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.
Afro-Cuban jazz, a style of Latin jazz, is a fusion of jazz's improvisational techniques and harmonies with the rhythms and instruments of Afro-Cuban music.It originated in the early 1940s in New York City and is characterized by the use of percussion instruments like congas, timbales, and bongos, along with the distinct clave rhythm.
FYI, my intent wasn't to denigrate Clube da Esquina by pointing out it's not Jazz.
I love that album! I've listened to many other Milton CDs and have yet to encounter one I enjoy nearly as much.
In fact, I've listened my way through numerous lists of recommended Brazilian music and found very little that really captivates me. I wish this was not so.
My favorite Brazilian recording is Milton Nascimento’s Clube Da Esquina , which is, of course, not jazz.
This may not be jazz, but this song is an Opus all of and on its own. Years ago I popped this cd in my car’s cd player as a friend and I were going to dinner and as she was singing the song and also surprised that I had a cd of one of her countrymen, she cried like a baby while singing cause she missed her Rio de Janeiro, Brazil somethin bad. The Brazilians have a word for what she was feeling, Saudade.
@audio-b-dog, with the Isao Suzuki Trio – Black Orpheus Full Album (1976), I was always a sucker for some nice and easy Rhodes playing and the drummer just brushing away...A Taste Of Honey - Morgana King. Wow! And Yusef Lateef "Love Song From Spartacus," You're stretching out on these cuts. And these are tunes I've never heard before.
To my ears, Mal Waldron was, like Andrew Hill, and Horace Tapscott, a player who (in his own compositions at least) tended to take a simple motif and explore it in many subtle variations, as opposed to basing lines off complex harmonic changes. Rhythmic displacement and use of space are evident elements in his playing. All three players shared a similarly dark sound and percussive touch. Waldron recorded recorded albums of standards and albums featuring original tunes and spanned a gamut from inside to outside in the process.
Three I particularly like:
Seagulls of Kristiansund
Left Alone '86
You and the Night and the Music
He and S. Lacy were buddies and recorded several times together, for those who enjoy Lacy.
@curiousjim, I listened to Mal Waldron's "Free at Last.." I liked it a lot. I'm still listening. Sometimes he reminds me of Keith Jarrett, perhaps my favorite jazz pianist. He's very good and I'm glad to have found him. I might have liked this album better than Glory because I was in a more open mood, or perhaps because Glory was recorded 44.1 khz, like a CD, whereas this one is at 96 khz and delivers a lot more depth on my stereo. It's especially important for the drums which have all kinds of soundstage cues that were flattened out on Glory.
@frogman, now you’re venturing into my territory. Try this taste by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band with Mike Bloomfield considered one of the great blues guitarists. (He died young.)
Heard this yesterday and I’m embarrassed to say that this guitar player’s name was only vaguely familiar to me. I don’t exactly follow the Fusion/RR guitar world closely, but enjoy the obvious names. Still….……..The phrasing logic of a good Jazz player with a RR attitude. Killer player:
@curiousjim, I listened to Mal Waldron. It was a bit sparse for my taste and the bass/drum drone made it seem flat. I don't know if Waldron has that kind of vibe on his other albums. I will listen to him some more. A drone-type bass beat I do like can be found on Alice Coltrane's Journey in Satchidananda. In that case, the drone is like an Indian spiritual thing, and Pharoah Sanders' sax is as spiritual as John Coltrane was. One of my favorite albums.
Morgana King has been one of my favorite jazz singers for a long time. She had a four-octave contralto voice that carried a lot of emotion. Her most famous song "A Taste of Honey"
Isao Suzuki's "Orpheus," the best recorded album in my collection. But also a winner for pure enjoyment. Suzuki plays a double bass that will twang your woofers.
Yusef Lateef "Love Song From Spartacus," a gorgeous melody taken from the ballet written by Aram Khachaturian, off Lateef's great "Eastern Sounds" album.
@tyray, when stuartk told me about Wayne Shorter, I liked his album "Speak No Evil" so much I thought about buying it on vinyl. On Qobuz, however, it's recorded at 192 khz resolution. That's so close to vinyl there's no need.
Funny, I’ve heard that one but don’t remember the punchline either. Here’s another:
A violist is driving on the way to a concert and decides to make a quick stop at a bank. Knowing it would only be a few minutes he leaves his viola on the back seat of his car. He runs into the bank and as he approaches his car on the way back he sees that the rear window has been smashed. Distraught and expecting the worst he looks in the car and in the back seat……two violas.
Looking over Absolute Sound's music reviews I came across Branford Marsalis's remake of Keith Jarrett's "Belonging." I loved Marsalis's take on "Belonging" and went back to Jarrett's "Belonging." I don't know how I've missed it before. Jarrett's one of my favorites. Both versions are spectacular. Both of very high quality on Qubuz, too.
acman3, thanks for the posts. I'll check them out.
frogman, I remember the beginning of one violist joke but not the ending: "The conductor and violist are walking across a cross walk, who do you hit first?" Do you know it?
To be fair to violists, it should be pointed out that there exists an old and unjustified stereotype about violists that assumes that violists are musicians who cannot compete as violinists, so they take up the viola in order to get orchestral jobs. While it is true that the viola does not have the caché that the violin does and not nearly as many important works written for it, it is an essential voice in the orchestra. There are also many fantastic violists who choose to play the instrument because of its unique characteristics and place in the orchestra palette.
Having said all that:
Q: What is the difference between a violin and a viola?
mahgister, first of all I think it is so cool you've read Richard Tarnas. And you are right, he did not talk about things in terms of masculine and feminine. That is why what I'm doing is so difficult. Nobody has really broken down our history by gender. But in my reading I have found a history of the suppression of women. It is clear to me when and where it happened and the consequences. Now that I've been studying it, I see the results all around me. And I have the difficult job of making others see what I see.
I agree with you that we all have a degree of both sexes, and I like your examples of Chet Baker and the amazing Roland Kirk of the many horns in his mouth at once. Male artists, as opposed to men in general, are most likely to embrace their feminine. I have recognized the feminine in myself, although my masculine side is pretty strong. Probably one of the reasons I'm trying to see the feminine.
Yet we must admit and see that we live in a patriarchy. This is not just feminist BS. Look at the countries around the world that suppress their women to various degrees. Or in order to succeed their women learn to adapt to the patriarchy. It's a fact that men have developed thought all around the world. We mostly have read male writers in school, although that is changing, partly because women read more than men, especially fiction. Sociologically, psychologically, and politically, patriarchy has reigned. Western music is a product of male minds, with very few exceptions mostly occurring from the latter half of the 1800s onward.
Yet, to your point, men who suppress the feminine in themselves long for it. Look at all the poets who have called upon the female muse. In jazz, we have loved our female singers and still do. Religions that have suppressed women still have a female aspect. Mary in Christianity, the Shekinah in Judaism, and I have read that there are feminine aspects to Islam.
I am convinced that women were the strongest force in spirituality and the arts, but I can't go on too long here talking about history. I will look at Iain McGilchrist, though. Thanks for mentioning him.
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...
acman3, it has taken me years of working on a book to try to get across my ideas on the Feminine Creative Spirit. I don't know how much you know about physics, but there is a concept called entropy. Basically, it says that forms will eventually dissolve and become white noise. The universe will become white noise (particles scattered without form). Yet the universe has been around 14 billion years and it just keeps getting more complicated and more orderly. Something is missing in our male view of the universe. And it is male, just think of all the famous physicists you can think of. Physics' concepts have been designed by males. There is something we're not seeing. Richard Parnass writes about this in his book "The Passion of the Western Mind." He says our science is based on left-brain, logical thinking and we need to engage our right brains more. Einstein might be an exception because when he was a child he dreamed about traveling on a light beam.
But let me give you a quick perception about jazz that is indisputable. Female vocalists are not different than male vocalists simply because their voices are higher. Women convey a song differently than men because feminine expression is different than masculine expression. I don't know why this shouldn't prove true across the board. I don't think there have been enough female musicians (other than singers) for us to see that difference. Any females on this thread? That's another issue.
I'm in with your brother and I think females will stand on their own excellence but it will take males some time to understand it. Actually, I think it will take the Feminine Creative Spirit to save our asses, because male-think is about to descend us into social entropy.
frogman, so funny that you're hip to the violist jokes. At the L.A. Phil we had a lead violist named Carrie Dennis. She must have been one of the best violists in the world. In her twenties she was chosen as the L.A. Phil's lead violist but she went to Berlin instead. Then she came back to the L.A.a Phil. She used to sway her body like crazy to pretty much any composer. I used to like to watch her. She brought the concerts to life. She performed Bartok's Viola Concerto in bare feet. Then one day she did not come to work. She disappeared, and as far as I know, nobody knows where she is.
After writing all that, I must say I don't agree with the whole Masculine/ Feminine sound idea. So, a Johnny Hodges ballad is Feminine? Hell no! Beautiful yes!
I was meaning to listen to Melissa Aldana more closely, so Audio-B-Dogs reference to her over the last few pages, told me now was the time. I only have had time to listen to 3 recordings a couple of times. My initial and final oversimplicated observation is she sounds like Wayne Shorter in the way she writes and in the way she plays, with a voice of her own mixed in. This in itself is not a bad thing. I will be paying attention to future records.
I will say I hear no masculine or feminine sounds if I am listening to a recording. Just good music and playing. Now, if I am looking at her I can hear more feminine sounds. Call it what you want. I find it interesting that Audio- B-dog, said he loves her music after seeing her live, and then shows us a live recording where he says she has a feminine sound. Maybe, I'm not the only one effected by my eyes.
I struggle with people pushing a subgroup forward on age, sex, color, or any other reason short of ability. I could name 10-20 young musicians, over the years, who are playing all types of music, with no voice yet, but are lifted up because they are young, when there are 100's of older great musicians who have never gotten their due, and can't put food on the table. Then once the youngster, gets older, starts actually playing great, with his own voice, people no longer care because they are older. Drives me a little nuts. You don't hear as much about Joey Alexander now that he has developed his own voice in early twenties, except from Jazz lovers.
My brother is always pushing women to the front in sports, music, and other endeavors. I think they have to stand on their own excellence, not some manufacturerd push because they are women, and they absolutely can stand on there own talents, and I would hope that their femininity would be part of their sound.
frogman, BTW, I have a number of Beethoven's string quartets on vinyl. His last ones sound as though they were written in the 20th century. I have no idea how he was able to make those musical leaps. I heard one of his early piano sonatas played live (first, second, or third?). You would understand how to describe the leaps he took from one musical gesture to the other, but I turned to the guy sitting next to me and said, "That sounded like jazz."
frogman, thank you for the long post responding to my various posts. You have more of an understanding of the structure of music and a vocabulary to discuss it than I ever will. I think that also helps with an appreciation of music, but I’ve loved music from an ignorant standpoint for as long as I can remember. I’m not saying that as a dig. I’m just saying that most people who love music do not have your knowledge about how it works.
I’d like to respond to the points you bring up about my posts, but first I’d like to tell you how I view music’s value to humanity. I think the arts, including music, defined Homos sapiens. The previous species of Homos (erectus, etc.) did not seem to make art. (I’ll leave Neanderthals out of the discussion.) I imagine early humans used music as a way to express their awe at belonging to the universe. And this I call spirituality. And this spirituality I hear in Coltrane’s music in spades.
Now why do I get into this whole subject of women? It is my belief that up until about seven or eight thousand years ago women had an equal (or greater place) in terms of creating art. About the time the Greeks began philosophizing and the Hebrews began writing the Torah, women were cut out of philosophizing and art making. And it’s not until my generation that they have begun to claw back an equal place.
Do women have a different sense of artistic expression? As a trained poet who has watched women change poetry in my lifetime, and change visual arts, I believe I have also watched them change music. And this is too long a discussion for here, because I’d have to go through numerous examples of where I’ve witnessed this. Like everything else, I think music has been a boys’ club. What has been lost in music? Hopefully we’ll find out. I think of it as the Feminine Creative Spirit. And that’s too huge a topic to get into here, but I think it goes beyond the arts.
On the question of feminine versus masculine swagger, please listen to this cut from Melissa Aldana and tell me whether or not you hear a feminine approach. To my ear it is very clear, but perhaps I’m just hearing what I want to:
On the question of "chamber" music, I think I haven’t been able to express myself because of my poor vocabulary about music. I am talking about music written for the chambers of lords and ladies of the court. Music written to please the court and to be pleasant to the ear. Although the lower classes and uneducated people did go to Shakespeare plays (which speaks highly of the poet), I don’t think they listened to what is referred to as "classical" music. I put that in quotes because classical is also a period of music following baroque. The composers of the classical period had long bored me especially in comparison to the Romantics and beyond. Now that I have become an old man, I appreciate Papa Haydn and Mozart more. I have always loved Bach.
In a sense, I can compare the Romantics with jazz. Here’s where I’m talking about in my poem to John Coltrane
"music wasn’t doled
out over cloistered walls
it comes from the streets
where women’s bodies
turn rags to style"
The cloistered walls I refer to are the walls of nobility’s castles and the church. Although, I must admit that I love the masses of Bach, Mozart, and many others. I think these composers are able to go beyond the liturgical to a deep spiritual well from which music comes. And from which jazz comes thanks to mostly musically uneducated folks who were touched as I say in my Coltrane poem:
"& think that grace lands anyplace
like snowflakes
promiscuously kissing faces"
In other words, a snowflake promiscuously kissedd Louis Armstrong’s face. Since music comes from the human soul, he didn’t need a formal education. And I'm sure you know I can't leave out Mozart when I talk about the snowflake's blessing. He was writing symphonies in his early teens.
I appreciate your elaboration of the meaning of "gesture" in music. I understand it far better now. I had to smile because Simon Rattle was conducting your example of Mozart’s 4oth. I got to go backstage and meet him once and he had a big thick notebook with jokes about violists. Of all the things I didn’t think I’d see when I went to meet Sir Simon Rattle.
I hope I was a bit more clear in this overly long post. I don’t think you and I would disagree about much in regards to what is good music. I think our disagreement is more in terms of talking about music, and I think this is mostly my fault. I have written about many things before, but not music.
@viridian, I was simply blown away by this album even though it was only a partial few of the cuts I could find and listen to. I’m thinking this album Duke Lumumba - Jungle Funk was recorded in 1968 maybe? If so, I think it was years ahead of its time.
The musicianship is astounding, even though I had to come back to it and listen again. I was also impressed with producer – Phil Wright in the high quality of recording.
This album’s got a Hugh Masekela/Crusaders type vibe going on. This is a well hidden jewel that needed to be put out there. This is a record I’d go out and buy.
Much respect to and for the artist Duke Lumumba to title this (jazz) album ’Jungle Funk’ in 1968-69 ish. @viridian, talk about off the beaten path, what else you got?
Very nice finds, thanks! Look how much fun they are having. Hale Smith, with the cigar in his mouth....Love the groove on the live African Cookbook @ Montreux.
“Swagger” IN MUSIC is just another way of saying that the music “swings”, “rolls”, or, “has good pocket”. It is a feeling of great rhythmic integrity in the service of that particular music’s style. All are terms that are applicable to music of any genre including Classical. Yes, Classical music can swing…..in its own way. I don’t believe that the presence of swagger in music is dependent on the gender of the artist. Some might argue that there is some unique quality to the MUSICAL “swagger” of a female musician as compared to a male musician. I don’t buy it. Perhaps in their respective bodily “attitude” there is, but there are so many examples of artists of one gender whose work possess qualities that some might attribute to the other gender that makes the notion moot. Has there been a more “feminine” (in the stereotypical sense) Jazz pianist than Bill Evans? Or, conversely, a more “masculine” (in the stereotypical sense) Jazz pianist than, say, Hiromi? I think there is a preoccupation with “classification” or categorization of traits of performers. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the problem is that it is often done at the expense of a deeper analysis/understanding of fundamental musical attributes which are universal and cross gender barriers.
@audio-b-dog , I appreciate your passion for music, but I must say and with all due respect that I don’t agree with some of what you write about it. Moreover, it seems you contradict yourself at times:
**** I don’t think their art/music has to do with their personalities. ****
**** Wynton Marsalis said that jazz was about the musician showing their "personality." ****
Which is it?
Herbie Hancock eschewed on this thread?! Hardly.
**** Although some jazz players, most of whom I think would be eschewed in this thread, like Herbie Hancock ****
On the subject of “soul” in music:
**** John Klemmer who was influenced by Trane was just copying the man, but had no soul.****
There is hardly a tenor player active from the late ‘50’s and beyond who was not influenced by Coltrane. But to say that John Klemmer “was just copying” Trane and “had no soul” is a pretty bold and, frankly, unfair statement. I am not particularly fond of Klemmer’s music, but I simply can’t agree with that. Moreover, to suggest that the perceived absence of “soul” is why his music is considered “commercial” is mystifying to me. “Commercial” music can indeed be very soulful.
From my perspective the above is why fixation on categorization of music in terms of strict genre (and gender) definitions and personal ideas of what constitutes soulfulness (and other attributes) can be a dangerous thing. Dangerous in the sense that it locks the listener into very narrow notions about the intrinsic value of the art. Never a good thing.
**** I think we should separate music with a spiritual impulse from "chamber" music. To me, some jazz resembles chamber music in that it does not have that spiritual component informing its musical gestures. ****
Huh?! Are you suggesting that chamber music, as a whole, does not have a “spiritual component”?
If you haven’t yet, please familiarize yourself with Beethoven’s string quartets. Some of the most gloriously soulful and spiritual (chamber) music ever composed. That is, unless one has the mistaken view that to be “soulful” music has to be imbued with obvious references to the blues.
—————————-
What is a “gesture” in music?
It is helpful to think of music, whether a Classical chamber work, or a Jazz performance as story telling with music. Jazz musicians often judge an improvised solo in terms of whether the musician is “telling a story” and not simply playing “licks” that while potentially “impressive” don’t add up to much as far as having musical coherence and a certain logic from beginning to end. Just like a good spoken word story teller tells a story. In music, a gesture is a motif or musical statement that while discreet is a logical piece of the whole. I wish I could claim to have written the following definition of “musical gesture”, but I saved it a while back after coming across it in a periodical:
++++ Gesture is often more or less synonymous with motive, meaning a germ-like idea or device that participates in musical rhetoric.
But the word gesture draws a specific and obvious association with movement: a musical gesture is something whose communicative intent and power are analogous to those of a physical gesture, like a strong cadence or an especially compelling rhythmic figure.
Consider the well-known opening of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40:
A and b are closely related but opposing gestures; a unfolds and extends the arm, so to speak, while b draws it back in.
Really this sense of gesture is entirely metaphorical, but it points to a kinesthetic conception and perception of sound that can be very useful in crafting compelling music, and in analyzing the impact of musical rhetoric on the listener. +++
Another example which is closer to home for this thread, the ground breaking “Giant Steps” by Coltrane. The first five notes of the tune is a “musical gesture”, followed by a seven note gesture which can be considered, as in the Mozart example, an opposing gesture.
Anyway, apology for the length of this post. I’m glad to see spirited discussion of music. There will always be disagreement at least to some extent. This is the result of how music (art) can move us all in different and personal ways. Disagreement should not be taken personally or as an affront, but as a way to grow as listeners by considering different perspectives. A music lover loves music much more than being a music lover.
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