Great Dee Dee Bridgewater clip, Rok. She sounds fantastic, rhythm section is excellent and James Carter is on fire. I don’t know about anyone else, but it seems like a pretty great party to me and would put it up there with some of the best. It also goes to a couple of the recent points made.
Alex points out that earlier periods in the evolution of jazz styles were more easily defined by name (swing, bop, etc) and recognized stylistically. There is some truth to this, but I don’t agree entirely. Seems to me that the reason there is truth to this is fairly obvious. The further back you go in the evolution of jazz, the "simpler" the music is with more easily followed melodies, less complex harmonies and simpler rhythms. This is no reflection on the sophistication in the performace of it. The closer you move toward the present the more complex the harmonies are with much more dissonance and complexity of rhythms; it puts more demands on the listener. Additionally, with each successive period in the history of the music there are more influences as part of the mix. The influence of World Musics on modern jazz is huge. Take a basic bean soup....add a lot of ham and potatoes....is it still a soup or is it a stew?....add rice and sausage....is it a stew or a gumbo? Harder to define. Does it matter? Even on this thread there has been quite a bit of confusion and misunderstanding about wether a particular performance is swing, bebop etc.. This ambiguity is one of the reasons that I think it’s pointless to try and so finely define the styles. To what end? I think we sometimes develop a bias against or for a particular style based on preconceived notions. Example: many jazz lovers don’t think too highly of Dixieland Jazz; yet, much of Louis Armstrong’s rightly revered music was "Dixieland", but it is seldom referred to as such.
Every period in music, including the present, has excellent jazz and the "best" is seldom found in the "retro" stuff. The retro stuff will never be as good as the original stuff; it is in the new stuff where the "best" of any period can be found. I prefer to focus on the excellence (or not) of the execution instead of the "style". Speaking of which:
"Liquid Soul" is just one of the "not easily defined" modern styles. Some would call it "Acid Jazz". Not sure why it’s called that, but I do know that it’s kind of fun and funky and pretty well executed. I like it ok, but if I was in the mood for something like that I would much prefer to listen to this which pushes similar buttons for me, but is executed on a higher level compositionally, improvisation-wise and overall level of skill. Not retro in 1975:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ylTE9yLRb6g
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0cDxDnKt53M
Ghosthouse asked about trombone players in funk/fusion. One of the Crusader’s founders was trombonist Wayne Henderson.
Great Bob Brookmeyer clips, thanks Alex.
Alex points out that earlier periods in the evolution of jazz styles were more easily defined by name (swing, bop, etc) and recognized stylistically. There is some truth to this, but I don’t agree entirely. Seems to me that the reason there is truth to this is fairly obvious. The further back you go in the evolution of jazz, the "simpler" the music is with more easily followed melodies, less complex harmonies and simpler rhythms. This is no reflection on the sophistication in the performace of it. The closer you move toward the present the more complex the harmonies are with much more dissonance and complexity of rhythms; it puts more demands on the listener. Additionally, with each successive period in the history of the music there are more influences as part of the mix. The influence of World Musics on modern jazz is huge. Take a basic bean soup....add a lot of ham and potatoes....is it still a soup or is it a stew?....add rice and sausage....is it a stew or a gumbo? Harder to define. Does it matter? Even on this thread there has been quite a bit of confusion and misunderstanding about wether a particular performance is swing, bebop etc.. This ambiguity is one of the reasons that I think it’s pointless to try and so finely define the styles. To what end? I think we sometimes develop a bias against or for a particular style based on preconceived notions. Example: many jazz lovers don’t think too highly of Dixieland Jazz; yet, much of Louis Armstrong’s rightly revered music was "Dixieland", but it is seldom referred to as such.
Every period in music, including the present, has excellent jazz and the "best" is seldom found in the "retro" stuff. The retro stuff will never be as good as the original stuff; it is in the new stuff where the "best" of any period can be found. I prefer to focus on the excellence (or not) of the execution instead of the "style". Speaking of which:
"Liquid Soul" is just one of the "not easily defined" modern styles. Some would call it "Acid Jazz". Not sure why it’s called that, but I do know that it’s kind of fun and funky and pretty well executed. I like it ok, but if I was in the mood for something like that I would much prefer to listen to this which pushes similar buttons for me, but is executed on a higher level compositionally, improvisation-wise and overall level of skill. Not retro in 1975:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ylTE9yLRb6g
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0cDxDnKt53M
Ghosthouse asked about trombone players in funk/fusion. One of the Crusader’s founders was trombonist Wayne Henderson.
Great Bob Brookmeyer clips, thanks Alex.