What is your least favorite album by a favorite musician?

[HutchFan]

2 hours ago, Rooster_Ties said:

Been eons since I've heard it, but I don't recall Joe Henderson's take on Porgy & Bess for Verve being any sort of great thing (one of his very last recordings, and maybe his last leader-date - ?).

Others might suggest something weird from his Milestone years, but I love all that stuff - every bit.

I agree 100%.  

 

 

2 hours ago, duaneiac said:

Absolutely.  All of these will be a matter of taste.  But hearing about what music other folks find to be lacking is kind of interesting too.  I for one will have to go back and listen to the Hampton Hawes All Night Session! recordings again.  I liked them, but maybe I will listen with a more critical ear now to see if I can hear what Larry Kart and T.D. found wanting in them.

Yep!  As close as we're going to get to sitting in a bar full of jazz fans, shooting the breeze, hearing who likes what.   

Edited September 27, 2017 by HutchFan

[JSngry]

"least favorite" is pushing it, but I've never really warmed to the Miles/Jackie/Bags record. Never really gelled for be, not even a s ablowing session. Everybody's fine while they play but at the end, I'm like...was there a record here?

[Larry Kart]

Don't have the "All Night Session" albums any more -- maybe I can listen on Spotify or YouTube --  but what I recall is a dispiriting rhythmic logyness, like the whole band was suffering from a bad cold. On some tracks it was like Hawes was trying to make his way through a room full of tapioca pudding.

[Larry Kart]

OK, some examples. Hawes' reading of "Jordu" (first link below) begins in a somewhat promising fashion (though is there a small uncharacteristic stumble from Hawes in the theme statement?), but then the articulation in his solo seems to me to be (by his own standards) rather plodding, while the phrasing is rather airless (Hawes' near-Birdlike use of space while on the run was a trademark). Also, doesn't he get fairly well hung up during his solo on  massaging one rather nagging motif over and over? Could it be, though it seems unlikely, that he didn't know the tune that well?

By contrast, from the same general period, there's the IMO considerably greater rhythmic brightness and zest of Hawes' playing on "Yardbird Suite," from a band with the same instrumentation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DbM8wOiANI

Speaking of that small stumble on the theme statement of "Jordu" and the other things I hear on that tracks and elsewhere on "All Night Session," could it be that Hawes might have been somewhat stoned that night?

P:S, What I hear as a small stumble  from Hawes on the theme of "Jordu" could be glitch or "burp" in YouTube's transfer of the recording. 

[CJ Shearn]

Ok, I'll bite.

 

Jimmy Smith: Sit On It.  This album just sucks.  I don't think it was bad for JOS to try synths, but he sounds so anonymous on them, and Herbie Hancock and Lenny White do nothing to raise the album even though they are on it.  Some of that LA slickness didn't quite work for Jimmy.  It's not good funk even.  None of his Mercury albums are worth having for me except "It's Necessary".  It's a classic in jazz-funk circles, but I wonder how many of those people know his groundbreaking work?

Pat Metheny: A Map Of The World.  I don't hate this album, the main theme is one of the most gorgeous he's ever written, but there's not enough thematic variation.  This is where I think "The Falcon And The Snowman".  Again, I donn't hate itt, it's just one I listened to less, Pat's output has a consistency across all of it, and this does too, but as far as the soundtrack work goes it's the weakest as a whole album.

Joe Henderson: Black Miracle.  Out of all the sessions in the Milestone box that are remarkably consistent, this one isn't as bad as people make it out to be, but not Joe's best.  To me it's like an attempt to get Joe into the emerging GRP/LA sound (when they were an Arista subsidiary) and it sounds as if hee just came into overdub his parts and solos over the classic LA rhythm section.

Herbie Hancock: Feets Don't Fail Me Now.  I don't think ANY words need to be said about this, "Sunlight" is great, but this?  Easily the worst Columbia album he made, even the Laswell trilogy has redeeming qualities as long as you get your ears towards that kind of music.

Ron Carter Meets Bach: YUCK.............

Billy Cobham: Power Play.  This one isn't even close to his best Atlantic work and an effort that pushes him into typical GRP blandness.  This one accidentally (yes, really) came into my possession in a box of CD's accidentally taken from my father's house that belonged to my deceased uncle Kevin who liked jazz.  While he did like good jazz, he had an awful lot of smooth jazz in his collection (maybe cause he liked R&B too) and a sizable amount of GRP (maybe b/c he was semi audiophile) so I gave this one to a friend who loves collecting GRP albums and even he thought it sucked.

Chick Corea: Light Years.  While there are a few good tunes on the album, and I know the Elektric Band is NOT popular here, this album comes the closest to fitting into the typical GRP mold.  Flamingo is kitschy as hell like a mid 80's porn soundtrack, and I love that track b/c it's so kitschy, but "Eye Of The  Beholder" and "Live In Tokyo 1987" are much better EB albums

[Big Beat Steve]

On 26.9.2017 at 11:56 PM, T.D. said:

I agree with you on the Hawes. Didn't think of posting it here, and would have hesitated to bring up the subject, but this set never did anything for me (and I own a lot of HH recordings).

Another case of one man's meat being another man's (or, here, two men's ) poison. I like them a lot, even though I found the praise heaped on them in the WCJ books a wee bit too much. If these sets don't do enough for others out there then I have a feeling this might be because they are just "too straightforward" for those who elsewhere might above all enthuse in the "angry young men" of the times, avantgarde or other more "advanced" styles of jazz. OTOH I'll freely admit my jazz preferences lean towards the swing side and go on from there towards more modern forms in an evolutionary (rather than revolutionary) manner. And I'll also admit I prefer to let the music as a whole act on me and not so much dissect every single note. I'd rather enjoy the flow. To each his own ...

5 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

OK, some examples. Hawes' reading of "Jordu" (first link below) begins in a somewhat promising fashion (though is there a small uncharacteristic stumble from Hawes in the theme statement?), but then the articulation in his solo seems to me to be (by his own standards) rather plodding, while the phrasing is rather airless (Hawes' near-Birdlike use of space while on the run was a trademark). Also, doesn't he get fairly well hung up during his solo on  massaging one rather nagging motif over and over?

Speaking of that small stumble on the theme statement of "Jordu" and the other things I hear on that tracks and elsewhere on "All Night Session," could it be that Hawes might have been somewhat stoned that night?
 

I may be able to see where you are heading from an expert writer's/reviewer's impressions (but again, a listener who takes in the "whole" is bound to see things a bit differently), but if you apply these criteria, wouldn't you have to tear to shreds about half the discography of Bud Powell? (After all, if these criteria were to apply then to me "being out of it but trying anyway" is not something that excuses each and every fumble)

Edited September 28, 2017 by Big Beat Steve

[mikeweil]

17 hours ago, HutchFan said:

Bobby's only dud (imho):

Much of the blame goes to Wade Marcus.  I'm no fan of his arrangements here.

 

I think if they made a remix with the strings more in the background it would fare much better. But I can see your point.

To me, some of the mislead 1970's attempts at marketing jazz veterans with a "contemporary" sound (like the Rollins JSngry mentioned), were David Newman's Prestige LPs:

Edited September 28, 2017 by mikeweil

[AllenLowe]

 just re Larry and other comments above about Hampton Hawes. Years  ago I had a nice conversation with Russ Freeman when I was working on my 50s book ( great guy)  and we got to talking about Hawes.  I mentioned that in some of his work from the 50s and 60s Hawes tended to lean on a very robotic kind of bebop phrasing,  which we hear even in good performances like Yardbird suite. There's a particular group of intervals that he hits constantly, coming down from the fifth of the chord. Freeman agreed with me, and seemed to indicate that Hawes was much looser in person.  As for me, what I listen to constantly is Hawes' live work from maybe 1952 to 1956, which is demonic at times, and which Hawes later explained away as being the result of his personal insanity at the time. But whatever the cause, I love the effect, which is just…electric, for want of a better word. And  just to note, to my ears it was just that worst part of Hawes' playing that primarily influenced Oscar Peterson.

Edited September 28, 2017 by AllenLowe

[Larry Kart]

10 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

Another case of one man's meat being another man's (or, here, two men's ) poison. I like them a lot, even though I found the praise heaped on them in the WCJ books a wee bit too much. If these sets don't do enough for others out there then I have a feeling this might be because they are just "too straightforward" for those who elsewhere might above all enthuse in the "angry young men" of the times, avantgarde or other more "advanced" styles of jazz. OTOH I'll freely admit my jazz preferences lean towards the swing side and go on from there towards more modern forms in an evolutionary (rather than revolutionary) manner. And I'll also admit I prefer to let the music as a whole act on me and not so much dissect every single note. I'd rather enjoy the flow. To each his own ...

I may be able to see where you are heading from an expert writer's/reviewer's impressions (but again, a listener who takes in the "whole" is bound to see things a bit differently), but if you apply these criteria, wouldn't you have to tear to shreds about half the discography of Bud Powell? (After all, if these criteria were to apply then to me "being out of it but trying anyway" is not something that excuses each and every fumble)

About Bud Powell and Hawes: There's a wide variety of less than top-drawer Powell recordings, and some of them, flawed though they are or may be, reveal aspects of his sensibility that almost no one who cares about Powell would want to be without. If we agree, Steve, that "Jordu" is less than top-drawer Hawes, I don't hear anything in that performance that tells me something about Hamp other than what he sounds like on a night when IMO the dial was turned down. Hawes, unlike Powell, just wasn't that inherently various a player, though I'll take that back in part to account for the somewhat Bill Evans-influenced period that Hawes got into in the mid 1960s, albeit he turned that influence in a very personal direction,, particularly on the album "Here and Now."

Allen: I hear what you're saying about those live Hawes performances from the '50s; I just picked "Yardbird Suite" because it was good enough to make my point (or so I thought) and was available on YouTube. Even in those salad days for Hawes, he favored certain intervals and figures, but the rhythmic agitation (if you will) of his playing, the sheer "snap, crackle, and pop" of it, was pretty special.

[JSngry]

Not to pile on, but my least favorite Mingus record is the trio with Hawes. Then again, how much of a "Mingus record" is that, really? Still, name it and claim it.

[duaneiac]

Jazz has a rich history of musicians who doubled as vocalists.  Milt Jackson's name will not be enshrined among them.  It's not that he was a terrible singer, but he certainly wasn't a very good one.  It's a 1978 recording so you also have a synthesizer on some tracks and Cedar Walton on the dreaded electric piano.  It all adds up to a recording for which the most polite thing to do is simply avert one's eyes & ears and pretend it never happened.

Edited September 30, 2017 by duaneiac

[gmonahan]

Sinatra Trilogy: First part is great, second part is ok, third part...ugh.

And as for the Vaughan, lousy songs, terrible arrangements, uninspired Sassy.

 

[duaneiac]

8 hours ago, gmonahan said:

Sinatra Trilogy: First part is great, second part is ok, third part...ugh.

And as for the Vaughan, lousy songs, terrible arrangements, uninspired Sassy.

 

I do wonder if there is any one alive who has ever listened to Disc 3 ("The Future") from that Sinatra set more than once.  It's certainly a bizarre work and I wonder what everybody was thinking at the time they were recording it.  Still, there is enough good music on the first two discs to make up for that bad third disc.

I have intentionally never listened to the Sinatra Duets albums, so I can't name them my least favorites, but I'm sure if I had listened to them they would be. I think every Sinatra album I have heard has had something musically worthwhile going for it, so even being "least favorite" would not mean it is a "bad" album as such.  I'd have to listen to them again, but perhaps my least favorite might be Cycles or Some Nice Things I've Missed (I do not need to hear Frank Sinatra cover Neil Diamond or Jim Croce songs!).

I've never heard that Sarah Vaughan album.

[gmonahan]

"Cycles" and "Some Nice Things" are definitely very low on my list, as are the "Duets" albums, but that third disc of "Trilogy" won the prize with me for LEAST favorite!!

 

 

gregmo

[JSngry]

Disc 3 of Trilogy is essentially a Gordon Jenkins album. As such, it makes perfect sense. Doesn't make it any better, but at least it makes sense.

Duets - go to Your Friend The Internet and see if the raw takes for Duets (called Duets Solo, or something like that) are still around. That stuff is flawed but STRONG, ok, "Come Rain Or Come Shine" in particular, you talk about a defiant old man, there it is. But you know we'll never hear it. It's Frank live in front of a band recording while he walks around, just like he would do on a show. The pitch is pretty shaky, but the spirit....DAMN.

Feelin' Good has charts by Allyn Ferguson, Jack Elliot, & Peter Matz, so if used to wath The Carol Burnett Show and think, wow, this is cheesy music with a DAMN good band and charts that are waaaaay better than they needed to be, then this is pretty much that only with Sarah Vaughan instead of Mac Davis or some such network-friendly persona. or Steve & Edye or other credible singers who wanted that kind of "now sound" for at least one number.I don't know that I "like it", but there's certainly nothing wrong with it, It certainly succeeds at being what it wanted to be.

I will say this, though...I think it was Dusty Springfield who tried to break this as a crossover hit (followed by Carmen McRae, she did it on Dick Cavett iir), and I never got it, the song, kinda....yuck. Nice changes, but those lyrics, what the world needs now is for everybody to fuck before going to work, i mean, yeah, but just DO it, don't write a song about it, please.

But that same sound, those three arrangers were all over your TV tubes in the variety shows of the time, so if you're of that age, none of it should sound unfamiliar.