What jazz music are you listening to?

[skroudo]

Originally Posted by RoadDawgWest

Played that one a few times last week.

A well made album, excellent recording!

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[Josquin des Prez]

Originally Posted by RoadDawgWest

Played that one a few times last week.

+1

I playd it earlier today

[RoadDawgWest]

A Jazz Symphony Featuring Clark Terry & Zoot Sims - Mother Mother
Pablo Records 2312-115
Recorded 1979 RCA Studios, New York

[RoadDawgWest]

Bill Berry's L.A. Big Band - Hello Rev
Concord Jazz 1976

[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!

[bart]

Another recommendation from my newspaper.
Bought this some 9 years ago.
Very coherent playing of these magnificent musicians.
From the label ECM.

[bart]

SFJAZZ COLLECTIVE - Joshua Redman



Yet another newspaper tip.

This octet plays marvelously.
Veteran Bobby Hutcherson adds a very special flavour.

From Amazon this very informative review:
The SF Jazz Collective, brainchild of founder and executive director Randall Kline and artistic director Joshua Redman, has come up with something spectacular.

The idea here is simple, but one that has seldom if ever been applied to jazz: find a younger established but adventurous musician, make him artistic director and give him the power to select a continuing group of players, fund them to write and practice, and then send them on the road. Lots of potential pitfalls there--will the musicians mesh, will too much practice make them sound precise but stilted, how will they fit this work in with other gigs--but this group has seemingly managed to avoid them all. Having the luxury of three weeks to practice--something unheard of in jazz--enables them to achieve the exact right balance between precision and spontaneity.

An additional idea is for the group to select one major jazz figure per year on whose music to concentrate. The initial selection of Ornette Coleman was a wise choice: he's modern, but approachable; well-known, but not overexposed; melodic, but quirky; and he's had a deep impact on lots of current younger jazz men and women. This disc contains three Coleman songs and four group originals. Somewhat surprising to me is that the originals are every bit as strong and stirring as the Coleman numbers, seeing as the group had the vast spectrum of the Coleman canon to choose from. Especially wonderful are Miguel Zenon's snappy "Lingala" and Renee Rosnes's "Of This Day's Journey."

An octet of mostly younger players--Joshua Redman (artistic director, tenor and soprano sax), Miguel Zenon (alto sax, flute), Nicholas Payton (trumpet), Josh Roseman (trombone), Renee Rosnes (piano), Robert Hurst (bass), Brian Blade (drums)--the ringer is old guy Bobby Hutcherson on vibes and marimba. Including him was a brilliant choice. Still at the top of his game as a mallet player, he brings both stability and added coloration, broadening out the proceedings away from a hackneyed post-bop direction and toward a welcome world jazz course.

There aren't a lot of precedents for this music, but Wayne Shorter's Alegria and Michael Brecker's Wide Angle operate in somewhat similar territory, each with adventurous writing and distinct coloration. What's different is that this isn't either a core of musicians augmented by additional players (Alegria) or a one-off project (Wide Angles): this is a real band. Consequently, everything seems to be working at a higher level--group conversation, compositional and arranging ingenuity, ensemble voicings, and soloing.

This is simply wonderful music, brilliantly conceived, played, and recorded. Certainly among the very top releases of 2005.

[skroudo]

Gene Ammons - BLUE GENE.

Prestige.

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[skroudo]

Art Pepper - MEETS THE RHYTHM SECTION.

Analog Prodaction.

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[Josquin des Prez]

Originally Posted by skroudo

Art Pepper - MEETS THE RHYTHM SECTION.

Analog Prodaction.

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I really want this album, but it is backordered at Acoustic Sounds.