Nate Dorward

Hm, interesting to see the trio with NHOP & Levitt on there--I have the other disc from those session, with Dave Cliff on it, & must confess I never liked it all that much. In part that's just because Levitt's drums sound all sibilant & busy to me there, & the recorded sound is a little grey (even for a Marsh album). I remember the disc with Red Mitchell & Karin Krog being remarkable despite my not liking Krog's vocal much--I recall Marsh's solo on "I Remember You" as being a stunner. & I think there's a disc out there somewhere with just Mitchell & Marsh? On Storyville probably? Haven't heard it.

I'm sure there's probably a few Marsh threads kicking around here, but in the wake of the reissue of All Music I thought I'd start a fresh one. There's a lot of Marsh records, scattered among a lot of different labels, with a fairly consistent repertoire (in the usual Zen Tristanoite fashion of working over the same dozen or so tunes night after night), & so I never really feel I've got a good idea of the "essential" Marsh, or the development of his music over the span of his career. Probably the albums I play most are the Intuition reissue of Jazz of Two Cities, Ne Plus Ultra on Hat Art/Revelation, & the twofer set from the Half Note with Konitz, Evans, Garrison & Motian. Would be interested to know what else is top priority for Marsh fans. I'm a tad cautious because my experience is that a number of dedicated Tristanoite labels tend to release music that's often rather poorly recorded.... Incidentally did Marsh write many tunes in his later career? Mostly when I encounter a credit to Marsh on an album, it means it's a themeless improvisation ofter the changes of a familiar standard. (E.g. "Well Spoken" on the album with Chet Baker = changes of "Speak Low".)

Hey, I'm extremely happy you didn't throw in all the extra stuff but used some discretion instead--I really hate the baggy monsters that Columbia &c like to make out of reissues. The "Good One" takes are a very interesting sequence--you can hear them trying out diffierent approaches (halftime vs walking on the head, e.g.); & you can hear that Marsh's obliquity on the opening cadenza is giving the others a little trouble in finding "one", so he straightens his approach on the intro out on the later takes (#9 in particular). I like Marsh's solo on take 5 a lot, though eventually the musicians get out of sync. Anyway, a really welcome reissue. The doubletime section of "Lunarcy" is pretty scary! & "Easy Living" is one of Marsh's best ballad readings I've heard.

I should note that though I did guess maybe Dato for #5 I later backed off that ID, wrongly as it turns out. Dato can be too much sometimes (I've just finished an unenthusiastic review of his recent grabbag album American Tour), but this track shows him in a good light, & in general his quartet is pretty consistent.

Aha, that Mosaic set sounds intriguing..... there's also I think a few things on Mingus/Roach's Debut label, since Mingus was a big fan of Thad Jones. Monk, too, seems to have been a fan, to judge by Thad's three sideman appearances on Monk albums.

I'm sure we all will soon enough.....

Sure: ya got it.

Incidentally, I've not yet heard from any volunteers for next week's AOW--anyone who's interested should send me a PM or email.

Cadence/North Country stocks Fresh Sound--I've ordered several discs from the Fresh Sound New Talents series from them in the past.

Toronto? Well, if you're here & I'm in town then yes I'll be there. Quick hits-- I imagine much of the disagreement is semantic. I find it useful--important, actually--to distinguish between political disaffection, political protest, & political resistance. There's an important difference between those last two, which I wouldn't like to see erased. I had the particular pieces of Rollins & Coltrane in mind, not the whole albums (indeed specifically named the Coltrane track, not the album). Yes as I said I know what you're trying to say but one still needs to avoid using unscrutinized language that reproduces the habits of thought & rhetorical ploys of those one is opposing.

The West Coast Jazz book is OK but I wouldn't say it was very well written--it's also not very well organized. The most peculiar thing is his habit of dealing with particular artists in sections that don't correspond to chapter divisions. A given artist might get say one and a half chapters, with the second chapter switching arbitrarily to a different person entirely for no obvious reason. It sometimes reads as if the manuscript was originally a continuous block of prose & the chapter divisions were introduced at a late stage & not very carefully.

Thanks for the info on the reissue. Yes those are nice liner notes! Just listening to the disc, so some quick comments--I figured that a running commentary would be more useful than a polished "review", I write lots of those & I'd prefer to try something different. 1) "Thad's pad." This tune got me hooked on the album. The tempo, yes--I hadn't really known about the particular challenge of this kind of tempo (you're talking to someone whose worst failing as a player was unsteady time). It's got a special feel to it. The way the drum breaks are built into the tune is nice--this was recorded back in 1953, before Herbie Nichols recorded! & I'd like to hear that 1953 version cause I find it hard to believe the changes could be that hip--were people really using augmented major 7ths this way back then? I love the way the turnarounds are deceptive--there's always a sense of suspension, rather than resolution. This is so relaxed in feel--Hank's solo is so matter-of-fact in delivery, yet it has a kind of fascinating long-distance logic (you feel that each chorus is almost a single unbroken gesture). Some great Elvin--I like the interplay between the three players on the bass solo in particular, & his drum solos on the trading fours are a surprise, they're so devious, quiet & full of space. & then he finally lets go at the end! 2) "Ah Henry". More drum breaks & pauses worked into the tune, this time with a little kick: 4/4 & 3/4 dovetailed together in a very individual way. I'm listening to this now & though I've listening to the album for ages I can't even follow the tune's structure! Oh, hang on, it IS an AABA tune....god help us, it's not obvious! It's got a very unusual slowly rising chord progression for the A section then a falling sequence for the B. I'm again reminded of Herbie Nichols, especially the nonchalant turnarounds that lead you back to the start before you know it.... More of that long-distance improv from Hank--he's like a chessplayer who can see 7 moves in advance..... There's just no break between his ideas here. -- There's a kind of graceful ambiguous side-step motion to this tune, like the last. Dancing in slow motion. This tune was previously unrecorded, & ought to be picked up on by other players who are looking for a challenge. 3) "The Summary", originally an elegy for Louis Armstrong according to KW's liner notes. The sprightly ambiguity & deviousness of the last tunes is gone: this is quite simply a fullhearted ballad, & a really pretty one. Bass solo leads off--I love the final bars of this with that wistful three-note figure traded quietly between bass & piano. Hank introducing all sorts of doubletime & other times of rhythmic wrinkles into his solo at the start, then it gets darker, fragile & more tender as he gets back to the theme. "Fragile": this is one word I'd like to hang onto--Hank's fabled touch on this album is more than just "pretty" (he's always pretty): it's got a vulnerability which I don't think I'm merely imagining because of the album's memorial occasion. 4) "Little Rascal on a Rock"--more mischief! & more dancing....! As with the best tunesmiths of this generation (Golson, Monk, Shorter, Nichols...) this isn't "abstract": the tune paints a specific picture, the title "makes sense". This is a little louder than the previous tracks for the theme statement, then it quietens & smoothes out for Hank's solo.... This one has a wonderful Elvin solo, sounding almost ametrical to my non-drummer's ear--somehow he sounds even "freer" in this format than on many of his more "modern" sounding albums. 5) "Upon Reflection". Deep, deep blue, though it's not a blues--it's another labyrinth, in fact. An unexpected coda to the main theme rounds it off--you could almost stop right there! The trio does virtually that: they move into doubletime & it almost feels like a different tune, the mood subtly changing to something very restless & mysterious, with those unpredictable vacillations between hope & melancholy.... (Thad wrote a tune called "Elusive" & this seems to be the keynote of so many of these tunes.) Silvery Jones piano, which gets deeply in to the tune. Mraz's solo--I expect him to wind things up circa 7:30--his sharply-etched figures suggest someone ending his solo--& then he sneaks in another chorus, which is rhythmically totally unpredictable: a great instance of someone taking two completely different approaches to soloing. It's really a dialogue with the others, & indeed towards the end of the solo it shades into a drum solo....but Elvin doesn't get a separate solo. 6) "Lady Luck". By this point the album's mood & tempo have become very special--strangely addictive, I find. I can't think of any other albums with quite this groove....perhaps someone can name others. What's Mraz quoting at 2:46? I hate it what I can't place quotes.... It's a great bass solo--probably his best of the album (though there's still 4 tracks to go so maybe I should reserve judgment for now...). Again I find I want to use "fragile" to describe Hank's solo at the start--the slight hesitance you can hear. It's not just "relaxation" or "behind the beat"--this is very specific to the mood of the whole album. But he doesn't stay there of course--his solo gets brighter, less inward. Oops, there's his favourite quote--"Crazeology". More quotes (is that Peer Gynt?). Ah, here comes Elvin, growling away like mad.... Oh I can't be bothered to type more on this one, I want to listen.... 7) "Mean What You Say": one of Thad's better known tunes. Such a simple melody! Elvin is already in pugnacious, growly form by the time the head ends, & I'm now listening closer wondering what'll he'll do....aha! it's almost as if it had to happen from the start (even though I doubt this was planned?): an extended doubletime passage, done with great taste (unlike so many doubletime passages!), a great way of ending Hank's solo with a flourish. 8) "Kids Are Pretty People". I find this minor-key tune particularly haunting & haunted--a funny mood for a tune with this title. Hank's solo has a similar ambiguity--it's got real, er, chiaroscuro to it, & there's some moments of real darkness on occasion (e.g. those two chords he interjects between bass & drum solo). I know that the Rudy Van Gelder piano sound has received a lot of debate--e.g. take a look at Pettinger's bio of Bill Evans which has some harsh things to say about it--but there seems to me little doubt that it's just right for this date--the kind of shadowy, "underwater" sound he gets out of the piano. 9) "Ray-El". The one blues on the album, with a twist--it starts out in a minor key as if it followed on from the last piece, but it turns into a blues in the relative major (two completely different themes). Nice! Hank seems to be gently smiling during his solo--that gliding "Crazeology" lick always sounds happy to me. Elvin's been gradually getting more prominent on the album, getting longer & more detailed solos, as if the whole album were moving towards his big feature on the last track.... If that's deliberate then someone really sequenced these tracks in a subtle way. 10) "A Child Is Born". Thad's "Round Midnight": the one "standard" he wrote. This is the only piece that starts with Hank solo--& it's almost unbearably tender. It's also the one piece on the album which is unmistakably an elegy. A very long intro, out of tempo, that introduces the tune quite obliquely. What happens next is a complete surprise: Elvin on mallets, giving this a kind of ritual (almost Africanized?) feel which is entirely appropriate to the memorial occasion. At last, 3:45, the tune is at last stated directly--& is broken off, a fragmentary little farewell rather than a full reading of the piece. Well, sorry for the unedited commentary: I hope some of it's of interest anyway. This is an album which feels all-of-a-piece--for me, it's all about mood, texture, "sound". You can get lost in it, whether you're listening intently to it or just have it on as ambient music. & it catches all three players at their best. (I think this is probably my favourite Mraz performance, though I'd have to go back & listen to Sims/Rowles' If I'm Lucky first to doublecheck....) (Just edited this to remove a few annoying typos...)

Ted--thanks for the detailed reply. Glad to hear Rule of Three's got a few more writeups, even though one's from the pen of (shudder) Thom Jurek. It's a great disc & deserves all the press it gets. Well, OK, sub in "is inspired by" for "idolizes" (too strong a word, true) & I still don't get it with the admiration for Mao Tse-Tung &c. I'm sure you know perfectly well the reasons why many would think him no sort of moral authority, so I guess we'll just have to disagree here. I very much appreciate your own willingness to get involved in the protest movement. "Resistance", though....I'm not sure that the protests against invading Iraq last year yet qualify as that. I'd like to feel hopeful at that display of mass public protest (which wasn't going to stop anything of course--as we know, the Bush administration had long since made the decision to invade Iraq, even before 9/11--but was nonetheless very important); but I'm not sure whether it was a one-time-only event or whether it will lead to a more permanent culture of active political dissent (as opposed to just alienation, pained resignation, frustration, disenchantment, or--as you point to--the urge to debark for another country). Is there strong evidence for the latter alternative, or will/has that consensus/mass revulsion of a year ago just dissolve again? I suppose what I distrust about the liner notes is the vagueness of the political aims. They're for "resistance" & "the struggle", they're against "oppression", they're for "martyrs". But the words are very slippery--they are words that are often used as much to justify violence & political reprisal as they are to genuinely defend a political good--so I'm distrustful of their use here without enough & consistent enough specification. (E.g. the invasion of Iraq was of course against "oppression" in the US adminstration's version of events. & for several millennia now the word "martyr" is often used to justify reprisals against those blamed for the martyrdom. That was the whole point of say a book like Foxe's Book of Martyrs, which justified several centuries' persecution of Catholics.) As a result there are sentences in the liner notes I would definitely look askance at, for instance this one which accidentally channels the exact diction & tone of voice of Bush's public statements: "Change doesn't happen because reckless rulers of ruthless regimes wake up one day and decide to turn over a new leaf." Isn't this uncomfortably close to justifications for enforced "regime change"? I know you don't intend it this way, but still it's language that's to be avoided for this reason. I suppose, though the use of the word "attempt" about the reggae track was ungenerous (though I still don't like the track!), what I was trying to get at was the fact that the album simply seems to be going in a lot of directions at once. That's both a comment on the music & on the political content (the point where they coincide). Let me put it this way. Many (most?) of the classic political statements in the jazz canon came out of the Civil Rights Movement (Roach, Rollins' Freedom Suite, Coltrane's "Alabama", &c): that offered a coherent political movement & practical goal (I'm probably massively simplifying here but never mind), & a fairly focussed theme for the musicians to work with. Whereas on Breeding Resistance "resistance" is all over the map, touching on the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995, the police execution of Fred Hampton, "martyrs" in general, a Jamaican film depicting a quasi-revolutionary moment in a nightclub, "Resistance" in general with a shout-out to Mao's comment on paper tigers, a reminder of Bush's appetite for capital punishment, & a reference to the shamed coverup of Guernica during Powell's press conference. (Plus Geof's 3 tracks & the Bishop tune, which have different, more abstract or autobiographical sources, I gather.) Anyway, that's an admirable set of concerns but its sheer scatteredness--arbitrariness--leaches away my hope for serious political content & I find this reflected in the grab-bag quality of the music on the album. -- I suppose that the foregoing makes clear that I don't find this a very hopeful political moment right now, so some of the comments in the liner notes jar--though if you have evidence why I'm wrong, I'd be extremely glad to hear it. & my feeling is that many of the best political albums in jazz have a fairly concrete sense of hope somewhere in there--the last such instance for me being Dave Douglas's Witness, recorded just months after Seattle. "Self-contradictory" doesn't mean contradicting what you've said on other occasions; it means that a single document contradicts itself internally. Interesting to hear that the decisions about the running time & program on the disc are Delmark's rather than yours: is this to say you'd have preferred a shorter program yourself? I do think long CDs are the bane of the market--many reviewers I know find a surfeit of material annoying (it makes it more arduous to review) but even many regular nonreviewing jazzfans I know find 70-minute CDs too long. & this note's pretty long too--my apologies. Time to get to work prepping the house for some guests' arrival so I'll sign off now.

At least according to Amazon they have copies, both used & new. I hope that that's correct--I know that items in the Verve/Gitanes series do tend to get killed off quickly if they're not moving enough product..... (The evil scum deleted piles of Helen Merrill & Rodney Kendrick discs from the 1990s, for instance...) Good luck finding it! But I take it other boardmembers have found sources for it...? Yeah I've heard Autumn Leaves but truthfully I didn't think it all that great--it's OK. It's an incredibly boring setlist, even if they do well by the tunes, & Elvin really unbalances some of the tracks. There's a review I did here: http://www.onefinalnote.com/reviews/g/grea...tumn-leaves.asp

Oh, I goofed. Anyway, Pepper's Winter Moon is worth hearing, though actually I'm not quite as enthusiastic about it as many Pepperphiles. There's a nice account of its making in his book Straight Life.

Actually the albums I gather only share two pieces in common: "Mean What You Say" & "A Child Is Born". I'll have to get ahold of the Flanagan--it's an Enja release, I believe?

I've played piano as long as I can remember, & somehow even though I'm no longer trying to hack it as a serious player somehow it's always the piano CDs that stay in heavy rotation. For this AOW, rather than a classic 1950s/1960s record, I thought I'd pick a contemporary piano trio date which is rarely too far from the CD changer here. * Hank Jones: Upon Reflection: The Music of Thad Jones (Verve/Gitanes, 1993) 1. Thad's Pad 2. Ah, Henry 3. The Summary 4. Little Rascal on a Rock 5. Upon Reflection 6. Lady Luck 7. Mean What You Say 8. Kids Are Pretty People 9. Ray-El 10. A Child Is Born (all compositions by Thad Jones) Hank Jones, piano; George Mraz, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded 25-26 Feb 1993 by Rudy Van Gelder, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. (Good!) liner notes by Kenny Washington. I'll post a more detailed response to this disc on the 21st. A few comments first, though: 1) One reason why I picked this for AOW is because I thought I might myself learn a bit more about Thad Jones' music from other boardmembers. I've heard his work as a sideman with Monk, have heard people speak respectfully for years of the Jones/Lewis big band, yet still haven't got any of his small or large group discs. Mea culpa. 2) These are some great compositions--yet Thad Jones seems rarely to attract the kind of devotion as a composer that contemporaries like (say) Herbie Nichols or Sonny Clark receive. I wonder why. I've seen the odd Jones tune in setlists (e.g. recently received a CDR by Scott Wendholt with "Mean What You Say" on it) but it's still pretty uncommon. There is one other album of Jones tunes I know of (but haven't heard), Tommy Flanagan's Let's. 3) One of the unique things about this disc is that Elvin Jones plays brushes for the whole thing--& sounds absolutely wonderful throughout. The exception is "A Child Is Born", more or less an explicit farewell to Thad, where Elvin takes his solo on mallets: it's very unusual to hear a drummer as the principal soloist on a ballad! & it works beautifully in context.

Nah I really doubt it'd be Dato--the track is spirited, but hardly as over-the-top boisterous as Dato always is. Haven't really decided what I make of Dato really--I do find him a bit wearingly jolly at times.

The recent Konitz/Axis String Quartet disc is pretty nice, where they play versions of Debussy, Ravel, &c. Sooner or later someone always mentions Art Pepper's Winter Moon on a thread like this. I don't think it's been mentioned so far so I'll do it.

I've got Kimus #5: most interesting for the extra stuff from Ran Blake's That Certain Feeling.

I tend to think Lines Burnt on Light probably sounds great if you've never heard Parker's solo stuff before....but actually I found it pretty disappointing, & much prefer any of the earlier solo discs I've heard (e.g. Conic Sections or Monoceros). On the other hand the 50th birthday concert set is an excellent place to start. Anyway I still don't fathom the rationale of this thread--why arbitrarily pick two musicians & denigrate one at the expense of the other?

That's a useful piece, which suggests that Morton's rethought the Blackhawk sessions in particular given that the Cook/Morton Penguin Guide is rather unenthused about them. I do disagree though that Mobley was a model of understatement on that date, as Morton asserts at one point. He seems plenty garrulous to me.

Yeah I'm not a big Roy Campbell fan, to judge by the what I've heard (with RC as sideman--I haven't sought out his discs as a leader). Competent enough but not much more, to my ear. I once got some nasty letters from a disciple of RC's when I suggested that the guy's praise of Campbell in the liner notes to an album (as the greatest innvator on trumpet of the last 30 years) was absurd. -- Anyway, who knows if I got the i.d. right in the case ofthe BFT track but I think I did.

Hm....this one I find a bit of a curate's egg. I really wanted to like it as I thought Bradfield's Rule of Three was brilliant: it is simply one of the best jazz discs of 2003 (fans of Tony Malaby's Adobe, another tenor/bass/drums date, should check it out--to my ears the Bradfield's got the edge, because Geof's tunes are more interesting & the choice of covers is spot-on--Andrew Hill, Randy Weston, Ellington...). I'm glad someone else has heard it--I'd feared that besides me & Ben Ratliff no-one had noticed it! -- But the Sirota's a mild disappointment to me.... I suppose there's only two tracks I actually dislike on Breeding Resistance, the attempt at reggae & the Fred Hampton tribute. & there's some great stuff--my faith in Bradfield is repaid in his three very nice tunes (the "Elegy" in particular). But, hm.....other things I'm not so keen on. For instance, Jeb Bishop seems very underpowered here--doesn't it strike you that he's playing it very safe on his solo on his own "Knife" (his own tune!)? I suppose I shouldn't expect flash from Bishop, but there's a lot of lines which are the musical equivalent of groundhugging (moving in steps or thirds & constantly circling back to the same register). Compared to other work of his I've heard recently (e.g. his very good work on Kyle Bruckmann's Wrack) Bishop sounds like he's having an off-day. Anyway, the Sirota's worth hearing, but I suspect if I keep listening to it it'll be a burn of the disc minus about 3-4 tracks....like a lot of recent Delmarks this could have used a little shorter running time. Jurek is the boy who cried wolf: eventually he's bound to be right, if you're still paying attention by then..... But I don't think he's right about this disc. Though at least it's a darn sight better than the inept Kalaparush & the Light disc released on Delmark at the same time, also reviewed positively by Jurek at the same time. I do find Sirota's liner-notes well-intentioned but vague, self-contradictory & ridiculously out-of-touch--not too impressed with some young guy idolizing Chairman Mao & the Black Panthers, which looks to me just like it's trying to live in a 1960s/1970s radical-chic time-warp. I'm glad he hates Bush, I do too, but I still find the liner notes dodgy. I'm off to see Joe McPhee Friday night & will be back Saturday or Sunday so excuse me if I take a while to reply to any comments here or elsewhere.

I wasn't confused, just unclear if someone had been chosen for the next week & not wanting the AOW to fall back into silence. I'll PM undergroundagent.