New J*** artists/recordings recommendations

Posted by: philip rubin on 10 December 2000

I currently listen to a lot of Jazz but mostly limited to artists and recordings of the 50's, 60's and 70's (mostly fusion). I listen to many of the Blue Note, Verve and Impulse recordings including the likes of Miles, Coltrane, Herbie Hancock(awesome Blue Note recordings include, Maiden Voyage and Empyrean Isles-one of the best jazz recordings out there for the period IMHO)and Lee Morgan. I have listened to Pat Methany and Wynton as well.

I would appreciate if somebody could recommend some newer artists and recordings. I am not particularly current on some of the newer artists out there. I listened to some Joshua Redman recordings and found them enjoyable.

I appreciate your reply. Thanks.

Posted on: 10 December 2000 by Peter Litwack

Philip-
There are a lot of jazz men out there still making great music. Try some of these:

James Carter - The Real Quiet Storm
Joe Lovano - Quartets Live at the Village Vanguard
David Murray - Shakill's Warrior (esp. cut #8 "Milano Strut", featuring the great Don Pullen on organ)
Henry Threadgill - Where's Your Cup (my pick as the most inspired album of the last five years)
Ornette Coleman - Sound Museum (Hidden Man version)
Miles Davis - Tutu; Amandla; Live Around the World (all three recorded in the last years of Miles' life - very modern and totally dangerous)
Abdullah Ibrahim - No Fear No Die (soundtrack album)
Don Byron - Bug Music
Brad Mehldau - Vol. 2-Art Of The Trio-Live at the Village Vanguard
Jon Faddis - Remembrances
Dave Holland - Prime Directive
Marcus Roberts - Alone With Three Giants
Roy Hargrove - With the Tenors of Our Time
Andrew Hill - Dusk

"Invention is a motherfucker!" - Lester Young

Posted on: 10 December 2000 by John

Check out John Scofield - Time on my hands
Chick Corea - Eye of the beholder
Yellowjackets - Dreamland

All excellent!

John

Posted on: 11 December 2000 by John C

Philip in addition to the excellent recommendations in this and other recent jazz threads (see album of year)...

If you like Joshua Redman, Mark Turner is an excellent Tenor Sax player with similar approach album.. Yam Yam

Dave Douglas ( trumpet) is in my view the most exciting, innovative jazz musician around at the moment. Try "In Our Lifetime", or this years "Soul on Soul". Im sure you wont be disappointed. As you live in New York Im sure you could see Douglas live at the Knitting Factory. His band is scintillating!Though he does play with several different lineups.
Surprisingly both of these musicians were probably born after 1969 recently decreed Jazz Year Zero by Chairman Lonorgan in these very pages. I

[This message was edited by John C on MONDAY 11 December 2000 at 10:42.]

Posted on: 11 December 2000 by philip rubin

Thanks for some of your feedback. NYC is a great place for Jazz. There is a great act every night of the week. I have been to the Knitting Factory several times. Douglas. Hargrove,etc are great recommendations. I need to hear more of their music.

Any other recommendations are welcome. For me, however, it is hard to improve upon the masters from the 50/60's. I picked up the Pat Methany Trio 99-00 and new Joshua Redman BEYOND CD and I find those worth recommeding.

Regards to all.

Posted on: 11 December 2000 by John Schmidt

Just bought Christian McBride's first CD - Gettin' to It - definitely a keeper.

If your tastes include blues I'd also suggest anything by James Cotton - the man's voice really sounds like he's lived the life, not just sang the words.

Cheers,

John Schmidt
"95% of everything is crud" - Theodore Sturgeon

Posted on: 11 December 2000 by Pete

% of everything is crud according to Sturgeon's Law. But I digress.

For something very contemporary on the jazz front, let's really jump a bit and try Nils Petter Malvaer's two disks on ECM, Khmer and Solid Ether.

They fuse cool jazz with techno dance beats, so aren't exactly trad! Courtney Pine's worked a bit fusing dance stuff into jazz too, with fairly well regarded results on Modern Day Jazz Stories. NPM's approach is more of a complete fusion with the loops, samples and beats as relatively equal partners to the jazz side, while CP's stuff is more jazz with elements of dance beats added, if that makes sense.

Pete.

Posted on: 11 December 2000 by Todd A

My first suggestion would be to get discs by Renee Rosnes. She's my favorite contemporary jazz artist. If you can find "As We Are Now," snap it up. It's already been deleted from Blue Note's catalog after only a couple of years. It is a great disc. "Art & Soul" is pretty darn good, too. (And if you happen upon two copies of "Ancestors" or her other early discs, by all means let me know!)

I second the previous mention of Don Byron. I'd add "Romance With the Unseen" as a title to get.

Others include Chris Potter, Greg Osby, and just about anything on the Naxos Jazz label. Hell, even if the music isn't that great, it's only $7.

Posted on: 11 December 2000 by fred simon

quote:
Fred Simon, Dreamhouse
Couldn't keep my foot still all night.

Jonathan, they have some wonderful new medications for restless leg syndrome.

But seriously, thanks once again for the kind plug.

Posted on: 13 December 2000 by Edot

Phillip

I'm not sure if you get on with vocals but check out Patricia Barber's Cafe Blue & Betty Carter's Everything but the melody.

I've only recently discovered Barber. Heard her for the first time at the 500 dem in Seattle. I liked what I heard at the dem and made a mental note to check her out. A busy schedule kept me from it but I finally got the disk. It's a gem.

Posted on: 15 January 2001 by ken c

Jonathan Ribee:

agree, night train is a great great album... now that you have reminded me, i will dig it up and play it again tonite...

enjoy...

ken

Posted on: 15 January 2001 by ken c

hi,

may i suggest that you try "soapsuds, soapsuds" by ornette coleman and charlie haden. rather "strange" record, but very enjoy on a naim system in full song...

i believe i have mentioned this album before in the old forum.

enjoy...

ken

Posted on: 15 January 2001 by Peter Litwack

Philip-
Just picked up a great jazz CD - Dave Holland Quintet "Prime Directive" - best new jazz cd I've purchased since Henry Threadgill "Where's Your Cup". Love the 'bone.

Posted on: 16 January 2001 by Keith Mattox

quote:
Just picked up a great jazz CD - Dave Holland Quintet "Prime Directive"

Then you'll probably like his earlier release "Extensions" even more. Great music and a great recording. Catch them live when you can also - he surrounds himself with young, talented and fun-loving artists.

Cheers

Keith.

ex-audiophile

Posted on: 16 January 2001 by philip rubin

I picked up Holland's Prime Directive and throughly enjoyed the music. The quintent is extremely talented and the trombone adds to the uniqueness of the sound. Andrew Hill's Dusk was a complex CD that took several listens to really appreciate. Now that I am broken in it is a complex piece of music which I would recommend. Peter, I listened to Threadgill's CD Where's your Cup and in your previous post you found it to be an influential piece of music, I dont get it. It is too rough and complex for me. It reminds me of listening to James Blood Ulmer, Ornette Coleman or Arthur Blythe. It is a little too extreme. I would appreciate your comments, perhaps you could enlighten me.
On a gentler note the soundtrack to the movie FINDING FORRESTER (not a bad movie with Sean Connery)is all about jazz, especially Miles Davis. Worth a listen if you are lacking in the Miles Davis department.

Posted on: 18 January 2001 by Peter Litwack

Philip-
You mean you don't dig Ornette or James Blood Ulmer? What a shame! I've always been thrilled by "tough" music. After all, Thelonius Monk, Charlie Mingus, Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane were all considered very "tough" when they came on the scene. I'm dismayed at the popularity of someone like Brad Mehldau, who really has nothing new to say. It's one thing to enjoy a "dinner jazz" type of sound when you want to relax or whatever, but when you want to have communion with the heart of humanity and try to figure out why we're all here, bring on the "tough" stuff every time. Sorry you didn't like the Threadgill. He's not nearly as tough as a lot of stuff out there (Albert Ayler, Coltrane's "Live in Japan", "Meditations", Ornette's "Free Jazz", etc.) My favorite cuts on "Where's Your Cup" are #1 "100 Year Old Game" and #4 "And This". Listen to "100 Year Old Game" - after the opening accordion intro, Threadgill states the main theme on alto sax with a haunting tango-like rhythm behind him. The theme is then restated, before he launches into his solo. The solo builds to incredible peaks with Threadgill blowing his ass off, before the ensemble speeds up and then slows down, eventually returning to the opening theme. The invention in this piece is intoxicating. I don't know how you could describe this music as "tough", except that it is open, honest and expressive. Skip to #4, which opens again with solo accordion. The whole opening is a build up for Threadgill's solo, which takes off on one of the most mind boggling flights of inspiration I've heard since Jerome Richardson's soprano sax solo on the first cut of Mingus' "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady". Brandon Ross' guitar solo then sets the table for another virtuoso solo by Threadgill. Have you ever gotten into "Lonely Woman" on Ornette's "The Shape of Jazz to Come"? Some great solo alto work there also. I hope you give this music some more time to get into your bones. It's worth the effort.

"Invention is a motherfucker!" - Lester Young

Posted on: 18 January 2001 by fred simon

quote:
"Invention is a motherfucker!" - Lester Young

Lester doesn't exactly fit your definition of "tough."

Humans do not live by "tough" alone, and just because it ain't "tough" doesn't mean it's lame dinner jazz, which Mehldau is certainly not. He may not be "tough," but he can be "thorny," and very moving as well.

Music certainly doesn't need to be "tough" in order to "have communion with the heart of humanity and try to figure out why we're all here" ... there's lots and lots of music that accomplishes that without being "tough."

Posted on: 19 January 2001 by Thomas K

Fred,

Funny coincidence, that - recently I went to the shops with the mission to buy a piano trio jazz disc. It boiled down to Mehldau’s latest offering and your “Dreamhouse”. I got the latter …

I can understand both Peter’s as well as your point of view – after properly listening to your album, I thought – oh well, nice, but a bit airy fairy. Put on Coltrane, OTOH, and you’re really forced to enter into communion with the music from the word go (if I don’t, it’ll just get on my nerves).

However, after I played “Dreamhouse” the fourth or fifth time, everything that’s deep about the music revealed itself to me – once you see beyond the evident beauty, you see the subtlety and depth (OK, enough brown-nosing).

On the whole, I am very partial to beauty – it seems, though, that the very concept of beauty has been tarnished, perhaps by advertising and the body cult, by the way modern society works. Beauty is not taken seriously anymore.

Please excuse this post. The wine I had with my dinner is simply too *beautiful* to stop at one glass.

Thomas

Posted on: 19 January 2001 by Peter Litwack

Fred-
Don't understand your comment about Lester Young. I never implied that his music was "tough". Just that he said "Invention is a motherfucker". That is to say, coming up with originality of invention is not an easy thing. I'm sorry I touched a sensitive nerve with my comment about Brad Mehldau. He's a fine musician with great chops, sensitive touch, and beautiful tone, but "Mehldau's music, as lovely and swinging as it often is, is utterly anonymous. And that's why the critics are quick to compare him to Bill Evans -- or, less frequently, to Paul Bley or Herbie Hancock -- because he has yet to find his own unique and unmistakable musical voice."(Not my words, David Prince's, although I couldn't agree more.) Imagine you're a young white dude in the late 1930s or early 1940s. You enjoy the music of the big bands, dancing with your girl to the smooth sounds of Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and Glenn Miller. One night, half drunk, you stumble into a club and happen upon Bird, Diz, Lester Young, or maybe even Thelonius Monk playing bebop so fast that you don't know what hit you! What the fuck do you think you would you make of it on first exposure? That's what invention is. Remember Igor Stravinsky? Le Sacre du Printemps was trashed at its first performance. It certainly was very "tough". BTW Lester may not seem "tough" to us now, but he was one totally dangerous motherfucker in his day. Ever heard "Tickletoe"?

Posted on: 20 January 2001 by fred simon

quote:
However, after I played “Dreamhouse” the fourth or fifth time, everything that’s deep about the music revealed itself to me – once you see beyond the evident beauty, you see the subtlety and depth

Truer words were never spoken (insert your favorite emoticon here)

quote:
On the whole, I am very partial to beauty – it seems, though, that the very concept of beauty has been tarnished, perhaps by advertising and the body cult, by the way modern society works. Beauty is not taken seriously anymore.

Thomas, I could not agree with you more. And to the reasons you posit, I would add the cult of music criticism, which, in general, sneers at beauty ... beauty is not hip, beauty isn't cool, beauty is suspect of being devoid of substance, which is a silly notion on the face of it -- beauty, in and of itself, is not automatically vapid, just as grittiness is not automatically substantial. True beauty can certainly bring one to "have communion with the heart of humanity" just as well as other aesthetics.

Thanks for taking the time to listen more deeply.

Posted on: 20 January 2001 by fred simon

Peter, capping your post on toughness with a quote from Lester Young implies a certain endorsement, but for the most part, Young cannot be grouped with more naturally "tough" players like Bird and Trane. In fact, in general he was the antidote, eschewing speed and grit for sensuality and subtlety ... this is what he is best known for. Also, it's not entirely accurate to lump Young and Monk in with Bird and Diz when you say "playing bebop so fast that you don't know what hit you!" Lester and Monk usually did not go in for speed ... to the contrary, they extolled the virtue of sparsity. Further, Lester was not a bebop musician, and Monk was more on the fringes of bebop, as opposed to a pianist like, for instance, Bud Powell.

Regarding Brad Mehldau: I happened to hear him last night, and I agree -- he has "great chops, sensitive touch, and beautiful tone" but I don't agree that he sounds anonymous. It's true that he owes a certain debt to those who came before, but what player doesn't? He's young ... he's got time. In an interview Mehldau once complained, and rightly so in my opinion, that so many critics lazily compared him to Evans, largely because he was white, played "pretty," and had had a drug problem. Of course, nearly every modern pianist owes something to Evans, but the musician to whom Mehldau owes the greatest debt is Keith Jarrett, although he has been steadily moving away from that influence and establishing his own voice ... the Mehldau I heard last night seemed less like Jarrett, or anyone else, than I'd ever heard him.

Finally, speaking of Bill Evans, I came across a quote from him in Ashley Kahn's book on the making of Kind Of Blue that has some bearing on aspects of this conversation:

"It's this preoccupation with 'who's the most modern' instead of 'who's making the most beautiful, human music.' [The most beautiful] may very well be the most modern thing as well, but to make just avant-garde the criteria has gotten to be almost a sickness, especially in jazz."

[This message was edited by fred simon on SUNDAY 21 January 2001 at 00:04.]

Posted on: 20 January 2001 by Peter Litwack

Fred-
Right on about Bud Powell. His piano work was truly definitive in the bebop arena. No one could play "across the line" better than Bud (Sonny Clark was close). But to refer to Monk as "on the fringes of bebop"? I don't know. One of my favorite records growing up was "Bird and Diz", and Monk bebops quite well. More angular, more dissonant, and yes, more "sparse", but definitely a bebop titan. Don't get me wrong about beauty, BTW, I love Bill Evans. I just think a lot of people don't invest enough effort into "tough" music. Oh well, different strokes...

Posted on: 21 January 2001 by philip rubin

Peter, I respect your views on music and hifi from reading many of your posts. I happen to agree with both you and Fred. In my opinion there is a point where an artist or a cut becomes unlistenable. It may be too "tough" or complex for my taste. However, when I first starting listening to Coltrane, I thought some of the improvisation was unlistenable. I have changed my view after acquiring a passion for Coltrane's music. To me, Coltrane is spirtually complex. His music is mystically if not religiously or spirtually influenced. There is something that I find compelling in his music even when it becomes complex and aggressive. There is meaning and calm in the chaos of his music. There are other artists who I feel the same way about. Coleman and Ulmer are not. However, good music especially jazz does not come to you, you must come to it. Overtime, perhaps I will acquire an appreciation for Threadgill, Coleman etc. With that said, I believe that there is plenty of room for appreciation for the artist's that Fred mentioned. I too have read his posts and appreciate the music that he has recommended in the past. Lyle Mays, OREGON in Moscow, Methany. Mehldau does not do much for me, but I can listen to the music of these artists and find melody, beauty, passion and complexity. They represent listenable jazz without being "contemporary jazz". At times you want to listen to Methany and other times it is Coltrane, Shorter, Lee Morgan, Miles, Tyner, A. Hill, et al. It comes down to personal taste, experience and being open minded.

Posted on: 21 January 2001 by fred simon

Peter, the reason I don't consider Monk to be a true bebop musician is because he really created a new world very much his own. He did associate with bebop musicians, and his music used some elements of bebop, but his concept was so idiosyncratic and his innovations were virtually the antithesis of bebop.

It may not seem so from my recent posts in this discussion, but my tastes and listening habits actually do vary more than one might think. I'm an omnivore, and I dig all kinds of music: loud and soft, tough and beautiful, thorny and simple, all genres, all eras ... as long as it's good music. Plenty of tough stuff: Coltrane, Shorter, Mingus, Monk, Ornette, Jarrett's "American Quartet," Stravinsky, Hendrix, Bartok, later Miles, etc. My main objection was to the idea that only "tough" music expressed musical truths, that it alone was what one needs "when you want to have communion with the heart of humanity and try to figure out why we're all here."

I do agree that often folks do not push on, delving deeper when confronted with difficult listening, missing out on eventual rewards. On the other hand, although I've invested a lot of time in my life listening to such, it's admittedly not very often that I feel like listening to Coltrane's Ascension.

Lastly, let's not forget that for many people, many more than in this small circle, music as seemingly palatable as Metheny, Mays, Evans, and Oregon is difficult and obscure to them.

Posted on: 22 January 2001 by richard goldsmith

...coincidentally, I was listening to some Columbia solo Monk recordings when I came across this post. Granted, I don't have much early Monk, but it occurred to me that his connection with bop by that stage at least was quite remote. It seems that with the Riverside and Columbia stuff that I am familiar with (and I think I have most of it on disc), he was a sort of cracked, stride ballad player. And I love Bud also. Funnily enough, one of my favourites is the Portrait of Thelonious, which he did in Paris in the early 60's, I think. His version of "Off Minor" is so Bud, yet so Monk. Luvverly.

I agree about Coltrane being spiritual, even when angry. I have difficulty with Ascension, but I love the Atlantic period material. Only yesterday, I had Ole Coltrane on, and that is an absolute burner, in my opinion.

Posted on: 22 January 2001 by Peter Litwack

You know, it's really interesting and sometimes very frustrating to see what you've written completely taken out of context, dissected, and argued ad nauseum. My original reference to Thelonius Monk was meant to be part of a picture: a young white dude stumbles into a club and happens to hear some new, frighteningly inventive jazz that shocks the hell out of him. Maybe he finds it intoxicating, maybe he doesn't. Monk was one of a group of musicians playing a new kind of jazz in the late 1930s/1940s who moved away from the smooth sound of swing. Yes, his approach was quite different from that of Bird and Diz, but he did play with them and was very much part of the bebop scene. When I used to go see Monk play at the Five Spot in NYC, I just sat there enraptured, thinking "this guy plays really great jazz." At the time (early 1960s), Monk was labeled "outside" by the critics. He played too many "wrong" notes. Today, he is considered fairly mainstream by most jazz lovers. I think people sometimes get too picky about putting musicians in defined "categories". Where would you put Miles Davis? His work with Bird on the Dial sessions is very firmly bebop. Then he started "cool jazz". Then he went "modal". Then he started "fusion". And so on. Coltrane was a really good bop player early on, as was Rollins, but both evolved into major proponents of "Hard Bop", and Coltrane went much further. Fred, I can't listen with much enjoyment to "Ascension" either. Same for "Om". But I'd love to hear from anybody out there who digs "Ascension", how to approach such a difficult piece. I once went to a performance by Cecil Taylor and his group at the old Keystone Corner in SF. It was in 1968 or 1969. I think Jimmy Lyons was on sax and Andrew Cyrille on drums - the rest of the group I don't remember. I sat through one very excruciating set, and ever since then, I'm ashamed to admit, the imprinting of that set prejudiced me from ever listening to Cecil Taylor again. Do you have any recommendations? My goal, in most of posts, is to to talk about the music I love, and to hopefully, turn people on to music they might find worthwhile. I hope, in turn, to learn about music that others out there think I might find worthwhile. BTW, Fred, have you listened to "Where's Your Cup" yet?