JAZZ - THE THREAD

https://archive.org/details/davidwnivenjazz&tab=collection

  Quote

DESCRIPTION
650 tapes · 1,000 hours · 1,378 WAV files · 637 GB · 691 JPEG scans of cassette liner cards & literature. Meticulously Collected, Compiled, and Narrated by David W. Niven, 1930-1993. Generously Donated by David W. Niven to the Foxborough High School Jazz Program, Stephen C. Massey, Director, 2010. Archived to CD-Quality Digital Audio by Kevin J. Powers, 2010-2011.
An Early Jazz Recording Collection by David W. Niven
My 20-year-old cousin introduced me to jazz when I was 10. It was a 10” 78 RPM OK recording of “My Heart” made in Chicago on November 12, 1925, by Louis Armstrong's Hot Five with Kid Ory, trombone; Johnny Dodds, clarinet; Lil Armstrong, piano; and Johnny St. Cyr, banjo. On the reverse was “Cornet Chop Suey.”
My hip cousin then advised me to get some recordings by another cornetist, Bix Beiderbecke, who started recording for OK the same year (1925). I dug, again, into my newspaper route money (35 cents) and bought the October 5, 1927, recording of “At the Jazz Band Ball,” backed by “Jazz Me Blues” by “Bix and his Gang”: Bix on cornet; Bill Rank, trombone; Don Murray, clarinet; Adrian Rollini, bass sax; Frank Signorelli, piano; and Chauncey Morehouse, drums. Over the next few years, I acquired every record Bix made prior to his early death in 1931.
Encouraged by my interest in jazz recordings, my cousin came up with a third suggestion for my collection: Duke Ellington. One year prior to Louis' and Bix's first recording, Duke and his six piece band “The Washingtonians” with Bubber Miley, cornet; Charlie Irvis, trombone; Otto Hardwicke, sax; Fred Guy, banjo; Sonny Greer, drums; and Duke, piano, had their initial commercial recording date in November 1924. I became the proud owner of every recording up to the start of WWII and some 75% of his recordings until his death in 1974, some 180 hours of the recorded Duke Ellington.
Throughout the ten years prior to WWII, during my high school and college years, my 78 RPM 10”, followed by 33 1/3 RPM LP, collection grew to the thousands. All the big names of jazz, along with lesser legends, were included, and I found myself with a first class treasure of early jazz music. But I also found that such a collection was a first-class burden when I was moving through the post-war years with family, financial, and other fidelity responsibilities taking priority. I had always hoped that maybe at least one of my kids would show an interest in my collection, so I began making tapes that could include a chronological compilation of my collection, along with commentary: date and place of recording, personnel, soloists, etc.
The main reason for doing this rather major project was to put my collection into some kind of compendium form that would attract my children to the music that had been of such significance in my life. My collection amounted to over 10,000 hours of tapes. No two people will agree with my selection of Legends. I decided to choose from the years prior to the BeBop period, i.e., before Gillespie, Bird, Monk, Miles.
Archivist's Notes by Kevin J. Powers
It appears, based on Mr. Niven's audio commentaries referencing certain artists still being alive at the time of the commentaries (for example, Buck Clayton, who passed away in 1991, is living, and Johnny Hodges' salary is compared to “1993 dollars”), that he put the tape compilation together during a period of time beginning somewhere in the mid to late 1980s and ending somewhere in the early 1990s. In my conversations with Mr. Niven, he has indicated that the materials in this selection of “Early Jazz Legends” only represents about 40-50% of what he once had in his jazz record collection. Other legends, such as Bennie Moten and many, many others, were in his collection did not make the “cut” for these tapes.
In order to create a complete copy of all of Mr. Niven's liner cards, I scanned each card at 400 dpi resolution. The JPEG images that resulted are as legible as the original liner cards. Until I or someone else type up all of the liner card listings, we have a complete copy of the cards.
Each card lists artist, tape number, years, and tunes. Below the tunes is a key to the numbers next to each tune, which indicate the source recordings. For example “1 Cottontail” and “1: RCA Victor LP In A Mellotone” indicates that the recording of “Cottontail” is from RCA Victor LP “In a Mellotone.”
Condition of the Tapes: Many, if not most, of these tapes are in terrific shape, but others are in mediocre or even poor condition. I have rigorously and regularly cleaned, maintained, and tested (with known excellent-condition cassettes) the heads of the cassette deck used for this project. All defects heard here are on the tapes themselves rather than the deck used to play the tapes back.
This is an extraordinary collection. It has been Mr. Niven's life's work. It represents the very finest American music of the twentieth century, and because Mr. Niven took the time and care to record these commentaries, he has produced a library that is accessible to everyone from jazz aficionados to jazz novices. For the Foxborough High School Jazz Program, which has enriched the lives of so many students, this remarkable compendium of jazz recordings should similarly enrich the program itself. This is all made even more remarkable by the fact that, had Mr. Niven not had the foresight to contact Steve Massey in 2010, this entire collection may have disappeared. How many collections of jazz like this get junked after estate sales every year? Thank you, David—your devotion to jazz will enrich the musical education of hundreds of students!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyJ_H7h98ro

Sonny Stitt/Bud Powel/J.J. Johnson

some of the best from stitt

this is from 1955 and the intro arrangement is common or used by other perfomers like Miles Davis ... but I wonder what is that horrible, loud, electric sounding obstinate ostinato part ... sounds like a phucked up digital metronome ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENqDVCXj9x8

The Bee Gees singing Coltrane ... or are they?

Are they?

  On 7/1/2016 at 1:59 PM, LimpyLoo said:

Are they?

is that a rhetorical question?

I stumbled on to that video while drunk and thought this is great, but obviously, it's a joke, made from Staying Alive vocal stems, even Youtube has that vocal track, although drowned in reverb

as a joke at least it does not not overstay it's welcome ...

while the melody in Giant Steps is simple the chord progression is strange and baffled the contemporaries according to what i've read; nowadays jazz players are supposed to be able to solo over those chords in their dreams but if one listens to the original recording one can hear that the pianist doesn't really get going an effortless flow ...

in contrast what is often thought Coltrane's jazz isn't just or primarily about taking drugs and then going with the feeling, there was more thinking and method instead of just madness ... but of course the theory and thinking are like ladder later to be set aside ... ok i'm sorry if i'm not making sense, English is my second or third language

Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus. oh my this is good.

I just asked "are they?" because I can't play audio from tapatalk

And as far as the changes to "Giant Steps" baffling contemporaries...sorta. Keep in mind the tune "Have You Met Miss Jones?" was a well-known standard by then, and the bridge uses the same 3-tonic device (although it modulates in the opposite direction to "Giant Steps")...not to mention the Tadd Dameron 'turnaround' was in popular use by then which, along with Slonimsky's Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns and probably Messiaen, is where Coltrane nicked the device from.

But also, the "Giant Steps" changes baffled Coltrane himself. He wasn't at all comfortable playing over the changes (listen to the dozen or outtakes), and mostly he just pieced together pre-designed licks...listen to "Countdown" (also "Coltrane changes") for further evidence of this: he plays a variation of the same solo for 5 or 6 choruses...

Made a list of my favorite tracks / top songs on Kamasi Washington - The Epic. 

The album is normally 3 hours long and that can be a bit intimidating. (read: for me)

1.01 - Kamasi Washington - Change of the Guard - 12:16

1.02 - Kamasi Washington - Askim - 12:35

2.01 - Kamasi Washington - Miss Understanding - 8:46

3.01 - Kamasi Washington - Re Run Home - 14:06

3.02 - Kamasi Washington - Cherokee - 8:14

3.03 - Kamasi Washington - Clair de Lune - 11:08

These ones are 1:07:05 in total. 

Irish jazz guitarist Louis Stewart just died. He was really very good, probably not all that widely known outside of Ireland sadly.

The album this one is from is worth checking out if you can find it (Out On His Own):

Toots Thielemans died today. Rippety.

godspeed toots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg5UMMiC5zo

jazz fusion? jazz fusion

intense and slightly funny yet masterful

Beautiful.

EDIT: Fixed link

sparse, restrained  and pretty

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

my old man had a copy of that in his vinyl vault, shame we were never trusted to use them unsupervised.....the consequences of drunkenly ruining his rarest Gerry Mulligan lp as a teenager

this has been on repeat in the car over various longer drives recently

wow, what a lovely tune.

  On 4/20/2016 at 11:38 PM, Salvatorin said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UA3aTbiwJc

What kind of Jazz is this?