continuemos, pues!
THIS AIN'T GONNA BE A TYPICAL LIST OF HOUSEHOLD NAMES!there was
WAYNE SHORTER a few years back...
...droppin this clean, tight tone on top of miles davis' band in the mid 60s and morphing himself into a second player on soprano.
he can be sharp and thundering without being overbearing like other bigtime tenormen have generally done -- and i mean "overbearing" in a positive way: the music i have been most struck by has largely been resounding and intense, i.e. john coltrane's later work like the village vanguard 4-disc set from '61 or further out...like anything JC did after that or like anything roscoe mitchell has done since. (don't skip over roscoe, by the way! more on that later.)
great news is that we can still see wayne shorter blowin in jazz festivals and his own tours. i plan on it.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
MOSE ALLISON.
"young man's blues," taken up a notch or three by the who in the late '60s, was a tune that connected mose allison with people of all ages. he's got an affable persona and clever vocabulary, saying things like "Gimcracks and Gewgaws" the witty, likeable and incredibly talented mister allison.
i got a chance by pure luck to see him in london in august 2000. i was finishing up a year's stint as a student in barcelona and i was headed home across the atlantic within days, but i wanted to squeeze every drop out and see some more of europe before bouncing. so i moseyed up through it all and finished up spending 5 days by myself wandering london with little cash left. enough for one new, unknown pint every night and a few eats here and there. but when i saw that mose allison was playing at the pizza express (nice name.) i couldn't pass it up. he was great. it's a small venue and he was into it, didn't mail it in, not in the slightest. he's funny. makes you chuckle through the poignancy of his catchy yet quality tunes. some i like include "your molecular structure" and "I Love the Life I Live, I Live the Life I Love" and "the seventh son" and "Don't Get Around Much Anymore". take your pick: the man's got like 30 records plus all the compilations. one i'm interested in picking up is from the same summer london gig i was at, though on different nights: "The Mose Chronicles: Live in London, Vol. 1"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
BILL EVANS.
amazing.
pick up entire box sets of his recordings. grab everything you can find and stockpile it, wise young squirrel!
if you're too busy to take it all in now, don't worry...you'll get around to it someday and you won't believe how consistently captivating he was with any group he had playing around him.
tremendous.
bill evans left us in 1980 and was recording right up to his very last days of life. i'm so thankful he did that. his "last waltz" set is one of the very last gifts he gave the world: 8 discs including five 15-minute plus tunes.
i have the complete riverside recordings set, which is unbelievable. it's 12 discs and i listen to it constantly:
i'm enthralled.* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
HENRY GRIMES.
i had the privilege to see mister grimes do his thing in barcelona with no less than one of my heroes,
david murray, and one of my new favorite spirits in music,
hamid drake. you could not find a hipper, warmer, more fiercely talented trio if you ransacked the blue note studios!
these three are top-flight veterans. what the audience may not have known was that mister g was "lost" for a few decades, then reappeared knockin' suckas out of the way FAST. the man's fingers slap and snap that big ol' bass every which way he pleases, goin from classic jazz to the hippest exploration you'll hear anywhere, paris, new york or otherwise.
see him soon and thank me afterward. and say hello to his wife: she rocks too, and she's along with him for the exciting gigs.
back in the '60s he was tradin lines with giants like
archie shepp,
albert ayler,
pharoah sanders,
don cherry,
billy higgins,
gerry mulligan,
benny goodman,
sonny rollins and
my absolute favo, mister
thelonious sphere monk himself. need i say more?
just in case you said "yes," check what sonny rollins recently said about mr. g:
"Henry has always been a serious, intense, and fearless musician whose personal life reflected those exceptional qualities. I admire him greatly."and he went to high school with lee morgan and ted curson (see: mingus).
but somewhere along the way, gigs got scarce or something, and next thing you know our man henry sells his bass and disappears altogether from any and all music scenes, only to be considered gone for good...until being discovered by a social worker in the late '80s. now that's a nice piece of social work, man!
check out the downbeat article from that time, the july 2005 issue, i believe...and go hear him play!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
EVA CASSIDY.
get your hands and ears on "
live at the blues alley."
that disc will probably make you happy every single time you listen to it. she tears it up, from swingin blues to dagger-in-year-heart ballads. a fine, fine, fine listen and and a huge whole that was left after she passed away in 1996 at the age of 33.
if you can find this record, and it shouldn't be tough to track down, listen to her sing "fields of gold" and tell me that sting didn't break down and cry when he first heard it. it's one of those special cases where someone adores a tune so much that they absorb it entirely and breathe it back out into a newer, more beautiful and exposed form, transcending the original recording by eons.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
roscoe p. coltrane from the dukes of hazzard MUST have been the name of a mythical hybrid jazz genius formed by [roscoe] mitchell, charlie [p]arker and john [coltrane]. i just NOW realized that...can u dig it?
ROSCOE MITCHELL.
he is even more badass than this photo lets on.
i saw roscoe mitchell play in sevilla in march of 2000 & it was STAGGERING!
r.m. is unstoppable.
i saw him, with my own astonished eyes and ears (yes, my ears saw him, his life was so vividly pulsating before us that night), tear through a solo that lasted at least 20 minutes throughout the entirety of which roscoe had to do circular breathing just to keep up with the torrential flow of creative ideas. the band? well, no less than the "sound ensemble": featuring two bass players, two pianists and a host of others (the group's CD "nine to get ready" also features the man, the myth and the legend, "genius" george lewis, who is now in new york after a wonderfully rewarding period in san diego in which he turned just about everything he touched into gold), all of whom are worth checking out in their own right.
that night roscoe was on fire from start to finish. i recorded the show on a handheld sony tape recorder. the quality leaves plenty to be desired, especially since the band played so vibrantly, which kinda overpowered my simple little recording device. nonetheless, i've got a monumental keepsake from that event...as i do from the abdullah ibrahim and john zorn concerts that went back to back with roscoe's gig and also knocked my friends and me out of our chairs in teatro central. more on those two later...
oh, another side note... this is what rm said about his 2004 release "solo 3," a three-disc set that just barely warded off his ever-flourishing creative spirit:
"
I thought that at this point in my career, one solo CD is not enough. I'd better put out three CDs, because time is going on by."
...and if that's not enough: tell me right now who else you know could come up with a record title as dope as "Snurdy McGurdy and Her Dancin' Shoes" (1980; Nessa Records)???
...which of course leads me to the next logical move, which is taking a step back to spell out the acronym that sounds like an anthropology club or scientific research center. it is in fact the chicago version of a "paella" pan in which a phat grip of insanely creative soundsmiths slowly simmered onward from the early '60s and which turned into a bottomless source of sonic nutrition for the hungry listeners of the 20th and 21st century
(
need i remind you how thirsty and starving ears there are out there? if so, maybe the words "smooth jazz" or "shania twain" or "las ketchup" will convince you that there is an epic drought going on and the media try to drag us through as they lull us to sleep! kiss my prairie oysters, disgusting corporate swine! sorry bout that, but you gotta see that it's no good having the whole free world of aural art boiled down and reduced like the foam concoctions at ferran adrià's #1-in-the-entire-world restaurant..."el bulli" -- located in roses, a town just down the way from salvador dalí's old stomping grounds, cadaqués, a gem of a town located just over yonder on the costa brava...but that is neither here nor there!)...
aacm.
(bio and photo to come...)
"ancient to the future"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
JASON ROBINSON.
this is a really, really, really talented and genuine man. i got to know him in '98+99 at ucsd in anthony davis' music history classes, where jazz and blues were the languages spoken twice a week during that magical year.
i have a few of his discs and i can strongly recommend any of them, though i lean toward "from the sun" because in addition to the strong play from the multi-reed man and compositions by jr himself, i love the piano from san diego resident favorite mike wofford...whose story should be told more often.
[more]
[to]
[come]
[on]
[jason]
he was there marinating and basting in the warm flavors of muhal richard abrams and some of music's other gifted visionaries. i got to sit in on a talk by mra and it was fascinating. the man is full of warmth and nothing short of genius--ask anyone who knows (about) him!
mr. abrams talked about music and expressing oneself in such a real and direct way that anyone with an open mind could follow happily along with.
in my opinion, those were monumental talks and concerts in san diego, whose scene is really owed to the arrival of this group, including
george lewis,
anthony davis,
quincy troupe (what up, quincy!) - the poet laureate,
bonnie wright (this woman is a jewel) and all the cats they brought into town for gigs and stays:
aacm* douglas ewart -
is there anything he can't play?* muhal -
the founder* leroy jenkins -
check his insane bowing of john coltrane's "giant steps" (rest in peace, mr. jenkins, you were a bad-ass and you are already missed)
& others* steve lacy (
r.i.p., steve - you were one of a kind)
* g.e. stinson -
captivating sonic exploration, far beyond noodling* lisle ellis -
played with cecil taylor, paul bley...serious talent* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
MORE ON ITS WAY...(and don't worry, it won't include any mentions of the band known in spain as "lo' rolin")...
-
