Big Band jazz seems to be the richest vein to mine in jazz bandcamp. More proof of this is...
Nickel & Brass Septet - "Four-Color Heroes!"
It's $1 for the physical cd, NYOP for the dig dl.
I think I'm gonna buy the physical cd and give them a little more than a buck. It's got a lot of vintage comics art in it apparently.
This album isn't as good as Hamilton's "Causeway Suite" above, but I would up listening to the entire album all the way through twice in a row, so there was definitely something enjoyable about it. Definitely has the interesting detours of a modern big band piece. Won't blow you away or anything, but sometimes I prefer an album treat me courteously and just let me enjoy it in all its simplicity. This, to my ears, is one of those albums.
Also, I would like to note that this adds yet one more name to the roster of big band ensembles who compose songs based on comic book themes and stories. This, undoubtedly, is a good sign for the advancement of humanity. Cheers!
you and me are gonna get into a what-is-jazz slap fight if you keep posting that ambient-electronica on my jazz thread, lol
I think I'll throw the towel in the ring.
Maybe the artists are on for a slap fight:
3ofmillions tagged as experimental improv jazz
Pollen Trio tagged as experimental free jazz
And there's probably some ambient-electronica purists who would love to have a slap fight with you.
Yep. self-reporting/self-identifying gets a little wonky. I am amused by the number of records that are "experimental folk" or "ambient country" just because they have some delay on the guitars.
Improv jazz made me laugh. That's like ordering a chai tea. Improvisation is one of the identifying characteristics of jazz. That someone would tag their music as such is pretty damning evidence that they should probably be slotted in electronica.
I'm more familiar with the tagging on bandcamp now as opposed to when I began this thread. I see why it's beneficial to lie your ass off and tag tag tag. Whether I do my searches through the site or through a defined google search, bands are more likely to get pulled up as a result it they tag recklessly. Of course, when I see that, I don't even bother to listen to them, but my reaction probably would be considered (or tagged) as an outlier in a statistical analysis.
And I ain't scared of the ambient electronica purists. They're probably even skinnier than jazz nerds, so I bet I have a fighting chance.
P.S. @Brighternow, just to emphasize, even though those recs had nothing to do with jazz (in my esteemed opinion, which should could considered rule of law in these parts), I really enjoyed those recs.
Listening to Pollen Trio now, nice stuff. Jonah, do you really claim that this (in particular) has "nothing to do with jazz"? I can't imagine it sounding like this without jazz existing, and in fact has many clear antecedents from it to my ears. Np: "Clamp" - that could be on a Mark Dresser/Denman Maroney record. I'd guess most of us here stocking an old-fashioned record store would definitely place this in the Jazz section (unless we were at Amoeba and could place it in "Unusually Experimental", though for me it would be a tossup.
That said, I wouldn't insist this be characterized as "jazz", but it's clearly related in many ways.
The label page mentions the CDR is "soon to be sold out" - hopefully that means it will be made available online soon.
I'm not sure that Jonah is saying this is not akin to Jazz, rather that the term Jazz is applied to liberally throughout the Bandcamp catalog. Personally, I find that artists are using a broad brush to describe their own music. Jazz easily covers swinging beats as well as punchy horns as much as improvisational music. I've complained elsewhere that the presence of banjos seems to be the hallmark of Folk. In all these cases, the tags don't quite help someone focus on the music that might interest them as much as present them with the largest possible pool of music that fits the tags.
And I ain't scared of the ambient electronica purists. They're probably even skinnier than jazz nerds, so I bet I have a fighting chance.
Plus the ambient purists would be in such a state of chilled out detachment you'd be guaranteed first slap every time, and be lucky to get a reaction at all. (Whereas jazz is all about flinging your arms around in unpredictable ways, isn't it? And if you fling your head around its metal. Perhaps we should just classify the music by posture.)
I think I mentioned recently on the bandcamp thread or the free stuff thread an album on bandcamp that was tagged ambient and turned out to be straight prog metal.
Listening to Pollen Trio now, nice stuff. Jonah, do you really claim that this (in particular) has "nothing to do with jazz"?
No, actually, I was referring to the two Triosk-related projects. I didn't listen to the Pollen Trio until your post. At first (brief) glimpse, I thought it was more Tom Baker stuff and figured to get back to it later. While there are a few tracks on Pollen Trio that are a tough argue as jazz, there are a couple, the first track especially, which definitely fits into the jazz subgenre where you'd also see Nik Bartch's Ronin crew setting up camp.
Some of that stuff, like the track you reference "Clamp", I can certainly see how you could trace back the lineage of that song. I would just question whether Clamp's ancestors (the sound, not so much the body of work the musicians put forth) should have been stamped with the jazz tattoo. But here we're treading on a debate that will never be resolved, since it's so subjective to each of our ears.
'm not sure that Jonah is saying this is not akin to Jazz, rather that the term Jazz is applied to liberally throughout the Bandcamp catalog.
Agreed. Way too liberally. I don't really care if these bands want to go around town and call themselves jazz. I'm looking to ban them from the genre or anything. It just makes it a pain in the ass to search through bandcamp with some of these leaps of imagination.
Plus the ambient purists would be in such a state of chilled out detachment you'd be guaranteed first slap every time, and be lucky to get a reaction at all.
My fight odds are improving! I might just have to switch my wager and put money on myself now. I'll look like Shamokin' Joe Frazier.
The broadness of jazz is especially a problem with only a physical CD. So many times I grabbed a stack of CDs at the public library and had to spin the CD to know if was the real or the dreaded smooth jazz. The artwork, song names, etc, are often no help. At least I wasn't out any money.
I'm not sure about the illustrative usefulness of that picture. I don't see any Mosaic box sets or vacuum sealed Blue Note vinyl reissues on the shelf in the background.
Yes, that last one. Just put a picture of Miles playing the trumpet on one shirt and a picture of Larry Young's "Unity" on the other and we're there.
Thanks.
Thanks for checking out Four-Color Heroes! My new group's (brand new) record is also available on Bandcamp. It is called Zubatto Syndicate and features a 12-piece band - lots of extra woodwinds, electric instruments, a giant robot on the cover.
I don't know how it will fare with your definition of jazz, but I think it is a more exciting and interesting record than F-CH. Hope you enjoy it.
I saw that Zybatto Syndicate album, just hadn't gotten around to listening to it, yet. Sure seemed like jazz with the brief listen I did get; sorta jazz with post-modern rock inspirations (I'm so bad at this genre thing... except jazz, that one I've got down ).
I already had that Jason Parker page bookmarked. I don't remember which album, but the first track hooked me immediately (I could be remembering this wrong, but I think it had sort of a NY Unit does Greensleeves sound to it).
And if you get the chance, pop back in from time to time. I don't think I'm alone in saying that I think it would be cool if you had a dedicated thread in which you do more than just promo new stuff, but also maybe give us some insider looks at what you and your bandmates face as you're trying to get established in various outlets, the details of dealing with Bandcamp and eMusic and Amazon (etc), just any information that gives us a better idea of how the machine ticks. If you read through some of the threads on this forum, you'll see we're a small community but we're ravenous about music, have very wide interests (and I really do believe that on emusers, this group does have truly diverse listening habits both as individuals and as a group), and that we are genuinely interested in seeing the musicians we enjoy thrive in their careers and want to find the best ways we are each able in our way to support them.
And we're always looking for quality recommendations of other music. I think we have a couple different threads, one for jazz I know of, that are basically recommendation threads. So if there's someone you like, big or small act, let us know.
Anyways, thanks for hopping on board and hope to see you around.
Okay, so I guess there's some interest from the emu forum in bandcamp. For those of you just now showing up on the thread...
Bandcamp is pretty much a wasteland for jazz, but like any apocalyptic landscape, there are a few decent neighborhoods to rest your weary ears. I've been searching for unknown and unsigned jazz acts just out of the spirit of the adventure (and, well, also I'm broke, and many unsigned acts sell their album pretty cheap thankfully), but here's some better known jazz just so you don't think it's a total waste of time looking around...
(Also, a quick reminder that you can download these files in a lot of different formats, including FLAC, with no extra charge)...
-Anat Cohen. In my opinion, one of the top clarinetists around and truly a multi-instrumentalist. On the Anzic label, most of her albums are available here (all for around $8-$9). The page the link takes you to has links to other of her albums). Here's a couple of the albums available...
-Avishai Cohen. Another set up great albums here from the excellent trumpet man. Of his albums, it has parts two and three of The Big Rain Trilogy project...
Upthread somewhere is a post about a lot of Bobby Previte-related projects on Bandcamp. Also, there's a link upthread about a Sunnyside label page that they've started up, so that'll be worth checking out occasionally.
Otherwise, I'll keep looking through the stuff for those of you who don't want to. I recognize how awful searching the site can be and as I mention either on this thread or a different emusers/bandcamp thread, it grates at my soul how many bands go insane with the tagging and in a bout of cynical marketing and/or self-delusion, put a jazz tag on their album, thus making an already difficult search more difficult.
@aboscardin - Holy carp, that is some intense material you got there. Definitely jazz with post-rock influence (good call jonah), but the first track alone makes me feel like I just listened to 3 different albums at once. And that is meant as a compliment, because you guys somehow pull it off. Also, kudos on the awesome cover art.
Definitely some interest here... I've been frustrated with bandcamp, mainly because of the navigation. But I'm always looking for ways to sample an album, so I am glad for these pointers. Thanks, and keep it up!
This next one is for those of you who entertained the odd thought of what it might sound like if Mike Patton created his own big band album...
Le Bocal - "Ego"
Big band on bandcamp comes through again. Probably my second favorite find thus far. Seriously insane music, yet never relinquishes its grasp of the melody.
The personnel:
[code]
Cyril Moulas (guitar, composition)
Thierry Girault (piano, composition)
Pierre Desvignes (drums, composition)
Christophe Chambet (sampler)
Diego Fano, (alto sax, composition)
Amaury Bach (alto sax, flute)
Patrick Montessuit (bar sax)
Ernie Odoom (soprano sax, tenor sax, vocals)
Guillaume Lavallard (trumpet, flugle, composition)
Lo
@thom I'm glad you enjoyed it. I hope that by the time you finish all of the tracks, you feel like you've listened to at least 11 albums all at once. The artwork is by Italian artist Franco Brambilla. The album officially "drops" on CD and vinyl in May, but I wanted to get it out there as soon as it was done to drum up some interest (and hopefully dollars as well, in all honesty).
@jonahpwll Thanks for the words of welcome! I will definitely stop back in from time to time, and I like your dedicated thread idea. Sounds like a lot of fun. I'm currently in "strategery" mode, figuring out how to attack the online/digital thing best, but the community here seems very engaged and serious, so it would be a pleasure to get something happening with you all.
I think the comments here about Bandcamp and the end-user experience of using it to find new music are right on the money. For me, Bandcamp is a platform to share and sell my music from, but it's not really very good on its own as a discovery device. I'm not sure if that's a priority for them or not, but it would be a welcome one for artists.
Also, I just wanted to put in a plug on behalf of all of the artists featured here: if you like what you hear, please do consider buying a download or physical disc from them. If they are selling on Bandcamp, chances are that every sale makes a huge difference for them. It does for me.
I think as artists, we're all trying to get a handle on the idea of streaming our whole records for free, and it can still be a little disconcerting to get several hundred full plays of your album in a couple of weeks, but still see comparatively few sales. I'm fully on board with using this kind of sharing to get my music out there, but it's still scary.
I'm not saying that everyone should buy every one of these albums (or even mine) but maybe pick a favorite and send those guys some business. We all definitely need it.
A note on the listens per purchase ratio... for someone like myself who doesn't have a great setup, if I'm at work or my home stereo is acting up, sometimes I'll just stream and stream an album from Bandcamp or myspace, etc even though I've purchased the album.
It's something to keep in mind and grasp onto for those times when you struggle with the huge task of trying to make a living at something you love doing, no matter the odds. And specifically to me personally, I'll be bumping up the streams on your albums for a few months before actually purchasing. I'm unemployed, so as you know money is tight, but I really really look forward to buying the physical albums and getting that cool art. That's something I want to see front and center on my shelf, yeah?
So don't get discouraged. You're involved in making some cool music, and as long as you're doing that, you've always got a pragmatic reason to hope for the best.
Cheers.
@jonahpwll Please listen as much as you like - I'm glad you're enjoying the record enough for repeat listens! I'm definitely not discouraged - just trying to figure all of this stuff out and get as many people to hear it as I can. Thanks for spreading the word.
I've only recently discovered Kneebody, but apparently I'm one of the stragglers, because researching them shows all kinds of articles about these guys being the next thing for jazz. In any event, it's ten bucks for their album, but most importantly, they're gracious enough to stream the whole thing on bandcamp. Here it is...
And then a member of the band, Shane Endsley, has a solo album available on bandcamp, also for ten bucks. The first track reminds me of the airy lyricism of Kamikaze Ground Crew...
Comments
Nickel & Brass Septet - "Four-Color Heroes!"
It's $1 for the physical cd, NYOP for the dig dl.
I think I'm gonna buy the physical cd and give them a little more than a buck. It's got a lot of vintage comics art in it apparently.
This album isn't as good as Hamilton's "Causeway Suite" above, but I would up listening to the entire album all the way through twice in a row, so there was definitely something enjoyable about it. Definitely has the interesting detours of a modern big band piece. Won't blow you away or anything, but sometimes I prefer an album treat me courteously and just let me enjoy it in all its simplicity. This, to my ears, is one of those albums.
Also, I would like to note that this adds yet one more name to the roster of big band ensembles who compose songs based on comic book themes and stories. This, undoubtedly, is a good sign for the advancement of humanity. Cheers!
http://music.zubattosyndicate.com/album/four-color-heroes
Maybe the artists are on for a slap fight:
3ofmillions tagged as experimental improv jazz
Pollen Trio tagged as experimental free jazz
And there's probably some ambient-electronica purists who would love to have a slap fight with you.
Yep. self-reporting/self-identifying gets a little wonky. I am amused by the number of records that are "experimental folk" or "ambient country" just because they have some delay on the guitars.
I'm more familiar with the tagging on bandcamp now as opposed to when I began this thread. I see why it's beneficial to lie your ass off and tag tag tag. Whether I do my searches through the site or through a defined google search, bands are more likely to get pulled up as a result it they tag recklessly. Of course, when I see that, I don't even bother to listen to them, but my reaction probably would be considered (or tagged) as an outlier in a statistical analysis.
And I ain't scared of the ambient electronica purists. They're probably even skinnier than jazz nerds, so I bet I have a fighting chance.
P.S. @Brighternow, just to emphasize, even though those recs had nothing to do with jazz (in my esteemed opinion, which should could considered rule of law in these parts), I really enjoyed those recs.
That said, I wouldn't insist this be characterized as "jazz", but it's clearly related in many ways.
The label page mentions the CDR is "soon to be sold out" - hopefully that means it will be made available online soon.
I think I mentioned recently on the bandcamp thread or the free stuff thread an album on bandcamp that was tagged ambient and turned out to be straight prog metal.
@Karg:
No, actually, I was referring to the two Triosk-related projects. I didn't listen to the Pollen Trio until your post. At first (brief) glimpse, I thought it was more Tom Baker stuff and figured to get back to it later. While there are a few tracks on Pollen Trio that are a tough argue as jazz, there are a couple, the first track especially, which definitely fits into the jazz subgenre where you'd also see Nik Bartch's Ronin crew setting up camp.
Some of that stuff, like the track you reference "Clamp", I can certainly see how you could trace back the lineage of that song. I would just question whether Clamp's ancestors (the sound, not so much the body of work the musicians put forth) should have been stamped with the jazz tattoo. But here we're treading on a debate that will never be resolved, since it's so subjective to each of our ears.
@BT
Agreed. Way too liberally. I don't really care if these bands want to go around town and call themselves jazz. I'm looking to ban them from the genre or anything. It just makes it a pain in the ass to search through bandcamp with some of these leaps of imagination.
@GP
My fight odds are improving! I might just have to switch my wager and put money on myself now. I'll look like Shamokin' Joe Frazier.
let me google that for you.
Looking forward to the faux fight.
Lol, okay, now tell me how you did that clever thing with the mouse and google site.
But, seriously, is there one in particular you trust. I am super paranoid about most sites.
Word.
Re: Lagomasino/Fishkin:
How could you come across something categorized as this:
doom experimental jazz trance Philadelphia
and not want to plunk down a fiver immediately?
I'm not sure about the illustrative usefulness of that picture. I don't see any Mosaic box sets or vacuum sealed Blue Note vinyl reissues on the shelf in the background.
as do these:
Thanks.
- Futuristic experimental neoclassicalheavyrockmetaljazz ('ish)
;-)
I don't know how it will fare with your definition of jazz, but I think it is a more exciting and interesting record than F-CH. Hope you enjoy it.
More jazz on Bandcamp - my friend Jason Parker has all of his quartet records available.
Thanks again for listening to my music. I really appreciate it!
I saw that Zybatto Syndicate album, just hadn't gotten around to listening to it, yet. Sure seemed like jazz with the brief listen I did get; sorta jazz with post-modern rock inspirations (I'm so bad at this genre thing... except jazz, that one I've got down
I already had that Jason Parker page bookmarked. I don't remember which album, but the first track hooked me immediately (I could be remembering this wrong, but I think it had sort of a NY Unit does Greensleeves sound to it).
And if you get the chance, pop back in from time to time. I don't think I'm alone in saying that I think it would be cool if you had a dedicated thread in which you do more than just promo new stuff, but also maybe give us some insider looks at what you and your bandmates face as you're trying to get established in various outlets, the details of dealing with Bandcamp and eMusic and Amazon (etc), just any information that gives us a better idea of how the machine ticks. If you read through some of the threads on this forum, you'll see we're a small community but we're ravenous about music, have very wide interests (and I really do believe that on emusers, this group does have truly diverse listening habits both as individuals and as a group), and that we are genuinely interested in seeing the musicians we enjoy thrive in their careers and want to find the best ways we are each able in our way to support them.
And we're always looking for quality recommendations of other music. I think we have a couple different threads, one for jazz I know of, that are basically recommendation threads. So if there's someone you like, big or small act, let us know.
Anyways, thanks for hopping on board and hope to see you around.
Cheers.
Bandcamp is pretty much a wasteland for jazz, but like any apocalyptic landscape, there are a few decent neighborhoods to rest your weary ears. I've been searching for unknown and unsigned jazz acts just out of the spirit of the adventure (and, well, also I'm broke, and many unsigned acts sell their album pretty cheap thankfully), but here's some better known jazz just so you don't think it's a total waste of time looking around...
(Also, a quick reminder that you can download these files in a lot of different formats, including FLAC, with no extra charge)...
-Anat Cohen. In my opinion, one of the top clarinetists around and truly a multi-instrumentalist. On the Anzic label, most of her albums are available here (all for around $8-$9). The page the link takes you to has links to other of her albums). Here's a couple of the albums available...
http://anzicstore.com/album/place-time
-3 Cohens. Of which Anat is a member of along with Avishai and Yuval, this is an excellent album, highly recommended, IMO a top five of 2007...
http://anzicstore.com/album/braid
-Avishai Cohen. Another set up great albums here from the excellent trumpet man. Of his albums, it has parts two and three of The Big Rain Trilogy project...
http://anzicstore.com/album/flood
-Third World Love. Omer Avital leads an excellent group. I only see one album listed, but I'm positive there's a second one on Bandcamp, too.
http://anzicstore.com/album/new-blues
Upthread somewhere is a post about a lot of Bobby Previte-related projects on Bandcamp. Also, there's a link upthread about a Sunnyside label page that they've started up, so that'll be worth checking out occasionally.
Otherwise, I'll keep looking through the stuff for those of you who don't want to. I recognize how awful searching the site can be and as I mention either on this thread or a different emusers/bandcamp thread, it grates at my soul how many bands go insane with the tagging and in a bout of cynical marketing and/or self-delusion, put a jazz tag on their album, thus making an already difficult search more difficult.
Cheers.
Le Bocal - "Ego"
Big band on bandcamp comes through again. Probably my second favorite find thus far. Seriously insane music, yet never relinquishes its grasp of the melody.
The personnel:
[code]
Cyril Moulas (guitar, composition)
Thierry Girault (piano, composition)
Pierre Desvignes (drums, composition)
Christophe Chambet (sampler)
Diego Fano, (alto sax, composition)
Amaury Bach (alto sax, flute)
Patrick Montessuit (bar sax)
Ernie Odoom (soprano sax, tenor sax, vocals)
Guillaume Lavallard (trumpet, flugle, composition)
Lo
@jonahpwll Thanks for the words of welcome! I will definitely stop back in from time to time, and I like your dedicated thread idea. Sounds like a lot of fun. I'm currently in "strategery" mode, figuring out how to attack the online/digital thing best, but the community here seems very engaged and serious, so it would be a pleasure to get something happening with you all.
I think the comments here about Bandcamp and the end-user experience of using it to find new music are right on the money. For me, Bandcamp is a platform to share and sell my music from, but it's not really very good on its own as a discovery device. I'm not sure if that's a priority for them or not, but it would be a welcome one for artists.
Also, I just wanted to put in a plug on behalf of all of the artists featured here: if you like what you hear, please do consider buying a download or physical disc from them. If they are selling on Bandcamp, chances are that every sale makes a huge difference for them. It does for me.
I think as artists, we're all trying to get a handle on the idea of streaming our whole records for free, and it can still be a little disconcerting to get several hundred full plays of your album in a couple of weeks, but still see comparatively few sales. I'm fully on board with using this kind of sharing to get my music out there, but it's still scary.
I'm not saying that everyone should buy every one of these albums (or even mine) but maybe pick a favorite and send those guys some business. We all definitely need it.
Thanks again for listening!
A note on the listens per purchase ratio... for someone like myself who doesn't have a great setup, if I'm at work or my home stereo is acting up, sometimes I'll just stream and stream an album from Bandcamp or myspace, etc even though I've purchased the album.
It's something to keep in mind and grasp onto for those times when you struggle with the huge task of trying to make a living at something you love doing, no matter the odds. And specifically to me personally, I'll be bumping up the streams on your albums for a few months before actually purchasing. I'm unemployed, so as you know money is tight, but I really really look forward to buying the physical albums and getting that cool art. That's something I want to see front and center on my shelf, yeah?
So don't get discouraged. You're involved in making some cool music, and as long as you're doing that, you've always got a pragmatic reason to hope for the best.
Cheers.
"Low Electrical Worker" & "Live Vol. 1" & "Wendel"
[/url]http://kneebody.bandcamp.com/album/low-electrical-worker[/url]
And then a member of the band, Shane Endsley, has a solo album available on bandcamp, also for ten bucks. The first track reminds me of the airy lyricism of Kamikaze Ground Crew...
"2nd Guess"
http://kneebody.bandcamp.com/album/2nd-guess