Tír Na HiFi

Seán wrote:

cybot wrote:

Oh, I'd say that's good.

It is and on double vinyl too :-) You probably have one or both of the albums featured, namely: 'Fusion' and Thesis' from, you guessed it, 1961. Drumless space indeed.....



A few words:

When Jimmy Giuffre broke away from the straight-jacket of white West Coast Jazz in the mid-fifties he went on to produce a series of albums experimenting with drummerless trios. In fact he did a wonderful album just before this series using a quartet of reeds/trumpet/bass/drums where the drums are not used rhythmically at all ("Tangents" - long unavailable except on the Mosaic 6CD set). Giuffre had always felt uncomfortable as a straight jazz improvisor - he needed the space & freedom to explore ideas & sounds as they cropped up in order to express himself fully, & found the thrust of a good rhythm section too restricting - he didn't want to ride the beating drum - his rhythmic sense was more dynamic & extreme. This trio with Bley & Swallow is where he first really comes into his own as composer, improvisor & leader. The two albums on this release ("Fusion" & "Thesis") were the trio's first two recordings done only a few months apart in New York 1961. Also available by this trio are the seminal "Free Fall" (1962) & two wonderful live albums - "Emphasis" & "Flight" - recorded in Germany late 1961 (recently released on HatArt as a double CD). The remit of the trio really was to reinvent music - to take it apart piece by piece & reconstruct it afresh, making each component vibrate with its own independence whilst relating to other components with a new delicate vitality. Each instrument is also treated as a component in this web of interactions - each played with restraint & sensitivity - leaving much space around each other (bringing to mind Cage's aphorism - "love is the space you leave around the loved one") - listening as attentively as creating - creative listening. Not only were this group investigating the various components of music but they were also acutely aware & sensitive to the dynamics of creating as a threesome - as a trio - in fact on the later album "Free Fall" there are duets & solo pieces as well - all sounding very different in character. The overall feel of these recordings is of intense & intelligent inquiry - the more intense it gets the quieter it becomes. The music is not really jazz - it's as much influenced by European atonal music - especially that of Berg & Webern - as it is Armstrong or Parker - in fact in the sleeve notes to "Free Fall" Giuffre states "Given: the urge to enter new realms, glimpse other dimensions, reach the absolute. Given: the visions received from thinking on such things as . . . gravity, Monk, electricity, time, space, the microcosmos, leaves, chemistry, power, Gods, white-hot heat, asteroids, love, eternity, Einstein, Rollins, Evans, the heartbeat, pain, Delius, Scherchen, Art, overtones, the prehistoric, La Violette, wife, life, voids, Berg, Bird, the universe . . .". This may sound like pretentious youthful enthusiasm but in fact it is all clearly audible in the music (Giuffre was, after all, a mature 40 years old when he made these albums) - La Violette, by the way, was Giuffre's composition teacher. Whilst "Free Fall" may be this trios best & most intense deconstruction (& final - no one would record them afterwards) - these two albums - "Fusion" & "Thesis" - are the more listenable - softer (they've been given a little ECM reverb unfortunately) - transition recordings that still vibrate strongly with the intelligence, generosity, courage & commitment with which they were made. "Free Fall" influenced the whole European free improvisation movement enormously, whereas these recordings influenced the ECM sound just as much (hence Manfred Eicher's insistence to pay homage by releasing them on his label). Given how important this trio was & is, then surely it's time we had everything they ever recorded available to us - even fluffed takes. In short this trio is, along with Evans/LaFaro/Motian, the best in jazz, & this album set is their most attractive recording.

On the old wind-up...

Followed by....



Contains the spellbinding Stolen Moments. Probably the most perfect 8 minutes and 45 seconds of Jazz ever :-)

Haven't heard this in ages! Original from '73 on green ECM label. I can't quite believe how good it is! Piano, Gongs and 12 string and Classical guitar...

Thanks for the notes on Jimmy Giuffre, I hadn't realised that Eicher was re-releasing 'old ' recordings, that's very interesting.

Dermot, you followed up with three lovely recordings. I have always enjoyed Dolphy's and Towner's music-making and The Blues and the Abstract Truth is one of my favourite jazz albums. I must give it a spin later in the morning.

Seán wrote:Thanks for the notes on Jimmy Giuffre, I hadn't realised that Eicher was re-releasing 'old ' recordings, that's very interesting.

Dermot, you followed up with three lovely recordings. I have always enjoyed Dolphy's and Towner's music-making and The Blues and the Abstract Truth is one of my favourite jazz albums. I must give it a spin later in the morning.

Glad you enjoyed the notes Seán. Blues and the Abstract Truth is something else! On the track I mentioned (Stolen Moments) I love the contrast between Eric Dolphy's flute solo (an instrument I'm not very fond of!) and Oliver's stupendous take on the sax - it really flows....and then some! Enjoying my Jazz odyssey at the moment and long may it last :-)

cybot wrote:

Seán wrote:Thanks for the notes on Jimmy Giuffre, I hadn't realised that Eicher was re-releasing 'old ' recordings, that's very interesting.

Dermot, you followed up with three lovely recordings. I have always enjoyed Dolphy's and Towner's music-making and The Blues and the Abstract Truth is one of my favourite jazz albums. I must give it a spin later in the morning.

Glad you enjoyed the notes Seán. Blues and the Abstract Truth is something else! On the track I mentioned (Stolen Moments) I love the contrast between Eric Dolphy's flute solo (an instrument I'm not very fond of!)

Good God!! How can one not like the sound of a musical instrument?

and Oliver's stupendous take on the sax - it really flows....and then some!

Nelson was a lovely sax player, ideally suited to the Blues. Even when one looks at the lineup on that album and the fact that the material was written by Oliver Nelson one might be forgiven for coming to expect that it might not quite match up to the sum of its parts, and it does, it is a magnificent album. Everybody should have a copy of it

Enjoying my Jazz odyssey at the moment and long may it last :-)

Moi aussi, I have been listeing to my vinyl on a daily basis of late and I am really enjoying them again too.

cybot wrote:

Seán wrote:Thanks for the notes on Jimmy Giuffre, I hadn't realised that Eicher was re-releasing 'old ' recordings, that's very interesting.

Dermot, you followed up with three lovely recordings. I have always enjoyed Dolphy's and Towner's music-making and The Blues and the Abstract Truth is one of my favourite jazz albums. I must give it a spin later in the morning.

Glad you enjoyed the notes Seán. Blues and the Abstract Truth is something else! On the track I mentioned (Stolen Moments) I love the contrast between Eric Dolphy's flute solo (an instrument I'm not very fond of!) and Oliver's stupendous take on the sax - it really flows....and then some! Enjoying my Jazz odyssey at the moment and long may it last :-)

Dolphy was a magician on the alto sax but he was also one of the finest flautists in jazz (as well as being the best bass clarinettist - not that there was much competition in that department). Eric's solo on Stolen Moments is masterly but I think he surpassed it on Gazelloni (from his masterpiece, Out To Lunch).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkRPVD1OjiU

mcq wrote:
Dolphy was a magician on the alto sax but he was also one of the finest flautists in jazz (as well as being the best bass clarinettist - not that there was much competition in that department). Eric's solo on Stolen Moments is masterly but I think he surpassed it on Gazelloni (from his masterpiece, Out To Lunch).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkRPVD1OjiU

That he may have Paul, but I'm still not enamoured with that flute sound. Still, it is to me anyway, unusual to hear the flute in a jazz context....

Sorry for the different take on the original cover...



Bill Evans and Jim Hall - Undercurrent