Jazz for aficionados

Oups! Another one i did not know..

Thanks...

Yes, Peter Bernstein is a great player! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyYTqnJ70VE

My favorite female jazz singer :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtbDTRZwx3c

I like Klemmer versatility... From relax album to more sophisticated jazz...

But no one replace a giant, as Coltrane or Miles Davis or Chet Baker or few others  who are in a league of their own...

Some genius as Sun Ra and Walt Dickerson are too peculiar to be recognized as very great  as some others because they are too idiosyncratic by their instrument choice and style of playing ...

John Klemmer--does anyone listen to him anymore? When he first came out I had a friend who said he was the next Coltrane. Obviously, that didn’t happen.

I like the albums i have of Klemmer... Not the greatest sax i ever heard but not the worst...An honest musician...

I dont always listen geniuses, it is easy listening .......

From "involvement" album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K-bC4FR8Zw

From "finesse" album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5IsQDELVxA

From "touch" album :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmhwKsft0mQ

I like "barefoot ballet" :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMftPV1Cr8c&list=PLl9cMNFDVYaJNgYXnysIj7_Faus2YzM1U

I like my 25 albums of Brookmeyer...

Trombone ask for a good audio system room ....

I am seduced by trombone...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PchsiRG-qdk

Being on this forum has motivated me to dig into my record collection for old jazz albums I haven’t played in many years. This morning Bob Brookmeyer with Stan Getz, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Elvin Jones. Very mellow.

Wonderful! i dont even know this name...

I will look for it thanks frogman...

https://youtu.be/69Hp6ct2nIE?si=o1Ut5SkdQuq8c-m1

I think all music style ask for a top audio system...

For example my favorite music since the cradle is chorus music (sacred music), it is annoying to hear a melting pot of voices in a non balanced system room... Or through headphone unable to translate the acoustic flows of the voices...

mahgister, all jazz begs for a good audio system. With each upgrade I can appreciate albums I never appreciated before. I think jazz is also partial to turntables. 

For sure you are right!

Music dont need a good sound to be understood...

It only help...

I remember my ecstasy at 13 year old in 1964 with a battery small radio undercover the night with small earbuds...

But we grow old and we ask for more...

I did not have the budget to buy me a high end system... Then i learned acoustics applied and created one...

I sold the house ans my acoustic room 2 years ago...

Now my TOP system is happily the only headphone i ever liked...

I had a good speakers system working optimally now but a very low cost one in nearfield with an acoustic set of resonators...

Good sound help but do not replace  a "receptive brain" as you said though...

My favorite music is choral music before Bach...

The Franco-Flemish school, in particular Josquin Des Prez  ...Russian choral music too after Bach...But i listen Armenian Choral or even Persian vocals and Indian vocals...

I am not fond of much opera...

Save Weil, Philip Glass, Busoni Faust... etc

My greatest  last  discovery few years ago  is the Christus masterpiece of Liszt by Antal Dorati ( i own three versions) ... Sublime music directly heard from heaven rivalling not only Bach but Bruckner geniuses ...

mahgister, Bach’s Mass in C Minor, Mozart’s Requiem, Carmina Burana, the last movement of Beethoven’s 9th are among my favorites. And Yes, a good audio system helps a lot to hear more deeply into the music. Although, when I was in college with my Sears Silvertone stereo that folded into a suitcase ($100), I loved music dearly. I think the most important component in the audio chain is a curious and receptive brain.

I do not know him...

But i must say that save for very few exceptions, Fitzgerald,Holiday,Baker, Armstrong,  Charles ,Mari Nakamoto, Irene Kral, and few others which are really genius voices i do not tolerate jazz singer generally  much more than one listening...

I only say my truth here and i can understand that some like  jazz singing more than i do...

Thanks i will try to slowly tame him with my heart in spite of my hesitation...

Anybody meaningful discovery can be ours if we stay attentive indeed ...

mahgister, Mose Allison is in his own world. He has played jazz piano behind Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Zoot Sims and others. He writes many of the songs he sings, although the Seventh Son was written by Willie Dixon. I first heard him in the mid-sixties, when I was in my early twenties and I was blown away, not just by his voice, but also because he was white. I never would have guessed it listening to him. He seems to ride the line between jazz and rhythm & blues and has influenced many rock stars. Here he is singing one of his most famous songs "Parchman Farm." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRAYLabbHPk

I think I was lucky to hear him in my early twenties because I had no expectations considering genre, jazz, rock, rhythm and blues. I just flat-out was blown away by the guy. If you don’t think of him as "jazz," you might like him better. I’ve heard him live several times and seen him in the movie "The Score" (De Niro, Brando, Angela Bassett, Edward Norton) as the jazz guy in the background. When I heard him live once he didn’t sing at all, just played jazz piano.

Thanks frogman for J.J. Johnson...A phenomenal musician master of trombone fluidity...

The Columbia 1960 4 albums are a gem music and sound...

As usual you feed me the right stuff...

https://www.amazon.com/Columbia-Albums-Collection-1961-JJ-JOHNSON/dp/B07L22H91L

It is evident for me that Sinatra is a great singer...

But i had no real interest for him...

If i hear him i know he is more than average to say the least...

But i cannot say i appreciate many singers....

The singer i like the most is a persian singer  with many Indian singers...

To stay in Jazz each time i hear  Louis Armstrong playing or singing  i felt him in my gut....it is not that i love him, he is like a sun irradiating...

I love Keely Smith and i listened his album "spotlight on K.Smith" non stop for years...

and I don’t know who else remembers Louis Prima and Keely Smith.

Good story! thanks...

 My favorite female singer near this region is Abida Parveen

Try her...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU9uBMPqQdE

or Kishori Amonkar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJnjyN-n_zE

 my favorite Persian singer with his most stunning album  :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p7KccSKDfY&list=PL4F5BC82BE6B287E7

my favorite Persian female singer album :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS065XPSCFc&t=1s

My second best :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdkaDVL5rhc&list=RDEMTZ2IZ9GPjU2tQBCraGtHrg&start_radio=1

 I feel as Greek as Persian Parisa is a goddess:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgUCOnC36zM

mahgister, on the topic of Persian singers I have a story. I was a pretty wild young guy at 21. My girlfriend and I had $300 and two charter tickets to London. From London we hitched through Europe, mostly took trains through Turkey, but in Iran, people wanted to pick us up to speak English. Plus my girlfriend was beautfiul.

We were theoretically going to India, but were running out of money. We hit the last town in Iran before Aghanistan. Very religious. One guy pulled a knife on us simply for being infidels. We had a local who was showing us around and he took us into a club, I guess you’d call it. And I was floored because the Iranians at the border were so religious, but on stage was a woman singer, and she had one of the most soulful voices I’ve ever heard.

i learned to love Tina Turner a lot :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isXLBHCDo4Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isXLBHCDo4Y

I will only add that Louis Armstrong universal recognized genius on planet earth play and sing always "rolling" never behind the beat....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyLjbMBpGDA&list=PL9FC836A421FE23B0&index=2

my favorite female singer all styles conflated  is Marian Anderson:

She roll and never lag behind the beat  in spirituals or classical :

crucifixion (a spirituals song)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiFEOhZ8Jb4

Bach Erbarme dich, mein Gott from Matthäus-Passion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E7zjNiz2ZI

 I could give an example of perfect musical time mastery in Fado with Amalia Rodrigues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_-tDYhohag&list=RDEME57zQmiWw8Qt3SWu3xOuWQ&index=15

Why Ray Charles is such a loved genius as Armstrong was ? it roll and never lag :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRgWBN8yt_E

Why "kind of blue" of Miles and Coltrane is a so great success?

It roll and never lag.... All the album is ONE  single piece of art...

Less known Pat Martino album  "formidable" roll too ....

Dickerson and Sun Ra Album vision is such masterpiece too ...

I will stop here....

About jazz...

I read a decade ago a story of a black musician who decided to  go back to Africa to study music there...

He encountered a master and discussing with him, the master said listening samplings of western music and jazz, this "does not roll"...

"this does not roll either"....Etc...

I am sorry to be unable to retrieve the source of this story on the net....

But think  now about a deep observation of Miles Davis which stayed in my mind saying most white musicians "lag behind the beat"and put it next to this African master who claimed most American music jazz or classic "does not roll"....

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mLmMQ5vd_Jw?feature=share

What does it means ?

It means because of the tradition of written music in the West, musicians  trained with written music often  "lag behind the beat" and their music often  "do not roll"...

A precision: the greatest book on acoustics i ever read was written by A nigerian acoustician, a pure genius, whose doctorate was refused in London but accepted  at Sorbonne Paris... I purchase his book and it change my understanding of sound in relation with music completely. His books title is "sounds source" 500 pages. Akpan J. Essien is a genius and a master of the Yoruba speaking drum which was the basis of his doctorate thesis...

In my opinion recent research in acoustics confirmed he was right in his criticism of 2,000 years of Acoustic beginning with Pythagoras...

Music is not  just  wave in the air, it is the information of the vibrating sound source qualias,  ("Timbre" mystery )  irreducible to  linear Fourier mappings, because created by the ears/brain/gesturing body and flowing in his own non linear time domain....

Then Jazz or any music "roll" and flow without "lagging behind the beat" if it is synchronized directly with the playing body and expressing something communicated by the vibrating sound source...

https://www.amazon.ca/Sound-Sources-Origin-Auditory-Sensations/dp/1913289540

Here yoruba talking drums to illustrate what kind of music roll and did not lag behind a  given beat but emerge with it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZOg4xIiulw&t=1078s

Now i thought few years ago about Furtwangler the genius of Classical orchestra as  described by  Russian Maestro  Gergiev and Ansermet the french genius as  transcendent  in his understanding of musical time...

Here too with Furtwangler in Bruckner, Beethoven Schumann miraculously, the music dont goes behind a prescribed  external time and beat but emerge with a time of his own, a time purely musical which  no metronomic writings can catch... Furtwangler music "roll" and dont " lag behind the beat"...Gergiev analysed  Furtwangler genius and i think he was right on the spot...

Especially if we compared with Toscanini, which is surely a great maestro but in my opinion a lesser one, because he impose to the music an external timing of his own without like Furtwangler letting the music spoke as the Yoruba drums spoke too only rolling ...

Yoruba masters :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4GXD-7G6T8

 These Yoruba drums roll, and create meanings as rythms gesture with no lagging behind the beat... Furtwangler directing the Schuman 4Th  symphony, one of the greatest  interpretation i ever listened to do the same... It roll....

 Furtwangler Schumann 4 th (the greatest Classical music interpretation i ever heard):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk8AtH0t2BU

I deliberately used the Miles Davis quote and the anonymus black musician going in Africa Quote which can be misleading.... "lag behind the beat" is an expression used by Miles which can be misleading...

Then i use the anecdotal encounter between a jazz musician and an African master to dissipate the misleading meaning which may come from the way Miles explain it...The African master say , "Music must roll"...

Now what this means?

To explain it i suggested Furtwangler interpretation versus Toscanini about musical time...

The key point : musical time cannot be written it is an embodied timing...

It can be suggested by the indications in written music for example but cannot be metronomically captured...

musical time must be birth with the music itself and cannot be put on the music by any external gesture or intervention... If we do this we act like Toscanini instead of Furtwangler and the music do not "roll" and it lag behind the beat and by beat here i refer to the heart of the playing musician, his gesture, not to a measuring metronomical time which can be imposed on the music...

I thought that playing squarely on the beat is more typical of western classically trained musicians -- an approach that in certain African - derived genres is considered decidedly "un-hip".

Then nevermind if we speak of Yoruba drum or Schumann, or about  J.J. Johnson playing trombone, the music "roll", "do not lag behind" because the musical time and the beating beats are not metronomically written but felt as pure expression born with the musical gesture not imposed on it...

The genre here, African drum, Jazz, Classical matter not; musical time  roll or do not roll from the music itself...

I refer then to a universal sense of the musical time independent of any culture or genres or styles... Some Indian master playing Sarod  or sitar "roll" and are recognized as master precisely because of this timing sense of improvisation with the flow of music...

but it can be true even of a piece of written music as the Schumann fourth by Furtwangler where a miracle occur, the music birth his own time as his central meaning thanks to Furtwangler direction who understood this music like God himself or like an African master speaking with his drum...

Music any music is rythm, not as a metronome beat but as a heart beat, the timing flow must roll and must not lag behind. If not there is a duality between the music flow and the time dimension... the musician produce a gesture which do not synchonise all the musical parts into one WHOLE....

It is difficult to explain...

Remember  that i am not as frogman a musician nor as you either stuartk...

I apologize for my difficulty to explain it clearly...

I tried...

According to AI: 

In jazz, musicians often play slightly behind the beat, creating a "swing" feel, which is a rhythmic characteristic of the genre.

I forget to say that the way A.I. said sometimes the musician deliberately "play behind the beat" this gesture do not contradict my explanation because we speak of musical time as synchonized with the music as a whole or  not, then only externally linked to the music...  the genre does not matter ... Because we play  with a heart beat or with a "measured by numbers" beat, nevermind the styles....Musical time is independent of any genre or style, it differ in all genre but must be in all genre felt as a heart beat of the whole music piece and not appearing as something imposed on the music piece ...

I apologize for my explanation which is not clear as crystal...I am not a musiciaqn at all ....

To be clear: the essence of music (Jazz or not) is not improvisation as such but it is rythm (an embodied gesture) .

The reason it is such is because the line between what is improvisation or not matter less than the difference between a felt rythm grounded in the musician gesture or a rythm metronomically imposed or used as an habit...

mahgister, very interesting what you say. I’m particularly interested in the word "gesture." What exactly do you mean by a musical gesture?

As i said i am not a musician and frogman could explain it better than me...

But "a musical gesture" is  an embodied rythm... Speech is born from embodied rythm as music is born from it too...

In an embodied rythm, musical time is internal to the gesture not external...

Poetry as music are grounded in embodied rythms...

This embodied rythm transcend all distinction of styles, genres, or the difference between written music and interpretation..

Why ?

Because the distance or the frontier separating improvisation from written music is created historically on the surface of the gesturing body of the speaker or of the musician... The embodied rythm is the hidden dimension, the fundamental musical qualia, the underground or the roots of all music...

This is why i could compared speaking about the musical time of musician as different as African yoruba master or Furtwangler... And Jazz musicians between these two extremes...

The meaning of music is in the embodied rythm in the gesture... The gesture express the musician body and instrument "timbre" which is a universal of music...The vibrating sound source , violin, drum, singer body, communicate an information about his internal state, his timbre, conveyed by an internal time and timing rythm like a breathing  which cannot be captured completely  by metronome abstraction...It can be abstractly described but the cost may be loosing his life...

It is why the african master said, this do not "roll"...

It is why Miles said, this "lag behind the beat"...

It is why Gergiev said about Furtwangler that he was among all maestro one who was able to let the music grow with and from  his internal time without imposing any  external time on it...The music cannot be separated from his timing embodied rythm...

I personaly think music and speech are born from the necessity from the mother communicating with his baby and calming it for survival...The mother body in synch with the baby body...It is also born from the males hunting synchronisation and communication... Hunting is silent  music or rythm and speech too... Embodied gestures means gestures executed as a rythm not in a discontinuous way but in a continuous flow...

In a collective hunt you must be  spontaneously act in an organized musical way...

ahhhhh!

Thanks a lot  this story has stunned me strongly at the times...

I will order the book Asap...

https://www.amazon.ca/African-Rhythms-Autobiography-Randy-Weston/dp/0822347849

And this album :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeC68qpIq6s

@mahgister-

"I read a decade ago a story of a black musician who decided to  go back to Africa to study music there...

He encountered a master and discussing with him, the master said listening samplings of western music and jazz, this "does not roll"...

"this does not roll either"....Etc..."

The musician is Randy Weston.

It seems i will like Randy Weston music a lot...

"The spirit  of our ancestors" piece on Youtube remind me of Japan spiritual jazz album...And "Blue Moses" ... 

It is terrific listening....

Thanks wharfy ...

Stunning music for sure :

African Cookbook :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sda6b_0Kiak&list=PLSHsLSfbqpJKnqs7sFZCUbkk-0UXy527q&index=5

Thanks acman3

http://Randy Weston And His African Rhythms Trio-Zep Tepi (Full Album)

I think i love Weston...

I have ordered his book...

Richard Tarnas wrote the best book about astrology  and history after his wonderful book on history of ideas in the West...

But he pointed to a polarity not to a sexual difference but to a symbolic one, an archetype...

I think it push us in the wrong direction if we associate music with sex differences... We are all male and female on the psychical level with a determined sexuality biologically but we are all male and female and we must balance the two aspects.

 Iain McGilchrist analysed this polarity well in two books...

By the way i like Chet Baker a lot because he express the more feminine aspect , his anima, in his playing...

Roland Kirk is at the opposite...

I think Miles Davis represent a good balance...

A jazz thread which refer to L. Subramaniam please me a lot...

Joshua Redman

I admired him too ...

Just curious, when you said "no moving jazz element" re: the Stones, did you mean it didn’t "move you" emotionally, or did you mean something else? 

He does not moves me at all...

But later i recognized the blues element present in the Stones music for sure...

I did not knew blues at 14 ...

When i discovered it it was with John Lee Hooker who moves me  at 17 way more than the Stones... 

Then i understand you... I moved to Leo Ferré....

If i had known him i would have bought a Marvin Gaye album instead of Rolling Stone...

I did not want to disparage Rolling Stone they were talented but  with no moving "jazz" element for me nor "poetry" for me.... 

One more confession. I’ve moved over to Marvin Gaye "What’s Going On." It may not be jazz, but when I first heard it I had no idea what genre it fell into. I’ve listened to it a lot. 

I was 14 when i bought my only one Rolling Stone album...

Good showmanship, great  musical talents...I listened to it perhaps 2 times  from one song to the last... I regretted buying this perfect  album designed for a certain crowd ( wanted to be rebels) 

No musical interest for me even at 14...

I was from a very poor family and paid for it a high price for me by the way ...

I learned to differentiate music from  perfect musical show...

I apologize i confuse this answer in my haste  about Rolling Stone with another thread not this jazz thread... Anyway, what is said is said...

Thanks frogman for Joe Farrel recommendation...

A new player for me ...

I trust all your recommendation... 

Glad to see the great Joe Farrel get some love.  Fabulous player.  One of my very favorite saxophone players and arguably the best Jazz flutist  of all time.  Left us way too soon. Check your audiophile hats at the door and check out this amazing bootleg of Joe’s quintet with Tom Harrel.  Probably my favorite Tom Harrel on any recording.

https://youtu.be/JxSs5_BNNYo?si=m51YvOAp2GrfrtnU

I grew with sacred  Choral music and folklore songs since birth...

Then i had gone my younger years with classical choral before Bach....

Anything else was like inferior to me... or 

He takes me decade to go further than Bach (thanks to Bruckner and Scriabin at thirty )

Then i came to like Jazz long after ... But after discovering Persian-Iranian music and Indian music  with the cd invention ...

Being poor was also  a luck:  I learned acoustics instead of buying gear...

But being poor to buy albums and books was hard...I bought a house later in life because of my investment in books mainly...

Anyway i will stop here ...

@maghister,

I didn’t have a lot of money growing up either. I would work odd jobs and use the money to buy records. All of the records I bought in high school were classical. I couldn’t stand the bubble-gum music on the radio. 

When I got to college friends introduced me to jazz and some of the better pop. I was very lucky to go to Berkeley in the mid-sixties. I saw Sunny Terry and Brownie McGhee several times, once at a party where I was sitting at their feet. Big Mama Thorton sang on the bar in a joint I went to. I went to San Francisco to hear Pharoah Sanders in person. I went to the Fillmore Auditorium to hear Mary Wells and Otis Redding. Plus other interesting rock groups like The Dead. 

I met a girl and she introduced me to the Beatles. I would have danced with her to anything. I introduced her to Stravinsky. Music has been woven through my life since I can remember. 

i am here to be educated in jazz... I did not always answer but i take note...

 Each story is a novel...

@mahgister 

Growing up, all I had was the radio and top 40 music. I’d sleep with it on and before long, I knew every tune, every word.  It wasn’t until the seventies that I was able to explore Jazz, Blues, Classical.  And my window into Jazz was mostly Weather Report, The Yellow Jackets and The Rippingtons.  My first five Jazz records that I bought with my own money those three groups and Herbie Hancock. My knowledge of all the people we talk about here is all within the 2000’s, so I’m still catching up.☺️

Many ordinary musicians can play classical and enjoy playing jazz.

But playing in a band of many versus with two or three or four with a "timing" born from the unwritten  play versus a "timing" imposed by the written play ask for a different time feeling...

Music is classical or jazz, rythms of time and timing...

There is no time in mathematics...

But there is not so much  numbers in music as thought Pythagoras and Leibnitz after him  but more timbre explorations and timing time investigations...

We hear a vibrating sound source  which "inform" us and we vibrate ourselves in response in a timing way, transforming our body and the instrument or the vibrating phenomena into one event. It is Speech creation  already with music.

Here in speech, as in music, time is not external to the event but on the opposite created by it  and born from it.( poetry unlike prose can gave us this birth of creative memory again)

Jazz is the root by which we can remember the birth of music and speech again by recreating musical time and timing in a new way compared to classical western music.

The black African root of jazz was a gift.

"its rolling" as said to Randy Weston his African master friend. Time is born with music again.

i  think that jazz is more primal than classical...But some classical music are more primal than some jazz...

I was speaking in my post above  about the way musical time is understood in Jazz and classical...

Scriabin is primal as jazz is for example for me  ...

Stravinsky was searching the "primal" you are right but he reach it in an external way...His concept of time seems imposed on the music ...

By contrast Scriabin musical time is born from the  chords and not imposed on them ...

Scriabin , in his piano music impossible to play anyway by most pianist save very few unknown pianist in the West,  has an internal experience of musical time more intrinsical  so to speak than Stravinsky...

The difference is the difference between the real Orient in Art and the Western evocation of the East in Western Art (orientalism)...

An anecdote :

 The mother of Stravinsky comparing Stravinsky music to Scriabin preferred Scriabin who was considered a god in Russia.

The reason for me is evident so genius was  Stravinsky and he is one of the greatest Russian composer, Scriabin is more revolutionary, transforming piano playing into a "primal" musical time machine which goal was putting us in a trance. He succeeded. By the way in jazz Sun Ra is our Scriabin so to speak....

The mastery of Stravinsky was the witchcraft by which he could use all musical stylistic languages of all musical history in some patchwork way...

The mastery  of Scriabin was creating a unique writing style  whose goal was recreating music itself...The greatest piano composer after Liszt in my opinion ...

«Medtner HATED Stravinsky’s music and the course of 20th century music in general, he loved early and mid Scriabin, but considered him a mad butterfly in his later works. Rachmaninoff thought Medtner perhaps the greatest of ’contemporary’ composers. The two were close friends.»

is it necessary to say that this is not musical knowledge but only my listenings impression ?

Thanks tyray i am happy to be useful ...

@mahgister

The reason for me is evident so genius was Stravinsky and he is one of the greatest Russian composer, Scriabin is more revolutionary, transforming piano playing into a "primal" musical time machine which goal was putting us in a trance. He succeeded. By the way in jazz Sun Ra is our Scriabin so to speak....

The mastery of Stravinsky was the witchcraft by which he could use all musical stylistic languages of all musical history in some patchwork way...

 

Thank you for this....Very musically informative for me.

i just wrote this  to convey  my Scriabin  impression:

I created the past that never was
In the present which encompass
Nothing old or new
 But the future as memory anew

The instant of perception
Reflect nothing 
But is the seed of an aeon
Whose voice sing

Out of any tune
Out of any time
Like the mysterious rune
From a god mime

@mahgister, here is a poem I wrote many years ago about Stravinsky's Rite of Spring:

Stravinsky

 

 

Such a leap

from an oompah

band to the dark primordial

marshland sprawling

beyond sight or imagination

in an absolutely secret

expanse finally brought

to light. He grabs it

by the neck, that

captured goblin, &

will not yield

to its wailing &

incessant

rhythmic kicking, until

it quiets & whispers

ageless secrets in

his ear / about fear

& sensuality

long forgotten.

Thanks frogman for your appreciation which means much to me...

This is my favorite version of the same piece of Richter by the greatest Scriabin disciple (who wed his daughter) Sofronitsky. I was not a fan of Scriabin till i heard him. After Scriabin became one of my musical god. ( Josquin des Prez. Bach,Brucker,Scriabin)

As an anecdote Richter and Gilels were the young disciple of Sofronitsky and some night drunk with their master they heard him saying you are geniuses but they protested to him claiming he was anyway a god...

 The expressive power of Sofronitsky is unmatched save by few like Heinrich  Neuhaus and his son Stanislas,Igor zhukov, and surprizingly but  badly recorded the Italian master Michael PontI  . I say that because in my experience almost nobody can play Scriabin as it should. We cannot whistle Scriabin then playing it suppose an understanding of each chord meaning very few are able to understand with the heart and hands.Id you did not enter ecstasy listening Scriabin it is because of the pianist not Scriabin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_OcCeVVdZE&list=RDK_OcCeVVdZE&start_radio=1

Fantastic post, @mahgister !  It is generally acknowledged that Jazz, at its most basic, is a blend of African rhythmic elements and European harmony.  As you suggest, in the absence of time/rhythm, however obtuse (“Rite….” is a good example), harmony becomes almost pointless.

Thanks for the “The Bad Plus” clip, @acman3 .  One of the best “non traditional” takes on “Rite of Spring” that I have heard; and there are many.

It should be noted that Russian and French musical traditions are closely intertwined.  Both Stravinsky and Scriabin were heavily influenced by French musical ideas and traditions; particularly Russia’s ballet tradition (“Rite…”).  It was common for French musicians of note to be “imported” to Russia to teach Russian students.

Sounds rather French to me, not to mention simply beautiful:

https://youtu.be/C6LhXzKs0rY?si=PAVJABEgqrKsEtFA

Horowitz is able to play everything more than well.... But Scriabin music ask for a magician dedicated to him in a total devotion ( like Wagner and Beethoven ask for total devotion)...

He is not my favorite in Scriabin, for example Igor Zhukov is better for Scriabin but who know him ?

Physical time has nothing to do with musical time, physical time is measured metronomically or with an hour glass or a watch...

Musical time cannot be measured by a metronome, there is a "beat" in it that swing for some heart  as another heart and cannot be measured... Musical time result from the encounter of the heart of a musician with the heart of another musician ( a collegue, a meastro, a composer ) then cannot be measured, it surge one moment to the next imprevisible...

It is like that Scriabin must be played... Scriabin ask for another musician because his goal was awaking humanity... On this he differ from Bach who serve God, and resemble Beethoven more than Wagner ( Wagner use an ideology on which and from which his music is born).

I discovered also that Liszt also like Scriabin is almost impossible to play for the same reason ...

I begin suddenly to be moved by Liszt now who became one of my God thanks to very few pianist able to play it...

Scriabin is born not only from Chopin  but from Liszt like a blacksmith in his forge, scuplting iron in the form of blooming flower.

 Here what Debussy has to say about his contemporary Scriabin:

«This is a recording from one of Debussy’s concerts. He performed this piece after traveling to the Gobi Desert. Debussy remarked once during his tour: "Even composers like Liszt, Beethoven, and Chopin could not reach the complexity brought by Alexander Scriabin." "I have never seen such genius in a piece."»

listen to Debussy  playing Scriabin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wZkA-HvPUU

I must add about Debussy that i discovred him with Ivan Moravec, a god pianist also who put me to ecstasy able to play the "cathédrale engloutie" so well i see the cathédrale before me appearing... Since i bought all albums of Moravec...He is my third God pianist.

 Even with the bad recording we can hear that Debussy get scriabin right. it is incredibly moving ..His playing is delicately chiseled with a timing sense extraordinary which prove out of any doubt that he understood Scriabin and not only loved him.

Compare to Sofronitsky interpretation the God pianist of Scriabin in his daughter opinion and in the mind of all Russians : 

Sofronitsky and his volcanic playing :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RwdHs756l4&list=RD1RwdHs756l4&start_radio=1

Now listen Scriabin himself as "recorded" by mechanical method  : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfYMFNjSMnU&list=RDVfYMFNjSMnU&start_radio=1

 Scriabin is the greatest pianist  with Liszt ( i discovered Liszt with Ervin Nyiregyházi my second interpreter with Sofronitsky/Scriabin)

Is this extrapolation close to what you were getting at?

BTW, I will be listening to Scriabin this week. I have a feeling that Horowitz is not on your list of people who play him well.

I discovered jazz  ready to understanding it late in my 35 years forty years ago then...

But your post remind me that i bought a Louis Armstrong album where he sang also ... I was young in my 20...But for me this album was not a door to enter into  jazz, it was  Louis Armstrong as a unique artist so big (the sun)  then, it was  more than jazz itself for me at the times because no one else compared one second in my young heart to Louis voice and trumpet...It takes 15 more years for me to discover Chet Baker ( the moon)  then and others jazz artists...

Marsalis describe well in 2 minutes what i felt without knowing it  at the time :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtfXf49A42Q

@mahgister 

You’ve got me curious. Which heavenly bodies do you associate with other well-known trumpet players? 

Miles Davis is Jupiter...For sure...

I had not decided who is Saturn yet and Uranus Neptune and Pluto... Too much great trumpet players to analyse and feel....

Jupiter protect the solar system of jazz music... After Armstrong  Sun birth , i think the most influential trumpet was Miles  second only in influence by his creative size  to Armstrong the sun ...No other trumpeter can be or had been  bigger than these two by their archetypal influence ...

It is just  subjective metaphors not something i felt to justify in debating.. You get it or you dont... 

 Chet Baker is the moon for me because his most of the times introvert playing is completely complementary in energy to extrovert Armstrong, and the two luminaries sing as they play in the same way, which is unique among trumpeters...

I spoke also about trumpeters if you remind  not of other instrumentists when i use these planetary metaphors to describe my subjective impression of trumpeters in Jazz.....

I will not try be more "scientifically astute" and you dont need too  ...Sorry.. I am not a musician...You are... Then the metaphors spoke to you or not, they are only the means to convey a subjective impression (mine) ...

 I like the trumpet as much as the piano in jazz... This is why speaking of trumpeters in jazz i thought about these metaphors evident for me about these 3 giants......... 

I can see how the dazzling, uplifting Armstrong would be the progenitor solar body and the nocturnal, melancholic Baker, the moon, but I’m not sure about Miles as Jupiter. Perhaps because Miles went through so many stylistic shifts,

No thanks needed. It is interesting and kept the thread alive...

I thank you  because i learned a lot...

I am silent as many others but we read the posts ...

Thanks to our fellow jazz thread regulars for indulging us, here. 

This distinction between the soul expression and the virtuosity potential  are very important...

Billie Holiday as Chet Baker playings and singing has soul way more than virtuosity...

Some had the two... Armstrong and Marian Anderson are natural self made virtuoso but way more master of our souls...

Yes, the distinction between soul and virtuosity. On the Jazz series, they talk about Billie Holiday's lack of a strong voice. Her range spanned just a little more than one octave, where other singers might span three octaves and have a more "pure" sounding voice. Holiday's had deep soul. 

I have heard that also discussed with classical musicians. Horowitz was much loved by classical music lovers, but he was not supposed to have had the strongest technical abilities. 

I heard Itzak Perlman interviewed and he said that the most difficult students to teach are those with the strongest technical ability. It is hard to teach them the emotional aspect of music.

@mahgister , @audio-b-dog 

Interesting and important topic! 

Question for both of you: is soulfulness the sole measure of "something worthwhile to say" as opposed to cold displays of technique? 

Can there also be music that, for example, is not overtly emotional but delights the mind/ear?  Could this still be described as "saying something about being human"? 

For sure you are right, we can experience musical meaning  through our own soul in contact with vibrating sound sources or instrument  which are not mean to convey first pure soul  emotion but instead to modify the world and Nature itself : gong, gamelan,Moog synthetiser,  African drums or throat singing or harmonic chanting etc...Or any instrument  also played just for fun... Anyway it will provoke a reaction in our soul...

But the way some "vibrating sound source"  be it a singer body or a violin for example inform us about the soul state of the player or singer  may touch us way deeper than some other more easy to enjoy musical sound (music for escalator)...

In the two cases of these vibrating sound source, the timbre of the instrument vibrating or the timbre of the singing voice will touch us...

But in one case we are more informed by our own soul state through our evaluation/perception of one vibrating sound source( escalator music favorise a soul state proper to elicit purchase in the consumers).

In the other case (Billie Holiday or Marian Anderson or Bill Evans) we are also  informed by the soul state of the player here or of the singer and not just informed about the timbre state of an instrument (virtuoso)..

Seems to me, the fact that poetry utilizes musical elements is what allows it to rise above mere words. 

You are right again...

Language lives in multidimensional time scales... (micro-seconds/ years/centuries).

A "word" life extent reveal an inside life (phonems motivated  meaningful sounds) the poetic/mimetic dimension and at the higher more conscious scale the syntactical/logical dimension an external life where the meaning evolution  is easier to trace (in an etymological dictionary).

At the origin of mankind there is not music on one side and speech on the other side, but one body set of gestures at two scale, the members dance and the throat response which are a direct answer to nature speaking  musical gesture. Music is not art at origin but a social survival tool in direct dialogue with Nature. 

Before any artist was born, the shaman and magician created sound to affect Nature voice and soul ...

Even today great artist has not forgot that...

I concur with Audio-b-dog post about the necessary polarity balance between heart and mind...

The last century has seen the decline of the West precisely because we had lost this balance key between polarities..

Polarities as heart and mind or yin and yang are not mere dualities or opposition, they interpenetrate into one another ...Coleridge and Owen Barfield wrote about this...

The human body is a third factor embodying the heart and mind  this is the key : embodiment...

Our culture with A.I. actually has lost any link between heart and mind because we are virtual ego flying over our own body in a virtual digitalized trance...

Our music industrialized is a merchandise...

We had forgotten our roots and the root of music too...( generally speaking for sure because musical geniuses exist today but not in the collective front part of the theater they are an unrecognized marginalised exploited minority)

I think the best artists in any of the arts are the ones who find a perfect balance, and they are few and far between. Shakespeare is both heart and head. Beethoven is perfectly balanced. Louis Armstrong finds a way to bring blues (which by definition is for the soul) into a structured music. Art critics name Picasso and Matisse as the greatest of the 20th century artists, but I’m not sure. 

I think some people prefer the head over the heart and others heart over head. As people understand art more, I think they see the genius in perfect balance--yin and yang.

Start it and i will participate...

Here it is supposed to be jazz recommendation and reflections ...

I feel like three or four of us have taken over this thread "Jazz Afficiandos," talking about a lot of things related to music without boundaries. I was wondering if anyone is interested in starting a new thread talking about music without genre lines, and other things related to music. For me, it is a primal topic. 

Start the new thread...

I prefer discussing in a thread publicly not by mail...

 I think already that the first shaman were women...

I read Gimbutas... Among others...

 The best thinker i know about the consciousness history and evolution is Jean Gebser...

His works  is astounding and influential but in an undergrounded way because of amplitude over all fields :

" the ever present Origin"...

A masterpiece...