Death of J*** Revisited

I have ordered Kenny Wheeler GNU HIGH, and will continue to listen to the CDs Lontano provided.

I will also listen to Miles Davis "Seven Steps to Heaven" and "Solo Monk", two of my absolute favorites that have lost their sparkle for me.

My jazz groove is like missing car keys at the moment, but just like keys, it has to be found :-)

These days in New Orleans, the jazz players are facing a dilemma. They play technically perfect, have a knowledge of New Orleans styles that lets them play anything in the correct style, and are better than their predecessors in every regard excepting one. I don't get to hear much that is both new and appealing.

Maybe all that education current players have is constraining what they play?

quote:

Have you heard this album?

Kenny Wheeler GNU HIGH

Hi Fred

Thanks for that recommendation. I've ordered it from the US at 4.99 of our English Pounds.

Should I be miffed that Mike ignores my suggestions though?

While on the subject of Kenny Wheeler, do you have his 'Other People' with the Hugo Wolf String Quartet and the wonderful John Taylor on piano? If not, it's highly recommended!

Nigel

quote:

Originally posted by hungryhalibut:
[QUOTE]Have you heard this album?
Should I be miffed that Mike ignores my suggestions though?


Nigel

I don't ignore your suggestions. I have a list and a budget :-)

quote:

I don't ignore your suggestions. I have a list and a budget :-)

Hey Mike, that's cheered me up. As we are both getting Gnu High, it will be interesting to see how we like it. Keith Jarret (at Montreux) is playing at the mo, so jazz is very much alive in this house!

Nigel

Glad that cheered you up.

Gnu High is already shaping up to be fun.

Gnu High was the last time Jarrett appeared as a sideman. When you have mastered Gnu High then you could try Jarrett as a front man with his European Quartet. I know Fred likes this album a lot as well. Anyway, good luck Mike with Gnu High. I saw Kenny Wheeler the other week in concert. Hard to believe he is now 80.

Also the Jarrett album that Nigel is playing is marvellous as well and very different to the Personal Mountains recommendation.

Yep, that's the one. It is indeed marvellous. Particularly with a nice Piedmontese red.

Nigel

Just ordered Brazilian Sketches, hungryhalibut :-)

GNU High just shipped.

No beer this weekend!

No beer this weekend!

Dear Mike!

This is not good news. I am layed low with 'flu and still managed to wonder off in the cold to fetch a couple of pints - in glass naturally!

Listening to the Schubert "Great C Major" Symphony in a moment ...

BBCSO, Sir Adrian Boult live at a BBC Prom concert from 1969, and priceless. A link to a more relaxed age! And so full of sagacity!

ATB from George

Thanks George, and of course there must be beer this weekend!

Enjoy the Schubert. The only recording I have of the Great C Major is Guilini and Chicago. Haven't listened to it in a good while. Have to dig it out!

There was an interesting threesome of friends in the '60s in London, Klemperer, Guilini and Boult. They held sway for a decade and got on well! So much for the prima dona conductor then!

One can just imagine them sharing Gins and Tonics at the Savoy or somewhere similar!

ATB from George

Klemperer liked a pipe and almost killed himself in bed with one by trying to put out the fire out with camphor which he mistook for water!

Thus he missed working at Bayreuth that season [his only invite, paradoxically] and also the 1958 Beethoven Festival in London, where he was substituted by many luminaries of the musical world as it was his own festival. He selected Paul Hindemith as the conductor of the final concert "in jest" and was taken at his word. It was a disaster, but PH remained a good friend in spite of it.

Don't give up smoking - just don't do it in bed!

ATB from George

Lost on a flight to Spain, left in the seat pocket.

I was furious!

But Klemperer was a one off, and very kind to musicians and those near him, provided they did not try his patience! He had a very Jewish sense of sarcasm that could lead to a one word put-down to which no possible answer [except to dig a bigger hole] was possible!

ATB from George

GNU HIGH arrived today. We have given it one good listen. Nothing new here. Locally, Nick Payton is doing something similar for the past five years or so.

For me, the excitement of jazz has always been in the new.

In a club, this would have just blown me away, as the musicianship is so outstanding. On a CD, well, I think something is lost in translation.

Let's see how the Brazilian Sketches go down. That may be more forgiving of the limitations in listening to a recording.

One positive effect of this is a reawakening of my desire to go out and hear live jazz. God knows I am in the right place for that.

quote:

Originally posted by mikeeschman:
GNU HIGH arrived today. We have given it one good listen. Nothing new here. Locally, Nick Payton is doing something similar for the past five years or so.

Mike, we hear our jazz quite differently based on this comment. Nicholas Payton to me is one of those American jazz musicians who tends to harp back to the days of Louis - looking back not forwards and one of the reasons I often think America jazz is stuck in a rut - there are some notable exceptions, Dave Douglas being an example. I hear forward momentum in Gnu High and bear in mind it was made in 1975, not five years ago. It is less easy on the ear than Payton, more adventurous and challenging.

Enjoy your clubbing - personally I would prefer to go jazzing in New York as I would expect to hear more adventurous musicianship - just a perception I have.

PS - my top jazz locations would be Scandinavia and Paris.

quote:

Originally posted by Lontano:

quote:

Originally posted by mikeeschman:
GNU HIGH arrived today. We have given it one good listen. Nothing new here. Locally, Nick Payton is doing something similar for the past five years or so.

Mike, we hear our jazz quite differently based on this comment. Nicholas Payton to me is one of those American jazz musicians who tends to harp back to the days of Louis - looking back not forwards and one of the reasons I often think America jazz is stuck in a rut - there are some notable exceptions, Dave Douglas being an example. I hear forward momentum in Gnu High and bear in mind it was made in 1975, not five years ago. It is less easy on the ear than Payton, more adventurous and challenging.

Enjoy your clubbing - personally I would prefer to go jazzing in New York as I would expect to hear more adventurous musicianship - just a perception I have.

I have heard every change on GNU HIGH dozens, if not hundreds, of times before.

Payton is quite different on a local gig than on recordings, he plays a much wider variety.

As far as your comments on New York, I just don't know. There are certainly more pretenders to the throne in New York than in New Orleans, some of whom couldn't make it in New Orleans.

But the New Orleans music scene has contracted since Katrina. The variety is greatly diminished. But I think it is time to go forth and see if things are improving.

This music culture we have here is something special, and it is time for me to indulge again. No one on this forum has a better opportunity to go hear jazz in the woodshed.

Mike - let us know which concerts you go and see. Cheers

quote:

Originally posted by munch:
Well said Adrian.
Mike sits there in a city that is Blues an Jazz Central.Pontificating.
Stu

I'm not pontificating Munch. Every person's imagination works in a different way. I'm just trying to make some sense of it. Just personal reflections. Every one has some of those. What better place to air your thoughts on what you listen to, than here.

It was an effort to work up the courage to go back to clubs. There have been health issues that shut us in this past 1 or 2 years. After you've been in for a while, going out can look scary.

Thanks to the good people on this forum, we are going out to hear music again.

How good is that :-)

So please, Munch, let me have my 15 minutes in the sunlight. I promise I won't challenge your musings.

Almost forgot.

One of the local "things" that really gets my heart going is John Cleary and the Absolute Monster Gentlemen. Between about 1970 and 1990 there was a mass infusion of British musicians into the New Orleans scene. Of these, Cleary is the most successful, to my tastes at least.

He never plays locally anymore, but a number of CDs are available.

Highly recommended.

quote:

Let's see how the Brazilian Sketches go down. That may be more forgiving of the limitations in listening to a recording.

Mike

Don't expect anything new or earth shattering. It's just a lovely record; beautifully played an sung. Don't analyse it, just enjoy it!!

Nigel

For the first time since I started this thread, I have the feeling that jazz is going to come alive for me again, and soon.

My wife and I were in the habit of going out to hear live music every week for the longest time. Health problems for both of us intervened and we haven't heard any live music for about two years. We've been going out to eat 2 or 3 times a week, because it's fun, and eliminates the work of preparing food, which neither of us feels up to daily. But clubbing and the symphony have just been to much to bear.

Now we realize this lack of living musical input is killing the love of music. Next weekend, we're going out to hear something, and every weekend, until this pall on our souls lifts.

I have confidence this will bring back jazz and everything else to a full level of enjoyment.

It's been death by abstinence!

Since this lack of joy insinuated itself into our music listening, we have been losing ground.

I attribute our reborn interest in going out to live music again to the conversations we have had on this forum. This malaise is part of the illness we are climbing out of. I will take a renewed interest in jazz as a sign that the illness has finally passed.

Thanks for prodding us out the front door and into the clubs again :-)

We are starting Jan. 30th, going to Snug Harbor to hear "Deacon John and the Ivories". This will be all R & B and Soul of the best quality.

This came today.

Do you know Stan Getz and Bossa Nova?

Back in the land of chrome bumpers and martinis, this music meant romance.

I made a pitcher of martinis, and we enjoyed each other.

Now that I know how to use it, it's getting more air time :-)

First a date to go see "Deacon John and the Ivories", now this ...

Hi Mike

That sounds positive: I so hope you like it. I think it's a wonderful record. If you like the tracks with Stacey Kent, she has lots of records, with Jim on them too.

Nigel

quote:

Originally posted by hungryhalibut:
That sounds positive: I so hope you like it.
Nigel

It's making a nice evening. It will be played again, and often.

Hurrah! the thread is back after its spell under review.

I have another suggestion - Lyoba Revisited by Thierry Lang. Piano, flugelhorn, bass and four cellos. A sort of jazz/classical hybrid. Very nice indeed!

Nigel

quote:

Originally posted by hungryhalibut:
Hurrah! the thread is back after its spell under review.

I have another suggestion - Lyoba Revisited by Thierry Lang. Piano, flugelhorn, bass and four cellos. A sort of jazz/classical hybrid. Very nice indeed!

Nigel

It's ordered. No arguing with success :-)