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Fun Stuff => BAND => Topic started by: Bastardous Bassist on 27 Sep 2009, 15:12
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So, I was talking with some people, and there seems to be a bit of support on the subject of discussing jazz! It's no secret that I like jazz. The thing is, I discuss my love of jazz with people and one name always comes up: Miles Davis. I have nothing against Miles. The guy made some amazing music. If you haven't listened to some of his work, do so now and prepare to be moved. The thing is, I've always liked the stuff Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock (and the rest of his second quintet) did without him more. I think the compositions are more interesting and more fun to play over (I'll be honest, I always approach the subject of jazz as a guy who plays it).
Now here comes my main point. All of that stuff has been around for forty years. It's awesome, but it's not exactly current, which makes it not exactly relevant to modern times. All of the guys from that quintet (with the notable exception of Tony Williams) are still making music, too so it's not like we've only got hack musicians playing jazz these days. So let's talk about what's happening today with jazz. It's incredibly vibrant music and I think that it has more energy than pretty much any of the more popular genres of music these days. So, without (further) ado, here are some of my favorite artists of modern-day jazz:
Chris Potter (my bass teacher in college actually used to play with this Columbia, SC native a lot)
Dave Holland (played with Miles and has a similarly great ability to spot fantastic younger musicians)
Brad Mehldau (Art of the Trio Vol. 3 is of my favorite albums ever made and one of my friends in college listened to his Live in Tokyo album every day)
The Bad Plus (seriously, listen to these guys. If you listen to nobody else I've listed, find these guys)
I can put up some albums if somebody sends me easy instructions on how to do so (I hear mediafire is pretty cool, but I haven't really looked into what to do). What do you guys and gals listen to?
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you, show me jazz
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As a bit of awesomeness to give people a bit of a taste: here is Chris Potter's Underground (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZPf4kjgcDA) ripping it up. I have forgiven this group for not having a bassist, because Criag Taborn is a badass on the Fender Rhodes.
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Chris Potter
Dave Holland
Brad Mehldau
The Bad Plus
YES. Also,
Medeski, Martin, & Wood (kind of unfortunately associated with the jam band circuit, but still very good)
Benny Green (sort of a Neo-Hard Bop pianist)
Kevin Mahogany (FANTASTIC vocalist. Coming to my school next moooooooooooooooooooonth)
As for the whole mediafire thing, it is very easy. You just turn the album into a .rar file (or something similar) and upload it to mediafire (that part is easy they tell you what to do pretty well on the site).
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I've seen MMW three times now, and they're tons of fun. As far as Benny Green and Kevin Mahogany, they're actually a bit too traditional for me.
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Does Wynton Marsalis count?
oh, and also, Bohren & Der Club of Gore is one of my favourite bands ever in any genre, and some of their stuff at any rate sounds like jazz to me. Particularly the album Sunset Mission.
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The only nice thing I can say about Wynton Marsalis is that he can play proficiently in two phenomenally difficult genres of performance. His brother, on the other hand, is original and plays really interesting music.
Also, enjoy the fantastic sounds of Chris Potter, Craig Taborn, Adam Rogers and Nate Smith at the Village Vanguard:
http://www.mediaf!re.com/?ngkxtn5jktd
(apparently the exclamation mark important?)
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Will download, thanks.
I mentioned Wynton Marsalis because he's one of the only jazz musicians I've heard of in the news recently. Other than Bohren..., Miles Davis, and John Coltrane (oh and I suppose Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald etc. from my mom's music collection), I've never really heard any jazz, actually. Interested to learn though.
Would you happen to know any jazz artists that sound like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJg_BzMBp4A&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJg_BzMBp4A&feature=related)) actually?
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Since Bohren always remind me of the soundtrack to a really great sinister film that sadly doesn't exist and so do The Necks (http://www.myspace.com/thenecks), they might appeal to you.
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(apparently the exclamation mark important?)
It means that people can't just Google search "[band name] mediafire" and find the forum
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Jazz that is currently happening, groovy and totally out-there, daddy-o
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Also, here is some jazz that is not jazz at all:
DJ Krush/Toshinori Kondo - Ki-Oku
http://www.mediaf!re.com/?inn0c4fcrbo
Toshinori Kondo is an avant-garde trumpeter. DJ Krush is, well, a DJ.
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So, guys. I totally uploaded the wrong Live at the Village Vanguard album. That one is good, but it's not nearly as good as his one with the people I cited (the Underground group). I'll load up the right one tomorrow.
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Since Bohren always remind me of the soundtrack to a really great sinister film that sadly doesn't exist and so do The Necks (http://www.myspace.com/thenecks), they might appeal to you.
thanks! will check them out. Any album in particular you'd recommend?
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thanks! will check them out. Any album in particular you'd recommend?
I like Hanging Gardens quite a lot.
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Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble anyone? :wink:
They're not jazz in the traditional sense, but christ are they cool to listen to.
They're a mix betweeen ambient, noise, and jazz, and you could probably throw other genres in as well
I posted their original album, self titled, in the mediaf!re a while a go
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If you're into piano and free-ish sort of Jazz I'd recommend Matthew (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga1taguGMB0) Shipp (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke5IIImk_WU).
Of course Erik (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku47l0kcGzg) Truffaz (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WybWirCFXfg) if you guys like hip hop. And Tom Harrell (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=859DK-CPwWE) is still making records, which is always good news.
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you guys are completely forgetting about roy hargrove and rh factor, it's some of the best current work in jazz I've ever heard.
I go to unt which is like a jazz oasis, so all the kids here are real good and I've seen so many good combos just around town. As far as current big band music though, the school jazz bands for unt are some of the best around, The one o clock and the two o clock lab bands.
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HAVE SOME IBRAHIM ELECTRIC :lol:
http://www.myspace.com/ibrahimelectric (http://www.myspace.com/ibrahimelectric)
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oh also the soundtrack for the movie Mirrormask was done by a jazz composer called Iain Ballamy. it's pretty cool, and apparently already uploaded to the mediafire thread if you're interested.
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i've been listening to mouse on the keys (http://www.myspace.com/mouseonthekeys) pretty much nonstop lately.
that's about as jazzy as i get.
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I really like the Iiro Rantala New Trio, and Esbjorn Svensson Trio(though they can't exactly make music anymore)
One of my friends tried to get me into the Esbjorn Svensson Trio, but it was just a little too slick and fusion-y for me. It just seemed like he was playing notes (and way too many of them!) rather than melodies. This is, of course, during his solos. As for the first group, I looked some stuff up on youtube and it was just too disjointed for me at the beginning. I'll compare it to a lot of prog rock out there in that it was always changing into something unrelated to what they had just played or no reason I could discern. Then, when the solo started, the beatbox was just "playing" waaaay to heavy for me.
If you're into piano and free-ish sort of Jazz I'd recommend Matthew (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga1taguGMB0) Shipp (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke5IIImk_WU).
Of course Erik (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku47l0kcGzg) Truffaz (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WybWirCFXfg) if you guys like hip hop. And Tom Harrell (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=859DK-CPwWE) is still making records, which is always good news.
Matthew Shipp just didn't seem, to me, to have the vibrancy of improvised music and as such I would rather just listen to somebody from the second Viennese school if I want to listen to atonal music. The second track was just way too heavy on the drum machine for me to take. The second Erik Truffaz tune was pretty cool, but I just couldn't get into the first one. As for Tom Harrell, yes it's being recorded now, but it's the same thing that was being played over 50 years ago! I'll just listen to Bird.
you guys are completely forgetting about roy hargrove and rh factor, it's some of the best current work in jazz I've ever heard.
I'm not so sure. Roy Hargrove is pretty much the only reason to listen to that group. The rest of the guys aren't that great.
As far as current big band music though, the school jazz bands for unt are some of the best around, The one o clock and the two o clock lab bands.
Dave Holland Big Band. But the format of a big band tends to be an archaic one. You just can't get a group that big to be as dynamic. Though, yes UNT (providing we're talking about North Texas) is a great jazz program.
HAVE SOME IBRAHIM ELECTRIC :lol:
http://www.myspace.com/ibrahimelectric (http://www.myspace.com/ibrahimelectric)
They just seem to be lacking any subtlety. Aside from that, not bad.
So, I'm getting on that whole uploading albums tomorrow (hopefully). You'll get two. The correct Chris Potter and a surprise that I haven't mentioned (i just remembered about them when they came up on my playlist).
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Dave Holland Big Band. But the format of a big band tends to be an archaic one. You just can't get a group that big to be as dynamic. Though, yes UNT (providing we're talking about North Texas) is a great jazz program.
yes, north texas. I agree the big band is not my prefer method of being delivered jazz. I've seen a lot of amazing combos around here, but they're just made up of random students and no names that I could throw at you that you'd recognize.
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Yeah. I was trying to agree with you on that point. Hell, even in my school there were some really good musicians (I was on the fringe of that group, so I got to play with pretty much all of them).
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Some of my favourite contemporary Jazz(y) music that hasn't been mentioned yet includes:
- Joe Lovano - next to his own albums he plays with Paul Motian a lot, and on a recent Coltrane tribute album by pianist Steve Kuhn.
- Charles Lloyd - all of his ECM albums are highly recommended!
- Everybody should check out Masada, even if you otherwise don't like John Zorn.
- A lot of interesting stuff mixing Jazz with electronic/dance music comes from Norway: Nils Petter Molvaer, Eivind Aarset, Wibutee, Bugge Wesseltoft. In a similar direction goes the german Tied + Tickled Trio, a Notwist side project.
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Yeah. I was trying to agree with you on that point. Hell, even in my school there were some really good musicians (I was on the fringe of that group, so I got to play with pretty much all of them).
That's pretty much how I am, on the fringe of the music majors so I get to do a lot of jamming when they need a sub-par bassist.
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I actually played with a lot of them at gigs. I've also got a piece of paper that says I know a few things about music.
- Everybody should check out Masada, even if you otherwise don't like John Zorn.
QFT.
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Double post for awesome music! The surprise is first and the other Chris Potter is uploading. Here it is:
http://www.mediaf!re.com/download.php?mymemmgz3zc
Happy Apple's "Youth Oriented." It features the drummer from The Bad Plus as well as an awesome saxophonist and an electric bassist that I don't mind in jazz (usually, I find electric bass to belong only in fusion, which I hate).
Chris Potter's "Follow the Red Line - Live at the Village Vanguard"
It's got his Underground group, which is a phenomenal quartet:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?jmatm0mgitg
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Has anyone got any free jazz that maybe sounds a little like a fire truck being raped by a combine harvester?
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@ Khar
(http://www.matchlessrecordings.com/site/files/images/amm-rer-ammmusic.jpg)
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My first upload here, eighteen months ago, was this recording I made of a Free Improvisation gig in Oxford just over 20 years ago; 4 people have downloaded it...
Free Improvisation at the Jericho Tavern (14 Dec 1986)
http://www.mediaf!re.com/?b9xm3zd91vs
The performers are Matt Lewis, Greg Kingston, Tim Hill. The end fades out because I ran out of tape.
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It's funny you should suggest AMM, given that I am a close blood relative of the late Cornelius Cardew.
So yeah I am conversant with the works of AMM. Something halfway between AMM and Peter Brötzmann would be awesome.
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Anything with Allan Holdsworth.
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- Everybody should check out Masada, even if you otherwise don't like John Zorn.
QFT.
Both Masada and Electric Masada are great live. Everybody here needs to try and catch one of their concerts sometime. Seriously.
Also, Tzadik released Stabat Akish (http://stabatakish.com/) this year. It's pretty good.
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Medeski, Martin, & Wood
This is all.
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Both Masada and Electric Masada are great live. Everybody here needs to try and catch one of their concerts sometime. Seriously.
Also, Tzadik released Stabat Akish (http://stabatakish.com/) this year. It's pretty good.
Most everything on Tzadik is worth a look. I used to live with a guy who worked in the only store in Australia that had Tzadik on regular imports, so he'd come home with all kinds of shit. I think they were the first to sign Mono outside of Japan (?) for example, and signed Melt Banananana as well.
Jon Madof does some awesome guitar jazz/jewish stuff on the same label, while we're talking jazz.
One of my favourite new bands from the last few years would probably be counted as jazz, so check 'em out - Hypnotic Brass Ensemble (http://www.myspace.com/hypnoticbusiness). Awesome back-story to the band as well.
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Everybody should check out Masada, even if you otherwise don't like John Zorn.
Man, who doesn't otherwise like John Zorn?
I kinda think of Naked City as a jazz album, albeit one where instead of riffing on standards they riff on grindcore and surf and spy-movie themes.
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Which is exactly how standards became standards. In fact, the only person I think can pull of standards any more is Brad Mehldau. Pat Metheny sometimes does "All the Things You Are" and "Giant Steps" in an interesting manner, so I'll give those to him, but Brad Mehldau routinely does stuff that is awesome and modern over standards.
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Man, who doesn't otherwise like John Zorn?
I don't know, some people are just funny like that! Agree that Naked City is a great Jazz album, one of my favorites of Zorn (other than Masada), next to The Big Gundown.
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If you want an amazing jazz trumpet I'd go with Chris Botti.
He had an awesome concert with several guests like Sting etc.. all on PBS!
I was really stoked so yeah look him up.
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Doesn't he basically do elevator music?
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Yeah he is pretty awful. I hold him only slightly higher than Kenny G on my Jazz Artist Spectrum.
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whoa.. bunch of snobs here.
It's good stuff.
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Hey at least I didn't say he was worse than Kenny G
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meh.
I will be ridiculed for this...
I do love me some Nora Jones
and check out Fourplay.
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You and Michael McDonald would be fast friends.
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whoa.. bunch of snobs here.
It's good stuff.
I just want music to make me feel something, and his doesn't. I remember one time I was riding in the car with my grandmother, and something that I really liked was on, and she said that she didn't like it because it wasn't "pretty." At that point I realized that I don't give a shit about pretty. Maybe his music is pretty? There's nothing wrong with liking pretty things.
Also, I played with a great sax player several years ago who loved stuff like that. He was a blues/funk player, by the way.
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Less for Bastardous Bassist, more for others who are into torch singers generally and modern ladies that evoke Ella, Billie and Nina in particular, I recommend Tierney Sutton (http://forums.questionablecontent.net/index.php/topic,19792.msg873249.html#msg873249) and Madeleine Peyroux (http://forums.questionablecontent.net/index.php/topic,19792.msg873249.html#msg873249). I think I mentioned both years ago, probably in another of Bassist's jazz threads, and they remain among my favorite female jazz vocalists past or present. Sutton is cool, detached and deeply ironic, but her vocal skills are impressive. Peyroux sounds freakishly like Billie Holiday and brings an extraordinary intimacy to her songs. You will be pouring yourself a martini and reclining with the back of your hand on your forehead even if you're 16 and living in your mom's basement.
But neither of them are pushing forward the boundaries of modern jazz, you understand, they are just awesome to listen to if you are into that sort of thing.
Among instrumentalists, I happen to be a fan of the whole bunch of Marsalises, Ellis, Branford, Wynton, Delfeayo and Jason all included. There are Marsalis family recordings with the 5 of them together that I strongly recommend. Seeing the family play at Massey Hall remains one of my best jazz experiences to date. Wynton is of course controversial not least because of his comments discounting a huge swathe of jazz history, but in person is electrifying in a way I haven't frequently experienced in a jazz concert.
Others of my favorites include Kevin Dean (http://forums.questionablecontent.net/index.php/topic,19792.msg873249.html#msg873249), the McGill music prof who made me love the Hammond organ as a jazz instrument, and Paul Motian (http://forums.questionablecontent.net/index.php/topic,19792.msg873249.html#msg873249), definitely the best jazz drummer I've ever heard play. And yeah, Chris Potter is awesome -- I may be misremembering but I think I heard him once at the Vanguard and another time at the Jazz Standard. For all the historical significance of the Vanguard, I miss the Standard most of all -- less train noise and better ribs.
Anyway, I will upload v0 mp3s of examples of the above over the next few days, although I can provide FLACs for most of them if anyone wants. I'll edit this commend and post the Mediaf!re thread.
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The only Marsalis I can really respect is Branford. My dislike of Ellis can be attributed to the fact that he is an enormous asshole and every time I hear him play I remember how utterly mean he was to me and my friends. Wynton is Wynton and there really is nothing to say about him that hasn't been said. Delfayeo is simply not quite as good as Branford, Ellis, or Wynton and gets kind of gimmicky at times. Jason is a little boring, but he could change my mind over time I guess.
That said, I do enjoy the recording I do have of the Marsalis family (the one w/ Harry Connick Jr. on it). I don't really know why exactly.
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The only Marsalis I can really respect is Branford. My dislike of Ellis can be attributed to the fact that he is an enormous asshole and every time I hear him play I remember how utterly mean he was to me and my friends. Wynton is Wynton and there really is nothing to say about him that hasn't been said. Delfayeo is simply not quite as good as Branford, Ellis, or Wynton and gets kind of gimmicky at times. Jason is a little boring, but he could change my mind over time I guess.
That said, I do enjoy the recording I do have of the Marsalis family (the one w/ Harry Connick Jr. on it). I don't really know why exactly.
Try not to intellectualize it, eh. What did Ellis do to you man? Like, share with the class.
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He basically told us our band was not very good and that we were bad musicians because we couldn't rattle off 5 or 6 jazz musicians of our own instrument. I mean, this is a high school jazz band and most of us weren't necessarily that serious about becoming musicians yet, but that doesn't mean we were bad musicians. I just expected better treatment for someone who was known for his contributions to music education.
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I'm just kind of amazed Ellis heard your high school jazz band play in the first place. How the crap did that happen? I ask because I have been trying to get Britt Daniel to come over and play Rock Band 2 with me and he just won't. Says he's washing his hair, but I find it difficult to believe he washes his hair every evening including weekends.
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He was playing at our town's jazz festival and he had like a little hour-long clinic with us beforehand.
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Well I heard some of the stories about why him and Wynton weren't talking to each other for about 10 years so I'm not surprised. That's a damn shame though. He seemed really nice when I saw him perform. Not that that means anything. You just kind of want to hug him a bit, playing with four of his kids and all.
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He basically told us our band was not very good and that we were bad musicians because we couldn't rattle off 5 or 6 jazz musicians of our own instrument.
That's an odd thing, because I remember on the first day of the school year in high school jazz band (many years ago), our teacher asked us to do the same. I think I was the only person to make it to five, and I had to go for a guy I wasn't sure if he was a bassist or a drummer since I could only remember seeing his name on my Pat Metheny Trio live album (turns out Larry Grenadier is one of my favorite bassists these days). Some of the guys in my jazz band were really good. Like, definitely better than I was at the time (I didn't believe that at the time, but now I can see it).
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Yeah I think at that time I could only get to four, but that was because I didn't really listen to jazz trombonists that much (and frankly I still don't)
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J. J. Johnson and....
yeah....
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Hahahaha yeah that is the one everyone remembers and is certainly one of the best if not the best. I would also look into Curtis Fuller and of newer trombonists Wycliffe Gordon. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh other ones that I don't necessarily like but "of note" are Slide Hampton, Jack Teagarden, Tommy Dorsey (duh), Kid Ory (dixieland), Bill Waltrous, Steve Turre, Frank Rosolino, Kai Winding, John Allred, and Carl Fontana.
(whew)
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Great, now I have to go download a crapload of trombonists. That high pitched shriek you hear is the sound of my ratio approaching 0.00.
I always liked to say that J.J. Johnson is my favorite trombonist because sometimes he sounds likes he's playing a sax. Needles to say, I played a sax and a good friend of mine in pre-college played jazz trombone. He did not appreciate this comment.
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How about Robin Eubanks of the Dave Holland Quintet?
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Btw Norah Jones really IS the shit.
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How about Robin Eubanks of the Dave Holland Quintet?
Thanks man I knew I would forget one or two. It's kind of weird I forgot Eubanks though, considering I saw him play at one point (not w/ Dave Holland though)
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Hahahaha yeah that is the one everyone remembers and is certainly one of the best if not the best. I would also look into Curtis Fuller and of newer trombonists Wycliffe Gordon. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh other ones that I don't necessarily like but "of note" are Slide Hampton, Jack Teagarden, Tommy Dorsey (duh), Kid Ory (dixieland), Bill Waltrous, Steve Turre, Frank Rosolino, Kai Winding, John Allred, and Carl Fontana.
(whew)
Check out Fred Wesley (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z9nBQ_sn8Y)! The dude was the band leader for the JBs, but he does music besides funk, as well.
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what about soulive people?! fucking soulive! their two most recent albums have a vocalist though and I just don't think it works, but all of their other albums are fucking aces.
also check out robert walter. him and his band are extremely tight.
I'm a humongous fan of Sun Ra. I could go as far to say that jazz in silhouette is my favourite jazz album ever.
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This band called Gutbucket played at my school last night, and aside from having a kickass name, they were also a really kickass Jazz band.
I guess they like to call themselves "Punk Jazz" which sounds really stupid but is a pretty accurate description of their sound. I bought one of their albums but I haven't listened to it yet, thinking of Mediafire-threading it.
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I recognize that name. They played a show at my school several years back. I think I was playing a gig at the time so I couldn't make it. Everyone who went said it was great. Actually, I think I was playing the gig to replace a guy who wanted to go to the show.
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Btw Norah Jones really IS the shit.
THANK YOU!
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Guys, do you like Marcus Miller's stuff? A friend of mine recommended him to me, and I'm not quite sure about his material. I thought I had a problem, since everyone I know who mentionned him praised him.
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The Bad Plus (seriously, listen to these guys. If you listen to nobody else I've listed, find these guys)
I just heard Smells Like Teen off your avatar album for the first time. Wow. That was unexpected. I've listened to The Bad Plus before but never the Vistas album. Guess I'm going to have to get it now.
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Some of their best originals are on that album, too.
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http://tinyurl.com/2w6bke
The best jazz in the world.
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Now here comes my main point. All of that stuff has been around for forty years. It's awesome, but it's not exactly current, which makes it not exactly relevant to modern times.
<rant>I like jazz a lot, and yeah, I like the "classics" like Miles Davis and especially Jimmy Smith. And I don't buy for a second the bullshit argument that forty-year-old music is somehow "not relevant". I listen to Sibelius (last major work 1926), J.S.Bach (died 1750) and traditional Chinese music dating back to the Tang dynasty, and I wouldn't call any of it irrelevant. Great music is eternal. Music that isn't eternal isn't great.</rant> Ahem... Getting back on topic, of newer stuff:
- Clarion Fracture Zone: Aussie quintet. Pretty much any of their albums, but I especially like Zones On Parade.
- Galapagos Duck: Another Aussie band. Try their album Habitat. Not thrilled with their latest stuff, but inextricably tied to my student years and live gigs at The Basement.
- Eternal Jazz Project: Swedish.
- Drop Trio: Mathy organ funk. Gotta love it.
- Chris Juergensen: I recently bought his Prospects and I like it a lot. Some of the guitar-heads round here might like it too.
I'd echo the Nora Jones recommendations above, though her latest stuff is a bit too "country" for me. Jane Monheit has a fabulous voice. Early Diana Krall was enjoyable, though she's a better pianist than singer, before they started pouring gooey strings over her arrangements.