Advanced Pieces, Soloist's Language Mirrors the Composer's

[Teasing the Korean]

Inspired by Allen Lowe's comment about the Eddie Sauter/Stan Getz "Focus" album (in the Stan Getz thread in the Artists forum), I'd like to discuss some pieces/albums along these lines in which the match works.

I will have to revisit "Focus." I remember liking it quite a bit when I first picked it up, but it's been ages since I've given it a spin.

One example, for me at least, is the Gary McFarland/Steve Kuhn "The October Suite."

Edited April 28, 2013 by Teasing the Korean

[AllenLowe]

one example that doesn't quite work, I think, is George Russell's A Bird In Igor's Yard, in which Buddy Defranco plays great, but in a more conventional bop way.

[mracz]

An interesting idea for a thread. I'll second the McFarland/Kuhn October Suite: beautiful match between soloist and compositional framework and one of my favourite albums of the period. Speaking of George Russell, how about Bill Evans on All About Rosie or Paul Bley and Bill Evans on Jazz in the Space Age, or Coltrane on Manhattan? Also the Electronic Sonata with Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal, etc. There's a Bill Russo piece for alto and strings (quartet?) from the fifties, written for Lee Konitz which IIRC is rather fine as well, and sets off Lee's playing beautifully (it's called Images of Man or something like that). Actually, a lot of Mingus works like this for me (think Clarence Shaw and Jimmy Knepper on Tijuana Moods), Gil Evans (not just the Miles collaborations, but Wayne on Barbara Song, acoustic Kenny Burrell on Lotus Land and many others). I suppose you could say that Ellington was the ultimate master of providing the framework for the soloists he had to hand...

[JSngry]

I guess it would be too obvious to nominate any Wayne Shorter presentation from the last 25 years or so, since the composer and the performer are the same person. But still...

By the same token, Steve Coleman's work, post-RCA, has become quite organic from a "whole band" standpoint. The earlier work often had a "still getting into it" thing sometimes...but no more.

[sgcim]

That LP that featured the live version of "All About Rosie", "A Modern Jazz Concert", featured an attempt at integrating improvisation with extended compositions by the likes of Harold Shapero("On Green Mountain"), Russell, Giuffre, and Schuller, with improvisations by Evans, Farmer and other adventurous East Coast players back in '58.

Giuffre's "Lyric Pieces for Clarinet and String Orchestra", often blurs the line between composition and improvisation.

Most of the soloists on the Teddy Charles LP "Russia Goes Jazz" just play in their usual style on jazz adaptations of Russian classical pieces, but Jimmy Giuffre seems to do a vulcan mind meld with Stravinsky on "Firebird" and plays a solo that Igor himself would have grooved to...

[fasstrack]

At the risk of stating the obvious, the Gil Evans-Miles collaborations are perfect matches. Miles Ahead especially qualifies b/c it plays like a suite. Really just about all Gil's writing was attuned to his soloists. Plus Ten sounds like he and Steve Lacy were born to work together.