**Jazz fans 2010

A thread to continue the discussion on all things Jazz-related.

Here's a "best jazz CDs of 2009" article in today's Wall Street Journal.

I thought, if Jackie McLean's Destination Out is good enough for kidzdoc to name his thread after, I should hear it, and picked up a copy. Quite good; I especially enjoyed "Kahlil the Prophet."

I'm glad that you also enjoyed Destination Out!. I agree with you; "Kahlil the Prophet" is one of my favorite selections from the album.

I haven't been active here, but I have been reviewing jazz albums on a regular basis on my 75 Books thread. I'll list the latest review here.





My rating:


Looking Ahead! (1958) is Cecil Taylor's second album as a leader, after Jazz Advance, and features Earl Griffith on vibes, Buell Neidlinger on bass and Dennis Charles on drums. Although the music is firmly in the free jazz camp, in keeping with Cecil's reputation as one of the pioneers of this form, it is definitely not atonal. Several of the selections, especially "Luyah! The Glorious Step" and "Excursion on a Wobbly Rail", are quite lyrical, and easy to dance or workout to. Other highlights include the ballad "African Violets" and "Wallering", a tribute to the great pianist Fats Waller. The album's strength is the extent to which the musicians push each other, toward a higher goal: Neidlinger and Charles drive the soloists hard, but Taylor matches them with his intensity, during his solos and whenever Griffith comes to bat. Taylor occasionally seems to overshadow Griffith during his solos, as he seems hesitant at times during Taylor's frenetic runs, but this was only mildly distracting. This music won't be for everyone, but I would recommend it, along with Ornette Coleman's classic album The Shape of Jazz to Come (1959) as starting points for anyone who wishes to explore the origins of free jazz.

Unfortunately I couldn't find any YouTube clips from Looking Ahead!. If I find anything I'll post it here.

kidzdoc,

I should definitely check out "Looking Ahead!" I love "Jazz Advance" and Taylor's early work: fresh, creative, intense.

I just wanted to say that I totally dig Herbie Mann's "Live at the Village Gate", which I believe you recommended last year. This record - which I'm listening to as I type this - has a killer version of "It Ain't Necessarily So". Definitely one of my favorites of 2009.

Cheers!

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/03/19/postal-workers-in-gh.html

Relatively old music, actually. A field recording of for workers in a Ghanaian post office in 1975. Evidently if you've taken a course in ethnomusicology in the last 20 years you probably used textbook with this recording. However it was totally new to me; and totally impressive to a professional drummer friend of mine.

Forget the cultural baggage for a minute and just listen to it. The tune that's being whistled is a hymn written by a Ghanaian composer.

Not exactly jazz - but poly-rhythms any jazz ensemble would be proud to be able to emulate. And didn't seem worth a general music thread at this point.

I did not know that my governor had a jazz connection!

Link to 10 minute NPR piece on the "Lost Treasures of Pat Patrick"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125181048

And his father was a jazz musician, to boot. I'll listen to this later; thanks, Lois!

>8 kidzdoc: yes, that's exactly what the piece is about! (although my husband claims to have known about this already).

Fascinating NY Times story about the Savory collection, many hours of radio-broadcast jazz recorded in the 1930s by a knowledgeable jazz fan who maintained a higher technical standard than usual for the era. Among the great items: a six-minute "Body and Soul" solo by Coleman Hawkins, from 1940!

Long but very interesting article. The recorded disks could easily have been thrown away when Mr. Savory died, and many are damaged. There's also an intellectual-property angle - in many cases no one knows from whom to get permission for reproduction, and they're only 70 years old and thus nominally not yet out of copyright - we might not live to hear them. Thanks again, Disney Corporation.

#10: Thanks for pointing this out; there is a mention of this article on the front page of today's paper, and an extended article in the Arts section.

I mentioned on my thread that Abbey Lincoln died on Saturday, and included the obituary in the Sunday NYT; the Guardian also has a nice tribute to her:

Abbey Lincoln obituary

Famed jazz photographer Herman Leonard also passed away this weekend. There was very little mention in the US (I haven't seen an obituary in the NYT yet), but the BBC has a nice audio slide show in tribute to him on its web site. The link is below; 100 bonus points will be awarded to the person who correctly guesses all of these artists. I haven't yet figured out the last saxophone player.

Herman Leonard, 1923-2010