So, What Are You Listening To NOW?

[Balladeer]

14 hours ago, jazzbo said:

Kenny Dorham “This is the Moment” Riverside/OJC cd

Kenny sings and plays. I dig his singing. . . not everyone does.

I do - wonderful album!

[jazzbo]

Bob Dylan “Fragments - Time Out of Mind Sessions 1996-1997 The Bootleg Series Vol. 17” disc 2

This is such a great box set. “The Water is Wide”–wow.

 

35 minutes ago, Balladeer said:

I do - wonderful album!

Agree! 

[BillF]

1 hour ago, jazzbo said:

An old favorite to start off the day before chores take over.

Miles Davis “Relaxin’” Prestige/JVC XRCD mini lp cd

 

👍

[Dub Modal]

4 hours ago, Niko said:

read up a bit about that weird American scene of College Dixieland bands that brought us people like Steve Swallow or Roswell Rudd... what drove teenagers in the 1950s to this old music?

I'd guess that interest was regional and driven by band kids and whatever those communities they lived in promoted as cultural events. 

[Rabshakeh]

36 minutes ago, Dub Modal said:

I'd guess that interest was regional and driven by band kids and whatever those communities they lived in promoted as cultural events. 

I thought that there was a big swell of interest. Certainly the spread of fans in the 60s and 70s looks pretty wide - wider than if it was just drawn from 1950s band kids - from the Muppets writers, to Robert Crumb, to half of Disney, to Woody Allen.

I second the view of being completely bewildered by how such a large number of college students could become so absorbed in traditional jazz. It seems such a random choice. 

Also, why were they so drawn to the look? The blues and folk revival types dressed like other music fans. Why did the jazz revival guys love the hats so much?

It's not a mystery that listening to this music is getting closer to resolving, either.

Edited March 24, 2023 by Rabshakeh

[jazzbo]

This is a compilation of all the tracks that Jobim recorded for the Brazilian composer Songbook cd series. Some of his final recordings and full of heart and grace and a really wonderful listen hearing him interpret these works from other Brazilian composers.

[Peter Friedman]

[jazzbo]

I needed more Jobim. This is an excellent compilation cd, "Personalide." I wanted to hear "Luiza" -- such a beautiful composition. My favorite niece (don't tell the others) dancer and dance teacher Louisa always comes to mind hearing this.

 

[HutchFan]

 

 

 

[Dub Modal]

1 hour ago, Rabshakeh said:

I thought that there was a big swell of interest. Certainly the spread of fans in the 60s and 70s looks pretty wide - wider than if it was just drawn from 1950s band kids - from the Muppets writers, to Robert Crumb, to half of Disney, to Woody Allen.

I second the view of being completely bewildered by how such a large number of college students could become so absorbed in traditional jazz. It seems such a random choice. 

Also, why were they so drawn to the look? The blues and folk revival types dressed like other music fans. Why did the jazz revival guys love the hats so much?

It's not a mystery that listening to this music is getting closer to resolving, either.

I think the way I phrased "band kids" was a bit off target. But I was mainly aiming at the use of "teenagers" who are mostly in high school and not college. I was getting at well funded music and arts programs across public schools in that era within the US. Middle and high schoolers exposed to that by either playing in bands, attending recitals, shows etc may have sparked interest or played a role in that revival. Those kids would then carry that interest forward as they aged for at least a few years. 

Fashion I know next to nothing about but non-baseball hats were definitely more popular back then and more accepted across a wide demographic in comparison to now. 

But this is all off the cuff guessing really. The real answer could be vastly different. 

[HutchFan]

7 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

Still continuing a recent push to learn a little bit about revivalist traditional jazz. Still finding that for every record that I really enjoy there are two records that make me re-evaluate my life choices. Still, these Bob Wilbur records aren't going to listen to themselves.

Edit: I should add that it is really hard to find out about this music. There's no recommended lists out there on the internet, and noone is on Instagram posting LP covers for clout. To the extent that it does exist in jazz histories, it seems to be as a brief reference as an historical antagonist to bebop. You'd never know that for decades it was so popular. Possibly that reflects the fact that 90% of the genre is arid revivalism that no sensible human would want to know about, but still.

 

6 hours ago, Niko said:

I've also been listening to quite a bit of revival music in recent months... Record store owners tend to be amazed to sell any of this music... I started mostly with music involving "old" musicians from New Orleans, like Chris Albertson's Living Legends series for Riverside, some related stuff like Emile Barnes on American Music... I was also curious about Joe Mares Southland label and got some of that stuff...  more recently, I have mostly been buying stuff with Art Hodes or Don Ewell on them (the latter a revivalist, I guess)... Another really revivalist record I've been playing a lot is one by Doc Evans on Audiophile with Omer Simeon on clarinet... and the Mart Grosz Riverside album with Frank Chace... I've mostly stayed clear of the various European scenes yet (Dutch I could buy by the dozen)... Also haven't really gotten into the Bay area revival even though I did play a few things (like Trouble in Mind by Barbara Dane which is great)

I did read up a bit about that weird American scene of College Dixieland bands that brought us people like Steve Swallow or Roswell Rudd... what drove teenagers in the 1950s to this old music? Somewhere I read an interview with clarinetist Stan Rubin, one of the stars of that scene, who more or less admitted that he was a fan of Artie Shaw (like you would expect) until he arrived in Princeton and realized he could make loads of money playing dixieland... regarding resources, indeed the usual channels can be dry but there are some great webpages like this one or that one

 

I dig that you guys are digging into this stuff.  Not because I think it's all good music.   (Not at all; there's plenty of junk.)  I just like how you're poking around in all the rooms in the house of jazz -- even the places that are normally ignored.

In my experience, the most interesting revivalists are the pianists.  Art Hodes, Don Ewell, Dick Wellstood, Ralph Sutton, Dick Hyman, Dave McKenna.

As for Dixieland: I've never really gone there. I think I have two Dukes of Dixieland records (one of them features Pops) and that's it. ... It was an odd phenomenon, wasn't it?  I get the sense that Dixieland took root in colleges in sorta the same way that the Folk Revival did, that being able to play/participate in the music was part of the appeal. ...  But there is also a sinister side to it too: the overt cultural appropriation, the rebel flag waving aspects of it that are so ugly and vile.  But that's a part of the story too.  And, of course, it didn't just happen with Dixieland.

 

Edited March 24, 2023 by HutchFan

[jazzbo]

Okay, time to move onto something I really want to hear through the new DAC:

Miles Davis “Bitches Brew” Sony Quad/Stereo SACD. Disc 2

This is the original mix. I still just seem to gravitate to the original mix, even though I like the remix.

[HutchFan]

3 minutes ago, jazzbo said:

Desert-island music!  ❤️❤️❤️

 

[jazzbo]

Just now, HutchFan said:

Desert-island music!  ❤️❤️❤️

 

Yes. Been a staple in my listening world since 1973. Fifty f'n years!

[Rabshakeh]

1 hour ago, HutchFan said:

But there is also a sinister side to it too: the overt cultural appropriation, the rebel flag waving aspects of it that are so ugly and vile.  But that's a part of the story too.  And, of course, it didn't just happen with Dixieland.

Particularly weird given that the same movement had at some points close links to civil rights groups. 

Clearly that was part of the appeal though, for whatever reason. Along with the stripey blazers.

1 hour ago, HutchFan said:

In my experience, the most interesting revivalists are the pianists.  Art Hodes, Don Ewell, Dick Wellstood, Ralph Sutton, Dick Hyman, Dave McKenna.

Hodes and Hyman I know fairly well, but what record or records would you start with for the others?

1 hour ago, HutchFan said:

I dig that you guys are digging into this stuff.  Not because I think it's all good music.   (Not at all; there's plenty of junk.)  I just like how you're poking around in all the rooms in the house of jazz -- even the places that are normally ignored.

It's just interesting how much of this stuff there was, and how important it was (in the sense of sales as well as the number of listeners, critics and players invested in it, and just how much of "Jazz" it represented in cultural terms). It has now just gone. It is not just that interest has waned (as with swing and many other non-jazz genres), but it has been almost completely forgotten and then dropped from histories, where it appears only as a competing movement to bebop. Strange to think about. Almost as strange as the idea that classic jazz revival could once have been a chart topping trend.

Edited March 24, 2023 by Rabshakeh

[Quasimado]

2 hours ago, Peter Friedman said:

Some of the best Hawk to be heard - plus Tommy Flanagan is there.

[HutchFan]

12 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

Hodes and Hyman I know fairly well, but what record or records would you start with for the others?

Dick Wellstood

and

 

Dave McKenna

and

 

Don Ewell

and

 

Ralph Sutton

and

Edited March 24, 2023 by HutchFan

[Rabshakeh]

Fantastic! Thank you.

[HutchFan]

Sure thing.  

 

[BillF]

9 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

Fantastic! Thank you.

Have you tried this?

 

Or these?

[Larry Kart]

10 hours ago, HutchFan said:

 

 

I dig that you guys are digging into this stuff.  Not because I think it's all good music.   (Not at all; there's plenty of junk.)  I just like how you're poking around in all the rooms in the house of jazz -- even the places that are normally ignored.

In my experience, the most interesting revivalists are the pianists.  Art Hodes, Don Ewell, Dick Wellstood, Ralph Sutton, Dick Hyman, Dave McKenna.

As for Dixieland: I've never really gone there. I think I have two Dukes of Dixieland records (one of them features Pops) and that's it. ... It was an odd phenomenon, wasn't it?  I get the sense that Dixieland took root in colleges in sorta the same way that the Folk Revival did, that being able to play/participate in the music was part of the appeal. ...  But there is also a sinister side to it too: the overt cultural appropriation, the rebel flag waving aspects of it that are so ugly and vile.  But that's a part of the story too.  And, of course, it didn't just happen with Dixieland.

 

Two great sources for somewhat revivalist jazz that's terrific are foreign -- the Australian stuff that originated in the 1940s  by the late Dave Dallwitz, the Bell Brothers (Roger and Grahame) Ade Monsborough  et al.  and the more recent French stuff from Jean Pierre Morel and his Le Petit Jazz Band and its orchestral offshoot. Different as they are, these guys get it right -- nothing is within quotation marks. Dallwitz in particular is a composer in the Morton class. Morel's stuff is or used to be available via the Stomp Off label. As Terry Martin (himself an Australian who grew up around Dallwitz in Adelaide) shrewdly pointed out in the Oxford Companion to Jazz, one key reason thus stuff works so well is what might be called the "so near, so far" principle, in terms of time and geography. Distance in those realms tends to preclude futile Turk Murphy attempts at outright emulation and leaves room for fruitful personal engagement of sensibilities. One Dallwitz album to go for first is his masterpiece, the "Ern Malley Suite."  "Gold Rush Days" and "Gulgong Shuffle" are also choice.  "Ern Malley Suite" seems to be on You Tube. Maybe more Dallwitz too. He also was a gifted painter.

[HutchFan]

19 minutes ago, BillF said:

Have you tried this?

Those are all terrific recommendations, Bill.  But they're the ORIGINALS, not revivalists.  

If you're gonna go down that path, then you've gotta throw some James P. Johnson in there!    

 

11 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

Two great sources for somewhat revivalist jazz that's terrific are foreign -- the Australian stuff that originated in the 1940s  by the late Dave Dallwitz, the Bell Brothers (Roger and Grahame) Ade Monsborough  et al.  and the more recent French stuff from Jean Pierre Morel and his Le Petit Jazz Band and its orchestral offshoot. Different as they are, these guys get it right -- nothing is within quotation marks. Dallwitz in particular is a composer in the Morton class. Morel's stuff is or used to be available via the Stomp Off label. As Terry Martin (himself an Australian who grew up around Dallwitz in Adelaide) shrewdly pointed out in the Oxford Companion to Jazz, one key reason thus stuff works so well is what might be called the "so near, so far" principle, in terms of time and geography. Distance in those realms tends to preclude futile Turk Murphy attempts at outright emulation and leaves room for fruitful personal engagement of sensibilities. 

Thanks for the recommendations, Larry.  I've been meaning to investigate Dallwitz forever, but I've never gotten around to it.

 

 

 

Now playing:

 

Earlier:

R.I.P.

 

Edited March 24, 2023 by HutchFan

[Rabshakeh]

25 minutes ago, BillF said:

Have you tried this?

 

Or these?

 

Now, but this is the really real stuff.

18 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

Two great sources for somewhat revivalist jazz that's terrific are foreign -- the Australian stuff that originated in the 1940s  by the late Dave Dallwitz, the Bell Brothers (Roger and Grahame) Ade Monsborough  et al.  and the more recent French stuff from Jean Pierre Morel and his Le Petit Jazz Band and its orchestral offshoot. 

This is great! Graeme Bell is known to me as a name but not the others. Where would you start with each of these artists, record-wise?

[Larry Kart]

I said "somewhat." Morel's orchestra actually plays the compositions and arrangements of U.S. writers of the '20s. The results sound great and fresh, not revivalist in the restrictive/constricting sense.

[HutchFan]

Next up:

with Richard Williams, Charlie Rouse, Sam Jones, and Al Foster