Garrison/Jones. how's that for taking sides. Of course, like any/all of the above, completely indefensible.

A)The Plugged Nickel box is amazing, most of all because Miles is the weakest link in the band a lot of the time (and I really don't like Wayne Shorter very much at all).

B)Who? Shorter is considered the dean of composers by most of the musicians I know and his playinng is still incredible.

A Love Supreme and Maiden Voyage are my two favorite jazz records of all time. I think they both have their own special time and place. I've never been one to take sides anyway.

-- renegade bear shot by cops on frat row (vfoz...), June 16th, 2006. (later)

I won't argue that a criticism of Tyner can be that "he plays too many notes", but I put those arguments in with Chuck Berry's "got no kicks against modern jazz..."

Orange Pimp OTM. No winners in taking sides here. Both good, like peanut butter and chocolate.