VIDEO: Down Beat 1975 poll-winners' show

[medjuck]

Anyone want to elaborate about the "fun" of 70s jazz? I stopped buying many contemporary records after Trane died and Miles went electric. Most of my purchases in the 70s were of records made before I was born (exceptions being new works by Mingus, Gil Evans and of course Ellington). So I'm curious as to what I missed out on.

Nothing. Nothing at all. People started dieing and using electric instruments and messing around outside the lines, shit like that. It was a mess. You were right to ignore it all.

Sorry: this was a serious question. I'm looking over my collection and don't see much from the 70s. I wasn't disagreeing with anyone but admitting to a lack of knowledge. Thought someone would make some recommendations. The trouble with the internet is that people can presume you're being sarcastic when you're sincere. There should be an emoticon that signifies "100% no irony".

During the 70s I did see a couple of great Mingus shows with Don Pullen and George Adams and a couple of Anthony Braxton performances (including a great solo concert) but I tend to think of them as hold overs from the 60s. Ditto with Frank Zappa who I saw several times during the decade. In fact I think I heard a lot more live rock than jazz at that time though I still bought mainly jazz records. I think most of the jazz musicians I did see live tended to be older musicians.

I never did see Sonny Rollins in that period though I caught him a couple of time in the 60s and 80s.

So what did come to the fore in the 70s that I should check out?

[clifford_thornton]

I mean, there's really so much there that one would have to know your tastes like you do to make recommendations.

I have a soft spot for free jazz and "improvised music," and there was a lot of really fascinating shit going on in a diverse, worldwide arena just dealing with the "outside." Some of this was by musicians who came up a little earlier, in the '60s, while a lot of it was from cats who really broke onto the scene later.

Of course, without Coltrane alive, things really busted open (in both positive and negative ways) for American saxophonists.

I mean, part of it is that things blew up in the '60s, musically, so people spent the '70s putting it back together in some really interesting ways. (I might be paraphrasing Steve Lacy, Burton Greene or Kent Carter there)

So, not knowing really what you like, I'll just suggest a few of the myrad people/bands that I like who were active in the '70s:

Steve Lacy

Frank Wright/Noah Howard

SUN RA

The Jazz Composers' Orchestra series of LPs (Grachan Moncur III, Clifford Thornton, Roswell Rudd, Don Cherry [tho the 1st of the series was cut in '68])

Loft dudes: Frank Lowe, Charles Tyler, Baikaida Carroll, The Revolutionary Ensemble, Charles Brackeen, etc.

The World Saxophone Quartet (and the bands of the participants: David Murray, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake, Hamiet Bluiett)

The Art Ensemble of Chicago (and the bands of the participants, esp. Roscoe Mitchell and Lester Bowie)

ANTHONY BRAXTON!!! (+ Muhal, Threadgill, Leo Smith, other AACM figures)

Pharoah Sanders, McCoy Tyner, Alice Coltrane and that crew

John Surman - esp. The Trio w/ records on Dawn, Ogun, JG...

Keith Tippett

Derek Bailey, John Stevens/SME, Evan Parker, Tony Oxley, the Bead Records scene

Graham Collier/Harry Beckett

Peter Brotzmann + the FMP scene

Willem Breuker; the Instant Composers' Pool (tho I think the best Dutch jazz is from the late '60s)

Albert Mangelsdorff

Johnny Dyani

Chris McGregor and The Brotherhood of Breath (and participants with recordings on Ogun and Cadillac)

The Soft Machine (+ recs by Elton Dean and Hugh Hopper)

Don Cherry, Ornette, Cecil Taylor (had a really hot band in the latter part of the decade w/ Lyons, Sirone, Ramsey Ameen and Shannon Jackson)

Eje Thelin, Joachim Kuhn, Rolf Kuhn and the "free fusion" scene

The Norwegians: Terje Rypdal, Jan Garbarek, Arild Andersen, etc.

Japan: Yosuke Yamashita, Masahiko Sato, Masahiko Togashi, and "out" cats like Kaoru Abe, Mototeru Takagi, Masayuki Takayanagi, etc.

Edited March 23, 2008 by clifford_thornton

[JSngry]

Excellent recs there from CT!

Plus, if you like straight-ahead, there were labels like Muse, Xanadu, Steeplechase, Galaxy, several more, all putting out quality releases. You also had Woody Shaw, McCoy Tyner, Music Inc. and who all else carrying the "progressive inside" thing along, Joe Henderson on Milestone...Nessa Records, every album a gem....etc.

Getting into more "production-oriented" stuff, the early CTI albums by Hubert Laws, Freddie Hubbard, Milt Jackson, Stanley Turrentine, George Benson, etc. all contained a lot of top-shelf playing ensconced in "listener-friendly" environs. And Columbia did plenty of crap, but also some pretty good things along those lines, like the first two Heath Brothers albums, and some Cedar Walton "fusion" albums that were actually composed of his typically challenging compositions, just "re-grooved". People got/get kinda bugged about the "slickness", but otoh, plenty of people were buying those records and enjoying them, and it gave some fine players careers, not just gigs.

Fusion? Ended up ugly, but early on, plenty of exciting, challenging music. You know the names, look up the numbers.

Funk-jazz evolved from the Bob Porter Prestige to more along the Roy Ayers, etc. semi-disco stuff, usually at a loss, but not always. But you gotta really want to go there to got there, if you know what I mean. But the slink lived on, as it does today. the slink refuses to die, and as a point of fact cannot be killed!

There was plenty happening, and no, not all of it was good, and what I mention above is only part of the overall picture. My point about "fun" is that there was plenty of stuff happening, there were markets for it, and if you got a bug up your ass to do something kinda off-the-wall in terms of "combining ingredients", it was OK. Somebody was gonna listen.

In fact, when Wynton first came out talking smack and "calling everybody back home", it actually seemed like maybe not too bad an idea, since there were so many different possibilities that it too often seemed like diffusion was going on. A little bit into that, though, and many folks began to realize that going forward sometimes means jumping blindly into the unknown, and if it's "safety" you want, hey, cling to the tradition (and vice-versa). But by then it was too late to really do anything about it on an industry-wide scale. And now...El tiempo lo dira.

But, I mean, if you were around then, into jazz, and heard this stuff (and maybe you could avoid hearing it, but seems like you'd almost have to try not to...), and it didn't make an impression, then, maybe it's not for you. Also, people complained about the music becoming more of a business than a music, and, yeah, ok. But the music's always had a business attached to it, and without the business, who gets to hear the music? So as the society changed, the business changed, and the pressure was for the music to do so as well, for obvious reasons. Which did lead to some awkward and tense events. But the alternative would have been for all of it to slip away further and further into the background, which is what has been happening ever since we lost that "middle ground" of enough good players making enough listener-friendly records to create a commercially viable "midpoint" of the aesthetic spectrum. Now, it's either one side or the other, and guess where all the audience is?

So yeah, messy decade, messy business, plenty of messy music and musical choices being made. But in spite of all that, an alive decade, full of vibrancy, energy, and the spirit of moving ahead, whatever that meant to any one individual.

That's how I remember it anyway.

[clifford_thornton]

Yeah, I never got too into the CTI/Columbia "fusion" sides upon hearing them (albeit much, much farther after the fact).

That said, the version of "Spain" posted here is really solid, well-executed and fun to listen to. Ya gotta tip yr hat to cats who were finding their "thing" and doing it well, even if the results aren't always your cup of tea.

[clifford_thornton]

You mention the Wynton thing, which is just one of the tacks that's got me more curious in investigating the scene(s) of the '80s, jazz-wise.

I'm a child of that decade, and my jazz listening seems to leave out that decade, concentrating either on '60s/'70s or '90s-now. Thing is, I dig a lot of rock that was going on in the '80s - punk/post-punk, no wave, that sorta shit - so it looks like my next step is to hit more of the jazz from that period. The Cadence, Nessa, and Silkheart trees seem to be good for barking up on solid jazz/improv from the '80s, but recommendations are always welcome!

[medjuck]

I mean, there's really so much there that one would have to know your tastes like you do to make recommendations.

I have a soft spot for free jazz and "improvised music," and there was a lot of really fascinating shit going on in a diverse, worldwide arena just dealing with the "outside." Some of this was by musicians who came up a little earlier, in the '60s, while a lot of it was from cats who really broke onto the scene later.

Of course, without Coltrane alive, things really busted open (in both positive and negative ways) for American saxophonists.

I mean, part of it is that things blew up in the '60s, musically, so people spent the '70s putting it back together in some really interesting ways. (I might be paraphrasing Steve Lacy, Burton Greene or Kent Carter there)

So, not knowing really what you like, I'll just suggest a few of the myrad people/bands that I like who were active in the '70s:

Steve Lacy

Frank Wright/Noah Howard

SUN RA

The Jazz Composers' Orchestra series of LPs (Grachan Moncur III, Clifford Thornton, Roswell Rudd, Don Cherry [tho the 1st of the series was cut in '68])

Loft dudes: Frank Lowe, Charles Tyler, Baikaida Carroll, The Revolutionary Ensemble, Charles Brackeen, etc.

The World Saxophone Quartet (and the bands of the participants: David Murray, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake, Hamiet Bluiett)

The Art Ensemble of Chicago (and the bands of the participants, esp. Roscoe Mitchell and Lester Bowie)

ANTHONY BRAXTON!!! (+ Muhal, Threadgill, Leo Smith, other AACM figures)

Pharoah Sanders, McCoy Tyner, Alice Coltrane and that crew

John Surman - esp. The Trio w/ records on Dawn, Ogun, JG...

Keith Tippett

Derek Bailey, John Stevens/SME, Evan Parker, Tony Oxley, the Bead Records scene

Graham Collier/Harry Beckett

Peter Brotzmann + the FMP scene

Willem Breuker; the Instant Composers' Pool (tho I think the best Dutch jazz is from the late '60s)

Albert Mangelsdorff

Johnny Dyani

Chris McGregor and The Brotherhood of Breath (and participants with recordings on Ogun and Cadillac)

The Soft Machine (+ recs by Elton Dean and Hugh Hopper)

Don Cherry, Ornette, Cecil Taylor (had a really hot band in the latter part of the decade w/ Lyons, Sirone, Ramsey Ameen and Shannon Jackson)

Eje Thelin, Joachim Kuhn, Rolf Kuhn and the "free fusion" scene

The Norwegians: Terje Rypdal, Jan Garbarek, Arild Andersen, etc.

Japan: Yosuke Yamashita, Masahiko Sato, Masahiko Togashi, and "out" cats like Kaoru Abe, Mototeru Takagi, Masayuki Takayanagi, etc.

Well I did see Manglesdorf, Roscoe Mitchell and Cecil Taylor (a couple of times, once right after being at a Steve Reich concert: making for a great weekend of music), but I guess I think of them as being from the 60s.) But I never did get into fusion. Saw the Mahvishnu Orchestra open for Zappa but didn't much care for them. I do like William Breuker but only have a couple of cds. (And I would definitely describe them as "fun".) I forgot that Conference of the Birds is from the 70s. I probably did hear CTI records on the radio but never really cared for any of them.

During the 60s I managed to see Ellington, Miles, Trane, Art Farmer, Woody Herman, Frank Strozier, Earl Hines, Cannonball, Dizzy, Jackie McLean, Sun Ra, Art Blakey, Monk, Oscar Peterson, Brubeck, MJQ, Sonny Rollins, WEs Montgomery, Roland Kirk-- the list goes on. I don't think I heard many people in the 70s who excited me the same way.

To some extent I think it has to do with age: The golden age of any art is always when you're young. Hence most film crtics think the 70s were the golden age of cinema whereas I know it was the 60s. (Can't find the proper emoticon to insert here.)

[clifford_thornton]

Well, I was born in 1977 and didn't really start "hearing" things until the 1990s. That said, much of the music I was exposed to at that time - live or on record - has not worn quite as well for me as that from other times, which I never got to experience when it was "fresh." I've never quite understood why it's been like that for me.

Though I think what's important pretty much everywhere is being able to find the good and the intent in a lot of things and if you can get that spirit, that's 99% of it right there.

(Shit, I'm starting to sound like JS here!)

[analogak]

yes i was shitting diapers in the late 70s so i wasn't there so my opinion means little but i still do not understand duck's question...

as i sat here working today i listened to hadley caliman's "iapetus", bennie mapuin's "jewel in the lotus", reuben wilson's "cisco kid" and "sweet life", michael howell's "listen to the silence". and robin kenyatta's "nomusa". pretty much i think these are all albums of their time in the sense some of them are spiritual, some of them use electric instruments, some of them use the popular musics and songs of the time as material and inspiration. but i can't really imagine any of these albums being made any other decade but the 70s.

[clifford_thornton]

Well, some of us on the board may still be shitting diapers...

[AndrewHill]

Been gone for over a week and when I came back today, I was pleasantly surprised to see that JSngry is still posting these excellent articles and videos Keep'em comin'!

Thanks for the interesting discussion that has ensued as well. Really, really dug the RRK clip! That tux and top hat that he's sportin' is just badazz. Wouldn't be adding anything new that hasn't been discussed already, but again, I really enjoyed reading this.

[Guest Bill Barton]

Hoo boy! I was late to the party on this one. Busy, busy, busy...

There's some seriously hot Rah on here. Many, many thanks for linking to these, JSngry!!!!!

The quality of the video is also very good and gives us a chance to see Rah's technique up close. Very, very cool.

Pedal Up indeed