"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.

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