Jazz Note 4 Extended

I have removed the previous two shows and extended the current show by another hour.  Here is a list of the additional music.  

1. Warm Velvet/Ivo Perelman/Sad Life
2. Seagulls of Kristiansund/Mal Waldron Quartet/Seagulls of Kristiansund
3. European Echoes/Ornette Coleman Trio/Live at the Golden Circle Vol. 1
4. Memphis/Ran Blake Trio/Sonic Temples
5. Abolish Bad Architecture/Reid Anderson/Abolish Bad Architecture
6. Laredo/ROVA/The Works Vol. 3. 

The Perleman record (1996)  is the sort of thing you will like, if you like that sort of thing.  A saxophone trio can be pretty dry, but this one is superbly recorded and you get all the flavor of the instruments.   The Mal Waldron number is just delicious.  A stretched out romance recorded live at the Village Vanguard in 1986.  Almost as good is The Git Go, which is from the same gig.  Coleman's Live at the Golden Circle is a very strong sample of Coleman's playing.  I think he works very well in the trio format.  This odd bounce is interesting for the way Coleman's adventurous horn is easy to follow.  

Ran Blake is a fine piano player with a touch that can be both abstract and sensuous at the same time.  I highly recommend his album Short Life of Barbara Monk.  On this show I presented a piece from a two CD set: Sonic Temples.  Reid Anderson is the bass player with The Bad Plus, and has three recordings under his name.  All three are splendid.  


Finally, ROVA is an all saxophone group, with Bruce Ackley, Steve Adams, Larry Ochs, and Jon Raskin.  Their two albums The Works Vol. 2 and 3 are quite good and are available very cheaply on Amazon or eMusic.  Available very cheaply (under two bucks at Amazon) is their recording of Coltrane's Ascension.  I never warmed to Trane's version, but at that price I might give it a try. 

Ran Blake Drops Me a Note. Nothing so far from George Russell

I received a very kind email from Ran Blake in response to my last post.  Now, if only I can get a message from Thelonious Monk on my Ouija board!  This blog is a work of love for all those jazz artists that have touched me, and it is very rewarding to get a response from one of the greats.  

Mr. Blake advises me that a "memorial for George Russell will take place the second Saturday in may in Manhattan."  Living in South Dakota, Manhattan is a little bit out of my range.  If it weren't, I would certainly be there.  I have posted before on George 'Russell.  I am very fond of his magnum opus, Ezz-Thetics.  Any essential collection of modern jazz should include that and four or five other Russell recordings.  Get Stratus funk and The RCA Victor Workshop.  You won't be disappointed.  If you can make the Russell memorial, don't miss it.  Tell 'em I sent ya. 

Here is a wonderful sample:

George Russell/Bent Eagle/Stratus Funk

An actual note from Ran Blake got me interested in Ran Blake.  Blake is a representative of the "Third Stream" movement in jazz.  This, I gather, is analogous to jazz fusion, only here it is a fusion of jazz with classical music.  Don't take my word for it.  I don't know what I am talking about.  But that never stopped me before.  

I think a lot of jazz composition rivals the best of classical music.  Blake's teacher, Mal Waldron, is a good example.  I fell deeply in love with Waldron's many duet albums, which are more classical in feel, for the most part, than they are jazzy.  Waldron's duet with Marion Brown, Songs of Love and Regret, comes to mind.  I haven't heard anything in classical music (and I have listened to a lot of that) that is better than 'To a Golden Lady in her Gram Cracker Window'.   

Well, tonight I have been listening to Ran Blake's Epistrophy.  I am consistently amazed by the power that Monk's compositions have in modern jazz.  Scroll down the jazz genre section of my iPod (that's pretty much the whole iPod), stop and spit.  Chances are you will hit a Monk cover.  I shouldn't wonder.  I am myself obsessed with Monk.  You will find a lot of Monk posts on this blog.  I recently praise Anthony Braxton's marvelous album of Monk compositions.  Monk seems to be the Rosetta Stone of jazz: the one place that everyone understands everyone else.  

Blake's Epistrophy is another exquisite interpretation of Monk' genius.  If you like solo piano jazz in any form, you will like this.  As I listened, I kept thinking: okay, so that is what that meant!  Here is a sample.  

Ran Blake/'Round Midnight/Epistrophy

So get the CD.  You'll like it, especially if you like Monk's 'Epistrophy'.  He does it three times.  I do. 

The Short Life of Barbara Monk/Ran Blake Quartet

Now here's my plan: I will continue to include links to whole songs with each posting, but after a week or two I will eliminate those links.  I am hoping that this will keep the coppers off my back.  When and if I can find the time, I will replace those links with links to excerpts from the songs.  I have done this with a recent post on Mal Waldron. 

I would like this blog to be an informal but useful reference for jazz fans, and especially for those who are looking for the kind of music that I like.  I would like any reader to be able to listen to a least a little bit of the music I comment on in each post.  Ideally, I will go back through the blog and provide excerpts for all the posts.  I am not sure whether that is really worth the effort, but as I have said, doing this blog is part of my life as a jazz nerd. 

Meanwhile, I have been listening to a recording by pianist and composer Ran Blake.  I downloaded it some time ago and, as often happened, it didn't grab me when I listened to it the first time.  So it's been sitting idle on my iPod.  For some reason I punched it a couple days ago, and it is exquisite.  

I don't know much about Blake.  I have half of his solo album The Complete All That Is Tied Sessions.  How did that happen?  Like the drunk's tattoo, I haven't a clue.  The solo album is pretty far out there.  It reminds me of the solo work of Cecil Taylor, not that it sounds like Taylor as that it is the same kind of exploration.  There is a lot of space punctuated with pretty dramatic hammering.  It is interesting, if you are in the mood for that sort of thing; but it isn't all that jazzy.  

The Short Life of Barbara Monk is a treasure.  Rickey Ford plays a marvelous tenor, and in fact I think his playing is the highlight of the album.  Ed Felson plays bass, and Jon Hazilla beats the skins. It is a tribute to his friend who died of cancer in 1984, just two years after her father Thelonious Sphere Monk.  She was named after Monk's mother.  

It is hard to imagine a more perfect eulogy.  The recording is lyrical and deeply moving.  The dialogue between piano and tenor sax makes me cry.  Really.  I wish I knew more about Barbara Monk and Ran Blake, and what their friendship was like.  I miss Barbara, even thought I didn't know she existed until I listened to this recording.  If I could choose my own monument, it wouldn't be a statue or an immortal flame.  It would be recording like this.  Here is a sample. 

Ran Blake Quartet/Artistry in Rhythm/The Short Life of Barbara Monk

Now: add the recording to your collection.  It's available for a few credits at eMusic.  After you listen to it, drop me a line.  My readers have been awfully quiet of late.  Insert sad face here.

As reader Steve notes in the comments, this recording is available at ranblake.com.  I note that the cds there are priced a bit lower than at other venues I have checked.