So, What Are You Listening To NOW?

[mjzee]

16 minutes ago, Referentzhunter said:

Beautiful cover!  I wonder why they replaced it with this:

[HutchFan]

[Larry Kart]

22 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

Larry - I think understand what you're saying, and that's why I feel like a critique of Moran's playing because it's unidiomatic is completely understandable.  But, even if that's the case, Moran isn't under any "obligation" (to use your word) to perform the music JRM's music idiomatically -- using historically accurate language -- if he doesn't want to.

An analogy: People who study baroque music and the Historical Informed Practice (HIP) movement have transformed our understanding of the way Bach's and other's music actually sounded like during the baroque era.  The work that HIP scholars and performers have done is valuable and important, a real addition to scholarship.  However, if a performer chooses to perform in a non-HIP style, that's not wrong.  For example, people in the HIP movement criticized Stokowski because "his" Bach was incredibly Romanticized & anachronistic.  But, from where I'm sitting, Stokowski's interpretations are vital and interesting.  They do NOT work as examples of HIP, but they do work as pieces of music that have been re-contextualized and re-interpreted in a different era.

I haven't even heard the Moran recording that we're discussing.  So I'm not making an argument about the particulars of his performance.  I'm talking about the principle of it.  I believe very strongly that Moran is under NO obligation to perform the music in a "historically informed" style. 

This also reminds me of our conversation from a few months (years?) ago about Milestone-era Sonny Rollins.  Lots of folks think they know better than Sonny Rollins what he should have been playing in the 70s and beyond.  That's baloney, IMO.  Nobody knows better than Sonny Rollins what and how he should play.  Full stop.  We're free to like it or not like it -- and we are free to criticize it, based on whatever criteria we choose.  But we are terribly misguided if we think we know better than Sonny what he should or should not do as an artist.  That is his choice.  Same with Jason Moran.

 

O.K.  Enough on this.  I'll hop off my hobbyhorse now! 

 

One demurral about your Rollins analogy. What Rollins played in the '70s was of course  based to some considerable degree on what he  he had been playing for much of his life, as was our reactions to what he played in the '70s. We have no comparable evidence about Moran's involvement with Europe's music other than the fact of what he's done with it. Yes, Moran is free to handle Europe's music however he wishes, but ... let me try another analogy. We're all familiar with Duke Ellington's music. A variation on it a la Guy Lombardo or Spike Jones? These are not matters of restricting anyone's artistic freedom but rather of context and something like common sense. 

[mjazzg]

46 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

Larry - I think understand what you're saying, and that's why I feel like a critique of Moran's playing because it's unidiomatic is completely understandable.  But, even if that's the case, Moran isn't under any "obligation" (to use your word) to perform the music JRM's music idiomatically -- using historically accurate language -- if he doesn't want to.......

I haven't even heard the Moran recording that we're discussing.  So I'm not making an argument about the particulars of his performance.  I'm talking about the principle of it.  I believe very strongly that Moran is under NO obligation to perform the music in a "historically informed" style.

 

Thanks for articulating what I've failed to in my recent posts @HutchFan

I don't disagree with your analogy at all just removed it from my quote as I want to highlight your points about Moran

Obviously others can critique the outcome of Moran's choices. It's only really enlightening when that's done with explanation, like @Larry Kart's recent post for which I am grateful 

[HutchFan]

8 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

Yes, Moran is free to handle Europe's music however he wishes, but ... let me try another analogy. We're all familiar with Duke Ellington's music. A variation on it a la Guy Lombardo or Spike Jones? These are not matters of restricting anyone's artistic freedom but rather of context and something like common sense. 

Sure.  I buy that.  Practically speaking, EKE as performed by Guy Lombardo holds zero interest.

And I full well could hear Moran's performance and dislike it intensely.  (Or not.)  My argument was about the principle, not the particular.  

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by HutchFan

[Peter Friedman]

[HutchFan]

6 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

Thanks for articulating what I've failed to in my recent posts @HutchFan

I had to stew on it for a while!   

 

[mjazzg]

10 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

I had to stew on it for a while!   

 

Have a rest now then 😃 maybe play some music...

[AllenLowe]

2 hours ago, HutchFan said:

Larry - I think understand what you're saying, and that's why I feel like a critique of Moran's playing because it's unidiomatic is completely understandable.  But, even if that's the case, Moran isn't under any "obligation" (to use your word) to perform JRE's music idiomatically -- using historically accurate language -- if he doesn't want to.

An analogy: People who study baroque music and the Historical Informed Practice (HIP) movement have transformed our understanding of the way Bach's and other's music actually sounded like during the baroque era.  The work that HIP scholars and performers have done is valuable and important, a real addition to scholarship.  However, if a performer chooses to perform in a non-HIP style, that's not wrong.  For example, people in the HIP movement criticized Stokowski because "his" Bach was incredibly Romanticized & anachronistic.  But, from where I'm sitting, Stokowski's interpretations are vital and interesting.  They do NOT work as examples of HIP, but they do work as pieces of music that have been re-contextualized and re-interpreted in a different era.

I haven't even heard the Moran recording that we're discussing.  So I'm not making an argument about the particulars of his performance.  I'm talking about the principle of it.  I believe very strongly that Moran is under NO obligation to perform the music in a "historically informed" style. 

This also reminds me of our conversation from a few months (years?) ago about Milestone-era Sonny Rollins.  Lots of folks think they know better than Sonny Rollins what he should have been playing in the 70s and beyond.  That's baloney, IMO.  Nobody knows better than Sonny Rollins what and how he should play.  Full stop.  We're free to like it or not like it -- and we are free to criticize it, based on whatever criteria we choose.  But we are terribly misguided if we think we know better than Sonny what he should or should not do as an artist.  That is his choice.  Same with Jason Moran.

 

O.K.  Enough on this.  I'll hop off my hobbyhorse now! 

 

once again the point is being missed - I ENCOURAGE re-interpretation; listen to my own music. But that re-interpretation either has to give us a new and interesting perspective, or it has to somehow capture the spirit of the music in a parallel way. As for Sonny, well, bad bands are bad bands. Clearly in the Milestone years he saw his chance to establish a commercial beachhead, which he  did; fine, it is his right. But that doesn't mean we as listeners have to accept everything he did. It's called critical judgement; though it is funny, here you are arguing for Jason's right to play whatever he wants, but telling those of us who were not fond of the Sonny Milestone era that we have no right to our opinion. What's wrong with this picture?

3 hours ago, mjazzg said:

Thank you for this post, the first in this discussion that provides insight and attempts to explain why Moran's approach might be seen as 'unsuccessful', especially in the eyes of those with knowledge and expertise. This is just what I have been looking for rather than just perjorative descriptors.

Larry Kart, are there other factors intrinsic to Europe's music that make Moran's appear not to have hit the mark? I'm genuinely interested as someone who has enjoyed Moran's project both live and recorded.

I still reserve my right to enjoy Moran's interpretation though 😀

thank you for taking the time to tell me my multiple and very-specific posts on what is wrong with Moran's interpretation lack "insight" and are pejorative.

[Larry Kart]

Speaking of Ragtime/Stride piano that swings, here's my late friend Bob Wright playing a Luckey Roberts piece from the early 1900s. Back in the '50s Eubie Blake said that Bob was the best living Stride pianist.

Wright plays Eubie Blake:

Wright plays James P. Johnson:

25 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

Speaking of Ragtime/Stride piano that swings, here's my late friend Bob Wright playing a Luckey Roberts piece from the early 1900s. Back in the '50s Eubie Blake said that Bob was the best living Stride pianist.

Wright play Ragtime and gets it right. Note the lilt of the rhythm.

[HutchFan]

Fritz Pauer - Live at The Berlin "Jazz Galerie" (MPS, 1970)
with Jimmy Woode & Billy Brooks

 

[John Tapscott]

Jim Vivian, leader, bass; John Abercrombie, guitar; Ian Froman, drums;, Mike Murley, tenor saxophone

[optatio]

[soulpope]

4 hours ago, HutchFan said:

Groove machine ....

[rostasi]

[soulpope]

2 hours ago, HutchFan said:

Fritz Pauer - Live at The Berlin "Jazz Galerie" (MPS, 1970)
with Jimmy Woode & Billy Brooks

Superb ....

[Peter Friedman]

[HutchFan]

Spinning this again:

Harry "Sweets" Edison & Earl "Fatha" Hines - Just You, Just Me (Black & Blue)

 

[John Tapscott]

Tom on piano; Don on drums. 

[Chuck Nessa]

6 hours ago, mjzee said:

Beautiful cover!  I wonder why they replaced it with this:

The change occurred when the record was transferred from the ML series to the CL series.

[ghost of miles]

Speaking of James Reese Europe, has there been previous board discussion of this 2018 Archeophone release and the book to which it was a companion?

I ordered both the book and CD just yesterday, before seeing the dustup in this thread, weirdly enough. 

[Gheorghe]

13 hours ago, bresna said:

I have been told that back then, Blue Note's bean counters routinely discontinued CD titles that failed to sell a certain number of discs per year. I believe the number was 500 but it may have been lower. The bean counters did not discriminate between older recordings and newer ones. They deleted a lot of classic Blue Note titles too.

BTW - when Michael Cuscuna found out about this, he complained and was able to get them to at least let him know before they deleted a title, which enabled him to stock up for Mosaic's True Blue store. For many years, the True Blue store offered many deleted Blue Note CDs for sale after they went OOP.

Michael and Tom Evered also worked with Tower Records' One Way distribution company to re-release a bunch of deleted Blue Note titles in the limited edition "Collector's Choice" series. I bought a ton of those when they came out circa 1995.

I didn´t know about Tower Records. As much as I remember there was a huge boom of RVG-Editions from the late 90´s on, and they practically reissued all the classic BN stuff, I mean the stuff from the late 40´s bop sessions until late 60´s , and in Japan they had those reissues that had mini LP format. I have some of them, but there was so many that people would collect cronological from the cataloge numbers. There were also records that sure did not sell well during the time they were originally released. I mean there were so many Jimmy Smith things, Hank Mobley things, Lou Donaldson things.  I have one with Milt Jackson that´s cool. 
But I never collected in the way to be guided by cronological order of releases, the way people did it to "have the 1500 Series complete". Sure I have records that I´ll allways keep like Mobley´s "Soul Station", Lou Donaldson´s "Blues Walk" and Jimmy Smith from that session with Donald Byrd, Lou Donaldson, Hank Mobley and Art Blakey.
But it is strange that the RVG boom did not cover the BN recordings after the renaissance of BN, I mean when people like Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner, Jackie McLean, Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw still were alive and burning. 

10 hours ago, HutchFan said:

Fritz Pauer - Live at The Berlin "Jazz Galerie" (MPS, 1970)
with Jimmy Woode & Billy Brooks

 

Fritz Pauer, fantastic ! And great to hear that a young guy from the States spins his records. 
I could write many pages about him.
He was one of the very very best European pianists, like let´s say Tete Montoliu in Spain and he was my mentor.  Not only the best musician I could imagine, but also such a wonderful person. He took me under his wings when I was still almost a kid and I´ll never forget at one concert with some really fast company he let me sit in after intermission. 

During the years I heard him live, if he played trio it was mostly still with Jimmy Woode on bass, and the drummer was Tony Inzalaco. I heard him with all the US stars who visited Viena, with Johnny Griffin, with Art Farmer, Dave Liebman, Kai Winding......all of them....

[Gheorghe]

9 hours ago, optatio said:

I always kept that as a key record. You see, after first hearing Blue Trane when I was in my teens, I was eager to find also recording dates from the musicians involved in that date, you know: Lee Morgan, Paul Chambers, Philly J.J., so I soon had this record, then Lee Morgan´s "The Cooker", "Whims of Chambers", which I still listen from time to time. 
I think I also had other Curtis Fuller albums, one with a quite unknown baritone saxophonist, but it is not as fine as "The Opener" . 

[EKE BBB]

[Balladeer]

13 hours ago, HutchFan said:

Fritz Pauer - Live at The Berlin "Jazz Galerie" (MPS, 1970)
with Jimmy Woode & Billy Brooks

Like Blue Note the  German MPS had unique artwork, too. Pop-art was typical for those early Seventiees LP covers from Musik Prduktion Schwarzwald. Stuff for a nice book...