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Blindfold Test #14


Nate Dorward

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Thanks for the disc Nate

I really enjoyed the music you selected and am also looking forward to the answers...I have some ideas but still need to spin the disc a few times before venturing any guesses.

FWIW: On each track I’m hearing a lot of traditional and free musicians (and styles) intertwining and finding a way to get past their “differences” and create some great and innovative music.

Again thanks!

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Track 9: Very nice - an album I would check out for more. No idea who it is, just  a feeling I should know. That Dolphy-esque tune sounds familiar.

A further hint: it's not a sax tune, though you've got the right period.

Track 12: This has been guessed, and I have it, but listened more to his trio track, one of which I considered for my upcoming BFT. I like this pianist a  lot - what has he been doing lately?

He had a Europe-only Columbia release, I gather, which was more of a jazz-hiphop thing. But that was in 2000 if memory serves. A year or two ago there was a review of a NY concert of his by Ratliff in the NY Times. & he's on a 1996 Frank Morgan disc. Other than that, I dunno--it's a major frustration that he's been so little recorded since the mid-1990s

Track 13: I'm not a fan of this unsettled piano trio style in the Bill Evans wake. I like a tune to be played, not just hinted at. I always have the impression they would improvise just the same stuff on a totally different tune.

Ah well, this seems, with #5, to be the track least liked by BFTesters. If it gives any different spin on it let me say that this drummer actually worked with Bill Evans briefly, though I don't think that that version of the Evans trio ever recorded. You'll have the drummer in your collection on a few notable albums from the 1960s, I'm willing to bet, though he's not exactly a household name(!).

I'd be interested to know where you thought the pianist on #6 was a bit irresolute--I'll have to go back to that one. It's interesting to notice how much I sometimes miss on these tracks--for instance, hadn't noticed the delicate wrong note in the left-hand on #11 (the end of countermelody running from 1:14-1:22) until I recently replayed it while drafting some comments on it (eventually to be included in the "answers" thread).

*

I've more or less got the answers drafted & am now back in town after the Cincinnati sojourn--I'll wait a bit more though to post them as it looks like people are still digesting the discs or in a few cases only got them a few days ago.

Edited by Nate Dorward
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I'd be interested to know where you thought the pianist on #6 was a bit irresolute--I'll have to go back to that one.

He generally sounds to me like he is not that developped in his two-way coordination - I know this is a helluva thing to do - but maybe he is more used to play with bass and drums accompaniment. Playing piano without bass and drums needs a lot of practice to learn how to coordinate these two or more voices, and in his first solo passage from around 2:10 he sounds to me like he didn't clearly know how to get to the end of the chorus, the left hand sounds insecure. On the whole, he's not enough to the point, to these ears, rhythmically, in particular. I'm very ctritical about these things ... :w

The saxist takes less chances, stays within certain limits, but he knows more what he can do and what he wants to do. I started liking this tenor player all the more after a few more spins of this track, he reminds me a little of Art Pepper, but with a softer attack. Who is this?

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& forgot to say, no not Kellaway/Mitchell!

Hm, interesting the bassist should prove hard to spot, & that the (much less well-known) pianist, with his beautiful broken-china piano technique & sense of timing, should be compared to technical wizards like Bill Evans & Roger Kellaway. Maybe it's the focus on harmony rather than playing changes that prompts the association? Anyway, I'd actually thought this would be one of the few identifiable tracks on the BFT!

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Finally got a clean disc yesterday after getting a defective earlier copy (thanks to Big Al for getting the replacement to me so quickly.)

Am mystified by most of what I've heard except for identifying a few song titles as has already been done. Love the version of "Solar" (track #13) but DK who it is other than hearing the apparent influences of Evans (this is taken at a much faster tempo than Bill would have done) and Corea.

Regarding #7, yes of course that's Bennie Wallace as has been id'd. The track's title is

"Blues Yamashita" from this

album (Have all of Bennie's stuff so this one wasn't difficult).

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Glad to hear you got the BFT at last...!

Good to hear there are plenty of other Wallace fans out there (plus a few Yamashita fans I hope....). Incidentally, continuing my generally unenthusiastic take on the AMG, note that aside from the perfunctory review by Wynn, the sequence of the album is completely wrong on that page. It's the opening track (unless it was resequenced on a later issue??).

Edited by Nate Dorward
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first of all many thanks to Nate for this compilation.

i can divide my opinion in 3 categories

no please!: tracks 1/2/4/6/10

just good: tracks 3/5/7/9/...........14

very very good: tracks 8/11/12/13

on the first spinning i was really shocked with track 14...god knows how i hate ABBA and admitting to myself that this horrendous tune was acceptable was very

very hard. ABBA made me suffer a lot when i was a kid :angry:

the only song that i have identified is Alone Together on track 8

track 5 would be very good without that long & weird introduction

nice BFT Nate!!

MArcus

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It seems most of you had more exposure to ABBA than I did (I guess they were mostly after my time). I have a vague idea of who they were from seeing TV ads, but I managed to avoid hearing them pretty easily. Fortunately, I can say that about a LOT of pop groups.

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Well, I'm listening to the bass player on #8 and the tune of #9 and still none the wiser. The tune that gets me, when we get to it, is #10. So familiar and yet maybe not in a jazz context. So could it be my miltary band days? - is it a "classical" derivation? It has been referred to as a "standard" but this seems doubtful to me if I understand the word correctly.

Instrumentation becomes clearer the more I listen but this doesn't help me identify anything. For instance, #3 sounded like a tenor sax at the beginning but then fairly clearly an alto later. Groups almost always sound bigger than they really are to me.

This BFT has kept me interested for some enjoyable hours - thanks again, Nate - and I'm looking forward to the answers with the usual eager anticipation.

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.....well, if you want to save yourself a little pain just look under marcoliv's name.

Sheesh, and here I was racking for some unknown Monk song ... of course, been flopping and scratching on this. ;)

Wonderful how just pulling that little tidbit of melody and unfolding it into what becomes an entirely new composition just shows that the root of this is DEEP.

Someone with real ears please elaborate on this. Slap!

Now back to #12, and yet more monk-ying around, that has me testing the chair springs.

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BFT#14 Compiled by Nate Dorward

Thanks Nate! I have played this numerous times over the last week or so. I do not know any of the tracks for certain, but there are definitely tracks whose album I'd like to have! I really don't have an excuse for being so late to the discussion...as usual I have not read any responses before making my own feeble attempts to guess...

1. Stuff Smith?

2. A complex two minutes here...fascinating transitions to unexpected sounds, really stretching the ideas. Is this Mal Waldron, who I haven't heard?

3. A beautiful song, would I be wrong to suggest this is a 'lament?' Anyway, absolutely great. When the sounds come together at 1:15 remaining I get goosebumps. Late Duke Ellington?

4. Eric Dolphy? A wild ride here, it grew on me after a few listens.

5. Gato Barbieri? Great stuff, really dig it.

6. Coleman Hawkins?

7. Far out, difficult to wrap my ears around this one. This is a busy composition with many ideas being worked out by all involved. The sax meanders playfully up and down over the rhythm section that milks the furious pace for all its worth. The sounds seem to avoid pattern as the song progresses. The pianist freely fires off his sporadic notes within that framework, showing off some positively insane chops. Not sure who this might be. Latter days Andrew Hill?

8. The perfect relief from the previous track, just what the doctor ordered. This is the kind of piano playing that brought my ears to jazz. Horace Silver?

9. John Klemmer?

10. Damn, that bass player laid down one mean groove for everybody, and everybody followed suit. Hard as a coffin nail, I feel tough just listening to this. The sax makes me think Gato Barbieri again.

11. I like the transitions on this disc. Amazing piano here, both hands are equally dexterous. Nice brushwork on the drums, I enjoy that somewhat 'breathing' sound so much. No guess.

12. Monk?

13. Herbie Hancock?

14. Kenny Burrell?

Again, thank you for the tastefully compiled disc Nate. It has gotten a ton of play time since its arrival. :tup

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Other than life interfering, I don't have much of an excuse either for my slowness.

Thanks to Nate; I was expecting a more "out" disc. Nevertheless, I can't say there were any standout discs, a few that appealed, a few that definitely did not, and even the ones that appealed didn't appeal to the level of being "gotta haves".

Without further ado, the appealing ones were #s 3, 6 and 8 and 9; highly unappealing were 4, 7 and 10.

But thanks again, Nate, I was expecting my ears to bleed several more times than they did. :rcry

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Yeah, I'd considered putting some of the nastier stuff on it (& I have some really nasty stuff around here, some of which is simply horrible & some of which is actually pretty wonderful if you're in the mood: e.g. the brutal Stephane Rives solo disc I got a few months back)..... but I couldn't see mixing the nice & the nasty stuff on a single disc, & I wanted to avoid a 2CD BFT (which would have been the 3rd such in a row). Maybe I'll sign up for BFT number 40 or whatever it's reached & next time round, no more Mr Nice Guy.... Actually my main regret is not including older things but my lack of an LP-to-CDR burning facility would have hampered that.

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In a perfect world I would have had the time to listen to this interesting compilation several times to really let the music sink it. Unfortunately, I do not live in a perfect world and I only had a chance to listen to most of the music on the disc twice. Following are my thoughts written as I listened to the disc the second time while home alone and sitting on my couch.

1. Brings to mind European improvisers like Gianluigi Trovesi. The playing is not blues based. Interesting, but not something that is grabbing me initially.

2. Solo piano. I hear hints of a bebop tune in there. The pianist has strong technique. This is a slightly schizophrenic piece.

3. Starts off as a piano sax duet, but the bowed bass comes in a little later. This track is not a bout a flashy display of technique. Instead, it’s about conveying a felling. It’s a nice tune, but it also did not generate much of a reaction.

4. In the beginning I like the groove and the interaction between the lead sax and the rest of the horns. The way the horns are arranged is both benefit and drawback. During the first sax solo they diverted my attention away from the main soloist.

5. The opening did not do a lot for me, but once it settled into the groove I liked this tune a lot. Very good trumpet solo.

6. Piano/sax duet. Very nice conversation, but would have enjoyed it more if they played at the same time more often.

7. More extroverted Monk sounding tune. Tenor sounds a little like Bennie Wallace in his/her tone and intervals played. I like the pianist’s comping underneath tenor solo. A real foot tapper compared to much of what precedes it. Piano stays right there with the tenor while bas and drums keep it swinging. I like the pianist. Sounds like someone slightly influenced by Don Pullen. He/se can take it out, but remains accessible. Favorite track thus far.

8. Very Sympathetic piano/bass duet playing a standard tune. Sound is a little funny. Almost sounds like pianist and bass player are not together. Charlie Haden?

9. By agreement with Nate I will not comment on this track since I included this exact track on a blindfold test compilation I did for another BBS last month. All I will say is that I love this track and the entire disc.

10. I did not like this saxophonist’s sound too much. The tune was played with a lot of energy and passion, but somewhat ragged. Makes me think a little of David S. Ware, but less abrasive.

11. Nice piano trio work. The pianist has a lot of ideas and the bass and drums give just the right support to let him go. Next to tracks 7 & 9, one of my favorites thus far.

12. I am almost certain that I have this recording and if I think about it will come to me. I think it is one of the Rodney Kendrick recordings. He is a favorite of mine who seems to have fallen off the earth. Great stuff!

By now my wife two kids and niece and nephew have returned home from the movies and any hopes I have of an attentive listen have gone out the same door they came in.

13. Another enjoyable piano trio, but nothing particularly remarkable.

14. I like this guitar trio.

Thanks Nate. Overall this was a very enjoyable compilation overall.

Edited by relyles
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