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.
stuartk, let me elaborate just a bit on the feminine angle. On Melissa Aldana's last album "12 Stars," the Chilean sax player has a song she wrote called "Emilia." Aldana is 36, a woman of childbearing age. When she played the song, she explained that "Emilia" was to the child she had never had. Not a subject a man would write a song about.
I find the melody haunting and played in a way that I could not imagine a man playing. She rarely blasts the sax, and when she does it is not nearly as strong as Trane or any other male sax player I've heard. Her notes are gentle and wavering, and I find them to be haunting. There is an innate difference between her jazz and male jazz.
This, I think, was not so true in the past. I would not have said that Carla Bley's sound was obviously feminine. Women in all the arts, however, are beginning to express a sentiment that they would not have in the past, because they wanted to be accepted in the man's world of jazz. Singers, aside, of course. We have always wanted our female singers to sound feminine and express the entire panoply of the feminine experience. Even in a deeply religious part of 1968 Iran.
Why do I care? Because like curiousjim, I am curious about what is happening now. I like new things and experiences. And we live in an extremely important time when women are expressing their entire selves and men, as usual, are trying to slap them back. We see this in many, many goverrnments around the world, often expressed with the backing of religion.
curiousjim, thanks. I'm always looking for something different. Mediterranean sounds good. I often go to the Absolute Sound music reviews. That's where I found out about Lizz Wright's new recording "Holding Space." You can only stream it, though.
I have been listening to a Keith Jarrett album with Charlie Haden. Just the two of them. They do standards. It's very mellow, if you're in that kind of mood.
stuartk, I don't think their art/music has to do with their personalities. I could use actors as a comparison. Personally, some actors are quite modest while others like to fill a room full of people at a party. On stage, they all must "swagger," whether that means playing a timid part or large part.
You think about a musician improvising, they have to bring out their inner musical "swagger." (Perhaps a bad word.) In the documentary on jazz, Wynton Marsalis said that jazz was about the musician showing their "personality." And perhaps that is a better word than swagger. He used a very interesting metaphor of a writer and a pencil. The pencil doesn't write the story, the writer does. He was talking about Buddy Bolden who is considered the first jazz musician. Marsalis said that Bolden's coronet did not play the music, Bodlen did. And apparently he had plenty of swagger.
One other thing about the first episode of the documentary "Jazz" that really struck me was that for about four decades jazz was the most popular music in the country. That's when people could dance to jazz. I think somewhere in the fifties (after Parker?), it became more cerebral and the mass audience went elsewhere, to rock n' roll, I would guess. Although some jazz players, most of whom I think would be eschewed in this thread, like Diana Krall and Herbie Hancock (he played the tribute to Joni Mitchell in the Hollywood Bowl), most jazz players play in small clubs to a selective, more "cerebral" audience who aren't dancing.
Although I like straight-up jazz (I was playing an album of Tina Brooks yesterday), i love jazz that has a dance beat and makes me want to get up off my chair. Lizz Wright has that quality. Here is an excerpt from a review about her in Downbeat:
"Lizz Wright comes to her music with equal parts gospel, jazz, r&b and blues. The alto vibrations of her dark-toned, rich voice would sound at home in any church, jazz club, theater or even arena. She’s just that versatile as an artist."
You're welcome! There is so much great jazz out there. This thread, started in 2013, has opened my ears and mind. I'm grateful to all the posters/contributors.
I rewatched the first episode of the documenatary "Jazz" last night. Wynton Maralis was their go-to man on the origins of Jazz in New Orleans. The first part went from slavery in the early 1800's up through Ragtime and ended with a tease on Louis Armstrong. The next episode will be much about him and his genius which I had not recognized until I saw this documentary the first time, maybe 15 years ago or more.
@acman3 I wouldn't worry about the slightly off topic banter. Glad to see people having a good time. We've all gone off topic from time to time. You are at least talking about music.
I think it was frogman who asked me why I said men swagger with their shoulders and women swagger with their hips. It is because jazz is about swagger, and I was saying that women express themselves artistically differently than men. This difference in the genders is being noticed and embraced among most arts. mahgister mentioned Furtwangler. I hold series tickets to the L.A. Phil and have heard the most important living conductors (which obviously doesn't include Furtwangler). The most exciting conductor I have heard is a woman named Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. I'd tell you more but this is a jazz thread.
I have been attending jazz concerts for over sixty years. One of the most innovative and interesting saxaphonists I have heard is Melissa Aldana. She is young, 36 years old, but obviously brilliant. She composes the music on her album, and whether you like it or not, it is like nothing else you have heard in jazz. I think as jazz aficionados we should all keep our ears open for new, young sounds. Here is a cut from her newest album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1hObK9HiGA
maghister, wharfy, I think I understand the concept of a musical gesture. The musical impulse must begin in a human who then has to embody that internal gesture into music, poetry, dance, etc. I think, however, that you are talking about music with a spiritual component. By "spiritual" we may mean different things, but I'll leave it for now.
In my poem on Coltrane, I said music comes from the streets, because if you study music it might seem it came from the courts. We must remember that up until Beethoven musicians wrote solely for royalty, and even Beethoven tried to curry the favor of royalty. Therefore, all music had to have pleased the lord for whom it was written. This is still true to some extent in that most musicians write to please the masses. And that has little to do with spirituality in music.
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.
When Parker played bebop it came from his soul. That is not necessarily true of those who followed him. Coltrane infused his music with his own original musical gestures. (Hope I'm using that word correctly.) John Klemmer who was influenced by Trane was just copying the man, but had no soul.. That's why we call him commercial.
Since you brought up poetry, I know all about embodying words with the gesture. My poetry becomes more spiritual the more "lost" I become. In other words, I can't think through it. I just do it. And my best poems have been written that way.
In some jazz, although they have improvisation, the improvisation seems "of a piece" with the composition not rising above the written music. When a spiritual musician goes off on a riff, it rises very high into the stratospheres.
I disagree with mahgister about his assumption that music was written by men on their hunts. As difficult as it's going to be we need to get beyond the patriarchal lens. Yes, we think of men making art because they have for all the history we know of. I think the first music was integrated with art (body painting and adorrment) and was practiced by men and women. They were first acknowledging their own existence and second expressing awe that their existence was part of the existence of the universe. I'll stop here because it becomes complicated and I don't want to start citing books on the subject.
I'm sorry if I insulted you. That wasn't my intention. As I don't know you, all I can do is try to understand you via the particular words that appear on the page in front of me. I must make inferences and inevitably, I will make mistakes.
I suspect you are speaking of subtleties that I'm simply unaware of.
Unless have a guitar in my hand and am actively trying to work something out using music theory, I tend to revert to the right brain when relating to music.
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...
stuartk, sorry for my tirade. I have to admit that I felt insulted by what you said. I have mentioned how many live jazz concerts I have attended. How would it be possible for me to see so many live jazz concerts and not know what improvisation is? You can see it. Sometimes the band has musical scores which they look at for the setup and then the improviser goes off on their own and the backup no longer look at their scores.
In regards to being lost, Malcolm Gladwell talks about types of artists in a New Yorker article called "Late Bloomers." He talks about two kinds of artists. One is exemplified by Picasso whom Gladwell says saw what he was going to paint in his head and then executed it. The other was exemplified by Cezanne who had to find his painting on the canvas while he was working. Action painters like de Kooning and Pollock were lost until they found themselves on the canvas. Another example might be Agatha Christie who did not know the ending of her crime novel until she got there. I think a lot of jazz musicians are lost until they find themselves in the spur of the moment on their instrument. That’s what I mean when I say I like being lost.
mahgister, very interesting what you say. I’m particularly interested in the word "gesture." What exactly do you mean by a musical gesture?
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...
stuartk, you're not understanding me at all. When I hear a jazz group I can hear what is planned and when a musician goes into improvisation. That's a no brainer. Coltrane on "My Favorite Things" plays with his band the setup going through the melody a few times. Then he goes off on his own and flies high above the band who is just trying to keep up with him. I think I understand jazz a lot better than you think I do.
When L.A. had a commercial jazz station they would play what they called "soft" jazz. Sade, Diana Krall, maybe Davis playing "Some Day My Prince Will Come," and Trane playing something off his album "Ballads." I have an extremely abstract ear from listening to "modern" abstract classical. Shostakovich, Bartok, Stravinsky. In modern classical music the beat can be all over the place. Listen to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.
I think in the jazz you're talking about nobody is on the beat yet it is implied and they all know where it is. And I know where it is. Coltrane often plays like that. And Davis on some of his later stuff. Bebop has syncopation.
In classical music, there is light classical, early classical with composers like Bach, and even up to Mozart. Then the Romantic Era begins with Beethoven and people see that as a more serious classical. And more difficult classical comes with 20th century and 21st century classical.
It would be so difficult for me to explain to you my understanding of music, but it begins in the Upper Paleolithic with people who lived in caves. I know nobody knows what that music sounded like, but I think I know why they made music. It was a spititual thing. Just like Coltrane, Sanders, and Davis felt their music was spiritual. And I believe the shamans and creative artists were women. But that's another argument.
I'll stop with this. But I think you're really underestimating my understanding of jazz.
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 ....
interesting. 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". The best musicians are able to feel "the center of the beat" so well that they can "lay back" or "push" the beat according to the desired feel of a particular tune. For example, Muddy Waters demanded his band members be able to play what he called "delay time".
According to AI:
In jazz, musicians often play slightly behind the beat, creating a "swing" feel, which is a rhythmic characteristic of the genre. While some instruments, like the bass and ride cymbal, might subtly push the beat slightly ahead, others, like the horns and keys, tend to play behind the beat to enhance the swing. Playing on the beat, ahead of the beat, or behind the beat is a nuanced technique that contributes to the unique groove and character of 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"....
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...
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 ...
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):
I received my copy of of Antonio Jobim's bossa nova album Wave the other day from discogs. The 1967 Pitman pressing in pretty good condition sonically and materially. Amazingly surprised by just how rich and deep the sound stages on this album musicians are pinpointed across the stage with both depth and breadth and the musicianship and songs are superb. Someone over on Reddit recommended this album so I decided to buy it sound unheard and I'm very happy I did!
stuartk, I don't define jazz vocals as scatting. Billy Holiday does not scat on the records I have by her.
I think where we're diverging is that I like to be lost. I like to pose questions I can't answer, and I don't feel the need to know the answer.
I spent 10 years writing a novel about a Holocaust survivor who had been an assassin and could no longer love. I was in uncharted territory (this was about twenty years ago) and loved being there. I like research. I am now working on a book asking a question which I don't think anyone else has ever asked, and I have no definitive answer. I feel like an explorer.
I have no answer about jazz, either. I just wanted to hear what other people thought. And apparently other people have more definite ideas than I do. So far, I'm kind of taking from all this that perhaps thinking in musical genres is not such a great thing.
I think the misunderstanding here lies in the term "interpretation". Because it could conceivably apply to such a wide range of scenarios, from very subtle shifts to quite dramatic re-conceptualizations/re-harmonizations, it’s fairly useless. Perhaps the term "invention" might better point to what Jazz improvisers do that goes beyond "interpretation".
If you define Jazz vocal improvisation so narrowly as to only include scatting, then you and I have quite different perspectives.
What a shame that your wife doesn’t share your enjoyment of Jazz. I’m very lucky; my wife and I have very similar aesthetic tastes across the board. Using one’s voice as an instrument is certainly one aspect of Jazz singing. I don’t believe Sinatra could accurately be described in such terms but no doubt, some would disagree.
stuartk, I have a lot of Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, and Billie Holiday albums. They often don't improvise except in the way they interpret songs, like Frank Sinatra. No doubt, Fitzergerald can scat with the best of them, but she doesn't always feel the need. So, I don't think improvisation is a necessary attribute of jazz. BTW, I think you didn't like Tania Maria, but she can scat like nobody's business.
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.
To my mind, unless he was attempting to invent new phrasing every time he sang, he wasn’t improvising. I’m reluctant to include any musician in the category of Jazz who doesn’t improvise, no matter how talented they might be. And just to clarify, I’m not suggesting improv is the sole criterion! Clearly, there are other styles of music in which improvisation is central. That doesn’t make them Jazz, either.
To my ears, Sinatra’s approach still sounds like Pop, no matter how jazzy the arrangement. Pop with jazzy backing sounds like Vegas to me, not Jazz, but no doubt others will disagree.
I’d guess Sinatra fans did not go to his concerts wanting to be surprised by new, risk-taking interpretations -- they wanted and expected him to deliver what they knew from his records.
I'm listening to the Belgian musician Toots Thielemans, the preeminent jazz harmonica player. "The Soul of Toots Thielemans" if you want to stream it for a taste.
acman3, thanks for finding that article. That's what I was talking about when I said other musicians regard him highly. On the level of Billie Holiday! High praise.
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.
stuartk, the reason I mentioned Sinatra was because many musicians and singers have called him a genius. He lost his voice early on in his career, I think when he was in his twenties. Early Sinatra sounds much like Bing Crosby. Sinatra made up for the problems with his voice by inventing new phrasing, and it is this phrasing that other musicians refer to as his genius. I wondered if that phrasing would give him a place in the jazz world along with Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. Every New Years I am absolutely blown away that New York is still playing Sinatra's "New York, New York." He was born 110 years ago and died 27 years ago and I still hear him everywhere, as I do with Ella Fitzgerald.
I grew up listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, and I don't know who else remembers Louis Prima and Keely Smith. Jazz was all around but I didn't think of it as jazz. It was just the music my parents were playing. And, of course, Sinatra was all around.
frogman, mahgister, stuartk, I want to probe a bit and see if we can define the boundaries of jazz. So, I’m going to start with a performer who might or might not be a "jazz" performer: Frank Sinatra. What do you think?
I don’t feel competent to make any definitive declarations in this regard. For one thing, I haven’t heard much Sinatra. What I have heard has not displayed what I consider to be fundamental to the genre: improvisation on his part. There are of course, plenty of examples of vocalists fronting bands playing "jazzy" arrangements of standards that do not feature improvisation by the singer. To my mind, this does necessarily make it Jazz. Perhaps it’s a matter of degree...
Let’s wait and see what @frogmanhas to say on this topic.
Was listening to Pat Metheny, Imaginary Day when I read your posts about Mose Allison. Being a sucker for everything that RVG had a hand in, I immediately went to Mose Allison Sings and my toes been a tapping ever since.
frogman, mahgister, stuartk, I want to probe a bit and see if we can define the boundaries of jazz. So, I'm going to start with a performer who might or might not be a "jazz" performer: Frank Sinatra. What do you think?
wharfy, I know a lot of rock bands have covered Mose Allison’s songs. I’m not sure which have covered what, though. Several times a year, I get out of bed and say to myself, "I have to listen to Mose today."
I’m not a straight-up jazz listener. I like all kinds of music, but I also like all kinds of jazz adjacent music. If Mose is just playing jazz, then he’s a jazzman. If he’s playing and singing, he’s not exactly a jazz singer but his piano is playing jazz.
I’m a big Gato Barbieri fan. I don’t have "Fenix," though. I’ll stream it. Thanks for mentioning it.
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