Muskrat Ramble

The 40CD Ellington box on History/TIM certainly improves on the audio quality where the material from the '90 Blanton-Webster Band set on RCA/Bluebird is concerned. (Not great, but better overall.) Perhaps they were working from the recent re-release of that material by RCA or from Classics? Or maybe they did some of their own remastering? Who knows for sure. Keep in mind that there are European labels, like JSP, that take (fair) advantage of the copyright discrepancy and indeed do their own remastering--by some of the best guys in the business, too.

Big discussion of this issue here. You'll need to skip a few pages to get to the relevant parts.

Another vote for Mode for Joe under the reissue category. Outstanding album, but that should come as no surprise, considering who's involved: Henderson, Morgan, Fuller, Hutcherson, Cedar Walton, Ron Carter, and Joe Chambers. "Caribbean Fire Dance" is one of the hardest-swinging jazz performances I've ever heard. It almost set my speakers on fire.

I wasn't implying that he did. The implication was the certain brands of conservatism that focus on cultural purity and standards in the face of inevitable change have tended to view jazz as a musical plague. Jazz has usually been happy to subvert (unintentionally or otherwise) received hierarchies and narratives. That's part of its great beauty: it tends to do what it wants, and that scares conservatives. I imagine that's probably a big part of the reason Crouch, Wynton, and Co. are so interested in erecting a sort of official jazz historical narrative with its own value scale, canon, and preservationist museums (e.g., Lincoln Center). And composer. Some of his works have been recorded.

Not ironic, really. Two regimes extremely interested in codifying and preserving national/ethnic culture, the Third Reich and the Soviet Union under Stalin, tried to do away with jazz, damning it as "degenerate" music, to use the German term of the time. (Of course, the Nazis also used jazz as propaganda--if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, I guess.) Ironic, perhaps, to hear people defending "traditional" values of decency, decorum, and dress but at the same time loving jazz. In the days before it became a niche art form that could be marketed as an icon of trendy, up-market sophistication, jazz was perceived as pretty down and dirty by the standards of the time, afaik. There was certainly fear of it in some quarters. It sure wasn't always viewed as "America's classical music," something a bunch of middle-aged white guys can use to exhibit their refined taste in music If anything, jazz has traditionally been about breaking down barriers and traditions, of casually crossing musical, cultural, and racial boundaries. It was post-modern before the term existed, as John F. Szwed has noted. Guys like Wynton and Co. notwithstanding, it's a fundamentally liberal, progressive (or at least polymorphous and dynamic) art form. So put on your baseball cap and start swinging

Black Stars by Moran. Review and discussion. Black Dahlia sounds great in theory but at times too close to moody elevator music in practice. (The Penguin Guide wonders if it's ultimately "brainy easy-listening.") The stripped-down parts with the lonely trumpet solos and so forth work great, but the full orchestral writing can get really schmaltzy for my tastes. I'd rather listen to the L.A. Confidential soundtrack, any day. (Awesome, awesome film, btw.)

Then you're buying the wrong sneakers

I'll probably jinx myself here but I think I've only had one wrong CD sent to me by BMG over the years. They usually seem to have their act together.

Make sure you check out Sophisticated Swing (the double CD set) by Cannonball & Nat Adderley and The Eminent JJ Johnson vols. 1 and 2. These are nearly perfect examples of that era's jazz, imo. Of the Johnson discs, the Penguin Guide says it well: "The first volume of the Blue Note set is one of the central documents of post-war jazz and should on no account be missed."

Well, when one visits this and other jazz forums and sees the intense focus on old BN material and other "classic" jazz almost to the exclusion of contemporary and non-US jazz, you can't entirely blame the companies for catering to their markets. But then again, maybe if the companies did a better job promoting contemporary jazz artists, more fans would know and care they existed instead of obsessing over the 5th reissue of some 50's BN session.

I haven't heard his music (yet), but I absolutely love the Dave Douglas cover you mentioned.

I wonder if that includes the countless reissues of the same old jazz albums over and over and over instead of trying hard to promote today's talent?

Very slow for me today.

But look whom they're quoting. Ask Klaus Heymann of Naxos, and you'd get a different story altogether. The old "major labels" of the classical industry have practiced nonsensical business models and are now suffering, while other labels have come in to take up the slack and reap profits by selling pure classical offerings in a rational and cost-effective manner--without bothering with "crossover" stuff. Along similar lines, see http://www.classicstoday.com/features/f1_0104.asp

You might want to check with your attorney if you feel the mag is misrepresenting your work and damaging your professional reputation. I bought one issue of Jazz Improv, and it was my last. A lot of the writing ranged from boring to embarassingly amateurish. "The Webster Dictionary defines record review as writing about records and boy this one is a swingin one! The Duke he sure could play jazz and comppose too! So be sure to swing along to this one because it swnigs! The End.."

With any luck "Hope I die before I get old." When you lose interest in rock, you've taken a big step towards becoming a boring old fogey.

Well, examining music in mathematical terms, composing on mathematical principles, and/or using numerological symbolism in music goes back millenia, at least to Pythagoras. Music used to be taught in the Middle Ages as part of the "Quadrivium" together with arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. These were seen as interconnected bodies of theory and knowledge. (The related "Trivium" consisted of grammar, logic, and rhetoric.) Today there's actually a genre known as "math rock," where tunes shift through or superimpose time signatures (hemiola, I suppose) according to mathematical formulae. Bands like Mudvayne, Meshuggah, Tool, etc. get lumped into this category, rightly or wrongly.

The various Amazon branches (.com, .de, .co.uk., .fr, etc.) ship worldwide.

Yeah, it's a shame they've been hyped so much because more than a few hardcore jazz fans have a sort of reflexive aversion to anything popular. But those cats can really play and compose damn well. I'm really looking forward to checking out their side projects, too: both AMG and the Penguin Guide rave over most of those discs.

Lots of places offer some sort of free shipping deal, either flat out or if you order $25 or whatever of merchandise: Amazon.com, bn.com (Barnes & Noble), Buy.com, etc.

I wouldn't bother with "upgrading" unless it really were in fact an upgrade: vastly better sound quality, new tracks, etc. Buying a new release of a disc that's already been released and bought five times just because of minute sound-quality differences or new artwork seems like obsessive-compulsive disorder, or at least a waste of money that could be spent on albums one doesn't already have. It certainly plays into the hands of the record labels, who undoubtedly laugh all the way to the bank. I love a lot of old (and new) BN sessions, but I'm sure as hell no uncritical fanatic.

Our local classical/news NPR station lost me years ago for similar reasons: their idea of classical music (at least during the day--at nights, they'd play syndicated live concerts or hosted shows of miscellany) is putting on the blandest, most innocuous stuff they can find. Plus, they'll often just play one movement of a multi-movement work (akin to playing just one minute of a five-minute jazz tune). So, as a serious fan, I found their approach lamentable, boring, and even offensive for chopping up great works of art and turning wonderfully rich, diverse, powerful music into something for the doctors' offices of the world They make classical music sound like sonic wallpaper for nursing homes; it's an enormous disservice to a great art form. Sort of like a "jazz" station just playing Kenny G and Co.--what a false impression that leaves of the music. What I want to hear on public radio is a blend of provocative, unusual talk/interview shows (not news since I get that off the Net, and there's such an overabundance of news outlets in every medium), hardcore straight-ahead jazz of all styles and eras, and serious classical music of all styles and eras, with pieces played in full. Beethoven knows more than programming directors; don't play just part of the ninth symphony!

These are the Vistas by the Bad Plus is an outstanding album that I highly recommend to anyone remotely interested in contemporary jazz--or just great music, for that matter. (Fwiw, critics seem to agree.) The album has hard-driving ballsy rock energy and deep grooves--a "power trio" album to be sure--but refined playing and subtle group interplay that put many other jazz albums I've heard to shame. Some people blow them off because of the (justified) hype or the fact they've covered rock tunes (an inane, childish reason to slag a jazz group), but these guys seriously have the goods. Here's a cool free streaming concert/interview New album comes out this March, btw.

An unjustly obscure but wonderful disc: The Mount Everest Trio's Waves from Albert Ayler (Atavistic). Awesome balls-out Swedish free jazz from the 70's, with a few vaguely conventional bluesy numbers and pretty ballads. Much of this music falls somewhere between classic Ornette and Ayler (i.e., just the right spot!), with tons of energy and lots of subtlety too. Their bassist, Kjell Jansson, has a HUGE tone and can barrel along like a locomotive or play with delicate, refined grace. He's really one of the best bassists I've heard. Alto and tenor sax man Gilbert Holmström's tone and style often call to mind Trane with bits of Ayler, but he has his own thing going on, too, and he has a soft touch on ballads. Conny Sjökvist beats the hell out of the skins on this one--in a nice way You can hear a sample here: http://www.epitonic.com/artists/mounteveresttrio.html AMG Review These guys show the great potential of free jazz played by disciplined, highly skilled players

The soundtrack album mentioned on the first page: Nothing spectacular, but a solid album with some catchy tunes. Along with Blakey and Wilen, it features Lee Morgan, Duke Jordan, Bobby Timmons, Jymie Merritt, and a few other cats on Latin percussion.