A stream-of-consciousness jazz discussion.

[The Czech Republic 0]

I plan to really dive into modal jazz in the coming days. It's an area I didn't pay enough attention to in high school; it offers unbridled creativity without the obligation to play a hundred notes a minute. Modes would be so much easier for me to remember if somebody hadn't fucked up and misnamed all of them, so you have the Greek modes, and the modern modes, and they're all basically the same names, just mixed up and AHHH.

 

Wynton Marsalis is a phenomenal musician, and it's cool he spoke out against the ridiculous aspects of hip-hop, but he also thinks everything Miles Davis did from In a Silent Way to the end is garbage, and we all know that simply isn't true.

 

Please add more thoughts because I need to take a nap.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

What's generally considered a really good Buddy Rich-involved thing to get?

[Annabelle 0]

buddy rich was really a swing drummer. i couldn't get into any of his stuff. he really missed out on the golden era of jazz in the 50's-60's. golden era, i mean critical acclaim where cohesive albums becase more of a standard than just a session of thrown together tracks. best drummers to get stuff from are:

 

max roach

art blakey

elvin jones

tony williams

 

pretty much these four drummers played with so many different band leaders from cannonball adderly to charles mingus to larry young.

 

marselis is sorta right about miles's post in a silent way period. lots of it really wasn't jazz. i don't consider it as such. not to say its garbage, it just lacks the general integrity of traditional jazz - which is jazz. in some ways he ruined jazz. phew, how many bad fusion groups where there in the 70's?

[Slayer 0]

A guy calls Buddy Rich's house, not knowing he's dead, and asks "Is Buddy there?". Buddy's widow, in tears, says that Buddy has just died.

 

He calls for a couple days after that, asking the same question: "Is Buddy there?" Each time the distraught widow answers that he's dead.

 

Finally she snaps and says "Aren't you the same guy who's been calling here the last couple days? What's WRONG with you, I told you Buddy Rich is DEAD!"

 

The guy responds "I know, I just love hearing you say it."

[The Czech Republic 0]

Big Swing Face is an awesome Buddy Rich album, just for the title track, "NBC Monitor Theme" and "Willowcrest," which is a great minor-key 6/8 song. "Channel One Suite" is probably his band's best tune. Tread lightly with Buddy Rich, some of that stuff is downright cheesy.

 

 

As Slayer alluded to, Buddy Rich was a big fucking prick. I've played with one of his trumpet players who made some of the infamous bus tapes.

[Annabelle 0]

charles mingus was known for punching out his sidemen. miles davis was known for telling bill evans he wasn't interested in his "white man opinons". they came from a different time.

[The Czech Republic 0]

"What have you done that's so important, anyway?"

"I've changed music five times. What have you done besides be white?"

 

Miles Davis vs. a Washington wife at a White House dinner

 

different times indeed

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Mingus sounds inadvertently metal.

[Nighthawk 0]

"What have you done that's so important, anyway?"

"I've changed music five times. What have you done besides be white?"

 

Miles Davis vs. a Washington wife at a White House dinner

 

different times indeed

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

When was this supposed to have occured and what five times was he referring to?

 

Alan Holdsworth is the semi-best jazz guitarist and nobody knows who he is. He never really had a very good album, just flashes of brilliance, but the flashes were better than anyone else. That's why he's the semi-best.

[Guest Anticrombie]

Birth Of The Cool might be one, followed by Kind of Blue....then Bitches Brew perhaps?

[Annabelle 0]

Mingus sounds inadvertently metal.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

its the chunky sound he makes with his bass. it rocks you in the chest.

 

miles didn't change music once. he changed jazz once.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I meant from the punching people statement. I've never listened to him, but probably will based on that last post.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Someone show me some free jazz. Noisy, impossible to follow or reproduce, and incredibly complicated are qualities I'm seeking.

[Annabelle 0]

albert ayler had some good stuff.

 

coltrane's latter stuff fits into this category. ascension, meditations, and interteller space are popular choices. i'd say a love supreme except there is still some melody within somewheres.

 

ornette coleman, don cherry, cecil taylor are all notorious names. unfortunately i can't suggest any actual albums as i can't really deal with a lot of that stuff.

 

there is one album by a german artist, peter brottzmann (sp?P) called machine gun which is totally abrasive, cold european jazz that totally neglects any element of melody or musical being. its just noise. its a challenging listening. too challenging. i also found anthony braxtons for alto, which was mentioned somewhere else, as quite fucking diffitcult, too. i'd google/allmusic said artists & go from there.

 

edit:

 

while not free jazz, i think you'd also totally love tony williams lifetime. there are two albums which are so great. they pretty much surpass whatever miles davis did with fusion int he early 70's they rock so much harder than anything miles did. they groove harder than miles. they are uncompromising musical statements. i can only imagine three jazzheads comign off stage with bleeding hands after playing these songs live. these have the musical chops to pull off whatever the fuck they wanted. the albums are turn it over & emergency!

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Brotzmann. I've heard that name, but never heard him.

 

I have Ascencion and adore it.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Jaco Pastorious would be so incredible if his albums weren't 40-70% caribbean contemporary jazz.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

F'rinstance, on his debut album, there's a track where he's playing two different rhythms at once, and one of them is all harmonics. Gives a bass player a boner, lemmetellya.

[Annabelle 0]

ever seen a picture of brotzmann? totally describes his music more adequately than words.

 

i really dont know anything about free jazz. i tried my darndest to get into it, but i couldn't. i can only enjoy the coltrane stuff because of the musical genius playing it. anyone in that quartet could have, and was, brilliant band leaders. only elvin jones failed to compile a noteworthy album. but its elvin jones, arguably one of the greatest ever.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I like it because it's a severe headfuck. The stuff I have the most trouble with is the type that my girlfriend lives and breathes...the Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and (most) Duke Ellington material. Same with pre-fusion Miles.

[Annabelle 0]

i appreciate the miles stuff over the former because of his desire to surround himself with the best musicians. his "post bop" stuff is played so hard yet so subdued. miles needed to thank tony williams & ron carter for his 60's rennaisance. they made the music great.

[The Czech Republic 0]

I meant from the punching people statement. I've never listened to him, but probably will based on that last post.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

My favorite two songs are Moanin' and Haitian Fight Song

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

i appreciate the miles stuff over the former because of his desire to surround himself with the best musicians.  his "post bop" stuff is played so hard yet so subdued.  miles needed to thank tony williams & ron carter for his 60's rennaisance.  they made the music great.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

My favorite thing on any Miles album I've heard is the guitar work on the second half of In a Silent Way.

 

Talk about hard but subdued.

[Nighthawk 0]

John McLaughlin - Extrapolation

[godthedog 0]

Brotzmann. I've heard that name, but never heard him.

 

I have Ascencion and adore it.

cause i keep telling you about him whenever you ask the board to recommend you noisy shit.

 

i've always found the ornette coleman 'free jazz' stuff a lot harder to listen to, simply because it never goes in any direction (or it goes in too many directions at once, depending on how you listen to it). brotzmann could be loud as shit, but there's perceptible changes in the music over time. with coleman everybody's doing their own thing at once, and it just goes on and on; you might be able to catch small glimpses of band members playing off each other, but it never goes anywhere, and the musicians drop ideas & melodies as soon as they're picked up and move on to something else. which results in the first 2 minutes sounding exactly like the last 2 minutes, and every 2 minute chunk inbetween. it's like being at a party with 20 people who are all talking over each other at the same volume, trying to figure out what everyone is saying, only to find out that everyone at the party is talking to himself. i've tried to follow it, but after about five minutes my ear tends to zone it out as white noise and i just fall asleep.

 

i feel like i might be missing something from this experience. if there's something about it that works & that i'm just not getting, i'm open to change.

[Annabelle 0]

coltrane's free jazz was better, because as a mentioned earlier, his group had the musical chops to pull it off. much like anything in music.

[mister foozel 0]

maybe try billy cobhams fusion records,

im a fan personally of gar samuelson who was best known from his time with megadeth, but was influenced by billy cobham and tony williams

[Annabelle 0]

billy cobhams best work was with miles. he had one decent solo album, but he just slipped into the general monotony of fusion as a leader. as i stated earlier, tony williams did it the most effectively...out of almost everyone at that time. even miles...sometimes.

[The Man in Blak 0]

Someone show me some free jazz. Noisy, impossible to follow or reproduce, and incredibly complicated are qualities I'm seeking.

 

If we're focusing on "noisy", Otomo Yoshihide comes to mind. Check out something like Anode or Flutter (the latter, if I recall correctly, has more jazzy arrangements).