The new Summer 1973 Grateful Dead boxed set brushes up against the brief flourishing of what's come to be known as "The Phil Jazz Jam." It's probably as close as the band ever came to an organized approach to a Davis/Coltrane zone. This is my favorite version (6/24/73 Portland). #gratefuldead#jazz
After a long time of barely listening to the year, I'm happy to be reunited with the easy-going/sleepy/careful playing, as well as the vocal qualities we discussed.
I had a lot of '76 tapes in my early going, so I'm also getting great Proustian whiffs of my life ~35 years ago.
@4CPcomics@the_dude_abided@ScottM@shlenny those sets are a nice bridge between the lush but overly soft June shows and the intricate jamming of Fall. Lot of good material in there. If 7.18 was played with a fire that matches the setlist it'd be one of the all time greats
There was a guy named Maxwell,
who was born on that day, 100 years ago,
even if his birth certificate doesn't say so.
His second name was Lemuel.
Whatever — everybody calls him Max.
Let's embark for a 100 days celebration
with Max Roach, here on Mastodon.
You know what to do? — Follow the hashtag…
Born in 1924, Max Roach was already an accomplished musician when he founded, in 1954, a remarkable quintet with Clifford Brown on trumpet, Harold Land on tenor sax, Richie Powell on piano and George Morrow on bass. The sound of this quintet, the music they would play, is characteristic of the then beginning hard-bop style — combining the velocity of the bebop with a fuller sound and more sophisticated arrangements. (Another important hard bop quintet would be that of Art Blakey — another drummer ! — and his Jazz messengers.)
Their first recording features tunes by notable composers, but we owe three of them to Brown. The one I chose for today, Daahoud, has a slightly unusual form. The melody starts in anticipation by a full bar, while the musicians only play one full note on the first bar. This unbalance is kept during the full AABA form, an 8 bar motive in Eb which is repeated twice, another 8 bar motive that modulates in Bb, which leads to the initial 8 bar motive. That classic pattern is then enriched by an element of surprise by the addition of 4 bar bridge in repeated II-V-I. Choruses follow: trumpet, piano, saxophone, and drums, and the musicians end the tune by replaying the melody, 3 bars at the drums, and a finale.
10 years before yesterday's recording, Max Roach was already leading the bebop scene and recorded with all the great.
Today's song is a Don Byas composition, Living My Life, taken from an album led by Don Byas — Savoy Jam Party — made from 4 recording sessions from 1944 to 1946 in which he shares the drums with 3 other drummers I had never heard of. I want to share two songs of that recording with you, because the way Roach accompanies them is strikingly different.
Living My Life (*) is a kind of slow drag, AABA form, at a moderate tempo (approx 120 bpm), in AABA form where the saxophonist takes all the light: he exposes the theme, takes one chorus, leaves some space to the piano for 8 bars and takes back the melody to conclude. Roach's accompaniment is very minimal : he plays quarter notes on the snare drum all along, probably playing sort of flas with brushes — that allows him to create a longer sound — but nothing more.
I had explained a few days ago how Max Roach and Kenny Clarke had helped create bebop by switching the beat from the snare drum to the ride cymbal. Here, you have a great example, recorded in August 1946, of what hadn't happened yet!
"Je vais faire un thread "longue durée" avec la musique que j'aime, donc un peu orienté #jazz, au sens large (aussi large que la prog "jazz" d'un festival jazz). Peut-être ça m'amènera à découvrir de nouvelles choses grâce à vous, et inversement réciproque. Kiffons."
La voix pétillante de Cyrille Aimée et la guitare brésilienne de Diego Figueiredo subliment parfaitement cette version acoustique de la célèbre chanson de Bill Withers.
Alice Coltrane, John McLaughlin, Carlos Santana and Friends
3.4.1974 Kabuki Theater, SF
Live performance FLAC download
A new to circulation recording of an essentially unknown show. There are not many live recordings of Alice from the 1970s so this is quite special. Quality is good, not great, but also not bad.
Working on live music recordings for circulation is a great hobby. The music itself is often amazing of course, but I've also gotten to work with some great people and get to know them a bit that way. Jesse @bourgwick and I talk music and such pretty often and that's always a real pleasure. For this Alice project I reached out to Jeremy @theheatwarps based on his incredible Electric Miles blog, which is wonderfully insightful. Working with him has been awesome. Thanks Jeremy!!!!
@mrcompletely@bourgwick@theheatwarps initial rumination: recording sounds great and excellent research! Spawned a deeper dive into that Illuminations record, been listening to Eternity a lot lately. I am more a fan of spiritual jazz than free jazz. All the comments from stage sound appropriately devotional, feels like I am back on the ashram. Coltrane's wurlitzer is utterly hypnotic, quotes her husband sometimes, delicious. cons: the best track is cut, cosmic lesson enjoy what is there
This playlist was made by posing the question "what other #music actually sounds right when mixed with Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi albums?" back on the birdsite. @theheatwarps was a major contributor to the discussion. Alice Coltrane is the other major pillar here.
As always, suggestions for additional tracks are always welcome, but whether or not I feel the fit is right or not is a visceral and elusive thing
@mrcompletely@theheatwarps Maybe something from Catalyst? "Jabali" from their self-titled album would be one possibility because it was named for one of the members of Mwandishi, but something like "East" off the same album might be a better fit musically. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tGzu_O1DkU
Ill Considered & special guests incl. Theon Cross - Precipice (Live)
I was just wondering when Ill Considered might have new music out and here it is, ahead of a single coming out tomorrow. Since their most recent album was their finest yet (in fact it keeps moving up and is entering rare air in my personal hierarchy, I think it is a masterpiece) I'm quite excited for anything new from them.
As a young fella just getting into #jazz in the late eighties my first impressions of David Sanborn were that he was corny and overly smooth, in an unhip bag I didn't dig with guys like Metheny and the Breckers. Then he blew my fucking mind with the Night Music show and I've respected him ever since. There was almost no really cool weird music on TV in 1988-90 except that show, and man, Night #Music was legit!!! Nick Cave, Bongwater, Pere Ubu, Miles Davis...
@mrcompletely
Very true!
I think Willner’s work, connections, & inspiration brought the really different musicians together but Sanborn had to direct traffic once they were there & that took great skill, knowledge, energy, & patience…
Sanborn, Wilner, & a few other folks like G.E. Smith had very mainstream jobs, like network T.V., and still took part in more obscure, heady projects.
It reminds me of Bill Graham intentionally booking older blues & jazz artist with new & psychedelic rock.
I started to like the jazz music that plays in my favourite coffee shop, so I now listen to whatever chill jazz I can find while driving as it helps to keep me calm. I’m open to recommendations if anyone has any artists, tracks or playlists to share! #jazz#music
@andycarolan@LexiGirl all aspects of physical distribution are collapsing. Amazon takes a huge slice out of CD and DVD sales revenues and passes the full sales tax to the distributor or band.
So a $10 CD with 8% state tax, Amazon often passes on just $4 out of which the label, distributor and sales tax have to be paid... Sales tax takes 80¢ so there's not much left...
So be careful what you wish for. As much everyone would love it to go back to record stores... It won't happen.
@ctproduced I didn't mention record stores... the one mainstream one we have left appears to specialise more in merchandise and niche vinyl than CDs/DVDs (although I have bought box-sets there recently). I'm talking about other methods of purchasing music digitally, while avoiding streaming services.
While Bandcamp isn't perfect, artists appear to receive more than they would on there than via streaming. especially on Bandcamp day. @LexiGirl
The latest date to be added on the unannounced winter Shabaka Hutchings tour is: #Seattle Town Hall 2/22/24. The only two other known US dates are the "album debut" on 1/15 in NYC, and the Newmark show here in #PDX on 2/23.
There's no info about the album is or who is on it, or who will play these west coast dates. Shabaka is IMO the best live performer in music today so I don't care, but the NYC show includes Brandee Younger and Esperanza Spalding 🤞
The dates for this tour or whatever it is seem to be coming out on venue sites rather than being announced as a tour, so if you live in a city with a nice theater venue, you might want to keep an eye on their listings - for all I know there could be 10 more Shabaka dates up across the country already #jazz
Some kind of restrictions have been imposed on me by Mastodon, but it doesn't tell me why, just that it happened and I can appeal. And I clicked their thing and put in my appeal, including "I have no comprehension as to what is going on here". The restrictions that I grasped were, if I follow someone, every time they must approve it before I'm following and also if I go to include hashtag this or that--like #jazz--it no longer works. If I look to see if it made it there, it didn't.
I hypothesize that this happened because someone connected to the right someone else's complained because I did not agree with 2% of someone's politics. Indeed I think it came down to a single word. That I didn't think the word "genocide" should be used in too broad a sense. Then I got some attacks, and some people said they hoped I killed myself soon and so on. So maybe it relates to that. I find this discouraging enough I will probably leave mastodon.I got along without social media before.
@JohnShirley2023 I have accumulated some reasonable migration how-to links and I will be glad to share them with you. I hope you will move to another Mastodon neighborhood and stay.
I am sorry you had this experience. I didn’t know this no-info kind of complaint response could happen. Hopefully it is a precautionary purgatory awaiting human moderation.
Sur la Denon de GranMuM, ça envoit du jazz ! (ça déborde un peu dans la rue...mais ça va faire du bien aux oreilles des voisins catho-bourges-patriarcaux...)
Après on va se mettre des trucs de hippies !
@Bougl@DarKou Finalement j'ai fait dans le "Gloire à Satan !"... on s'est barré à la mer avec KiD on a mis Ghost à fond...
Je comprends pourquoi Dave Grohl est fans de Ghost, ils écrivent leur morceaux pareil : C'est la mélodie chantée qui est la base du morceau et non le riff ...
Would I be wrong to say that #progrock like this is just as good as anything being created in #jazz during the early 1970’s? Any one else have favorites from this era? #Nowplaying#vinyl
@digginjazz@pomCountyIrregs ah! Part of my impetus for diving into jazz after being a casual fan for a few years was an opportunity to have a dj show on internet radio back in the early days (~ 2000). So I went for Bebop, transitioning later to Hard Bop and so on.
@pomCountyIrregs@digginjazz yeah I’ve listened to KCSB from time to time. An acquaintance of mine, Erin Eyesore has had her show Ribbon Around a Bomb there off and on over the years.
Victor Goines (August 6, 1961-) is a jazz saxophonist and clarinetist who is the president of The Jazz St. Louis and was director of the Jazz program at Juilliard for 7 years. He has composed more than 200 original works and performed on more than 30 recordings thus far in his 4 decade long career. #SymSat#VictorGoines#Jazz
Walter Blanding Jr. (August 14, 1971-) is a Jazz Saxophonist and clarinetist from a prominent New York Jazz family. He trained at both LaGuardia High School and The New School. He joined The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in the mid 1990s and later served as the Jazz Ambassador in Shanghai, China for The JLCO from 2018 to 2020. He took a sabbatical from The JLCO in 2022 to become the newest member of the Michigan State University Jazz Studies faculty. #SymSat#WalterBlanding#Jazz
Wynton Marsalis (October 18, 1961-) is the Managing and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He is the winner of 9 Grammy Awards (the first to have in both Jazz & Classical categories in the same year) and the first Jazz composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He was born into a prominent New Orleans Jazz Family and is a Juilliard trained musician. #SymSat#WyntonMarsalis#Jazz
Continuing with more of the slow stony psychedelic Miles Davis.
“We Want Miles”
Live Tokyo 1981
🎵 on the air right here, right now ➡️ https://MarkMetz.Mixlr.com
Chelsea Carmichael - The River Doesn't Like Strangers
Absolutely fantastic modern #jazz album released on Shabaka Hutchings' Native Rebels label and produced by him. Carmichael is a member of Theon Cross' and Joe Armon-Jones' bands, and this debut as a bandleader makes it clear she's ready to claim her own name. The title track alone is worth the album price.
Not on any EOY list I've seen yet, but then, London Brew wasn't either, my album of the year by miles
@LostReflector this is the kind of thing that's been costing me a fortune in the last few weeks. I had about ten things saved to listen to and two EOY lists to read and now I've already spent too much and the links just!! keep!!! coming!!!!!!!! 😂 😂 😭 🔥 🙌 💸 💸 🎼
PS the other thing on Shabaka's label is a rap group I haven't even gotten to yet
My #BandCamp Friday rec for #jazz heads is the London Brew fusion project that came out earlier this summer. It didn't generate much buzz that I saw at the time and folks I find that perplexing. This album smokes. It was framed as a tribute to Miles and Bitches Brew but it's really just modern fusion #music Miles might dig, from a lineup of UK jazz killers (Shabaka Hutchings, Tom Skinner, Theon Cross, Nubya Garcia) and members of The Invisible, who give it a modern edge
Everyone, of course, has heard Time Out, one of the most famous and popular albums ever. They recently turned up additional tapes from those sessions, and here they are...and it's great to hear quite different (and equally great) versions of these classic tunes, plus a few extras.
Well worth your time. And money. Don't forget money.
Liebe Musik-Liebhaber:innen, ich möchte ein bisschen sammeln und zwar Frauen im Jazz. Besonders junge, noch nicht etablierte Musikerinnen. Und den Begriff Jazz würde ich sehr weit fassen. Originalität geht vor orthodoxie. Kann mir jemand Tips geben? Gerne auch boosten oder Ideen Input? #jazz#musik#contemporary#frauen#womeninjazz#frauenimjazz
on now:
Sun Ra - Space is the Place,
the 2023 Verve By Request Third Man Pressing.
my first third man where quality control might have failed. some paper sticking in the vinyl between the run-outs. one minor tick, yet, ermm, not cool, for a €30+ product.
⚫ meh.
🐺
@Whiskeyomega@jazz@vinylrecords
^replacing the paper sleeves is a no-brainer of course.
some are worse than others, almost abrasive & scratching hairlines on the vinyl.
i can understand if some mid nineties detroit techno release had them.
however a company putting vinyl-damaging cheap-ass sleeves into premium-priced jazz releases which entitle themselves "audiophile" is nothing less than a massive spit into paying collectors' faces.
yes, Verve / Third Man Records, i'm talking about you.
Opening a 1974 original sealed copy of Atmospheres - “Voyage to Uranus”. Smokin set of jazz fusion featuring John Abercrombie, Ralph Towner, Clive Stevens, Stu Woods, and Michael Carvin. This is a fire record that cruises under the radar. #jazz#jazzfusion#VinylCollection
@spreaditround@PaulInRainCity I'm sitting on a bunch more masters from there waiting for some interpersonal dynamics to clear up around them, everything from Doc Watson in the mid 70s to Flora Purim to Townes VZ in the early eighties, all uncirculated and super clean. Having to wait on em is annoying but patience furthers
