Jazz - What's your bag, man?

[fergus]

Listening to this amazing Live in Sweden Lp circa 1970 with it's equally amazing cover (Cliff and Clouds,Cohab Canyon,Utah 1966 by Minor White).

Yes, I really like that image as well Dermot; very reminiscent of the work of Ansel Adams. I know absolutely nothing of the music however....as usual!!!

[Seán]

Listening to this amazing Live in Sweden Lp circa 1970 with it's equally amazing cover (Cliff and Clouds,Cohab Canyon,Utah 1966 by Minor White).

Yes, I really like that image as well Dermot. I know absolutely nothing of the music however....as usual!!!

Fergus, do yourself a favour and get a copy of the Miles Davis/Gil Evans Rodrigo Concerto CD, you won't regret it.

[mcq]

Thought I'd share this with you lot.Hope it inspires you as it did me all those years ago and still does....






"There's an astonishing wealth of music here,much unlike anything Jarrett has done before or since.His grace,power,insight,majesty and sheer virtuousity were at their peaks in 1976, when this set was recorded at five concerts in five diferent Japanese cities.The self indulgence of Bremen/Lausanne is tamed, the Romanticism that offended so many hard boppers in the stupendous popular Koln Concert is cut with a new astringency, and the concerts flow with an undeniably organic seamlessness.
Nowhere is all this so evident as in the very first disc, Kyoto.here are 78 minutes of music with but a single break,the whole beautifully linked.Here's the tale Jarrett tells:

A mysterious,chromatically descending motiff sets a tone of awe and grief that evolves into a singing lament,then rises through melancholy to reverie,eventually surfacing on the rolling waves of Gospel syncopation,which quickly doubles on itself,the rhythm growing increasingly angular until it breaks through and takes over,driving the music into key after new key,finally virtually abandoning tonality,soaring ,rhythms and figures chasing each other,tumbling over and over like eagles furiously mating in flight.Then comes churning counterpoint,simultaneously ascending and descending melodies,wheels within wheels ,Jarrett's notorious ostinato left hand as active as his right.Gospel chords crash in from time to time,but the stressful stasis is finally unraveled by a single blue,lyrical thread that leads to a place of dusky rest,some local spirit singing an endlessly evolving melody whose final form is never and always stated.A chorus of of chorded elementals joins in at last,the key changes,and quiet,modal tribal chanting is visited by a simpatico,gone native anthropologist(who used to be a piano player called Bill Evans)taking over the lead in cascades of crstalline notes until he plays a folktune from home which gathers funk until it suddenly drifts apart into a silent shower of shooting stars piercing the barely there curtains of the aurora borealis,just as a rushing mountain stream,full of snow melt, suddenly overflows its banks and just as suddenly recedes.



Intermission




The concert's second half begins with polytonal irregularities,rhythmic cubism showing all sides of the beat at once.Through crashing chords and colliding rhythms Jarrett works works out a long,complex formula in the calculous of the soul,until,finally,an endlessly modulating tonality emerges:major,minor and diminished chords revolve in a kaleidoscope of inevitable conclusions,and I know at last what bob Dylan meant by "the chimes of freedom flashing". Then,following a peaceful moment of children's songs and lullabies after the high moral drama of warring musical eras,a graceful double waltz dances us back into church with swaying,sweaty Gospel that grunts and groans with the birth pangs of clean washed souls dropping the karma of centuries:music to work your heart out to.But finally the heart has learned its lessons the final time and is ready to get off the wheel of fate at last,or begin all over again.Jarrett rises through the sliding, intersecting realities between death and birth,passing the spirit of Gershwin eternally singing his white and black blues;Jarrett rises to the stars,their soft,hard,cols,tiny voices high and pure,driving the galaxy in slow spiral,around and round,running down and out,the great surround finally dying in alast paroxysm of tonal order - chords against chaos.But emerging from the echoes of those last dying,noble Valhallas of sound is a small,chanting voice - yes, the same mysterious,descending elegy with which this musical hejira began.and on the simpllest,gentlest of muted major chords,as much a prayer as performance,Jarrett's boat touches silent shore.



And that's just disc on. The four other concerts, if slightly less concentrated, as Jarrett explores more and more closely a smaller heap of of raw materials,are just as rewarding.The master tapes have not fared well over the years:there's print through,and the sound is somewhat dry,chalky,boxy:in louder passages the piano has an almost xylphonic character.In comparisons,the Lp's sound deeper (as usual) and the piano's middle register rings more clearly,cleanly bell like.
these days,now that it's digitised,The Sun Bear Concerts costs about $90.00.But even if I still made a mere $3.50 in now far less valuable bucks (1991),I'd go without lunches for this one.As recommended as they come. (R.L.)

That's a really wonderful review of Sun Bear. The writer really gets inside the music - "emerging from the echoes of those last, dying, noble Valhallas of sound is a small, chanting voice" - almost sounds like Lester Bangs writing under a pseudonym. And, like all great reviews, it sends you scurrying out to buy it.

One writer who had the same effect on me was the late Richard Cook who co-edited The Penguin Guide to Jazz with Brian Morton for many years as well as editing The Wire. He was a man with broad and varied interests and who really knew how to channel his enthusiasm for the music into his writing.

[mcq]

mcq, it is lovely to read of your admiration for Eric Dolphy, I have always loved his work. At times, it feels like one (me) is ploughing a lonely furrow here until you happen along with these wonderful posts, well done and thank you.
Seán

Many thanks for the kind words, Sean. It's always a pleasure to write about the music that inspires me.

[mcq]

Listening to this amazing Live in Sweden Lp circa 1970 with it's equally amazing cover (Cliff and Clouds,Cohab Canyon,Utah 1966 by Minor White).

Yes, I really like that image as well Dermot. I know absolutely nothing of the music however....as usual!!!

Fergus, do yourself a favour and get a copy of the Miles Davis/Gil Evans Rodrigo Concerto CD, you won't regret it.

It's instructive that you should mention Miles Davis in relation to George Russell, Sean. Russell's groundbreaking musical theories, published in 1953 as The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, were a major influence on Miles' thinking in the late 1950s, most notably in Miles' classic Milestones (as well as Coltrane's Giant Steps) which kickstarted the whole modal movement in jazz. I do think the meeting of minds between Bill Evans and Miles around this time was also significant with Evans introducing the music of Ravel and Debussy to Miles.

[cybot]

That's a really wonderful review of Sun Bear. The writer really gets inside the music - "emerging from the echoes of those last, dying, noble Valhallas of sound is a small, chanting voice" - almost sounds like Lester Bangs writing under a pseudonym. And, like all great reviews, it sends you scurrying out to buy it.

One writer who had the same effect on me was the late Richard Cook who co-edited The Penguin Guide to Jazz with Brian Morton for many years as well as editing The Wire. He was a man with broad and varied interests and who really knew how to channel his enthusiasm for the music into his writing.

Thanks mcq, I enjoyed typing every morsel; in fact it almost inspired me to get another copy!??!?! Richard Cook must have been good if he co-edited The Wire/Penquin;I probably read his stuff many times without being aware of who he was....

[mcq]

I've been winding down tonight with some very fine jazz singing - namely, Kurt Elling's album, Night Moves. Elling must be the pre-eminent male jazz singer out there right now. He's got immense vocal technique but it's always at the service at the song. Scat singing is something that's very difficult to bring off but Elling does it so finely that it always seems like a natural extension of the song. He's got a great band behind him, but especially his pianist/arranger, Laurence Hobgood. Wonderful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j4IMxlp0zc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH0VxA4sA4E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCdjswQP ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR3G_YSm ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEhIEbhe ... re=related (wonderful re-imagining of the classic Theodore Roethke poem)

[mcq]

Some great piano jazz tonight. First up, two fine albums from the fantastic Enrico Pieranunzi trio (consisting of Enrico on piano, with Marc Johnson on bass and Joey Baron on drums) - Ballads and Dream Dance (all on Cam Jazz). This is very much Bill Evans territory (athough Pieranunzi plays a little like Herbie Hancock as well) in terms of the emotional warmth of the piano playing as well as the empathy between all three musicians. Marc Johnson is on wonderful form - this must be the best band he's played in since the classic 1979/80 Bill Evans group - contributing some beautiful solos. Joey Baron is a drummer I know more from his work with John Zorn but this is entirely different music which is a tribute to his versatility. The beautiful version of These Foolish Things, in particular, calls to mind Evans' definitive treatment of this classic and I can pay it no better tribute. Wonderful recording from Cam Jazz - lively, upfront, but there's warmth there as well.

Next up was Whirlpool by the John Taylor Trio (Cam Jazz). I'm more familiar with Taylor's work as a sideman with the great Kenny Wheeler but this is a wonderful band he has playing with him. Like so many piano trios, the music is very much infuenced by Bill Evans - which is no bad thing - but this departs from Enrico Pieranunzi's approach in that it's not quite so lush. There is a lovely pared-down quality to this album which is perhaps truer to Evans than Pieranunzi's approach - not a single note is wasted here - and that's not meant as a criticism of Enrico, merely an observation. And there is a very special version of I Loves You, Porgy here as well. The bassist Palle Danielsson - who did such sterling work with Keith Jarrett on Belonging and My Song - is on excellent form here.

(Incidentally, Cam Jazz allow visitors to their website (http://www.camoriginalsoundtracks.com/s ... &path=home) to preview tracks in their entirety from all of the albums in their catalogue, which is very generous.)

Finally, I played a solo album from the very interesting pianist, Marc Copeland, simply entitled Alone (available on the Pirouet label). This is a musician who favours a more objective, coolly removed approach to the music. Themes are developed slowly and the music really only gives up its riches after a few listens. Very satisfying music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUnHJ2ey ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQpDZ8C4 ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r863eYsS ... re=related

[Seán]

For mcq and me:

[mcq]

That's a great album, Sean. One of Chick Corea's best performances and the great Ron Carter as solid as ever. Fine drumming from Grady Tate as well. I've always loved Litha (one of Corea's best compositions) and the title track in particular.