"Honeybunchesofgoats" (honeybunche0fgoats)
08/04/2016 at 20:28 • Filed to: None
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"Honeybunchesofgoats" (honeybunche0fgoats)
08/04/2016 at 20:28 • Filed to: None | 5
| 6 |
It should start at the 4:58 mark, but if not, do yourself a favor and listen to it all.
Jazz was more or less introduced to the mainstream in 1938 when Benny Goodman played at Carnegie Hall. Goodman’s fame was such that he could tour with an integrated band (including guitar great Charlie Christian), at a time when segregation laws meant that significant part of the States couldn’t be visited (Famously, when Goodman was asked why he “played with that [n-word],” he replied “I’ll knock you out if you use that word around me again”).
Other bandleaders, such as Duke Ellington (despite his many, many faults) and Louis Armstrong, helped to introduce jazz as part of the mainstream.
But even into the 50s and 60s, the idea of the “jazz savant,” the person, almost always black, who had a sense for music, without the academic understanding, persisted. Thelonious Monk, for instance, who I personally feel is the only musician to have ever understood music, melody, and rhythm on an intrinsic level, is commonly said to have never learned to read sheet music, even though his house was cluttered with classical scores, which he often played for family.
One of the people to really fight for the legitimacy of jazz was Ralph Gleason, who cofounded both Rolling Stone magazine and the Monterey Jazz Festival. Through his public broadcast show, Jazz Casual, Gleason presented jazz musicians to a wider audience and didn’t just have them perform, but asked them questions about their trade; treating jazz musicians with a degree of seriousness not commonly seen outside of pure classical music (especially in the early 1960s). My personal favorite is his interview with Sonny Rollins, which you should look up.
Here is Julius “Cannonball” Adderley performing (along with his brother Nat Adderley, an accomplished coronetist, whose solo work is worth checking out). Adderley actually moved to New York and worked for a while as a music teacher, before finally being discovered and eventually ending up a part of Miles Davis’ band. This background as a music teacher shows in this clip, where he provides a truly valuable and rare insight into the role of blues in modern jazz.
Next time you’re in a jazz bar (which hopefully you are frequently), feel free to corner you favorite musician and push them on the same sorts of information.
whoarder is tellurium
> Honeybunchesofgoats
08/04/2016 at 20:44 |
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Incredible.
Especially with vitamin alcohol.
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Honeybunchesofgoats
> whoarder is tellurium
08/04/2016 at 20:47 |
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My two salty dogs, and three beers agree with you, but even sober I hold that this is the single best insight into late-50s Jazz that you can find.
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whoarder is tellurium
> Honeybunchesofgoats
08/04/2016 at 20:53 |
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Real.
As just a self taught drummer... my mind is blown with the theory, feel and knowledge behind it all.
I treasure musicians like “Cannonball” Adderley.
sony1492
> Honeybunchesofgoats
08/04/2016 at 20:53 |
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As someone who knows absolutely nothing about jazz other than I like it, how do you feel about David Brubecks work?
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Honeybunchesofgoats
> sony1492
08/04/2016 at 21:29 |
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Oof, that’s genuinely tough.
Growing up as a kid in range of WRTI , I was a bit overexposed to Brubeck. He did his own thing for so long, and compositions like Blue Rondo a la Turk had a huge influence on jazz, but he played “cool jazz” throughout his career, which is kind of limiting. I’d never turn the station if he came on the radio, but I don’t own any of his albums.
For me, it’s all about Hard Bop. I’d recommend the following:
In Walked Bud, by Thelonious Monk. Johnny Griffin’s sax solo on this is incredible. Monk had a very idiosyncratic style, and despite playing with people like Rollins and Coltrane, no one ever quite matched that, except for Griffin here (Griffin has a small, but great solo catalogue that’s worth checking out, but he never quite reaches these heights) It’s easy to forget at first, but then you remind yourself that one person was playing this in one take in a smoky bar in New York.
After that I’d recommend Monk and Rollins “Friday the 13th”
Miles Davis “So What”
Sonny Rollins “Moritat”
And Art Blakey “Moanin’”
And Art Blakey “A Night in Tunisia”
The last song came very late in hard bop (1962, I think), when Free Jazz was really taking off. It basically broke hard bop.
ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)
> Honeybunchesofgoats
08/04/2016 at 22:12 |
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Did you ever check out The Cinematic Orchestra?
Not on the same level as these guys but I enjoy them quite a lot.