Neo-bop / Young Lions records that you still listen to

[Rabshakeh]

Whilst this may not be jazz's greatest era, I find it frustrating the way that so much jazz music since 1982 gets collectively forgotten (or "memory holed" to use the internet term).

Jazz didn't stop developing in this time - even these Young Lion records aren't just recreations of the past - and there've always been good records released.

It feels like stuff gets released, people get excited by it, and then it just gets forgotten. Not so much because it's not excellent, but just because everything after 1982 seems to be regarded as ephemeral, and, whilst there were clear leaders, groups and trends, they don't get names or recognition.

It is so much harder to find out about good records in the last four decades except for the ones that have just been released.

It seems crazy that groups and records like the Pullen / Freeman quartet or Ralph Peterson's Fo'tet, aren't well known, just because they fall on the wrong side of a really arbitrary date line. I started listening to jazz only a few years after these groups were operational and the result was that they were already largely forgotten and it took me decades of listening to even hear about these groups. (I only learned about the Fo'tet here.)

Maybe this will change - 20 years ago jazz history seemed to have ended in 1970. In the past few years the 1970s has been fully rediscovered and jazz from that era is now prized. 

[danasgoodstuff]

On 12/31/2020 at 4:12 AM, Big Beat Steve said:

Not wanting to get deeper into the Young Lions or Neo-Bop aspect (due to insufficient personal exposure) but as for these "musical developments", that's something I am rather wary of.
Are these "deveopments" a one-way street one HAS to walk, or aren't they rather ONE BRANCH of various different developments that you can decide to follow or not (or choose which of these you want to follow)?
Personally I still feel (just like with earlier "developments") that this is not a linear, one-way thing but a matter of branching out in an increasing number of different directions that you can explore or not, take up or discard (ignore). As with all other musics, it is a matter of what you like and not a matter of what you MUST go along with (in the - very relative - name of "progress"? - to the exclusion of what developments had their origins in earlier periods?). Some developments are more radical than others but is this to say that only the most radical ones are the legitimate ones and everything else automatically is "moldy fig-ish"? IMO there is a wealth of nuances in between that may be much more satisfactory to many (based - again - on personal musical preferences which is all that this all about anyway).

 

Yes.  Or no.  Depending.

[Late]

These are the albums I've held on to from this period. They still hold up.

This last album more so for the sidemen. Pianists are Kenny Kirkland, Herbie Hancock, and Larry Willis. Kirkland's ballad "Dienda" is a gorgeous composition.

[Rabshakeh]

I like those OTBs. Kenny Garrett being an obvious reason.

I think that Blanchard has been poorly served by being portrayed as the second step after the Brothers Marsalisov. Thanks for posting these records as I'd like to investigate more.

[John L]

Some good records were made, no doubt.   With time, it will become clearer which ones will endure.   

The funny thing is, I think that a lot of us wanted to like some of these records a lot more than we were eventually able to.   The lesson might be this - as much as we might miss the classic jazz of the past, turning back the clock is a risky proposition.   You can't erase history.   You can play the old stuff, but it is damn hard to compete with it on its own terms. 

[HutchFan]

On 3/14/2022 at 10:31 AM, Rabshakeh said:

Whilst this may not be jazz's greatest era, I find it frustrating the way that so much jazz music since 1982 gets collectively forgotten (or "memory holed" to use the internet term).

Jazz didn't stop developing in this time - even these Young Lion records aren't just recreations of the past - and there've always been good records released.

It feels like stuff gets released, people get excited by it, and then it just gets forgotten. Not so much because it's not excellent, but just because everything after 1982 seems to be regarded as ephemeral, and, whilst there were clear leaders, groups and trends, they don't get names or recognition.

It is so much harder to find out about good records in the last four decades except for the ones that have just been released.

It seems crazy that groups and records like the Pullen / Freeman quartet or Ralph Peterson's Fo'tet, aren't well known, just because they fall on the wrong side of a really arbitrary date line.

Totally agree with all you're stating here.

It's almost as if history has stopped.  The distant past is dissected ad nauseum, but the more recent past is ignored.  It's strange.

But why has history stopped?  I think some of this has to do with the incredible diversity of music that now falls under the term "Jazz."  In reality, Jazz is no longer one thing; it's a whole constellation of different things, various sub-genres, that are only connected via their shared history (and our imaginations). ... Of course, there has always been divisions in jazz -- think about the "moldy figs" vs. the modernists.  But beginning in the 1970s, there was an explosive divergence -- with jazz heading off in myriad and (some would say) contradictory directions.  And it's still true today.  This "Jazz Genres" wikipedia page lists nearly 50 (!) sub-genres, and I'd be willing to bet that we could all come up with many more.

So how do we make sense of it all?  It's a challenge to come up with any sort of over-arching theme -- because there isn't one.  Other than possibly, "Look at all this diversity."  [Or, you do what I've done with my blogs: Make a list.  Stop trying to tie it all together because there isn't any over-arching narrative anymore.  There's just a bunch stuff and you've got to wade through it in a "one-at-a-time" way, rather than trying to make sense of it with of a set of universally-applicable principles -- because there aren't any measuring sticks that work anymore, aside from "good" (to me)" or "the other kind" (to me).]

One other thing that I've observed in the midst of all this seeming incomprehensibility: What we might call middle-of-the-stream jazz -- stuff like the Pullen/Adams Quartet or Peterson's Fo'tet -- sometimes gets overlooked precisely because it's neither conservative enough for those who swim in more traditional, bop-oriented streams nor radical enough for those who swim in avant-leaning streams.  And that's ironic, because I think it's this stuff that has the most potential to pull in new listeners. 

 

On 3/14/2022 at 10:31 AM, Rabshakeh said:

Maybe this will change - 20 years ago jazz history seemed to have ended in 1970. In the past few years the 1970s has been fully rediscovered and jazz from that era is now prized. 

It will be very interesting to see whether the re-appraisal that has happened with 1970s jazz happens for 1980s jazz (and beyond). 

And, if some sort of re-appraisal does happen, what will the new narrative be? 

 

Edited March 15, 2022 by HutchFan

[JSngry]

The new narrative will be that it's everybody's music now!!!

[Rabshakeh]

Agree with all this. 

I think that there's diversity even in the earlier stages - the older narratives were largely created by ignoring it, but it was there. Certainly each era has certain themes, concerns and ideas that are discenerable, a recent musical history with which to grapple, and technological and social issues that are specific to it, but I think that narratives are only helpful for orientation. Even in prime narrative territory, how would one account for the Gigi Gryces, Ben Dixons, Buddy Collettes and all the others doing their own thing in a way that appears normal at the time but happens not to form the majority approach for the following cohort and it's dominant critical apparatus?

In general terms, I think that an approach that concentrates on themes might be better. I was impressed by Bill Shoemaker's book on 1970s Avant Garde jazz for precisely that reason. You can see themes in the period after the 1980s. Off the top of my head, you could point to: the bop revival; 80s funk and M base; the smooth/quiet storm, neo soul and various hip hop crossovers; the vanguard's rediscovering the Tradition; three generations of neo traditionalists and their gradual movement away from conservatism; the strange popularity of the AEC and WSQ; the growth of importance of institutions and festivals; the reissue era; the growth of importance of jazz education; Blue Note's retrospective domination; harmolodic funk; 90s free jazz revival; 90s swing revival (gag); older statesman groups like Motian's, Holland's, DeJohnette's or Jarrett's; ultra dry 1980s fusion; the Visionfest crowd in NY; the opportunities for larger statements in CD boxset era; the appearance of hard bop genre work like Eric Alexander; mopey po-faced piano music with Nirvana covers; ECM becoming a genre; jazz becoming cool again and then uncool again, twice; downtown stuff; Ken Burns and the influence of the Lincoln Center; etc. etc. None of it adds up to a narrative but there's enough there to hang your hat on.

I think the problem is partly down to the size of jazz's audience - which is too small to allow for knowledge to pass down between listeners - and a critical viewpoint, aided by institutional and market forces, that doesn't move past 1982 and so doesn't really educate about the intervening period. The result is that each generation of jazz lovers is into music up to 1970/1982 and then whatever happened to be happening at the time it was paying most attention.

As to the ongoing revival of interest in the 1970s, I don't see it as narrative driven so much as by an explosion of interest in those parts of the 70s bop and free jazz ecosystems that are now being dubbed "spiritual jazz", which has then overflowed to the rest of 1970s jazz. 

[HutchFan]

4 minutes ago, JSngry said:

The new narrative will be that it's everybody's music now!!!

Is that a new narrative?

I think you could make a strong argument that jazz became a global thing in the 1970s.

 

[JSngry]

That's not what I meant.

[HutchFan]

Just now, JSngry said:

That's not what I meant.

Care to elaborate?

 

[JSngry]

Not much...but privileged  stiffass middle school kids are being taught that this is their music. Like everything else is theirs. Stay in school, stay off the street, and play your jazz.

[HutchFan]

3 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Not much...but privileged  stiffass middle school kids are being taught that this is their music. Like everything else is theirs. Stay in school, stay off the street, and play your jazz.

If you're saying that it ain't gonna be what it was (and I think that you are), then I agree.  It won't be.

 

[JSngry]

It already isn't.

[HutchFan]

16 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

In general terms, I think that an approach that concentrates on themes might be better. I was impressed by Bill Shoemaker's book on 1970s Avant Garde jazz for precisely that reason. You can see themes in the period after the 1980s. Off the top of my head, you could point to: the bop revival; 80s funk and M base; the smooth/quiet storm, neo soul and various hip hop crossovers; the vanguard's rediscovering the Tradition; three generations of neo traditionalists and their gradual movement away from conservatism; the strange popularity of the AEC and WSQ; the growth of importance of institutions and festivals; the reissue era; the growth of importance of jazz education; Blue Note's retrospective domination; harmolodic funk; 90s free jazz revival; 90s swing revival (gag); older statesman groups like Motian's, Holland's, DeJohnette's or Jarrett's; ultra dry 1980s fusion; the Visionfest crowd in NY; the opportunities for larger statements in CD boxset era; the appearance of hard bop genre work like Eric Alexander; mopey po-faced piano music with Nirvana covers; ECM becoming a genre; jazz becoming cool again and then uncool again, twice; downtown stuff; Ken Burns and the influence of the Lincoln Center; etc. etc. None of it adds up to a narrative but there's enough there to hang your hat on.

You're right.  A thematic approach would work, even if it's squishy and imprecise.  ...  I still need to read Shoemaker's book. 

 

18 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

As to the ongoing revival of interest in the 1970s, I don't see it as narrative driven so much as by an explosion of interest in those parts of the 70s bop and free jazz ecosystems that are now being dubbed "spiritual jazz", which has then overflowed to the rest of 1970s jazz. 

That's an interesting thought.   I hadn't really thought about the reasons for the re-assessment.  I've just noticed that it was happening.   

 

2 minutes ago, JSngry said:

It already isn't.

But isn't this ALWAYS true?

 

[JSngry]

Nope.

[Teasing the Korean]

On 3/14/2022 at 10:31 AM, Rabshakeh said:

Whilst this may not be jazz's greatest era, I find it frustrating the way that so much jazz music since 1982 gets collectively forgotten (or "memory holed" to use the internet term).

Jazz didn't stop developing in this time - even these Young Lion records aren't just recreations of the past - and there've always been good records released.

It feels like stuff gets released, people get excited by it, and then it just gets forgotten. Not so much because it's not excellent, but just because everything after 1982 seems to be regarded as ephemeral, and, whilst there were clear leaders, groups and trends, they don't get names or recognition.

It is so much harder to find out about good records in the last four decades except for the ones that have just been released.

It seems crazy that groups and records like the Pullen / Freeman quartet or Ralph Peterson's Fo'tet, aren't well known, just because they fall on the wrong side of a really arbitrary date line. I started listening to jazz only a few years after these groups were operational and the result was that they were already largely forgotten and it took me decades of listening to even hear about these groups. (I only learned about the Fo'tet here.)

Maybe this will change - 20 years ago jazz history seemed to have ended in 1970. In the past few years the 1970s has been fully rediscovered and jazz from that era is now prized. 

Art forms have life spans, jut like artists. The cultural climate that was conducive to producing legendary jazz artists and albums no longer exists.  Jazz's biggest cultural splash since 1980 has occurred via sampling, and those are old jazz records getting sampled.

[Rabshakeh]

2 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Art forms have life spans, jut like artists. The cultural climate that was conducive to producing legendary jazz artists and albums no longer exists.  Jazz's biggest cultural splash since 1980 has occurred via sampling, and those are old jazz records getting sampled.

I’m not sure that any jazz has made a “cultural splash” since Sinatra and the Beatniks. 

I’m talking about in group recognition only. 

If we’re going by wider cultural recognition then the latest jazz is meaningful is surely the early 1960s. Certainly not Marsalis.

[Teasing the Korean]

6 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

I’m not sure that any jazz has made a “cultural splash” since Sinatra and the Beatniks. 

I’m talking about in group recognition only. 

If we’re going by wider cultural recognition then the latest jazz is meaningful is surely the early 1960s. Certainly not Marsalis.

I would say that jazz still had a certain amount of cultural relevance through at least part of the 70s.  Kids were getting stoned to Miles Davis, Playboy still had a jazz poll, and you could hear Ed Shaughnessy and Conte Condole every weeknight on US network TV.  People were still alive who remembered the big bands and even New Orleans jazz.   But jazz was finished by the 1980s, and Wynton and the so-called young lions were a symptom, not a cause. 

[HutchFan]

3 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

I would say that jazz still had a certain amount of cultural relevance through at least part of the 70s.  Kids were getting stoned to Miles Davis, Playboy still had a jazz poll, and you could hear Ed Shaughnessy and Conte Condole every weeknight on US network TV.  People were still alive who remembered the big bands and even New Orleans jazz.   But jazz was finished by the 1980s, and Wynton and the so-called young lions were a symptom, not a cause. 

TtK,

You've said this before, and I still disagree with you.

Jazz may have been finished by the 1980s from the perspective of its relevance to the culture at large -- and from the perspective of commerce.

But to imply that it's finished or irrelevant in every respect is absurd.  By that same logic, all sorts of artistic pursuits would "finished" by virtue of the fact that most people don't follow them or they aren't commercially impactful.  Dance? Dead!  Poetry?  Gone!  Art films?  Over!

Clearly, most of us on this forum don't listen to jazz because it's popular.  Even so, it's not "finished" for us.  Not in the least.

 

[Teasing the Korean]

3 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

TtK,

You've said this before, and I still disagree with you.

Jazz may have been finished by the 1980s from the perspective of its relevance to the culture at large -- and from the perspective of commerce.

But to imply that it's finished or irrelevant in every respect is absurd.  By that same logic, all sorts of artistic pursuits would "finished" by virtue of the fact that most people don't follow them or they aren't commercially impactful.  Dance? Dead!  Poetry?  Gone!  Art films?  Over!

Clearly, most of us on this forum don't listen to jazz because it's popular.  Even so, it's not "finished" for us.  Not in the least.

I don't disagree with what you wrote.  Please note that my words you quoted were written in response to: "It feels like stuff gets released, people get excited by it, and then it just gets forgotten."  If jazz from more recent decades does not have the staying power of jazz from older decades - within the jazz community - there may be a larger issue.  I am not being critical of the artists themselves.

[JSngry]

I am critical the culture at large, jazz and otherwise. It is not healthy, it is not aware, it is not anything except obsessed with one form or another of participation trophies, including those that are self-created.

[HutchFan]

1 hour ago, Teasing the Korean said:

I don't disagree with what you wrote.  Please note that my words you quoted were written in response to: "It feels like stuff gets released, people get excited by it, and then it just gets forgotten."  If jazz from more recent decades does not have the staying power of jazz from older decades - within the jazz community - there may be a larger issue.  I am not being critical of the artists themselves.

O.K.  Fair enough.

 

[Rabshakeh]

Rock music and "bands" have been dead for over a decade now, with a narrative that ended mid 90s at the latest. But the recent cultural revivals, temporary as they have been, have been of emo, 00s indie / sleaze and 00s pop. I'm not sure that these revivals are any more meaningful that a Blue Note coffee table book, jazz rap record or Gap advert, but it's telling that they're all from solidly outside the era of the rock narrative.

Regardless, jazz is obviously dead from a wider cultural perspective (well, maybe). It doesn't mean that people who continue to follow its development should not remember what has happened in its recent history. That point doesn't follow from the first. Reggae is much deader than jazz, but reggae fans aged 22 still know Scientist, Beenieman and Vybz Cartel and those names show up frequently on e.g. introductory listicles or guides to reggae. Jazz has no equivalent ingroup cultural memory in relation to the period between its wider popularity and the present.

[Rabshakeh]

13 hours ago, HutchFan said:

You're right.  A thematic approach would work, even if it's squishy and imprecise.  ...  I still need to read Shoemaker's book

I should add that in terms of acknowledging the diversity of jazz, there's really no one out there writing like our own @AllenLowe, although his books to my knowledge are all up to the 1950s.