Wynton Marsalis

[jazzbo]

I'm with Jim too. That's a good release. 

[mandrill]

7 hours ago, clifford_thornton said:

I dunno, I've heard very little contemporary music that recalls in any way the Free Jazz of the '60s. 

The blowing sessions in that mold that I have seen performed by younger (slightly) players have not been all that interesting. 

Almost everything by William Parker, David S. Ware (alas, he's not with us anymore), Tim Berne, Joe McPhee- those are just some major names i'm getting from the top of my head- I can list many more. Obviously, the music has evolved and none of those sounds like an (almost) perfect copy of AEC or Ayler or Coleman and late Coltrane bands but you can still trace the lineage. And most of their music don't fall into free-for-all blowing sessions category.

And then there are other artists who are pushing jazz in some interesting, if not exactly new, directions. Just a few examples:

Jaimeo Brown- Transcendence (Motema)

Eric Hofbauer Quartet- Prehistoric Jazz, Vol 1 & 2

Matana Roberts- Coin Coin Series.

Then there are major stylists on their instruments like Dave Douglas, Bryan Lynch, Avishai Cohen (trumpet), JD Allen (sax), Jason Moran (piano), etc.

All of this apparently flying below (or rather above) Wynton's radar, while he's busy rehashing classics from jazz "golden age" and with some racial bias to boot.

 

 

Edited October 21, 2017 by mandrill

[clifford_thornton]

I think the spirit might be there, of walking in the footsteps of those who've come before, but I rightly think that the music of Parker, Ware, and Berne is a LOT different than anything that existed in the 1960s. Parker was on the scene by 1973, yes, but his music has evolved heavily -- HEAVILY -- since then and it is hard to really put it into the same box. To compare what they are doing to what was happening in the lofts and coffee shops of the Village then, or churches and community centers in Chicago, is not really fair to either the 'then' or the 'now.'

McPhee was born in 1939 and is a living master, completely beyond category. Yes, he knew the Ayler brothers and their work was/is an influence but I've spent enough time with the man and his music to know that it (and he) goes further than that.

Wynton knows who William Parker is.

[mandrill]

3 hours ago, clifford_thornton said:

yes, but his music has evolved heavily -- HEAVILY -- since then and it is hard to really put it into the same box.

You just proved my point- their music has evolved from their base of 60's free jazz to something fairly unique, while Wynton's has not and rather regressed.

Nowadays he's more like a (self?)-appointed CEO of Jazz Inc (Lincoln Center, Dizzy Coca Cola, etc.). As a musician worthy attention to the music he's making, imho he can be safely discarded at this point.

[Late]

Wynton Marsalis is the Paul Whiteman for the 21st century. 

[Scott Dolan]

I'm not sure how to respond to someone who thinks David S. Ware, for example, sounds nothing like 60's Free Jazz. That's a mind-boggling statement. 

Personally, I've shifted over to the European-style Free Improvisation BECAUSE I had grown tired of hearing the same old thing. Ware is great, but I wanted to find something new. 

[mandrill]

3 hours ago, Scott Dolan said:

I'm not sure how to respond to someone who thinks David S. Ware, for example, sounds nothing like 60's Free Jazz. That's a mind-boggling statement. 

Personally, I've shifted over to the European-style Free Improvisation BECAUSE I had grown tired of hearing the same old thing. Ware is great, but I wanted to find something new. 

Ware, while rooted in 60's free jazz tradition, sounds very different from, say, late Coltrane or Pharoah or Shepp- neither he was trying to emulate any one of them. He learned the language and moved it into new, expanded territory. But to say one can't trace his sound to that time is, frankly, a puzzling statement.

I'd take Ware over any of his counterparts from Euro Free improv just for sheer joy of listening for his flights, but, obviously, de gustibus non est disputandum.

[Scott Dolan]

That's interesting because mid 60's Coltrane/Shepp/Sanders is exactly what I hear in Ware. And I certainly don't mean that in a disparaging way. He a wonderful artist. I just don't hear any "expanded territory" in what he's doing, to be honest. 

That said, I certainly didn't mean to imply that I'd take one over the other, just that the Free Improvisation cats are different, and therefore more interesting to my ears simply because they are doing something radically different than straight up Free Jazz players like Ware, Mateen, Gayle, Murray, etc...

BTW, just listened to that Jaimeo Brown album you listed above. Fascinating! I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Edited October 21, 2017 by Scott Dolan

[Steve Reynolds]

I've been listening to the Ware trio shows from October 2010 with Parker & Warren Smith. As has been said above, the influence from Ayler et al is obviously unmistakable yet his sound is almost timeless if you contrast it with Birth of a Being from 76/77 (an astounding trio with Cooper-Moore & Marc Edwards). However he is really more out of Rollins than Ayler and certainly the Coltrane influence is less than many/most of his contemporaries.

the alternate downtown thread with people like Berne, Malaby and now Rainey, Maneri's, Kris Davis, Darius Jones, Ches Smith, Mary Halvorsen and many more is many moons apart from the late 60's free scene. In addition the wide range of music being made by these people and others is astonishing and mostly wildly creative and surprising. I'll say the same for the musicians from Chicago I've heard like Tameka Reid, Jamie Branch, Mike Reed, Jason Stein and many others.

I think Vandermark's large ensemble music of the past 20 years is thoroughly undervalued and underheard. The Territory Band and Resonance Ensemble recordings are in most cases spectacular or close to it.

as far as the Euros, I tend to enjoy the free and abstract music that has existed and continues to thrive even more than the vibrant creative music being played here.

next Friday Tony Malaby with Daniel Levin & RANDY PETERSON in New Haven, CT

 

 

[Scott Dolan]

My current favorites are Mats and Peter Evans. As much as I love Nate Wooley, I find Evans superior to him. 

[mandrill]

4 hours ago, Steve Reynolds said:

 However he is really more out of Rollins than Ayler and certainly the Coltrane influence is less than many/most of his contemporaries.

 

 

I tend to agree with that assessment of Ware's sound, especially when one listens to his albums from 90's on DIW.

[JSngry]

It took a while for Rollins to re-emerge as an influence, and when he did, it was through people like Ware, and, especially, Threadgill, people who picked up on what was not "boppish" about Sonny.

[Steve Reynolds]

4 hours ago, Scott Dolan said:

My current favorites are Mats and Peter Evans. As much as I love Nate Wooley, I find Evans superior to him. 

 

4 hours ago, Scott Dolan said:

My current favorites are Mats and Peter Evans. As much as I love Nate Wooley, I find Evans superior to him. 

Glad you are into two of my favorites

You would be well served to get Tensegrity - a 4 CD box of Barry Guy's Blue Shroud band in small formations. Evans is prominently featured and his spots are spectacular.

of course Mats is all over the 2 previous small formations boxes of Guy's New Orchestra - Mad Dogs (5CDs) & Mad Dogs on the Loose (4CDs). These feature more well known mostly veterans of the scene (Evan Parker, Trevor Watts, Paul Lytton, Johannes Bauer, etc.) 

both ensembles include the great pianist Agusti Fernandez and his work with Gustaffson is priceless. There is a set with Parker-Guy-Lytton with Agusti added that is amazing. Both earlier boxes have great Tarfala sets - Mats with Guy & Raymond Strid at the kit. For my $$$ this is Gustaffson's sweet spot and the set on the earlier box is my favorite set I've ever heard him play.

all 3 boxes on Not Two records - for me they are the best free improvisation releases of the past 10 years. Best sounding, best editing and the musicians are clearly focused and relaxed. Plus look at who is playing on the first two - and the younger players on the later discs that I was unfamiliar with are wonderful. There are a couple of saxophonists and multi-instrumentalists that stunned me with their abilities.

I think Mad Dogs on The Loose is available for decent $$ as is Tensegrity. The first box looks to have become a bit pricey.

 

An aside from before about "rudiments"

Or and idea that free jazz dudes don't know even the rudiments was laughable 25 years ago, today writing that is a parody of some sort. One wonders if some have ever even listened to what some of these people are doing/playing.

I attended the Tomas Fujiwara Double Trio shows a few weeks back.

Rudiments indeed!!!

Edited October 21, 2017 by Steve Reynolds

[Guy Berger]

On 10/20/2017 at 7:39 AM, JSngry said:

Enough time has passed, and although Wynton has seriously firmed up his business position as far as "institutional" power, musically, he's pretty much a non-power these days. enough music has bypassed him in terms of the "overall jazz audience", that he no longer seems a real "threat" to anything I care about, the damage was done, and now we go forth in the aftermath. THAT'S jazz, going on in spite of the damage, you can't kill it, it will evolve by any means necessary because it's not about any kind of "style", it's about spirit. You can kill a body, but not a spirit, a spirit will live in whatever body it can get.

I suspect if you told a recently-converted jazz fan that there were intensely polarizing “Wynton Wars” 35 years ago (or even 20 years ago), you’d provoke some confusion over why someone with ultimately minor significance generated so much heat.  (That is, if the fan even knew who he was...)

[JSngry]

Well, the money/gig landscape changed forever, that part of it did. So...maybe he really IS a genius!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Scott Dolan]

Steve, our mutual friend, Captain Hate, actually mentioned those boxes to me a few weeks ago. They are definitely on my list.

Funny that you mention Gustafson's work with Fernandez. My current favorite album is the Evans/Fernandez/Gustafsson date, A Quiteness Of Water. Just a brilliant album from the first note to the last. 

[Steve Reynolds]

9 hours ago, Scott Dolan said:

Steve, our mutual friend, Captain Hate, actually mentioned those boxes to me a few weeks ago. They are definitely on my list.

Funny that you mention Gustafson's work with Fernandez. My current favorite album is the Evans/Fernandez/Gustafsson date, A Quiteness Of Water. Just a brilliant album from the first note to the last. 

That one is on my list:)

[Scott Dolan]

I think you'll fall in love with it. I've pretty much listened to it every Sunday morning since I discovered it. 

[Pim]

Personally, I don’t like people that always categorize and think in boxes in a negative kind of way. On this forums, I see mainly people that just love music and talk about it. On other forums, in Dutch mainly you are supposed to pick a side.

Side one: everything that smells of freejazz and was made after 1960 is semi-intellectual nonsense by musicians that cannot play a single right note. Jazz is something that was made before 1960 and is played only by musicians that run over the same scales again and again. I    think that this is the side that mr. Marsalis feel most comfortambly in.

Side two: the only interesting jazz was made after 1960 by musicians that play freejazz. Everything before is outdated and not interesting anymore. 

I don’t fit in these two sides and I do not want to. I have always hated people like Marsalis and Stanley Crouch, because of their segreationist views on ‘what is jazz’ and ‘what is not jazz’. And I must say that it has made me prejudiced about Marsalis’ music: I still don’t feel like listening to it, while he probably has made some nice records. Shame on me for that.

I don’t like narrow mindness on music that itself is so free and creative. It baffles me to read Bob Weinstocks words on the late Coltrane in ‘Fearless Leader’ liner notes. According to Weinstock John lost his way after ‘A Love Supreme’... Unbelievable. Anyway to me jazz is Louis Armstrong but also Cecil Taylor. It is Prez and it is also David S. Ware. It is Jelly Roll but also Anouar Brahem. It is a creative force: some things I like, and others I don’t.

[Quasimado]

4 hours ago, Pim said:

Personally, I don’t like people that always categorize and think in boxes in a negative kind of way. On this forums, I see mainly people that just love music and talk about it. On other forums, in Dutch mainly you are supposed to pick a side.

We have our moments  

Q.

[clifford_thornton]

5 hours ago, Pim said:

I don’t like narrow mindness on music that itself is so free and creative. It baffles me to read Bob Weinstocks words on the late Coltrane in ‘Fearless Leader’ liner notes. According to Weinstock John lost his way after ‘A Love Supreme’... Unbelievable. Anyway to me jazz is Louis Armstrong but also Cecil Taylor. It is Prez and it is also David S. Ware. It is Jelly Roll but also Anouar Brahem. It is a creative force: some things I like, and others I don’t.

I am with you all the way.

I'm also unconvinced by the statements here that Ware is (or was) a modern-day Coltrane-like figure. That's very narrow-minded as well. It really galls me that people can't really accept musicians on their own terms. Sure, there are forebears and influences but when someone has been doing something for like 40 years, you'd think they'd be allowed their own significant identity and body of work to speak entirely for itself.

[Pim]

1 hour ago, clifford_thornton said:

I am with you all the way.

I'm also unconvinced by the statements here that Ware is (or was) a modern-day Coltrane-like figure. That's very narrow-minded as well. It really galls me that people can't really accept musicians on their own terms. Sure, there are forebears and influences but when someone has been doing something for like 40 years, you'd think they'd be allowed their own significant identity and body of work to speak entirely for itself.

Definitly. Of course Ware is influenced by Coltrane, but almost every modern sax tenor player is to some degree. I do not see that as something negative. More important to me is that the saxophonist himself is creative and original, and Ware certainly is. His masterpiece on DIW ‘Godspelized’ is such another cup of tea than let’s say: ‘Sun Ship’ by Coltrane. The quartet with Shipp has such another sound, than Coltrane’s. A comparison to Frank Wrights ‘Unity’ Quartet with Bobby Few is more likely to me. But why should we compare anyway... in my opinion all these artists are unique and wonderful in their own right and I enjoy them all.

[clifford_thornton]

Agreed.

Yes, the Center of the World / Unity Quartet is a closer vibe (I remember talking with Cooper-Moore about that many years ago). 

[Scott Dolan]

2 hours ago, Pim said:

More important to me is that the saxophonist himself is creative and original, and Ware certainly is. His masterpiece on DIW ‘Godspelized’ is such another cup of tea than let’s say: ‘Sun Ship’ by Coltrane. 

Nah, not really. Sun Ship, First Meditations, and Godspelized all sound incredibly similar to each other (other than Ware's tone is harsher, more in line with Shepp, for example). And all three are phenomenal recordings. Actually, Sun Ship and First Meditations are my two favorite Jazz albums of all time. So it's not as though I'm casting Godspelized in a negative light. I think that's just the way some wish to see it. But claiming he's doing something entirely different than the 60's Avant Garde artists that influenced him is a stretch, IMO. That would be like saying Wynton Marsalis is doing something entirely different than the 40's-50's artists that influenced him. 

[Pim]

2 hours ago, Scott Dolan said:

Nah, not really. Sun Ship, First Meditations, and Godspelized all sound incredibly similar to each other (other than Ware's tone is harsher, more in line with Shepp, for example). And all three are phenomenal recordings. Actually, Sun Ship and First Meditations are my two favorite Jazz albums of all time. So it's not as though I'm casting Godspelized in a negative light. I think that's just the way some wish to see it. But claiming he's doing something entirely different than the 60's Avant Garde artists that influenced him is a stretch, IMO. That would be like saying Wynton Marsalis is doing something entirely different than the 40's-50's artists that influenced him. 

Haha I really disagree with you. Maybe we compare in a different way. Sure they do not differ in the way that, say Louis Armstrong and Roy Campbell do. After all Trane blows what people call free jazz and so does David S. Ware. So they build on the same concept. But the bands and the music itself is very different from each other. 

Trane uses more melodics and changes than Ware and his overblowing is different. Tyner is a completely different pianist than Shipp. Tyner is more based in the tradition, has got a different pulse and uses more changes and blues scales. Shipp uses more clusters, creating a wall of sound like Cecil Taylor or Bobby Few. I personally think Parker is more out there than Garrison, Garrison sounds more thoughtful using Arabic music as an inspiration, while Parker uses more expression. And Elvin Jones and Guillermo Brown could not differ more from each other. Elvin Jones keeps a tight rhythm and strong pulse, while Brown floats more on the music itself. So the influence is there but they are not two of the same kind.

For me the same as you: I regard both of the groups as fantastic jazz quartets. And Sun Ship is my all time favorite jazz album.