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Post by dottorjazz on Jun 16, 2015 18:59:37 GMT
I would like to use this paragon. if I say Bird, everybody (here), knows whom I'm talking about. and if I say Bird on Dial? same answer well, Newk now: everybody knows Sonny Rollins. and if I say Sonny on Prestige: same answer but if I say: what's in common between Bird on Dial 202 and Sonny on Prestige 7126, Tour De Force? I wouldn't have the right answer myself. the correct one is: Earl Coleman, a sloppy voice, which in my opinion literally ruins the tracks he's featured in. it was a way record companies used to make more palatable instrumental music to a greater amount of people who weren't interested in Jazz which was mainly instrumental. I believe that this way of operating didn't add anything to the instrumentalists, conversely. I'm interested in what's your opinion about this.
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Post by gregorythefish on Jun 17, 2015 14:47:58 GMT
i almost universally hate jazz vocals unless they are doing something besides glorifying a pop tune. i rather enjoy leon thomas, jeanne lee, etc. and i think jazz vocals were an easy sell back then, and still are. throw him on the record and people might enjoy it and they might get a hit. irresponsible if you ask me.
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Post by alunsevern on Jul 16, 2015 13:34:10 GMT
I hate hate hate jazz singing in all its forms, but i especially hate scat singing. Christ, that is the devil's business. People may think i'm strange but i think jazz is devalued by the addition of the human voice. Instruments have enough 'voice'. People singing in fake American accents about stuff they have made up: who fucking needs it? Sorry, rant over, go about your business.
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Post by dottorjazz on Jul 16, 2015 19:21:00 GMT
so we are at least three who do NOT love jazz singing. let me do one exception. Lady Day: she had no great voice but she DID have a great soul and many musicians considered her as an instrument, Prez first. here how I love to listen to her best.
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Post by thomoz on Dec 25, 2016 0:34:03 GMT
I would add Ella Fitzgerald to your short list of acceptable jazz singers - but for your sake lets skip over her scat singing ha ha
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Post by gst on Dec 28, 2016 17:48:41 GMT
I'll add Nina Simone and Chet Baker as well.
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Post by sztiv on Jan 22, 2017 11:25:22 GMT
I think that listening is an acquired skill and like all skills the acquisition can take time. Learning to listen to other people and to music are both skills. So a bad listener can also be someone who hasn't listened properly yet rather than someone who simply can't listen properly. Then there are people who still "listen" to exactly the same things in their 50s as they did in their teens. Their listening skills don't develop. I find this hard to understand because for example whilst I like and admire The Beatles songwriting and performing prowess, I don't want to listen to The Beatles ad nauseum. I continuously need new music and so I'm forced to listen and so my taste in music develops. As for vocal jazz I'm a bit shocked at all the negativity on this thread. I'm sure I'll get over it but I do think that someone needs to come to the defence of jazz vocalists and not just by posting "and don't forget Sarah Vaughan, she could also sing a bit!" Perhaps it's because of my own personal "journey" into jazz that I have a different opinion of vocal jazz? My first exposure to jazz was in the early 1980s in two clubs in Manchester UK. The clientele in both places were predominantly black and they came to dance. Colin Curtis was the DJ at one of these nights, this year he celebrates his 50th year as a DJ. So that was where I first heard music like Dindi by Janet Lawson. The jazz dance scene evolved over the course of 4-5 years into the predominantly white, Acid Jazz phenomena led by amongst others Giles Peterson and Patrick Forge at their weekly event at Dingwalls (which I never attended). Anyway back to the human voice as an instrument. Should Andrew Hill's Lift Every Voice be similarly dissed just because he dares to write for voices? If you'd be willing to give the world's most ancient musical instrument another listen you could do worse than to try Ghetto Lights a tune that also features wordlessly on Hutcherson's Dialogue. Vocal jazz often has a certain visual style that also appeals to me, Anita O'Day's performance at Newport 1958 being a fine example. Love those shades. Give it a try you might like it! PS I also think vocal Jazz can be a lot of fun and that Anita O'Day is a case in point. Music without humour can be a drab affair. After all if Herbie Hancock is of the opinion that all jazz is derived from the blues and Gershwin how is it possible to disregard lyrics when evaluating and enjoying jazz?
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Post by bassman on Jan 22, 2017 18:23:22 GMT
" [...] Then there are people who still "listen" to exactly the same things in their 50s as they did in their teens. Their listening skills don't develop.[...]" Sztiv, I know what you mean. Still, I'd like to invite everybody to talk about some of the records they still love to return to after so many years. I think I could name a few. Any thoughts?
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Post by sztiv on Jan 22, 2017 20:48:03 GMT
Sorry Bassman I think there may have been some misunderstanding, When I said they listen to exactly the same thing, I mean't that they haven't added anything to their listening repertoire over a 30 year period.
An LP I've been coming back to again and again since it was released in 1983 is Flight Path by Sphere (Charlie Rouse, Buster Williams, Kenny Barron and Ben Riley). I purchased it when I was a student in Manchester and it must have been one of my first jazz acquisitions.
This was Sphere's second release, the first having consisted entirely of compositions by Monk and which I finally got around to buying last week. Strangely I recognised the name of the person I purchased it from on discogs as someone I'd known at the time I purchased the first one 30+ years earlier. He admitted to being the person I thought he was but didn't remember me.
I didn't know anything about Charlie Rouse at the time but the man in the record shop recommended it and so I took it home. I have no recordings of Rouse and Monk playing together but I watched them recently in the Clint Eastwood financed Straight No Chaser and enjoyed it enormously.
I bought John Hicks last recorded LP On The Wings Of An Eagle last week and was delighted to discover that it contains a composition by Buster Williams that features on Flight Path. Not sure that I'll last another 30 years but for sure I'll also still be listening to this one as well.
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Post by bassman on Jan 23, 2017 11:43:09 GMT
"Sorry Bassman I think there may have been some misunderstanding, When I said they listen to exactly the same thing, I mean't that they haven't added anything to their listening repertoire over a 30 year period. An LP I've been coming back to again and again since it was released in 1983 is Flight Path by Sphere (Charlie Rouse, Buster Williams, Kenny Barron and Ben Riley). I purchased it when I was a student in Manchester and it must have been one of my first jazz acquisitions. [ ... ]" No misunderstanding there, Sztiv, I said I know what you mean but I should have explained. I think that even with little listening experience, someone may happen to be dead right in judging a piece of music and never change his mind about it. Early impressions may go a long way (blame biology) - but having thrown so many of them overboard, I think I can see the difference. Anyway, a half-century of listening hasn't lessened my appreciation of Dizzy's Salt Peanuts and Emanon, Bird's Cool Blues, and some of Armstrong's mid-fifties All Star stuff (Wild Man Blues in particular). I will keep on proselytizing about the latter. Your example, "Flight Path", is from a different age, of course - but Buster Williams is one of my favourite bass players. That fat, beautiful tone he commands. Great stuff.
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Post by alunsevern on Jan 23, 2017 15:02:51 GMT
I understand what Sztiv is saying about constantly listening to the same thing. What about collecting and buying the same thing over and over -- remasters of The Beatles, of Led Zeppelin, of The Who, Hendrix....Miles Davis too, I suppose. Read any of the other 'big' forums (Hoffman, the Naim forums) and this is what you will see: people *boasting* about having such and such an artist's works in every known variant. I find that deeply strange, personally, but it's their money and their choice, I suppose....and whatever floats your boat, as they say.
But back to the subject in hand. I listen to quite a lot of things that I first listened to forty years ago. And I've also abandoned or gone off very many things that I first listened to as a teenager. But I don't think one's view of these works is static. Taste changes, becomes more honed, better educated if you like, and we hear different things in a work. Not least, something we first heard, say, forty years ago, we can now place in a much deeper and wider context. In many respects it is no longer 'the same work'. What you bring to the listening experience changes the nature of that experience. We hear what we know, and if we know more, we hear more.
I still listen to Charlie Parker, Miles, Coltrane, Rollins -- and these were amongst my earliest listening in jazz. But I don't think that for one moment I hear them as I did when I was sixteen or seventeen. And by and large this is a good thing!
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Post by gregorythefish on Jan 23, 2017 17:35:34 GMT
sztiv:
well, i wouldn't call it negativity in a close-minded or mean spirit. most of us just don't care much for jazz vocals. we've all heard the greats, and just don't find whatever abstract thing we are looking for for the most part. as stated above, though, i absolutely adore a select few singers. they include jeanne lee, patty waters, leon thomas, etc.
your 'journey' hypothesis is likely spot on. there is music today that i love, yet i know had the context of discovery been different, i probably wouldn't feel the way i do.
re: the listening to new things argument: i agree that it is twofold. listening with an open mind, and listening differently. i often listen to records i recall not loving, just to see if my tastes have changed. often, the different mindset if enough for me to find redeeming qualities, and sometimes i discover new favorites right there on my shelves! this recently happened with some arthur blythe. now i can't get enough of the guy!
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Post by alunsevern on Jan 23, 2017 18:24:01 GMT
GTF, Talking of Arthur Blythe, a couple of years ago I bought a nice copy of Lennox Ave Breakdown. Have you heard that? What a terrific record. I was so heartened to find that something was being made in the late-70s that was new, contemporary, sharp and *not* fusion. Oh, and Sztiv, I know some of that 80s jazz-dance stuff. Not that I have ever danced a step in my life -- I'm virtually a cripple when it comes to dancing -- but back at that time, one gratefully took contemporary jazz wherever one could find it, and the jazz-dance scene was driving a lot of new music as well as prompting the rediscovery of much old music. I bought many of the Bad Fe Jazz compilations, the Acid Jazz and Gilles Peterson LPs and the Totally Wired compilations. There were even some new Blue Note signings at that time, I seem to recall, and for a brief period jazz was going to be the next big thing... Working Week with Larry Stabbins, Robert Wyatt's Venceremos.... The interesting thing is that quite a lot of that jazz-dance stuff had a crossover at left wing events and I suppose that was where I heard some of it -- it certainly wasn't on the dance floor as I don't think I have ever been on one Although I don't have any of that music now at all, I remember it fondly, as I do the period in my life that is now associated with it...
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Post by bassman on Jan 23, 2017 20:46:58 GMT
sztiv: well, i wouldn't call it negativity in a close-minded or mean spirit. most of us just don't care much for jazz vocals. we've all heard the greats, and just don't find whatever abstract thing we are looking for for the most part. as stated above, though, i absolutely adore a select few singers. they include jeanne lee, patty waters, leon thomas, etc. your 'journey' hypothesis is likely spot on. there is music today that i love, yet i know had the context of discovery been different, i probably wouldn't feel the way i do. re: the listening to new things argument: i agree that it is twofold. listening with an open mind, and listening differently. i often listen to records i recall not loving, just to see if my tastes have changed. often, the different mindset if enough for me to find redeeming qualities, and sometimes i discover new favorites right there on my shelves! this recently happened with some arthur blythe. now i can't get enough of the guy! Gregory, I'm sure you know Jack DeJohnette Special Edition (ECM 1152) with Arthur Blythe, from 1979. Pieces like "One For Eric" and "Zoot Suite". In case you don't - this is one terrific record!
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Post by alunsevern on Jan 24, 2017 9:36:19 GMT
Now there's a record I haven't played for ages -- Special Edition, with the great David Murray. Thanks for the reminder, bassman.
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