Hot Ptah

Continuing with my musings about the Down Beat Hall of Fame, jazz has no real Hall of Fame. It has an imaginary list in a small circulation magazine which has changed ownership, editors, and philosophy many times. . In contrast, I was surprised by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville. This is what jazz should have, and does not. If you have never been there, the Country Music Hall of Fame votes in a few new members a year. The inductees are given a brass plaque very much like the plaques for the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. Those plaques are displayed in a big room near the end of your tour of the museum. But that is not even the strength of the museum. There are a great many display cases with a lot of printed information and artifacts about the history of the music, in considerable detail. There are some amazing, unexpected artifacts and objects on display. There is a wall of album covers of gold records, which you could look at for a long time. There are intelligently curated special exhibits. When I was there, the special exhibit was about Bob Dylan's Nashville recordings in the 1960s and how they changed country music and Nashville. There is an education center for children. There are extensive library collections of documents which you can request access to. In short, it is a world class, top museum. I don't even like a lot of country music, and I was very impressed with it. Where is the equivalent jazz Hall of Fame and museum? Why is there no equivalent jazz Hall of Fame and museum? Oh wait, we have an imaginary list in a small magazine instead.

To me, this discussion actually touches on many issues of the past 45 years. I started reading Down Beat in 1975. For about ten years I read it cover to cover, several times, each issue. I went to my University library and read back issues, back into the 1950s, which is where the library's collection stopped. Voting in the Down Beat Readers Poll was a big deal to me. I remember around 1978 that a jazz loving friend of mine said that it was one of the highlights of his year, and I agreed. Who was voted into the Down Beat Hall of Fame seemed to matter. Musicians would bring it up in interviews. At the same time, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, jazz was much more popular than it is now, especially among young people, and there was more of a vibrant jazz community, and many places for jazz artists to play. A musician's credential such as being voted into the Down Beat Hall of Fame would be part of a venue's advertising for its jazz concert. It probably helped some jazz artists get gigs. As we all know, somewhere along the line, jazz became less popular, especially among the young, performance venues dwindled, gigs dried up, vibrant jazz communities shrunk, and Down Beat magazine and its Hall of Fame seemed to become much less important. I kept subscribing to Down Beat out of inertia until about five years ago. Now I would not consider buying an issue. Why do so? And who cares about their Hall of Fame? Not me. As Jim has pointed out, it is just an imaginary list kept by a small circulation magazine of questionable quality and credibility. It is a sad history, as I enter my 60s and look back at it.

Does anyone take the Down Beat Critics Poll seriously? I gave up on it literally decades ago. I do not have any reaction to any of the choices in the Down Beat Critics' Poll, because I have long thought that it was pretty much a joke.

This post makes an interesting point. There is Kamasi and his music. Then there is a different topic, jazz journalists’ reactions to his music. Are we discussing his music itself, or are we discussing journalists’ reactions to his music? From what I can tell, I am the only one who has posted on this thread who has actually listened to all of his albums many times.

I was thinking about this some more. Kamasi Washington is not mining an area of pop music in a cynical fashion. I am surprised that his music has gained any audience. What a lot of his music sounds like to me is an early 1970s Pharoah Sanders album with strings and a chorus added. Kamasi is not as good as Pharoah at playing the saxophone. Some of Kamasi’s sidemen are quite good though. in this era of dance-pop with electronic backgrounds, country/pop, and rap, it is NOT a commercialized move to resurrect the spiritual jazz of the early 1970s and add strings and choruses to it. in fact, I can hardly think of a less likely way to build an audience today. To me, Kamasi has had a very flukish lucky break, and there is no need to be mean to him or attack him. That is a very medium level price for a pop concert these days. I suspect that much of the audience will not be in the venue for Kamasi’s opening set, or that they will ignore it if they happen to be there.

Yes, to me. I have listened to all of Kamasi Washington's albums several times each. He is a good but not great saxophone player. His sidemen are better soloists, I think, and I like some of them very much. His art seems to include composing and arranging, more so than many saxophonists in jazz history.. Sometimes his arrangements are sparse, sometimes they involve strings and a chorus. My take on it is this. In some eras of jazz history, Kamasi Washington would have been viewed as a medium talent, but a credible talent. He would have been seen as an arranger as much as a saxophonist. He would have found an audience, which would have been of moderate size, and would not have offended anyone much. Some people would have really liked his music, others would have been largely indifferent. He is not a commercialized sell-out, or an offensive thief of others' ideas. To me, it is not Kamasi Washington's fault that there is not much newly released jazz today which resonates with any sort of wider public. It is not Kamasi's fault that his efforts are not in the middle of the pack of this month's new jazz releases (as they might have been in say, 1977), but are instead publicized in some circles as the new thing happening today. However, I think that we are overstating how popular he is. I think he is largely unknown in Kansas City, for example. (That is where I live). Kamasi Washington is not preventing any other jazz musicians from writing, performing and recording such compelling new music that it dwarfs Kamasi's new album. I like Jim Sangrey's statement: "What I don't get is the resentment disguised as outrage or whatever when somebody finds an audience, targets them, and then that audience responds. I don't get offended by parties to which I'm not invited, that's ok. You know, go to your own parties, have fun there" I think I am saying roughly the same thing. Also, after listening to all of Kamasi's albums several times, I am quite surprised that they found an audience today. His albums are not especially trendy as far as today's popular music goes. They do not fit in with any current pop music that I am aware of. It is a fluke that they gained some popularity. .

Track 1 is so interesting. It raises the question of what would it have been like if Miles Davis had recorded lyrical duets with his pianists. I have no idea who this is, but I like it very much. I have Track 6 in my collection. I have a few ideas and will do some exploring, which will be fun in and of itself.

La Scala is one of my favorite Jarrett albums.

http://wbgo.org/post/deep-dive-lewis-porter-considering-john-coltranes-lost-album-all-directions

To me, there are no filler tracks on this album. I have listened to it more than 100 times, often on headphones.

I ordered the Savory and Teddy Wilson box sets from Mosaic recently. I received them quickly, with no delivery problems whatsoever.

As soon as I heard the first few seconds of Track 8, I recognized it. This is from an LP I bought as soon as it came out in 1979. I played it very often at that time. It is George Adams, from his classic "Paradise Space Shuttle" album. The song is "City of Peace," I saw George live several times in those days, and just loved his playing. I still do.

This is a great Blindfold Test. 1. I did not know that Dawson played vibes! Surprising, and very interesting, especially how well he plays them. I saw Dawson live in Boston around 1980, in a small group which opened for Big Joe Turner. Needless to say he played no vibes that evening. 2. This is a ahock now that it is finally revealed. I was thinking hard about who was it playing in a Cecil Taylor style. It never occurred to me that it was Cecil himself! He was much more powerful and played more densely when I saw him live. Maybe he was trying to meet McPartand halfway. This strikes me as a much more successful collaboration than the album with Cecil Taylor and Mary Lou Williams. I saw McPartland live many times and she never hinted at this kind of playing. You fooled me completely, in a good way. 3. As I stated in my discussion of this track, I love it and had never heard of this album. I have already ordered the album on CD. 4. I thought I had heard most or all of what Dolphy recorded but I did not identify this one. Now that I know that it is Dolphy, with Richard Davis too, I am fascinated by this track. 6. I did not identify Dave Liebman or the composition. I should have been able to. I have not heard this yet and will now check it out. 8. I was not aware of this Phil Woods recording of Jobim. I like this track and will now listen to the entire album. 9. Jim McNeely! I liked this track a lot as I was listening. I have another large ensemble album by him but I think I like this better. I am going to have to listen to this entire album for sure. I think I will order it on CD. 10. I am not familiar with much of Dick Hyman. You really threw me a curve. I thought it might be a much later recording with a rock star layering keyboards and trying to sound jazzy. I was not aware of this kind of work by Hyman. 11. I really like Toshiko’s small group recordings. I have this one but did not identify her. 12. So this is the Phillip Johnston album that this great track comes from! I have this album on CD but have not played it in quite a while. I will have to remedy that later today. 14. Wow. This really fooled me. This is one of those classic Blindfold Test situations where the listener is not favorably impressed with some of his or her favorite musicians. I really did not like the backing trio when I heard this, and wondered if they were semi-skilled local musicians, perhaps from a small nation without much jazz tradition, where Ben had gone for a much needed gig late in his life. Instead, this is from much earlier, and with three master musicians who I have liked a lot in their other recordings! I don’t want to be ashamed of my honest reaction, but I am very surprised. 16. Toots is unmistakable to me so I recognized him right off. I was not aware of this album. Since I like to find good albums that Toots plays on, I am going to listen to this entire album. This is one of the best Blindfold Tests for me in a while! Thanks so much for putting it together and sharing it with us.

They tell me that I have run out of ideas as to who this could be.

Is the pianist on Track 2 better known as an inside player, a more mainstream player?

It does differ from Coltrane’s original. It was driving me crazy though because I could tell it was a pre-1965 Coltrane tune, so I started listening to Coltrane until I found the closest match.

Everything about this Track 3 is of interest to me. I have never heard of this album. I had never heard of bassist Kenny Napper and drummer Ronnie Stevenson, who I enjoy greatly on this track. I have not heard Paul Gonsalves play in this style. It is very interesting that he recorded a Coltrane composition in 1964. I have to get this album.

I think that Track 3 is “Village Blues,” from Paul Gonsalves’ album “Boom Jackie Boom Chick”.

Did John Coltrane record the song which is Track 3?

Now you have me listening to Tracks 2 and 3 repeatedly Is Ran Blake the pianist on Track 2? He sounds somewhat like this on a few tracks of solo piano in my collection. i have not been able to figure out the song title for Track 3 yet, but my efforts continue. With repeated listens, I have come to really enjoy and appreciate the bassist and drummer on Track 3.

I went through all of my Paul Gonsalves albums and cannot find Track 3. This is very mysterious. For a few seconds I thought I might have heard something that would help me identify the pianist on Track 2. There are some notes with the right hand, some higher pitched notes, played in a sort of wash of sound, which is a common device used by someone. But who? I can't place it yet!

Oh, Thom Keith's comments about Track 4 made me go back and listen, because I have liked most of what I have heard with Eric Dolphy on it. I think that this is indeed Eric Dolphy on clarinet. I am not familiar with this recording, and I thought that I had heard all, or nearly all, of his recordings.

Track 14 sounds like some later Ben Webster, after 1965. It sounds like he is playing with a pickup group, or perhaps a group assigned to play with him for a gig or festival. The drummer does not keep a steady groove, seems scattered in his approach. Ben is by far my favorite musician on this track. Track 16 is definitely Toots Thielemans on harmonica. The song is "The Peacocks" by Jimmy Rowles, which I became familiar with when I bought the Stan Getz-Jimmy Rowles collaboration album "The Peacocks" when it was first released in 1977. I had no idea which album this track came from, but it was easy to find online, knowing that it was Toots Thielemans playing on "The Peacocks."