Giant Steps

  On 4/16/2010 at 5:15 AM, Greg Reason said:

 

 

Miles Davis = the Bowie of jazz (ie had an ear for talent and was good at getting the best of the new crop to work for him)

lol i never thought about it this way but its so true.

no one except for miles couldve relesed something like 'on the corner'. i always thought it was funny that he had such an aversion to free jazz but could then release a track like 'rated x', which is every bit as difficult and abstract as anything ornette coleman ever put out.

  On 4/16/2010 at 5:00 PM, Greg Reason said:

Thelonius was/is incredible. Very unique style, very angular, which got him a lot of hate back in the day (including from Miles Davis) but that makes him stand out from the crowd so many years on.

 

Herbie Hancock is brilliant too. Absolutely brilliant. Seriously, if 'Rockit' is all you've heard you need to go listen to Maiden Voyage, Mwandishi and especially Sextant; the later is a precursor to "IDM" and it was made in 1971! Plus the shit he did with Miles is great too, particularly In a Silent Way but you'll be hard pressed picking Herbie's lines from Corea and Zawinul's.

 

One of the greatest things I ever saw live was Herbie with his four-piece (including the mighty Vinnie Colaiuta!!) backed by a fucking sixty piece orchestra. Utterly sublime.

as far as herbie hancock you need head hunters and thrust too

Thrust is great, Headhunters I think is overrated. Certainly important for Herbie in that it sold a hell of a lot and gave him a standard ('Chameleon') but it's one of his more boring records imo.

While we're talking about Herbie's not-so-Jazz material, I have to say Future to Future is well worth a listen. A lot of people hated on it but I think it's actually a really good record.

Seeing as we've digressed to Herbie, y'all need to check out Flood, a japan-only live album from 75... simply amazing shit.

But anyhoo Miles, Thelonius, Mingus, Coltrane... all gods in their own ways.

anyone else heard the extended version of a love supreme? trane only played it live twice, and by a stroke of luck one of those was captured on wire recorder, which was cutting-edge at the time - and that makes up the second disk. it's crazy - way wilder, you can definitely hear hints of ayler and coleman in the solos. good quality too.

thelonius is my own personal fave, cause his dissonance is uncanny good fucking wicked. Plus he does the heroin shuffle.

My favorite performer though is probably Oscar. Just cause.

How is it that some of you are on the topic of great jazz composers and nobody has mentioned Duke Ellington?

  On 4/17/2010 at 6:23 AM, Wall Bird said:

How is it that some of you are on the topic of great jazz composers and nobody has mentioned Duke Ellington?

Because we are uncultured heathens. we have no cultural capital.

However, your mention of Duke has also led me to see that there has been no mention of Charlie Parker.

WTF WTF

eric dolphy, andrew hill

favorite jazz albums include

karma by pharoah sanders. all must hear this one. there is absolutely nothing like getting high on a summer night and listening to this blasting on headphones, all the way through the half hour piece.

other than maybe doing the same thing with ascension by coltrane, or interstellar space or something.

i really like the miles davis, monk, andrew hill, dolphy side of jazz. the "cubist" stuff. huge influence for me too. miles smiles is great too.

Irvine?

  On 4/17/2010 at 10:26 AM, vamos scorcho said:

karma by pharoah sanders. all must hear this one. there is absolutely nothing like getting high on a summer night and listening to this blasting on headphones, all the way through the half hour piece.

 

other than maybe doing the same thing with ascension by coltrane, or interstellar space or something.

I listened to Ascension all the way through with headphones whilst tripping on acid once. Extremely trying experience, that's for sure!

  On 4/17/2010 at 12:47 AM, Bob Dobalina said:

Seeing as we've digressed to Herbie, y'all need to check out Flood, a japan-only live album from 75... simply amazing shit.

 

But anyhoo Miles, Thelonius, Mingus, Coltrane... all gods in their own ways.

Yes, stonking version of 'Actual Proof'!

  On 4/17/2010 at 12:56 AM, kaini said:

anyone else heard the extended version of a love supreme? trane only played it live twice, and by a stroke of luck one of those was captured on wire recorder, which was cutting-edge at the time - and that makes up the second disk. it's crazy - way wilder, you can definitely hear hints of ayler and coleman in the solos. good quality too.

That kicks ass! That's the version from Paris and it's pretty full on to consider that it was performed in full sunlight - especially seeing as Trane insisted the whole band wear suits! No doubt would have added to the urgency in the performance! And yeah, the recording is very good quality, it's awesome that someone had the foresight to capture it.

  On 4/17/2010 at 3:26 AM, chenGOD said:

My favorite performer though is probably Oscar. Just cause.

Oscar Peterson did some wonderful stuff. Big influence on Herbie too. I really like a lot of the catalog but he was quite conventional... At least he did it with immaculate touch. I really like his reinterpretation of West Side Story.

Yeah Oscar was conventional as in he played the blues a lot, but goddamn could he ever play the blues. He definitely wasn't big on the dissonance, but he was great at throwing in references to other pieces.

Witness this performance of "I Got Rhythm" when he was 25.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRIr22pv0hA

Apparently he was quite the classical pianist as well, or at least rumour has it.

ive been digging me some alice coltrane. absolutely beautiful stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuDuNfqXnrc

true, Ellington and Monk are also brilliant.