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Post by jk on Nov 5, 2020 11:37:57 GMT
Enjoying the one-off collaboration album Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers with Thelonious Monk, featuring, well, them, and released in 1958. It isn't Blakey's greatest band, but as usual, it's a very good one, and included tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin, who later joined Monk's group.
I love this version of "Evidence," which is almost the epitome of Monk: it throws you off kilter the first time you hear it; you struggle to get your balance! One can only imagine trying to play along for the first time. Yet when Griffin's solo kicks in, it's a straight-ahead burner! Blakey is also a great drummer, and Monk comps behind solos--check him out as much as Griffin during the latter's solo--like no one else. He's the greatest, in my opinion, at that art.
Historical note, shortly after this album was recorded (but well before it was released), Monk regained his cabaret card and began his residency at the Five Spot with the band that included John Coltrane and brought him (or brought him back) significant popular attention.
Edit - if you check out "In Walked Bud," Griffin tears it up there, too! What an exciting player he was.
Checked out both tracks. It's a little strange listening to and enjoying jazz tunes without understanding them! In "Evidence", the Messengers are clearly having some trouble nailing Monk's melody but ye gods who can blame them?! Thanks, Cap'n, for that excursion into (for me) unknown territory, musically and historically. I'm glad I got this thread going.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 5, 2020 23:17:52 GMT
It's really the rhythm I think that throws them (though with the occasional splits off from unison into the harmonies, it also almost sounds like mistakes). And rhythm is one of the most interesting things about Monk. On one hand, he had a strange, remarkable gift for it. But it was also just a bit off-kilter, and he had no problem slowing down or speeding up as he saw fit. In a solo performance, or even with a simple trio, it wasn't such an issue--quite charming, even. But as soon as you're introducing a sax, maybe a sax and a trumpet, maybe even a big band, things could get dicey. It's tough to expect a big ensemble to not just sway with the rhythm, but to jerk.
(He actually treated melody similarly, sometimes playing half steps above or below certain notes as well as the notes themselves, as if a major 7th or minor 9th, because he wanted to emulate horns or strings sliding or bending notes. But it could sound like a flub.)
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Post by jk on Nov 6, 2020 10:38:28 GMT
It's really the rhythm I think that throws them (though with the occasional splits off from unison into the harmonies, it also almost sounds like mistakes). And rhythm is one of the most interesting things about Monk. On one hand, he had a strange, remarkable gift for it. But it was also just a bit off-kilter, and he had no problem slowing down or speeding up as he saw fit. In a solo performance, or even with a simple trio, it wasn't such an issue--quite charming, even. But as soon as you're introducing a sax, maybe a sax and a trumpet, maybe even a big band, things could get dicey. It's tough to expect a big ensemble to not just sway with the rhythm, but to jerk.
(He actually treated melody similarly, sometimes playing half steps above or below certain notes as well as the notes themselves, as if a major 7th or minor 9th, because he wanted to emulate horns or strings sliding or bending notes. But it could sound like a flub.) Most illuminating. Thank you, sir. I was playing one of the two word games I indulge in at Hoffman when by sheer coincidence I was confronted with this:
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 6, 2020 12:23:32 GMT
Thanks for sharing that. This is the group--which did a worldwide tour that year (1971)--with whom he did his final studio recordings as a leader. Unfortunately his mental illness was really becoming an issue by then.
"Bassist McKibbon, who had known Monk for over twenty years and played on his final tour in 1971, later said: "On that tour, Monk said about two words. I mean literally maybe two words. He didn't say 'Good morning,' 'Goodnight,' 'What time?' Nothing. Why, I don't know. He sent word back after the tour was over that the reason he couldn't communicate or play was that Art Blakey and I were so ugly.""
Did you see his hands during his solo? Isn't it interesting how flat he keeps them as he plays?
By the way, Art Blakey's drumming in that tune is MAGNIFICENT.
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Post by jk on Nov 6, 2020 12:49:15 GMT
Thanks for sharing that. This is the group--which did a worldwide tour that year (1971)--with whom he did his final studio recordings as a leader. Unfortunately his mental illness was really becoming an issue by then.
"Bassist McKibbon, who had known Monk for over twenty years and played on his final tour in 1971, later said: "On that tour, Monk said about two words. I mean literally maybe two words. He didn't say 'Good morning,' 'Goodnight,' 'What time?' Nothing. Why, I don't know. He sent word back after the tour was over that the reason he couldn't communicate or play was that Art Blakey and I were so ugly.""
Did you see his hands during his solo? Isn't it interesting how flat he keeps them as he plays?
By the way, Art Blakey's drumming in that tune is MAGNIFICENT.
He does keep them very flat! But what a state of affairs -- very sad. As for Sonny Stitt, who was literally just a name to me until today, I remember this graffiti in an Amsterdam jazz club back in the '70s: Jesus said "Pray" Bird said "Play" Below which some joker had added: Sonny Stitt said "Shit"
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 6, 2020 12:58:21 GMT
Sonny Stitt is wonderful! He's one of those musicians (of whom there are actually many in jazz) who appeared on literally hundreds of records: leader, sideman, whatever. He rose just after the initial bop period, and was more of the "hard bop" (think Blakey) variety, though he was also often compared to the great Charlie Parker. So smooth, so fluid! Truly virtuosic.
Alas, also like many of his contemporaries in jazz, he had chemical abuse issues: Stitt was a heavy drinker, and it cost him jobs and contracts including a shot with a little bandleader by name of Miles Davis (in the period after the first great quintet and Kind of Blue, but before the second great one in the mid 60s).
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Post by jk on Nov 10, 2020 22:40:42 GMT
Oooff! Right now I'm up to my ears in some truly heavy shit. It's John Coltrane's LP-filling opus Ascension (Edition II). How did I get here? Archie Shepp made an appearance in the crossword puzzle in yesterday's paper! This may strike you as odd but I hear similarities with Alice Coltrane's more mind-bending stuff such as Universal Consciousness. Elvin Jones is amazing, as always. And how about that double contrabass solo?! Cap'n, have you any idea why 'Trane replaced Edition I with this slightly longer Edition II? I see he swapped the Tchicai and Shepp solos around and Elvin's is omitted this time. Maybe he changed his mind about having a drum solo... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_(John_Coltrane_album)
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 11, 2020 1:12:54 GMT
'fraid I can't be of much help here: I really prefer Coltrane's music roughly only up to A Love Supreme and am not very familiar with most of what comes after. I'm not even sure I have this album. But I'll have a listen since you brought it up.
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Post by jk on Nov 11, 2020 22:52:36 GMT
'fraid I can't be of much help here: I really prefer Coltrane's music roughly only up to A Love Supreme and am not very familiar with most of what comes after. I'm not even sure I have this album. But I'll have a listen since you brought it up. I love Live at Birdland but never could take to A Love Supreme, and believe me I've tried! Talking of Alice C, here's the ecstatic title track of her 1971 album Universal Consciousness: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Consciousness
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 13, 2020 13:51:03 GMT
I came across this quite coincidentally last night: a TV show putting together several different jazz musicians for interviews and a few songs (one selected by each). The group is George Duke (keyboards), Lee Rittenour (guitar), Marcus Miller (bass), and Vinnie Colaiuta (drums).
I'll note that's two Zappa alumni.
Historically I'm not a huge fan of Rittenour, but his distorted guitar solo in the final song--Miller's--is really remarkable! And really the playing form everyone throughout is fantastic. I am going to try to find more episodes of this show, because it's really cool!
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 13, 2020 21:15:03 GMT
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Post by jk on Nov 14, 2020 11:12:41 GMT
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Post by jk on Nov 16, 2020 13:05:56 GMT
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 16, 2020 20:14:16 GMT
I'm not familiar with Dave Stryker, but I enjoyed that tune. I also see (in checking his wiki page) that he teaches jazz guitar at Indiana University, which contrary to one's possible impressions, is a great school for jazz.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 24, 2020 18:21:13 GMT
After @robesimo posted electric Miles, I thought I'd expand a bit in that general direction. Released about two months after Davis's Bitches Brew in May 1970, the great trumpeter Freddie Hubbard released what is today usually considered not just his best album, but one of the greatest fusion albums of all time, Red Clay.
The core band is Hubbard, tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, keyboardist Herbie Hancock (on acoustic and electric pianos), bassist Ron Carter (on acoustic and electric basses), and drummer Lenny White. The title track is legendary, having become what Hubbard is known for, and the album proper is a masterpiece of soul-rock-jazz. (A CD reissue includes a take on John Lennon's "Cold Turkey," jazzmen having decades more experience dealing with kicking--and/or dying from--heroin.)
Unlike many fusion albums, Red Clay doesn't sound neutered and sexless. It's hard to imagine Kenny G lookalikes dressed in their pastel Miami Vice finest posing their keytars skyward: like some of Miles's electric output, this is funky stuff. Unlike most of Miles's electric output, it also stays truer to song forms and isn't the product of a producer/engineer splicing together interesting things to create a post hoc album.
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