Rolling Jazz Thread 2012

It's time.

Awesome. Here's last year's

Rolling Jazz Thread 2011

On a Mehldau kick again. Been listening to Brad Mehldau Trio: Live, from 2008 (with Jeff Ballard on drums). Really like this group.

Also sort of finally got around to discovering the awesome catalog of Jackie McLean, which is quite vast. Love Destination Out. Generally love the sound of those mid-60s Blue Note semi-avant-garde records, like Tony Williams - Spring and stuff like that.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/herbie-hancock-performance-full-of-funk-energy/2012/03/12/gIQA3lWB8R_story.html

So this is some of what Herbie sounds like on his current tour:

But he often strapped on a portable “keytar” synth and engaged guitarist Lionel Loueke, electric guitar bassist James Genus and drummer Trevor Lawrence Jr. in jousting exchanges. When the time finally came to fire off his 1983 hit “Rockit,” Hancock was all smiles, reveling in the rebooted funk.

I like what I have heard from Benin-born guitarist Loueke

Loueke is on the new Esperanza Spalding release Radio Music Society, that NPR is streaming

haven't heard that much this year, but the RED trio + nate wooley record is a keeper. not as strong as their collab. with john surman ('empire'), but still pretty good...

Matthew Shipp Trio's Elastic Aspects is nice. Maybe when I'm not pollen-clobbered I will try to say a bit more. It's intended a suite and I still haven't given it the sort of attention that would be appropriate to hear it as a suite.

that tim berne album from this year, snakeoil, that thing is good

Albums I have liked so far this year:

Johnathan Blake, The Eleventh Hour - soulful, occasionally funky hard bop led by the drummer.
Erik Deutsch, Demonio Teclado - very funky keyboard-driven stuff that blends soul jazz w/Steely Dan-style shuffling complexity. They cover an Ike Turner song. Also, Deutsch is the keyboardist in country singer Shooter Jennings' band.
Jeremy Pelt Quintet, Soul - this album is so fucking good. Crystalline hard bop that takes Miles circa '65 and extends it to 2012 and beyond. Band includes JD Allen on tenor sax and Gerald Cleaver on drums. This is currently my favorite jazz album of 2012, can't recommend it highly enough.
Nicolas Masson, Departures - more straightahead-ish stuff, with killer guitar work from Ben Monder.
Jerome Sabbagh, Plugged In - an organ-heavy album by a Swiss (I think) saxophonist I like a lot. He's got a group that also features Monder, but that's not the ensemble on this CD (which comes out in April).
Charles Gayle, Streets - the best, most melodic album he's done in years. Plenty of power, but it's not just raw blowing like he's done so often in the past.
Full Blast, Sketches and Ballads - a Peter Brotzmann power trio augmented with guests including Ken Vandermark. One long piece, composed but recorded live.

I like the Shipp trio disc, too. And probably lots of others I can't think of right now. I'm still in a mood where I'm listening to lots of new but traditional hard bop - bluesy, swinging stuff on labels like Posi-Tone, Fresh Sound, Half Note, etc., etc.

Hm. Feel like Jeremy Pelt has a gig every other day at either Smoke or Smalls so I have been ignoring him. Will have to give him chance I guess.

Just got two albums - one under his own name, the other led by drummer Ben Riley - featuring saxophonist Wayne Escoffery, who I like a lot but who hadn't done anything since an album on Posi-Tone in 2009. Good to have him back.

I can't remember if you live in NYC but you should get out more, he plays a lot of gigs. I saw him recently with Tom Harrell at the Vanguard and then saw him another time through the window at Smoke playing on the gig of somebody who somewhat surprisingly wasn't Jeremy Pelt.

I don't have time for gigs anymore, unfortunately. Between my full-time job (which frequently requires me to see Roadrunner bands live) and freelancing, my nights and weekends are mostly gone.

Wow.

Oh yeah Tom Harrell forgot about that guy. People in school were crazy about him.

"Kids, if you like live music, maybe being a music critic ain't for you"

currently on the funkier side of jazz.

today i got lucky and found a new copy of this long deleted cd in the racks :

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6f/Move_Your_Hand.jpg

not only that but earlier this week i picked this up, purely on the mad cover :

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/04/Soul_Symphony.jpg

which is just brilliant with its extended 25 minute mix of orchestra and funky loops.

by chance, both are on the 'blue note rare groove series' imprint which never got proper UK release meaning i got even luckier than i though

.. guess i have a new avenue of fun(k) to discover.

Can anyone recommend me good bass-drums-sax trio records other than Sonny Rollins at the Village Vanguard, Joshua Redman Back East or Kenny Garrett records? I really like this format.

i'm a huge fan of ben perowsky's first record ("ben perowsky trio"), a live record with chris speed and scott colley. it looks like it might be out of print and not released digitally, unfortunately.

looks like joshua redman did a record a few years ago with different bass/drums trios, i'm kind of curious to hear that.

this is the perowsky record. i know i still have the cd, should really dig it up and rip it.

Not on spotify unfortunately. I guess I'm looking for stuff that has that propulsive, endless search kind of improvisation on the tenor -- like coltrane but not actually sounding like coltrane.

http://jazz.com/assets/2008/3/3/albumcoverMarkTurner-JeffBallard-LarryGrenadier-Fly.jpg

Just found this. It's on Spotify. It's good.

Donald Harrison/Ron Carter/Billy Cobham - Heroes

This doesn't have that "propulsive endless" quality - Harrison tends to be a bit more thoughtful and restrained. But there is some nice interplay here with Carter's bass.

srsly this Fly record is fucking dope. Ballard and Grenadier are insane, and Mark Turner is definitely a guy I want to check out more.

today i got lucky and found a new copy of this long deleted cd in the racks :

You lucky mother. I actually found an original vinyl copy of the Lonnie Smith but it was so beat I had to pass it up (they wanted $12).

looks like joshua redman did a record a few years ago with different bass/drums trios, i'm kind of curious to hear that.

It's called Compass, and it's actually more than a trio record - he does play with two different rhythm sections, but he also combines them so on a track or two he's playing with two bassists and a drummer, and on other tracks he's got all four guys (two basses, two drummers) behind him. And his playing is really excellent throughout - it's my favorite of his albums.

oh yeah, i remember seeing some youtube rehearsal footage of the double rhythm section.

Mark Turner is definitely a guy I want to check out more.

i really love his 'dharma days' record, with kurt rosenwinkel, reid anderson, and nasheet waits. really beautiful & restrained without being at all boring.

fuck, that sounds good mostly but I never enjoy kurt rosenwinkel. I just can't take his sound.

how so?

hard to explain exactly. It's some combination of his tone and use of effects -- he gets this kind of sustain overhang on every note that I find grating, and sometimes he uses this light distortion that I don't like. But I'm super picky about jazz guitarists. There are like three that I actually like and maybe twenty I find listenable. But he always sticks out to me as someone whose sound ruins a record for me.

i can see that, although i feel like his sound circa '01 (dharma days, the next step) was a little drier? but maybe not, his first record with the brian blade fellowship was even earlier than that.

I should probably check out the BB Fellowship record. Brian Blade could accompany a fourth-grade recorder ensemble and I'd enjoy it.

oh man, the three BBF records are my most-listened to 'modern' (i.e. in my lifetime) jazz albums, without a doubt. and their last one (Season of Changes, '08) might be my favorite one.

would love to hear BB accompany a bunch of fourth-graders btw. maybe not recorders, but auto-harp + choir + spoons, for sure.

btw a kind of post-boppy kurt rosenwinkel tune came up on my spotify radio a few minutes ago and I kind of liked it. His solos are good but he does this thing where he really tries to slur and smooth out his phrasing. It sounds very flat to me. A lot of guitarists do this though.

So I found out the name of the drummer who plays on the L platform at Union Square:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2KqmhSGfSU

there's a new steve lehman album, anyone heard it?

No.

Came here to say that the tune gods seem to have decided that every time I turned around this past week I was going to hear a different version of "Isfahan."

it's a sign. that you should go. to isfahan.

I've heard the Lehman album. It's my favorite thing I've heard by him yet. Reviewed it (along with some other stuff) here.

I will second the quality and awesomeness of the Lehman album. Also refusing to front on the Esperanza Spalding record -- some people around here hate jazz vocals (PF) but I don't, and I think Radio Music Society is overall more experimental and bold than, say, the Robert Glasper record. *chorus of boos rains down upon me but I do not care*

Haven't heard the Spalding or the Glasper.

In honor of International Jazz Day, here's a list of 50 Jazz Albums Unlikely To Make Other Lists Of 50 Jazz Albums You Will Read On International Jazz Day.

I'd quibble with whether a few of those would really be unlikely to show up on other lists (Clifford Brown & Max Roach, Inner Urge, Nefertiti all seem pretty canon) but it's a good list.

Recent jazz albums I've been enjoying:

Charles Gayle - Streets
Peter Brotzmann/John Edwards/Steve Noble - The Worse The Better
Neneh Cherry & The Thing - Cherry Thing.

Really looking forward to the new Darius Jones too. Last year's Big Gurl Smell My Dream (what a ridiculous title) is a favourite.

Also caught a fantastic duo show by Ken Vandermark and Paal Nilssen Love in Glasgow recently. It's not too often we get this sort of thing here.

the Robert Glasper record

i dunno, just sounded boring to me.

the lehman is indeed tight.

The Irvin Mayfield big band New Orleans Jazz Orchestra was oh so powerful and warm and wonderful at Jazzfest in New Orleans. Softie me also loved when Kermit Ruffins came onstage, with a newsboys cap over his doo-rag, plaid preppie shorts, and a cup of somethin' in hand, and he sang a standard (Sinatra & others) about having the world on a string and being in love. He and Mayfield then teased one another about who the best trumpet players in New Orleans are. Creole Clarinet player Evan Christopher sat in as well and was impressive also. He did a set with his own band as well. I also saw a bunch of brass bands, both funky and traditional.

http://www.nola.com/jazzfest/index.ssf/2012/04/evan_christopher_unveils_a_cla.html

Shannon Powell was one of the 2 drummers up there with Mayfield and the way he maneuvered the sticks was a sight.

nice outside/inside record (cool mix of free playing, singing, composed melodies, etc): http://sonsofdaughters.bandcamp.com/

Robert Glasper's trio is actually kind of more experimental than people give it credit for I think, but I think his basket of influences kind of caters to a niche that is not quite ILM?

i was just made aware of badbadnotgood. eh.

awesome rock + avant-jazz sax trio record that a friend released today: http://tonybarba.bandcamp.com/

seriously check it out

Another good bass-drums-sax trio I found -- Michael Blake/Ben Allison/Jeff Ballard -- Right Before Your Ears

I just heard something on the radio from the new Elio Villafranca/Arturo Stable album that took me by surprise (which is to say I was enjoying it and didn't realize it was Villafranca until the DJ announced it). Now I'm listening to the whole thing on Spotify. I've really wanted to like an Elio Villafranca album for a while, because he's kind of amazing to watch perform and he seems like a good guy, but I haven't been into what he's done. This, however, might do it for me. I don't know who Arturo Stable is but I get the sense he might be pushing Villafranca to be riskier with his approach to rhythm or something. I don't know. This appears to just be piano and percussion, so far anyway.

Seen both those guys. Yeah, somebody I know is friends with Stable and told me something to the effect that he sometimes will go against the clave a little bit and do something you wouldn't expect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6EUBq8nnho

Elio is playing with a singer in my neighborhood tonight.

There now. This is some kind of Diamanda Galas/Yma Sumac stuff. Kinda cool

More explanation please. Who is performing Diamada/Yma Sumac type stuff?

http://www.giancarlatisera.com/, at least to my ears. With Elio V on piano.

Cathy Berberian maybe? Maybe none of the above.

Elio did not list the gig on his website. I guess it was just for those in your hood.

I am still confused who was the singer? What was her name? She sounded like the others you mentioned, right (but was not one of them)???

Another Cuban jazz pianist:

Geoff Himes in the W. Post on Cuban pianist Fabian Almazan who has been playing with Terrence Blanchard and now has a album out of his own

http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/music-events/fabian-almazan,1230687/critic-review.html

Gian Carla Tisera as her URL would indicate

Thanks.

Got the new JD Allen Trio disc, The Matador and the Bull, in today's mail. It's the fourth album by one of my favorite current groups - Allen on tenor, Gregg August on bass, Rudy Royston on drums. The first three albums were on Sunnyside, this one is on Savant. Allen's thing is concision - the last album, Victory!, had 12 tracks in 36 minutes; this one has 12 in 40, and one of them, "Muleta," is only 1:55. Victory! was one of my favorite albums of last year, and this one is just as good. It comes out on June 19.

Today's mailbag included the new Branford Marsalis disc, Four MFs Playin' Tunes. He's got an interesting quote in the press release - "What we are trying to do is figure out the emotional purpose of each song we play and then play according to that purpose, as opposed to musicians who spend their time developing what they call a concept."

Also got a reissue (first time on CD!) of a 1972 Don Cherry double album, Organic Music, recorded in Sweden with a bunch of local musicians, an orchestra, and Nana Vasconselos on one track.

C'mon Pi put out MP3s of the new Threadgill already

Dr. Lonnie Smith celebrating 70th birthday next month at the Jazz Standard. Think I would like to see the "In the Beginning" octet.

Didn't find new Threadgill mp3's on that page, nor on the "audio" page?

Speaking of Threadgill, I think Stomu T is playing next week around the corner from my house.

I'm not sure what the deal was with MP3s so I went ahead and ordered the CD from a place near me .... surprised by the delay

i'm pretty curious about that new branford album

xpost to myself

er delay in releasing MP3s, that is

i'm pretty curious about that new branford album

It's good stuff. I wish it didn't have any tracks where he plays soprano sax (the instrument I hate most in the world), but whaddya gonna do. And the drummer kicks unbelievable amounts of ass. I believe it hits stores first week of August.

cool, will check for it.

long-time chicago dude matt ulery recently put this out on dave douglas' label, sounds nice:

http://www.greenleafmusic.com/byalittlelight

new Threadgill streaming at NPR. Quite good on first listen.

Sweet, thanks for heads up

Newport mostly live on NPR, today and tomorrow, some will be posted later. DeJohnette's usual group at 12:40, later w All Stars, incl Jason Moran. Frisell plays a couple of times today also, w Bad Plus, later songs of Lennon. NPR always posts these schedules from bottom up. Usually works better to mute the video, use audio-only as soundtrack to the video, or just use athudio-only w vid blank. Link for all (though they've got thumbnails on today's performers elsewhere)
http://www.npr.org/event/music/156120628/newport-jazz-festival-2012

Really liking Bill McHenry's new one, La Peur du Vide. Since Paul Motian died, he had to form a new band, so now he's working with pianist Orrin Evans, bassist Eric Revis, and drummer Andrew Cyrille - a much more aggressive group than guitarist Ben Monder, bassist Reid Anderson and Motian, with whom he made three albums. This one was recorded live at the Village Vanguard back in March, and they're playing there this weekend to celebrate its release. Uptempo, hard-swinging stuff, a million miles from the murmur-and-rattle thing he was doing with Motian. I like it a lot - it might make my year-end list, in fact.

so someone posted the cover to the Greg Foat Group's "Girl And Robot With Flowers" on the noteworthy album covers thread, and I was intrigued enough to give it a listen.

i *love* it.

i'm definitely a jazz neophyte, so i'm wondering:

1) what any of you "rolling jazz" folks think of it, if you've heard it and

2) what other artists you might recommend i seek out if i totally dig the vintage/mid-fi and mellow/spacey qualities of this GFG album.

Dunno if I'd call it 'jazz' really - library music? Still nice though.

I'm hearing David Axelrod in there, early Jan Hammer Group, Sensations Fix, Luke Vibert's library music comps, Cinematic Orchestra

OK, I am officially convinced that Criss Cross Jazz (which has no publicity budget, and I'm told may be fucking its artists out of royalties) is the underrated label of the year. I've heard four of their 2012 releases this week - Dayna Stephens' Today is Tomorrow, Clarence Penn's Dali in Cobble Hill, Conrad Herwig's A Voice Through the Door, and now Yosvany Terry's Today's Opinion - and they're uniformly awesome. The first three are hardcore post-bop with ferocious swing, and occasional interjections of funk and groove, and terrific clean/basic production, and the fourth is the best Latin jazz album I've heard in forever. Latin jazz normally does almost nothing for me, but this shit is red-hot and perfectly blends the two approaches. And aside from seeing Terry's album on one of the New York Times critics' year-end lists, I've heard exactly nothing about any of these records from jazz writers (again, because no publicist).

i used to be way into Criss Cross, they've been doing exactly these types of records for years and years. favorite CC records off the top of my head:

billy drummond, dubai
clarence penn, penn's landing
ralph peterson, the art of war
melvin rhyne, mel's spell
conrad herwig & brian lynch, que viva coltrane
herlin riley, cream of the crescent

some of my favorite records ever, they're heroes over there.

and I'm told may be fucking its artists out of royalties

oh, that's too bad if true.

Well, what I was specifically told is that they don't pay royalties. Which may just mean that they offer artists a flat fee up front to make the albums, knowing that they're not gonna sell more than a few hundred copies.

This seems like the best place to post this...

Anyone heard Lucien Dubuis Trio & Marc Ribot's Ultime Cosmos?

I found it in the jazz section, and it does have more or less jazz instrumentation, but it sounds more like balls-out rocknroll (with lots of crazy bari sax) than jazz. Everyone I've played it for has been blown away. My friend who's a jazz trumpeter (and who has played with a lot of punk bands) said "this is exactly what I always wished punk rock sounded like". Which were pretty much my thoughts exactly.

Sounds interesting. I haven't heard it, but I usually like Marc Ribot in a jazz context.

Well, what I was specifically told is that they don't pay royalties. Which may just mean that they offer artists a flat fee up front to make the albums, knowing that they're not gonna sell more than a few hundred copies.

this doesn't seem like the worst thing in the old-world model, since there's not much profit in most jazz records anyway, and they're fronting the studio time + manufacturing costs etc (and i think they gave the artists some portion of the discs to sell on their own? at least i've seen them being sold at gigs). and i appreciate that they're giving some jazz musicians a chance to document their work every year or couple of years, '50s blue note style. however, i wonder how it works with digital rights & sales now.

i love that they have the exact same website that they did when i was in college.

Somehow this made the shooting tragedy hit home with me much more

http://www.spinner.com/2012/12/15/jazz-saxophonist-jimmy-greene-mourns-daughter-school-shooting/

fuck

weirdly, I think but am not positive that I played with Jimmy Greene once when he first came to New York. I have a memory of an early gig I did through school where Larry Ridley put me and some older students together in an ensemble to play at the Schomberg Center in Harlem and there was also a dude not from our school who was supposedly just starting to get known in NYC. I remember the name being Jimmy Greene. This would have been 97 or 98, which makes sense since that's around when Jimmy Greene apparently started to gig a lot in NYC. I remember saying something about how there was so much I could hear that I couldn't play yet, and he kind of laughed and said "yeah, well, that's everybody." I was like 17 or 18 at the time. Anyway. Fuck.

Just got Smalls email about this. Fact that I have and will cross paths with people who have played with the guy made it hit home for me as well, despite previous ability to compartmentalize.

I re-loaded Greene's last three albums into my iPod; I'd previously dropped them because I didn't like his work as much as some other current players (JD Allen, Stacy Dillard, Walter Smith III), but I'll give him another shot.

Has anyone heard Ten Freedom Summers?

Wadada sent me a signed copy, but honestly, I only made it through the whole thing once. I mean, it's four CDs - something like five hours of music. I'll come back to it someday. I really like his playing.

From what I'm reading like quite a challenging work -- not only conceptually, but getting a chamber group to improvise is a major risk too.

Unless they have experience in doing so, which they appear to not have. In a "life's work" this is new.

Jeff Parker - Bright Light in Winter (restrained, but this seems to work well)
Rob Mazurek Pulsar Quartet - Stellar Pulsations (it's the pianist that really shines here)
Jenny Scheinman - Mischief & Mayhem (features both Nels Cline and Jim Black)
Uri Caine Trio - Siren (ok, this is from 2011 but the rendition of 'Foolish Me' needs to be heard)
John Zorn - Music and Its Double (at times sounds like a combination between 'modern composition' and 'impro')
Nazoranai - s/t (Keiji Haino, Oren Ambarchi, Stephen O'Malley)
Imikuzushi - Keiji Haino/Oren Ambarchi/Jim O'Rourke - best purchase of this year.

That Mazurek disc is one of the most straightforward, least experimental things he's ever done, but I like it.