frogman great Don Byas selections. Don recorded a lot of live material after he moved to Holland. A few of his live releases have a young Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen on bass. I have 2 of these live recordings titled "A Night in Tunisia" and "Walkin’" Both were recorded at the Montmartre Jazzhus Copenhagen. January 13 / 14, 1963 Btw in the James Carter interview I posted above Carter describes Byas' sound as "thick". I think "husky", as you described it, and "thick" as JC said, are the best ways to describe the tone of Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Don Byas, and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. Willis "gator" Jackson and many others could also be put in that category. In the following interview, Sonny Rollins, at the 1 minute mark of the video, describes Ben Webster's and Eddie Davis' tone as "gruff" so, "thick", "husky" and "gruff" are all good descriptions of this classic "tone". A question to you frogman, being that you play the sax: Is this tone achieved by the way a player blows, the model of tenor sax used, or a combination of both?? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDF8xC6Ats8&t=304s |
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Thanks frogman for your response. As old and sub par as the Don Byas video is I can still clearly see his name engraved on the top inside of the bell at exactly the 5:10 mark of the video. I also see the raised "rocker"
On the newer James Carter video I see the raised "rocker" but I could barely make out the engraved Don Byas. It comes through as a "darkened area" on the top inside of the bell.
Unbelievable how I can see every letter of the engraving on the 58 year old video and just a hint of it on the 4 year old video. The interviewer made the cameraman move back when Carter started playing. They should have shot a close up of the bell. The focal point of the video was the story of how Carter came across that saxophone so the interviewer/cameraman dropped the ball on that one. |
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Thanks keegiam. Up to this point I was not aware that Coryell had recorded and released a live acoustic album. Found it and ordered it.
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Thanks keegiam for that Coryell acoustic clip.
Under The Sign Of Capricorn is not on the 1974 Coryell album titled "At Montreux" with The Eleventh House. There is only one unaccompanied acoustic song Coryell plays to start out the show titled "Improvisation on Villa Lobos" (Prelude #4 in E Minor). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_0ZmchNieMDo you know if the Under the Sign of Capricorn was released on an album and if so what is the title? |
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Played Kenny Burrell with Coleman Hawkins this AM ("Bluesy Burrell" - 1962). I'm thinking Hawkins sounds "frequently husky" on these - or maybe "sometimes husky."
keegiam Sonny Rollins describes it as "gruff", frogman "husky" and James Carter "thick" Ben Webster from the album "The Soul of Ben Webster" with Mundell Lowe on guitar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylLT0Tc8GUQ |
Hello all. Trying to catch up here been busy. A lot of great new posts. acman thanks for the
Espen Eriksen Trio and
Tingvall Trio as well. alec I agree that the
Tord Gustavsen trio and the Espen E trio have a similar sound. very soothing and relaxing "mood jazz" I have been listening to both trio's through my headphone gear at low volume and I almost fell asleep. I found this live Tord Gustavsen trio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHg5U2oHiuUI snapped out of my
Tord Gustavsen/Espen E trance and played acman's
Tingvall Trio selections and became wide awake. I found this Tingval Trio playing live with commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxogszH1BuI |
For me, "gruff" crosses over into attitude and connotes a bit of unfriendliness or "pissed-offedness" (as in "he was gruff with me"), so I'm hesitant to use it unless I believe the player is intentionally expressing that (which they sometimes do). Thick and husky apply to sound. Gruff brings in mood. But that's just me.
Keegiam in the Sonny Rollins interview I posted on the last page Sonny, while describing Ben Webster's tone as gruff, say's Ben did not play like that all the time. He also said Ben had a "macho attitude" or "tough guy" persona. So that does match what you are expressing that "gruff" crosses over into the attitude realm. BTW Ben Webster was nick named "The Brute" for good reason. Ben Webster's "sweeter side" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3ipWLgg0ncAnd here is "The Hawk" playing "Body and Soul" which, IMHO is one of the better instrumental versions of that jazz standard ever recorded. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9okWUIpPaMAnd here is the great Frank Sinatra introducing the great Ella Fitzgerald who performs a terrific vocal version of "Body and Soul" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YyX5R6ohBE |
alec That
Tord Gustavsen with 'Blue Church Choir“ was awesome. And the German city of Dresden, where they performed that moving composition, could not have been a better suited place for it. Dresden, a city with no strategic targets (armament factories ect.) was bombed by the Anglo American Allies in WWII killing approximately 25,000 civilians including women and children. Casualties of war. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwkMo1_rWM0 |
alec re Johnny Griffin I have a large selection of his albums including, of course, his "shootouts" with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omR-3SCfjHQYou can definitely and clearly hear "Lockjaws" husky tone as he takes the first solo and then the sweeter smoother tone of Griffin who takes the second solo. BTW I do not have the Griffin album you posted. I will search it out. |
O10 thanks for the Amazon link for that CD. Already ordered. |
pjw, not a casualty of war , a planed war crime .
Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris aka " bomber Harris" , talked the Americans into bombing civilians as a matter of course.
After the war he said " If the Germans had won I would have been hung as a war criminal, and rightly so." schubert I understand what you are saying but you already know that Nazi Germany was the undisputed world leader when it came to war crimes (with Imperial Japan second). Besides the Holocaust the Germans bombed many more cities with innocent civilians in Poland, Holland, Belgium, France and England. Even as Nazi Germany knew the Thousand Year Reich was finished (it lasted 12 years) they were shooting many of their newly developed "wonder weapons", The V - 2 rockets (the worlds first long range guided ballistic missile) at London as revenge for the Anglo American Allies bombing of German cities. I’m not saying any of it is right. Its why there should never be another World War. |
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Somethin’ Else, led by Cannonball Adderley with a rare appearance of Miles Davis as payback for Adderley’s turn on Kind of Blue. Autumn Leaves, the first track, is alone worth the price of admission but there is so much more. Yes, and the rhythm section is Hank Jones, Philly Joe Jones and Art Blakey.
@phildbasket One of Cannonball's greatest albums out of many great albums. And I agree his rendition of Autumn Leaves is outstanding. Miles plays sublime solo's on it. |
The following music is proof enough to me, that centuries old African rythm is alive and well, in many different genre's of music in North America. It is an album by the son of the recently departed NEA Jazz Master, writer, composer, arranger and master saxophone player Jimmy Heath. R.I.P. Jimmy's son James was born in Philadelphia in 1946. His father Jimmy had an addiction problem at the time which caused him to end up in prison and James was raised by his mother and stepfather, a jazz pianist named James "Hen Gates" Foreman. Young James took his stepfathers last name and was known as James Foreman. In 1966 James Foreman, now 20 years old joined a black empowerment group and its leader, Maulana Karenga, gave James the name Mtume which means messenger in Swahili. Here is Mtume's live album release titled
Mtume Umoja Ensemble - Alkebu-Lan: Land of the Blacks
Listen to the whole album including the 4 plus minute spoken introduction if this subject interests any of you. I am posting it because there has been a lot of unnecessary debating creating a negative vibe on this thread for quite some time now about the subject of African rythmic influences transported to other continents. Every one is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts. Since I wont pretend to be an expert on deciphering rythm patterns this is just my humble opinion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8WmWaIn9kU |
I have owned "Drum Suite" on CD for many years now. Great album. I just received in the mail today Elvin Jones Live at the Village Vanguard 1974 on CD, Listening to it now. Superb remastering with great dynamics.
George Coleman tenor sax
Martin "Hannibal" Peterson Trumpet
Wilbur Little bass
No piano |
My last post the trumpet player is Marvin Peterson not Martin. He is also know as "
Hannibal Lokumbe".
This was my first time hearing him and he is pretty darn good. Plays in the high register but not crazy like Maynard Fergusen. |
O10
Did you actually listen to the whole album I posted by Mtume Foreman Heath??
There are a plethora of rythm's spread throughout the album from slow to medium to fast and to my ears many of the rythm's, which are played with a plethora of percussion instruments, sound a lot like the rythm's of the 1960's African village video I posted a couple pages back. |
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010
I am not taking sides here. As I stated above what I posted is just my opinion and I am entitled to that. As long as I am not saying that my opinions are facts and that every one else is wrong. |
Hmmmm.....I’ll have to check on that. I hate owing money.
Hey what about me? Ain't I entitled to a "Henchman" check as well? |
O10
I did not want this subject to come to this but since you insist.
I am a student of history. I read books. Yes there are bad authors and good authors. Good authors always have a notes section which reveal their sources for each chapter.
I am a member of a few history forums and a couple of military history forums. To start a thread on these forums you would do wise to have self knowledge backed up by legitimate sources to answer the feedback. If you answer with opinions and no reliable sources the forum members will eat you alive.
There are 3 types of sources
1. Primary
2. Secondary
3. Tertiary
Your source is YOUR OPINION.
You would not last a month on these forums.
This is not that type of forum yet you insist on treating it as such.
You are the OP of this forum which started out as a jazz aficionado forum yet you have drifted into the realm of a historical forum with claims of historical "facts".
You have continuously claimed that scholarly historian authors have "re written" their own opinionated versions as fact yet you give no sources for your own "opinionated comments/diatribe" to back up your claims.
You over stepped the boundaries of your own thread when you asked members to site sources of their opinions when you have yet to do so yourself. If you want a war then go to a jazz history forum, if there is one, that has a thread about "African influences in the western hemisphere".
With all due respect you should cease your rhetoric and start posting jazz music and not "jazz revisionism"
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Are there any other Herbie Nichols fans here. Most people compare his playing to Monk and Nichols did not record many albums as a leader. Thing is that I find all of his leader recordings to be exceptional and to me his style, though similar to Monk’s, has its own nuances. Here are 2 trio albums with Art Blakey on drums and Al McKibbon on bass. Short but really good albums: The Prophetic Herbie Nichols volume 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pTTaVJQX98And volume 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjTfMS3FIGA |
keegiam Someone else posted that Joe Pass Ella live link within the last year (that was the first time I heard it as well) but I did click on your link and listened to a little and saw this on the same page so I clicked on it and I couldn't stop listening to it. Oscar Peterson was not only one of the greatest to sit behind a piano but a very intellectual man as well and the following footage featuring Joe Pass and Bill "Count" Basie is a fantastic video. Oscar and the Count are both quite witty and they talk about how they were both intimidated by Art Tatum. The "Count" is also a very intelligent man. I wish I could have sat between Mr. Tatum, Oscar and the Count for a long conversation. This video is the next best thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HAZP7nWo6A |
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Big fan of Red Garland. I have the album alec posted and the Red Garland trio albums frogman posted.
I also have all of the Miles Davis Prestige sessions with Red on them.
I like his "sound" a lot and thanks frogman for posting about the block chords which evidently is part of the reason I like Red’s playing.
I am probably one of the only members here that have more Red Garland albums as a leader the Bill Evans albums. |
schubert I was not aware of
Allison Neale and I like her playing. New jazz I have said before and I will say again jazz is alive and well. Peter Bernstein, who is on that
Allison Neale album, I have seen live a couple times and he is a great jazz guitarist. I have many of his albums as a leader and also a sideman. Weather Report What is there to say? excellent group. I have all of their releases. There is a 4 CD set titled "The Legendary Live Live Tapes 1978 - 1981" released in 2015 that I highly recommend to WR fans. frogman that Wayne Shorter "Atlantis" album is ok for his post 1980 releases I like this one as well. "Highlife" 1995 release. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRgLO9J1dAc&list=OLAK5uy_l0hhHR5_4s_86bnLcC4pU1PEzJ_-5wPx8I was at the following concert in 2013. I am happy I got a chance to see one of the great legends of jazz live. I never saw Sonny Rollins when he was still performing live and I regret it. Seeing Shorter made me feel a little better. 80th birthday tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azm1QdGye8sacman that is an interesting Bobby Hutcherson album. Different but good. I can't forget mary_jo good to see you posting again. Where have you been? On that note where is rok? Its been a month since he posted. I hope he is ok. |
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Welcome back rok what's todays listen? |
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O10
Great version of Pannonica by Barry Harris. I had never heard that cut. I have had the "Three Wishes" book for quite a long time now but its still in great shape.
Sonny Clarke's answer:
Girls
Girls
Girls |
Just received this new Christian McBride Big Band album which was released this past April. It had gone under my radar but the entire album of mostly jazz standards is excellent. Not a bad song in the bunch. Great guitar and Hammond B3 playing by Mark Whitfield and Joey DeFrancesco PERSONNEL Joey DeFrancesco – organ Mark Whitfield – guitar Christian McBride – bass Quincy Phillips – drums Frank Greene, Freddie Hendrix, Brandon Lee, Nabate Isles – trumpets Michael Dease, Steve Davis, James Burton – trombones Douglas Purviance – bass trombone Steve Wilson, Todd Bashore – alto sax Ron Blake, Dan Pratt – tenor sax Carl Maraghi – baritone sax https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9iM_6Fv9-M&list=PLAym87g-oy7re6344JCSqzoeYxWIx7ZS9&index=5 |
frogman I can dig it can you?
Katonah and Zulu Stomp are 2 excellent tunes. I'm gonna have to add some Steve Grossman to my cd collection.
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frogman thanks for the Steve Grossman recommendations. I already have Elvin Jones' Light House (both volumes). I bough them because I love Elvin as a drummer and have many of his albums as a leader.
Last time I listened to the Lighthouse discs was years ago and come to think of it I did look up the sax player because Grossman really "takes off" on some of the songs. I remember looking for Grossman material after hearing him play on that Jones album but for some reason never bought any of his sessions as a leader. I will be buying all of your suggestions as I sampled them on You Tube and like what I hear. |
rok a few pages back I posted a video of Oscar Peterson and Count Basie playing together and discussing music. One of the topics was Art Tatum. They both are of the opinion that Mr. Tatum intimidated them with his virtuosity. Its a 45 minute video so I guess everybody moved passed it and there were no replies. I watched it in its entirety and it is well worth it. Here it is again.
[FULL CONCERT] Oscar Peterson & Count Basie & Joe Pass 1980 - Words & Music - YouTube
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O10 You really discovered something great in Nubya Garcia. I listened to her debut album in its entirety on You Tube this morning and, IMHO, it is a superb debut album of fresh new "jazz" every song has something new to offer. It is, to me, better/different then the KOKOROKO album she plays on (6 of the tracks) titled WE OUT HERE. And you already know I love to keep up with all the new artists coming out and so thanks for posting that. Here is the album in its entirety. Nubya Garcia - Pace (Official Audio) - YouTube Actually "We Out Here" is apparently not KOKOROKO but "various artists" of the London jazz scene.
VARIOUS ARTISTS - We Out Here - Amazon.com Music
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mary_jo that Desmond Baker track is great. I just picked up a new Chet Baker album titled "Chet is Back". It is a great album with not one "dud" on it. Chet also sings on a couple.
Chet Baker - Chet Is Back - Amazon.com Music
Amazon BLURB:
UK reissue. Chet Baker made almost as many headlines for his drug habit as he did for his musical abilities, being sentenced to several spells in prison for various drug charges. In the summer of 1960 he was imprisoned for eighteen months in Italy, but on his release found the local RCA label was willing to get him back into a studio as quickly as possible! Assembling a number of up and coming musicians from Europe, including Amadeo Tommasi (piano), Rene Thomas (guitar), Benoit Quersin (bass), Daniel Humair (drums) and Bobby Jaspar (tenor saxophone and flute), CHET IS BACK was a more Bop orientated album than his earlier efforts. It has been suggested that Chet's drug addiction and with it the almost constant need for cash led him to accepting many recording offers that he might otherwise have been better off avoiding. Certainly, the sheer abundance of material he recorded is of varying quality, as one might expect. Fortunately, CHET IS BACK is one of the better albums he recorded, fully justifying the moniker 'overlooked Baker classic' it has been dubbed.
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rok I'm not always posting "noise" did you check out the Oscar Peterson Count Basie discussion about Art Tatum. They also play a little piano on it :)
Surly old rok........I did miss you when you took a few weeks off.
BTW I googled SURLY and only a couple of the definitions fit you. One was grumpy LOL. |
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Again, a model of thematic development. He takes a simple idea and develops it and turns it inside out in a musically logical way; no mindless riffing. frogman "mindless riffing" is something that I think a musician, such as yourself, can identify easily. Not so for the masses I would think. You mentioned 4 of the saxophone giants with Dexter, Sonny, Henderson and Coltrane. Out of those 4 which one would you say "overstretches" in solo’s to the point of deviating totally from the melodic theme? Here is one of my favorite songs from a favorite live Coltrane disc I have where Trane really "goes off". It was recorded in 1965 when Trane was already deeply immersed in his exploration phase. The title of the 2 disc set is "One Down One Up Live at the Half Note" Here is the first (my favorite of the 2 discs) song featuring a very long Trane solo. (9) One Down, One Up (Live At The Half Note) - YouTube AllMusic Review by Thom Jurek 2005 was a watershed year for unreleased music by John Coltrane. First there was the unbelievable Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane Live at Carnegie Hall. Now Impulse offers this double CD of radio broadcasts in One Down, One Up: Live at the Half Note. It was recorded in March and May of 1965 by DJ Alan Grant for radio broadcast; while recording for broadcast, many hosts would usually just drop in on a session and tape the band for under an hour and take no note of catching a performance from the beginning. That rule applies here. The first disc was recorded on March 26. Grant’s introduction begins during Jimmy Garrison’s solo. The band had already been playing the title cut for 35 minutes. Coltrane steps in a couple of minutes in and blows hard for nearly 28 minutes. Trane had already released A Love Supreme and was seeking to expand the harmonic reaches of his sound, exploring every avenue available to him. The band astonishes too. Here McCoy Tyner, Garrison, and Elvin Jones push the limit, swinging hard and fast ( Jones’ playing is especially outrageous). Tyner’s big block chords play toward ascending Coltrane’s scales, not trying to keep up but expanding the chromatic palette with a fury. He drops out around the ten-minute mark and it’s Trane and Jones forcing each other into unknown corners before breaking out of them into new dimensions. Garrison’s attack is not content to try to keep it grounded but provide enough of an anchor for the intervallic exploration to be limitless. Garrison drops out as well and it’s a duet near the end of the track, Jones matching Coltrane measure for measure with a breathless intensity before Tyner and Garrison reenter to take it out with the modal head coming back in a completely different form. What’s remarkable is that Trane avoided his sheets-of-sound approach entirely here. His solo is focused and the restraint is harmonic, but it results in a performance of expansive force and muscular taste. And it nearly is. Despite a few near washouts in the sound, Trane’s capability to continue to build a solo is simply astonishing. After a minute of announcements, the band kicks into "Afro Blue." This cut, a mere 12 minutes, is a tour de force for the band ( Tyner’s solo in particular). Disc two, from May 7, thankfully, begins at the beginning, so to speak. The band is introduced before they start paying "Songs of Praise," an abstract workout more dissonant than the earlier show. But here again, the band locks into Coltrane’s solo from the jump. Here it’s Tyner shining a light from the stand. His ascending and descending chords offer large foundations for Trane to lift off from. Jones’ accents after nearly every phrase propel Garrison and Coltrane to step out and move their own scalar investigations to more complex territory. The final track, "My Favorite Things," is nearly 23 minutes here. Coltrane uniquely uses the tenor to introduce the tune before switching to the soprano. Tyner uses a skeletal frame on the theme and it goes off almost immediately with Coltrane soloing all around the melody. He returns often enough for the tune to keep its body, but his Eastern modal progressions go far afield. Tyner’s solo is a flurry of assonance and dissonance with his right hand. Unfortunately, just as another mode asserts itself, Grant fades the band out, just as they hit the stratosphere. Unfortunate, yes, but it takes nothing away from the absolute necessity of this set for Coltrane fans. The sound is wonderful -- except in the dropout patches that last no more than a second or two. This is a release of historic importance and one that, now that it’s off the bootleg market, will be talked about by jazz fans and Coltrane aficionados for the foreseeable future. |
The earthquakes in Croatia are at terrible ending to what has been a most terrible year. Good bye 2020 in 2 days and I hope moving forward with the vaccines now being distributed worldwide we can get things back to normal in 2021.
Needless to say I am happy for Alec and Marija that they are ok.
News reports 7 fatalities as of right now mostly near the epicenter just south of Zagreb. But there are many displaced people and things could get worse before it gets better.
My prayers go out to the people in that region of the world. |
To hear the timbre of all this reproduced accurately, you need Polks.
Great Ellington album but I'll stick with my JBL's |
01O
Nina Simone's "Wild Is The Wind" is beautiful. I had never heard that before. Thanks. |
Hey frogman are you going to answer my inquiry a little further up this page on "mindless riffing"?
Happy New Year! |
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frogman Thanks for the response on the question of "mindless riffing". I was busy celebrating the new year and had not the time to answer. i assume "mindless riffing" can also be associated with "improvisation" if one does not, for want of choice, or cannot, for want of talent, stick to the guidelines you mentioned in your lengthy and helpful summary. Since the passing of Coltrane most Jazz critics (yuk), and I have read this in too many articles to count, name Sonny Rollins as the "greatest living improvisor". Here is just one example:
In one sense the history of the last thirty years in jazz might be written in terms of the length of the solos that its horn players have been able to sustain. Certainly one contribution of bebop was that its best players (but only its best) could undertake longer improvisations which offered a flow of musical ideas without falling into honking or growling banalities. I do not mean that the younger players of the forties were either the first or the only jazz musicians to be able to do this, only that for some of them a sustained solo was a primary concern. However, a great deal of extended soloing in jazz has had the air of an endurance feat—a player tries to keep going with as little repetition as possible. But when the ideas are original and are imaginatively handled, such playing can have virtues of its own. However, a hornman’s best solos are apt to be continuously developing linear inventions. Sonny Rollins has recorded long solos which, in quality and approach, go beyond good soloist’s form and amount almost to sustained orchestrations.
Excerpt of an article written From Martin Williams, The Jazz Tradition (Oxford University Press, 1983) pp. 183-93.
Full article here:
Sonny Rollins: Jazz Improvisation | Saxophone | Analysis - Mara Marietta
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