John McLaughlin's "The Heart of Things"

[StarThrower]

Chet Atkins was great, but he always sounds like he's playing for a bunch old ladies in a nursing home. The host, Martin Mull is a fine guitarist.

[JSngry]

Oh, I like Roy Clark just fine. And McLaughlin even more. But as with McLaughlin here, I do remember Clark as being one of those guys who would from time to time "flex their versatility" by playing something not expected of them - and as cases, play their own "language" over a "jazz setting" to make it look like they could play "anything".

Which, in a way, is exactly the point, and yeah, I suppose there is a point there. But so is the point that neither were really "jazz players" in the literal/linear sense nearly as much as they were just damn good players, period, and in McLaughlin's case, quite an innovative one who impacted a large segment of players and listeners who would at best "overlap" with "real jazz". That mattered to me a whole helluva lot more then than it does now, but I still prefer an awareness of the perception of the distinction than a denial of it, just because.

But - hearing him play "Cherokee" while nonstop seeing Russ Tompkins (who I've sense heard was probably the exact opposite of a personality than his appearance would suggest..the perfect cover, perhaps!) in the the background really doesn't too anything for (or to) me, other than yet again show what an excellent musician John McLaughlin is, which I coulda told you anyway!

Now if somebody can find a clip of the Midnight Special segment where Glen Campell quite possibly cut George Benson (or so it seemed when I was away from the set's picture) , then we'll have something!

It's Ross Tompkins, and hey, I just thought the McLaughlin segment was unexpected fun when it popped up on my TV screen back in 1985. It's not like I thought he was the Second Coming!

Yeah, that's right, Ross. I always thought of Russ Freeman when I saw him (for no good reason).

And yeah, it is a fun clip, so many cultural crosscurrent there, almost all of them gone (or all but gone) today (and it wasn't all that long ago, either) , and it also, maybe, provides the ultimate Final Answer to the How Many Drummers Has John McLaughlin Appeared With Who Used Double Bass Drums trivia question that pops up in bars across America on a seemingly regularly basis.

[Larry Kart]

Got a couple of Concord LPs with Tompkins, one as a leader with Al Cohn, the other as a sideman with Red Norvo. Nice player. And, yes, I'd bet he was a pretty hip guy, too.

[JSngry]

Chet Atkins was great, but he always sounds like he's playing for a bunch old ladies in a nursing home.

It was Diversity Day at the nursing home...

[StarThrower]

A leisure suit, toe tappin' good time!

[sgcim]

Dimeola really cannot play jazz, at all. His lines bear no resemblance to the tradition, and he also has one of the most egotistical and insecure musicians I've ever heard. He got into the guitar synth thing feeling supposedly jealous of Metheny, and asked Dan Gottlieb on the "Soaring Through a Dream" album to emulate the Metheny cymbal groove. Frank Gambale had way more jazz chops to spare, regardless of what people feel about his playing, and it makes the guitar playing on "The Mothership Returns" more enjoyable.

I remember reading an interview with DiMeola in one of those guitar magazines. They asked him if he played jazz. He said that jazz was not a progressive, creative music; he only played music that was really creating something that had never been done before.

I was obsessed with finding examples of guys like Coryell and McLaughlin playing straight-ahead jazz back in the 60s, because they both cited Tal farlow as one of their influences. I've still never found any.

Coryell admitted in his autobiography that up until about 1980, he could only play modal, rock-oriented jazz. I don't know if there are any examples of McLaughlin playing anything other than modal jazz, pre-Mahavishnu days.

The only guitarist of the jazz-rock bands back in the 60s and 70s I've found who has shown evidence on a record that he mastered the straight-ahead jazz idiom BEFORE he found fame with a jazz-rock band has been Terry Smith, of the jazz-rock band "IF". His 1967 record, "Fallout" shows that he could hold his own with any jazz players of that time.

[Milestones]

We've largely gotten away from McLaughlin on this thread.

I can only say he was the second jazz guy I ever got into (after Miles), and he blew me away then--and still does now. A player who is innovative and incredibly eclectic. A musician who has astonished me, a musician who has moved me. Is every project fabulous? Of course not. Personally I was not much into Heart of Things. But I sure do like his stuff with 4th Dimension--his best ever echo of Mahavishnu.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Milestones

[StarThrower]

Why would anyone from Coryell's and McLaughlin's generation want to play straight ahead jazz in the late 60s-early 70s? That music had already been done to perfection by Wes Montgomery, Barney Kessel, Tal Farlow, Pat Martino, etc. They wanted to do something else. Even Allan Holdsworth, who is known for his harmonically advanced compositions was playing modal music with Soft Machine in those days.

Di Meola is very rhythm oriented, and I'm sure he found most 4/4 swing jazz not to his liking. But his music is not as harmonically advanced as traditional jazz. I still don't think he can do it convincingly. Someone like Scott Henderson or Mike Stern can do both very well.

[Milestones]

Yes, they definitely they wanted to do things differently--that's why they were pioneers. And yet I have to say I've been surprised by how well Coryell, for instance, can play pieces like "Sophisticated Lady," "Body and Soul," and "Theme for Ernie."

Edited March 10, 2013 by Milestones

[JSngry]

Why would anyone from Coryell's and McLaughlin's generation want to play straight ahead jazz in the late 60s-early 70s?

The Devil's Advocate question is why would anybody from after their generation want to play it either?

Whatever the answer is, it ain't "comforting"!

Or is it?

[Milestones]

All music has roots and peak periods and great compositions. Doesn't this explain the continued relevance of Bach, Mozart, Chuck Berry, The Beatles, Ellington, Monk, etc etc etc?

Edited March 11, 2013 by Milestones

[JSngry]

I suppose, but what about the continued relevance of what happened before all that? Stuff that only a relatively few people know about, as well as the probably-happened stuff before that that nobody knows about any more because it just stopped surviving, either organically or malevolently?

And some point, the number of people who find relevance reaches a tipping point, and after that, sooner or later, it disappears. And it probably should. Our current technology allows for the postponing of the inevitable, but it also allows for the tyranny of "forced" and/or "presumed" relevance. I mean, we're not even 500 years removed from Bach, barely 400. That's really not that long of a time.

But my question was more, why would a young person in the mid-late 1960s feel compelled to find other avenues for expression outside of the "tradition" and nowadays it seems like the young players want nothing more than to get smack-dab in the middle of that same tradition? I mean, there's a whole industry in encouraging people's notions of what not to play. What's changed?

[StarThrower]

Why would anyone from Coryell's and McLaughlin's generation want to play straight ahead jazz in the late 60s-early 70s?

The Devil's Advocate question is why would anybody from after their generation want to play it either?

Whatever the answer is, it ain't "comforting"!

Or is it?

I guess because they like it? Why do people still make blues records? They ain't gonna do it any better than Muddy, Howlin' Wolf, T-Bone, etc. Zappa and Beefheart loved the blues, but they knew it was pointless to make straight blues records. They had imagination and did something creative.

As far as today's jazz scene is concerned, I can do without 98 percent of it. I'm just looking for a few unique voices to listen to. I don't care about all these cats that know all their jazz chords, but keep regurgitating what's already been done. Right now John Hollenbeck catches my ear. He has his own sound. As far as guitarists go, I haven't heard anybody in the past few years who sounds unique. I like Oz Noy. He has his own sound, but how many of these funk/jazz/soul trio albums is he going to do? He's got 4 out already.

[Milestones]

Or maybe it is the burden of creativity. Every genre or art form seems to essentially reach its limit, then the artists go back and re-explore. At best, the new stuff can offer micro-creativity.

At this stage, if you are going to be really innovative in jazz, it will likely turn into something that wouldn't be jazz anymore. Or so it seems to me. Then again, jazz did accept (with reluctance by many) the fusion of Miles, McLaughlin, Coryell, Weather Report, etc.

But has then there been a true shift/turning point in jazz since? Some would say Wynton and the Young Lions, but you have to say that what they did was simply re-explore the past.

[Larry Kart]

Or maybe it is the burden of creativity. Every genre or art form seems to essentially reach its limit, then the artists go back and re-explore. At best, the new stuff can offer micro-creativity.

At this stage, if you are going to be really innovative in jazz, it will likely turn into something that wouldn't be jazz anymore. Or so it seems to me. Then again, jazz did accept (with reluctance by many) the fusion of Miles, McLaughlin, Coryell, Weather Report, etc.

But has then there been a true shift/turning point in jazz since? Some would say Wynton and the Young Lions, but you have to say that what they did was simply re-explore the past.

By and large, I would say that Wynton in particular didn't "re-explore the past" but instead came up with an alternate world version of it and tried to make that into a new starting place, a la those science fiction novels like Philip K. Dick's "The Man in The High Castle," where the Axis powers won World War II, or Ward Moore's "Bring the Jubilee," where the Confederacy prevailed in the Civil War, and thus everything in "our" world is subtly or grossly transformed.

[alankin]

[StarThrower]

I was never interested in Wynton and his followers. I'm the same age, and his vision for jazz at the time had no appeal. Of course the record companies ran with it, and dropped a lot of the more progressive artists, which drove them underground 15-20 years before the internet began destroying the record business.

I'm sure there are some very creative and unique musicians making music today, but It's tough to find them. Who's got time to wade through tens of thousands of releases at CD Baby?

[Milestones]

Alas, Wynton was never as interesting as Philip K. Dick.

[JSngry]

At this stage, if you are going to be really innovative in jazz, it will likely turn into something that wouldn't be jazz anymore. Or so it seems to me. Then again, jazz did accept (with reluctance by many) the fusion of Miles, McLaughlin, Coryell, Weather Report, etc.

Accepted, yes, finally, but only after a generation or two later realized that maybe OOPS we threw the very wonderful baby out with the rancid-pissy bathwater, and where did we put that bathtub anyway, now that we could use the water?

As far as jazz turning into not-jazz, well, yeah, and two things - 1. I'd like to think of "jazz" a ultimately being more about a mindset than a system (if that's truly possible, and it's a belief I'm willing to invest in that it is, although no way can I ever really know it), and 2, thus the whole Nicholas Payton BAM thing, because even though as a literal racial thing, hey, maybe not, but as a concept that allows for an expansion of collective awareness and possibilities instead of a compartmentalized/curated breakdown of them, not a particularly wrongly played notion, only that 3 (Bonus Thing!), we done been there SEVERAL generations ago, and as a forward thinking movement, not a backwards looking do-over of the last backwards looking do-over that declared that it was all A Thing Gone Wrong, All Off It, The Fusion And The Free Both. Although, I'm all down with not Running In Horror from somebody wanting to bring Dilla/Etc into the mix because it's What I Know At Least As Much As Anything Else Going In But I'd Like To Not Just STOP There. OK?, so if the BAM thing can do that, then good, although yet again, M-Base, please, and talk about abortional fratricide, well, there. And yet, Steve Coleman Lives, if in France and not New York.

[robertoart]

At this stage, if you are going to be really innovative in jazz, it will likely turn into something that wouldn't be jazz anymore. Or so it seems to me. Then again, jazz did accept (with reluctance by many) the fusion of Miles, McLaughlin, Coryell, Weather Report, etc.

Accepted, yes, finally, but only after a generation or two later realized that maybe OOPS we threw the very wonderful baby out with the rancid-pissy bathwater, and where did we put that bathtub anyway, now that we could use the water?

As far as jazz turning into not-jazz, well, yeah, and two things - 1. I'd like to think of "jazz" a ultimately being more about a mindset than a system (if that's truly possible, and it's a belief I'm willing to invest in that it is, although no way can I ever really know it), and 2, thus the whole Nicholas Payton BAM thing, because even though as a literal racial thing, hey, maybe not, but as a concept that allows for an expansion of collective awareness and possibilities instead of a compartmentalized/curated breakdown of them, not a particularly wrongly played notion, only that 3 (Bonus Thing!), we done been there SEVERAL generations ago, and as a forward thinking movement, not a backwards looking do-over of the last backwards looking do-over that declared that it was all A Thing Gone Wrong, All Off It, The Fusion And The Free Both. Although, I'm all down with not Running In Horror from somebody wanting to bring Dilla/Etc into the mix because it's What I Know At Least As Much As Anything Else Going In But I'd Like To Not Just STOP There. OK?, so if the BAM thing can do that, then good, although yet again, M-Base, please, and talk about abortional fratricide, well, there. And yet, Steve Coleman Lives, if in France and not New York.

In what way did/do you perceive BAM as a 'literal racial thing'. Are you talking about the claim for jazz to be known and privileged as a 'Black Music language that White people can and do play', as racial, in the sense of being 'racist'?

It seems to me, the idea was driven just as much by the fact that Payton was concerned Jazz was losing it's identity as a Black music, possibly by the fact Black music and musicians were being swamped by the numbers of White musicians with reverence for the musicians of the past and keen to 'accept' the music as Black in historical terms, but not so keen to 'celebrate' this fact in contemporary terms. Kinda like the way Native Americans must have felt when they began to have to come to terms with the loss of 'their' land - and how to survive into the future. Intellectual property can be Colonised just as easily as land.

Of course, there is also the Payton argument about the stagnation of the music itself, and his desire to claim the commonality across all Black American Music, which also comes across as a strategy to take the music back, kind of like a call for the joining of the Tribes to mount one last great effort. Perhaps you see this as the 'literal racial thing'.

Also interesting, at the time, to see an overwhelming support in Social Media for Payton from African American woman, as opposed to the vitriol and 'under threat' like hostility refracted by (mostly) White males.

Edited March 11, 2013 by freelancer

[JSngry]

At this stage, if you are going to be really innovative in jazz, it will likely turn into something that wouldn't be jazz anymore. Or so it seems to me. Then again, jazz did accept (with reluctance by many) the fusion of Miles, McLaughlin, Coryell, Weather Report, etc.

Accepted, yes, finally, but only after a generation or two later realized that maybe OOPS we threw the very wonderful baby out with the rancid-pissy bathwater, and where did we put that bathtub anyway, now that we could use the water?

As far as jazz turning into not-jazz, well, yeah, and two things - 1. I'd like to think of "jazz" a ultimately being more about a mindset than a system (if that's truly possible, and it's a belief I'm willing to invest in that it is, although no way can I ever really know it), and 2, thus the whole Nicholas Payton BAM thing, because even though as a literal racial thing, hey, maybe not, but as a concept that allows for an expansion of collective awareness and possibilities instead of a compartmentalized/curated breakdown of them, not a particularly wrongly played notion, only that 3 (Bonus Thing!), we done been there SEVERAL generations ago, and as a forward thinking movement, not a backwards looking do-over of the last backwards looking do-over that declared that it was all A Thing Gone Wrong, All Off It, The Fusion And The Free Both. Although, I'm all down with not Running In Horror from somebody wanting to bring Dilla/Etc into the mix because it's What I Know At Least As Much As Anything Else Going In But I'd Like To Not Just STOP There. OK?, so if the BAM thing can do that, then good, although yet again, M-Base, please, and talk about abortional fratricide, well, there. And yet, Steve Coleman Lives, if in France and not New York.

In what way did/do you perceive BAM as a 'literal racial thing'.

Me myself, I got no problem with it. What I was referring to are the crybabies who ain't gonna let there be ANY BAM at all because there's always a white guy ionthere somewhere and why you always be lookin' to leave out the white guys, why, it's REVERSE RACIST! all that "boo hoo we're tolerant as long as it's a tolerance based in our power tolerating your attempts to have a little power" bullshit. The "literal racial thing" being the lame "white" perception that the goal is to wipe out White Folk altogether, to send them Back To Europe Where They Came From In the First Place or at the very least to Whip Them All Into Submission To Bow Down To Their Black Superiors And Never Dare Stand Upright Again. You know, the usual paranoia about having the Slave Mindfuck played back on them. That shit runs DEEP in some White Folk even today. A Failure To Process!

Which is so NOT what it is. You know that and I know that. But you know how Some White Folk be.

Joe Henderson-Black Is The Color (Of My True Love's Mind)

Hello!

But again - this has already been made apparent to us by the overt and concerted efforts of 40+ years ago (and by more powerful players and thinkers than Payton), the whole BAM concept, and the beauty therein, and how skin color might cultural predispose & predirect one towards a certain mindset but ultimately it's a personal responsibility to Stop Being Stupid, after which, hey, wonderful world, even when it's not.

So even though it looks and feels and sounds like These Kids Today trying to Do It All Over Again, hey, if that's the best option on the table right now, take it and make it work good enough so when the time the NEXT False Messiah shows up to stop the progress, there'll be a Command Performance By The Mass Choir Of Calling Bullshit From Within and we won't have to start that mess all over one more 'gin.

[Larry Kart]

Or maybe it is the burden of creativity. Every genre or art form seems to essentially reach its limit, then the artists go back and re-explore. At best, the new stuff can offer micro-creativity.

At this stage, if you are going to be really innovative in jazz, it will likely turn into something that wouldn't be jazz anymore. Or so it seems to me. Then again, jazz did accept (with reluctance by many) the fusion of Miles, McLaughlin, Coryell, Weather Report, etc.

But has then there been a true shift/turning point in jazz since? Some would say Wynton and the Young Lions, but you have to say that what they did was simply re-explore the past.

By and large, I would say that Wynton in particular didn't "re-explore the past" but instead came up with an alternate world version of it and tried to make that into a new starting place, a la those science fiction novels like Philip K. Dick's "The Man in The High Castle," where the Axis powers won World War II, or Ward Moore's "Bring the Jubilee," where the Confederacy prevailed in the Civil War, and thus everything in "our" world is subtly or grossly transformed.

Yes, it was a shame they had to phase out the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band in favor of the LCJO.

The CHJB was doing programs like "The music of Manny Albam" and the like, bringing back great music that will always be relevant, regardless of what the hipsters and reverse racists say.

When I first heard Wynton, I couldn't believe it. He was trying to play some modern shit, and it just sounded terrible. The nightmare that results in an unholy marriage of business and the arts, as described in a novel such as "JR" by William Gaddis, was being turned into reality by the ghouls in the recording industry, and then taken up by the power structure of NYC and Lincoln Center. Wynton once spoke at a conference I was forced to attend, and what he was saying was so full of shit, I started muttering curses aloud in disbelief.

As the author Anthony Heilbut once said to me, when I was describing the situation in NYC and jazz, "What can you expect from a consumer society?"The people of NYC have traded the arts and education system for "stop and frisk", and a tourist economy, resulting in things like a kind of Bizarro World Minstrel Show, starring WM.

Something got messed up here. The only part in the above screed that I wrote is the paragraph that begins "By and large, I would say that Wynton..." The rest are the thoughts of someone else, maybe sgcim, not me.

[JSngry]

It's that new fangled quote function. I think what happens is that if you edit part of the quote before entering your own response, you can't get back outside the quote box to enter your response. I've had that happen more than a few times, and I've learned to at least begin to enter my response in the "open space" before going back into the box to edit the original quote.

[Milestones]

By and large I will avoid talk of race, religion, and politics when it comes to jazz. It is, first of all, a personal preference; but, second, I (at least) don't see much relevance here. To be sure, jazz has offered commentary on racial politics. How could that not be when you consider how significant the civil rights issue was in the last century? Ellington, Mingus, and Roach had things to say; and what's more remarkable is that a lot of it remains listenable. Artists today trying to preach a political message are (IMO) unlistenable.

Jazz is mostly instrumental music--at least in terms of what I like to hear. But however artists choose to state it (music alone or music with lyrics), in general nothing dates music faster than political statements.

[Steve Reynolds]

Why would anyone from Coryell's and McLaughlin's generation want to play straight ahead jazz in the late 60s-early 70s?

The Devil's Advocate question is why would anybody from after their generation want to play it either?

Whatever the answer is, it ain't "comforting"!

Or is it?

I guess because they like it? Why do people still make blues records? They ain't gonna do it any better than Muddy, Howlin' Wolf, T-Bone, etc. Zappa and Beefheart loved the blues, but they knew it was pointless to make straight blues records. They had imagination and did something creative.

As far as today's jazz scene is concerned, I can do without 98 percent of it. I'm just looking for a few unique voices to listen to. I don't care about all these cats that know all their jazz chords, but keep regurgitating what's already been done. Right now John Hollenbeck catches my ear. He has his own sound. As far as guitarists go, I haven't heard anybody in the past few years who sounds unique. I like Oz Noy. He has his own sound, but how many of these funk/jazz/soul trio albums is he going to do? He's got 4 out already.

I'm not a guitar guy by any stretch but have you listened to Mary Halvorson or Brandon Seabrook?

btw - 98% of what jazz scene?

free improv, neo-bop, downtown NYC, remnants of Fire Music revisited, Chicago post AACM, etc.?

what is the jazz scene today?

98% no good?

Mat, Ed & Randy NO GOOD?!?!

Ellery Eskelin? Gerry Hemingway - where does he fit in?

how about Jenny Scheinman with Todd Sickafoose, Nels Cline and Jim Black - they no good?

Trio 3 no good - they are over 70, are they part of the current jazz scene

pretty broad brush - 98%

Is Evan Parker jazz or is he dead????

At the Vortex, baby