i thought i saw a trailer ....

[Serial_Apologist]

This displacement of the beat is going on all the time with all sorts of meters being juxtaposed. A lot of free players experimented with disrupting the beat but the music has evolved in the 40 years and grooves are becoming ever more complex these days. It is not a matter of new is better than old rather an matter of evolution.

Yes I think you have it right Ian

Charlie Parker evinced more complex, arhythmical types of phrasing in his improvising that required, and eventually found, a new rhythmic framework/backing with which to interact.

Ornette then took this a step further by untying the pulse from chorus structures.

The next step was for jazz drummers and improvising percussionsts to respond to rhythmic discontinuities from front-line soloists auch as Rollins by "taking the bait", ie moving outside regular time altogether to create an altogether new dynamic to do with spaces and expectation.

And possibly the latest phase you sum up in the above is for rhythm to re-coalesce into new regularities as reaffirming once again possibly the primal agency of tension and release in jazz performance that improvisation presents the face of.

All oversimplification, I'm sure it will be said - how does this evolving rhythic factor relate to harmony, for instance, as another aspect to be factored in when we're talking of the way musical parameters interact in jazz?...

[elmo]

Bluesnik

You have totally missed the point of my posts. If you re-read them so you will that my opinion was that Sonny Rollins approach to improvisation is now, especially from a rhythmic point of view, more of an influence than Coltrane. Rather than be-little Rollins' approach, I was actually making the point that he now seems more applicable. One thing that Rollins does is play his own rhythms almost against the bass and drums whereas someone like Hank Mobley (to take probably the best example of this for all his prowess and tone) coasts over the top and used the rhythm section as something to lean on. I think that Rollins goes well beyond this in that he is willing to chop up the rhythm and even appears to fight against it. I will have to dig out my copy of "The Freedom Suite" again but seem to recall the trio format offered Sonny the chance to experiment with time - this is not simply a "blowing session" as there is real experimentation on this disc that maybe wasn't quite as obvious on the quartets with Sonny Clarke from the same era. This is the musical equivalent of trying to push different profile pegs in non-matching holes but making it work. To me, this is one aspect of jazz that i feel is compelling. However, I don't think that Coltrane or Rollins represent the "last word" on tenor saxophone playing but are extremely high creative points along the line of development from the days of Coleman Hawkins and his ilk and the likes of Joe Lovano or Donny McCaslin today. No doubt the music will move on in the future and offer even more possibilities.

This weekend I've been listening to a lot of Chris Potter and David Binney, both of whom I suppose you would class as mature jazz soloists - certainly not your under 30 y.o. musicians you have ridiculed. (Although there is a great deal of terrific jazz being produced today by musicians between 30-50 which will stand up to anything recorded since 1917.) This displacement of the beat is going on all the time with all sorts of meters being juxtaposed. A lot of free players experimented with disrupting the beat but the music has evolved in the 40 years and grooves are becoming ever more complex these days. It is not a matter of new is better than old rather an matter of evolution.

Ian

Your point about Rollin's rhythmic approach is well argued but I completely disagree with your comment about Hank Mobley "coasting over the top of the rhythm section". Most critics highlight Hank's rhythmic sense as a highlight of his improvising which although less overt than Sonny was highly developed.

Hank more than most needed the right drummer to bring out his best work, listen to Hank with Blakey, Elvin or Philly Joe and compare that to his work with Jimmy Cobb with whom he worked less sympathetically.

I have some sessions Hank recorded live in Europe in 1968 which show him pulling the rhythm section into his world not unlike Sonny.

PS - Thanks for your recommendations of Walter Smith 111 and Ambrose Akinmusire very powerful music, well impressed with Donny McCaslin and David Binney also.

Elmo
Elmo

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Bluesnik

You have totally missed the point of my posts. If... EH?

Christ Ian, what prompted that? I was merely being flip flop and fly with no reference to your juicy posts. Or gates, or fittings.

Say cool...Dig some Horace Silver.

BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

Just been listening to the album "The bridge" prompted by the Sonny Rollins programmes and was intrigued by the comment in the liner notes about him being the pre-eminent hard bop tenor saxophonist which seems to miss the point on this recording. By this sage, Rollins sounds like anything other than playing bop.I've heard this album previously in parts although not in it's entirety but it never really struck me before that this group sounds so much like Paul Motian's trio when either Charlie Haden or Marc Johnson was added on bass. I would never call Rollins' group Hard Bop and whilst I think that he works marvels at chopping the lengths of his phrases up (aided by the kind of rhythm section that is elastic enough to allow him to do this ) and attempts more jagged ideas on track like "John S" which suggest more than an acquaintance with Ornette, for me this group produces a sound that reaches far further into the future and pre-empts the kind of developments that took place in the mid-80's. I suppose that the fact that Bill Frisell studied with and it hugely influenced by Jim Hall makes a convenient starting point for comparison but the drumming on Ben Riley also recalls Paul Motian in his more straight ahead swinging mode as you might find on a track like "I got rhythm" from the Standards Volume 2 record. Coupled with this, Lovano similarly plays fast and loose with the structure of his lines which also recalls Rollins' cavalier efforts at soloing. Whilst by no defination a record that is "way out" (hardly possible when much of the rcord is given over to standards) I feel Rollins really starts to sound contemporary on this CD. I think that being considered "far reaching" in 1962 would normally be considered to be leaning towards the Avant Garde of the mid-1960's but "The bridge" seems like Sonny had discovered that the employment of the electric guitar in the tasteful hands of Jim Hall could make the group looser and could take the music outside the confines of the kind of jazz played even 4-5 years beforehand. As a massive fan of Motian's groups, I could not help but be struck by the similarities when listening to this disc. Hugely impressed by this record.

[Tenor Freak]

I love "The Bridge" - well anything with Jim Hall on it too. By total co-incidence I was watching a Youtube performance:



I was also trying to locate the spot where Sonny and his friend were setting up to practise on the Williamsburg Bridge as shown in that BBC4 film. From Google Earth it looks like The south side, overlooking Delancey Street South in Manhattan, early in the evening. (Or was it the north side, in the morning?)

40°42'54.45" N 73°58'43.87" W

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

this too



not to forget the Trio with Wilbur Ware et al ....

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

jumping beans .... i have been listening to Our Man in Jazz since i was a kid, listening again now it still knocks me out it is an amazing and defining piece of work ...

[Serial_Apologist]

This actually happened:

Saxophonist - Play the bridge
Pianist - I forget how it goes
Saxophonist - Oh

Pianist (later) - I thought he meant the Sonny Rollins tune, when actually he meant the bridge of the tune I'd just been playing!

I was that pianist!