Aaron
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Posts: 6
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Post by Aaron on Mar 8, 2018 19:08:41 GMT
Welcome Aaron. I'll admit i know little to nothing about Mr Hawes (other than a few Contemporary albums I own) so i might have to check this out. It's a quick read, here's the synopsis: Hampton Hawes [1928–1977] was one of jazz's greatest pianists. Among his peers from California the self-taught Hawes was second only to Oscar Peterson. At the time of his celebration as New Star of the Year by downbeat magazine (1956), Hawes was already struggling with a heroin addiction that would lead to his arrest and imprisonment, and the interruption of a brilliant career. In 1963 President John F. Kennedy granted Hawes an Executive Pardon. In eloquent and humorous language Hampton Hawes tells of a life of suffering and redemption that reads like an improbable novel. Gary Giddins has called it "a major contribution to the literature of jazz."
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Post by gst on May 30, 2018 15:05:12 GMT
Extract from ‘As Serious As Your Life ‘ as well as some nice photos of Sun Ra:
I seem to be getting into photography more and more these days. I've been on the lookout for jazz related prints/books.
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Post by sztiv on Sept 14, 2019 13:13:14 GMT
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Post by bassman on Sept 14, 2019 15:51:47 GMT
I own it, and I did read it a long time ago. I remember it as a stunning piece of scholarly work, with some equally stunning instances of poor judgement. Hobsbawm (alias Francis Newton) on the vibraphone in jazz: "[ ... ] has established itself [ ... ] chiefly due to the dazzling talent of a few players who, for unaccountable reasons, like this sugary instrument, notably Lionel Hampton and Milt Jackson." Well, the year of publication was, I think, 1959. He should have known better all the same.
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Post by Doom Girl on Jan 17, 2020 4:06:59 GMT
Over the holiday season I found time to read some books, three of which were jazz-related .
1) “Miles & Me” is a book by Quincy Troupe. Troupe was the author of “Miles: The Autobiography of Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe” in which, through many hours spent with Miles and listening to tapes of him recorded in conversation, he masterfully captured Davis’ voice and personality on the page. In this later, short memoir Troupe describes the process of meeting and becoming close friends with Miles and writing the “autobiography.” He says that in that book he suppressed his own “voice” but now, after Miles death, he felt free and compelled to tell the story of his relationship with Miles. “Miles and Me” was originally published in 2000 but I have the newer 2018 version which has additional material added.
A large part of the book is a homage to Miles – how Troupe discovered Miles’ music as a teen and was inspired not only by the music, but by the man – a type he describes as an “unreconstructed” black man, a model of black pride and defiance. Troupe places within this category, individuals such as Paul Robeson, Robert Johnson, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Amira Baraka, among others (including, it’s clear, himself!). These parts of the book have some surprising and new (at least to me) information about Miles – how when he travelled he always carried with him pictures of Gil Evans and John Coltrane or that he never listened to his old records. Troupe also deals briefly but sensitively with some controversial aspects, such as rumors that Miles had AIDS, Miles’ personal relationship with Tony Williams, and his treatment of women, which ends on the encouraging note that late in life Miles recognized his flaws in this area and was embarked on a successful relationship in which he treated his partner with love and respect.
The most interesting part of the book for me was a 50 or so page section called “Listening to Miles,” in which Troupe goes through his recordings and performances, from the tune “Donna” in the mid-fifties – the first time he heard Miles’ music - to 1992’s “doo-bop”. It is a critical evaluation, from a reviewer who appreciates all phases of Miles’ development, and points out the high-lights (and some low-lights) of Miles development – the Miles with Bird and Dizzy, the Miles of “Donna” with Jackie McLean, of “Bags Groove” and hard bop, the first quintet and sextet, with Coltrane and Cannonball, of “Kind of Blue,” Gil Evans and “Sketches of Spain,” the second quintet, “In a Silent Way” and on to “Bitches Brew” and the great “On the Corner” (“quintessentially an album that comes from the sounds, rhythms, and attitudes that permeate the culture of that great city, New York”). Then comes the 5 years of withdrawal and silence followed by a comeback with a series of highly successful concerts and the series of albums with Warner Brothers, some more successful than others, and ending with the unfinished, at the time of Miles’ death, “doo-bop,” which like always, was looking more towards the future than the past. Troupe has perceptive comments to make on all of these phases, emphasizing the positive, but not always ignoring the negative. This was a quick and easy read but expanded my picture and appreciation of one of the greatest musicians of all time.
2) I found in a fantastic bookstore a used copy of an old book “Live at the Village Vanguard” by Max Gordon, the club’s founder and owner, with an Introduction by Nat Hentoff. This book was originally published in 1980 but the copy I have is the Da Capo Press paperback reprint (date unknown). The cover shows a picture of Max, grinning and with cigar in hand, at one of the miniscule tables that were (and were, at my last visit) found in the club. This is superimposed on a beautiful classic photo of Dexter Gordon and a young Woody Shaw on the bandstand.
This book is filled with local color about New York City in the ‘30s through the ‘70s. Max describes how he was sent by his parents – immigrants from Lithuania – from his hometown of Portland, Oregon (where he attended Reed College, the school that now has a new President that reportedly has “70,000 albums and CDs”) to New York City where he enrolled in Columbia University Law School. He didn’t last long in law school and got caught up in the artistic life of Greenwich Village, where he met a young lady who had strong ideas about what a club catering to artistic young people should be, and convinced him to open up a club with her. He borrowed the money to do just that and after much hard work they opened up “The Village Fair.” One week after, she left town and he was left holding the bag.
He discovered, however, that he loved the club life, and with a new location and partner, soon opened “The Village Vanguard” on February 26, 1934. About a year later they found a better location on Seventh Avenue South and moved to the location where it stands to this day. In its early years, the club featured revues with Broadway show-type songs and later moved on to folk and blues singers and comedians. Max describes meeting people such as Judy Holliday, the famous song-writing team of Comden and Green, “Leadbelly,” Josh White, the Weavers, Woody Guthrie, Harry Belafonte, Peter, Paul and Mary, Pearl Baily, Barbra Streisand, Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen. It is amazing to consider that Max and the Vanguard (and his other club “The Blue Angel”) actually introduced many of these artists to the larger New York public and was, in no small measure, responsible for their success. At times, a bit of bitterness comes through in his writing, when he describes how he was often out-priced by the artists, as they moved on to bigger venues and more lucrative deals.
Although Max often welcomed jazz groups to the club, it wasn’t until the mid to late 50s that jazz bands came to dominate the schedule and the Vanguard became the place to hear the best in modern jazz. The description of these later years were of the most interest to me and there are many anecdotes and pictures of the jazz cream of the crop, especially Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Roland Kirk, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, et al….. This book was another quick and easy read, an enjoyable way to spend a few evenings by the fireside during this cold and rainy season.
3) The real challenge was reading “The Jazz of Physics” by Stephon Alexander, who is a Professor of Physics, specializing in “cosmology and quantum gravity,” at Brown University in the United States. He also professes to be a jazz saxophonist and this book attempts to fuse these two interests into a coherent whole. It is a new book, published in 2016, and now out in paperback. I have read it twice so far and still have not quite digested half of it. In a word, I think it tries to do too much, but I would still recommend it, as it is overflowing with new ideas and concepts, anecdotes about interesting people, and commentary on what it is like to be a young black man working at the cutting edge(s) of modern physics and modern music.
It seems to me that the book has two major themes, each incredibly complex, and then attempts to merge the two. The first deals with the origin of the universe - where did atoms, molecules, planets, stars, us, come from? Stephon proposes that sound played a role in the origin of the cosmos. Like light and all kinds of electromagnetic forces, sound is made up of waves (in some models). It is a physical thing with an associated energy and can play inductive and reactive roles in event. How sound may have played a role in the origin of the cosmos has apparently been a long-standing (new to me) area of investigation and this most recent exposition involves string theory and the associated realization that we live in a space of at least ten dimensions (that is, beyond the conventional four of space – x, y, and z axes – and time). Unfortunately, in this book for a general audience, the theory involves far too much arcane terminology and difficult mathematical and physical concepts that would require much more explanation and too many pages to be intelligible in any real sense of “understanding,” at least for me.
One way Stephon links the notion of the cosmos to jazz is in his proposal that throughout time, for the 11 billion years or so before we showed up, the “sound” of the universe has gone through a myriad of changes, such as in a jazz improvisation, until finally a set of conditions came into being which fulfilled those needed for the generation of the universe and life as we know it. Throughout the book, Stephon also comments upon his belief that his immersion in jazz stimulated creative thinking in other areas, such as physics, and this permitted him to see connections and entertain revolutionary ideas that physicists with more conventional backgrounds and interests were missing.
The other major theme, and of more interest to me, was analyses of John Coltrane’s musical explorations, studies which were apparently an inspiration to Stephon in both his music and physics. These begin with a presentation of Coltrane’s “mandala,” the circular diagram of musical notes and keys that Coltrane constructed to aid in his playing and thinking. I had heard of this diagram previously, in relation to the structure of “Giant Steps,” but knew little else about it. As described by Stephon, it seems that Coltrane gave the original copy of it to Yusef Lateef as a birthday present in 1961. It was re-worked to some extent by Ayesha Lateef and introduced in Lateef’s book, “A Repository of Scales and Melodic Patterns.” (I also learned here that Lateef published in 2006, “The Gentle Giant: The Autobiography of Yusef Lateef,” a book I now want to read).
Stephon makes much of Coltrane’s interest in Einstein and his theories. It seems this is known primarily from some comments by son Ravi and from the musician David Amram’s oft-heard story of once hearing Coltrane lucidly explain Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, all while eating a piece of pie (pi, get it?) and from the fact that among Coltrane’s last albums were “Stellar Regions,” “Interstellar Space,” and perhaps most telling, “Cosmic Sound.” In the final chapter of the book, also called “Intersteller Space,” Stephon attempts to find the “underlying structure” of Coltrane’s mandala and link it to his own notions of space, time and the origins of the cosmos. As this involved Fourier series, symmetry breaking and cyclic geometry, both the physical and musical analyses were beyond me. Perhaps one more reading is needed…..?
A quote from Stephon’s analysis of Coltrane’s diagram: “The tritone is nothing more than reflection symmetry in the twelve-tone cycle (see Figure 18.5). So in the key of C, the V is a G-dominant chord and its mirror image/tritone for G is D-flat dominant. Therefore, when we transit from G dominant to C, we can instead play D-flat dominant instead of G-dominant. This is great because D-flat dominant is a half a step from the II, which is D. Coltrane’s sixty-cycle mandala also enjoys a reflection symmetry that has the tritone.”
Believe me. This book is challenging, but actually a lot of fun to read, especially if you have a high tolerance for being in the dark half the time.
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Post by bassman on Jan 17, 2020 13:16:26 GMT
[ ... ] Stephon proposes that sound played a role in the origin of the cosmos. Like light and all kinds of electromagnetic forces, sound is made up of waves (in some models). It is a physical thing with an associated energy and can play inductive and reactive roles in event. How sound may have played a role in the origin of the cosmos has apparently been a long-standing (new to me) area of investigation [ ... ] [ ... ] One way Stephon links the notion of the cosmos to jazz is in his proposal that throughout time, for the 11 billion years or so before we showed up, the “sound” of the universe has gone through a myriad of changes, such as in a jazz improvisation, until finally a set of conditions came into being which fulfilled those needed for the generation of the universe and life as we know it. [ ... ] Such proposals are not new. In his book "Nada Brahma - die Welt ist Klang", Frankfurt am Main 1983, J.E.Berendt said that "scientists have only recently learned that the particles of an oxygen atom vibrate in a major key and that blades of grass ‘sing´.” My problem with ideas like these results from the simple fact that there is no sound in the universe unless certain waves are perceived by the ears of certain living things such as ourselves. "Sound" is a category not of physical science (or cosmology, for that matter) but of the human mind. We simply cannot hear the particles of an oxygen atom vibrate in a major key (unless we are dedicated audiophiles who can smell, as it were, the sound of audio cable A versus audio cable B but have never been able to prove it). Anyway, many thanks for your fascinating report which was a pleasure to read.
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Post by Doom Girl on Jan 17, 2020 19:43:30 GMT
Such proposals are not new. In his book "Nada Brahma - die Welt ist Klang", Frankfurt am Main 1983, J.E.Berendt said that "scientists have only recently learned that the particles of an oxygen atom vibrate in a major key and that blades of grass ‘sing´.” My problem with ideas like these results from the simple fact that there is no sound in the universe unless certain waves are perceived by the ears of certain living things such as ourselves. "Sound" is a category not of physical science (or cosmology, for that matter) but of the human mind. We simply cannot hear the particles of an oxygen atom vibrate in a major key (unless we are dedicated audiophiles who can smell, as it were, the sound of audio cable A versus audio cable B but have never been able to prove it). Anyway, many thanks for your fascinating report which was a pleasure to read. Thank you for your comments. I wasn’t aware of the book by Berendt. I see that there are English editions of it available on Amazon.com and think it would be well worth reading. One of my treasures is a first American edition (published by Hill and Wang) of Berendt’s “The New Jazz Book: A History and Guide,” a present from my Mother many, many Christmas Holidays ago. The argument about the need for an ear to be “sound” seems to be a variation of the old conundrum “If a tree falls in the forest….” This is countered by the emphasis that Stephon places on the fact that “sound” is an energetic thing in itself – a wave is propagated regardless of whether or not there is an ear upon which it may impinge. That is, “sound” has other effects than on the eardrum of a living creature. This was made clear to me the other day when someone in my neighborhood, in an overzealous celebration of the New Year, set off an enormous fire work – it set off the alarm on my car parked in the driveway. It is in these types of effects where the role of “sound” in the origin of the cosmos may lie. Perhaps we should be careful to say “sound wave” rather than “sound.” Perhaps there is a more appropriate terminology in physics, but any expertise I may have in these areas is very limited. I think your comments, and Berendt's, go beyond this though. When Stephon tries to draw any analogy between the role of "sound" in the orgin of the cosmos and the "sound" of Coltrane's music, he is perhaps guilty of a logical flaw, in mixing up two different interpretations of the word "sound." My car certainly doesn't have any appreciation of Coltrane's music!
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Post by Doom Girl on Feb 1, 2020 0:38:22 GMT
Haruki Murakami is a Japanese author that many of you are probably familiar with. (I see that some mixed feelings about his novels have been previously expressed here.) He is greatly interested in Western music, especially jazz, but also classical and popular (one of his novels, and a Japanese film based on it, is entitled NORWEGIAN WOOD), and has a huge vinyl record collection – reportedly, 10,000+ albums. His books always contain numerous mentions and descriptions of specific music pieces. Long play-lists of the music in his books have been compiled by Murakami fans. The story “Kino” in his MEN WITHOUT WOMEN collection, published in English translation in 2017, may be of interest, as the title character is a man who owns a little bar that plays jazz music records in the background. Murakami himself owned such a bar in his younger years and so one is tempted to speculate that some elements of the story might be autobiographical. Kino is a man who seems to be struggling with his past and coming to terms with his own suppressed feelings. Among the music mentioned in this story are Art Tatum’s solo piano-pieces, the Coleman Hawkins LP with the track “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho,” a Columbia Billie Holiday album with “Georgia on my Mind,” the lovely Ben Webster solo on “My Romance,” and the music of Teddy Wilson, Vic Dickenson and Buck Clayton. It’s a good story that originally appeared in the New Yorker and is available to read free on line: www.openculture.com/2015/02/new-haruki-murakami-story-kino-now-online.htmlSome facts, as adapted from Wikipedia: “The Japanese author Haruki Murakami was influenced by Western writers from Chandler to Vonnegut by way of Brautigan. His writing is frequently surrealistic and melancholic or fatalistic, marked by a Kafkaesque rendition of the recurrent themes of alienation and loneliness he weaves into his narratives. When Murakami was around 15, he began to develop an interest in jazz after attending an Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers concert in Kobe. He studied drama at Waseda University in Tokyo, where he met Yoko, now his wife. His first job was at a record store. Shortly before finishing his studies, Murakami opened a coffee house and jazz bar, Peter Cat, in Kokubunji, Tokyo, which he ran with his wife, from 1974 to 1981. Murakami has said that music, like writing, is a mental journey. At one time he aspired to be a musician, but because he could not play instruments well he decided to become a writer instead.”
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dg
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Post by dg on Oct 15, 2021 19:14:16 GMT
I have recently been going through an interesting old book- JAZZ STYLES AND ANALYSIS: ALTO SAX by Harry Miedema, published in 1975 by Down Beat’s “db music workshop publications.” It has sections on over 100 alto sax players and transcriptions of one or more solos by each. Importantly, it cites the records where one can find the solos, thus permitting one to listen to while following the solos on the page, or even to play along. These are not bare-bones transcriptions but include indications of fall-offs, ghosted notes, glissandos, grace notes, lip slurs, scoops and even the presence of alternate fingerings (with instructions on how to play the altissimo register notes that occur in some of the solos) and also of course the chord progressions throughout the solos, where appropriate. It also has brief biographical details on each player with more solos and details of both biography and style for significant players such as Charlie Parker, Johnny Hodges, Benny Carter and Jackie McLean. I found the sections on Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman especially informative, putting to rest any notion that these artists were not innovative, technically excellent players. Both players effortlessly utilize the entire range of the alto sax, including the altissimo range; Coleman’s long solo on Dee Dee from the first of the GOLDEN CIRCLE albums doesn’t have chord changes indicated but changes tonality, here indicated by changes in key, no fewer than twelve times during the solo; comparison of Oliver Nelson and Eric Dolphy’s solos on “Alto-itis” from SCREAMIN’ THE BLUES offers a revealing look at the differences in style of these two and highlights the advances that Dolphy was making. The book may not be easy to find but is worth seeking out if one is interested in the technical aspects of the music and has a modicum of skill at reading music. I think a later rather expensive edition might be available through “ejazzlines” and that it also may have been reprinted at some point by Jamey Abersold (of “Play Along” records fame) but I am happy to have obtained a near mint-quality copy of the original 1975 book.
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Post by bassman on Oct 16, 2021 7:19:11 GMT
That's very interesting, DG. I will try and get a copy.
BTW, I have most of the Down Beat issues from the last 30 plus years, including, of course, the solo transcriptions ("Woodshed" section). Though I gave up filing pertinent data a long time ago, I am still able to retrieve more than 100 of those transcriptions via dBase. Among them are Charlie Parker's solo on "Just Friends", Lionel Hampton's "Hot Mallets", and Charlie Christian's "I Got Rhythm", I remember. Plus Clifford Brown, Dizzy, and all the rest of them. Maybe it's possible to find all of them somewhere online.
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Post by Doom Girl on Oct 16, 2021 14:31:13 GMT
That's very interesting, DG. I will try and get a copy. BTW, I have most of the Down Beat issues from the last 30 plus years, including, of course, the solo transcriptions ("Woodshed" section). Though I gave up filing pertinent data a long time ago, I am still able to retrieve more than 100 of those transcriptions via dBase. Among them are Charlie Parker's solo on "Just Friends", Lionel Hampton's "Hot Mallets", and Charlie Christian's "I Got Rhythm", I remember. Plus Clifford Brown, Dizzy, and all the rest of them. Maybe it's possible to find all of them somewhere online. Yes, that's true that many many transcriptions can now be found online. Like vinyl records though, the original old books still bring a special pleasure along with them, at least for me. I also have a folder of many of the transcriptions that appeared in the Down Beat magazine. Down Beat was a very fine magazine, especially during about the late 50's - 70s. The full big band transcriptions, such as of "Stockholm Sweetnin'" and "Killer Joe" inspired my own first inept attempts at "arranging," to the great amusement of my theory instructor. Going through them lately, it is fun to see the arguments that went on among the critics at the first appearance of Ornette Coleman, Miles going "electric," the evolution of Coltrane - through the "sheets of sound," free jazz, etc. It is also interesting to see Leonard Feathers's Blindfold Tests - how some musicians could identify virtually every recording and musician, whereas others were abysmally bad at identifying anything or anybody.
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dg
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Post by dg on Sept 7, 2023 18:33:22 GMT
THE JAZZ MASTERS - SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT ( University Press of Mississippi, 2021) by Peter C. Zimmerman is a set of commentaries and interviews with 21 jazz musicians of various backgrounds and styles. The unifying feature seems to be that they are all quite elderly - and overflowing with reminiscences of olden times, of their mentors and influences and tales of the yet older musicians they learned from. The book has 289 pages, including a brief “Select Discography.”
The 21 range from the “superstars” to the rather obscure - but be forewarned: the sections on the most notable do tend to be very short and then quite long with the lesser knowns. The 21 include Clifford Jordan, Bob Cranshaw, Valery Ponomarev, Clark Terry, Sonny Rollins, Sandy Stewart, Bucky Pizzarelli, Bobby Porcelli, Jimmy Owens, Brad Terry, Mickey Tucker, Carol Sudhalter, Steve Kuhn, Buster Williams and Yusef Lateef.
The elegiac tone of the book comes across strongly, from the opening “A Requiem for Cedar” (Walton) to a closing “RIP, 2012-2021” - a list of the jazz players who died during the decade, a list that sadly included Billy Taylor, Bobby Hutcherson, Charlie Haden, Chick Corea, Chico Hamilton, Curtis Fuller, Donald Byrd, Gary Peacock, Horace Silver, Jeremy Steig, Jim Hall, Jimmy Heath, John Abercrombie, Kenny Wheeler, Larry Coryell, Gato Barbieri, Lee Konitz, McCoy Tyner, Ornette Coleman, Phil Woods, Rashied Ali, and Roy Hargrove, to name just a few on the extensive list. Clearly, the ranks of the “Classic Jazz” period of the late nineteen forties to seventies or so is being very rapidly depleted.
On the other hand, the book is filled with humorous and informative stories of that period of jazz of which we are devoted fans, and has numerous fine photos. I have long been an (informal) student of jazz history, yet learned a plethora of interesting facts from the book. Among the best sections for me, were those on Ran Blake, David Amram, Steve Turre and Bill Crow.
Did you know that trombonist Turre, who was a good friend with and often played with Roland Kirk, financed his successful life in jazz by playing for some thirty years with the ‘“Saturday Night Live (SNL)” television band? He says that among his favorite skits were those lampooning political figures such as Trump and Gerorge Bush. And the list of bands Turre played with is just amazing, including not only Rahsaan’s, but also Chico Hamilton, Art Blakey, Woody Shaw, the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, and he even went on the road with Ray Charles.
Diid you know that bassist Bill Crow has published two books - books which were translated into Japanese by the internationally acclaimed author Haruki Murakami, about whom we have written previously? (“Murakami is greatly interested in Western music, especially jazz, but also classical and popular…and has a huge vinyl record collection – reportedly, 10,000+ albums. His books always contain numerous mentions and descriptions of specific music pieces. Long play-lists of the music in his books have been compiled by Murakami fans.”)
Pianist Ran Blake, now 88 years old (and a recipient of a MacArhur Genius Grant), a professor at the New England Conservatory, lives in a dark basement apartment with his cat DekTor Dutra, who Ran claims is a Duke Ellington fan and refers to as his stepbrother. Blake repeatedly insists that he listens mostly to singers. David Amram, master of innumerable instruments (thirty-five!, including his favorite french horn) has worked with a near endless array of musical greats of many genres, was friend to the Beats such as Jack Kerouac (with whom he “wed music to prose”) and composed many “classical” pieces and also the scores to movies such as “Splendor in the Grass” and “The Manchurian Candidate.”
Something that struck me about the interviews was the awe, almost reverence, with which many of the players, even some of the oldest, regard John Coltrane. Over and over, they mentioned Parker, Monk and/or Coltrane as the major innovators and influencers in jazz. There were a few snarky comments, even by Zimmerman himself, about Coltrane's last period, but on the whole he was still admired as a major force. A trait which was admired in all three - Parker, Monk and Coltrane - was a willingness to always share their knowledge with younger musicians, but Coltrane seemed to have a special aura about him - a calmness, an almost superhuman dedication to his art and to some, a special "spiritual" element.
Like Steve Turre, many of the lesser known musicians have played with the “superstars” of jazz and yet remain relatively unknown to the general public. Many of these “lesser knowns” shunned the spotlight but do deserve more recognition - a point which Zimmerman emphasizes throughout this rather unique, casually written book.
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dg
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Post by dg on Sept 10, 2023 16:04:14 GMT
In the Zimmerman book reviewed above, the pianist Steve Kuhn said this:
“…my feeling about it is that jazz as I know it - and I’ve been listening to it all these years - I think its probably run its course. I have not heard any music that is truly innovative since John (Coltrane) and Ornette (Coleman). Having said that, there are a lot of great younger musicians who are playing and interpreting the jazz repertoire. Some of the younger ones are using hip-hop, and writing pop songs, and using a lot of electronics and synthesizers, and that’s fine. But for me, the music that I know has probably run its course. I don’t mean to sound depressing…(but) In terms of taking it beyond Ornette and Coltrane, I haven’t personally heard it. It’s gone In other directions, picking up other things, based on what’s going on today in hip-hop and the like.”
Agree or disagree?
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Post by bassman on Sept 11, 2023 10:29:21 GMT
In the Zimmerman book reviewed above, the pianist Steve Kuhn said this: “…my feeling about it is that jazz as I know it - and I’ve been listening to it all these years - I think it's probably run its course. [ ... ]” Agree or disagree? "Jazz is everlasting, and its truth endureth to all generations." - Psalm 100, if my memory serves me well - but I may be mistaken.
No, really ... I think Steve Kuhn has a point. To me personally, the term "jazz" cannot be expanded ad infinitum. Why should it anyway?
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Post by dottorjazz on Sept 12, 2023 11:48:08 GMT
it's nearly 50 years I do believe that Jazz couldn't go over Free, so it stopped. and so did I, satisfied of his last 30 years.
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