I agree! Do you remember all the reissues of their classic albums in the 80's? I bought several of them with the original album covers and record label.
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[[Eumir) Deodato - "Also Sprach Zarathustra" another favorite track of mine.
Splanky, I know a lot of traditionalists didn't like "modern jazz" [[for me, the stuff that came out between '65 and '90 or so...). It's interesting though, because fusion artists like Spyro Gyra, Chick Correa, and Weather Report were very much the electric equivalents of their bebop forebears. I'm kind of a snob now because I have a hard time appreciating anything that came out over the last 20 years or so. Has anyone noticed that there are very few, if any, "contemporary artists" listed in this thread? Has jazz died?
Jerry wrote:
Splanky, I know a lot of traditionalists didn't like "modern jazz" [[for me, the stuff that came out between '65 and '90 or so...). It's interesting though, because fusion artists like Spyro Gyra, Chick Correa, and Weather Report were very much the electric equivalents of their bebop forebears. I'm kind of a snob now because I have a hard time appreciating anything that came out over the last 20 years or so. Has anyone noticed that there are very few, if any, "contemporary artists" listed in this thread? Has jazz died?
No disrespect intended, but I am always stunned when people ask that last question of yours. The problem to me seems to be that most people tend to think of jazz as a museum
piece when the truth is It's a living entity. Miles Davis warned about this. He was always telling people things like if you want to listen to me play what I played in 1959 go buy the f*cking record. Don't ask me not to change! Jazz hasn't died, people have gone deaf to it.
As far as it's recent history some of the best work it's ever produced was recorded in the last
20 years, IMO, you just have listen from your own perspectives and preferences. Do you
like vocalists? Instrumentals? Piano, guitar, bass, drums? Do you want to hear trios, quartets or big bands? Ballads or ensembles laying out well constructed compositions?
Do you want veterans playing their latest work or newer cats on the scene? Me,
I'm digging all of, the full spectrum. Whether it's yesterday's Monk or today's Marcus Roberts, Geri Allen, Brad Meldau, Vijay Iyer. But I can't tell you what to listen to...Also
I have to disagree with you about Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul being the electric equivalents
of the boppers. They were two distinct aesethics...Later, my company just arrived...
I remember Miles' encouraging Herbie Hancock to do his thing back in the '80s, telling him that the reason for recordings was to put out what was already done. So, he told him to do something new and ignore the complaints from people like Wynton Marsalis who didn't appreciate great artists doing commercial music. That's not why I asked if jazz was dead, though.
The reason that I asked is because nobody is listing songs by newer artists as their "favorite jazz tracks". That leads me to believe that either nobody is listening to modern jazz or nobody likes what they're hearing. From a personal standpoint, the last jazz station went off air in central Ohio a few years ago and they were caught up in playing "smooth jazz" that was more often than not, something that you could listen to in the background, but not something that made you perk up when any particular songs or artists came on.
I used to dig early Kenny G, Najee, and George Howard music, which straddled jazz and pop in their composition, so I'm not totally against - as your friend's dad called it, "jazz lite". It's just that much of what I heard before I stopped listening was too lite.
I'd love to hear today's version of George Benson, Grover Washington, or Stanley Clarke, who were yesterday's predecessors to Wes Montgomery, John Coltrane [[yeah, I said it), and Charles Mingus. I just don't know where I'm going to find the resource that permits me to find out who they are. My days of buying 3 to 5 albums every pay day to take my chances on something are about 25 years in the past.
Jerry, I posted a link to one of today's new artist but apparently nobody viewed it. His new
release Be Good from the album of the same title is just that GOOD. As far as a source to check out new jazz I think everyone here has an excellent one. It's called Youtube. There's also a lot of stuff on other sites like Dailymotion.com. And for the record even though we
no longer have Wes Montgomery and George Benson took a break from jazz for awhile, we
do have guitarists Russel Malone and Lionel Lueke. On sax we do have Kenny Garrett, Courtney Pine, Greg Osby, Branford Marsalis and btw, Pharoah Sanders and Wayne Shorter
are still creating new music. Though I'm not always in the mood for her singing, on bass we do have the very talented Esperanza Spaulding...The day I stop listening to new music from
a number of genres including jazz is the day I die...but
to each it's own...
About the respective "evolution" by any one, starting for heard soul and "evolutioning" herding jazz, classical, etc.,... I think, humbly, this is not necessary evolution. In my case I discovered jazz grace to some Motown and PIR recordings that made me to investigate. And I don't worry about if anything I heard is considered by the purists as "commercial" or "heterodox", simply I found Feeling or not, whatever I heard, Coltrane, Crusaders, Bob James or Miles. I never have think: "I likes soul and discovered it in the 70's, Phillysound and I SHOULD to investigate on the origins" or "I likes jazz fusion and some considered light or smooth jazz and I SHOULD to investigate on the origins", simply, I found feelings or not and I can found Feelings [["duende" in spanish) or not. I don't have problem if this is Soul, Kachachoff, sardan, Flamenco, Soul or Country & Western... But, casually, the 90% of music on wich I found Feeling is SOUL and JAZZ.
I have listed a great VOCALIST of today that is considered the best relegation to Billie Holliday: CARMEN LUNDY, but, really, I don't found not only too much actual jazz vocalists but also not sax players, vibraharp players, etc. Theree is not a "Lionnel hampton" or a "Sy Oliver" big band of the XXI Centhury... [[IMHO and for my poor information, correct me please if i'm, probably wrong).
Cheers to all.
P.D.: today I have been herding jazz and fusion all the morning, jay Hoggard, jaco pastorious, Gabor Szabo and CTI VV.AA. compilations.
Just listened to it. I guess I was scanning moreso than reading some of the posts when you attached the link. I'll give it to you, this cat is good. I'm listening to some of his other stuff on YouTube right now. Thanks for posting. And thanks to Motema Music for not only believing in jazz, but enough to put money into promoting it! My faith might be restored, yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HvpIgHBSdo
Jerry - Have you tried Pandora radio? At Pandora.com its an INCREDIBLE music site where you start by "building a station" around an artist or a song, and Pandora will then play other artists or songs built around some commonalities of your station. You can then fine tune your station by voting up or voting down the songs that are played. I've discovered several great new artist this way. Give it a try and let me know what you think. Also if you are an i-Tunes person their site also gives you access to radio stations not only across the country but also around the world. The internet is a great tool for finding new artist and music. i-Tunes also lets you hear samples of albums/songs, Amazon also does this, but not to the same extent.
Ross, I didn't know about the radio stations on I-Tunes, but I'm about to open the application tonight to find it. I'm going to check out Pandora. I've heard of it, but never was clued into what it is. Thanks for the heads up.
Jerry Oz - Let me know what you think about both sites. It looks like there are 228 streams/stations listed on iTunes for Jazz, and covers the entire jazz spectrum.
Don't you have to pay a monthly fee for Pandora?
I can hear tons of music for free elsewhere. I'm not paying someone else to guess what they think I want to hear...
You can listen for free to an EXCELLENT Jazz station I discovered about 4 years ago, "Plante Jazz", CKLX 91.9 FM out of Montreal.
http://streema.com/radios/play/14152
I've been exploring Pandora already. I was a little miffed that my work computer's firewall won't permit me to play it at my desk. Every four to five songs is followed by an ad, but I grew up in the '60s and '70s, so what's an advertisement on radio? I like it and will be exploring it more soon.
I haven't been in I-Tunes for a long time, so I have to update to the most recent version, but I'm going to be doing that soon as well. Big thanks, y'all!