Jazz for aficionados

Nighty-night, folks...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1R_nFNhwjk&ab_channel=BruceKatzBand-Topic

Thanks for that, Ghosthouse; nice. I know I posted this not all that long ago (or, at least something from this great record), but was listening to it again today and thought I should post it again. For me, one of the very best examples of this great music. Andrew Hill (sideman here) is a piano player that doesn’t get discussed much anywhere; although he was, to my ears, one of the most unique and interesting piano players ever. There were times when first listening to him that I just didn’t "get" him and felt his playing was downright weird and unpolished; and other times it was pure genius. I think I get him now. Lee Morgan sounds simply unbelievable. He had an unusually expressive and natural way of using note inflections (those little note bends that give the tone a wonderful vocal quality).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=koov4dDz5nI

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u57C4lot-go

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i47n7dby-ZI

I’ll be turning 60 in a couple of weeks and as I suppose is natural when nearing age milestones I have been thinking about "stuff". It occurs to me that one of the things that I dread most is the idea of ever getting to a point when I shut down to learning about things I care about and instead seek validation and identity by trying to take down others who I would let make me feel threatened; instead of recognizing the opportunity to learn something about that which I am always patting myself on the back for. Sad.

If one thinks that driving on the wrong side of the street is fun, let’s try doing it while driving backwards. Shall we?

For those genuinely interested in an interesting previously discussed (and disputed) little footnote in the story of this music and for those not interested in simply spewing bs:

- From a PBS interview with Stanley Crouch:

++++ SMITH: You were born in California, you grew up there. As you were growing up uh, how big was West Coast Jazz for you and how big was the San Francisco group, Dave Brubeck?

CROUCH: At that time I was coming up, everybody knew that there was a West Coast sound and it was supposed to be this cerebral, cool glass of water, if you will, version of jazz. And at the same time, though, there was this movement in New York that was rejecting that. It was called ’the hard bop group.’ So you had these guys with these light tones playing at the Pacific Ocean, then, at the Atlantic Ocean, you had these guys who were playing this hard, powerful kind of stuff. So in some sense, one group thought of the East Coast sound as a masculine sound and the West Coast sound as a feminine sound. The guys from the East Coast, they also thought of it as a white way of doing it ++++

( http://www.pbs.org/brubeck/theMusic/westCoastJazz.htm )

- ++++ Brubeck was a major exponent of West Coast or "cool" jazz, a style that was (and is) often accused of being a whitewashed version of jazz, played by and for white guys, a lite-swing alternative to the knottier and greasier styles being practiced by hard-bop musicians like Dizzy Gillespie, Horace Silver, and Miles Davis on the East Coast. ++++

( https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/12/the-excellent-paradox-of-dave-brubeck/2659... )

- https://books.google.com/books?id=iCvmBwAAQBAJ&pg=PT154&lpg=PT154&dq=west+coast+jazz+too...

- Wiki:
Some observers looked down upon West Coast jazz because many of its musicians were white, which some listeners, critics, and historians perceived as resulting in music that was too cerebral, effete, or effeminate, or that lacked swing.[12][13][14]

- http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/culture/white_jazz.htm

Hey Frogman - re Andrew Hill and your comment:

"There were times when first listening to him that I just didn’t 'get' him and felt his playing was downright weird and unpolished; and other times it was pure genius."

You mean like here? Well, for the first part of your statement, anyway...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b19AC0JC_jk&ab_channel=AustinCasey

Really know nothing about Mr. Hill so can't speak to "genius" but a few tracks from this recording have me very curious about the whole.  I'm guessing that is Eric coming in right around the 3 minute mark followed by Joe Henderson.  THIS ain't boring! 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwWO8UYjmfI&ab_channel=Alife

Thom Jurek (copied from Tidal but probably coming from the All Music Guide) writing about Andrew Hill's "Point of Departure"...

"Pianist and composer Andrew Hill is perhaps known more for this date than any other in his catalogue -- and with good reason. Hill's complex compositions straddled many lines in the early to mid-1960s and crossed over many. Point of Departure, with its all-star lineup (even then), took jazz and wrote a new book on it, excluding nothing. With Eric Dolphy and Joe Henderson on saxophones (Dolphy also played clarinet, bass clarinet, and flute), Richard Davis on bass, Tony Williams on drums, and Kenny Dorham on trumpet, this was a cast created for a jazz fire dance. From the opening moments of "Refuge," with its complex minor mode intro that moves headlong via Hill's large, open chords that flat sevenths, ninths, and even 11ths in their striding to move through the mode, into a wellspring of angular hard bop and minor-key blues. Hill's solo is first and it cooks along in the upper middle register, almost all right hand ministrations, creating with his left a virtual counterpoint for Davis and a skittering wash of notes for Williams. The horn solos in are all from the hard bop book, but Dolphy cuts his close to the bone with an edgy tone. "New Monastery," which some mistake for an avant-garde tune, is actually a rewrite of bop minimalism extended by a diminished minor mode and an intervallic sequence that, while clipped, moves very quickly. Dorham solos to connect the dots of the knotty frontline melody and, in his wake, leaves the space open for Dolphy, who blows edgy, blue, and true into the center, as Hill jumps to create a maelstrom by vamping with augmented and suspended chords. Hill chills it out with gorgeous legato phrasing and a left-hand ostinato that cuts through the murk in the harmony. When Henderson takes his break, he just glides into the chromatically elegant space created by Hill, and it's suddenly a new tune. This disc is full of moments like this. In Hill's compositional world, everything is up for grabs. It just has to be taken a piece at a time, and not by leaving your fingerprints all over everything. In "Dedication," where he takes the piano solo further out melodically than on the rest of the album combined, he does so gradually. You cannot remember his starting point, only that there has been a transformation. This is a stellar date, essential for any representative jazz collection, and a record that, in the 21st century, still points the way to the future for jazz."

Thanks for that live clip, Ghosthouse; new to me . Yes, EXACTLY like that! Without a doubt the weirdest rendition of "Here’s That Rainy Day" that I have ever heard...and it kept me engaged the entire time. What a strange sense of rhythm in that performance; as if always delaying the next beat just a tiny bit. Thelonious Monk had a little bit of that quality in his rhythmic feel, but not nearly to the same degree. To borrow a word from Mobley’s record’s title, a little "square" (in a good and interesting way) compared to the more typical relaxed flow of most other players. In that clip he seems to always keep you waiting a tiny bit for the next beat, but without interrupting his own brand of forward flow. Don’t know if you’re familiar with the music of Classical composer Charles Ives; it occurs to me that Hill’s overall concept pushes some of the same buttons for me. The audience in that clip seems dumbfounded.

"Point Of Departure" is a great record which I bought on a friend’s recommendation many moons ago after hearing Dolphy’s "Out To Lunch" and having a "wtf?" moment. As you say, "THIS is not boring"! And you’re right, that is Dolphy at the 3:00 mark. Amazing player. For a long time his playing was, for me, a little like going to an ethnic restaurant for food that was strange and unusual to my palette and that I wasn’t entirely sure about; but it kept bringing back. Thanks for the clips.