Jim Alfredson Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 Our new CD goes to 11. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clifford_thornton Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 I give Empty Cage an 8. I mean, I don't even mention shit below a 7. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Bill Barton Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 Our new CD goes to 11. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AllenLowe Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 (edited) "just don't get why people have to be so jaded and negative" actually, Jim, the active involvement with this music, in the postive or negative sense, is the OPPOSITE of jaded - jaded would be to say, "oh, I've heard it all, I don't need to talk about it because I have heard it all and it's all the same and I know what I like and that's it and I won't even engage in arguments." We are not jaded if we are constatnly listening and searching - our lack of acceptance of what is handed to us by the mainstream defines the oppposite meaning of jaded - and there's nothing wrong with novelty for its own sake - sometimes it's a way out of the middle-class maze - as I once said about a musician, "fortunately he has more imagination than taste." Edited March 25, 2008 by AllenLowe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea...iendID=77704650 I don't know 'bout no "points", but this is some pretty parts-grabbing music, and that's really all I ask for at first, that some non-wallet part be grabbed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 Still terribly raw live, but...the potential is immense, I believe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Hawkins Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 (edited) Yeah, Jason is a phenomenal player. Plays in Louis Moholo's current band, which is absolutely killing. p.s. not really sure about that band though...great saxophone, but it seems a few years after the event, and those kind of synth-pads after the event are a bit...umm... Edited March 25, 2008 by Red Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 Yeah, Jason is a phenomenal player. Plays in Louis Moholo's current band, which is absolutely killing. Yeah, to think about the kinetic enrgy of broken-beat hooking up with really strong, fearless improvising, man...that's just got to happen... time for the music to get frisky again. All this "dignified" shit ain't doin' nobody no favors right now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejp626 Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 One thing I wonder is whether any of today's cats would have measured up had they been dropped into the 1950s. For at least some people (no one on this board of course) there is perhaps a fetishization of chronology. Bird and Diz and Monk did it first and best breaking away and moving jazz in a new direction (and actually I would have to agree with that). But there were a lot of people from that era who are given props mostly because they played in that era. Maybe if we swapped Phil Woods and Eric Alexander, or Louis Smith and Nicholas Payton... (Marcus Roberts for Oscar Peterson seems like a pretty even swap. ;-) ) Anyway, this itself is kind of a pointless exercise, but it leads me to my second point about Harold Bloom's Anxiety of Influence. I think a lot of today's players are in a huge bind, because they can't escape the past and some of them internalize it to the point that it does hamper their creativity. Either they move so far away from jazz's traditions that they lose their audience (who frankly do care more about Blue Note reissues than living artists) or they stay mainstream and get it from the critics who say they don't deserve to shine Monk's shoes. That's how I see it anyway. Nonetheless, I am glad that there are artists out there still making new music, making some attempts at keeping it fresh and sometimes even succeeding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
papsrus Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea...iendID=77704650 I don't know 'bout no "points", but this is some pretty parts-grabbing music, and that's really all I ask for at first, that some non-wallet part be grabbed. Howard Wiley. Very nice. (scribbles in notebook ....) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 Yeah, you know, shit don't have to be HEAVY to be meaningful. It's all a question of what you got vs what you put out. The "problem" I hear is a lot of cats putting out more than what they got, it's "manufactured", not birthed. Just because you play a lot don't mean that you say a lot... As far as playing "in the tradition" goes...what tradition? Whose tradition? If you're 25 or even 35 years old, the odds that you know the "jazz tradition" as anything other than a learned experience rather than an organic one are pretty slim. So why fake it? Why not use it as a part of who you are, along with many other parts? Oh, I know - because then you get folks dissing you and saying you're not "serious" and all that shit? Well, what difference does that make? Easy - it's essential if you want to have a career. The career-makers are looking for a certain "type", and people who don't pretend to be "all about JAZZ" don't get in. And there's a huge difference between being "about" something and actually being it. Take Chris Potter - for years, the guy's bored me to tears playing all this really badass SOMBER pseudo-passionate math. Impressive as hell, but no connection for me. But damn is he "serious" about his jazz. Then he comes up and says fuck all that, puts together a "fusion" type band without a bass player, and WHOA, this motherfucker all of a sudden sounds REAL, and not a little scary, in a good way. Do ya' think it might be because that new setting connects more directly to the world he lives in and grew up in than the other one, where you have to pretend that a bunch of things in the world of music and the world of the world kinda never happened or happened on the fringes? Ya' think? I say we all just let this "tradition" thing GO. Forget about it, and let peoples be who they will be without putting up these layers of "expectation". What I suspect we would find if we could do that would be more people who ultimately fit in with what the tradition means without necessarily fitting in with how it's supposed to sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Hawkins Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 Yeah, you know, shit don't have to be HEAVY to be meaningful. It's all a question of what you got vs what you put out. The "problem" I hear is a lot of cats putting out more than what they got, it's "manufactured", not birthed. Just because you play a lot don't mean that you say a lot... As far as playing "in the tradition" goes...what tradition? Whose tradition? If you're 25 or even 35 years old, the odds that you know the "jazz tradition" as anything other than a learned experience rather than an organic one are pretty slim. So why fake it? Why not use it as a part of who you are, along with many other parts? Oh, I know - because then you get folks dissing you and saying you're not "serious" and all that shit? Well, what difference does that make? Easy - it's essential if you want to have a career. The career-makers are looking for a certain "type", and people who don't pretend to be "all about JAZZ" don't get in. And there's a huge difference between being "about" something and actually being it. Take Chris Potter - for years, the guy's bored me to tears playing all this really badass SOMBER pseudo-passionate math. Impressive as hell, but no connection for me. But damn is he "serious" about his jazz. Then he comes up and says fuck all that, puts together a "fusion" type band without a bass player, and WHOA, this motherfucker all of a sudden sounds REAL, and not a little scary, in a good way. Do ya' think it might be because that new setting connects more directly to the world he lives in and grew up in than the other one, where you have to pretend that a bunch of things in the world of music and the world of the world kinda never happened or happened on the fringes? Ya' think? I say we all just let this "tradition" thing GO. Forget about it, and let peoples be who they will be without putting up these layers of "expectation". What I suspect we would find if we could do that would be more people who ultimately fit in with what the tradition means without necessarily fitting in with how it's supposed to sound. The Potter thing is simper than that...Craig Taborn is just ridiculously BAAAD... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Alfredson Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 Take Chris Potter - for years, the guy's bored me to tears playing all this really badass SOMBER pseudo-passionate math. Impressive as hell, but no connection for me. But damn is he "serious" about his jazz. Then he comes up and says fuck all that, puts together a "fusion" type band without a bass player, and WHOA, this motherfucker all of a sudden sounds REAL, and not a little scary, in a good way. ... waiting for clem to explode on Potter ... ejp626 has it nailed. We caught a lot of shit because we didn't have any standards on our first record. Why? So you'd know whether we can play standards? Why does that matter? Do you like the music we're playing now or not? It made no sense to me. Slight digression: One trend I've been observing the past 10 years or so is that it's suddenly hip to put together Miles "Bitches Brew" type bands and play recreations of that stuff. Now, there is a lot of unexplored territory there I think, so nothing wrong with the concept. I just think its funny that its now kind of accepted by the "serious" players to do that. Or maybe my perception is skewed. I agree on the Chris Potter stuff with Taborn on Rhodes. Cool shit! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Lark Ascending Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 (edited) The vast majority of listeners pay no attention whatsoever to where a performance or performer or recording sits in the grand hierarchy of things. The go out, usually after a hard day/week of work to enjoy themselves. Their response to Brad Mehldau, Joshua Redman, Chris Potter or whoever has nothing to do with where they sit in the tradition - it depends on if they are excited or moved by them. The analysing of music - be it musicological or historical analysis - is something quite separate. There's a rightful place for it, it matters, it's interesting. But I think the two get confused. We read about music in reviews where critics believe they are expected to do the latter when most readers are seeking guidance on the former. It's then all too easy for the ordinary listener to feel as if responding to music requires this sort of analysis. I can drop into a pub and hear a local North Nottinghamshire blues band playing a Muddy Waters tune they probably learnt off a John Mayall record. Should I sit with my notebook in hand tut-tutting at how derivative it all is? Or should I let go and just enjoy? The tenor of some of the posts earlier in this thread suggest the former. I'm afraid I do the latter. I come out of most concerts I attend completely duped by the forces of commerce; but I have a big smile on my face. Rather that than having the sharpest critical faculties in the universe and being perpetually miserable and judgmental. Edited March 25, 2008 by Bev Stapleton Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AllenLowe Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 (edited) the problem with what tradition has become, is that Marsalis, Crouch, et all have turned it into just another weapon to beat their enemies with - the key is understanding that history is important not because it's good for you, but because it's so damned complex and inter-related, and that to use history is to use it to one's own ends, not as a middle-class entitlement (sorta like a Great Books program for musicains; you Chicago guys will know what I'm talking about); in truth, the most interesting muscians I have known have almost always had some kind of historical consciousness, but they used it like a part of themselves, not like a how-to booklet of proper technique (think Ros Rudd, Hemphill, Jaki Byard, Marc Ribot, Matt Shipp) - same think with rockers like Bloomfield or Hendrix - the historical side becomes a natural part of the expression, deepens and broadens it, even for audiences who have no idea why it resonates to well- the other side of this is the a-historicism of so many people today; every week I listen to This American Life and I think, "these guys live in a weird a-historic vacuume; they have no idea half of this stuff has already been done." Not unlike some of the jazz musicians we are talking about - if you don't know history you may very well become just a clueless repeater pencil - Edited March 25, 2008 by AllenLowe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7/4 Posted March 25, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 I never knew Dutch oppression was an issue in this day and age. It's been a while since it's been an issue in the New York metro area. . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AllenLowe Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 and Bev, you are throwing out the baby with the bathwater - the key is the nature of that analysis, whether it has any life to it, rather than being a dead academic exercise - the great critics - my old friend Gilman, Larry kart, Eric Bentley, Larry Gushee, Lawrence Levine, et all, are always engaged with the thing they are analyzing as part of of a living and breathing day-to-day life force and not some abstract intellectual system. Don't blame them for the bad critical work that is done in the name of the academy - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlhoots Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 Some of you sound like you're being coerced into listening to certain artists. If you don't like 'em, ignore 'em. I like & listen to whoever sounds good to me. Stanley Crouch never forced me to buy a CD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WorldB3 Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 Problem wasn't the right word, hence the quotation marks. I just don't get why people have to be so jaded and negative. Or maybe it isn't that there aren't any more giants, but rather that they don't look (or sound) like the ones before. Just my humble opinion at this particular moment. Great Post Jim, I feel the anger towards these artists are totally misplaced. I also don’t write off a whole career because somebody put out a safe record when they were young and on a major label or had a off night and wasn’t able to connect to everybody in the audience. I have found all of the Trio records Mehldau has done to be emotional and intellectually rewarding that also inspire me to go practice. I can’t ask anything more from a piece of art or from an artist. While its not a 10 I give the record Redman did with Sam Yahel and Brian Blade last year called Truth and Beauty an 8.5. A dense and beautiful record in my opinion, it may not be Larry Young, Joe Henderson and Elvin Jones but its still a fresh and well played take on the Organ Trio format. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Lark Ascending Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 (edited) and Bev, you are throwing out the baby with the bathwater - the key is the nature of that analysis, whether it has any life to it, rather than being a dead academic exercise - the great critics - my old friend Gilman, Larry kart, Eric Bentley, Larry Gushee, Lawrence Levine, et all, are always engaged with the thing they are analyzing as part of of a living and breathing day-to-day life force and not some abstract intellectual system. Don't blame them for the bad critical work that is done in the name of the academy - I wasn't aware I threw anything out. I said there was a place for academic analysis - clearly it has benefits for society as a whole. And I'd fully expect academics to engage with real life. I've no quibble with academics - just academics who look down on those who lack their higher sensibilities. If a listener is really moved by music then they can add to the pleasure gained by reading what people who have studied have to say. But as with anything else, they should be read sceptically, particularly with regard to their ultimate judgements. Even the most cursory exploration of historiography reveals an endless run of scholars who, despite the most meticulous research and analysis, remain prisoners of their own time period, social class, political persuasion or personal prejudice. Which is what is happening in the more catty posts in this thread. I don't see much academic rigour - plenty of unsupported assertion. Edited March 25, 2008 by Bev Stapleton Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WorldB3 Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 (edited) Yeah, you know, shit don't have to be HEAVY to be meaningful. It's all a question of what you got vs what you put out. The "problem" I hear is a lot of cats putting out more than what they got, it's "manufactured", not birthed. Just because you play a lot don't mean that you say a lot... As far as playing "in the tradition" goes...what tradition? Whose tradition? If you're 25 or even 35 years old, the odds that you know the "jazz tradition" as anything other than a learned experience rather than an organic one are pretty slim. So why fake it? Why not use it as a part of who you are, along with many other parts? Oh, I know - because then you get folks dissing you and saying you're not "serious" and all that shit? Well, what difference does that make? Easy - it's essential if you want to have a career. The career-makers are looking for a certain "type", and people who don't pretend to be "all about JAZZ" don't get in. And there's a huge difference between being "about" something and actually being it. Take Chris Potter - for years, the guy's bored me to tears playing all this really badass SOMBER pseudo-passionate math. Impressive as hell, but no connection for me. But damn is he "serious" about his jazz. Then he comes up and says fuck all that, puts together a "fusion" type band without a bass player, and WHOA, this motherfucker all of a sudden sounds REAL, and not a little scary, in a good way. Do ya' think it might be because that new setting connects more directly to the world he lives in and grew up in than the other one, where you have to pretend that a bunch of things in the world of music and the world of the world kinda never happened or happened on the fringes? Ya' think? I say we all just let this "tradition" thing GO. Forget about it, and let peoples be who they will be without putting up these layers of "expectation". What I suspect we would find if we could do that would be more people who ultimately fit in with what the tradition means without necessarily fitting in with how it's supposed to sound. The Potter thing is simper than that...Craig Taborn is just ridiculously BAAAD... and so is Adam Rogers and Nate Smith. Those guys are scary good. Good take Jsgngry. think around Lift he was getting there but found what works on Follow The Red Line. I still love him with Dave Holland also. Edited March 25, 2008 by WorldB3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seeline Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 I haven't read every post here, but.... being prone to over-analysis myself, I'm more aware than I'd like to be that there is such a thing as too much of it (analysis, that is). One of the things that I love about playing is that the critical part of my brain gets switched off when I'm doing it, even when I'm practicing and (often) having to think about the various parts of a rhythm or rhythmic cycle. I used to write reviews, and found that I thought about the music so hard that i had difficulty actually writing about it. so I quit (for other reasons, too, though over-analysis is probably the chiefest). There really is no way to describe music adequately in words, so... Just my .02-worth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe G Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 there are reasons for that, ** NOT ** anyone's "fault" (you get to what you can when you can & I know Michigan well enough-- including a very pervy ex-wife who was heiress to an Upper Peninsula taffy fortune-- to know large parts of it are VOID, which is why some of the Michigan bands seemed too "silly" to some; little did they know, say, the Dutch oppression those kids were going against) but what was "known" & what WAS... You do come up with some gems! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom in RI Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 The most constructive thing in this thread, for me, was Sangery's link to Howard Wiley (although I find it a little amusing that he works in Lavay Smith's band who I enjoy personally but who would probably be excoriated for being too derivative here). Allen Lowe, nice Pres reference at the top of this page. Clementine, do you talk to people that way in person, if so, you must get into a lot of beefs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 Slight digression: One trend I've been observing the past 10 years or so is that it's suddenly hip to put together Miles "Bitches Brew" type bands and play recreations of that stuff. Now, there is a lot of unexplored territory there I think, so nothing wrong with the concept. I just think its funny that its now kind of accepted by the "serious" players to do that. Seems to me that the "revolt against Marsailisism" is taking the shape of Trying to Go Back To Where We Were Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted, which seems to me to be Anti-Marsailisim Marsailisism. Really not too sure how well that's gonna work out, but it does have the potential advantage of at least allowing for "intrusion", always a way for evolution to be encouraged rather than not. But still, retro-thinking is still retro-thinking, and... Which is why the Mark de Clive-Lowe stuff is working for me, in theory. That live clip is one thing, but the album is something else. It's like he's taken damn near every Spiritual Jazz record ever made and put them back together in a new way, turns it into a four-dimensional Strata-East Dance Record or something, the old de-/re-construction game, of course, but it works, it really works. Tell you what - I have a vision of a scene where a large, dark, hot room is filled with sweaty bodies of one giant beautifully indeterminate race/socio-economic group/marketing demographic all moving in interlockingly independent rhythms to the sound of a band that's got some live players and some DJs/drum-machinists, just a big steaming CAULDRON of electro-accoustic GUMBO (yeah, this one's for you, Daddy's Boy) throwing down some rhythmically/harmonically intricate grooves whilst horn players solo passionately and effectively at length in between verses sung by a singer who exhorts us to both free and raise our body and our mind and our soul, and at the end of the night everybody goes home to make love to their partner damn near intoxicated with the spirits of love, gratitude and groove. And not just once, but regularly. Now, wouldn't that be nice? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_forumlogo.png.a607ef20a6e0c299ab2aa6443aa1f32e.png)
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.