white jazz

[woops]

Do you mean Larkin is like Luka will be when he reaches his sixth decade or are you saying that Larkin is what Luka would have been like if Luka had lived in the 1950s.?

i think he means he ain't got a clue

 

[woops]

bit of a crossover with the 'relationship with your dad' thread, but my dad was into 'trad' ( chris barber, acker bilk, etc., ) which destroyed my attempts to appreciate jazz at a young age, it was only getting a budget Miles Davis album which won me over, but the trad stuff was, well, shit..

but that's the UK scene - in the US they had 'cool', and Chet Baker, the no.1 smackhead horn player.. I've no idea what he sounds like, but his autobiography is on my 'to read list' - apparently it mostly consists of anecdotes about how to trick pharmacists into writing scripts to maintain your habit

that's not jazz, that's swing, as a purist guy once said to me re. brubeck. but yeah. this thread could run and run. someone's already mentioned ECM. next up is a list of all the white blokes miles had in his bands over the years. swedish guitar guys and all that, jan hammer etc. seriously though i used to like listening to those two Brubeck LPs Time Out and Time Further Out and much as there's loads of good tunes on there, expressive playing it is not. The theme of these albums is a different time signature for every track and both in his playing and in his sleevenotes Dave B comes across as a "college professor" (that's what the Americans call them) delivering a lesson.

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

Bill Evans
really, anyone miles davis hired - gerry mulligan, keith jarrett, joe zawinul, john mclaughlin
im not sure what the critical stance on brubeck and guys like that is today, but yeah, cant deny the composition there.
its ok to like jazz for tunes rather than heavyweight playing. kind of why birth of cool is my fave miles album.
been watching some old east european films lately - lot of great jazz/jazz-inspired scoring there.

 

[the ig]

The art pepper autobio, straight time, is really good, well worth a read. He dictated it to his wife I think, so it reads like oral history. Great scenes in jail and at synanon. He's good about his tattoos, said he got em so he looked cool.

Pepper is the one true great west coast cool jazzer IMO. Has all the lyricism and restraint associated with the genre but none of the gimmicks or the cocktail lounge prissiness of the likes of Desmond or Brubeck. I grab everything I can by him. Has this clipped, quite dry tone, teasing out this sort of involuted ache, but also capable of delight. One of the great alto voices, v distinctive once u tune in.

Mulligan I’d like to check out more. I’ve got a great ‘…meets Ben Webster’ tape somewhere. Ah...and other side in quartet with Chet, also good, tho don’t think latter was serious instrumentalist/improviser for very long in his career.

 

[the ig]

getz? forget the played out bossa stuff for a mo, ’sweet rain’ tho, masterly cool/modal meld with this seductive, burnished melancholy…a must. young chick corea killing on the keys, sounds as much his band as getz’s. recent thrift score for me as it goes.

 

[DLaurent]

I'm careful with my definition of 'white' as a lot like Lennie Tristano, Eddie Costa, Gil Evans, Ira Sullivan, Scott LaFaro all have names I'm not sure of their ethnicity and never really cared.

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

 

[catalog]

Do you mean Larkin is like Luka will be when he reaches his sixth decade or are you saying that Larkin is what Luka would have been like if Luka had lived in the 1950s.?

I meant the second one

 

[polystyle]

Not just ska though....


But anyway, don't want to sidetrack.

Baumann gave me one of those ...
Ref. memory banka