Recordings that were critical flashpoints

[ghost of miles]

Hey all, I'm working on a Night Lights program that will involve, as part of its presentation, recordings that were flashpoints for jazz criticism--music that provoked a strong, polarizing, "love-it-or-hate-it" response from jazz writers & pundits. So far I've got Ellington's "Reminiscing in Tempo" and "Black, Brown & Beige," the Coltrane/Dolphy VV material, and Ornette's early quartet. Will probably pick a bebop recording as well, though I haven't nailed one down yet... any other suggestions?

[ghost of miles]

Here's another question: I was thinking about including some electric Miles, something from, say, Bitches Brew or one of the 1970 live/studio recordings. But what was critical reaction to Miles' electric records when they came out? I mean, when I first became a jazz fiend the accepted CW seemed to be that critics had trashed these records when they were released. But I've always been suspicious of that theory. I suppose perusing some dusty old Downbeats at the library would provide a clue, but I wanted to pose the question to some of the folks here who were actually around when those records came out.

Edited December 11, 2006 by ghost of miles

[Brownian Motion]

Hey all, I'm working on a Night Lights program that will involve, as part of its presentation, recordings that were flashpoints for jazz criticism--music that provoked a strong, polarizing, "love-it-or-hate-it" response from jazz writers & pundits. So far I've got Ellington's "Reminiscing in Tempo" and "Black, Brown & Beige," the Coltrane/Dolphy VV material, and Ornette's early quartet. Will probably pick a bebop recording as well, though I haven't nailed one down yet... any other suggestions?

Maybe a sample of early "Third Stream" -- my pick would be "Sketch" by the MJQ and the Beaux Art String Quartet.

[ep1str0phy]

Well, Ayler was a pretty major break and a large point of critical contention in 60's... Spiritual Unity, maybe? (but then, Ayler's impact was a lot more than just that album...)

Edited December 11, 2006 by ep1str0phy

[ghost of miles]

Hey all, I'm working on a Night Lights program that will involve, as part of its presentation, recordings that were flashpoints for jazz criticism--music that provoked a strong, polarizing, "love-it-or-hate-it" response from jazz writers & pundits. So far I've got Ellington's "Reminiscing in Tempo" and "Black, Brown & Beige," the Coltrane/Dolphy VV material, and Ornette's early quartet. Will probably pick a bebop recording as well, though I haven't nailed one down yet... any other suggestions?

Maybe a sample of early "Third Stream" -- my pick would be "Sketch" by the MJQ and the Beaux Art String Quartet.

Yes, but damn! I just used that for the Night Lights coming up this weekend! (Jazz artists or ensembles playing with string quartets.)

Third Stream is a good one, though, you're right. I'll find something from that category.

[B. Clugston]

Here's another question: I was thinking about including some electric Miles, something from, say, Bitches Brew or one of the 1970 live/studio recordings. But what was critical reaction to Miles' electric records when they came out? I mean, when I first became a jazz fiend the accepted CW seemed to be that critics had trashed these records when they were released. But I've always been suspicious of that theory. I suppose perusing some dusty old Downbeats at the library would provide a clue, but I wanted to pose the question to some of the folks here who were actually around when those records came out.

On the Corner was probably the most controversial. )But I can't give you much of an eyewitness account as I was listening to singing puppets in those days.)

Braxton's For Alto was a critical flashpoint.

[ep1str0phy]

A flashpoint in an evolutionary sense, no doubt--but did it really rouse too much attention back in the day? (I've seen a fairly positive Downbeat review...) Maybe someone who was there can chime in.

[Brownian Motion]

Stan Kenton was a controversial musician in his time. I never much cared for him, so I can't make any recommendations.

[Scott Dolan]

Pretty much anything from Monk. Just pick one.

Or one of Ornette's early dates.

[GA Russell]

...Bitches Brew or one of the 1970 live/studio recordings. But what was critical reaction to Miles' electric records when they came out? I mean, when I first became a jazz fiend the accepted CW seemed to be that critics had trashed these records when they were released...

I was a subscriber to Downbeat when Bitches Brew came out, and my vague recollection is that it was unanimously praised. In those days I don't recall a critic who had the guts to say that he didn't like whatever Miles did.

[(BB)]

Tristano's self-titled Atlantic

[Larry Kart]

"Chasin' the Trane" would be a Coltrane recording that could stand in for the Sept. 1961 Coltrane live performances in a Hollywood club that inspired John Tynan's "anti-jazz" review of the band in Down Beat, which then led DB editor Don DeMichael to invite Coltrane and Dolphy to reply in an article, which they did. See Lewis Porter's Coltrane bio (pp. 193-4) for details.

[marcello]

These sessions came as a shock to listeners after the recording ban.

Dizzy Gillespie and his All Stars

Dizzy Gillespie (tp, vo) Charlie Parker (as) Al Haig (p) Curly Russell (b) Sidney Catlett (d)

NYC, May 11, 1945

Salt Peanuts

Shaw 'Nuff

Hot House

Charlie Parker Rebeboppers

Miles Davis (tp -2/10) Charlie Parker (as) Dizzy Gillespie (p -1/10,13, tp, p -11,12) Curly Russell (b) Max Roach (d)

WOR Studios, Broadway, NYC, November 26, 1945

Warming Up a Riff

Billie's Bounce

Now's the Time

Ko-ko

[JSngry]

Yeah, Bitches Brew got a lot of critical praise on release. The whole cranius-in-rectus Crouchalis revisionism bullshit was not even in the picture then, other than for the people for whom anything too much past New Orleans/Swing/bebop/take your pick was confusing. I'm even thinkng that Chris Albertson wrote a glowing, gushing even review of Jack Johnson in Stereo Review. Somebody did, if it wasn't him.

Ascension got a dual-review in DB, Bill Mathieu (5 stars, iirc) & somebody else's (not 5 stars). So that might qualify.

The first Bird/Diz 78s, definitely. Koko/Now's The Time got eitehr zero or one star. One of the more infamous reviews in the annals of jazz reviewism, actually, and one that probably played a part in critics not wanting to be too quick to dimsiss the next waves of progress, even if they themselves didn't necessarily feel it to be such.

Kenton, definitely, although I don't know if it was any one single recording. By the time City Of Glass hit, the controversy was already going, and had been.

Truthfully, I think maybe Black Byrd could qualify. Pretty much universally, if not particularly vehemently, trashed. Who knew that the cult of the Mizells would someday emerge. Not me!

[ep1str0phy]

Yeah, doing some research for a thesis I came across a series of those Downbeat dual reveiws. Spiritual Unity was included with the 1st Giuseppi Logan ESP and that Byron Allen trio, and were all trashed (by Kenny Dorham, if I believe), although there were positive reviews of the same albums just a column over.

Edited December 12, 2006 by ep1str0phy

[brownie]

Dizzy Gillespie and his All Stars

Dizzy Gillespie (tp, vo) Charlie Parker (as) Al Haig (p) Curly Russell (b) Sidney Catlett (d)

NYC, May 11, 1945

Salt Peanuts

Shaw 'Nuff

Hot House

When I started getting interested in jazz in the early '50s there still was smoke rising from the war between partisans and opponents to the titles from that session.

Albert Ayler's 'Bells' stirred even more controversy than 'Spiritual Unity' when it came out, from what I remember. There was hate against that music then!

[jww]

Would any of the FMP dates from the late 60s qualify as flashpoints? I was thinking of Machine Gun, but that wasn't necessarily the first... What about the Alan Silva Commnication Orch. "Seasons" Triple BYG lp? jw

[Big Beat Steve]

I agree with the Parker/Gillespie sessions recommended above. They did cause a minor revolution in Jazz and Jazz critisicm (and some haven't fully gotten over it to this day).

Other items to be considered (and to get out of the post-60s examples most contributors listed above):

Bob Graettinger's scores (City of Glass and This Modern World) for Stan Kenton - radical even by Kenton's standards.

Some of the typical West Coast jazz records of the 50s (e.g. Shorty Rogers) that many critics either loved or hated even back then.

Ornette Coleman's "Change of the Century"

... and then it all is a matter of which critics you use as a yardstick. If you take Hugues Panassié, for example, there would be a LOT more areas of conflict and of "love or hate" topics ...

[paul secor]

I would say that Ayler's Spiritual Unity and Trane's Meditations would definitely qualify. As I remember, There were a number of critics who hated those records and a number who loved them. It was around that time that I came to the conclusion that reading critics who merely had opinions (as opposed to critics who had ideas and insights) was a waste of my time.

[clifford_thornton]

Would any of the FMP dates from the late 60s qualify as flashpoints? I was thinking of Machine Gun, but that wasn't necessarily the first...

I would be surprised to see a review of Machine Gun in Downbeat at the time - it came out first on the tiny BRO private label, and was reissued by FMP in the early/mid '70s, probably not to much stateside notice. But then, I wasn't there, so I could be wrong. Litweiler took note in his Freedom Principle, which was published in the '80s.

As for Berendt and the European jazz press, well - the music was treated somewhat differently there than here. Somewhat.

[Rooster_Ties]

How about Wynton??

[Brownian Motion]

How about Wynton??

Troublemaker.

[ghost of miles]

How about Wynton??

Wynton is definitely in the running.

[Teasing the Korean]

...Bob Graettinger's scores (City of Glass and This Modern World) for Stan Kenton - radical even by Kenton's standards...

I'm paraphrasing, but Kenton later said that he didn't know if this stuff was genius or crap, but he knew it would raise eyebrows. No arguments about the cover art on the ten inch, though...

[mikeweil]

Herbie Hancock: Headhunters