BFT 87 Discussion

[Joe]

Streamers: listeners wishing to "spin" these tracks within their web browsers can go here...

http://www.slowstudies.net/bft87/

iPeople: there is a download link for the entire BFT (.zip file) on this page, or you can follow this direct link...

http://www.slowstudies.net/bft87/downloads/bft87.zip

Finally, no real theme or hegemonic aesthetic ideology at work here. Just a mix of some old favorites and some newly discovered (for me, anyway) pleasures.

Thanks; best,

J

[BillF]

Happily streaming!

First one to grab my attention is Track 9. Very boppish - recorded about 1947? At first I think it's Illinois Jacquet, then realise it's a two tenor battle, so I think Ammons and Stitt. Other candidates are Dexter and Wardell, and I wonder if it was recorded in L.A. as it reminds me of their Californian stuff - particularly the rhythm section. Just my sort of music!

Track 10's tune is very familiar to me, but not this version. Sounds like it could be composed by Mingus, but it's probably not! Sounds like a trio of baritone, guitar and bass - I can't hear any drums. I think there was a thread on sax, guitar, bass instrumentation - I'll have to try and track it down!

Back for more later.

[BillF]

Track 4: Early- to mid-1950's recording. Trumpeter reminiscent of Art Farmer, writing recalls Gigi Gryce. Hint of Benny Green in the trombonist?

[picketfence]

I love love love this bft! I hear interesting things in every track. and I feel completetly at ease with #2, #3, #8 and #11.

#1 is nice as well. bop&bossa structure, blue note spirit, but a very special recording. early 60s? tenor sounds like mobley.

#2 love this but don't have any clue. a friend of mine thinks that the trumpet player could be hannibal. I really dig the tenor man. the percussion orgy is terrific (2 drums, 2 basses & conga ?).

#3 got this one - it's track 9 from here. first idea was blackwell/cherry (of course). and I couldn't dismiss blackwell. haven't heard smith so fluent & soulful so far.

#5 don't like the living room sound and the theme, but really love the sax/drum duet. maybe cyrille on the drums?

#6 now it gets funky. drummer gives a clear jeff-tain-watts-post-m'base-signal, but the instrumentation is very original and non-m'basian. piano is somehow conventional, bass clarinet & trumpet (cornet?) are diggin deeper. wild guess is marty ehrlich, but maybe it's something european?

#8 this drives me crazy. is it james carter? or older? great, inspired live performance.

#11 I have this record and love it (track 1 from here). this piece gives me vertigo, tabbal is in great form and the guitar is really special. it's the only jazz record I have with a prize-winning composition ;-)

#12 nice as well. sounds very much like dave holland, but nothing fits.

#13 very simple & sweet. reminds me of amina claudine myers' solo piano record, but I know that's wrong.

thanks so much for this mix. can't wait to find out more about it.

[Michael Weiss]

Is track #4 from here?

New York Jazz Sextet (Scepter LP 526)

Art Farmer (tp) Tom McIntosh (tb) James Moody (ts, fl) Tommy Flanagan (p) Richard Davis (b) Albert Heath (d)NYC, December 27, 1965, January 17, 1966

[Chas]

Is track #4 from here?

New York Jazz Sextet (Scepter LP 526)

Art Farmer (tp) Tom McIntosh (tb) James Moody (ts, fl) Tommy Flanagan (p) Richard Davis (b) Albert Heath (d)NYC, December 27, 1965, January 17, 1966

No, it's Up In Quincy's Room from this album :

[Spontooneous]

All I'm gonna say right now is that I've enjoyed the concert that gave us Track 8 many times over on an old VHS tape, and everybody ought to admit that this really is one of the better performances from that evening.

This is a fun BFT, Joe!

[Chas]

Couple more I.D.'s...

Track 5 = Richard Twardzik's Albuquerque Social Swim from this album :

Track 10 is Wayne Shorter's Armageddon from this album :

[picketfence]

Track 5 = Richard Twardzik's Albuquerque Social Swim from this album :

wow, tobias delius on tenor. I used to live in his neighborhood & hear him quite often.

[Joe]

I will probably say little more about this BFT until its time to show you all what's behind doors number 1 and 3 (ZONK!), but...

Bill -- good ear for vintage, but you might need to take some new bearings on latitude and longitude

To Each His Own -- I only wish I'd had the foresight and taste to put some Amina Claudine Myers on this BFT.

Spontooneous -- admittance happily granted.

[NIS]

Thanks for the BFT, Joe. I'm certainly not done listening but I wanted to babble a few things and start following the comments. I wanted to try to figure out the vibes on 12; we will see.

Track 1 – Too soft. Nothing really wrong, just not my normal listening.

Track 2 – Too hard. I actually kind of like this one and have a feeling of familiarity but at eight minutes, it's a little overwhelming for me. Probably just my mood at the time. It's kind of relentless (for lack of a better word), especially the drummer. He certainly got a good workout.

Track 3 – This one is just right. I like this a whole lot but then I also think that I own a copy of the CD and actually thought about using a track from this album on last months' BFT. If I am right that is. I think this is Wadada Leo Smith and Ed Blackwell. I don't have a lot of music by either but everything I do have is 5 star. Ed Blackwell is toward the top of my list.

Track 5 - Again, I have the feeling I should know something about this but sadly I do not. I can say that the saxophone playing really works for me.

Track 7 – Nothing really earth shattering but a really nice well played tune. I suppose it's something well known but not by me. The horn player has a really wonderful clean (wish I could think of a better description) sound.

Track 11 – Another familiar sound. I need to listen to this a whole lot more.

Track 12 – I first noticed how much I liked the sound of the vibes. After listening a few time I just liked the whole thing. Back to the vibe player, I have a couple of things with Jason Adasiewicz and I think that is who is playing on this track. Outside of three, this is certainly my favorite track.

Thanks again for some interesting music to listen to.

[Joe]

NIS -- based on what I know of your tastes from your own BFT, I'm a smidgen surprised you did not ID the players on Track 5 right away.

And, not to give too much away, but good ears re: 12.

[NIS]

NIS -- based on what I know of your tastes from your own BFT, I'm a smidgen surprised you did not ID the players on Track 5 right away.

And, not to give too much away, but good ears re: 12.

I'm really not very good at IDing musicians but I will say that, if the earlier comments on 5 are correct, at least I recognized that I liked a favorite sax player.

[Spontooneous]

1. I'm guessing it's a '60s performance in '40s-quality sound. But such a beautifully sculpted performance. The horns sound like Dorham and Mobley.

2. Is this one of Max's multiple-percussion projects? The dialogue between the horns is a nice feature. Is that Odean Pope? (It's somewhere in the BFT Rulebook, just after the complex and subtle regulations pertaining to Junior Cook: When in doubt, guess Odean Pope.)

3. First thing I recognize is the drums. That's gotta be Blackwell. It's Blackwell all over. If it isn't Blackwell I'll eat my hat. This leads me to assume that the trumpet is Cherry. But this isn't on the Cherry-Blackwell duet album I have. I'm intrigued.

4. It sounds like a mystery Mingus date. Beautiful.

5. What a strange and wonderful head. The tenor reminds me of young Charles Lloyd, but it probably isn't him.

6. The piano solo sounds like Jarrett minus vocalizations. The bass clarinet solo doesn't seem to do as much as I'd hoped. But overall I like it. Is Dave Douglas involved? (That guess is also from the BFT Rulebook.)

7. This is really beautiful, and really goes somewhere. Is this from David Murray's album of ballads on bass clarinet, which I don't have?

8. It's this guy from the concert that produced this. The label has chosen to overlook this performance in its reissues of the music from this evening, and that's a bad decision. I like his Hawkins-meets-Dolphy sound. Jack DeJohnette and Cecil McBee are the accompaniment, IIRC.

9. The obvious guess is Gene Ammons and Dexter, Ammons first, Dexter in the second chorus (his favorite "Here Comes the Bride" phrase at the beginning of the bridge). But I can't turn this up anywhere in my collection. I'm probably gonna look foolish on this one.

10. You sure like your lower-register reeds. So do I. This track has really grown on me, and might even be the best track of the whole BFT. Can't wait to find out what it is.

11. Can't run it down for sure, but sounds like a Henry Threadgill thing. The guitar might be Brandon Ross or Liberty Ellman.

12. There's something familiar about that alto sound. Ken McIntyre?

13. A lovely close. The left-hand part is especially subtle. John Hicks, maybe?

Edited June 14, 2011 by Spontooneous

[Joe]

8. ... The label has chosen to overlook this performance in its reissues of the music from this evening, and that's a bad decision.

I couldn't agree more.

Threadgill is a good guess on 11. However, the alto player is not the "leader" here.

The Mingus comparison you draw on #4... I'd not thought about that before, but I like that likening, and its making me hear that particular performance with all-new ears.

Edited June 15, 2011 by Joe

[Hot Ptah]

I have not read any of the discussion yet, so here are my uninformed thoughts on this Blindfold Test. This has been a very enjoyable Blindfold Test for me. Almost all of the songs rank high on the sheer enjoyment scale. I know none of this music, and can't identify any of the musicians. It will be very interesting to read the Reveal and find out who recorded these enjoyable cuts.

1. This sounds like an older recording, from the 1940s perhaps. The drummer is playing what would have been an unusual, distinctive rhythm for that time. How did they get his drums to sound like that? The pianist is unique and distinctive for the 1940s. I have no idea who it is, but it is a very enjoyable cut to listen to.

2. I can't identify the musicians, but it sounds like they could be associated with the AACM. At one moment I thought that this could be the Art Ensemble of Chicago, but by the end of the song I no longer thought so. I enjoyed this very much.

3. As I was listening, I was thinking, this is not Don Cherry, as the trumpet player does not have his distinctive sound, but this music could not have existed without Don Cherry's contributions to the Ornette Coleman group in the late 1950s and early 1960s. I really like the trumpet player a great deal, and want to find out who he is. The drummer has a strong personal voice. I am miserable at identifying musicians, and can't do so once again here.

4. At first I thought that this might be very early Sun Ra. The beginning of this song has that feel to it, from the somewhat low tech sound to the arrangement. But I have found other music from the 1950s which had that feeling, that "color" to it, which was not Sun Ra. It's as if there was something in the air which distinctive minded composers and arrangers were picking up on back then. The piano solo does not sound like 1950s Sun Ra. So I have no idea who it is, but this is very interesting to me.

5. Wow, I have no idea at all on this one. The head is so unusual, so start/stop, jerky. The solos are distinctive, but I don't know the players. Very interesting.

6. Another intriguing song. Who would combine the funky drumming with such a unique reed solo, and an attractive head? I have no idea, but I want to know.

7. Here is where your Blindfold Test seems to start featuring low toned reed players, which I like. I have no idea who this is, but the reed player and the pianist both play quite beautifully.

8. The low reed player sounds like David Murray to me, but I don't know this recording. It is either David Murray or someone who either influenced him or was influenced by him. The bassist is excellent, but I can't place him by his sound.

9. This one has me stumped. As this is a Blindfold Test, this should be tricky in some way, so the obvious choices like Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, or Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray, can't be right. Toward the end one of the tenor sax players threw in a quote, out of the blue, in the way that Dexter Gordon used to do. So I think one of the players is Dexter. However, I can't find this song on any of my 1940s Dexter albums. This is such wonderful stuff, just great!

10. Another low reed player. It reminds me of James Carter at times, such as a 1996 live appearance by him which I enjoyed. The guitarist started out sounding like Jim Hall, but stretched out in a way that Hall wouldn't do.

11. This one is fascinating to me. I like jazz compositions which are a little more ambitious, where the song is more unusual than the ordinary song forms. The soloists are also very distinctive. I have no idea, but I want to know.

12. The vibes player has such a lyrical quality to his tone. I don't know who that is. The tenor sax player is very enjoyable too, and I can't identify him.

13. Very lyrical piano. I do not know this pianist's personal voice. He or she is not familar to me. This is beautiful.

[Joe]

I have not read any of the discussion yet, so here are my uninformed thoughts on this Blindfold Test. This has been a very enjoyable Blindfold Test for me. Almost all of the songs rank high on the sheer enjoyment scale. I know none of this music, and can't identify any of the musicians. It will be very interesting to read the Reveal and find out who recorded these enjoyable cuts.

1. This sounds like an older recording, from the 1940s perhaps. The drummer is playing what would have been an unusual, distinctive rhythm for that time. How did they get his drums to sound like that? The pianist is unique and distinctive for the 1940s. I have no idea who it is, but it is a very enjoyable cut to listen to.

2. I can't identify the musicians, but it sounds like they could be associated with the AACM. At one moment I thought that this could be the Art Ensemble of Chicago, but by the end of the song I no longer thought so. I enjoyed this very much.

3. As I was listening, I was thinking, this is not Don Cherry, as the trumpet player does not have his distinctive sound, but this music could not have existed without Don Cherry's contributions to the Ornette Coleman group in the late 1950s and early 1960s. I really like the trumpet player a great deal, and want to find out who he is. The drummer has a strong personal voice. I am miserable at identifying musicians, and can't do so once again here.

4. At first I thought that this might be very early Sun Ra. The beginning of this song has that feel to it, from the somewhat low tech sound to the arrangement. But I have found other music from the 1950s which had that feeling, that "color" to it, which was not Sun Ra. It's as if there was something in the air which distinctive minded composers and arrangers were picking up on back then. The piano solo does not sound like 1950s Sun Ra. So I have no idea who it is, but this is very interesting to me.

5. Wow, I have no idea at all on this one. The head is so unusual, so start/stop, jerky. The solos are distinctive, but I don't know the players. Very interesting.

6. Another intriguing song. Who would combine the funky drumming with such a unique reed solo, and an attractive head? I have no idea, but I want to know.

7. Here is where your Blindfold Test seems to start featuring low toned reed players, which I like. I have no idea who this is, but the reed player and the pianist both play quite beautifully.

8. The low reed player sounds like David Murray to me, but I don't know this recording. It is either David Murray or someone who either influenced him or was influenced by him. The bassist is excellent, but I can't place him by his sound.

9. This one has me stumped. As this is a Blindfold Test, this should be tricky in some way, so the obvious choices like Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, or Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray, can't be right. Toward the end one of the tenor sax players threw in a quote, out of the blue, in the way that Dexter Gordon used to do. So I think one of the players is Dexter. However, I can't find this song on any of my 1940s Dexter albums. This is such wonderful stuff, just great!

10. Another low reed player. It reminds me of James Carter at times, such as a 1996 live appearance by him which I enjoyed. The guitarist started out sounding like Jim Hall, but stretched out in a way that Hall wouldn't do.

11. This one is fascinating to me. I like jazz compositions which are a little more ambitious, where the song is more unusual than the ordinary song forms. The soloists are also very distinctive. I have no idea, but I want to know.

12. The vibes player has such a lyrical quality to his tone. I don't know who that is. The tenor sax player is very enjoyable too, and I can't identify him.

13. Very lyrical piano. I do not know this pianist's personal voice. He or she is not familar to me. This is beautiful.

Thanks for sharing your impressions of these performances.

#9 makes me doubt my ears sometimes, and I know who is involved! Most everyone (including yourself) has successfully unmasked one of the tenor players. As to the other, I can only say he's not much of a household name (AFAIK).

"Personal voice" is key to #13 indeed. For me, the bridge to this tune is very revealing... check what happens between about 50 seconds and 1 minute and 40 seconds in...

Your analysis of #3 is spot-on.

Finally, everyone has noted the preponderance of low-register reeds on this BFT. I swear, it was not planned. But the timbres and colors resident "below the treble" on #4 are essential to the identity [in the greater sense of that term] of that track.

Edited June 17, 2011 by Joe

[Spontooneous]

Eureka! Just figured out #9!

It's Ammons and Tom Archia, "The Battle," Nov. 12 '48.

It's on an LP I bought exactly two weeks ago -- at a garage sale where the vinyl was also scoured by Hot Ptah. Tiny world, ain't it?

[JSngry]

Some quick comments w/the usual disclaimers archived in permanentia.

TRACK ONE - I like how it sounds like its coming out of an AM radio. I've got many fond memories of hearing jazz on AM radio. Good jazz, too! Like this.

TRACK TWO - Traps & bongos & a free-ish sounding pentatonic head...not really sure if the bongos are necessary, but there they are anyway...pretty much enjoying this one, and would enjoy playing with the drummer (almost sounds like Elvin...or two regular drummers combining to make one Elvin...) - without the bongos! That trumpeter has some really strong chops, to be making those intervals as strongly as he/she is...but strong playing by everybody, really. I just amn't feeling those bongos. But it ain't a deal-breaker.

TRACK THREE - Even the road less traveled eventually reaches the point of having been traveled enough to have some Love's on it.

TRACK FOUR - NICE! People making actual decisions instead of taking options. I'm all for it!

TRACK FIVE - Clever. Clever is always an option! That tune sounds some really really extrapolated "Where Or When"...sounds like they're getting done what they set out to do, so kudos for that. Not everybody does. Is this Bennie Wallace?

TRACK SIX - a-HA! Works for me! Re-active, but happily so, it sounds like, sorta like Cannonball's bands of the late 60s onward, just in a totally different way.

TRACK SEVEN - Not really feeling this one at this time. I'm all "reflective"-ed out right now.

TRACK EIGHT - Ok, this is Bennie Wallace. This cat can play, Jack! If David Murray's eight notes swung (in a more "traditional" sense, I have to say to be fair to everybody in this bigass world of everything being equal all the damn time), him and Benny Wallace could be the Jaws and Griff of our time, and come to think of it, maybe that's what would cure the world right now, Jaws and Griff for our time, maybe? But maybe not. Yeah, probably not. Haven't read a lot of interviews with Wallace, does he claim Dolphy as an influence at all? Just wondering because "conventional wisdom" is that "bass clarinet was Dolphy's tenor" (never mind the implicit assumption that everybody needs a tenor, maybe they do, maybe they don't...if not a tenor, then at least a "tenor"...yeah, maybe not every body, but you don't want to be without those who do, that's all I can say about that) and I can hear more than a little Dolhy-esque contouring in Wallace's playing. But yeah, Benny Wallace is cool.

TRACK NINE - Ammons & Archia, forget the name of the tune. First got accwuainted with this one back in 1982, was packing up to move from Denton to start a life w/LTB in Albuquerque & figured, well hell, jazz radio in Albuquerque might be not what I hope it to be, so let's roll tape on some KNTU for a day or two and get what we can get. Well, the answer was, not as much as hoped for, but enough, and this was a highlight. Unannounced of course, but I knew it was Ammons from jump and eventually researched into Archia. Bottom line - what this is is a foundational element for a sustainable lifestyle outside of The Natural Order Of Things, the nature, order, and things here being much more pleasantly natural & ordered things thn that other way. And it's all expressed here about as well as you'd need it to be to figure it out. Which is not to say that there's not room for refinement, because, yeah, heroin and alcohol kinda eventually/inevitably limit the sustainability of all they touch, but the point is - once you know where to go, and know that you can get there, you just gotta engineer yourself to get there without the cheap distractions. Because the there that is there really IS there, and it sure beats the hell out of what you'll try to be conned into thinking is the only "real" there.

Besides - Gene Ammons is the answer to every damn question. I've done the math and yes, it is so.

TRACK TEN - Love Song To An Armageddon? Is this an ill Pepper Adams? Not sure I'm feeling this one, although it sounds like maybe I could at some time, past or future, just not present. I'll give 'em this though - I've never thought about "Armageddon" having a similarity to "Goodbye Porkpie Hat", but now I have.

TRACK ELEVEN - The head's a bit fussy for my taste. The tiones sound too broad for the rhythmic spaces they're needing to fill, like a river overflowing its banks, but not really "flooding". All in all, not bad, just not reaching me today.

TRACK TWELVE - Not really feeling the need for this right now, but that's definitely just me.

TRACK THIRTEEN - That's pretty. In the good way. Pleasant as well, also in the good way.

Gracias beaucoup, Joe. As always, no bullshit allowed!

[Joe]

Some quick comments w/the usual disclaimers archived in permanentia.

TRACK FIVE - Clever. Clever is always an option! That tune sounds some really really extrapolated "Where Or When"...sounds like they're getting done what they set out to do, so kudos for that. Not everybody does. Is this Bennie Wallace?

TRACK THIRTEEN - That's pretty. In the good way. Pleasant as well, also in the good way.

Gracias beaucoup, Joe. As always, no bullshit allowed!

5 = you know, that would take some research, but it is very possible that this composition is related to "Where or When". Also, you may not relaize it, but you do have a personal association with this tune (if we stretch the notion of association.

As to 13, I could not have said it better myself. Though I might have added the words "psychodrama" or "melodrama".

Much grass!

[Joe]

PS -- the trumpet player on track 2 may be the most important / surprising / remarkable member of that ensemble (though the tenor player is quite a story unto himself.)

[JSngry]

5 = you know, that would take some research, but it is very possible that this composition is related to "Where or When".

Just that that opening phrase is almost verbatim, and then it goes off into its own place. But that opening phrase...

PS -- the trumpet player on track 2 may be the most important / surprising / remarkable member of that ensemble (though the tenor player is quite a story unto himself.)

I was wanting to say Barbara Donald, but didn't....almost, but not quite...

[Joe]

5 = you know, that would take some research, but it is very possible that this composition is related to "Where or When".

Just that that opening phrase is almost verbatim, and then it goes off into its own place. But that opening phrase...

PS -- the trumpet player on track 2 may be the most important / surprising / remarkable member of that ensemble (though the tenor player is quite a story unto himself.)

I was wanting to say Barbara Donald, but didn't....almost, but not quite...

If we were playing The Match Game, you'd be kicking yourself for choosing Fannie Flagg rather than Richard Dawson during the Head-To-Head champeenship round.

Edited June 19, 2011 by Joe

[JSngry]

No shit, really? So is this a Smiley Winters date, and is that Bert Wilson on tenor?

[Joe]

No shit, really? So is this a Smiley Winters date, and is that Bert Wilson on tenor?

How may tins of Turtle Wax are in a "lifetime supply"?