Jazz for aficionados

One of Silver's last recordings (1999).  This is 46 years after he started with the Jazz Messengers.  As you can hear, he didn't change his style of playing.  I am beginning to think he is like Mingus in the sense that he is a composer first, player second.

I  think with some players, the composition of the group, sidemen, is more important than with others.   With Silver the group personnel is critically important.  Seems incorrect to call them sidemen. Since he mainly plays with a stabbing staccato style (drumming), some one has to play the melody and carry the essence of the tune. 

Ryan Kisor on Trumpet.  I think he is another one who is now with Wynton.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bomix15duj0&index=2&list=PL4ypuAMic-Gh5kyhERAMZMFIPTnwfQxZX

I like this CD.  It's a sad indictment of modern Jazz that this was as good as anything else being played at the time it was released.  You would have thought Silver would have been considered 'vintage' by 2000.

Cheers

BTW, I bet this is not a Blue Note Release. :)  Surely not BN Cover art.  Verve.   Ain't progress grand?

Cheers

O-10, I asked you for musical yardsticks; iow, pertaining to the playing of the two trumpet players in question.  Stylistic, command of the language of jazz; harmony, rhythm, inventiveness etc. You have provided none.  While things like the number of recordings as a leader are certainly important, that fact says nothing specific about a musician's  playing.  Still, let's  look at a yardstick you are using anyway:  Blue Mitchell recorded 27 records as a leader and more than three times that many as a sideman; a pretty impressive recording resume by any standard.  Now, here's the punchline:  Mitchell died at age 49 and Byrd at age 81!  Makes whatever leg up Byrd may have had in number of recordings pretty irrelevant as far as far as I am concerned.  This still says nothing about who the better player was; a contention that you raised, I simply said that I liked Mitchell's solo on Nica's Dream and you went on to compare it to Byrd's solo on a different version of the tune.  Importantly, FOR ME, Byrd recorded many records, particularly late in his career that were....well, let's just say, as Rok would say, that "left the farm".  A term that I frankly is rather kind; I would say a lot of those funk/disco records were simply jive.  Your own words about Byrd:

****Once I accepted the fact that it ain't jazz, I listened to it for what it is. While most of this new music is geared to someone much younger than me, I'm not so old that I done forgot what it's like to have wild hormones****

Not much of an endorsement for some of his "body of work".  I can't think of any Mitchell recordings as a leader that were as ji......er, that left the farm as much as some of Byrd's 😉

Ok, the Blakey thing:

O-10, with all due respect some of your comments are simply not focused enough to have a substantive dialogue about some of these topics; to be blunt, they are sometimes all over the place.  Example:

IT WASNT I WHO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT BLAKEY PLAYING BEHIND OR AHEAD OF THE BEAT.  Once again, it was YOU who said that, in reference to something you said someone else altogether said.  I have said only that Blakey's drumming sounds lazy sometimes and that I like a different style of drumming better; drumming which is more crisp and organized and with more forward motion.  As concerns Nica's Dream, I said that it was the choice of tempo, NOT NECESSARILY BLAKEY'S DRUMMING, that made the tune sound sleepy and was too slow (something you agreed with: "languid").  Still, if you want to know what is meant by playing ahead or behind the beat all you need to do is read some of my comments of about two weeks ago.  However, I will repeat myself:

Playing ahead or behind the beat applies mostly (not always) to players other than drummers since it is usually the drummer who has the main role in establishing the pulse (beat) in a jazz band.  In some bands the player most in control of the pulse can be the bass player and the drummer plays more TO the bass player's pulse.  Still, in some other bands it is more democratic and the rhythm section establishes the pulse together without anyone player having the upper hand.  Blakey, to my ears (especially when he plays brushes) tends to play in a style that is very relaxed and which doesn't propel the pulse as much as other drummers.  Hence my use of the term "lazy".  I prefer a drummer who plays more incisively and with a lighter touch and more forward momentum.  At the opposite end of Blakey's style is a drummer like Buddy Rich who played with an almost manic sense of forward motion; I dislike that as much as the lazy approach.  I love drummers like Max Roach, Tony Williams and Roy Haynes; crisp, light touch, lots of forward momentum; but, controlled.

"The beat" is the pulse that an ensemble establishes during a performace of a tune.  A horn player has a certain amount of latitude on the front side of "the beat" as well as on the backside and a little latitude is not perceived as behind or ahead of the beat, but as a stylistic choice to play in a relaxed fashion or in a rhythmically aggressive fashion.  At a certain point too much deviation from "the beat" established by the rhythm section is perceived as  obviously behind or ahead of the beat and COULD be considered objectionable:

Behind the beat:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Znm88X3BVSI

Ahead of the beat (Paquito's solo only):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C6lKkQzCntI

Frogman, you're turning what should be a pleasurable experience into a job; I'm retired and have no desire to work, not even for money. Call me when this gets to be a fun thing to do.


Enjoy the music.

No, O-10, that may be what you feel; but it is not the case.  Why, then, do you ask the questions; if you don't want the answers?  I'll make you a deal, don't ask me questions directly and I won't give you any answers directly.  I am sincerely sorry if our interaction causes you to not have "fun"; that is certainly not my intention.

The "problem" can be boiled down to a couple of basic things, and this has been discussed (argued) before: Jazz and any other serious music is high art with a tremendous amount of very interesting "stuff" going on; it resists being kept only in the realm of "fun".  I think that your idea of "fun" in discussing jazz is, in part, to be able to postulate and present things in a manner that conveys a certain sense of "authority" and ignore much of this interesting stuff; and, then, you recoil and take matters very personally when there is disagreement.  The disagreement leads to attempts at discussions  and these "discussions" lead to the opening of many "cans or worms" (those pesky things called "facts").  Underneath all this is the basic conflict created by your stance that it is one's subjective impressions that tell the whole story and the stance that considers subjectivity as only part of the story.  I do have to say that I find irony in our recent discussions and your refusal to accept my subjective opinions while demanding answers to why I feel that way (Thomas' yodeling).  Lastly, when there is disagreement, there is a tendency to lace your comments with a certain amount of sarcasm and provocation.  This last thing is relatively unimportant as we are all, hopefully, big boys and girls, but this doesn't promote good dialogue.

So.... there, that was my analysis of the "problem".  Once again, what you may feel is another long-winded anti-fun comment.  From my perspective, if one can't identify a problem and see it for what it is there's no chance in hell that it will be solved.  And, I am truly interested in solving the problem because as I have said many times before, this is your thread and I respect and commend you for starting it.  As before, and in deference to you, if you want me to simply go away I will do so; just say the words.  In the meantime, I encourage you to return to your retrospective on Horace Silver; as Rok said, there is much work to do and I look forward to your comments.