Jazz for aficionados

This conversation feels a bit stuffy to me. Why? I was a good chess player in high school. When I went off to college I looked for chess games. A whole bunch of guys were playing in the student union. But the question hit me immediately. Where are the women? I was outa' there. 

There are some mentions of Ella, and Sarah, but those are singers. In the seventies I got deeply into Brazilian jazz and man do they have some tasty women. I'd suggest Tania Maria for one. She sings, scats, and plays the piano like no get out. Now we're talking juicy jazz. I think the two best Tania Maria albums are "Brazil with My Soul" and "Piquant." Have a blast finding them on vinyl but that's the way to listen. Tania Maria is one of the best jazz pianists I've heard. 

Then Flora Purim. My God! She sings on one of the best selling jazz albums of all time: "Light as a Feather" with Chick Corea. As for her own albums which she usually makes with her percussionist husband, Airto, I recommend "Encounter." But be ready to bend your ear a bit. The lady is abstract. For some "stuffy" credibility, Ron Carter, Joe Henderson, and McCoy Tyner are also on that album. I go back to it again and again and again. Again, listen to it on vinyl if you can.I have purchased all the Flora Purim albums I could get my hands on.

Sliding into the 21st century, I recently went to a concert of a saxaphonist named Melissa Aldana. I was extremely impressed that she had her own voice (on the saxaphone). I immediately purchased a couple of her albums.

IMHO, the best jazz standard I have is Coltrane playing "My Favorite Things" on Selflessness. I have more Coltrane albums (vinyl) than I can count, but that's my all time favorite. He flies in the album. Here's a poem I wrote to Coltrane back in the day:

              ON HEARING A RADIO INTERVIEW
               WITH JOHN COLTRANE NOV. 13, 1985

 stepping out of the past
 on careful paws of a cat
 hissing & scratching
 thru car speakers
 in the Sepulveda pass
 a gospel intelligence
 where family words
 are polished in deep drums                           

 he doesn't say it
 but somehow I hear
 that music wasn't doled
 out over cloistered walls
 it comes from the streets
 where women's bodies
 turn rags to style

 I stop the car &
 close my eyes
 listening to "Green Dolphin St."
 & picture large black hands
 like Icarus's wings

 & think that grace lands anyplace  
 like snowflakes
 promiscuously kissing faces
 

I forgot one of the best classic female jazz musicians of all time. Alice Coltrane. She flies very high in "Journey in Satchidananda" accompanied by Pharoah Sanders.

@audio-b-dog 

Is this your first time visiting this thread?

If so, your willingness to pass judgement seems a bit hasty,. 

Perhaps I misunderstand your poem, but are you suggesting Jazz is, by definition, all church on the one hand and alleyway funk on the other?  Do you believe Parker, Coltrane, Davis, Shorter, etc. were adverse to leveraging their intellects?  

stuartk, good question about intellect versus funk, or what I call raw emotion. What the poem is saying is that music doesn’t come from the intellect, it comes from the streets, and I include the feminine because it is often excluded from discussion of the arts. 

I am not a music scholar, but I know that many classical composers find their themes in folk music. Bartok is probably one of the most well-known for this since he studied Hungarian folk music. But I have also heard that Haydn used folk music for themes. Folk music, in my mind, comes from the streets.

I like your choice of jazz musicians, Parker, Coltrane, Davis, Shorter. All of these men include a strong emotional content in their music. A lot of jazz I hear tends more toward the intellect and I like it less. Strong emotion coralled into artistic form is what I like in all the arts. De Kooning, for example, in painting.

I apologize for my judgment. I was trying to shake things up a bit. But I judge the world--yes, the entire world--for their exclusion of the feminine, especially in the arts. I have been researching and writing a novel about the suppression of the feminine, especially in religion, so I see pretty much everything through that lens.

But in regards to music, I’m not just talking the talk. I play more female jazz musicians than male. Although, right now I am listening to Charles Lloyd’s Forest Flower. Keith Jarrett has some great passages on there, and he is a male jazz musician I listen to a lot.

Back to the feminine for a bit. It is my belief that women were our first artists. I think that they were the early cave painters who created those beautifully drawn animals. I have a lot to say about that, but I’ll stop here.

I would ask that you try Tania Maria, especially "Brazil With My Soul." I think you will immediately be struck with a feminine strength that is not found in other jazz you might have heard. You must remember that she is playing the piano. She was classically trained in Paris.On my stereo those songs fill the room and wash over me. One thing I heard that might apply is that men show their swagger by the way they move their shoulders when they walk. Women show their swagger by the way they move their hips.

@audio-b-dog 

FYI,  also write poetry.

I’ve also played guitar (not Jazz) for many decades. As you know, in art we have inspiration/intuition and craft/application of techniques and concepts. The point I was trying to make is that there are no dumb Jazz musicians. For even the most naturally gifted, Jazz requires a sophisticated understanding of harmony and its application in improvising. This isn’t typically handed down by the muse.  

While emotion is number one for me in enjoying music and as an artistic man, I identify with and value the inner feminine more than men of other persuasions, I think it’s important to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Mental discipline and the ability to analyze and conceptualize have an important place in all the arts.