Alon Marcus

Previous poll on a related subject..

Thanks , a very informative and interesting website. I hope it will grow with time.

Advice accepted

Examples, perhaps? Few examples. From the Cecil Taylor chapter Albert Ayler chapter Ornette chapter

I'm reading this book for about a year and sure that many of the board members are familiar with it. Sure this is a great read but there is one thing that bothers me (though not too much ). It seems that the author is so enthusiastic about the music that he sometimes uses subjective and abstract descriptions, which can't reveal much about the music, only on the writer's personal impressions and associations about it. I miss a little bit the analytical point of view. Nevertheless - this book is probably the best listening guide through the music it discusses and always interesting to read. So I guess the writer's goal had been reached. It added a lot to my listening experience to the music of Mingus, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy, Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman. It also got me interested in the works of Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra and Muhal Richar Abrams.

Sorry Mike, now the serious reply Your ideas are interesting and you express yourself convincingly about the topic and yet I think that S.W. is at least a great songwriter. It's not only a matter of how much he advanced pop music. Objectively if you judge his songs; don't you enjoy the masterful combination of beautiful melodies, original harmonies (relative even to some adventorous jazz compositions) and the irresistible rhythm all tied together in a natural way? As a songwriter I think you can compare him to guys like Schubert, Cole Porter or the Gershwin Brothers. At least it's mine impression.

The people who make music I like are geniuses. Others could be evil geniuses

Apparently it's not hip to consider Stevie a genius. That's fine. I'm happy being labeled unhip. The man created timeless music, which is more than most who dismiss him can say. Stevie Wonder is the Ellington of pop.

Oh, dude, that speech is SO full of subtext and subversion that in some ways it's the definitive Ellington moment! I'll be glad to know more about the subtext and subversion. Didn't notice anything that special

I could never choose one favorite but Afro Eurasian Eclipse is on the current playing list. The one thing that is a bit annoying is Duke's long introduction. Though it was nice to listen to his expressive and calm speach for the first few times, later I just started to skip the first 2 minutes to get to the music. ...and just out of curiosity, what is this "shimwisery" he talks about (hope I spelled the word right) and the "Ricky-Ticky"? The music is terrific!

My favorite Ellington period is from the mid 20s till the beginning of the 70s of the past century.

CJ I know you are a devoted fan of Metheny's works and me too I mean the PMG albums, when I talk on boards like O I call this pop music relatively to his other work. It's a very bad name I know and reflects nothing about the music, I like the PMG albums I have or heard.

I don't actually care about definitions. The different styles are just infinitesimally small relation points on a huge map which is the world of music. Each artist chooses where to be and some of them are able of "discovering new ground". AFAIC Beckenstein crafted few very good songs, SG did some nice music, there are many things to listen in their playing and arrangments. I don't think they are great and don't like at all their latest albums (my father has these albums, he is a dentist and is saing that this music is good to use on some of his patients ). I do think they were an important stage at one time for me. I enjoyed their live album "Access all areas" which has nice and pretty inteligent compositions and I learnt and understood few things from that disc that helped me in general. I also think they are much better than the average rock/prog rock/pop Steely Dan being the exception. I really hate when instrumental pop tunes are being presented together with the world "Jazz" - That's a Crime Pat Metheny is a great artist. Even his pop albums contain lovely and sophisticated tunes and nice improvisations.

He's a borderline case. Some of his work has "smooth inclinations" Yup. Of course, the only disc I ever kept of his was Sweet Georgia Peach, which is sweet indeed. Since then, well..... I've never heard of any connection of Malone to what I think of as smooth jazz. He's always been relatively "conservative" as a jazz artist (which I have no problem with whatsoever), and been with major labels... and worked with Diana Krall, BUT he's an absolute monster musician in terms of jazz technique and ability (and has been for a long time). Maybe he's done a thing or two with some of the smoothies (no law against that either... in fact a discussion here about Ernie Watts' connections to smooth jazz comes to mind), but I'm unaware of it. I don't follow Malone's career closely at all, as his style/sound never really grabbed me, but I have seen proof of his chops. For me, he's way ahead of guys like Mark Whitfield, Rodney Jones, Bobby Broom... all of whom were/are in a similar kind of bag. Malone is a stud. Yes; granted, I'm no Malone expert, but I'll gladly take him over any of the other guitarists you mentioned. In other words, agree completely. I like Malone, or rather respect what he's doing, even if it doesn't really grab me. Very notable exception: his playing on the Herbie Hancock tribute with Payton & McBride. HECK YEAH!!!! I sorta wish he would do an all acoustic album (meaning he plays the acoustic guitar). Actually it's Whitfield on that Hancock tribute. Great album BTW.

"Portrait in Jazz" is one of my all time favorite albums and I like Paul's EBBB projects and the trios he had with Charlie Haden + Gery Allen/Rubalcaba. You can guess on whose side I am in the argument. Still there is a point in what JFP was trying to say. Being active, important and revolutionary does not necessarily mean being selfish. Paul is being aware of it and admits it, maybe this is the thing that makes him great.

This gang of Peterson, NHOP and Joe Pass had really got me into jazz when I first started listening to this music. At first I was amazed at NHOP's skill and agility but later I realized that he had a rare musicality and sense of swing. He could groove like nobody else. The duet "Chops" (a very bad name for a great album) with Joe Pass is the best opportunity to hear both these musicians converse and create.

This album brings some memories to me. It's a good one and Kenny actually plays very little there. When I heard it as a teenager I got familiar with Joe Henderson, Thad Jones and Jerome Richardson. Also it was the first time I heard "Chelsea Bridge" and liked the song immediately Jimmy Smith is great especially on "Caravan".

Thank you! Very kind of you. ...and Barak the answer to your question is yes but I hope it's temporary. It was nice meeting you too BTW.

Unbelievable. Too sad for comments. RIP NHOP.

Just out of curiosity, what happened to that interview?

I don't think that's quite right. There is NO WAY Graettinger himself could have put together the orchestra necessary to play that music or get it recorded. It took Kenton's top-flight band, vision and determination to bring that music alive. Also, it never would have been recorded without Kenton's pull at Capitol records. I remember reading that the thing sold less than ten thousand copies, so it couldn't have been a huge money-maker for Capitol. Kenton was reported as saying, "I don't know whether this music is genius or garbage" but he recorded it anyway, thereby putting his own musical stature behind it. And it didn't do anything for Kenton at all, since the music actually turned off a lot of Kenton's traditional fan base. Like him or not, Kenton actually deserves a lot of credit for this music being available to us today. "I don't know whether this music is genius or garbage" This sentence (or a similar one) also appears in Ted Gioa's book about west coast jazz. Kenton said it about Thermopylae which the most conventional piece out of all Graettinger originals on the album. I'm not sure at all that Graettinger was the best arranger that worked with Stan. After all the list of people that wrote for him included Mulligan, Bill Russo, Bill Holman, Pete Rugolo and many others.

Alon is giving us time to collect our thoughts and energy to tackle this one! I really hope it was enough time to get ready for those (like myself) that experienced this album for the first time.

A couple of weeks ago I saw Liebman in a live concert and enjoyed a lot. Did anybody hear his "Classic Ballads". Original and interesting versions of standarts.

One of my favorite piano duos is Herbie with Chick Corea. They both play acoustic pianos on the albums recorded.

Ron Carter recorded an album where he plays this music but only pizzicato. It adds a special groove to the music, but his versions are not like the classical ones at all. Still enjoyable.