Rooster_Ties

Not sure when it was added, but I just noticed the introductory explanation of the set on the Mosaic page is now 2-3 times longer. Wouldn't say it has lots of new info or details, but it's very nicely written and sure whet the appetite to hear all this new material. https://www.mosaicrecords.com/product/lennie-tristano/ One phrase in particular... "While to some ears Tristano sounds remote or mechanical in his long runs of even eighth notes, a more careful listening reveals the playfulness and passion in his approach on piano." ...instantly made me think of Gary Thomas (of all people) -- who plays hard, and ALSO strings together long, long runs of non-swinging, 'even' notes (eighth notes, sixteenth, or whatever they are). I'm not suggesting Tristano is necessarily a direct influence (though I'll have to ask Gary the next time I hear him around DC eventually), but I can say that this common metrical aspect of Lennie's and Gary's playing tickles the same part of my brain. (Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes! Right there. THAT's the spot. Ahhhhhh...) Trane's "sheets-of-sound" stuff during his Prestige years does the same thing to me too, though it's flying by so fast I'm not sure if I could say it's truly "even" or not -- but it sure doesn't "swing" (in terms of the conventional meaning of that word). Some of Dave Holland's 80's and 90's ECM output also does that to me a bit -- ALTHOUGH, I know that stuff swings like mad. But there's something about it that also seems to get me in that same particular spot. That one Steve Coleman/Dave Holland duo album especially -- Phase Space (1991, DIW) -- REALLY pushes those same buttons for me. (Are any of my oblique connections here making any sense?) I'm trying to think of "why?" Maybe is it a similar sense of what I might call "relentlessness forward momentum", particularly on faster tunes? Whatever it is, I love mainlining that stuff, and it can instantly take me into another world.

“Carol Tristano -- Co-Producer Note” (essay) from the liners is now posted in full on the Mosaic page for the new Tristano box — right under the 5 audio samples (when the discography isn’t displayed). Dec 20 is still the “expected” release date (or did it perhaps say “estimated” before?). In any case, the date — however it’s termed — is still Dec 20.

Jason Moran studied with Andrew Hill and Jaki Byard — though of the two, I’d ascribe more influence to Hill (especially for Moran’s first 10-15 years of recording). Hill is certainly moody, and much of his music is dark — but it’s quite a variety of heavy and lighter textures, and a murky middle especially (all while still being dark). I wouldn’t want to pin a disproportionate amount of credit to Hill, but he was certainly operating in that realm.

Except maybe if someone says they hate jazz — and then the first artist they mention is Kenny G (and they think you like Kenny G, because you said you like “jazz” — because that’s what jazz sounds like, far as they know). I’ve had both happen — though admittedly a good 20 years ago, give or take.

It’s annoying as can be to know that — for many — Kenny G is the “face” of jazz. That may or not may have anything to do with Kenny G himself — but never the less, it’s a widespread inaccuracy which pervades (perhaps less than it once did, but it really was a big thing 10 and 20 years ago). Years ago I had coworkers I barely knew (when I worked for a very large company), who assumed I liked Kenny G because I liked jazz — and/or who assumed Kenny G was emblematic of jazz (because he came up in conversation from time to time). It’s annoying, especially if people are silently making those assumptions about my tastes — but not giving me any reason to correct them.

It’s because his name has become synonymous with “jazz” for a relatively significant portion of the masses. Perhaps not a majority of a generation, but maybe a plurality. Absent that, nobody would really care.

That’s really the key to all this. Nobody here gives two shits about any of the top-10 best selling New Age artists, or who their audience is, or what their motivations are for liking said artist(s). It’s only because the term jazz is somehow ascribed to the G-man — when his music has virtually nothing to do with jazz. Since arguably, he’s feather-light-weight smooth-jazz (at ‘best’) — basically a watered down version of an already watered down version of another genre — and therefore has little to nothing to do with jazz. But it’s crap music that a bunch of ill-informed people (fans) mis-associate with “jazz” — and an even larger bunch of even MORE musically-illiterate mass of people (the general public) then THINK of as the first and maybe only name they know when they hear the term “jazz”. There’s a good analogy in the documentary that it’s like if Michael Jordan and all the very best and upper echelon skilled players in the entire history of the NBA were barely known, and were all living hand to mouth (or maybe just scraping by, at best)… …and the ONLY people in basketball who ever got “paid!” big time (also in terms of cultural notaries) were the Harlem Globetrotters. One of the music critics specifically analogizes Kenny G’s single-note held for 10 minutes (circular breathing) — with the “ball-spinning on their index finger” antics of the Globetrotters, and rolling the ball up one arm, over the shoulder, and back down the other, and the like. It’s all stuff ANY player in the NBA can do. It’s cheesy, and maybe fun in the right context — but is it worthy of millions of dollars of remuneration?? — in some bizarro world where also the very best of the best in the NBA are barely getting by (if that even).

Doesn’t Kenny have more in common with Yanni and Zamfir, and perhaps even Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarre — than jazz? Semi-serious question. Kenny’s really more “New Age” than smooth jazz, imho.

My wife and I watched the doc last night. Many telling nuggets. I think someone already said he assembles his recorded ‘solos’ (is that even a relevant terms here?) from dozens of takes, and he demonstrated that. Not even takes really, but maybe a handful of takes, and then several dozen overdubs (per song) of just a phrase here, or a couple notes there. Maybe 60-80 or even 100 edits per song, I might imagine. He’s obsessive about making every note sound perfect, so he builds up the tracks that way to ensure perfection (or as close as he can get). And he writes songs by recording bare solo melodies (demos), and then works with a keyboard player to piece together the chord changes, one by one — the keyboard player playing what I think Kenny literally said was like as many as 3 dozen chords PER change, until his keyboard player stumbles on chord Kenny likes (just what hits his ear right) — and then they move on to the next chord in the sequence. He supposedly practices 3-5 hours a day (and maybe he does), but he doesn’t know anything at all about chords or how to even begin to write tunes from a harmonic perspective — he’s 100% a melodist. And it’s not that he just needs the help of an arranger — no, he doesn’t seem to know anything whatsoever about basic intro-level chord theory, and he seemed proud of that too.

Mr. G might be a nice enough and inoffensive guy, generally speaking. I think most of his detractors wouldn’t be bothered by him so much if what he played wasn’t termed “jazz” in any way, shape or form. If smooth jazz was, instead, just (and only ever) called instrumental pop — I suspect people would still roll their eyes at the music itself, but no more than plenty of music that offends their (and my) sensibilities and tastes. It’s the casual association of his music with jazz that wrangles so many, admittedly myself included — though the older I get, the less I give a shit.

I’ve thought that a time or two myself. Joe Henderson too, re: the cover of Mode For Joe — who also struggled with emphysema over his last few years too.

I’ll have to check it out. Funny enough, I really really love his very first string quartet (one of, like, isn’t it 15?). Don’t know how important it is, but it’s a real gem.

Midway thru the other day, I accidentally stumbled on what I guess was the debut showing on HBO, and watched about 5 minutes worth. It was a part that focused on Pat Metheny’s reaction to Mr. G overdubbing Louis Armstrong. We had just watched a brilliant HBO documentary about Gordon Parks (highly recommended) that we’d DVR’d days before. So I flipped over to the station live to scroll thru our cable-tv grid to see what else I might record later - and low and behold, Metheny’s polemic was being delivered by a chorus of mostly anti-G voices. So on that basis, anyway, I set the DVR to record the thing later this week — but who knows when I’ll get around to watching it.

QUESTION: Have all the photos in the "licensing" section of the mosaicimages website been published? I mean, there are LOTS I've never seen before, but I don't have quite all the books of imagery that have come out over the years (I think I may have one, irrc, come to think of it -- but off the top of my head, there have been at least 3-4, irrc). (I'm deliberately hot-linking to only the most obscure of the obscure images/names I can find among all those they have in the "available for licensing" section. They've gone to some pains to try and disable anyone's ability to download these images, or to even link to them. I did find a convoluted workaround to get to the bare URL's for the images themselves, but I don't want to expose anything (here) other than some images that would probably in demand to practically no one whatsoever.) For instance this one... WMONCGF01 GRACHAN MONCUR II Ike Quebec's "Swing Seven" session, WOR Studios, NYC, July 17, 1945. And another one... CVITOM01 MIROSLAV VITOUS Donald Byrd's "The Creeper" session, Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, October 5, 1967.

If I might ask, did your company ever or yet state what the consequences/repercussions would be for employees failing to get vaccinated by the deadline? -- Either back when it was Dec 1, or now when it's 3 months later. Termination of employment? Higher healthcare premiums? Some other penalty?

The liners admit that these are all recordings made in Spain, but not everyone represented is of Spanish blood. For instance, Track 2 is by Dusko Goykovich (his band, put together in Germany) -- though the track does include Tete Montoliu on piano, and it was recorded in Barcelona.

Is it Gen Z -- or the younger half of Millennials?? -- that seem to have a rabid (but admittedly small) following that are interested in cassettes??!!! I've been in 2-3 or maybe 4 different used record stores in the last 3-4 years -- and they had BIGGER selections of used cassettes, than they did CD's. Like WTF is up with that?? I took pictures with my iPhone, just to show my wife, because I knew she'd never believe me in a million years. One place had all the CD's in a back room, unorganized, just in boxes -- but all their cassettes were right up front in racks on full and prominent display. Never a million years would I have believed it, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. And this wasn't just one store either!! I'm thinking this was in at least 2 or 3 different cities -- hours apart, in opposite directions from DC too, north and south.

I especially wanted to highlight the very last track, which is 20 minutes long -- fully half of the album from which it came. And in this case, the half included here is (imho) much better than the other side not included (in other words, I'm NOT too disappointed not to have the entire thing on CD). The other half of the album (the one NOT on this various-artists CD) is much, much more 'free' -- perhaps like disc 2 of Chick Corea's "Complete 'IS' Sessions" (the first comparison I can think of). It's 'good' too, but not something I'd listen to as often. Anyway, give this a spin and see what you think. I'll see if I can find some other tracks from the CD and post them down below as separate posts as this topic develops. Here are the particulars of this track: Music Director, Alto Saxophone, Written-By – Vlady Bas Piano – Juan Carlos Calderón Contrabass – David Thomas Drums – Pepe Nieto Released in 1973 https://www.discogs.com/release/14917644-Vlady-Bas-Free-Jazz-Vlady-Bas-En-La-Universidad- I think this track is really the bee's knees, and is the main reason I started this thread.

I picked up a brand new, sealed copy of this remarkable 75-minute various-artists CD from Dusty Groove recently, for only $5.99 (and if they get any more in stock, that'll likely be the price again -- right now it says "temporarily out of stock" on their site, so they'll probably get more). Probably the best on-line description of the the thing is here (and you can sample every track at this first link too). Very little on this CD has ever been on CD before. https://www.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/va-feten-rare-jazz-recordings-from-spain-1961-1974-cd/VAMPI.146CD.html There is also a 20-minute "promo-mix" (from Javi Bayo, the compiler) with highlights from most of the CD here: https://www.mixcloud.com/javibayo/feten-rare-jazz-recordings-from-spain-promo-mix/ The Dusty Groove verbiage really doesn't do the release justice, but here 'tis anyway: https://www.dustygroove.com/item/634774 1. Catalònia Jazz Quartet - "El Cant Dels Ocells" (1966) - 3:24 2. Dusko Goykovich - "Bosna Calling" (1971) - 6:07 3. Modern Jazz Sextet - "Israel" (1974) - 8:05 4. Elia Fleta, Jazztet de Madrid - "Rememberance To Madrid" (1966) - 2:37 5. Tino Contreras - "Marcha De Los Dioses" (1965) - 3:09 6. Mantequilla y Su Conjunto - "Jamboree" (1961) - 3:42 7. Lou Bennett - "Movimiento" (1968) - 6:31 8. Juan Carlos Calderón - "Psique" (1968) - 3:27 9. Jazz Group - "Tema Per Alicia" (1974) - 3:24 10. Nits de Jazz al Jamboree - "Asteriscs" (1968) - 4:13 11. Juan Carlos Calderón - "Sambando" (1968) - 6:25 12. Nits de Jazz al Jamboree - "Solar" (1968, previously unreleased) - 3:02 13. Vlady Bas - "Laberinto - 2ª Parte" (1973) -19:07

PM coming...

Totally forgot about this. But I just looked, and I do have one!! Minty fresh too -- from the tag, I got it from Dusty Groove at some point, so it's in as good as they sell. Not sealed, but still in those nice disc-sized bags DG sends stuff in. Can't say I ever even opened it when I got it -- but I just looked, and the disc is pristine, liners too. I'll send it to you for free if you like (I'll cover the postage too), if you can make a good contribution to Jim for the upkeep and maintenance of this board (direct to him, I don't need a penny). Before you do, we should chat by phone briefly and I can run down some other goodies in my box of duplicates and trade-bait (that I'm too lazy to type up). I'll send you a PM in a bit. Glad I had one!

Isn’t that rich.

We’ll goodness, gracious — lookee, lookee! And “Isotope” starts at 11:28 (that isn’t the song length). Joe Henderson & Kenny Drew trio, Molde Jazz Festival, Norway, August 1968 (colorized) Titles 1. Chelsea bridge 00:00 2. Isotope 11:28 Joe Henderson (tenor sax), Kenny Drew (piano), Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (bass), Albert "Tootie" Heath (drums).

I “like” them both quite a bit, though the absence of any of Joe’s originals is always an obvious detraction — which is what keeps me from really loving either of them. The live document with Nat Adderly from Oct 1966 has some fiery-er playing from Joe than either of the two Left Banks with Wynton Kelly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_at_Memory_Lane But it’s a damn shame there’s nearly NO examples of Joe playing any of his own stuff in the 60’s — save for this one and ONLY example, at least that I’m aware of… “Isotope” Monterey, 1966