European Windows--John Lewis

[Brownian Motion]

Ronnie Ross on Baritone sax, Gerald Weinkopf on flute, plus the MJQ's rhythm section shine in this release. The rest of the players, a large string section a few woodwinds, are unidentified. As a bonus, the Modern Jazz Society's 1955 release, which came out on a Verve elite CD a decade ago, is also included (though not the rehearsal tracks), so if you missed that one here's another chance to pick it up.

Edited November 19, 2009 by Brownian Motion

[J.A.W.]

"on CD for the first time" is not quite correct, I remember seeing European Windows on CD some years ago.

Edited November 19, 2009 by J.A.W.

[B. Clugston]

I bought this on vinyl a few months back. Pleasant enough, Ross is a treat and it's always nice to hear "Midsömmer," but the Modern Jazz Society date is essential.

Who is releasing this? Legit? Andorran? Andorian?

[J.A.W.]

I bought this on vinyl a few months back. Pleasant enough, Ross is a treat and it's always nice to hear "Midsömmer," but the Modern Jazz Society date is essential.

Who is releasing this? Legit? Andorran? Andorian?

According to Amazon it's an "American Jazz Classics" release. No idea if it's legit. The album was originally released on RCA.

[Chuck Nessa]

I bought the European Windows lp when released and thought it sounded like clever mood music. The record is long gone.

[J.A.W.]

I bought the European Windows lp when released and thought it sounded like clever mood music. The record is long gone.

That's funny, same here

[Larry Kart]

I bought the European Windows lp when released and thought it sounded like clever mood music. The record is long gone.

That was my impression (though I did kinda like Ronnie Ross' sound), and my copy too soon left the house. In the same vein IMO was "The Modern Jazz and Concert Music Society" (or whatever the title was) disc that Lewis did in the late '50s for Norgran. Some fine players there, including Lucky Thompson, but when John Lewis got bitty, he seemed to lose his orchestral "ear." The charts on that Norgran album are blithering dishwater. On the other hand, his ear is just fine on the roughly contemporaneous "Three Little Feelings" for brass ensemble and Miles, so go figure.

Maybe the difference was that on "The Modern Jazz and Concert Music Society" album there were no instrumental doublings, while on "Three Little Feelings" there were of course a lot. The exposed lines on the former are more flaccid than one would think possible. Flaccid, too, was the writing for strings on "European Windows," though that would seem contrary to the thought I just had. My impression -- though I don't have the album, and you'd have to pay me to listen to again -- was that there were basic things about voicing a string ensemble that at that point Lewis just didn't know; either that and/or he wanted to avoid familiar romantic gestures but then didn't know what to do except more or less dessicate them.

Please, Larry, would you shut up about this!

[Brownian Motion]

That was my impression (though I did kinda like Ronnie Ross' sound), and my copy too soon left the house. In the same vein IMO was "The Modern Jazz and Concert Music Society" (or whatever the title was) disc that Lewis did in the late '50s for Norgran. Some fine players there, including Lucky Thompson, but when John Lewis got bitty, he seemed to lose his orchestral "ear." The charts on that Norgran album are blithering dishwater. On the other hand, his ear is just fine on the roughly contemporaneous "Three Little Feelings" for brass ensemble and Miles, so go figure.

The Norgran session dates from 1955 and is coupled to European Windows on this CD.

Blithering dishwater? What's that?

I came to John Lewis' orchestral works through an unlikely source---a radio beer commercial-- the orchestral work being a few measures of Lewis' composition, Little David's Fugue, the beer being Rheingold, This would have been in the mid to late 1960s.

(No reference on Google. I must have dreamed it.)

[Ted O'Reilly]

Blithering dishwater? What's that?

Blithering dishwater I get. (Of course, I just bought the CD and heard it). "...but when John Lewis got bitty"? What's "bitty", Larry?

[Peter Friedman]

I never cared for European Windows. It always struck me as simply dull.

On the other hand, I enjoy The Modern Jazz Society session.

[Larry Kart]

Blithering dishwater? What's that?

Blithering dishwater I get. (Of course, I just bought the CD and heard it). "...but when John Lewis got bitty"? What's "bitty", Larry?

"Bitty" -- "made up of unrelated bits, scrappy." Also, though I can't find a source for this, I think there's a connotation of "assembled from bits and pieces in a pretentious manner," which is mostly what I had in mind.

"Blithering dishwater" was a little out there. Dishwater is murky, dirty -- that's how the timbres Lewis came up with here sound to me. To "blither" means to speak without making sense; I think that the IMO dishwater-like qualities of this music were the byproducts of compositional blithering. And they were "bitty," too.

[Chuck Nessa]

that's 3 times Larry. Stop hitting send even after the time out.

Ah, corrected I see.

Edited November 23, 2009 by Chuck Nessa

[Big Beat Steve]

"Bitty" -- "made up of unrelated bits, scrappy." Also, though I can't find a source for this, I think there's a connotation of "assembled from bits and pieces in a pretentious manner," which is mostly what I had in mind.

"Blithering dishwater" was a little out there. Dishwater is murky, dirty -- that's how the timbres Lewis came up with here sound to me. To "blither" means to speak without making sense; I think that the IMO dishwater-like qualities of this music were the byproducts of compositional blithering. And they were "bitty," too.

Of course that's the main problem with many of those "Third Stream" activities frequently championed by John Lewis when he was let loose on "orchestral" works over here in Germany in the late 50s/early 60s when this contrived mating of jazz and classical/baroque music was all the rage in a (futile IMHO) attempt to gain "respectability" (TONS of it, in fact ) for jazz.

[B. Clugston]

There were some pretty turgid Third Stream compositions out there, but the Modern Jazz Society album is a winner. The Verve Elite had some interesting bonus tracks.

[Ted O'Reilly]

To "blither" means to speak without making sense; I think that the IMO dishwater-like qualities of this music were the byproducts of compositional blithering. And they were "bitty," too.

Would the past tense of "blithering" be "blatheriing"?

Would you be "batty" if too much of your work was "bitty"?

And, the Modern Jazz Society material is fine!

[Larry Kart]

Prior thread on the Modern Jazz and Classical Music Society album, where yours truly blathers/blithers on at some length:

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...mp;#entry681545

[Teasing the Korean]

I think that a number of film and TV composers did a better job of organically combining elements of "Jazz" and "Classical" music than did the Third Stream crowd.

[Big Beat Steve]

True, TTK.

Maybe because the film and TV composers were not as high-brow-minded as quite a few of those 3rd stream people who sought respectability from exactly those high-brow "serious music" classical music exponents. AND maybe because those movie and TV composers did not intend to turn the result of their combinations into a "new form of jazz" in the first place.

Still beats me to this day why anybody would have wanted to see the vitality and spontaneity of jazz being strangled and choked by "serious concert music".

Classical music on the one hand and jazz on the other are fine by themselves and on their own terms but if fused together IMHO the core of classical music is anathema to the core and soul of jazz.

Edited November 25, 2009 by Big Beat Steve

[JETman]

True, TTK.

Maybe because the film and TV composers were not as high-brow-minded as quite a few of those 3rd stream people who sought respectability from exactly those high-brow "serious music" classical music exponents. AND maybe because those movie and TV composers did not intend to turn the result of their combinations into a "new form of jazz" in the first place.

Still beats me to this day why anybody would have wanted to see the vitality and spontaneity of jazz being strangled and choked by "serious concert music".

Classical music on the one hand and jazz on the other are fine by themselves and on their own terms but if fused together IMHO the core of classical music is anathema to the core and soul of jazz.

Music is music. Any two or more sounds can be fused together to form a new sound or sounds. Sometimes such an exercise works, sometimes it doesn't. That's all there is and was to this experiment. No need to read between the lines.

[Big Beat Steve]

True as well. It may not have been quite as evident in the US but there was a time over here in Europe (in my country, in particular) when this Third Stream "fusion" was touted as "the living end" of what jazz is (supposed to be) all about. Blown out of all proportion. As if jazz could come into its own only through the "marriage" with classical music. It's this skewed perception that still can get on one's nerve (because this misconception of wanting to strive for "respectability" by all means did not do jazz and its place in the world of music over here all that much good in the long run).

Edited November 25, 2009 by Big Beat Steve

[AllenLowe]

plenty of good third stream - listen to the Brandeis concert -

[mikeweil]

I wish there was a complete CD edition of the Brandeis concert and all that other Third Stream stuff on Columbia - would be a nice Mosaic Select, given that Michael Cuscuna likes such things ...

[AllenLowe]

yes - and don't hold the Third Stream accountable for John Lewis. Sorry, I always found him pretentious and precious.

[brownie]

I wish there was a complete CD edition of the Brandeis concert and all that other Third Stream stuff on Columbia - would be a nice Mosaic Select, given that Michael Cuscuna likes such things ...

The full Brandeis concert - as was released on Columbia - has been reissued on Gambit.

This CD.

[Teasing the Korean]

Other than the Brandeis, what are some of the better third stream albums?