Friday, December 31, 2010

John Coltrane - At Temple University 1966


Digitally remastered live archive release from the Jazz great containing one of Coltrane's last preserved live performances ever. Taped in Philadelphia with excellent sound quality, this set presents Coltrane playing probably the freest version of 'Naima', along with readings of two more of his compositions: 'Crescent' and a powerful version of 'Leo'. Coltrane died shortly after this performance at the age of 40 on July 17, 1967.

After this set, taped on November 11, 1966, ‘Trane would record a number of sessions for Impulse (which would mostly be issued posthumously), and would be recorded privately at the Village Theatre in New York on December 26 (this performance is mentioned in discographies as circulating among collectors, but it has never been released; the audio quality is unknown), and finally at New York’s Olatunji Center, on April 23, 1967. The latter would prove to be his final live performance, which ‘Trane gave despite feeling extreme pain.


tracklist:

01. Naima (John Coltrane) 16:47
02. Crescent (John Coltrane) 26:15
03. Leo (John Coltrane) 20:43

Download Part1
Download Part2

Dewey Redman Quartet - Look for the Black Star

Although always a bit under-recognized and overshadowed by his contemporaries, tenor-saxophonist Dewey Redman has long been one of the giants of the avant-garde and bop. This early recording finds Redman discovering his own individual voice on five of his frequently emotional originals. Assisted by pianist Jym Young, bassist Donald Raphael Gareet and drummer Eddie Moore, this San Francisco date is quite adventurous and holds one's interest throughout. ~Scott Yanow, All Music Guide


01 - Look For The Black Star [15:41]
02 - For Eldon [06:29]
03 - Spur Of The Moment [01:54]
04 - Seven And One [13:22]
05 - Of Love [07:58]

Vinyl Rip.

* Dewey Redman - tenor sax, voice
* Donald Garrett - bass, bass clarinet, voice
* Jym Young - piano, kalimba
* Eddie Moore - drums


Download

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Billy Bang Quintet featuring Frank Lowe Above & Beyond: An Evening in Grand Rapids




Few musicians in any category combine violinist Billy Bang's intrinsic understanding of his instrument's tradition with the adventurousness associated with the New York City loft scene of the 1970s and wrap it up in an inside-out style honed and refined over the course of a thirty-plus year career.

For the last few years Bang has been enjoying a creative peak, particularly as a member of the William Parker Violin Trio, which released Scrapbook (Thirsty Ear, 2003), and as the leader of his own projects that draw on his experiences as a Vietnam veteran. Longtime friend and collaborator, tenor saxophonist Frank Lowe, was in the band that made Vietnam: The Aftermath (Justin Time, 2001, but didn't live to see the recording of the follow-up, Vietnam: Reflections (Justin Time, 2005).

Above & Beyond captures Bang's rhythm section (Andrew Bemkey on piano, Todd Nicholson on bass and Tatsuya Nakatani on drums) with Lowe live at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids, Mich. in April of 2003. By September of that year Lowe would be dead from lung cancer, but at this show the pair's playing on the hour's four long selections is telepathic. Lowe's wind may have been diminished, but his style had evolved away from the fire-breathing of his youth to prettier, pithier mutterings that perfectly complement Bang's staccato solos and rhythmically expansive melodies. Lowe doesn't entirely abandon his free jazz roots and his brief atonal runs help build the intensity that Bang's compositions are designed to release.

Nor does this music lend itself easily to shuffle play: this concert is best experienced as a whole, letting each musician work his way into his improvisation, then marveling at the way his band mates bring the tunes back into focus. In Grand Rapids, the Billy Bang Quintet was at the height of their powers. Frank Lowe is sorely missed. ~Jeff Stockton, allaboutjazz.com

01 - Silent Observation 18:08
02 - Nothing But Love 10:04
03 - Dark Silhouette 23:24
04 - At Play in the Fields of theLord 13:20


* Billy Bang - violin
* Frank Lowe - tenor sax
* Andrew Bemkey - piano
* Todd Nicholson - bass
* Tatsuya Nakatani - drums

Recorded live on 28 April 2003 at The Urban Institute For Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI.
Dedicated to Frank Lowe (1943 - 2003).

Download

Medeski, Martin and Wood : The Stone: Issue Four (2010)



Tracklist:
1. Tutrasa’i
2. Riffin Ed/Luz Marina
3. Buster Rides Again/Doppler
4. Amber Gris
5. We’re All Connected

Recorded live at the stone. Nyc.


Download

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Susie Ibarra - Radiance


Drummer Susie Ibarra has in her short time as a leader, assembled a trio that shines so brightly it seems incomprehensible that their "radiance" could be captured in a studio recording. Nonetheless, Radiance is the evidence of this band's wondrous versatility, taste and collective musicianship. Ibarra plays drums and assorted percussion. Veteran pianist Cooper-Moore (in his most understated performance on record) also plays harp and diddley-bo and violinist Charles Burnham from James Blood Ulmer's Odyssey band, join her. Over nine tracks, including the heartbreakingly beautiful title suite, Ibarra and company virtually reinvent modern jazz, carrying its rampant improvisational excesses over the edge into contoured statements of lithe chromatic lyricism and tact, and, creating a compositional framework for the expression of true collective and individual creativity. Radiance's three parts are a jazz folk suite. Ibarra's percussive subtleties are layered over by gorgeous violin work from Burnham playing parsed phrases and elliptical Eastern melodies as Moore offers the harp as a bridge between the two carrying forth melody and rhythm entwined. On the last movement he uses the diddley-bo as a contrapuntal device to Burnham's pastoral yet elegant lines. Further, there exists a wildly inventive cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Up From the Skies," with a gorgeous percussion and drum solo that is so sparse in its beginnings one would never guess that a tune follows it. When the melody finally does enter it's through the back door, with Burnham playing through a wah-wah pedal to bring it out a struggling note at a time. Still it moves and gives way to a phenomenal jam in the center, full of funk and groove. "Jagged Threads" is a Latin-tinged jazz variation on the tango. Cooper-Moore's depth of field here comes in handy, because it's his pacing and multifaceted solo that keeps the tune both focused yet expands its reach with multiples of arpeggiated scales filling up the intervals in the middle when the melody gives way harmonically, yet allowing Burnham to bring it back without a stitch. There are alternate takes of "Dreams" and "Laughter" from Radiance that fill the set, and given their striking melodic invention and extrapolated sense of Eastern harmonic sensibilities and their truly beautiful architecture, they stand alone as well as they do within the suite. This is the band to watch, folks. -- Thom Jurek

Download

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Movie ChoOser - An other blog by jizzrelics!




Started a new blog: http://moviech00ser.blogspot.com/

Of course you will find links to Megavideo and similiar streaming platforms. The films are strictly selected, I will try to make good choices. Bookmark it and spread the world!

Jizz

Friday, December 24, 2010

An array of quotes (by Mingus)


A paint by Jay Mason.




Have a nice Christmas. In the next weeks I'm coming up with a massive Braxtonian upload (9 cds). In the meantime, something to read.


“Just because I’m playing jazz I don’t forget about me. I play or write me the way I feel through jazz, or whatever. Music is, or was, a language of the emotions.”


“Tastes are created by the business interests. How else can you explain the popularity of Al Hirt?”


“If someone has been escaping reality, I don’t expect him to dig my music.”


“Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.”


“Most of the soloists at Birdland had to wait for Parker’s next record in order to find out what to play next. What will they do now?”


“In my music, I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is because I’m changing all the time.”


“They’re singing your praises while stealing your phrases.”


“I’m too busy playing. When I’m playing I don’t pay attention to who’s listening. When I was listening I listened to symphony orchestras, Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Stravinsky. You don’t listen to one instrument; you listen to music.”


“I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer.”


“I, myself, came to enjoy the players who didn’t only just swing but who invented new rhythmic patterns, along with new melodic concepts. And those people are: Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Parker, who is the greatest genius of all to me because he changed the whole era around.”


“Had I been born in a different country or had I been born white, I am sure I would have expressed my ideas long ago. Maybe they wouldn’t have been as good because when people are born free–I can’t imagine it, but I’ve got a feeling that if it’s so easy for you, the struggle and the initiative are not as strong as they are for a person who has to struggle and therefore has more to say.”


“Let my children have music! Let them hear live music. Not noise. My children! You do what you want with your own!”


“It (jazz) isn’t like it used to be. The guys aren’t together. They’re all separated. Individuals now. Bird was a symbol. It was a clique, a clique of people. Who all believed in one thing: gettin’ high. And playin’.”


“That sound in tune to you? Sounds sharp to me. Sounds like I’m playing sharp all the time. My singing teacher told us you should do that. Maybe I got it from her. She said singers when they grow old have a tendency to go flat. So if you sing sharp as a young person, as you get older and go flat, you’ll be in tune. In other words, it’s never thought good to be flat. It means you can’t get to the tone.”


“Most customers, by the time the musicians reach the second set, are to some extent inebriated. They don’t care what you play anyway.”


“Good jazz is when the leader jumps on the piano, waves his arms, and yells. Fine jazz is when a tenorman lifts his foot in the air. Great jazz is when he heaves a piercing note for 32 bars and collapses on his hands and knees. A pure genius of jazz is manifested when he and the rest of the orchestra runaround the room while the rhythm section grimaces and dances around their instruments.”


Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Rava / D'Andrea / Vitous / Humair - QUATRE (1989 GALA records)


This is the first (of two) record of an european all-star quartet from late eighties. The group is made by the italians Enrico Rava on trumpet and Franco D'andrea on piano, swiss drummer Daniel Humair and Miroslav Vitous on bass. Each member contributes with nice compositions and the collective spirit is impressive, fed by the lyrical voice of Rava, the subtle harmonies of D'Andrea's piano and the variety of rhythms and timbres produced by Humair and Vitous.

I hope you'll enjoy it! ------------------- CJ

Download

Monday, December 20, 2010

Ornette Coleman - Colors



Ornette Coleman is certainly full of surprises in his 60s, recording a duo album with -- believe it or not -- a pianist. For this project, he chose the German pianist Joachim Kühn, who gratefully claims that it was Ornette's example that originally led him down the road to free jazz, and they recorded eight Coleman compositions live in the opera house of Kühn's hometown, Leipzig. Yet their collaboration is not really a radical departure from Ornette's sound worlds in his acoustic groups or in the electric Prime Time. The two seem to exist on parallel planes, not interacting or reacting rhythmically or harmonically, but carving out their occasionally entwined melodic lines separately. Nor does Ornette change his own alto sax manner; at times, he performs in the same rhetorical fashion as he does with Prime Time, while venturing on the outside far more often and scraping away on the violin or burbling on his trumpet when the odd impulse strikes. The music ranges from the relatively funky "Faxing" -- no doubt a spinoff from Tone Dialing -- to the atonal complexity of "Three Ways to One," and the technically formidable Kühn gets an ovation for his extremely intricate solo passage in the latter. Here is an example of the artist having it both ways, reintroducing an instrument that he became famous for banishing, yet without compromising the artistic conception that led to its banishment in the first place. Thus, Colors is a fascinating addition to the Ornette Coleman catalogue. by Richard S. Ginell

Download

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Miles!! live in 1969


Frankly speaking, there is nothing I can say about this one....just enjoy it!

In this 1969 european tour date the music is already far away from what the quintet was playng few months before, and all that was going to happen is also there, hidden under an invisibility cloak. Shorter's tenor solo in gemini part I is simply stunning, listen and tell me. CJ

Friday, December 17, 2010

steve lacy - momentum 1987













This is one of my favourite Steve Lacy records, possibly because it is one of the first I heard! Still, I remember how I felt suprised when, after the two first wonderful tunes with blowing saxophones and driving bass, Irene Aebi's voice spreaded out of the blue in the third track "Utah" singing "Strawberry, strawberry...". Some may hate her eccentric way, but could you imagine someone else singing those complex and awkward songs? I can't.

Anyway, I hope you love it.... so here is it the rip of my (signed by the Author!) copy with the hystory of the compositions also briefly sketched by Lacy himself in the booklet. Enjoy, CJ

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Frank Wright Sextet - Stove Man, Love Is The Word



Frank Wright Sextet - Stove Man, Love Is The Word


1. Stove Man, Love Is The Word
2. T-and-W
3. Rice Patch
4. Export

Frank Wright tenor sax
Ka-Kamal Abdul-Alm trumpet
Tony Smith piano
Richard Williams bass
Khalil Abdullah percussion
Gerry Griffin drums

Munich Loft, May 22, 1979

Download

Tu M' & the Magical Mystery Orchestra (re-up)


BRILLIANT sonorities & gleaming tones, enchanting melodies, scratchy textures & grainy surfaces - all born from the Magical Mystery Orchestra, a "secret ensemble" of horns, strings, percussion, piano, and other traditional instrumentation. The compositions of Rossano Polidoro (b.1970) and Emiliano Romanelli (b.1979), together known to the world as Tu m', were first played by the Magical Mystery Orchestra, then digitally reprocessed and edited by the composers. This approach is a departure from much of the previous Tu m' music, with the composers typically approaching laptops directly as the point of compostion, here drawing inspiration from the "colors of the acoustic instruments, in their simple and pure sound and in their melodic reiteration in space." Ten uncommonly beautiful electro-acoustic treasures.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Ornette Coleman - Virgin Beauty

This was introduction to later period Ornette Coleman, and to my ears remains one of his better electric recordings. Ornette and Prime Time really cook up a storm on this release of mostly short numbers. Jerry Garcia (!) from the Grateful Dead even sits in on a couple of selections and feels right at home. The music is well played and loaded with feeling, especially the untitled, mostly solo closing track.

Download

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Charles Mingus sextet with Eric Dolphy





Charles Mingus-- ornery, incendiary, and quick-tempered-- was a mountain of a man who produced a mountain of vital music. More than perhaps any other artist, Mingus embodied the past, present and future of jazz all at once, finding the threads that led from the Cotton Club to the avant-garde through everything that came between.

It's a favorite jazzhead pastime to sit around debating which was the best of so-and-so's many bands, and Mingus comes up often in those discussions-- he led bands of every size, shape, and instrumentation over the course of more than three decades. While several of his many masterpieces featured large bands, and he's known as a brilliant composer and arranger with a special gift for texture, he was also one of jazz's greatest bass players and a fine pianist who excelled in small group settings. As to which was his best band, his mid-60s sextet is a serious contender.

The sextet was fairly heavily documented in its day on the stage-- The Great Concert of Charles Mingus, recorded in Paris in April of 1964 and finally reissued in 2004 with the full set list, features this band minus trumpeter Johnny Coles, who was incapacitated at the time with a stomach ailment, and it's one of his strongest recordings. Going back in time a few months from that Paris date, the sextet (Dolphy gets billing on this disc mostly because he was too amazing not to) was coming off a residency at the Five Spot where they honed their interaction and discovered each other's tendencies. They played a one-off show at Cornell, which was lost to the ages until Mingus' widow Sue found a tape.

As a document of the sextet, it's arguably even better than the Great Concert. Unfortunately, there's no mind-blowing version of the latter's "Parkeriana" in this set, but it makes up for that loss elsewhere. For something that was apparently never considered for release, this has pristine recording quality, and it includes all of both sets, nearly filling two CDs with just ten different songs. This set captures the band in an expansive mood, exploring the possibilities of Mingus' ingenious compositions (and a few old favorites as well), and for any fan of 60s jazz, it's a wonder to behold.

The first thing you hear on disc one actually isn't the sextet. It's pianist Jaki Byard playing "ATFW You" (ATFW stands for Art Tatum Fats Waller) on his own to begin the set. The perennially underrated Byard, who was born in the same year as Mingus, 1922, could play deftly in virtually any style. He'd sometimes jump from one idiom to another in the middle of a chorus, stringing together quotes from throughout popular music (such as on this version of "Fables of Faubus" where in his solo he goes from "Yankee Doodle Dandy" to "Lift Every Voice and Sing" to Chopin's "Funeral March" with the ease of someone twirling a radio dial).

Mingus does his own solo thing on Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady". Rock-oriented music fans might hear "five-minute bass solo" and cringe, but this is a truly lyrical reading of the tune that swings effortlessly. The band of Mingus, Coles, Byard, tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan, drummer Dannie Richmond, and Dolphy on flute, alto sax, and bass clarinet practically plays with one mind on the rest of the tracks, a few of which are truly gargantuan. Their seventeen-minute charge through Billy Strayhorn's "Take the A Train" is like an exploded diagram of the tune, as the band carves it up, the arrangement constantly shifting. Dolphy's trademark extramusical noises make an appearance as he snorts, grunts and audibly breathes his way through the central climax, singing through his sax.

The centerpiece of the entire performance, though, is "Meditations", more commonly known as "Meditations on Integration". The sextet takes you on a half-hour trip through some of Mingus' finest themes, opening with a haunting figure played on arco bass and flute that sounds like something out of a half-remembered dream of Claude Debussy. "So Long Eric", conceived as a temporary goodbye letter for the woodwind player, who had decided to stay in Europe indefinitely after the band's upcoming tour there, would unexpectedly acquire the air of a sad tribute only months later, when Dolphy lapsed into a sudden diabetic coma in Berlin and passed away at the age of 36. The impact of the loss of Dolphy so early is incalculable-- he was a truly original voice on any instrument he touched and cut precious few sessions as a leader.

And that's a part of what made the sextet so special-- it was a band full of distinctive instrumentalists who together made something on the borderline of magic. This set captures them at their finest, still caught in the adventure of learning, but sure enough to make every note count.

Joe Tangari, August 13, 2007 (Pitchfork)


Download cd 1


Download cd 2

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Always the same, but a bit different.

Jizzrelics lately is on hiatus, last post date back to June, an eternity... but believe it or not, the site averages something like 100 unique visitors a day, and has some huges "momentums" with 3.000 pages views in 24 hours.

Plus: every album has an average download rate of 650 dls, and this is a really big number. Consider that there are pieces which have reached barely the grand total of 100 dls, but happily there are also some that have passed the one thousand mark. This means that 1.000 people from all over the world are now listening to that top quality bootleg from Cecil Taylor, or to an obscure gem of european free improvisation. And this really means a lot to me. The purpose of a blog like this is to share, to make music "promotion", to promote good quality pieces of art and let other aficionados enjoy all of this.

Now I think is time for a giveback.

Nothing will change of course, I promise that in the next months the number of posts will boost increasingly.

But I want to offer a new "service" to the comunity, I wanna give visibility to underground artists.

You have a band, you're doing improvisation/electronics/noises/alternative music on your own? Are you involved in a blasting punk'n'roll band? Enjoy dropping emotional pieces on solo piano? Whatever you do, Jizz is interested in listenings to it and offer you the first page.

Write at: sacco.vanzetti(at)gmail.com