What jazz music are you listening to?

[Antonmb]

Dave Brubeck/The New Brubeck Quartet - A Cut Above
Direct-Disk Labs (1978), vinyl direct to disk

[asindc]

Originally Posted by bart

Jimmy Cobb Quartet - Jazz In The Key Of Blue




Classic example of a very decent surround recording.

Great jazzmen!

Jimmy Cobb (drums)
Roy Hargrove (trumpet, flugelhorn)
Russell Malone (guitar)
John Webber (bass)

One of my favorites.

[bart]

The World Of Cecil Taylor
via Qobuz




Adventurous!

Cecil Taylor - piano
Buell Neidlinger - bass
Denis Charles - drums
Archie Shepp - tenor saxophone (tracks 1 & 5)

[bart]

The Ray Brown Trio - Soular Energy




I know the LP is even better, but this CD ain't half bad!

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

The Modern Jazz Quartet
Japanese pressing




Very decent sound for a 60 year old recording.
The magical interplay between these 4 musicians is always a joy to hear...

62 years old and still so enjoyable!

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

It was my newspaper that raved about this album 2 years ago.
No easy listening.
Modern jazz, with a faint influence of fusion (post-fusion?).
Threadgill knows his classics, but has a unique sound.

This is a review:
A year ago Pi Recordings released the first new Henry Threadgill recording since 2001: This Brings Us To, Volume I. This is the second release from the same recording sessions of November 2008. Threadgill's Zooid band is a quintet, with Liberty Ellman on acoustic guitar, Jose Davila on trombone and tuba, Stomu Takeishi on bass and Elliot Humberto Kavee on drums, with Henry alternating between flute and alto sax. Volume II (about 44 minutes long) was again mixed by Liberty Ellman, in June 2010, and mastered by Steve Fallone.

According to the liner notes, which are not included with the disc, but can be found on the Pi Recordings website, the five pieces found here represented the second set of the live touring band. Whereas on Volume I Threadgill played flute on the first three numbers and alto on the last three, here he plays flute on the first and third tracks, "Lying Eyes" and "Extremely Sweet William," and alto on the other three. The five compositions form a satisfying whole, leading off with the mid-tempo "Lying Eyes," which features Ellman's guitar and Davila's trombone, then the slower title track, and then the up-tempo "Extremely Sweet William," with a fiery guitar solo and piercing flute. "Polymorph" slows down again, with a compelling, rolling rhythm that brings to mind a strange entity changing form as it shambles across the landscape. Takeishi takes a bass solo, and Threadgill the composer and Kavee the drummer masterfully create a constant sense of forward motion. Finally "It Never Moved," another faster number to close.

This is a tight unit, and they only entered the studio after extensive live touring with these compositions. The liner notes on the Pi Recordings website, explain that Threadgill has developed a new system of improvisation since his last recordings in 2001: "[t]he compositions are organized along a series of interval blocks comprised of three notes, each of which is assigned to a musician, who is free to move around within these intervals, improvising melodies and creating counterpoint to one another." This is something the listener can use in order to hear the parameters of the compositions, but in any event one has only to hear the record to immediately recognize Threadgill's sound world. The music is rhythmically propulsive and tight in the way that only a band that has played together for years can achieve.

Threadgill has been mining the same distinctive sound for 30 years now, and it is still a rich vein. Threadgill's Air trio of the '70s, which came out of Chicago's AACM, explored the intersection of composition and free improv. The Sextett of the '80s and Very Very Circus of the '90s (with twin guitars and tubas!) both featured complex compositions that emphasized unusual textures, and utilized a dark, minor key harmonic palette, and the 2008 Zooid THIS BRINGS US TO sessions do not mark a sharp stylistic departure. There is improvisation, but it is tightly constrained, as described above. Threadgill has never been known primarily as a virtuoso alto soloist, rather his strength is as a composer and arranger. He utilizes rhythmic structures from Jellyroll Morton, sophisticated counterpoint, and subtle harmonic shifts that do not resolve.

The return of Henry Threadgill is one of the great events of jazz/improv of 2009 and 2010, with much of his back catalog reissued in addition to these new recordings. If you are new to his music, you are in for a pleasant surprise, and if you are a long-time listener like me, you know what to expect -- the best!

Not the most easy listening album to go into the night...

[Formerly YB-2]

Originally Posted by Formerly YB-2

"Midnight Blue" (1967) with the remix by Rudy Van Gelder. Kenny Burrell, Stanley Turrentine, Major Holley Jr, Bill English & Ray Barretto. KennyB at the top of his game, as was Turrentine. So good I just ordered "A Night at the Vanguard" to help poor Kenny out a bit more with his health & financials problems (he is 87 and not doing well).

Been several months so listening again. Its that good.

[bart]

Bill Frisell - Harmony
Qobuz 24/96




Frisell keeps on inventing himself.
This is catalogued under jazz, but it could be called pop too.

The label Blue Note has welcomed so many pioneering, brilliant and revolutionary musicians over the years, so Bill Frisell’s arrival to the company that was founded in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis hardly comes as a surprise. At 68 years old, the American is not only the most captivating guitarist of his generation but undoubtedly one of the most innovative and influential. In fact, over the past few years Frisell has been breaking down the stylistic boundaries that have confined him to the “jazz” section. His repertoire now combines traditional jazz and folk and he allows himself to venture into country and even rock. This first Blue Note album is a perfect reflection of Frisell’s indefinable style as he lets himself go wherever he desires. With his old friend and cellist Hank Roberts (his fellow student at Berklee College of Music in 1975), singer Petra Haden (Charlie Haden’s daughter with whom he has been collaborating since the early 2000s), and guitarist, bassist and singer Luke Bergman, Bill Frisell has revealed this Harmony as a unique combination of chamber music folk jazz and vocal harmonies. An atypical and intimate reading of classical American music symbolized by the presence of the traditional song Red River Valley and Billy Strayhorn’s standard Lush Life. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

[Masterlu]

Peter White - Good Day

[JoeN]

Diana Krall today.