The Jazz Workshop #2

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Six String
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The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby Six String » 07 Apr 2011, 15:53

Here we are in our new home. Yep, no furniture yet and it's kind of echo-y but once we get some stuff in here it will be ok. Thanks to everyone here who has made this thread so successful. I never thought we would get to 80 pages. Cheers to one and all.

Now playing "Chet" by Chet Baker. One of my favorite albums. You've got one of the great trumpet players of his time paired with Bill Evans. You could do worse waking up to such beautiful music.
One could almost say it should be as ubiquitous as Kind of Blue. Slighly cooler but just as hip.
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Balboa
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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby Balboa » 07 Apr 2011, 16:18

Cool! I will be round soon!

I don't have 'Chet', nor do I have a lot by him actually (I know more about his life than I do his music..). I should make more of an effort to check him out.

Bill Evans is a monster though - considering he doesn't look cool or anything, he is just all over modern jazz like a rash. I hear his influence in so many young players - more so than anyone else actually.
Of course, I was mostly stoned at the time.

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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby The Prof » 07 Apr 2011, 16:34

The old one is now in Classic Threads

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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby harvey k-tel » 07 Apr 2011, 16:44

The Prof wrote:The old one is now in Classic Threads


Tempora mutatur et nos mutamur in illis

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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby Six String » 07 Apr 2011, 19:54

The Prof wrote:The old one is now in Classic Threads



Thanks!
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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby Six String » 07 Apr 2011, 23:20

Pepper Adams is my favorite baritone sax player. There are others who may be "just as good" but he's something special to my ears. First off, he's got amazing speed and agility with an instrument that seems to be incredibly difficult to play at all. It's hard to imagine how much air you have to blow through that sucker to even get a note and then you've got Pepper playing it like Coltrane on tenor. His tone never seems to suffer from the speed which is what I'm so impressed with. He did a bunch of recordings with Donald Byrd that I've admired for years. They're like the dynamic duo in a similar vein as Kenny Dorham and Joe Hendersion, another pair of musicians who worked together for a while and made some great recordings. Some baritone players have that old timey sound still stuck in the big band days which isn't to say that music isn't good but Pepper Adams was very forward thinking at the time. My introduction to him was when I bought a Japanese pressing of his 10 to 4 At the Five Spot w/Byrd, Doug Watkins, Bobby Timmons and Elvin Jones. Live jazz dates are usually great if the recordings are decent and this one makes the grade. A couple of others I really like are Encounter and Pepper Adams Plays Charlie Mingus.

Encounter has Ron Carter, Joe Henderson Elvin Jones and Tommy Flanagan.
Plays Charlie Mingus has two bands on the album but Thad and Hank Jones and Danny Richmond are common denominators along with Bob Cranshaw, Bennie Powell, Charles McPherson and Zoot Sims on some cuts.

I recently bought a reissue on vinyl of Pepper Adams Quintet on Mode Records w/Stu Williams (?), Carl Perkins,
Leroy Vinnegar and Mel Lewis. I haven't had time to really listen properly but I got drawn to it because of Carl Perkins, a West Coast pianist who died at a fairly young age that I really like. He played with Curtis Counce, Art Pepper and a few other hip West Coast artists during his short time on earth. He did one album of his own on the Dootone label, Introducing Carl Perkins. If you see it in any format, grab it.

So who's your favorite bari- player? Sahib Shihab? Leo Parker? I want names!!!
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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby fange » 08 Apr 2011, 01:43

Six String wrote:So who's your favorite bari- player? Sahib Shihab? Leo Parker? I want names!!!


The first to make a big impression on me was Gerry Mulligan. Birth Of The Cool was one of the first jazz albums i ever heard, and when i started listening to Chet Baker in my teens, his group of the early 50s with Mulligan and Chico Hamilton was always on the comps i would find and became a fast favourite.

More recently though, Pepper Adams has probably had the most time and love in terms of listening. He made so many great albums with Byrd in the late 50s - early 60s, and he was a favourite with Duke Pearson long into the late 60s as well, coz the producer knew that Adams would sound great and bring the swing whatever the setting.

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This is a great 2 disc set. The live setting is perfect for Byrd and Adams to lay out the longer solos and hear their chemistry together, and the sound is terrific.
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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby Six String » 08 Apr 2011, 06:27

It's hard to go wrong with Pepper and Byrd. Those are good live dates.

NP Pepper Adams Quintet and a little rye whisky. :D
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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby Snarfyguy » 08 Apr 2011, 19:39

NP Coltrane - Lush Life, title track.

Donald Byrd and Red Garland's solos really express the world-weary mood of the unsung lyrics.

I find it incredible that Billy Staryhorn wrote this at age 16!
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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby clive gash » 09 Apr 2011, 23:53

Weather Report from '71 with John Surman and Alan Skidmore! Bah, embedding not allowed - click to watch on youtube.









If you'd told me 10 years ago that I'd be in on a Saturday night digging Weather Report I'd have spat in your face - what a fool I was!
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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby fange » 10 Apr 2011, 03:32

It's funny how your tastes change and expand over the years, ain't it. I've grown more into WR as time as gone on as well, and while they may never be a real favourite i'm certainly enjoying some of their records much more these days. Such is life.


NP

Image

Kenny Dorham, Tommy Flanagan, Paul Chambers and Art Taylor

Such a beautiful album.
A quintet like this could hardly fail you'd argue, and you'd be right. From the mix of songs to the playing, this is simply wonderful jazz. The Dorham originals are great, especially the exquisite bop of Lotus Blossom.
Dorham's tone is so warm and complete, the full package. He never sounds limited in his scope, even on the long long lines of a mid-tempo tune like Old Folks, where he seems to be talking to you for ages without missing a beat, always sounding in total control and saying something with every phrase he plays. Even an old chestnut like Mack The Knife sounds fresh and alive as these guys play it, Flanagan's elegant and economical comping a delight as the rhythm section bounce lightly behind the trumpet.
Chambers and Taylor lock in like white on rice throughout the album - there's a point in Blue Spring Shuffle where PC solos, and i just found myself grinning at AT's little shuffles and snare shots - just a joy to listen to as they pushed Chambers on, dancing around the beat.

It's really sad that Kenny Dorham is so often forgotten these days coz he was such a great trumpeter and a very good song-writer as well. Freddie Hubb has said Dorham was one of his trumpet idols, and Andrew Hill has also spoken about how incredible Dorham was, both as a person and a musician. But i guess then as now, the music business is seldom an easy place for a 'quiet' musician.
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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby Six String » 10 Apr 2011, 16:25

Weather Report was one of my early jazz explorations and then I got away from them and all electric jazz for a while to get into acoustic jazz. Carlsson helped bring me back in the fold with their Sweetnighter album. I had it on a reel to reel tape in the 70s but never had the actual lp. With my tape deck long gone it had been a while since I had heard the album but it's now my favorite by them.

Nice call on Kenny Dorham in general and Quiet Kenny in particular. He made some really great albums in his time and that's definitely one of them. A few months ago I got his Afro Cuban album from Music Matters on 45 rpm. Somehow I had never got around to getting that one in any format. Great stuff indeed. His pairing with Joe Henderson in Joe's early years was brilliant. I've got to go to Berkeley today to get a new cartridge for the TT. It's finally in after waiting over a month.
I think I'll take Quiet Kenny for the road.
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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby Six String » 11 Apr 2011, 03:05

I went shopping at Amoeba's in Berkeley while my cartridge was being installed. I found some great stuff that while reasonably priced for the most part still earned me a large bill due to quantity. :D

Sonny Criss I'll Catch the Sun (Prestige)
Duke Pearson - Wahoo! (Blue Note) reissue
Dollar Brand/Abdullah Ibrahim - African Market Place
Sonny Criss Plays Cole Porter (Imperial) Classic Records 200gm Reissue
Hampton Hawes - The Green Leaves of Summer (Contemporary)
Booker Ervin - The Freedom and Space Sessions (Prestige Twofer)
George Russell - New York, NY and Jazz in the Space Age (MCA Twofer)
Randy Weston - Blue (Arch Records)

Book
Footprints - Bio on Wayne Shorter

Looking at my record list I realise that I have all of them on cd or cdr but it was time to get these for real, i.e. on vinyl. I'd love to have original Booker Ervin lps for the individual albums but this will have to do until they come along. Sonny Criss is such a monster player and Hampton Hawes is another underrated musician I have a lot of respect for. So nothing really new here for me but with my new Benz Glider, I can safely say I've never heard them sound this good before.
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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby Six String » 11 Apr 2011, 04:47

I forgot abou Gerry Mulligan! :oops: Good call of course. I don't have a lot by him but I do enjoy what I have. There's one of those "Meets" albums with Stan Getz where they switch instruments for a short while. Has anyone in jazz every done that before? I also love his album with Monk. That is a very good Monk album. I also have one with him and Paul Desmond who is a favorite of mine.
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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby Six String » 11 Apr 2011, 05:57

These opening sentences for the Booker Ervin Twofer of Freedom and Space Book by Stanley Crouch succinctly describes why I love the " Book."

"Though these recordings were made in the early 1960s, they do not sound very old at all, not in the least bit dated. Much of that has to do with that by 1963 Booker Ervin, Jaki Byard, Richard Davis and Alan Dawson had each achieved a level of emotional, intellectual and technical sophistication equal to that of the top-shelf performers of the classic past and of the generation that has since evolved." Yep, that's it. That is one moster quartet there.
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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby Six String » 14 Apr 2011, 16:58

Does anyone else own the Bill Evans Quintessence album? It's part of his Warner Bros. period which I rate very highly and this one's different in that it's a quintet instead of his usual solo or trio outing. He has Harold Land and Kenny Burrell on the front line along with the great Ray Brown and Philly Jo Jones taking care of the rhythm. What a dream band! Can you imagine seeing the group live in a small club ala Village Vanguard? Holy Smokes! No one is hot rodding but at the same time no one defers either. They are consumate professionals who are just doing "their thing." The OJC cd sounds very good but if you have a turntable the vinyl sounds superb to my ears. Harold Land is one of my favorite tenor players who deserves more recognition. He's not one of those sheets of sound, Trane imitators although I'm not sure how I would describe his playing other than "his own." Bill Evans did very few recordings under his own name with a quintet or even a quartet.

Another large (for Bill) group session is Jazz In The Space Age by George Russell. If you ever see a copy in any format, get it. I've had a d/l cdr for several years and I found a copy of it as a twofer with New York, NY, the latter with some hip spoken word bits by Jon Hendricks that makes you feel like you're on the streets of NYC watching the action. I can't believe that I even hesitated on buying it, thinking I should wait for an original pressing. Those are rare and expensive if and when you do come across one. I've only seen one on ebay and it was too expensive for me. Thanks to my new cartridge this reissue sounds very good to me. Bill really gets out there in space as the title suggests when he solos. When you're used to hearing his albums with Scott Lofarro and Paul Motian you'd swear the martians kidnapped Evans and replaced him with one of their androids. He's like another artist all together. For me though, it's the horns on the Russell albums that always sound great regardless of who's blowing. He has a way of getting the best out of whoever plays on his recordings and this album is no exception. I think it's my favorite album by George Russell. So if you see a copy just buy it. Even if you don't love it right away, keep it. Some day you'll be glad you did.
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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby Balboa » 14 Apr 2011, 20:35

Six String wrote:These opening sentences for the Booker Ervin Twofer of Freedom and Space Book by Stanley Crouch succinctly describes why I love the " Book."

"Though these recordings were made in the early 1960s, they do not sound very old at all, not in the least bit dated. Much of that has to do with that by 1963 Booker Ervin, Jaki Byard, Richard Davis and Alan Dawson had each achieved a level of emotional, intellectual and technical sophistication equal to that of the top-shelf performers of the classic past and of the generation that has since evolved." Yep, that's it. That is one moster quartet there.


You turned me onto that quartet a few years back and for that I will always be grateful - the interplay between Richard Davis and Alan Dawson is incredible. The greatest rhythm section of all time? Well, let me put it this way, they more than hold their own against anyone you mention. PLUS Jaki Byard plays incredible, it is kinda hard to define his style - he seems just as comfortable when things are going 100mph and spinning out of control as he does leaving breathing space in a ballad. Then you put on Booker Ervin and....well you have one of the most incredible jazz quartets that ever played together.
Of course, I was mostly stoned at the time.

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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby Snarfyguy » 14 Apr 2011, 20:44

Six String wrote:Dollar Brand/Abdullah Ibrahim - African Market Place

Let me know what you think of that, will you?

I used to have and it and I really liked it (and that was before I liked any jazz), but it got lost somewhere along the way. I can't have heard it in over 20 years now. I don't even remember what it sounded like anymore.
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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby Six String » 14 Apr 2011, 23:15

Snarfyguy wrote:
Six String wrote:Dollar Brand/Abdullah Ibrahim - African Market Place

Let me know what you think of that, will you?

I used to have and it and I really liked it (and that was before I liked any jazz), but it got lost somewhere along the way. I can't have heard it in over 20 years now. I don't even remember what it sounded like anymore.


I've only heard it once so after another listen I'll report back. I had so much new vinyl and the new cartridge that it's been hard to repeat anything. I finally got around to listening to a Los Lobos album I bought last week and was blown away by it.
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Re: The Jazz Workshop #2

Postby Spock! » 14 Apr 2011, 23:26

Snarfyguy wrote:
Six String wrote:Dollar Brand/Abdullah Ibrahim - African Market Place

Let me know what you think of that, will you?

I used to have and it and I really liked it (and that was before I liked any jazz), but it got lost somewhere along the way. I can't have heard it in over 20 years now. I don't even remember what it sounded like anymore.





It's a gem. Carlos Ward plays really well. A great mix of african music, r & b riffing & jazz creating a primal sound that never fails to move me.
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