So, What Are You Listening To NOW?

[alankin]

Art Farmer Quintet featuring Gig Gryce (Prestige Records / ZYX Music - Germany)
— Art Farmer – trumpet Gigi Gryce – alto saxophone Duke Jordan – piano Addison Farmer – bass Philly Joe Jones – drums; five tune by Gryce and one by Jordan; remastered by Phil De Lancie.

[HutchFan]

Shirley Horn Trio - A Lazy Afternoon (SteepleChase)

[soulpope]

51 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

Shirley Horn Trio - A Lazy Afternoon (SteepleChase)

Recurringly eulogised here - and rightly so ....

[Larry Kart]

6 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

Like Optatio said - this was young Wynton. A far cry from JALC bigwigdom.

I guess most evaluations of this kind of record made today are based on what people tend to project into him TODAY (and do not like about him TODAY), maybe as another variation on the theme of "oh that self-proclaimed moldy fig has reaped all the rewards and occupies all the key positions where he can pull all the strings whereas oh so many oh so deserving (avantgarde etc.) musicians barely eke out a living in jazz though THEY ought to receive all the honors because they are much more valuable artists". Understandable sentiments but beside the point ... Making your art appeal is part of the game too.

Reminds me somehow of quite a few of those 50s/60s/70s musicians who rode the "swing mainstream train" even as new artists on the scene and did not embrace all the latest fads in far-outness (and therefore came under heavy fire from the critics in many places - a bit unfairly IMO).

To quote something I posted on FB yesterday (see from sentence two to the end)

"Wynton came to be quite a jerk, and a dangerous one at that, given his and his advocates' drive to reshape the course of the music; but when I met him fairly early on (when he was with Blakey and shortly thereafter) he was undeniably talented and a nice guy. One of the odd and perhaps semi-forgotten aspects of his career is the way he distorted his own genuine musical gifts in an attempt to play like the Noble Young Prince of the Realm he was touted to be, when in fact (and/or IMO) his temperament was more or less that of a virtuosic trickster/imp -- a la, say, Charlie Shavers. A few recordings capture him in that mode -- as a sideman on Chico Freeman's "Destiny's Dance" (1981) and on "Jazz at the Opera House," from 1982, in a band with Wayne Shorter, Bobby Hutcherson, Herbie Hancock, Charlie Haden, and Tony Williams. As for Wynton's pompous, empty, and often technically inept work as a long-form composer -- don't get me started.
 

[Quasimado]

1 hour ago, Larry Kart said:

To quote something I posted on FB yesterday (see from sentence two to the end)

"Wynton came to be quite a jerk, and a dangerous one at that, given his and his advocates' drive to reshape the course of the music; but when I met him fairly early on (when he was with Blakey and shortly thereafter) he was undeniably talented and a nice guy. One of the odd and perhaps semi-forgotten aspects of his career is the way he distorted his own genuine musical gifts in an attempt to play like the Noble Young Prince of the Realm he was touted to be, when in fact (and/or IMO) his temperament was more or less that of a virtuosic trickster/imp -- a la, say, Charlie Shavers. A few recordings capture him in that mode -- as a sideman on Chico Freeman's "Destiny's Dance" (1981) and on "Jazz at the Opera House," from 1982, in a band with Wayne Shorter, Bobby Hutcherson, Herbie Hancock, Charlie Haden, and Tony Williams. As for Wynton's pompous, empty, and often technically inept work as a long-form composer -- don't get me started.
 

Uh oh ...

[Peter Friedman]

[soulpope]

2 hours ago, David Ayers said:

 

Cult series for sure ....

[JohnS]

[soulpope]

Outstanding live performances from March 1978 ..... Art Pepper excels on both uptempo material and performs some heart-wreching ballds .... of help to achieve these heights is his alter ego aka Milcho Leviev on piano - and bass master Bob Magnusson (IMO) never performed better .... originally released  on vinyl

and later as CD via Storyville

 

[BillF]

[Larry Kart]

1 hour ago, Quasimado said:

Uh oh ...

I see why you'd say so, and I certainly have no desire to dance around that maypole one more time. I just wanted it not to be forgotten (as I think it may tend to be)  that Wynton, for whatever reasons, tried to/managed to transform himself (and in fairly short order) from one sort of musician into another. Yes, one evolves/grows, but in real time and otherwise, this seemed to be something different.

[HutchFan]

Beaver Harris 360 Degree Music Experience - Beautiful Africa (Soul Note)
Harris' and Cameron Brown's superb rhythm work makes this one special.  (Not that the front line needs to make any excuses. )

 

 

Freddie Redd - With Due Respect (SteepleChase)
Thanks Ken!  

Edited April 20, 2017 by HutchFan

[duaneiac]

Disc 2 of 2, which contains half of Plays The Shampoo at The Village Gate and all of In San Francisco.  With Herbie Lewis and Ron Jefferson.  Is Les McCann fully retired from music these days?

[soulpope]

54 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

Beaver Harris 360 Degree Music Experience - Beautiful Africa (Soul Note)
Harris' and Cameron Brown's superb rhythm work makes this one special.  (Not that the front line needs to make any excuses. )

!!

[HutchFan]

Earl Hines - Tour de Force (Black Lion)

[duaneiac]

I think I like this even more than Vol. 1.  I 'm particularly fond of these versions of "9:20 Special", "Shiny Stockings" and "Lena and Lenny".

[paul secor]

When the Sun Goes Down - Walk Right In (Bluebird)

[Peter Friedman]

There is one thing that is almost 100% certain to appear here. Any reference to Wynton Marsalis (and usually Oscar Peterson)  will bring on strong attacks against those musicians. They are often treated as the devil's spawn.

It almost becomes comical to observe. While  neither Wynton or O.P. are among my favorite jazz musicians, there are many other jazz musicians I personally find far less enjoyable to hear  play.

[HutchFan]

Enrico Pieranunzi & Paul Motian with Chris Potter - Doorways (CamJazz)
Most of the cuts are piano / drum duos. Potter only sits in on a few tracks.

Five stars.

[soulpope]

Beloved platter of mine ....

[David Ayers]

4 hours ago, soulpope said:

Cult series for sure ....

And some memorable music by Barry Gray...

[Chuck Nessa]

2 hours ago, paul secor said:

When the Sun Goes Down - Walk Right In (Bluebird)

A well done series.

[soulpope]

[BillF]

[Larry Kart]

6 hours ago, Peter Friedman said:

There is one thing that is almost 100% certain to appear here. Any reference to Wynton Marsalis (and usually Oscar Peterson)  will bring on strong attacks against those musicians. They are often treated as the devil's spawn.

It almost becomes comical to observe. While  neither Wynton or O.P. are among my favorite jazz musicians, there are many other jazz musicians I personally find far less enjoyable to hear  play.

OP can take care of himself. The point/problem with Wynton IMO is of a different sort.  As I said above, it has to do with "his and his advocates' drive to reshape the course of the music" -- and that they did so and/or tried to do so through rhetorical and control-of-institution means, not merely or essentially through musical ones, as was the case with, say, the advent of bop. Nor am I aware of any precedent in jazz for the sort and degree of extra-musical social engineering that was pulled off by Wynton and the Wyntonians from the early '80s on. 

Further, when it comes to control-of-institution putdowns, those who watched the Ken Burns "Jazz" series (yup, THAT again) may recall Wynton's account toward the end of the series (probably in the final episode) of his attempt to come out the audience in the midst of a performance by Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy and engage Bowie in a trumpet battle -- a "challenge" that Bowie, again was in the midst of a performance by his own band and also 20 years Wynton's senior, pointedly chose to ignore. Wynton's account of what happened then leads into the "Jazz" narrator's claim that Bowie and other AACM musicians never had a significant black audience in the U.S., and that they had to go to France to garner some positive response  -- the clear implication being that this response was illegitimate because it was bestowed on them by white foreigners. Ugly stupid crap.

See p. 230 of Paul Steinbeck's new book on the AEC, "Message To Our Folks," for chapter and verse on Wynton's "challenge" to Bowie and what it then led to in the Burns "Jazz" series.