Mrs. Myra Nussbaum diggin' IoF© house band th' Foameteers™, yestiddy!
Older readers - "older readers"! - excuse me while I get this wheezing under control - will remember the first of Mrs. Nussbaum's lectures, Why Classical Music Is Shit, which effectively killed off the genre. We've heard nothing from Mozart, Shakespeare, and Beethoven since, such was the critical impact and persuasive authority of her argument! Give it up one more time for Mrs. Myra at the podium!
In these troubled times, [Myra reads from notes - Ed.] it behooves th' Isle O' Foam© to provide a platform for the problematic issues what most concern thousands [Enis and Agina Thousands, Perineum, VA - Ed.] in these troubled times in which we're livin' in. With urgent topicality in mind, the second Myra Nussbaum Memorial Lecture© addresses the issue that's keeping everyone awake right now - why is Jazz Music so shit? Well, it isn't shit, of course, that's just clickbait. But if it quacks like a duck ... first slide, please, Farq?
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| Giants of Jazz! Miles Davis [right - Ed.] liked Kenny G. and invited the mullet-rocking musician to support him on tour! |
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| "Mister" Acker Bilk, the Father Of British Jazz, who brought jazz down the Thames to Eel Pie Island in '51 |
Questions? You, sir, at the back, waving a copy of Downbeat Magazine?
Course Notes
Guys what dig Jazz fall into one of three scientific types:
Jazzbeaux Hipster
- humorless beret n' goatee enthusiast. Adjusts RIAA curve, compares and rates multiple takes of same performance. Calls
songs "sides". Hasn't left bachelor apartment since Miles Davis died.
Middle Class Collegiate - places Kind Of Blue face out on shelf for dinner parties. Self-identifies as soul brother "I just get on with these guys! I don't know why!" Calls John Coltrane Trane, Miles Davis Miles, Charlie Parker Bird. Subtly grooms kids by playing Chet Baker in family RV.
The following is a definitive categorization of all jazz sub-genres, presented more or less chronologically.
Dixieland Street Funeral Jazz "It's Trad, Dad!"
Further Listening: Acker Bilk, Louis Armstrong, Woody Allen
Supperclub Standards Jazz "Waiter! Where'sh my fuggin' Martini!"
Further Listening: Bobby Short, Kenny G, Ella Fitzgerald
Big Band Jazz "Funny Valentine! With a drum solo!"
Further Listening: Billy Cotton, Duke Ellington, Spike Jones
Beatnik Art Skronk Jazz "What say we go back to my pad, baby?"
Further Listening: Ornette Coleman, Vuvuzela Soccer Crowd, That Homeless Guy On The Subway
Berklee School Of Music Jazz "Could we hear that arpeggio just a half step higher?"
Further Listening: Any Brecker Brother, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Keith Jarrett
Scandinavian Academic Jazz "Jazz er en fisk som tar vitenskap."
Further Listening: Some Bald Guys In Jazz Hats
This post funded in part by JIZZ! The Jazz Mag For Men!
Even the most rabid of jazz fans will confess, under a little pressure, that you only actually need one jazz album, because they all do the same thing. So what's yours? I should warn you that votes for Kind Of Blue will set off a devasting drone strike on your home, reducing it to charred rubble.
ReplyDeleteL-R-G Leo Smith-Roscoe Mitchell-George Lewis
ReplyDeleteDuke Ellington first concert of Sacred Music
Machine Gun by Pater Brötzmann
Ute - Free to be
Lee Konitz with Warne Marsh (featuring Background Music)
Underground Resistance Submerge Live In Japan
Jim French - If Looks Could Kill
Sei Miguel - The Blue Record
Sun Ra - A Fireside Chat With Lucifer
and when you insist to choose just one and only one album
Pech Onderweg by Misha Mengelberg
Default back to Anonymous again, Richard
DeleteChoose one, or I release the drones.
DeleteI said so in the last line.
DeleteSo you did. I confess I blacked out half way down the list.
Delete"Sei Miguel - The Blue Record"
DeleteThis item leaps out of your impressive-into-baffling list. I don't know this date by the confounding Lisbon maven of Outsider Jazz.
First jazz album I got into was Miles Davis "Jack Johnson" - but I s'pose that's not really "pure" jazz?? So, Dave Brubeck??
ReplyDeleteBrilliant Corners, by Thelonious Sphere Monk.
ReplyDeletescary i am all of the above without the fancy turntable
ReplyDeletemonk duke miles all great but name the one i return to constantly is Easy Living by Paul Desmond
I prefer my jazz of the fusion or rock kind, so will go for Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays - As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls. I haven’t bought anything by Mr Methane this century though.
ReplyDeleteGoing back to the 80’s, two of my friends dads used to play in Trad Jazz bands. Me and a few mates would go to these boozy events and rather enjoy ourselves because in our ignorance it sounded like The Bonzo Dog DoDah Band.
I’m not an bitter Alcoholic Detective by the way, but I’d like to think that’s my vibe.
Jazz ain’t dead, it just smells funny.
"Mr. Methane" is very good - is it your own?
Delete"Jazz - delicious hot, disgusting cold"
There was a character on UK tv a while back with that name, but he's as puerile as you would expect.
DeleteTo be honest, I could pick any of Dexter Gordon’s Blue Note albums. They are all great. But if I had to pick one I would choose “Dexter Calling…”
ReplyDeleteGbrand
Things could get worse. What if the Eagles were actually doing jazz ?
ReplyDelete"Inner Space", by Chick Corea
ReplyDeleteStrewth! (to quote Eric). Didn't have you figgered for a Science-ologist!
DeleteThetan Clear.
DeleteGlad to hear it!
Delete*backs away, avoiding eye contact*
Don't need another house reduced to rubble, so in a heated battle between Ellington's Live at Newport and Mingus' Ah um, its Mingus by a knife blade.
ReplyDeleteLove that Mingus album. You know, of course, that he didn't like his music being called jazz - he preferred "folk".
DeleteYep. He also was prone to pull a switchblade on members of his own band that did not live up to his standard. Hence, the winner by a knife blade.
DeleteThe rest of that story, seldom recounted, shows him to be a prankster with an impish sense of humor! That famous switchblade was a novelty rubber item, with which he'd "stab" bandmembers in the throat - creating much hilarity!
DeleteThe adjective impish is rarely used to describe Mingus.
DeleteThat's because you didn't know him like I did. The Mingus I knew was a warm, easy-going guy, supportive, sensitive, a loyal and generous friend and devoted husband who liked nothing better than to make the people around him comfortable and happy. That's because the Mingus I knew was Irving Mingus, janitor at the Hackensack Y.
Deletesnort
DeleteDon't want the drones to attack, so I'll go with the 1st Jazzer I ever bought: Best of the Dave Brubeck Quartet. I had to have the uncut version of Take Five...(The tune written to give the drummer a solo, which of course was edited out for the single.)
ReplyDeleteHis "Greatest Hits" was the first jazz album I knew - my parents being whitebread suburbanites - and still one of the most enjoyable.
DeleteSun Ra "Jazz in Silhouette"
ReplyDeleteI had the awful feeling you were going to vote for Alice Coltrane.
Delete*waits*
Deleteah jazz and rock.
ReplyDeleteJazz - someone playing 10000 chords watched by 3
Rock someone playing 3 chords watched by 10000
I rest my case
Rest your case backstage with the others.
DeleteIt is, of course, "The Jimmy Giuffre 3" by The Jimmy Giuffre 3 (mono), later reissued as "The Train and The River" (stereo, but with a better sleeve) by The Jimmy Giuffre Trio with Jim Hall.
ReplyDeleteCheers, Peanuts Molloy.
Never heard of it.
DeleteWell, you certainly had on 18th July 2019, so there!
DeleteCheers, Peanuts Molloy.
Your trading card is in QC.
DeleteJulius Hemphill "Raw Materials and Residuals"
ReplyDeleteKenny Burrell "Midnight Blue"
ReplyDeleteI've always been too busy seeking out obscure rock nuggets to become conversant in Jazz so my choice is rather off the wall and is an album from 1966 by someone better known for his antics as a comedian and for his movies in the late 1970's and 1980's but he was a half decent jazz pianist as well. I picked up a copy of 'Genuine Dud' by the Dudley Moore Trio in my boot fair foraging days when I was very young and its as bit like that old coat that you have to put on at least once every winter and will never throw out.
ReplyDeleteDud was no dud as a pianist, composer or arranger.
DeleteGot to be either Miles's 'Bitches Brew' or Soft Machine's 'Third'.
ReplyDeleteBrian
Drones deployed.
DeleteJan Garbarek & Keith Jarrett Belonging
ReplyDeleteGorgeous
DeleteHey Koen! Fanny thinks you're gorgeous (lol).
Deletetis GE here, approving the topic
ReplyDeletechoices=
FILLES DE KILIMANJARO by Miles sounding as much chamber musicky as jazzy
COUNT'S ROCK BAND by Steve Marcus w/ L Coryell sounding more rocky --fuzzy/feedbacky than jazzy [yay]
GE? Is this really you, back after so many years absence? Such a shame the drones are already triggered, and by the time you read this your bachelor basement pad in downtown Canarsie will be filled with the rubble from the crack house on the first floor. I don't make the rules, but you need to read them.
Deletey es mr burt tis i yiyi, old nemesis pal
DeleteSteve Marcus !!! Tomorrow Never Knows,The Lord's Prayer and of course Count's Rock Band.the man was vastly overlooked and under-rated
DeleteYes tis i-yiyi poppin in again, lucky them drones hit old address most likely, i'm unscathed!
ReplyDeleteYou or 1 or 2 posters here may be interested to know about an old nyc band i music directed that had our 1st-only album released last summer on the FUTURISMO UK label! STRANGE PARTY 'the best party band in new york' some 40 years ago! It had some jazzy overtones featuring mr steve elson on horns [david bowie go-to player] and ornette coleman's nephew tony frere on vocals with joey arias, present day drag queen. New wave funk artsy nyc dada disco describe the sound more thoroughly!
see https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lD1OiOYXJdouuzvq28YBhn7ZQLYanF1Mo
for more info silvoo play!
Older readers may remember GE's bold Casio VL-Tone initiatives.
DeleteI suppose I'm the Aspy hoarder type of Jazzer.
ReplyDeleteStill can't believe the unbelievably dodgy-looking Acker Bilk hasn't been cancelled for unspeakable things carried out under the guise of "music lessons" - just dig the cover on his legendary licourice-stick-brandishing 'Suck My Jazz' LP.
For me, Jack DeJohnette 'Special Edition'.
Kind of Blue seems right for my last ever today...and, just, right in general. Lame. Sure. But...
ReplyDelete*elegantly extends index finger toward shiny red button set in stainless steel panel on desk*
Deleteouch...but no more teachers, too many books, lots of no one noticing looks
DeleteI've never heard of Jimmy Giuffre either so I'll go with that one as well.
DeleteThe Train And The River is the Astral Weeks of jazz sorta. It's superb, and I'll be FoamFeaturing™ it and a couple of other Third Wave biscuits upcomingly.
DeleteIf I have to pick one favorite, it's gotta be Carla Bley. I live within subway distance of the Berklee School of Music, where she is widely revered, and local hero Gary Burton plays boatloads of her stuff. Her actual tunes aren't always terrific, but her changes are bold and witty, especially when she uses the weirder chord extensions. Plus she did an excellent job of keeping herself and her various musical and romantic partners in control of their own music. European Tour 1977 has been a top ten album for me since it came out (yeah, I'm that old).
ReplyDeleteHiroshi Suzuki's "Cat" does it for me today.
ReplyDeleteJust to keep drones away for a while.
Vlad Putin
Anything by Louis Jordan & the Tympani Five. I've got a lot of jazz on my (now) 15,500 song flash drive. Most of 'em....too many notes, and they do go on, and on, and on. Does EVERYONE in the band have to take a solo? And can't it be, like, 12 bars and you have to wrap it up? I like Coltrane's My Favorite Things, but I'd rather listen to Fear's New York's Alright If You Like Saxophones. I am a philistine. :(
ReplyDeleteChico Hamilton - Man from Two Worlds.
ReplyDeleteAs for Billy Cotton, my old man always listened to it on the radio Saturday afternoons, so perforce did I. He played out with a raucous version of "Somebody Stole My Gal" which was of course awful, then faded further out with Cotton monologuing over another piece which I think was a variation of it, muted horns, tinkling piano, in all rather good. I know it off by heart can recall completely. Not Cotton's ramblings, of course.
Oh and don't knock Bilk. "Creole Jazz" and "Summer Set" were pretty good, and he made a good proper album with Humph.
Happy to take your word for it, Dave.
Delete