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Post by Kapitan on Mar 17, 2023 20:25:27 GMT
I enjoyed this video exploring the recently deceased Wayne Shorter's approach to harmony. I'd never seen this channel before, but I enjoyed the video. I think anyone into chords and harmony might, so I hesitated to put it here in the jazz thread (lest we miss anyone). But I wasn't sure where else it would fit...
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Post by jk on May 21, 2023 9:23:49 GMT
I heard this lively track on BBC "classical" radio this morning -- only they unceremoniously chopped off Joe Morello's "guffaw of surprise and relief" at the end. To compensate, here is "Unsquare Dance" complete: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsquare_Dance
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Post by Kapitan on Jun 1, 2023 19:27:30 GMT
Exciting jazz news: 90 minutes of music from John Coltrane's August 1961 residency at the Village Vanguard featuring Eric Dolphy along with his quartet of the time (Coltrane, McCoy Tyner on piano, Reggie Workman on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums) was discovered in a New York public library archive and is being commercially released in July. The recordings were apparently thought to have been lost.
Here is "Impressions."
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 27, 2023 18:01:18 GMT
Today would have been the 99th birthday of a piano virtuoso and Founding Father of Bebop, Bud Powell. My favorite jazz pianist--and jazz musician, period, probably--is another of these founding fathers, Thelonious Monk. But while Monk and Powell were close personally (and Monk even presented Powell as his protege), Powell's technique was head and shoulders above Monk's ... or at least that's what their performances suggest. Powell was the epitome of bebop, complex and fast. Here is a little tribute via pianist Ethan Iverson's Substack, a lead sheet with suggested fingerings of Powell's "Wail," plus an embedded video of it. iverson.substack.com/p/tt-308-bud-powells-wailPowell was a major force in jazz from an early age, becoming a regular at Minton's Playhouse in the '40s, the place and time bebop was being invented by Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Kenny Clarke, Charlie Christian, and others. He played with everyone of note in the '40s and '50s. Unfortunately, Powell had serious problems, too. He was an alcoholic and sometime heroin abuser. He had mental health problems including schizophrenia seemingly made worse by electro-shock therapy and the drugs with which he was treated. He was incarcerated both for criminal offenses and for mental health reasons repeatedly. He died at the age of 41 on July 31, 1966, of tuberculosis, alcoholism, and malnutrition. Here is his mind-blowing take on the Wizard of Oz classic "Over the Rainbow," recorded in 1951. Not only his dexterity, but his imagination for reharmonization, are on dazzling display. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bud_Powell
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 1, 2023 20:34:21 GMT
Anyone who reads this thread--or indeed, has read anything I've written about jazz in the past 20+ years--knows I love Thelonious Monk. A lot. So I was excited to see the New York Times had a feature on him today as part of a series they're doing on introducing jazz to non-fans. It's a brief overview of the man, followed by 11 musicians' comments and recommendations on Monk. The story is introduced with: www.nytimes.com/2023/11/01/arts/music/thelonious-monk-jazz-music.html
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Post by jk on Nov 13, 2023 11:47:52 GMT
Caught this yesterday:
"Join Wynton Marsalis on Sunday 12 November for the Nexus Lecture 2023, 'Calling Dr. Jazz: the Case for Integrity', in Rotterdam or online"
What an eloquent speaker! After two hours (!) he unpacked his trumpet, invited a drummer from the audience to tap along on the table and gave a brief musical encore.
If any other aspect of this event materializes on YouTube or elsewhere, I'll add it in due course.
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Post by jk on Feb 12, 2024 13:54:12 GMT
The phrase "Open up that window and let the foul air out", once used by the Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck, is all I've ever known about Jelly Roll Morton. This book I'm currently browsing, Gunther Schuller's Early Jazz, gives Morton a chapter to himself, entitled "The First Great [Jazz] Composer". So it seems he's quite a big fish in the jazz tank. Early Jazz looks like an interesting read all round, particularly the section on Bix Beiderbecke, who it seems had a penchant for advanced harmonies. Schuller himself was a multi-talent and even played French horn on Miles's Birth of the Cool (perhaps more on him later). Anyway, this is the JRM track that produced the above quote, "Buddy Bolden’s Blues": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jelly_Roll_Morton
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Post by Kapitan on Feb 12, 2024 14:09:12 GMT
Without question, Jelly Roll Morton is a giant of early/formative jazz. One of the greatest--which, unfortunately, he would be the first to tell you, and then he'd tell you again, and again. Late in his life, he was perhaps overly exhuberant about his own contributions to the form.
However, he was an early composer/bandleader for many early jazz greats including Sidney Bechet, Artie Shaw, and Bud Freeman. And without him, would there really have been a Duke Ellington or Thelonious Monk? I'm not so sure. Or the great stride pianists, like James P Johnson, Fats Waller, and Art Tatum?
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Post by jk on Feb 12, 2024 18:24:06 GMT
The great thing about posting about jazz over here is that I'm more likely to get a response! Getting back to Gunther Schuller, here he is playing French horn on "Moon Dreams", recorded on 9 March 1950 and later included on the 1957 release Birth of the Cool. You can clearly hear Schuller from 2:40 onwards: By sheer coincidence, the original version sung by Martha Tilton was Capitol Records' very first recording session on 6 April 1942, supervised by the song's co-author Johnny Mercer. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_of_the_Cool
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Post by jk on Feb 13, 2024 20:15:35 GMT
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 6, 2024 18:22:36 GMT
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Post by jk on Mar 6, 2024 21:03:31 GMT
Well yes, they are indeed modes (or scales) and not chords. But a big quibble? We know what Kaplan is trying to say -- he just chose the wrong words! The semi-pro band I used to play in from the late 1980s to the mid '90s had "All Blues" in its repertoire, as one of the instrumental pieces we played during the first set. Others included "Misty", "Blue Bossa", "Human Nature" (Miles again) and "Against All Odds" (with the bass guitar playing the melody). I'm not a jazz person, so I kept a low profile on "All Blues", although I was fascinated by its ambience and the less-is-more approach. Much later, my son would initiate me into the mysteries of the sonic world that is Kind of Blue.
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 6, 2024 21:28:57 GMT
Well yes, they are indeed modes (or scales) and not chords. But a big quibble? We know what Kaplan is trying to say -- he just chose the wrong words! The semi-pro band I used to play in from the late 1980s to the mid '90s had "All Blues" in its repertoire, as one of the instrumental pieces we played during the first set. Others included "Misty", "Blue Bossa", "Human Nature" (Miles again) and "Against All Odds" (with the bass guitar playing the melody). I'm not a jazz person, so I kept a low profile on "All Blues", although I was fascinated by its ambience and the less-is-more approach. Much later, my son would initiate me into the mysteries of the sonic world that is Kind of Blue. Primary quibble?
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