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felser
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Posts posted by felser
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I'm going to get nailed here but, the popularity of the music og James Brown, given what it was, did as much to depreciate the young audience for jazz music, as did the british invasion.
I'll pound the first nail. Don't actually disagree with the statement, but that doesn't make his music any less important. Without JB and the British Invasion, Funk and Rock would never have become what they did in their golden eras, and we would be much the poorer for it.
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I'm really hoping that what we've seen with Trane (Fearless Leader plus two upcoming boxes) and Miles (Legendary Prestige Sessions, plus upcoming early Prestige box) will be just the tip of the iceberg in reconfiguring these box sets into smaller chunks, with better remastering and lower prices.
I'm sure it will be. It's the only business model that makes sense for them. Sonny Rollins and Monk can't be far behind. What are the two upcoming Trane boxes?
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clark terry killed Bobby Fuller
Clark Terry fought the law and Clark Terry won?
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Pi.
are squared? Say what? I'm also Greek challenged.
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Anita O'Day could still deliver. Somehow...
I thought O'Day sounded just awful on this set. And I love her Verves and earlier.
Should have emphasized Somehow...
But really thought Anita sounded better on this one than on her later discs. At least, not as embarassing!
I'm sure you're right then. I stopped listening many moons ago because I couldn't bear it any more.
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Up!
Because I found a few days ago a copy of 'Legacy Lives On II'.
Pleasant double CD with original material - recorded in 2000/2002 - by George Shearing, Cedar Walton's Eastern Rebellion, Anita O'Day with the Paul Smith Trio, Terry Gibbs, the Pillars of West Coast Jazz (Conte Candoli, Pete Christlieb, Pete Jolly, Jim DeJulio and Larence Marable) and Les McCann (with Oscar Brashear, George Bohanon, etc...).
Anita O'Day could still deliver. Somehow...
On Mack Avenue too and also produced by Stix Hooper.
Now will have to look for volume I!
I thought O'Day sounded just awful on this set. And I love her Verves and earlier.
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Whazz up with that Mosaic logo though anyway!
That was my first reaction as well. Is Mosaic entering the recording/production business?
yes.
The liner notes to the Tolliver Mosaic Select had indicated that it was the beginning of several joint projects between Mosaic and Strata-East. So I guess maybe Tolliver's contract is with Mosaic, reverse=leased to Blue Note, or whatever. Hopefully will also include some of the missing 70's Strata-East albums, though I know that's been discussed here before and Chuck says the Strata-East situation on a lot of the albums is so bad it will never get worked out. BTW, does anyone have an update on Clifford Jordan - In The World being reissued by a Japanese label (Canyon Pony or something like that) soon? And the other Strata-East sets I long for on CD, Sonny Fortune - Long Before Our Mothers Cried, Charles Sullivan - Genesis, Ron Burton - The Waterbearers, Shirley Scott - One for Me.
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roger and felsoiss-i did solar plexus as an AOW a while back...
Thanks all, I have ordered the twofers with the Jenkins/Marshall version of Nucleus. What was Nucleus like after they left?
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The internets!
Give details for the technologically semi-challenged. Where do I start?
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Well, Sangry's assessment is probably more fair (ie, that it is a team effort), but when I see post after post talking about the latest re-issue of 40+ year old recordings and posts asking whether they should go see live jazz (like the one asking whether to go see a group with Scott Kinsey in it... an amazing keyboardist doing new things with the music) it is just a bit disheartening.
It's taken 3 years for some people on here to get hip to Bill Heid and the guy is playing fairly traditional organ jazz.
I'm not trying to point fingers or single anybody out, but to me, the jazz of today should sound different than the jazz of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. Completely and radically different? Not necessarily. But what is the point of recording another standard for the 1000th time? Unless you're doing something to make it your own.
I'm not black, I wasn't born in 1928, I didn't grow up in 1930s Philadelphia, I didn't experience that era in time, so why should I sound like Jimmy Smith? Sure, I learned to play like him because he is the original master of the instrument and I love his music, but I sure hope that I'm developing my own voice and style on the instrument that comes from my experiences. And some listeners don't like that. They want to hear "The Sermon" for the 1000th time.
Jim,
How do we sort through it to know who in the new era is worth hearing, without buying a lot of $15-$20 CD's which sound like academic runthroughs or trip-hop wannabees? Are there trustworthy domestic labels the way Blue Note, Riverside, Prestige, and Contemporary were for our parents generation? I sure don't trust the "new" Blue Note or any of the majors, can't afford the imports. How do we avoid the hype of the "new breakthroughs" which foist the Modeski, Martin, and Wood's, etc. on us? How do we avoid the pure noise? What critical sources are trustworthy? I've bought a couple of large collections chock full of jazz promos from small labels and have spent the last several years working through them, finding dozens of new artists I like on labels like Origin and Sharp Nine, etc.
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also, Marcello, don't forget Blues For Dracula!
Great record - forgot about that one.
Also the Don Friedmans are excellent.
Forgot about Friedman. Going back to add 'Circle Waltz' to my list immediately.
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Ellington has greater popular name recognition now than he did 15 years ago?
Give Ken Burns most of the credit for that. Ellington and Armstrong were the two narrative threads which held his version of the story of jazz together, and the Ellington persona was so utterly compelling, you couldn't see it and help but want to know a lot more about Ellington the musician and Ellington the man. The series for what it did do was marvelous. Now if only Burns had also included the second half of the 20th century. How do you present 10 hours on the history of jazz and never mention Keith Jarrett once?
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Chick Corea - Return to Forever (my absolute favorite ECM)
Chick Corea/Gary Burton - Crystal Silence
Chick Corea - Piano Improvisations, Vol. 1 and 2
John Abercrombie - Timeless
Stanley Cowell - Illusiuon Suite
Ralph Towner - Solstice
Ralph Towner - Diary
Ralph Towner/Gary Burton - Matchbox
Keith Jarrett - Whisper Not
Mal Waldron - Free at Last
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Blue Mitchell did his greatest work on Riverside. Outstanding series of albums. Cannonball Adderley, Monk, Wes Montgomery, Bill Evans of course. Jimmy Heath did a nice series on Riverside. Couple of nice Clifford Jordan titles on Riverside. Three wonderful Art Blakey albums with IMHO the greatest Jazz Messengers lineup of all (Hubbard, Fuller, Shorter, Walton, Workman). My very favorite Riverside would have to be Blakey's 'Ugetsu' if it isn't Don Friedman - Circle Waltz. Friedman is amazing, and very overlooked/underrated. Frank Strozier did two nice titles on Jazzland. Wonderful Bobby Timmons titles, his best work. Johnny Griffin did his best work on Riverside. The George Russell's as mentioned Here's a list of maybe my favorite titles on the label:
Art Blakey - Ugetsu
Don Friedman - Circle Waltz
Bobby Timmons - This Here Is Bobby Timmons
Johnny Griffin - The Little Giant
Wes Montgomery - Incredible Jazz Guitar
Blue Mitchell - The Cup Bearers
Bill Evans - Everybody Digs Bill Evans
Thelonious Monk - Monk's Music
Cannonball Adderley - Them Dirty Blues
Cannonball Adderley - Jazz Workshop Revisit
late edit: replaced Frank Strozier - March of the Siamese Children with Don Friedman - Circle Waltz, which has to be on the list.
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With my backlog they are not terribly urgent listening at this time.
Our backlogs would make an interesting string some time. I have a huge one due to a couple of collections I bought.
I feel your pain.
I didn't say I could afford them. I just said I bought them. Hence the huge trade/sale list.
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Two albums where he blows the roof off the sucker are "Citizen Tain" by drummer Jeff Watts and "Lush Life" by Joe Henderson. I've played both albums for people who claim not to like Wynton, and they are always very favorably impressed. They'll usually say something like, "I didn't know he could play like that."
I'd add his appearance on Chico Freeman's Destiny's Dance to that list. (Hard to imagine him keeping that kind of company these days)
When I interviewed Wynton in April, 1982, he said that "Destiny's Dance" was a very poor experience for him because Chico Freeman did not know the changes to his own songs, and that he would not be getting involved in any projects with musicians like that again.
What a douche bag.
He meant, I won't play anymore with musicians who have more talent and personality than I do.
Actually, to me, Freeman is a bigger waste of talent than even Wynton is (better pretension than ill-conceived, weird semi-sellout), though Wynton created the marketing atmosphere which destroyed Freeman. Some of Freeman's early playing, especially with Cecil McBee (under both Freeman's name and McBee's name), was truly marvelous.
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With my backlog they are not terribly urgent listening at this time.
Our backlogs would make an interesting string some time. I have a huge one due to a couple of collections I bought.
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Wynton's music has been a basic downward slope for me. I loved his playing with Blakey when Watson was the musical director. The repertoire became museumish when Watson left. I liked the early Wynton jazz CD's (except 'Hot House Flowers', the one with strings) and loved 'Live at Blues Alley', which I still consider his masterpiece. The early CD's include the 'Soul Gestures in Southern Blue' series, which were recorded before 'Majesty of the Blues' but released afterwards) The drastic changeover in conception with 'Majesty of the Blues' was depressing in it's pretensiousness, and I have found 90% of his jazz CD's since then to be utterly boring. The ones I like are 'Blue Interlude', 'Citi Movements', and the Vanguard set. I haven't even heard his Blue Note CD's. His classical stuff is irrelevant to my musical interests, so I can't discuss that with any degree of intelligence. I did love him in the Ken Burns Jazz series - I thought he was the star of that series the way that Bob Costas was the star of the Baseball series.
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also the song hazard profile is the same as song for the bearded lady which nucleus did on both live and studio albums and might be interesting to check out for people like felser as both marshall and jenkins were in nucleus at the time.
can you point me towards some specific Nucleus albums to check out with Marshall and Jenkins on them? Thanks for the tip. I know who Nucleus is, but haven't really heard them much.
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I was somewhat disappointed with 5 in comparison to 3 and 4 which is probably why I've avoided 6. But perhaps it's time for me to re-evaluate 5.
I also always found 5 a disappointment (except for "All White"), much prefer 6 to 5.
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I still like 7 - actually, a bit more than Bundles,
but yes, there's not much challenge there - some nice
delicate pieces without being "new agey".
They are very different albums, very different sounds. 7, as you state, is very delicate. Bundles rocks out with Holdsworth's guitar front and center. Preference of either over the other will maybe have as much to do with musical tastes as with the relative merits of the two albums. Me, I really like Holdsworth, and think he was a much needed boost to the group. But I can see where someone else would disagree if they don't like guitar in Soft Machine,
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Apparently Sony/BMG is releasing remasters of Third, Fourth, Fifth, Six and Seven. Third will have a bonus live disc. I'm guessing that these are UK or Europe-only, but perhaps I am wrong.
I will have to check out 6 & 7 one of these days.
Guy, this is great news as these works are way overdue for a good remaster. The live CD included with Third is of course potentialy intriguing, but there is a LOT of live Soft Machine on the market, so we'll see if it is noteworthy. Six is well worth having for the live material which makes up half of it (it was a two record set in the day and for the blistering "Stanley Stamps Gibbons Album", one of the most exciting cuts they ever did and the last great moment on a Softs record for the wondeful Michael Ratledge. Seven is OK, worth having, but was always an anticlimax to me. It didn't reach the heights of Six, which came before it, or the wonderful Bundles (THE great Alan Holdsworth performance, to me, is the "Hazard Profile" suite from that album) which came after it. Third and Fourth, of course, belong in every collection. Third was the breakthrough work for their jazz style, and Fourth is the best album they ever did.
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Charles Tolliver 'Impact' on Strata-East
And don't forget Tolliver's earlier "Music Inc + Big Band" date.
That's the one I like.
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i'm not a big fan of the two first albums. Riot is a fantastic one, the one to have. And after, Stand, an Fresh.
I'm gonna put a few words in here about their second album - "Dance to the Music". A little less social significance, a whole lot more party. I suspect some of you guys may not have heard these records as they came out - this one blew me away when I first heard it, and it's still a favorite. A lot of people think highly of "Riot" - I never dug it, and am happy to stick with "Stand" and the singles which came right after it as Sly's finest work- to my ears, anyway.
I also feel that all of their absolute gretest work was the pre-'Riot' singles. 'Riot' is a devastating personal/political statement of despair, but I've never been totally sold on it musically (or as a life thesis). "Dance To The Music" was also a huge political statement, but not so much for the lyrics as for who was singing them. Men and women, black and white, each expressing their uniqueness yet come together for a common purpose. The one statement of the times in the lyrics comes when Cynthia Robinson cries out "All the squares go home!", a statement much more significant in early 1968 than today.
James Brown dies
in Artists
Posted · Edited by felser
I'm sorry he's gone, but not sure how hype like this helps the cause. Let us know which two of the following get removed from the list to make room for JB, who was by all accounts a groundbreaking musician but a real MF of a human being:
- Frederick O. Douglass
- Booker T. Washington
- George Washington Carver
- Jackie Robinson
- Duke Ellington
- Martin Luther King