What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Serial_Apologist]

Chick Corea - "Now he sings, now he sobs."

This is the first outing by Corea's all-star trio of Miroslav Vitous and Roy Haynes and sounds a bit odd insofar that the recording shows it's 1968 recording date whilst the music sounds totally contemporary. The music has not only stood the test of time but almost comes across as a benchmark record in that is seems more of our own time and less remote than a lot of the Hard Bop produced less than a decade earlier. There is a really good interview on YouTube with Pat Metheny where he comments on whether he considers himself the last of the "older generation of players" or the first of the "new generation." Metheny is good value for money as an interviewee and his response was interesting as he clearly had an affinity for the respect older musicians had for the "tradition." Listening to this Chick Corea record is fascinating as I grew up with the live trio album recorded in Europe and released by ECM in about 1983. I think that this is one of the greatest piano trio records ever yet it seems amazing that there about a 15 year gap between it and "Now he sings. Now he sobs." Being used to ECM's pristine sound, hearing the earlier record a in less luxurious recording is surreal as there is little difference in the performing style. It truly sounds like an "early contemporary jazz " record.

I have got to say that this trio turned my head from being obsessed with Bill Evans as a teenager and it remains Corea's greatest vehicle for jazz - not difficult if you consider Roy Haynes to be probably the most consistently exceptional drummer in jazz. Whenever he appears on any record, Roy Haynes takes the music up a few notches. This trio is probably the greatest example. I wish Eicher had recorded this trio more and maybe lavished the attention that he gave to Keith Jarrett's trio which I similarly enjoy. I don't have the double CD worth the Monk tunes but am tempted. Chick Corea can be frustrating on record and in concert for although the wonderful technique is always in place, there are lapses in taste with the Fusion stuff which I don't like. This trio , however, is staggeringly brilliant and has me scratching my head as to whether it was Corea who was the first to pick up where jazz might go after the sound and fury of the New Thing.

I would be really intrigued to read Bluesnik's opinion of this record as I think the historic context of the music and the presence o Roy Haynes would be of interest even if the music is markedly pointing towards the reawakening the music experienced in the 1980's. Whilst you can hear that the cues were coming from Bill Evans' trios, I feel that Chick Corea took up the batten with this group and really expanded the range of dynamics and the degree of swing. Whilst McCoy Tyner must always remain the hardest swinging pianist in jazz for me, this trio with Chick Corea is probably more nimble and easily the goosiest piano trio since the Hampton Hawes trio which made "The Green Leaves of Summer" which was recorded earlier in the same decade but might have been a generation for all the change that Chick Corea brought to the table.

I don't have that one, but I did luckily pick up a second hand vinyl copy of "Tones for Joan's Bones" in pretty good nick a few years ago, just sauntering along the South Bank among the tourists one hot and sunny Sunday afternoon, where a couple had a record stall. This was recorded a couple of years before NHSNHS, but already very very committed by all concerned in the playing. Another pianist of that time was Denny Zeitlin - again very Bill Evans based with bags of technique intelligently applied, taking the music outside with intelligent abandon (no contradiction intended) and incorporating the innards in the ways Jarrett made familiar within a few years. A later duo recording of Zeitlin and Charlie Haden on ECM seemed to indicate that the fire had gone out, and I gave that one away.

[Beef Oven!]

Kenny Wheeler - "Double, Double You"

Michael Miles - "Double Your Money"
Track: "Treasure Chest"

[Serial_Apologist]

Michael Miles - "Double Your Money"
Track: "Treasure Chest"

I thought that thread had closed for the time being.

[Beef Oven!]

I thought that thread had closed for the time being.

Wrong Fred.

[Serial_Apologist]

"Jack Dee Johnette" - announced by Kevin Le Gendre just now on Jass Line Up. I thought Jack Dee was a comedian...

[Guest]

What jazz am I listening to? As ever, Alyn Shipton 4 p.m. Sats. And particularly the Mike Wesbrook track.

[Serial_Apologist]

What jazz am I listening to? As ever, Alyn Shipton 4 p.m. Sats. And particularly the Mike Wesbrook track.

Gosh - I knew the Lake District was a long way away, but has it taken that long to reach you, Draco?

Agree about the Westbrook track - very timely. Plus ça change, etc etc...

[Serial_Apologist]

For Ian - Denny Zeitlin in 1966:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrnwwfL6qOw

[Ian Thumwood]

For Ian - Denny Zeitlin in 1966:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrnwwfL6qOw

Cheers - I will listen to this in the week.

I did not realise that Zeitlin went back so far. He is a mystical name, familiar to me largely through The Real Book and I cannot recall ever having heard him play. (I have the same impression of Art Lande who I can only ever having heard once on an old Jan Garbarek disc.) Having had a quick listen, the style clearly comes out of Bill Evans. I would have to admit that I would have probably mistaken him for Bill Evans. Charlie Haden still sounds quite distinctive . I am not familiar with Granelli. Having listened to be bit of it, I really like this record and I thank you for drawing my attention to something I had no awareness of.)

The obvious thing about the record is the poor sound recording which is brittle and thin. Sonically, the engineering is worse than the Corea record. It is a real bugbear of mine that pianos are invariably poorly recorded on many jazz albums. The piano in the Prestige studio often sounded woeful and you even get stinkers on blue Note like the instrument Wynton Kelly was forced to play on Hank Mobley's "Roll call." It is a shame like that this Zeitlin disc was not better served by the people recording the gig. I have quite a collection of Classical Music too but most of my records all date from the 1980's bar a Bartok Piano Concerto record which was recorded earlier. I mention this as I am not aware of CLassical pianists being given a similar disservice by poor pianos and recording other than a Scriabin disc of Opus 8 Etudes which is quite wretched. Jazz always seems to get a disservice.

[CGR]

Charlie Parker Complete Royal Roost Broadcasts
Charlie Parker etc.
Jazz Dynamics

Recorded off-air in 1948 & 49. Sound quality is what you would expect from this sort of recording but the infectious magic of the music comes across despite all the imperfections.

[Stanfordian]

‘Minor Move’
Tina Brooks with Sonny Clark, Doug Watkins & Art Blakey
Blue Note (1958)

[burning dog]

Charlie Parker Complete Royal Roost Broadcasts
Charlie Parker etc.
Jazz Dynamics

Recorded off-air in 1948 & 49. Sound quality is what you would expect from this sort of recording but the infectious magic of the music comes across despite all the imperfections.

Some of the best jazz you'll ever hear IMO, better than the Dial studio tracks which are also great

but I'd draw the line at some of the Benedetti stuff - too painful

[burning dog]

The Denny Zeitlin album is great - only heard of him from old copies of Downbeat!
on CBS - they must have been expecting a lot from him, but wasn't it also the time the company was starting to lose interest in Mainstream Jazz?

Wouldn't mistake him for Bill Evans though he historically is in a similar place harmonically, his attack is far harder. Otherwise i agree with Ian. To my ears Zeitlin is pretty much an original.

Now he Sings,,,, is one of my favourite piano trio albums

Ian ...Fancy playing this piano?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f7aF8npx9M

[burning dog]

Did Michael Miles host Double your Money?

Yes...


BONG !!!!

He hosted "Take Your Pick."

based on the Wes Montgomery book "Take Your Pick Away. Use Your Thumb instead."

[Ian Thumwood]

The Denny Zeitlin album is great - only heard of him from old copies of Downbeat!
on CBS - they must have been expecting a lot from him, but wasn't it also the time the company was starting to lose interest in Mainstream Jazz?

Wouldn't mistake him for Bill Evans though he historically is in a similar place harmonically, his attack is far harder. Otherwise i agree with Ian. To my ears Zeitlin is pretty much an original.

Now he Sings,,,, is one of my favourite piano trio albums

Ian ...Fancy playing this piano?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f7aF8npx9M

I really like Kenny Dorham but this is not the only "live" album be made where the piano is wildly out of tune. I think the worst piano I have heard is on the live Eric Dolphy record with Booker Little. This isn't something that is limited to older albums as I have a record by trumpeter Brad Goode which is marred by the piano being totally out of tune.

The strange thing about listening to these piano trios is that they really swung whereas so many contemporary records seem to concentrate on the introspective possibilities of the music. The Chick Corea album is a really good example of how exciting a piano trio can be. I do miss this element from this format. A lot of rightly made of Bill Evans' trio giving more democracy amongst the three musicians and this does make the format more interesting. These days it seems more fashionable for trios to have the bass and drums play an ostinato pattern for the piano to improvise over. I have heard groups like Go Go Penguin and a number of others play like this over the last few years yet, whilst it might seem for fashionable, I think what groups like the Corea achieved has been totally lost. I suppose the best trio in the traditional sense is Brad Mehldau's although I find this trio to be erratic. I have been mesmerised by Mehldau both on record and live and would say that I have equally been a bit indifferent to his music. The whole role of piano, bass and drums could never be the same after Evans and I would have to say that the most compelling piano trio I have seen in recent years is Jason Moran's Bandwagon. However, the combination of Core / Vitous / Haynes was something truly special and still sounds "modern" fifty years after seeing it's debut. NHS, NHS has got to be an essential jazz album.