Jazz for aficionados

Glad you like Gismonti, O.  He is a remarkable talent.  Classically trained and a true "world music" composer.   I do have Sol Do Meio Dia and a few others by him including Folk Songs which is the 2nd by this same Haden, Garbarek, Gismonti trio as did Magico.  

Great comments all.  Re Coltrane:

****Or did it lead him to develop a new language for expressing emotion.
Or did lead to expressing a new "kind" of emotion; almost like a painter "inventing" a new color (and sub-question: Is it then a "human emotion"?).****

He did develop a new language, and it could be argued that he did so well before the time period in question (mid-late 60's) with his very angular, pentatonic scale based improvisarion.  Add to this the distinctive hard-edged tone and you have a "language" that would be very influential; especially among saxophone players.  

****the age old question, "Can you dance to it?". If there's a burden of communicative responsibility on the artist, is the artist then to be limited by the "language skills" of his audience? I certainly don't think so. Art history says, "NO!"***

This has been debated here countless times.  As always, no easy answer.  As always, context is everything.  For me an artist does not have a communicative responsibility beyond being honest with his message.  There CAN be a conscious effort to be communicative and the result can be accessible and still very interesting and artistic with a very high level of craft; Herbie Hancock's electric projects come immediately to mind.  Coltrane was a force of nature; a true artist whose creative spirit was so strong that he simply had no choice but to follow that spirit wherever it would take him, with apologies to no one.....including O-10 (kidding). 

****Who calls crap?****

If we don't keep the door slightly open to art we don't fully understand yet, there's no way to determine what is crap and what is not.  We don't have to like it; but, by at least respecting it, the stuff we do like is put in a better context.  I believe it makes us a better judge of what is good and what is bs.  Seems to me there is little downside and much upside to this attitude.  

O-10, I think your Jackie McLean post is very timely to this discussion.  Great player who came out of the "Charlie Parker school", was prominent in the "free jazz" movement and settled somewhere in the middle.  His playing on that clip, while showing his bebop (Bird) roots demonstrates a clear Coltrane influence in his harmonic vocabulary: angular, pentatonic based; especially in the up-tempo tunes which lend themselves to pattern-based improvisation.  As with Coltrane, he is very aggressive tonally with a very bright, hard-edged robust sound.  The screaming quality in some of his playing owes a lot to late-Coltrane.  Just one reason why I would never think that Coltrane "went too far".  The influence that this approach would have on other players alone justifies it for me.  I have always admired and respected McLean's playing; I can't say that I have always LIKED his playing.  As a jazz player he is aggressive and fully committed.  As an instrumentalist, I find his playing to be undisciplined.  His sense of pitch (intonation) is very erratic (usually very flat) and I simply don't like his tone; I find it rather ugly.  Players like Bird and Coltrane had all the expressive range (and more) and were also much more disciplined instrumentalists.  There is a school of thought that feels that none of the former matters when judging creative art; and that, in fact, the undisciplined approach is an asset in jazz.  It is true that some players actually cultivate that approach:  the artistic equivalent of wearing torn jeans and a dirty t-shirt as opposed to a suit and tie when performing (Rok).  We can debate the merits of one approach or the other, but the fact still remains that, almost without exception, the greatest jazz players were also very disciplined instrumentalists.  Still, great jazz player.  Btw, I don't quite understand the "stereotypical" designation to that type of playing.  When one considers how many different styles there are (swing, bop, hard bop, etc.) I am not quite sure what "stereotypical" means.  Good clip; thanks.  From the NY Times obituary:

++++But Mr. McLean preferred not to talk about his music in terms of categories. "I've grown out of being just a bebop saxophone player, or being a free saxophone player," he told Jon Pareles of The Times in 1983. "I don't know where I am now. I guess I'm somewhere mixed up between all the saxophonists who ever played."++++

Frogman, as I stated, our discussion about Trane relates to 2 minutes of his total musical life, and was just conversation to pass the time.

I use the word "Stereotypical" to mean that I've heard it a lot before; "Bird" and Coltrane for sure; that aspect of Jackie is what I was referring to.

Since I never could dance, I overlook that; as a matter of fact, I prefer music that you can not dance to.


 
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB6GkA54n_Q


Jackie Mac has many faces; that is the one I liked best.



Enjoy the music.

Ghosthouse, I asked a professional jazz musician I knew, who his favorite artist was, and he told me "Baden Powell" was the one he was listening to at that time.

"Knew" meaning he is no longer with us; "No", I'm not going to name him. It has been alluded that I like to throw around the names of professional jazz musicians who I talked to in a friendly manner, and I suppose that's true, but this time I'm not going to mention the name.

At that time, I didn't even know who "Baden Powell" was, I had never even heard the name; it's for sure he wasn't a "Blue Note" musician.

Now, I have this 2 CD set titled "Three Originals, Baden Powell", and you get your money's worth, and then some; it comes with a 12 page booklet.

I mention this because his music is in the same vein that you posted.

This link fills you in on Mr. Powell;

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baden_Powell_de_Aquino


Enjoy the music.

Frogman,  our conversation, meaning just between the two of us, is the kind of conversation "aficionado's" have that proves they are who they claim to be, but is not really important in relation to John Coltrane's merits as an artist.

When he went out into the "wild blue" before a live audience, ( he played "MY Favorite Things" for at least half an hour). After 20 minutes the whole audience was beginning to get a "?" mark look on their faces. Elvin Jones looked at McCoy Tyner, who signaled "just follow me". I don't mean he gave a hand signal, but a look of confidence, like he knew what he was going to do. Otherwise these professional musicians would have looked silly.

As it was, "Trane" was out in the "wild blue", and they were playing something different, but coherent. At our table, my date looked at me, and I looked at the professional musician, who was a drummer.

She asked, "Is Trane on something". "No, he's perfectly clean" was his reply. He gave a professional musician explanation for what was going on that nobody understood. Fortunately, Trane came out of the clouds and all was back normal like it never happened; he was jamming with McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones just like you see on the TV clips.


Enjoy the music.