I'm going to review records in my collection, and you'll be able to decide if they're worthy of your collection. These records are what I consider "must haves" for any jazz aficionado, and would be found in their collections. I wont review any record that's not on CD, nor will I review any record if the CD is markedly inferior. Fortunately, I only found 1 case where the CD was markedly inferior to the record.
Our first album is "Moanin" by Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers. We have Lee Morgan , trumpet; Benney Golson, tenor sax; Bobby Timmons, piano; Jymie merrit, bass; Art Blakey, drums.
The title tune "Moanin" is by Bobby Timmons, it conveys the emotion of the title like no other tune I've ever heard, even better than any words could ever convey. This music pictures a person whose down to his last nickel, and all he can do is "moan".
"Along Came Betty" is a tune by Benny Golson, it reminds me of a Betty I once knew. She was gorgeous with a jazzy personality, and she moved smooth and easy, just like this tune. Somebody find me a time machine! Maybe you knew a Betty.
While the rest of the music is just fine, those are my favorite tunes. Why don't you share your, "must have" jazz albums with us.
I used to love the flute. I had a wooden flute I played on the road while hitch-hiking half way across the world. (Got from Berkeley to Afghanistan.) I know I have many jazz flutists in my collection but haven't listened to them for many, many years. I'll pull some out and reevaluate. I know I have a few Hubert Laws albums.
Love songs pulled at the strings of my heart in middle school. In high school I used to wear a Beethoven sweatshirt. In college I liked to party, so whatever people partied to I liked. Now I like just about everything but rap. It was the misogynistic lyrics that drove me away. I do like a number of hip-hop artists, though. And jazz, of course.
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.☺️
As I understand it, that particular song is about looking back at one’s life when one is older. I simply meant I wouldn’t have related to that theme, back then.
As an adolescent/teen, I definitely related to emotionally intense music!
I know this thread has been going on forever but going to add one of my favorites - Norberg "Abisko". It is modern; something magical and Nordic about the voicing and timing.
I found an album of Yusef Lateef playing flute. I like Yusef as a jazz musician, but I realized that when he began playing the flute I would be comparing him to one of the best flutists in the world in regards to technique. I go to the L.A. Phil every season and their first flutest undoubtedly has developed superb technique or else he wouldn't be there. (It used to be a she.)
I'll have to pull out your flute suggestions to compare. I do understand that very often jazz musicians do not have the perfect tone of classical musicians, but they have a swagger and understanding of earthy rhythms that classical musicians lack. I can especially hear this in opera singers who try to sing popular music. Their tone is fantastic but they can't deliver the emotion. I have a Billie Holiday album made when her voice was going, but there is a sorrow to her sound that can only be duplicated by living a hard life (and of course having her talent). I do have to applaud Yo-Yo Ma, though, he's game for anything. I have a record of him playing with some bluegrass musicians.
I’ll have to pull out your flute suggestions to compare. I do understand that very often jazz musicians do not have the perfect tone of classical musicians, but they have a swagger and understanding of earthy rhythms that classical musicians lack.
I don’t know if I can agree with you on that, as so many jazz musicians, including flutists have classical training. And that’s the very reason why I posted this André Previn post earlier on this and another thread:
André Previn was a well respected concert musician as well a well respected jazz musician. Did some folks from both camps hold it against him for crossing (over) into both genres, yep and thank goodness he didn’t listen.
There are many classically trained musicians that play jazz we can think of even the most recently discussed artist here on this thread including but not limited to Esperanza Spalding, Stanley Clarke, Joe Farrell, Hubert Laws, Chick Corea were classically trained....
I agree with @tyray. Moreover, it is a mistake to somehow attach superiority of expressiveness, swagger, whatever, to Jazz musicians as compared to Classical musicians. Two different genres with very different sensibilities which are what define expressiveness or swagger in each genre. Great Classicical musicians play with every bit as much “swagger” as great Jazz musicians. It’s just a different type of swagger. Even the best Jazz musicians playing Classical music typically sound just as out of place playing Classical as do Classical musicians trying to play Jazz. And the difference is a lot more than just tone.
Check out Esperanza’s custom electric bass. The frets are sunk/recessed into the guitar neck face and sides to work as both a fretless bass and a bass with frets. Outstanding creativity, resourcefulness and craftsmanship.
That above post was supposed to say: What!?! As I said, pick up the (electric) bass and play hell (out) of it.
Even the best Jazz musicians playing Classical music typically sound just as out of place playing Classical as do Classical musicians trying to play Jazz.
First, Lew Tabackin's flute sounded beautiful to my ear. Second, I think Andre Previn is in a very special class because he ended his career as a great conductor. I have just ordered a record of him conducting Debussy. He was also a bit of an enfant terrible, famously leaving his wife Dori (who wrote a song about him) for Mia Farrow. Although, a number of other jazz musicians are also classical musicians, Keith Jarrett, Benny Goodman, Wynton Marsalis, just to name a few.
Still I think there is a distinction. Classical musicians go through a rigorous review to be chosen for an orchestra, especially to be the lead musician. Every year they have to audition for their job, and I have seen much change over my years of watching the L.A. Phil. Jazz musicians pretty much just need to please an audience. How do I put it? They have jazz in their blood and they need enough technical precision to express that jazz.
I know jazz musicians like Coltrane were perfectionists and studied all the time, and that was one of the reasons he was one of the greatest jazz saxaphonists. And perhaps today jazz musicians need to be technically better because so many of them come from schools like Berklee where they had to audition to get in. But for just purity's sake, I think classical musicians are chosen on that basis.
Also the nature of jazz and classical musicians are very different. Jazz musicians come into their own when they find a voice. I can tell Coltrane anywhere, even if he's playing a piece I haven't heard before. Classical musicians must play Beethoven one day and Philip Glass the next. They have to adapt to whatever the conductor says they should sound like. As a classical musician, they aren't allowed to have their own voice. Although, I admit there can be a kind of swagger when they are totally into Bartok or Brahms.
**** As a classical musician, they aren’t allowed to have their own voice. ****
@audio-b-dog , with respect, this could not be further from the truth. In keeping with your comment about being able to “tell Coltrane anywhere”, it is, likewise, very easy to tell, for example, William Kincaid from, say, William Bennett. Now, if one finds oneself running to Google to find out who those two gentlemen are/were this proves my point. They are two of the greatest and most influential orchestral flute players (speaking of flute players) that ever lived and whose sounds and artistry can be identified immediately by any listener who has spent as much time listening to their artistry on recordings or live as that listener may have spent listening to Coltrane. It is a matter of the amount of exposure to specific players regardless of genre among other factors.
It is true that orchestral Classical musicians have to express their artistry (swagger) within narrower parameters than do SOLO Jazz players. To say that they have to sound “like the conductor wants them to” is an exaggeration. Yes, an orchestral conductor may have a certain “vision” for what the particular music being performed should sound like, but the players do have latitude when it comes to the expressivity, phrasing, tonal color (and more) of a solo or ensemble passage in a composition. It is a matter of nuance within potentially narrower parameters since the player (and conductor) has to, ultimately, honor the written composition; the composer’s intent. In fact, there is sometimes tension between a player and the conductor when it comes to certain nuances of interpretation. When it comes to chamber music the players have even more latitude since the players, not a conductor, make all the artistic choices in the service of the particular composition. In the case of solo artists, even more so. Classical musicians need to have tremendous technical proficiency because that ultra high level of proficiency is required to execute that repertoire, especially modern works by composers who test the limits of what is possible technically on any given instrument.
The point of my diatribe is that the ability of Classical musicians to be expressive and/or soulful should not be underestimated. Our own and personal musical preferences as listeners and level of “understanding” of those musics are formed for a lot of different reasons, not the least of which is simply amount of exposure to a particular genre, Ask any one of the players that you mentioned as examples of players who are both Jazz and Classical players and they will tell you that at the end of the day (hate that expression 😊), from the players’ perspective, the similarities are greater than the differences. Apology for rehashing this frequently quoted and very true adage:
”There are only two kinds of music. Good music and the other kind” - Duke Ellington
BTW, a minor factoid that may interest you. Orchestral players do not “have to audition every year”. Yes, the audition process is very rigorous, as it should be given the demands of the music. Once a player “wins” the audition process then there is typically a one year “trial” period to determine whether the player is a good “fit” artistically and personally within that particular group of musicians. Then, if all goes well, the player is tenured. There is actually relatively low turnover within most major orchestras.
What are your thoughts about Mr. Dudamel leaving LA for NY?
The Ultimate Adventure 2007 Full Album.Chick Corea lideró este concierto sobre el escenario que recupera el espíritu flamenco del álbum "Touchtone", grabado en 1982 junto a Paco de Lucía. Éramos nuevos compañeros pero viejos conocidos; Yo, Jorge Pardo (flauta y saxo), Carles Benavent (bajo), Rubem Dantas (percusión) y Tom Brechtlein (batería)".
Jazz musicians pretty much just need to please an audience.
Seems to me Coltrane needed first to "please" himself. After all, it was his own extremely high standard that drove him to work so hard. And "pleasing" the players with whom one is performing must also necessarily come before pleasing an audience. I’ve never played Jazz but this has been true playing Rock and Blues, in my experience and given its highly collaborative nature, this would, it seems to me, be no less important in Jazz.
@stuartk, It probably sounds as if I am saying jazz musicians aren't as good as classical. I'm not at all saying that. I am saying that they are judged by a different standard. Probably the most important point I made is that jazz musicians are judged by their individuality, their "voice," and how much emotion or intellectual satisfaction they get across to the audience. I can think of a number of jazz musicians who weren't that great, but audiences liked them for a while. I have too many of their records in my collection and never listen to them. Their shelf life was short. John Klemmer is a good example. In other words, there is a great variety of musical tests that jazz musicians must go through to rise to the top. Obviously some meet the classical criterium. Although, a number of jazz musicians who play classical music are soloists, like Wynton Marsalis and Keith Jarrett. Soloists need to have more individuality than memebers of an orchestra, to whom I was referring.
Classical musicians have to meet extremely rigorous vetting. The daughter of a friend of mine had a classical music education in flute. She was excellent, but could not get in a classical orchestra, even though she was taken under the wing of the L.A. Phil's lead flutist. So, simply being educated in classical music does not make for a classical musician.
Anyway, I think I've hit the end of my rope on this topic. I am judging from the standpoint of an uneducated audience memeber. I stand by my logic, but admit it might be faulty. I think I need somebody who knows a lot more about the subject and that would probably be a musician who has played in a classical orchestra and a jazz group. Benny Goodman comes to mind, but he is dead.
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 agree with your distinction between jazz and classical. One appeals more to the head and the other to the heart and soul. Jazz is primal. I would like to make a few distinctions, however. I think Stravinsky, for example, was searching for the primal in his ballet "Rite of Spring." Its rhythms are primal. When it was first played in Paris in 1918, people booed, threw things, and walked out. I love it.
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 ?
Bravo! If you can find me something of Scriabin with musicians of this same ilk playing in the same type of venue with similar instruments or close too, I would be grateful. This brings me to mind of Duke Ellington. This is refreshing, for me...
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.
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.
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:
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.
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:
@maghister, I applaud you for writing about music. So few poems attempt to.
I'm going to try to dig a little deeper into your poem as well as your wonderful talk about music and time. Since you mentioned Leibniz who was a mathematician as well as a philosopher, I am going try to take a step further into your discussion of time and music.
In Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, he discusses time a lot, talking about the human experience of time. In my mind, however, human is an example of consciousness. We need the concept of consciousness so that we can talk about "experiencing" time, which I think you are talking about in regards to humans listening to music.
Just to review some basics. A person traveling fast enough will age more slowly relative to a person "standing still." A person closer to a gravitational source will age more slowly than a person farther away. This time differential had to be taken into account in order to make gps work. Since the satellite is farther from the earth's gravitational field, it's time ticks a tad quicker than cars on earth. If the differential is not taken into account, cars would be running into trees.
Einstein also talked about basic human conscious experience. A rollercoaster distorts our conscious experience of time, as do other intense experiences. Although this kind of distortion cannot be measured against a clock. It's more of a feeling of time.
Yet I think I can safely say that our human consciousness is intertwined with time. If a person is looking at a spaceship traveling close to the speed of light, time is moving more quickly for the viewer. And thus, the twin experiment in which one twin is on the spaceship and returns to earth younger than the twin who was "standing still."
Getting back to music, I think you are talking about certain music--music which does not move to the ticking of a metronome--interacting with the listener's experience of time. And perhaps this is why some of us like music that does not accentuate a regular beat.
I'm going to take a step here that I haven't heard others on this forum take--sex. I have never seen people grin so much and so deeply as jazz musicians on a stage. Often these grins seem to come from the bass player and drummer, the guys in charge of time. And when they get off a regular metronomic beat, they grin all the more. The only other place I have seen such an all-encompassing grin is having sex, which also distorts conscious time to a great degree.
Most of the things I can think of which are "fun," like rollercoasters (not at my age, though), sex, and music, (also some drugs), seem to have the effect of altering our consciousness of time. And I think maybe that is what you are getting at in your poem and your writings about Scriabin, music, and time.
As for the primal, we know that upper Paleolithic people (40,000 plus years ago) played music, because we have found musical instruments that old. From my studies, I believe that art and spiritual practices were one experience beyond distinction for the ancients. I also believe that womens were their shamans and leaders, but that's another story.
What was the essence of these primal people's "celebrations"? I think it was an ecstatic yowl that they existed as part of the universe. And now I will take a step that cannot be proven (although there is certainly evidence) and say that the universe itself is conscious.
If primal people celebrated their existence as part of the conscious universe, then they were ecstatically crying out from their souls about being part of the entire creation. I don't think they believed in a creator yet. In my opinion that was a bad turn and led to metronomic time.
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.
@frogman,
Would I being going too far astray if I were to say that the melodic aspect of jazz came from Euro-Americans? In most of the American art I am familiar with the artists want to establish an American voice. Would this not also be true of jazz?
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