The Song Fight Bulletin Board

I also didn't "get" jazz until I took a "history of jazz" class last summer. There are still some things I don't care for, but at least now I have something of an understanding of how they fit in and can appreciate them on that level... big band swing music, fer instance...

Ornette Coleman opened for a Grateful Dead show one time (Jerry Garcia sat in, having played on an album about that time), and most of us didn't get Ornette. I was hoping that jazz class would help me understand, but even the instructor admitted he was pretty far out there. One thing I thought was interesting was that, after a lot of experimenting with his harmelodics theories, Coleman himself realized he was on to something when he discovered he could tell when he'd played something and it was wrong...

My fave discovery from the class was Sonny Rollins - sax player who has had a long, long career and is still playing. You know in the Simpsons, when they show the old jazz guy standing on a bridge in the middle of the night playing by himself? Sonny Rollins was that guy, used to go out on the bridge in NYC and practice for hours and hours. "Saxophone Colossus" is considered his masterpiece (I think), but I've only been able to find old used CD versions for $20+ so far...

Charles (Art is my middle name!)

Re: Sonny Rollins, "Saint Thomas" is one of my favorite tunes from the Ken Burns soundtrack.

brad mehldau does an awesome jazz piano version of radiohead's 'paranoid android' and i think he did a version of 'exit music' too.
also, john pizzarelli does some pretty cool shit with the guitar.

I really got into the Benny Goodman stuff on the Ken Burns doco - especially with Gene Kraupa on drums.

I don't know if that's really jazz - I figured I liked it because it was more like rock and roll.

I always equate jazz with the noodly stuff - which as I said earlier - I don't get.

Anyone familiar with Medeski? Or Medeski Martin and Wood? I think they go by the second one, but they're incredible experimental jazz stuff I guess you'd call it. Really fantastic, I think.

Agree. Medeski Martin Wood = great. Jazz + turntablism = geniosity.

Also: George Braith. Played two horns at once, self harmonizingly. Beautiful ,amazing stuff. His one horned stuff is also not shabby.]

However, Charles Mingus & Art Blakey are prob'ly my favorite jazzmos.

the human cello wrote:Anyone familiar with Medeski? Or Medeski Martin and Wood? I think they go by the second one, but they're incredible experimental jazz stuff I guess you'd call it. Really fantastic, I think.

I saw them live at a festival once. Their fans were pretty hardcore into it, and I guess I would've been too if I were more familiar with the music. As it was, I thought it was neat, but I don't remember any of it now.

Yeah, there's a Rochester Jazz Festival every year, and apparently usually they come so I hope I can go when it comes again next year.

Damn, where to start.

You know who's crazy? Rahsaan Roland Kirk. CRAZY.

Anyhow, one track that for me is just godly is "Central Park West" off the Woody Herman Big Band 50th Anniversary Tour album. The most beautiful combination of songwriting and arranging I've ever come across. Funny thing is that it took a while before it grew on me. I love me a nice thick big band sound... Mingus had a great big band. Benny Goodman though I like in trio, quartet, quintet, not so much big band.

Also, Horace Silver and the Silver-Brass Ensemble. Not so much in other groups, but particularly the album "It's Got To Be Funky". It's not exactly big band, and definitely not small group. Plus it has Andy Bey who is a very unique singer.

Let's see... Modern Jazz Quartet, "Echoes" is a great album, for totally different reasons from the above stuff. Kind of goes along with Brubeck in my mind.

The Yellowjackets, although Bob Mintzer bugs me sometimes. Best albums... "Yellowjackets", "Blue Hats", "Politics". And "Samurai Samba" is a great name. Weather Report I don't like quite as much as The Yellowjackets, although "Heavy Weather" is definitely a great album. Seriously though, Matinee Idol and Capetown are good examples of early Yellowjackets versus later Yellowjackets. Avoid recent Yellowjackets, it seems they got tired of playing good all the time, and Bob Mintzer turned into a robot.

Wynton Marsalis is the new Kenny G, sez the bebop crowd, but they just don't get it. Player haters one and all. Arturo Sandoval is another great trumpet dude, which brings up Paquito Rivera because they's both cubanos. Also cool.

Man, there's SO much quality jazz out there to listen to. Can't forget Dizzy, Miles, Coltrane, Monk, Rollins, Getz, the always great Chick Corea + Bobby McFerrin concert combo meal... Way too many to list.

One more mention to the song Soul Dance off the album "Wish" by Joshua Redman, this is an awesomely subtle example of really good blending of time in 3 and 4. I can't remember that damn classical music term... for combining triple and duple meter meter... someone help meeeee.... save me from APHASIA! I guess this post is over.

Wynton Marsalis personally donated large sums of money to my Alma Mater, so you'd best not badmouth him.

I love Masada.. this is John Zorn's klezmer jazz quartet.
"Live in Sevilla, 2000" is really great.

to quote allmusic.com:

"If there's anyone who still believes that John Zorn is nothing more than an avant-garde screamer, look no further."

Other favorites:

the Naked Lunch soundtrack (Ornette Coleman)
Alan Shorter's "Orgasm".
Bill Laswell + Peter Brotzmann's "Low Life"

I like my jazz angular and weird, so your mileage may vary.

-craig

My jazz collection is very limited, but not because I don't like it. I just haven't checked into much.

I do appreciate Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" album, as well as John Coltrane's "My favorite things".

I also have a CD copy of some Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Armstrong duets, and it is amazing stuff.

I also took a chance on a CD that was in the dollar bin at a local record store, and I was pleasantly surprised by Eliane Elias "So Far, So Close" (Blue Note). So impressed that I picked up a couple of her other albums too.

Oh, and I like Esquivel, but I think that would be classified more as 'lounge' and not 'jazz'

ROCK!

Glenn (DR FUNK)

Generic wrote:Wynton Marsalis personally donated large sums of money to my Alma Mater, so you'd best not badmouth him.

Show me where I said anything bad about Wynton Marsalis.

the Jazz wrote:
Wynton Marsalis is the new Kenny G, sez the bebop crowd, but they just don't get it.

Oops. I don't know what I was sniffing, but I thought that being "the new Kenny G" was supposed to be an honor. I see what you meant.

Generic wrote:I thought that being "the new Kenny G" was supposed to be an honor.

Wow, dude, way to miss the point yourself
Kenny G an honor?!?!?
-bill

HeuristicsInc wrote:

Generic wrote:I thought that being "the new Kenny G" was supposed to be an honor.

Wow, dude, way to miss the point yourself
Kenny G an honor?!?!?
-bill

ehh the guy is good and can play really well... but he's overrated...

a group i've been listenin' to a lot... bella fleck and the flecktones are awesome!!!...
don't really know what they'd be classified as

bela fleck is very cool.
a friend invited us to see them play at wolftrap a couple years ago. it wa a great show, even though i only know one album (flight of the hippo or some suchlike). my friend was very impressed victor wooten, and i have to say, yeah, it was great.
-bill

A clip from back in the day when jazz was fun.
Gene Krupa is officially my favorite showman. I can't help but laugh with everybody when he's flipping his sticks around like a madman. And honestly, I love the music too. What happened to jazz? I can't dig this modern stuff - it seems tuneless to me. I gotta get me some old big band jazz music. Any recommendations?

my favorite big band is glenn miller. do you need that sort of recommendation?
-bill

Flim & the BBs. I love contemporary jazz.
Also Spyro Gyra

Three years too late, I'll reccomend that JB check out Buddy Rich, particularly the Channel One Suite.

Benny Goodman Live At Carnegie Hall, with Gene Krupa on drums. I've touted this before. Check out the recently deceased Max Roach for some of the best jazz drumming ever. He played with Miles Davis, John Coltrane, etc.