Kenny Cox on Bluenote

[six string]

Does anyone have Introducing the Contemporary Jazz Quintet?

True Blue newsletter calls it a hidden gem or something to that effect. Opinions?

[clifford_thornton]

I have the second of the two LP's on BN, Multidirection, which is pretty solid. I'm told that the first one is better.

My experience of Cox's music is that it is "of its time," reminiscent of the classic 60s Miles unit, but holds up very, very well.

[Kyo]

My experience of Cox's music is that it is "of its time," reminiscent of the classic 60s Miles unit, but holds up very, very well.

I agree with that. The two-LPs-on-one-CD Connoisseur disc is certainly worth getting!

[Nate Dorward]

It's excellent. Not a lost classic, certainly, but solid jazz by players who have their own personal styles.

[kh1958]

I have the second of the two LP's on BN, Multidirection, which is pretty solid. I'm told that the first one is better.

My experience of Cox's music is that it is "of its time," reminiscent of the classic 60s Miles unit, but holds up very, very well.

I thought the second session was much better than the first. The trumpeter sounds off in the first session.

[six string]

Thanks everyone. I saw the Conn. selection at R5 yesterday.

[Parkertown]

Totally reminds me of Miles' 2nd quintet. In a good way.

[danasgoodstuff]

intersting and enjoyable but not essential. The 2nd quintet thing is definitely there. If they were the first to be so influenced that would be something in itself, no?

[JamesJazz]

When that band was together they had a hell of a time getting gigs in Detroit - a notorious Bebop town - but found work in Ann Arbor. AA was/is a strong college town and was more open to the CJQ sound.

Kenny was just honored at Baker's by SEMJA (Southeast Michigan Jazz Association) and played a couple of numbers with Ron Brooks. Kenny has a regular slot at Baker's. He embodies 'the Detroit sound', or approach, anyway: lyrical, strong blues feeling, tuned in to Bud, and Horace, too. Writes interesting stuff, good arranger, very creative player.

[clifford_thornton]

The trumpeter sounds off in the first session.

I remember reading in some of Leroi's writings that Charles Moore was in New York for a while in the mid-60s and worked with Marion Brown, among others. Can anybody confirm this?

[Chuck Nessa]

Don't know about that but I heard him play a couple of times and spent time with him. He sounded interesting and seemed to be a fine fellow. This was 20+ years ago.

[clifford_thornton]

Do you know if Moore is still alive?

Or for that matter, Leon Henderson? (Sidenote - Sunny Murray says that Jack Graham, an altoist who played in the Swing Unit on their ESP date, was a cousin of Joe and Leon. Interesting trivia.)

[Niko]

Do you know if Moore is still alive?

Or for that matter, Leon Henderson? (Sidenote - Sunny Murray says that Jack Graham, an altoist who played in the Swing Unit on their ESP date, was a cousin of Joe and Leon. Interesting trivia.)

no time to google more right now, but moore is on this 2000 yusef lateef record:

http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/...ond+The+Sky.htm

this recent article sounds like they are still alive

http://www.semja.org/jan2008/index.html

Edited March 24, 2008 by Niko

[Mark Stryker]

Do you know if Moore is still alive?

Or for that matter, Leon Henderson? (Sidenote - Sunny Murray says that Jack Graham, an altoist who played in the Swing Unit on their ESP date, was a cousin of Joe and Leon. Interesting trivia.)

Charles lives in Los Angeles where he teaches at UCLA (lecturer in ethnomusicology). BTW, he is also interviewed extensively in Ratliff's Coltrane book. Henderson's story is a tragedy. He suffers from mental illness and is a recluse. My understanding is that he hasn't really played since the CJQ disbanded in the '70s, except for a few reunions with the band in the ealry '80s; otherwise, silence. BTW, the drummer on the CJQ albums, Danny Spencer, is still active and playing great on the San Francisco scene. And to second JamesJazz, Kenny is going strong here in Detroit. Those CJQ sides on Blue Note hold up very well -- young firebrands working through Miles' 2nd quintet influence in real time -- a much different proposition than 25-30 years later.

On a related note, I think one of the first clear examples on record of the influence of Miles' band is on Sam Rivers' "A New Conception," a quite magical and underrated all-standards Blue Note LP recorded in the fall of 1966. The trio of Hal Galper, Herbie Lewis and Steve Ellington is deep into a break-up-the-time looseness that comes right out of Herbie-Ron-Tony circa "My Funny Valentine," "Four and More," etc. The link is especially revealing because of the parallel standard repertoire. Interestingly, Galper and Ellington were Boston guys (so was Rivers of course) with long relationships with Tony. Don't know about Lewis.

Edited March 24, 2008 by Mark Stryker

[clifford_thornton]

Thanks for the info - too bad indeed about Henderson.

Might be time to give those three a call...

[randissimo]

In 1984 Charles Moore formed a band with Adam Rudolph and released an lp entitled, "Eternal Wind" on the Flying Fish label. . Don't know if they still exist but Eternal Wind is a creative band worth a listen.

http://music.msn.com/album/?album=10111935

[relyles]

On a related note, I think one of the first clear examples on record of the influence of Miles' band is on Sam Rivers' "A New Conception," a quite magical and underrated all-standards Blue Note LP recorded in the fall of 1966. The trio of Hal Galper, Herbie Lewis and Steve Ellington is deep into a break-up-the-time looseness that comes right out of Herbie-Ron-Tony circa "My Funny Valentine," "Four and More," etc. The link is especially revealing because of the parallel standard repertoire. Interestingly, Galper and Ellington were Boston guys (so was Rivers of course) with long relationships with Tony. Don't know about Lewis.

I can't help but wonder how much of that was really a Miles influence on Rivers? Didn't Williams play with Rivers before playing with Miles? So isn't it possible that there is actually no direct influence? Just a thought.

[Mark Stryker]

On a related note, I think one of the first clear examples on record of the influence of Miles' band is on Sam Rivers' "A New Conception," a quite magical and underrated all-standards Blue Note LP recorded in the fall of 1966. The trio of Hal Galper, Herbie Lewis and Steve Ellington is deep into a break-up-the-time looseness that comes right out of Herbie-Ron-Tony circa "My Funny Valentine," "Four and More," etc. The link is especially revealing because of the parallel standard repertoire. Interestingly, Galper and Ellington were Boston guys (so was Rivers of course) with long relationships with Tony. Don't know about Lewis.

I can't help but wonder how much of that was really a Miles influence on Rivers? Didn't Williams play with Rivers before playing with Miles? So isn't it possible that there is actually no direct influence? Just a thought.

The influence I'm getting at is speficially the way the Galps-Lewis-Ellington rhythm section as a unit emulates the approach of Herbie-Ron-Tony in terms of relating to the soloist and the hide-and-go-seek approach to time keeping.

[JamesJazz]

...and to second Markstryker's comment ref. Leon Henderson, none of his longtime friends have been able to contact him, in fact disquieting rumors regarding his health are circulating.

[david weiss]

Do you know if Moore is still alive?

Or for that matter, Leon Henderson? (Sidenote - Sunny Murray says that Jack Graham, an altoist who played in the Swing Unit on their ESP date, was a cousin of Joe and Leon. Interesting trivia.)

Charles lives in Los Angeles where he teaches at UCLA (lecturer in ethnomusicology). BTW, he is also interviewed extensively in Ratliff's Coltrane book. Henderson's story is a tragedy. He suffers from mental illness and is a recluse. My understanding is that he hasn't really played since the CJQ disbanded in the '70s, except for a few reunions with the band in the ealry '80s; otherwise, silence. BTW, the drummer on the CJQ albums, Danny Spencer, is still active and playing great on the San Francisco scene. And to second JamesJazz, Kenny is going strong here in Detroit. Those CJQ sides on Blue Note hold up very well -- young firebrands working through Miles' 2nd quintet influence in real time -- a much different proposition than 25-30 years later.

On a related note, I think one of the first clear examples on record of the influence of Miles' band is on Sam Rivers' "A New Conception," a quite magical and underrated all-standards Blue Note LP recorded in the fall of 1966. The trio of Hal Galper, Herbie Lewis and Steve Ellington is deep into a break-up-the-time looseness that comes right out of Herbie-Ron-Tony circa "My Funny Valentine," "Four and More," etc. The link is especially revealing because of the parallel standard repertoire. Interestingly, Galper and Ellington were Boston guys (so was Rivers of course) with long relationships with Tony. Don't know about Lewis.

This band has been a favorite of mine for years and more recently I have been performing some of their material with my new group. Over the years I've spoken to Kenny Cox a few times and much more at length with Charles Moore as most of the material from the group that I do comes from his pen. It's true, up to very recently he has lived in LA but now I believe he is living in France and contemplating a permanent move there. I believe he still does some things with Yusef Lateef who brought up his name last time I spoke to him. Charles wrote some very forward thinking music for the group and it still is quite fresh and holds up quite well today. He also told me that Miles in the Sky is the record that did it for all of them and help set them off on their journey. I hear that parallel quite strongly. I agree with what Mark says above about this group being the first to deal with what the Miles Quintet was doing at the time but to me what was really trailblazing was they did it through their compositions. Many have strived to get that flexible, ever-shifting rhythm section vibe that was Herbie, Ron and Tony but live, where these guys pulled it off the most, they were doing it to standards while Cox and Company wrote tunes that built these time and tempo shifts into the forms of the tunes themselves. This was done quite a lot 15 years or so later (not 25 or 30) by the first generation of young lions especially Wynton's first group (Black Codes anyone) and Terence Blanchard/Donald Harrison etc, etc.

I just recorded three of Charles Moore's tunes (in the studio and live) over the past few days and one thing that was commented on a lot was most thought these were recent tunes and were shocked when told they were almost 40 years old but that is the nature of these tunes and what attracted me to them, they are so open-ended that you can take them anywhere and do all sorts of things with them. That approach to music will always keep them fresh.

I really don't agree with the Rivers record being another example of this though. At fleeting moments perhaps but the rhythm section on this record really doesn't have that sort of flexibility. They do some experimentation for sure and probably were influenced by the Herbie, Ron and Tony thing a bit but don't have the harmonic sophistication of those guys to pull it off and the drummer isn't exactly fluid enough to make any of the transitions really effective. They also go totally free in spots, something the Miles guys never really did. An interesting record but I always thought this record a bit of a failure and I love Sam Rivers.

According to some Detroit guys I know, local folk legend has Leon Henderson showing up at some random jam session in Detroit about once a year, playing some amazing stuff, blowing everyone away and then disappearing again for a year or so and then doing the same thing again. This hasn't happened in a while though....

Edited March 28, 2008 by david weiss

[Mark Stryker]

David makes a really valuable point about the CJQ guys writing the influence of Miles' band into the compositions themselves and about the open-ended feel of the music, especially Charles Moore's tunes. (Hadn't heard that he was in France, by the way.) I would note that Miles' guys were already doing this in their originals recorded in the studio by 1967-68, and it's interesting that Moore referenced "Miles in the Sky" (released in 1968) as the turning point for his peers in Detroit because many of those tunes are filled with shifting meters and feels. "Paraphernalia" shifts between 4 and 3; "Country Son" also morphs between 4 (fierce swing and even-8th note sections) and a ballad-like waltz section. The form on "Black Comedy" -- and I'm cribbing here from Belden's liner notes in the Columbia box because this tune is where I hit the wall in my own ability to decipher meters; I get lost every time I hear it; guess that's why I'm a writer -- is four bars of 6 against 4; two of 4/4, one of 5/4 and one of 6/4. It would be interesting to know when exactly the CJQ guys heard "Miles in the Sky" relative to the recording of their two sides. I'll ask Kenny.

Re: "A New Conception." I'll certainly concede that the Herbie-Ron-Tony influence is clumsy at times and the totally free passages David mentions were Rivers' aesthetic not Miles' (one of the reasons he didn't last in the band). But just because they don't necessarily have all the tools to pull it off doesn't mean they aren't trying to assimilate the ideas. The point I wanted to emphasize is that this was a really early example of the Miles quintet's influence spreading to young players. After all, it was recorded in Oct. 1966 -- before "Miles Smiles," "Sorcerer" and "Nefertitti" were even released, so the recorded references they would have been dealing with were still the standards records, save "ESP." Plus, none of the originals had yet made their way into the band's live repertoire except for "Agitation." The shit was really moving swiftly in those days.

David: Look forward to hearing your recordings of Charles' tunes. Keep us posted.

Edited March 26, 2008 by Mark Stryker

[andybleaden]

Have both and they are truly really nice records and were a surprising find during a Blue Note drought

[andybleaden]

Also picked up their Strata LP Location which I have not ever seen before. Any of you got this one?

[Dan Gould]

Had no idea there was a third album. Please report when you've listened, Andy.

[clifford_thornton]

Yeah, I saw one on eBay once - went for about a hundred bucks.

I think there are two different aggregations of Cox's band on there.