Monterey Jazz Fest releases

[RDK]

Looks like these just hit emusic.

[CJ Shearn]

I have the Miles and Monk Monterey sets, need to give them a whirl. A darkly funny version of Stella, Jim? what do you mean?

[six string]

I have the Miles and Monk Monterey sets, need to give them a whirl. A darkly funny version of Stella, Jim? what do you mean?

I'm curious too. I just listened to my copy last night for the first time and would agree with what others have said about the sound and the content. Both are very good. There are a couple of places where the audience is clapping after some of the solos and the sound of the clapping seems real loud to me, a bit jarring to my ears. It's a tiny complaint of mine because otherwise it's excellent.

I need to relisten to Stella for this darkly funny business.

[medjuck]

And why does the audience begin clapping in the middle of the bass solo on Stella? Has Miles walked back onto the stage?

[skeith]

I have the Miles and Monk Monterey sets, need to give them a whirl. A darkly funny version of Stella, Jim? what do you mean?

I'm curious too. I just listened to my copy last night for the first time and would agree with what others have said about the sound and the content. Both are very good. There are a couple of places where the audience is clapping after some of the solos and the sound of the clapping seems real loud to me, a bit jarring to my ears. It's a tiny complaint of mine because otherwise it's excellent.

I need to relisten to Stella for this darkly funny business.

I think I get what Jim was getting at and I agree with him.

Compare this version of STella with the celebrated version on My Funny Valentine in 1964. IT seems to me that Miles decided at Monterey not to play this as a beautiful ballad and that he takes many opportunities to confound listener's expectations of what a Miles ballad should be on this tune. I hear some real off-hand sort of I don't care almost hostility towards the tune.

But it works and I like it and I like the whole cd.

Edited September 21, 2007 by skeith

[Free For All]

OK, my take on this whole "darkly funny" business is this:

I think of the quintessential version of Stella as being the '58 version w/Trane. They do the first chorus in a two feel and then "walk four" on the second chorus (and I've said before, the transition from the first chorus to the second is one of my favorite moments in jazz). I think the Monterey version emulates the '58 version inasmuch as they do the two feel (and Herbie even cops some of Bill Evans' comping), then walk like the '58 version but there's a palatable sense of "respectful sarcasm" in their rendition. Plus Tony's backbeat later on adds to that.

So I guess I'm saying they're paying "homage" to the earlier version while totally screwing with it.

...but not at all in a disrespectful way. :rsmile:

I have the Miles and Monk Monterey sets, need to give them a whirl. A darkly funny version of Stella, Jim? what do you mean?

I'm curious too. I just listened to my copy last night for the first time and would agree with what others have said about the sound and the content. Both are very good. There are a couple of places where the audience is clapping after some of the solos and the sound of the clapping seems real loud to me, a bit jarring to my ears. It's a tiny complaint of mine because otherwise it's excellent.

I need to relisten to Stella for this darkly funny business.

I think I get what Jim was getting at and I agree with him.

Compare this version of STella with the celebrated version on My Funny Valentine in 1964. IT seems to me that Miles decided at Monterey not to play this as a beautiful ballad and that he takes many opportunities to confound listener's expectations of what a Miles ballad should be on this tune. I hear some real off-hand sort of I don't care almost hostility towards the tune.

But it works and I like it and I like the whole cd.

[JSngry]

Sorry, I didn't realize that a question had been asked of me in this thread. My bad.

What I mean is that Miles for some reason to go into an "operatic trumpet" bag ala Pops on this one, and clearly (and most likely knowingly) has nowhere near the chops to pull it off straight. So he just "abstracts" the shit out of it, playing all the shapes of what such a line would sound like, with all the gestures, but none of the notes, none of the specificities! It's just this...outpouring of shaped sound that resemble a Louis Armstrong solo interpreted by Renoir in sound, if that makes any sense to anybody. It's not all that different in concept from Lester Bowie, and did somebody say St. Louis?

And Tony, my god, Tony is just all, "ok Pops, let's rock the house then", all into this backbeat thing that's as far back into the pocket as you can be and still be there, with time that is about as deadly obstinate as it can be and still swing, like if Barrett Deems was a world-class mobster and was breaking your legs in the most cooly professional manner you'd ever seen before.

I mean, we know that these guys had a sense of humor, they had to. Might've been a "dark" one, but still. It's just not been documented this blatantly before, not that I can think of off the top of my head. Now, Wayne, hell, Wayne lived to do shit like this. But Miles is always the "dark, brooding" one. Not here. Here, he's a drunk Louis Armstrong on acid, and it makes me laugh my ass off.

Edited September 22, 2007 by JSngry

[Bright Moments]

The other two releases previously scheduled are from Shirley Horn and Grover Washington, Jr. (both from 1994) but these do not yet show up for preorder.

any word on these or any others yet?

[Aggie87]

bump...

From Musictap:

"The Monterey Jazz Festival Records are serially releasing classic and historic live Monterey performances. They have listed Art Blakey and The Giants of Jazz (Monterey Jazz Festival - 1972); Jimmy Witherspoon w/ Robben Ford (Monterey Jazz Festival - 1972) including a bonus track: "When I Been Drinkin'"; Tito Puente and his Orchestra (Monterey Jazz Festival - 1977); Shirley Horn (Monterey Jazz Festival - 1994); Cal Tjader (The Best of Monterey Jazz Festival performances - 1958-1980); and Dave Brubeck (50 Years of Brubeck Monterey Jazz Festival performances - 1958-2007). These discs are pegged for availability on August 5."

Edited July 3, 2008 by Aggie87