Ethan Iverson on Jazz between the deaths of Trane and Lee Morgan

[medjuck]

The article is in The Nation and I don't think I can link to it. He talks about it in his substack (which  I don't always like) but this is really interesting. 

 

Edited yesterday at 07:42 PM by medjuck

[JSngry]

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/slugs-jazz-albums-list/

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/slugs-jazz-ethan-iverson/

[HutchFan]

Thanks for the heads-up.

 

[jlhoots]

Got it.

[Guy Berger]

I liked Ethan’s piece and appreciate it highlighting some overlooked music, but the lines between this kind of advanced straight ahead music, fusion and free jazz were often blurry!  Not to mention that soul jazz was a key element in the jazz style mix during this period, and influenced some of the recordings he mentions

[felser]

Looked through the discograpy and reading the article now.  It's interesting, but this is a huge overstatement, seemingly to push the Henderson/Tyner 'Forces of Nature' release?

"Between the death of Coltrane and the death of Morgan, there is a dearth of great material in the recorded canon."

Blue Note, Prestige, and Milestone were cranking out great records between 1967-1972, and other labels like Atlantic were also putting out good jazz records (Charles Lloyd, Herbie Mann at his most adventurous, Roy Ayers, etc.)  Columbia was releasing stunner after stunner by Miles Davis and had some other great albums by John Handy.  And Capitol had Cannonball doing his thing.  Plus a lot of beautiful music was being recorded in Japan during those years and ECM, Freedom, BYG-Actuel and other labels were active in Europe.  Iverson seems to have an agenda, and seems to be intent on coloring reality to fit his agenda. 

 

Edited 2 hours ago by felser

[clifford_thornton]

Iverson making an overstatement? Shocked.

[HutchFan]

Another thing that confused me:  Why does the album list extend back in time to 1964 when the topic at hand is jazz between Coltrane's passing (1967) and Lee Morgan's passing (1972).  Not to be pedantic -- but those mid-60s Blues Notes and other selections (like Miles Smiles and ESP) don't fit in the chronology.  There's other choices that he could've made that would have been more representative of those six years.

For example, why not Wayne's Odyssey of Iska instead of Juju ???    Iska seems much more representative of the musical evolution that was happening during that era.

The same could be said of the selection for Herbie. Why not pick The Prisoner, which seems more in alignment with the spirit of the times (1967-72), rather than Maiden Voyage.  (And I'm not even mentioning Mwandishi!)

Likewise, Woody Shaw.  Blackstone Legacy tells the story of the era more accurately than Cassandranite/In the Beginning!

It's odd.

 

All that said:  I'm glad Iverson wrote the article.  If nothing else, it's stimulating some discussion!   

 

Edited 2 hours ago by HutchFan

[jlhoots]

48 minutes ago, felser said:

Looked through the discograpy and reading the article now.  It's interesting, but this is a huge overstatement, seemingly to push the Henderson/Tyner 'Forces of Nature' release?

"Between the death of Coltrane and the death of Morgan, there is a dearth of great material in the recorded canon."

Blue Note, Prestige, and Milestone were cranking out great records between 1967-1972, and other labels like Atlantic were also putting out good jazz records (Charles Lloyd, Herbie Mann at his most adventurous, Roy Ayers, etc.)  Columbia was releasing stunner after stunner by Miles Davis and had some other great albums by John Handy.  And Capitol had Cannonball doing his thing.  Plus a lot of beautiful music was being recorded in Japan during those years and ECM, Freedom, BYG-Actuel and other labels were active in Europe.  Iverson seems to have an agenda, and seems to be intent on coloring reality to fit his agenda. 

 

What's wrong with "Forces Of Nature"? He didn't say it was the greatest record of all time.

[JSngry]

He's certainly not wrong that the type of music he's highlighting was a bit lost in the shuffle at the time.

[felser]

2 hours ago, HutchFan said:

All that said:  I'm glad Iverson wrote the article.  If nothing else, it's stimulating some discussion! 

And might point some newish listeners to some outstanding music.