Catching up on the last couple of days' worth of posts. Thanks to all for the great music.
O-10, I liked John Handy's "Naima"; a lot. I really liked the sense of freedom in not having a traditional ballad pulse, but rather slowly harmonies without an obvious beat. And love the way they ended the tune. I have always liked John Handy's playing. There is a sense of honesty and lack of pretense in his playing; or, at least, that's the feeling it evokes in me. He doesn't scream loudly through the horn and is generally understated with a pretty alto sound. I liked "Where Go The Boats" as a composition, but didn't think the playing on the non-traditional instruments was particularly good and thought the synth sound was a little cheesy. Liked the tune, though.
Ghosthouse, listened to the Bozzio and Ginger Baker clips; thanks for those.
Stevens is a great player as are Bozzio and Levin . I really liked the tune which borrows a little from Nouveau Flamenco to add to that nice folky, if not New Agey, vibe. I love that acoustic guitar driven sound. I have a couple of issues with the performance however. As good as it is, there is a "cautious" feeling to it and things feel a bit too "organized". I would bet that they played it to a click track. One can usually tell when players are playing to a click track; there is a "safe" quality to the feeling. The focus becomes being with the click instead of entirely with each other; potential imperfections and all. The overdubbed guitar is fine, but not the synth strings sound; luckily is was pretty subtle volume wise. That tune was begging for a small string section instead of synth. Really nice guitar solo. Again, probably one of several takes. Nothing inherently wrong with this production approach, but it does take a little of the energy away. Still, really nice tune and I really enjoyed it. Something in a different genre that pushes similar buttons for me, but has a little more abandon might be:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eU2IpZoTMdEThe Ginger Baker clip I didn't like; sorry. Thank god for Charlie Haden! He was the rock in that trio and sounds fabulous. Baker is unquestionably more than just a great rock drummer; but, he's no jazz drummer. He does ok, but he just doesn't have the chops and comfort in that language to really contribute on the level of the great jazz drummers and seems to be tagging along Haden's amazing pulse. Speaking of great jazz drummers, some of my favorite Frisell was with Paul Motian:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6jFZ3X9CFuALove Lovano on this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YaY1GVeHqKwAnother great drummer. What do you think of this?:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H-wtZhpxtVEAlex, I loved those Rene Thomas clips. And J.R. Montrose! What a nice player. Swinging and intelligent playing. Thanks for those. Getz? What can one say? Genius.
