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Jazz!

Kingfisher

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aphrodite - check out Art Blakey's album " 'S Make It " and Gerry Mulligan's album " At the Village Vanguard "
you might like those. i don't know if i have any feel for what you like, though.

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Beat - pete fountain is one of the best, he is my favorite dixieland musician of any instrument. and Pete Fountain Day is a fantastic album! i have also never been able to find it on CD.
have you heard his album "Pete Fountain's French Quarter"? that is a great one as well. i looked on my vinyl copy, and it has some of the same lineup as Pete Fountain Day:
Godfrey Hirsch on vibes, and Jack Sperling on drums.
it differs in that Stan Wrightsman is on piano, and Morty Corb is on bass.

i have the vinyl, and i am pretty sure this one never made it to CD.
 

The Outsider

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I really like jazz, I'm kind of new to it though, so I don't listen to a whole lot of it yet. This thread will prove useful I hope.

Bohren & der Club of Gore has recently become one of my favorite bands, they're a newer band, they mix slow jazz music with ambient, I've seen them described as noir jazz or doom jazz.
Black Earth and Sunset Mission would be my favorite albums.

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoooscPFiyc"]Prowler[/YOUTUBE]

If anyone knows anything similar, I'd love to know. :)
 

Kingfisher

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i am a huge fan of Charles Mingus. "Mingus Ah Um" is one of the best jazz albums of all time, in my opinion. and i love "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady" too.

[YOUTUBE="GObThIZ_ZoQ"]Better Git It In Your Soul, from Mingus Ah Um[/YOUTUBE]
 

ed111

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My favourite jazz album is Oscar Peterson's version of West Side Story. The following video is damned clever: first that the guy has annotated Peterson's playing and secondly that he can actually play it. Good stuff!

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TtUORAJhV4"]West Side Story[/YOUTUBE]
 

LadyJaye

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Miles Davis' version of " Someday My Prince Will Come" is one of my favorites.

I'm a big fan of Duke Ellington, and Ella Fitzgerald. I could listen to her all day. That, and I love Billie Holiday - she does a version of " Lover Man" that puts me in tears.
 

kuranes

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I like Miles Davis, too. Hard to say which is my favorite album. Some of his phases were so different that it's like comparing apples and oranges. I like much of his early material, such as the already mentioned "Kinda Blue", but I liked some tunes from his "electric period", too. ( In fact, I'm a big fan of Pete Cosey, the guitarist, from that period. Pete still lives here in Chicago, and I sometimes talk to him. )

Here is a film of "So What" being performed, back in the earlier days.

YouTube - Miles Davis Quintet - So What (April 2, 1959) 1 of 4

One of my favorite jazz albums has Lester "Prez" Young on it, jamming with some great friends of his in Kansas City style.
allmusic ((( The Kansas City Sessions > Overview )))

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any of those tunes on Youtube for you. Here's a scratchy old Dicky Wells record being played, which will have to stand in for one of the players on that session.

YouTube - Dicky Wells and his orchestra

Prez and Oscar Peterson -
YouTube - Stardust - Lester Young and Oscar Peterson Trio

Billie Holiday and some of the greats -
YouTube - Fine And Mellow - Billie Holiday With Coleman Hawkins Lester
 

Kingfisher

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Oscar Peterson made a great album with Dizzy Gillespie and Stuff Smith, the violinist.

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kuranes

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Oscar Peterson made a great album with Dizzy Gillespie and Stuff Smith, the violinist.
I never heard of Stuff Smith. I'll have to look him up. I love violin. Diz is someone with a big rep whose work I haven't heard that much of, but this is explained by my not being a big Bop appreciator, if I'm understanding the meaning of the term in all of its nuances. ( There is also what is known as "hard Bop". )

Beat - I, too, enjoy Pete Fountain. I've listened to some of his other albums, but haven't heard the one you referenced. Is it really that different from his other albums ? Pete plays Jazz that is ....more accessible....That's one way of putting it, anyway.

( The earliest forms of actual "Jazz" are now known as "Ragtime" and "Swing", and they were also once known as "Pop" music, believe it or not, you youngsters. )

BTW - Dexter Gordon played "Prez" in the movie about his life that featured a lot of performances.

I noticed the person who mentioned something to the effect of Jazz being the choice of starving musicians, or words to that effect. OT - A Zappa quote, wasn't it ? ( Zappa was lucky ( right time, right place ) to break into "niche mainstream" with his unusual take on rock, and so his comment is redolent of his usual irony and conundrum; said irony not being entirely 100 percent intentional, either IMO. He saw some things as being "highbrow", and some highbrow as being "gimmicky", without always acknowledging that his own work could be seen as such also, despite ribald ( ribald = "earthy" ? ) lyrics etc. As I was saying, there was a time when Jazz and Pop music were the same thing. If the Jazz "community" had not migrated so enthusiastically to Bop then maybe we would still have more offerings along these lines, versus some of the "songs" popular today that are really more about attitude than music.

The last paragraph is just my off the cuff remarks on the subject of accessibility etc. as there is a lot of music I have yet to hear, and I do like some that is called "Bop". My admittedly outsider understanding of this phenomenon breaks it down thusly:
( 1. ) There have always been artists who seem to cater more to other artists than to the average public, and so perhaps what I am referring to simply references the sonic equivalent of that.

I'm not advocating going for some kind of "lowest common denominator" approach, but the opposite extreme is unappealing to me as well, and sometimes has an "emperor's new clothes" aspect to it. It's amusing to note also that ghetto slang and "underworld" terms ( the two mingling somewhat ) are evolving in similar patterns, with new phrases coming along as soon as the "old" ones are generally known/accepted. This way there is always a group that is "in the know" and more "hip"* than those not in on such secrets.

( 2. ) I read somewhere that some of Ornette Coleman's work and initial inspiration could be considered to be a pastiche ( or perhaps parody ) of the later more "out there" work of John Coltrane. Coleman's work is where some choose to draw the line. Other people consider Ornette more "down to earth" because his "no rules" approach allows for more "freedom" and is not built around a dance with constraints the way most Jazz is. I haven't heard a great deal of the work of either man, and so I haven't formed a firm opinion on whether it strikes me as mostly "noise". ( So far I prefer Coltrane's offerings of standards, in company with other artists, to his solo experimental work. There is an album wherein he plays with McCoy Tyner and Johnny Hartman that I like. )

( 3. ) One major part of the brain that looks for pattern re: input is the auditory cortex. One might call this the "new noise" department. It attempts to try and dissect it and understand it. This corticofugal network is always fine tuning what we hear and how to interpret things. If there is a minimal failure of this attempt we get a small dose of Dopamine, which gives us good feelings associated with such a precursor novelty. If we get a large amount of this, and thus a correspondingly large amount of Dopamine, we experience this as a temporary craziness, which is typically of the undesirable sort.

When Stravinsky premiered his "Rite of Spring" in May of 1913, the audience was completely unprepared for the dissonance in the work. ( It would not be a big deal for most of us today, because this approach to music is not so new anymore. ) The audience literally rioted. There were people striking one another with canes ( drawing blood ) and other shenanigans amongst a normally genteel crowd. Nijinsky was screaming at his dancers throughout it all to stay on the beat. ;) Stravinsky hadn't expected to be seen as such a villain and IIRC he had to exit the theater by an obscure back way.

The word got out, naturally, and thus people had more "warning" and thus more accurate expectations the next time the work was performed. This was in March of 1914. On this occasion, people were actively looking for the "hidden order" ( pattern ) and many of them were finding it. Those who didn't find much of it were still not so surprised as the first time. Stravinsky emerged from this concert as a hero, literally carried on the shoulders of the surging crowd of new fans, in fact.

The music eventually became acceptable enough that it was used in a Walt Disney movie circa 1940.

Relevance of this Stravinsky anecdote to the thread on Jazz, and these comments of mine about accessibility of Jazz ? Bop was probably an experiment in musicians appreciating a "hidden order", and from there developing further, as each musician attempted to widen the boundaries - with a new break in the tacit ( or heretofore acceptable ) forms. However, I think that the race between such musicians moved so fast that the average American has still not caught up with it, even though it is not always about dissonance, in the case of Jazz.

( 4. ) Since true randomness is supposed to be actually a rare thing, calling some sounds we hear "noise" may not strictly be accurate, but, for most of us, we appreciate slipping into the ( shallower ? ) cool waters gradually versus being thrown forcibly into a deep frigid depth ( "Which way is UP ? " ) from the get-go.

OT - A tangent thread could probably be constructed about whether "N's" see hidden order sooner and more effectively, and so therefore are the vanguard of these boundary expansions. Separating these people from those who are "merely pretending to enjoy bitter wine so as to appear elite" ( analogy ) can be hard to do sometimes, and it can even be sincerely unclear to some of those actually participating whether they have their feet in both camps, or one or the other.


* The word "hip" has changed its meaning over time, I have been told by a young person. He referred to Paris Hilton as being "hip" and I remarked that, on the surface, she seems to be one of the most UN-hip public figures that i can think of. He showed a smiley emoticon at that and said that the definition of hip these days had more to do with whether someone or something was popular.
 

ed111

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By the way Kingfisher, thanks for creating this thread. I've started to take a look on YouTube for some of my favourite tracks that I'd like to share with everyone on here.

Probably the greatest trumpeter of the modern era has to be Derek Watkins. A friend of mine has an album of him playing the Carpenter's song, We've Only Just Begun in a pub, and it is sublime. He hits all kinds of screamers. Unfortunately it is unavailable on YouTube. However, here's one of him playing My Way. He starts off on Flugal, and ends with screamers on the trumpet. Here's his biography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Watkins_(trumpeter). Note he is the only trumpeter to have played on ALL James Bond theme tunes.

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj3W_mOntDg"]Derek Watkins - Trumpet[/YOUTUBE]
 

ed111

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My favourite artist is Errol Garner. I love the way he plays whilst smiling at the audience. Here's one of him playing one of the songs he wrote, Misty:

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88b0DCEBLcU"]Errol Garner - Misty[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xLpLtkxuFw"]Errol Garner - Where or When[/YOUTUBE]
 

ed111

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As for drummers, what about Buddy Rich?

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JbvAeDm000"]Buddy Rich - Preach and Teach[/YOUTUBE]
 

rhinosaur

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Pat Metheny is a genius, and Shirley Horn was an awesome vocalist.

Others in my library include Jaco Pastorius, Bela Fleck, etc.
 

Kingfisher

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I never heard of Stuff Smith. I'll have to look him up. I love violin. Diz is someone with a big rep whose work I haven't heard that much of, but this is explained by my not being a big Bop appreciator, if I'm understanding the meaning of the term in all of its nuances. ( There is also what is known as "hard Bop". )

Dizzy is a huge icon in bebop (bop), but you are right he is really strongly associated with bebop. hard bop is just a sub-genre of bebop. there are several sub-genres, and it is difficult sometimes to really distinguish them.
Stuff Smith was a great violinist. he is criticized sometimes for playing too raw and loose, but other people praise the same elements of his style and say it is more intensity and emotion.
he is probably an example of what you were talking about, musicians who play for their listeners rather than for other musicians.

i think a lot of times jazz musicians are not really playing for other musicians, it just seems that way because they have reached such an incredible level of technical mastery. some of them become so skilled that they start to really experiment with music theory, and i think maybe that is not as approachable to the average listener.
but i think the vast majority of jazz musicians really just play for themselves, for the love of music.


I read somewhere that some of Ornette Coleman's work and initial inspiration could be considered to be a pastiche ( or perhaps parody ) of the later more "out there" work of John Coltrane. Coleman's work is where some choose to draw the line. Other people consider Ornette more "down to earth" because his "no rules" approach allows for more "freedom" and is not built around a dance with constraints the way most Jazz is.

well i am a huge fan of Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane. they are pretty different stylisticly. Coleman and Coltrane were only a couple of years difference in age, and actually Coleman's first avant garde experimentation with jazz was a few years before Coltrane was starting to experiment. Coleman is definitely not a parody of Coltrane, in fact a lot of people point to Ornette Coleman as being one of the first innovators in free jazz and avant garde jazz.

here is a video of Ornette Coleman.
this is an example of his avant garde jazz that is not completely "out there":

[YOUTUBE="c5Vb-I1wuqs"]ornette coleman[/YOUTUBE]


i really enjoy free jazz and avant garde jazz. it is hard for some people to enjoy it, and i think some people go into it with too many expectations or preconceived notions. but there is a flow to the music a lot of times that is engaging, and very different from classic "song structure" and very tightly composed songs. for me it is something i have to let myself fall into, and get carried along by it. it can really get interesting and start to take off when you have been listening to a long recording or live performance.

by the way, 'free jazz' is a style of jazz that is very experimental, and it's what most people picture when they think of modern and unconventional jazz. there is less clearly defined and more unconventional rythym in free jazz, and much less or no structure.

here is a classic example of free jazz, 'Ascension' by John Coltrane:
(unfortunatly this video cuts off abruptly)

[YOUTUBE="JtEsuHuqNLo"]ascension[/YOUTUBE]


by the way, i still use the word 'hip' in a very 60s kind of way. :D
if i call someone or something hip, that to me is a huge compliment. haha!
 

Kingfisher

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here he is, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, perennial badass:

[YOUTUBE="61qT-qTVWA8"]making love after hours[/YOUTUBE]
 

Tiltyred

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I love jazz. Mingus is a little too deep for me, so I'm impressed that you're into him. I need to keep trying. I would hate to think he's beyond my capacity. Do you have a suggestion to ease me into it? (n/m, I'll go listen to what you've already posted :D)

Ron Carter -- if I could have anything in the world, it would be to make a living playing upright bass
Dave Brubeck
Brad Mehldau
Stan Getz -- I know you know the Getz/Gilberto album
Ella Fitzgerald
Peggy Lee
 

Stanton Moore

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As for drummers, what about Buddy Rich?

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JbvAeDm000"]Buddy Rich - Preach and Teach[/YOUTUBE]

Many Jazz drummers like to poo-poo Buddy as a cold, technical master with no soul. I like some of his playing, and there is no doubt that he was on a level by himself in many ways.
I prefer Elvin Jones, Max Roach, Tony Williams and Joe Chambers. Those guys weren't as technical as Buddy, but they could swing ( Not That BR couldn't!). Elvin Was from another planet. Totally original genius.
 

rhinosaur

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When it comes to just chilling out, you can't beat stuff like this.
Although I must admit this is not my favorite song.
[YOUTUBE="RSdOFByCGx8"]Rick Braun[/YOUTUBE]

The weird stuff like John Coltrane and Pat Metheny is interesting, and good to listen to, but you can't really ignore it, you have to take a more active listening status to appreciate it. With the more mellow stuff you can turn your brain off, which is sometimes all you need.

Of course I am not huge into jazz so what do I know?
All I know is that I prefer the more highly composed stuff.

[YOUTUBE="Ecz3ykm_TRU"]Pat Metheny[/YOUTUBE]
 

Kingfisher

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nebbykoo, i agree, i much prefer Elvin Jones to Buddy Rich. not to say Buddy isn't incredible, but Elvin really meshed amazingly well with a lot of groups. and Max Roach is great as well, i really like the albums he did with his M'boom group, and Drums Unlimited and Percussion Bitter Sweet are great albums as well.
how do you feel about Art Blakey? he's a drum powerhouse! and a great bandleader.

Mingus is a little too deep for me, so I'm impressed that you're into him. I need to keep trying. I would hate to think he's beyond my capacity.

i don't know if it's a question of him being too deep. Mingus has a pretty specific and unique style of composition, his song structure is not something that appeals to everyone.

his album "Oh Yeah" is definitely not deep, it has songs with lyrics like "i wanna eat it, eat that chicken, i wanna chew it, eat that chicken pie!" it has a lot of Mingus just shouting and making random noises and vocalizations. it's a pretty great album, very energetic and fun! :D
also he made an album called "Mingus Plays Piano: spontaneous compositions and improvisations" it is all Mingus playing piano solo. it gives a very interesting insight into how he plays and composes. it is a pretty approachable album, it is just piano so there is no bebop craziness. :)

The weird stuff like John Coltrane and Pat Metheny is interesting, and good to listen to, but you can't really ignore it, you have to take a more active listening status to appreciate it. With the more mellow stuff you can turn your brain off, which is sometimes all you need.

have you ever heard Coltrane's early stuff? he was very mellow in the mid 50's.
 
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