The Jazz Thread

[Pinball]

The metalhead in me likes the fusion. The serious fusion. The harder and deeper and more mindblowing, the better.

Meanwhile, the "Golden Age of Rock & Roll" in me likes the N'awlins stuff, back when they were still figuring out the "rules" of jazz.

[Street Worm]

right now,
this here,
is one of the coolest things I've ever heard-

[Chicago Expat]

My three favorite jazz musicians would have to be Monk, Bill Frisell, and John Coltrane.

A couple years ago I stopped looking back to the 50s and 60s for my jazz and began focusing only on jazz being made today. It's been great. The talent pool for jazz is as strong as it's ever been. There's some great music coming out of Brooklyn, Seattle, and Warsaw. I'm just amazed by some of the classic albums that've come out in the last five years. Albums like...

Todd Sickafoose - "Tiny Resistors" (jazz influenced by Indie rock)
Guillermo Klein - "Filtros" (modern latin jazz)
Jeremy Udden - "Plainville" (folk jazz)
Bill Frisell - "Disfarmer" (Americana jazz)
Benjamin Koppel - "Adventures of a Polar Expedition" (classical soundtrack jazz)
Esbjorn Svensson Trio - "Strange Place for Snow" (piano trio with electronics)
Ben Allison - "Little Things Run the World" (jazz with rock influences; not fusion)
Mathias Eick - "The Door" (ambient trumpet; rainy day jazz)
Marcin Wasilewski Trio - "January" (sleepy piano trio)
Brian Blade Fellowship - "Season of Changes" (nu-jazz; straight-ahead but modern rock influenced; nu-jazz is a fuzzy term)
Matthew Halsall - "Colour Yes" (channeling Miles Davis)
Nat Birchall - "Aknahten" (channeling Coltrane)
Brad Mehldau - various (piano genius)
John Zorn's Alhambra Trio - "Alhambra Love Songs" (spiritual themed trio)
John Zorn - "O'o'" (jazz with vibes and a sort of surf guitar sound)


And I could go on and on and on. In fact, at some point, I probably will.

Anybody says "jazz is dead" doesn't know what the hell they're talking about.

[The Black Guardian]

Agreed. If anything, I think Jazz is having a bit of a Renaissance right now.

[Chicago Expat]

Agreed. If anything, I think Jazz is having a bit of a Renaissance right now.

I'm seeing two trends in modern jazz:

1. Younger players embracing the stylings of other genres and either expanding or deconstructing them into a jazz composition, and then taking off from there.

2. More outlets for jazz musicians to reach listeners/buyers and bypass traditional corporate labels (who barely record much jazz these days anyways). Using artist sites, or hosting sites like Bandcamp, reverbnation, soundcloud, and facebook, twitter, home recording technology, and jazz advocacy websites, it's making it easier for jazz musicians to promote themselves and get their music out there. It's still tough. It's a tough thing to do in any genre, but jazz has got it bad tenfold. But there is a ton of great jazz being recorded these days and if it weren't for the internet, I'd probably hear about none of it.

Cheers.

[Spike-X]

[Rob Allen]

The condition of having cheek damage from pressure is actually named "Gillespie Pouches" in Dizzy's honor.

http://everything2.com/title/Gillespie+Pouches

[MartinNL]

Currently really enjoying the amazing voice of Zara McFarlane:



I'm also enjoying the HBO series Treme a lot. Didn't really realize these are all actual musicians.

[vicvega]

stuff I dig right now:
Charlie Parker
Dizzy Gillespie
Thelonoious Monk
Sun Ra
Dave Brubeck
Art Blakey
Cannonball Adderley
Fusion-era Miles Davis

[Libaax]

I discovered a new big fav listening to his music in a party at a friends apartment. I wasnt big fan of instrumental Jazz without vocals before really.


I mean Charlie Mingus who of course i knew by name before. I AM Mingus album i have listened alot to in spotify recently and i have bought a double CD of many of his best songs. Funky music,band that is pure awesome.

[Spike-X]

Oh hell yeah. Mingus Ah Um and Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus are a couple of my favourites.

[MartinNL]

Just found out in a 'jazz recommendations for the holidays' article in the newspaper that Swedish Neneh Cherry (from pophits such as Buffalostance and Manchild) did a jazz album with Norwegian trio The Thing. The album's called The Cherry Thing. The album has 8 songs, 2 of them new and 6 are covers (Suicide, The Stooges, Martina Topley-Bird etc). Brilliantly done overall.

[jesse_custer]

I've been listening to Spiritual Unity by Albert Ayler lately. Here's the entire album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWsIG5sNq1Q