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In this Discussion
- Death January 2011
- distant_shoe January 2011
- ed_chigliak January 2011
- kdawg January 2011
- Kelsey January 2011
- Leland January 2011
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- Log_Gary January 2011
- lolo January 2011
- Marcus January 2011
- Matthew January 2011
- Nick January 2011
- swamp_knobbler_mahan January 2011
- ThickeningAgent January 2011
- UncleBoatShoes2011 January 2011
- YoursTruly January 2011
- zin January 2011
Jazz
I'm taking this Jazz review class where I have to review a jazz record once a week. I really haven't explored jazz so I would definitely listen to some recommends if you have some.
I do have a few things:
a couple of Sun Ra records, Vince Guaraldi, and some late era Medeski Martin and Wood...
but that's it
I do have a few things:
a couple of Sun Ra records, Vince Guaraldi, and some late era Medeski Martin and Wood...
but that's it
Comments
John Coltrane "Giant Steps"
Alice Coltrane "Journey in Satchidananda"
Pharoah Sanders "The Creater Has a Master Plan" (is that an album or a song?)
COOL CLASSICS THAT ARE GOOD
I co-signs all of Teen Wolf's. That Pharaoh one is a the main song from that Pharaoh album "Karma"
Here's some others:
Herbie Hancock "Headhunters"
John Coltrane "A Love Supreme"
Ornette Coleman "The Shape of Jazz to Come"
Joao Gilberto "Getz/Gilberto"
David Axelrod "Song of Innocence"
Charles Mingus "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady"
Pharoah Sanders "Karma"
Thelonius Monk "Monk's Dream"
Maybe some Cecil Taylor
There are A LOT of good Miles Davis albums and they really span a huge swath of many eras/sounds of jazz.
Listen to:
"Birth of Cool"
"Cookin'"/"Relaxin'"
"Miles Ahead"
"Kind of Blue"
"Sketches of Spain"
"Quiet Nights"
"Miles Smiles"
"Miles in the Sky"
"In A Silent Way"
"Live/Evil"
"On the Corner"
Art Blakey "Moanin"
Oh, also some Moondog in there. Moondog is totally jazz!
also earlier stuff like Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie ("Bird & Diz")
also some vocal jazz like Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughn
Cannonball Adderley - Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!
Charlie Parker, right?
Bill Frisell, for that easy-listening vibe
US3 - Hand on the Torch (JUST KIDDING)
also Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and get some classic Charlie Parker. Also John Zorn for more recent-ish downtown NY Jazz.
Love Supreme SO RULES HARD
I get double credit if I review a live performance so I probably will do that for one of them too.
i think 'Kind of Blue' is generally considered Davis' biggest hit
Some of the albums in this thread are live albums. Lots of Jazz records are.
Does #ukjazz count?
and I also meant to say
How are those Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane albums? ..instead of Davis/Coltrane
Piano dude.
You will get into (if it is a good class) different instruments and the different people's use of / relationship to said instruments. soprano sax vs. deeper, more resonant saxes in Coltrane's oeuvre, e.g. What the different instruments are capable of and how the various artists pushed those physical capabilities. And then the relationship between instruments and vocals, in jazz, which rarely gets talked about because most jazz vocalists are women, and "jazz" since the 1950's or so is supposed to be this macho struggling genre where you're sweating and working through dense, intense, intellectually challenging musical topics, and these aren't qualities people have tended to enjoy associating with women, plus women in music have always been traditionally more associated with singing than with instruments, because for hundreds of years this was the only thing a woman was allowed to do onstage, so "vocals" as a jazz instrument usually gets pretty ghettoized into, like, "oh yeah all this other stuff" categories, at least in the jazz stuff I have read/heard at conferences. But the vocal stuff is amazing and beautiful--AND, all the praised jazz guys were totally influenced by the lady vocalists, and vice versa, there are all kinds of communications happening that don't necessarily make it into the canonical history of jazz as told in textbooks.
I recommend a great book called "Keeping Time," which is a collection of source readings throughout jazz history, starting in the late 19th century. It is totally mind-blowing to read stuff written in the various time periods---from newspaper articles freaking out about the "primitive beating of the jungle-skins" and the "negro's innate sense of rhythm" to angry articles about how jazz is encouraging young women to remove their corsets, to cool stuff written by the dudes themselves, about practicing at each others' houses and why they got interested in certain musical experiments that later made them famous (Coltrane's "sheets of sound," e.g.).
I don't know that much about jazz but this is just a brief list of shit I remember talking about in various seminars, and hearing about at a jazz conference I presented at once. One of my colleagues is a jazz specialist and so I have also heard her go on and on about these issues. I can give more reading recommendations if you want, but Keeping Time is a great place to start.
http://clydesprimerib.com/Music_Calendar.html
UT OH! There's been a spill of swinging beats and riffs all over the place.
I'm declaring this thread a real BIOJAZZARD threat.
Thanks,
gary
Beware.
I did a Bitches Brew review
the super cliff notes version of my review for bitches brew is something like:
Jazz is cool!
Everything is all twirly and atonal sometimes!
I was trying to think of other jazz that I have liked in my limited jazz past, and I remembered Guaraldi’s “Charlie Brown Christmas”. It might still be the 1 Christmas album that I have yet to get tired of hearing every year. I decided to look up some of his other stuff. Wikipedia told me this album was a good place to go and it didn’t disappoint me.
The first track “Samba de Orpheus” is great right off the bat. The bass guitar and drums set the mood and then Vince Guaraldi makes…well I want to say huge entrance, but that isn’t right. I’m not really sure how to put his entrance other than to say he plays the notes I want to hear. The little 4 chord break down part a little before 4 minutes? I love it. He never over does it. He just plays exactly what the song needs. He is modest in his tone. It’s hard not to get into Charlie Brown metaphors.
The second song brings it back down into a slower jazz. One of the brilliant things about his music is his minimal band. Almost never more than bass, piano, and drums. The bass and the drums all seem to be tailor fit for Guaraldi’s style too.
The third track starts slow, but it’s a trick. He brings it right back up. This track is maybe the first VGT track I’ve heard where the drummer gets pretty significant solo time. There are also lots of those chunky chord melody hits again like the first track.
Track 4 is super grooved out. The bass line really gives Vince some good places to go. The end is a flurry of little simplistic melodies, and some beautiful chord progressions. The bass does such a great job of transitioning this song.
“Cast your fate to the wind” is a little all over the place with some pretty straightforward generic jazz but with this really beautiful droning part that comes in every so often. There is also this little pop part that follows it that is really fun.
Track six “Moon River” starts off in almost Debussy style wavy lilts and then heads into one of those Guaraldi melodies that calms your entire body. It fades between these two elements for the whole song, and it's hard not to wish I was slowly driving through a Midwest blizzard on a small highway while listening to it.
The last couple of tracks are just ok. “Alma-ville” has a couple nice little catchy hooks. It also has some kinda generic Guaraldi stuff too which is kinda disappointing. There are, at least, a few of his descending chunky chord melodies.
Wrapping up the album is “Since I Fell For You” which is kinda a disappointment. It is pretty cliché bluesy smooth jazz. There are a couple of little interesting noises that VG makes, and it's cool that he can really make you feel like the Piano is singing, but overall the song is pretty generic. Good thing there was so much quality before it!
Keith Jarrett's improv stuff!
Lonnie Liston Smith's "Astral Traveling"
Cassandra Wilson! "New Moon Daughter"
Eddie Harris -- "Bad Luck Is All I Have"
chet baker
louis armstrong
mahavishnu orchestra
george benson -breezin
al jarreau
wes montgomery -bumpin
sax dude that played with brubeck
freddy hubbard
stanley clark
jaco pastorius
chick corea
george duke
lenny white
ron carter
dizzy g
that dude that played clarinet in big bands
count basey prchestra
the art ensemble of chicago
other stuff
stuff
and stuff
as for miles records im partial to bitches, in a silent way, dark magus
as far as all jazz is concerned, unlike other pop forms, its all about the solos. the concept of a solo, of improvising in the moment, regardless if its big band jazz , a bebop quintet or some weird electronic free funk, its all about dudes' ability to "capture the moment" in creative spontanious creation
louis armstrong album
duke ellington album or count basie album
charlie parker album
john coltrane album
mingus or monk album, maybe mingus and monk
some west coast cool jazz album. maybe chet baker or miles davis kind of blue
in a silent way
bitches brew
george benson - breezin
just go chronological from early to bigband to bebop to post bop to west coast cool/modal to fusion to smooth jazz
Winelight though.
but what about stanley (jordan, not clarke) (also good)
Also, Rassan Roland Kirk!
I'll see if there's links.
you guys are jazzing all over the place
awesome :)
and chet baker sings - 'it could happen to you"
i think one was '56 and the other '59. i like his drawl. he sings effortlessly and these are both great studio albums. i like the former better than most music. i like chet baker because he was kind of an eff up, like couldnt play trumpet at one time because he got his teeth knocked out, went to prison, was an addict, died falling off a balcony in amsterdam with cocaine and heroin in his system(citation needed). i mean, these are the reasons why people love and follow their favorite rock and roll stars, famous writers, etc etc.
+1 rassan roland kirk
chet atkins
miles davis was a badass
frank sinatra's "watertown"
i have some more at home to recommend..