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sgcim

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Posts posted by sgcim

  4. Fantasy Clearance Sale

    in Offering and Looking For...

    Posted

    Some good stuff there, and they're pretty honest about the 'product'. Read what they wrote about this chuck loeb cd'

    Creatively, Chuck Loeb has had his ups and downs over the years. Some of his albums have been disappointing, but other Loeb releases have been a lot more memorable. The self-produced Between 2 Worlds, it turns out, is among the veteran guitarist's more consistent efforts -- not to mention one of his more organic. Excessive production has been a problem for Loeb at times; having a great deal of production and programming is fine for electronica, new age, and hip-hop, but it can become quite an albatross in a medium such as improvisation-driven as jazz. Thankfully, Loeb doesn't overproduce on Between 2 Worlds, and his lyrical guitar playing has plenty of room to breathe this time. In terms of production, less is undeniably more on an album that emphasizes pop-jazz but also contains some straight-ahead post-bop. Between 2 Worlds, which was recorded in New York City and Berlin, Germany, tends to be commercial, although it is tastefully commercial. "360" and "Early Turns to Late," for example, fall into the easy listening category, but they have some substance and avoid becoming outright "elevator muzak"; the same goes for Brazilian-flavored items such as "Hiram," the title track, and Antonio Carlos Jobim's "S¢ Tinha de Ser Com Voc?" (which features singer Carmen Cuesta). Meanwhile, "Let's Play" and "The Great Hall" (as in Jim Hall) are straight-ahead post-bop, and this 65-minute CD moves into funky soul-jazz territory on "Mittens" and the boogaloo-ish "Let's Go" (both of which feature saxophonist Eric Marienthal, formerly of Chick Corea's Elektric Band). Between 2 Worlds isn't a remarkable album, but it is definitely a good, satisfying album -- and the fact that Loeb's guitar playing isn't suffocated by an unnecessary amount of production is obviously a plus. ~ Alex Henderson
    fantasy_clearance3b.png

  5. Frank Wess RIP

    in Artists

    Posted · Edited by sgcim

    Mark -- I re-read that review last night after I sent the post and discovered that it said the band played only one Wess piece and that that piece was arranged by Toshiko, not Wess. Whatever, my memory was that Wess's piece sounded very different from her own compositions (his a somewhat Strayhorn-esque and/or Dameron-like carpet of shifting colors rather than, as with Toshiko, something that sounded like it had been conceived for a two-horn frontline and then expanded). Later on I mentioned how I felt about Toshiko's writing by and large to a friend who is a talented veteran composer-arranger-bandleader-instrumentalist, and he agreed with me in detail (IIRC he said, citing examples, that her sense of how things "sound" vertically is often close to mechanical-random and that her sidemen often found the results frustrating). Finally, a day or two after that review ran I got a post-card from Bill Russo (hadn't met him at the time and somehow never would) saying "right on" or words to that effect.

    In any case, arguably self-serving stuff aside, all this came to mind because that was my first encounter with Wess' post-Basie writing, and it was a revelation.

    That's a complaint I hear about her writing -- that it works vertically but not horizontally, that is the chords are all voiced individually without concern for melodic voice leading within the inner parts. So, unlike say with Ellington, where every part is its own rewarding and sometimes independent melody, her inner parts lack melodic content; they just fill out the chord. This can be slippery analysis, depending on how much counterpoint you get going within the inner parts or how you use individual voices within the context of a harmonized sections. Thad's inner parts are more melodically oriented in some cases but in other cases they also just filling out the harmony. I understand the criticism but ultimately it doesn't bother me really because the other formal elements are so distinctive and there's a strong narrative flow in the charts -- "Quadrille Anyone," "Long Yellow Road," "Since Perry/Yet Another Tear," Transcience," "Strive for Jive," "Minamata," "Elegy." For me it's a unique, stimulating voice, a personalized take on the tradition with her Japanese heritage coming into play on certain works. My opinion, obviously.

    So, did Wess ever write full big band arrangements for other ensembles?

    I've been listening to the WKCR Frank Wess Memorial broadcast for almost 16 hours, and the only post-Basie big band charts that I've heard that Wess wrote were for Clark Terry's Bad Little Big Band back in the 70s.

    The sound quality and playing on the "Live At Buddy's Place" LP wasn't anything to write home about, so I can't comment about that,

    I'm listening to his flute playing this second with Basie, and it's pure heaven. :D

    I didn't like his tenor playing when he used all that fucking vibrato in his early days, but as soon as he lost that shit things got much better.

    The things with him and Frank Foster are the definition of great jazz!

    I saw The New York Jazz Quartet years ago and was bugged by Roland Hanna's whole concept, and based on the recordings they've been playing today, that feeling hasn't changed much.

    Thankfully they've been playing most of the Basie shit, and it don't get much better than that...

  8. Lou Reed Took the A Train

    in Artists

    Posted

    I bet Lou Reed dug Wynton Kelly and Red Garland. Then again, maybe not. I wonder what happened to that snotty music student.

    I saw Lou Reed at several jazz gigs I have attended over the years in NYC. More than once I saw him at a Sonny Rollins gig... and he was a very enthusiastic audience member as I recall.

    "Walk On the Wild Side" had some nice Tenor Sax and upright bass on it. Anyone know who the players were?

    John Cale is still around...

  10. Artists that many are into, but you just don't get. A confessional

    in Miscellaneous Music

    Posted

    I try not to go down that road anymore. You could hate everything you've heard a guy play, and then someone pulls out a record where the guy sounds fine.

    That happenned twice with Ornette this week.

    Instead of the free stuff he usually plays, they played stuff from his "free funk' period, and he was playing some nice things in the groove, with a tonal center that he was clearly creating out of.

    Then they played the thing he did in 59 with Shelly Manne, Percy Heath and Red Mitchell, and OC sounded like Eric Dolphy!

    Even Don Cherry sounded good!

    What is this world coming to? :bwallace:

  15. Progress in Jaki Byard Murder Investigation

    in Artists

    Posted

    I just got back from playing in a band with a guy who knew someone close to JB, and this guy believes it was a revenge thing that had nothing to do with JB.

    This is probably nothing new to some people here...

    i recently read a book called "Jazz And Death" written by an MD in 2002, that clinically describes the probable cause of death of various well-known jazz musicians.

    I don't remember if he mentioned JB.

  18. RIP Frank D'Rone

    in Artists

    Posted

    Yeah, it's pathetic to hear how some of these singers butcher that song, but Frank D'Rone, Ella, and Vic Damone sang the shit out of it, IMHO.

    Nancy Wilson has a version too, but I can't find it online.

  21. RIP Frank D'Rone

    in Artists

    Posted

    i never knew Chetsky did it. Good sax solo.

    Samantha Jones and Lena Horne show how to destroy a perfectly good song.

    The VD arrangement had some nice things in it, and at least he didn't destroy it like LH and SJ.

    You forgot this one:

  22. RIP Frank D'Rone

    in Artists

    Posted

    It was written for the movie "Fitzwilly" by John "Star Wars" Williams, that starred Dick Van Dyke and (I think) Julie Andrews.

    What do you expect those two white people to sing, "Make Me hominy grits"? :shrug[1]:

    Musically, it's pretty unusual- it starts on the iii minor chord with an 11th in the melody. Then it goes into the bV key which then go into a bunch of min7 chords completely out of the key. Evans even does a very hip 7#9 substitution towards the end.

    Bringing DH into it reminds me of the time I was playing an Italian wedding, and the sax player starts playing "Femina" like King Curtis.

    The drummer yells at him, "Where the fuck do you think we are- on "Soul Train"? :rofl:

  25. Stanley Crouch Parker biography reviewed

    in Artists

    Posted

    Also, on p. 353, a contribution from Wynton on Parker's use of the upper intervals of chords:

    "Louis Armstong, Coleman, Hawkins, Art Tatum and others [also] played on the upper intervals of chords. What Charlie Parker did has happened perhaps only once in Western music. After figuring out how to double the velocity of the shuffle rhythm, which no one before him had done, he heard his improvised melodies at high speed and was able to hear Tatumesque harmonies at that velocity on a single instrument! This can be heard in Chopin and Liszt, but they are considered light composers. Bird aspired to make melody on a heavyweight level....."

    "...double the velocity of the shuffle rhythm" -- what "shuffle rhythm"? I thought that shuffle rhythm was the compulsive doubled-up but arguably mechanical time feel popularized by the Jan Savitt band, not anything that had to do with Charlie Parker:

    And who the heck considers Chopin and Liszt to be "light composers"?

    I had to sit through an entire speech of WM's where he just mindlessly made comments like the one about Chopin and Liszt.

    I just started muttering curses out loud in disbelief. Even though the audience was composed of NYC Music and Art teachers, I don't think any of them understood what BS he was laying down. Between Crouch, Marsalis and Bloomberg, NYC has turned into a steaming pile of..... :bad:

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