The album is the latest release from Babatunde Lea, who has been on what can only be described as a roll with his last few albums, to his mentor the barely known and under appreciated Leon Thomas.
I was worried that it might not arrive there and I toyed with buying it from Amazon.
The first sample definitely sounds like rock the second sample sounds like its headed for some typical Miles/Hancock 70's era post fusion free for all.
With over 25 minutes running time in each sample there is ample room to develop into just about anything they want it to be.
He definitely had the players on it to do anything he wanted to do.
even still, pass
Miles Davis' A Tribute To Jack Johnson: Jazz or Rock?
If you're asking about the rest of the album (due to the inadequacy of sufficient sample time), then you should know that the first track continues in that vein for the entirety of that track pretty much, and most certainly does rock. John McLaughlin makes a statement on that guitar, and while he never strays from a fusion context, he makes a lot of "rock musicians" look pretty silly. The guy can play. The second track picks up tempo from where the sample leaves off, and whereas the first track plays more on the rock side of the rock-jazz fusion fence, the second track stays closer to the jazz way of things. But overall, you're talking about one of the greatest rock-jazz fusion albums of all times.
It's a hard call whether to say you should get it or not. There are a lot of huge Miles fans out there who absolutely despise this period of his career, just as there are those (like myself) who love this album (and In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew) as much as his Prestige quartet work. If you think, based on the samples, this would be a sound you'd like, get the album, but it's a great album for this kind of sound.
Y'know, your library might have a copy of it, too. Or maybe a youtube video that has just the audio. These might give you an extended listen to better judge whether to purchase it by.
Cheers.
Miles Davis' A Tribute To Jack Johnson: Jazz or Rock?
- it's neither - it's fusion.
I've been trying to figure out why this fusion stuff never works, really, for me, and I think I finally decided. I love jazz, I love Miles, and I love rock, but to me, fusion gives up the immediacy and simplicity of rock (and funk which Jack Johnson definitely is based on) and rock song structures, and it gives up the melodic complexity of jazz - leaving what sounds to me like, well, fusion.
Jack Johnson does rock, don't get me wrong, but the whole thing could have gotten done a lot quicker. There's nothing really on there that, to my ears, isn't done better on Maggot Brain or There's a Riot Goin' On. And yeah, the guitar is great, but it's not Hendrix; it's not new, it's not pushing the limits of what a guitar can do; it's just really good guitar playing, going on and on. For something that rocks way more than any Miles' fusion song, and drags the songs way out but somehow is much better at grooving, burning and tension building, check out some Fela Kuti.
On the jazz side of the scale, Coltrane a few years before this was absolutely shredding and exploding basic song structures and blowing the whole thing into space. Seriously, when jazz can do this, what need is there for it to try to do rock?
Now for fusion that I do like, see Sun Ra. Lanquidity is funky, jazzy, dreamy, and weird, and fits within, while still seriously distorting the idea of simple song structures. It fuses jazz and funk without giving up the high points of either.
So ... that's just me; not an expert, especially compared to many of the commenters here, but finally managed to put words to what it is I don't care for in fusion.
This thread is probably gonna be considered heresy by the fusion/alternative jazz types
I understand that fusion and the like can be very powerful music and I don't mind listening to any well conceived and played music regardless of its foundation.
But let's not mince words, I don't consider it jazz (There I said it come get me).
Jazz might have several streams prior to bop, but since the 30's everything that can rightly be called jazz flows directly from bird, diz and company.
This thread is probably gonna be considered heresy by the fusion/alternative jazz types
I think the fusion/alternative jazz types are considered the heretics. I love Miles Davis' fusion period. And I've got his Jack Johnson disc; I just think it operates at an interesting -- and inventive -- pivot point between jazz and rock. It's one of the most vibrant albums I've ever heard.
I don't have a problem with any music if it is well conceived and played, my hackles get worked from calling music jazz when I don't think it belongs in that category.
Play and listen to anything you want just call it what it is.
Yes. I don't care for that stage in Byrd's career, don't much care for that sea change many musicians took with their first steps into the seventies, but, yeah, it's jazz.
Stanley. Man, another guy who put out some stuff in the seventies that I find difficult to listen to. His stuff on Blue Note, however, is some of the best bop you can find.
Based on your comments about Donald Byrd I kind of figured you would feel that way.
Both of them played from a soul perspective with a lot of soul. The thing that made it safe to do this sort of thing was the fact that there was no doubt that they could play what was descended from bop, they chose to play like this because they wanted to (for whatever reason) not because that was all they could do.
I respect the fact that your bop ears don't like this style of playing. But personally, if there is to be a new thing in jazz, (and right now I think there is very little evidence of a new thing) I think it will come from this direction (OK maybe I am just hoping and wishing there but you know).
I respect the fact that your bop ears don't like this style of playing. But personally, if there is to be a new thing in jazz, (and right now I think there is very little evidence of a new thing) I think it will come from this direction (OK maybe I am just hoping and wishing there but you know).
There's definitely musicians and critics out there pushing the idea that the next surge in jazz will have a nu-soul current, and there's music out there to back that claim up. I still think it's gonna be more electronics focused, and not so much on the soul thing (though jazz would probably be better served by being less cerebral and getting people to dance to it again).
As far as some of the seventies fusion, I used to hate the stuff, and while I still find it difficult to stomach any album put out by CTI, my ears are coming around on stuff that has a similar sound. Like Ramsey Lewis's "Sun Goddess". Just plain happy music.
Speaking of musicians making a shift in sound when the starting gun went off for the seventies, I don't know if any of you have listened to some of Archie Shepp's post-avant music.
His music took a shift similar to many jazz musicians post-sixties, but he really made it work. I actually prefer his seventies output to his sixties stuff on Impulse.
RE Archie Shepp post 60s: yeah, I think a lot of people would dig his stuff on into the 80s who hated the 60s stuff. The 80s especially, he became quite a traditionalist. Check the duo album with Horace Parlan, for one, though the fidelity is lacking.
RE CIT: I'm a big fan, but then again, I'm a fan of arrangements and you have to be to get through some of that stuff. It becomes as much, if not more, about the arranger than the soloist. Farrell is a good recommendation for people who don't like CTI (Outback should really be in print. It's his finest work, IMHO.) I'd add to that Freddie Hubbard - Red Clay and George Benson - Beyond the Blue Horizon. Both of which are fine records in their own right but they're also as close to straight ahead jazz as anyone was doing at the time.
Not really familiar with Archie Shepp but what I recall of his music was a little too outside for my tastes.
I am really enjoying Umbo Weti. It is a little ragged in places but like knots in fine wooden furniture, that is what gives it character. I highly recommend.
This discussion made me put on some Shepp I acquired from who knows where. On Green Dolphin Street from '78. Good stuff, if you can find it. Much more straight ahead, but never boring.
Even something like Joe Farrell's Moon Germs? I think that's a great one, though it suffers greatly from album pricing there.
Also see his oop Outback, another good session.
Even those. There's something about the CTIs that just don't sit well with me. I'm sure if I went through their entire catalog, I'd find a few albums that I'd want on my shelf. I think it's just a combination of where my ear is at and, also, the timing of the first time I gave CTI a listen. It was "Red Clay" (Freddie Hubbard), and it was right around the time I was also getting into Ornette's Free Jazz output, and I think that resultant clash soured CTI to my ears for good. Well, at least until my ears are looking for something else. Great thing how cds don't have a spoilage date.
I can certainly understand, and sympathize, with the detractors of some current music being considered jazz. I know much of the music offered up on the ECM label these days being considered sub-genres like chamber jazz and world jazz can grate at the souls of jazz "purists", no different than some of the indie-jazz in the spotlight the last few years. Both be-bop and hard-bop (in its heyday and also from the music of musicians that carry the bop torch decades later) cemented in many jazz fans minds the image of jazz as having a very recognizable syncopation, interplay between musicians, interchange between standard note patterns and improvisational technique, an expert-level musicianship, and a recognizable armory of instruments. So when Anouar Brahem records an album with four musicians playing instruments I couldn't begin to pronounce in some Middle-Eastern meter or Brad Shepik drenches his album with world-jazz sensibilities and a guitar sound that doesn't remind anyone of Grant Green or Bill Frisell records albums with Nashville studio musicians and an unapologetic use of guitar loops and effects, I get how some jazz fans cringe at categorizing some of this music as jazz. Even if they like the music in question, it still bugs them that it gets called jazz. I mean, I really do get that. Don't agree with it, but I understand.
The thing is (for me, at least) is that jazz has always had a pioneering aspect to it, and often the new directions that jazz takes don't sound like the jazz of the day (or past) that they are an offshoot of. But, IMO, this has more to do with time and acclimation than it does jazz bloodlines. Ornette Coleman's free jazz albums were not thought of as jazz back in the day, and now they're widely recognized as a shining example of jazz innovation that inspired many jazzers that followed. Miles's fusion period, a likewise occurrence. And while there are still those that don't consider free jazz or fusion (of any sort) real jazz, the two sides of that argument are much more evenly dispersed than they once were. It takes time for our ears to get acclimated, but just as importantly, it takes time for the musician innovators to get their ideas fleshed out. Very rarely does a new sound represent the final product; only a stage in a process, often a very long process. And that innovative sound doesn't usually reach a conclusive resting place with the original creators. Often its the disciples of the innovators who pick up the baton and tweak the sound, improving it where it needs it, discarding what doesn't seem to work, and like a relief pitcher in baseball, pitching a scoreless final innings after the starting pitcher's seven inning gem.
I don't know if ECM jazz or Nu-jazz or Indie-jazz or electronica-jazz will ever cement themselves as respected sub-genres of jazz, much less be the jazz New Thing, but I do think patience is a better mantra than ostracization.
My daily two cents, there you have it.
I read your dissertation closely prepared to pounce on your ass like stank on shit at the first sign of weakness.
Oddly enough I do not disagree with your points. I think you captured much of my perspective on the state of jazz.
Innovation is a wonderful thing as long as the would be leaders of the next new thing in jazz are careful that they do not lead us down another dead end.
I don't think there will ever be a new jazz orthodoxy as in the past. There will never be another small handfull of labels like Blue Note/Riverside/Jazzland/Prestige/Impulse churning out genre defining albums as they did in the fifties and sixties. Art doesn't work that way anymore. Musicians today have unparalleled access to all eras of jazz - and all musics on the planet - and are picking and choosing what they feel best from each without regard to stylistic orthodoxy. Today jazz is "the sound of surprise" as much, if not more so, as it ever was. But there are many problems today trying to be a jazz listener. It is work today to find great jazz, not because it isn't out there, but because there is no particular place to go to find it. The radio? Not for many years. Jazz labels? Too many, too small. Your local record/cd store? Not unless you live in a few select cities. Emusic, Lala, forums like emusers, all can help, but it is still a lot more work than just waiting for the next Blue Note release to come out. Too much work for many people to bother, and that is understandable - but a real shame too. I'm more excited today about jazz than I have ever been, because I'm hearing something new and amazing every week. (Damn, Uri Caine and Craig Taborn have even made me like the Fender Rhodes, which I wouldn't have believed possible a decade ago.) Jazz didn't die in the seventies. What died were the jazz clubs and the classic jazz labels. The great labels of the following years - Steeplechase, Muse, Strata-East, CrissCross, Black Saint/Soul Note, etc. were smaller and harder to find. And then came the deluge of reissues. With little access to new jazz and the domination of reissues in the jazz record/cd racks, hard bop became institutionalized in a way no jazz style had before. I love hard bop/modal jazz, but jazz didn't stop growing just because it disappeared. There was an excellent quote from the great trumpeter Bobby Bradford, that I think sums up my attitude toward the current state of jazz. "Bobby Bradford: I cant believe interviewers are always asking me if Im concerned about the future of jazz. I say Dont you listen to any records?
I don't think there will ever be a new jazz orthodoxy as in the past. There will never be another small handfull of labels like Blue Note/Riverside/Jazzland/Prestige/Impulse churning out genre defining albums as they did in the fifties and sixties. Art doesn't work that way anymore.
Also, labels no longer attempt to conform to some aesthetic (well, aside from ECM). Most labels focus more on the individual artist than on label promotion. These days, there's no way to predict what a new Blue Note will sound like, or even if its jazz at all. A smaller label like Nonesuch is the same way.
But there are many problems today trying to be a jazz listener. It is work today to find great jazz, not because it isn't out there, but because there is no particular place to go to find it
Agreed. But then again, with blogs and BB forums, those of us who do enjoy searching out the hidden gems of jazz, the internet gives up a much louder voice to spread the word about what jazz is essential to have. IMO, what's lost in the centralization of music in the old brick & mortars, the convenience of flipping on the computer in the comfort of our homes, no travel time or store hours involved, evens things out.
Comments
Umbo Weti: A Tribute to Leon Thomas has hit the other place.
The album is the latest release from Babatunde Lea, who has been on what can only be described as a roll with his last few albums, to his mentor the barely known and under appreciated Leon Thomas.
I was worried that it might not arrive there and I toyed with buying it from Amazon.
I guess the creator has a master plan
With over 25 minutes running time in each sample there is ample room to develop into just about anything they want it to be.
He definitely had the players on it to do anything he wanted to do.
even still, pass
Not a Miles Davis fan?
I just prefer his, como se dice, classic era recordings
IMHO he ceased to be best of breed when he entered his fusion period
Now this is Miles
and looking for a sample I see that there is an ungodly amount of Miles at the other place now
If you're asking about the rest of the album (due to the inadequacy of sufficient sample time), then you should know that the first track continues in that vein for the entirety of that track pretty much, and most certainly does rock. John McLaughlin makes a statement on that guitar, and while he never strays from a fusion context, he makes a lot of "rock musicians" look pretty silly. The guy can play. The second track picks up tempo from where the sample leaves off, and whereas the first track plays more on the rock side of the rock-jazz fusion fence, the second track stays closer to the jazz way of things. But overall, you're talking about one of the greatest rock-jazz fusion albums of all times.
It's a hard call whether to say you should get it or not. There are a lot of huge Miles fans out there who absolutely despise this period of his career, just as there are those (like myself) who love this album (and In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew) as much as his Prestige quartet work. If you think, based on the samples, this would be a sound you'd like, get the album, but it's a great album for this kind of sound.
Y'know, your library might have a copy of it, too. Or maybe a youtube video that has just the audio. These might give you an extended listen to better judge whether to purchase it by.
Cheers.
- it's neither - it's fusion.
I've been trying to figure out why this fusion stuff never works, really, for me, and I think I finally decided. I love jazz, I love Miles, and I love rock, but to me, fusion gives up the immediacy and simplicity of rock (and funk which Jack Johnson definitely is based on) and rock song structures, and it gives up the melodic complexity of jazz - leaving what sounds to me like, well, fusion.
Jack Johnson does rock, don't get me wrong, but the whole thing could have gotten done a lot quicker. There's nothing really on there that, to my ears, isn't done better on Maggot Brain or There's a Riot Goin' On. And yeah, the guitar is great, but it's not Hendrix; it's not new, it's not pushing the limits of what a guitar can do; it's just really good guitar playing, going on and on. For something that rocks way more than any Miles' fusion song, and drags the songs way out but somehow is much better at grooving, burning and tension building, check out some Fela Kuti.
On the jazz side of the scale, Coltrane a few years before this was absolutely shredding and exploding basic song structures and blowing the whole thing into space. Seriously, when jazz can do this, what need is there for it to try to do rock?
Now for fusion that I do like, see Sun Ra. Lanquidity is funky, jazzy, dreamy, and weird, and fits within, while still seriously distorting the idea of simple song structures. It fuses jazz and funk without giving up the high points of either.
So ... that's just me; not an expert, especially compared to many of the commenters here, but finally managed to put words to what it is I don't care for in fusion.
Well said.
This thread is probably gonna be considered heresy by the fusion/alternative jazz types
I understand that fusion and the like can be very powerful music and I don't mind listening to any well conceived and played music regardless of its foundation.
But let's not mince words, I don't consider it jazz (There I said it come get me).
Jazz might have several streams prior to bop, but since the 30's everything that can rightly be called jazz flows directly from bird, diz and company.
Let the flame war begin
I think the fusion/alternative jazz types are considered the heretics. I love Miles Davis' fusion period. And I've got his Jack Johnson disc; I just think it operates at an interesting -- and inventive -- pivot point between jazz and rock. It's one of the most vibrant albums I've ever heard.
Play and listen to anything you want just call it what it is.
Jazz or no?
But I pity the fool that tries to figure this one out.
Both of them played from a soul perspective with a lot of soul. The thing that made it safe to do this sort of thing was the fact that there was no doubt that they could play what was descended from bop, they chose to play like this because they wanted to (for whatever reason) not because that was all they could do.
I respect the fact that your bop ears don't like this style of playing. But personally, if there is to be a new thing in jazz, (and right now I think there is very little evidence of a new thing) I think it will come from this direction (OK maybe I am just hoping and wishing there but you know).
There's definitely musicians and critics out there pushing the idea that the next surge in jazz will have a nu-soul current, and there's music out there to back that claim up. I still think it's gonna be more electronics focused, and not so much on the soul thing (though jazz would probably be better served by being less cerebral and getting people to dance to it again).
As far as some of the seventies fusion, I used to hate the stuff, and while I still find it difficult to stomach any album put out by CTI, my ears are coming around on stuff that has a similar sound. Like Ramsey Lewis's "Sun Goddess". Just plain happy music.
Speaking of musicians making a shift in sound when the starting gun went off for the seventies, I don't know if any of you have listened to some of Archie Shepp's post-avant music.
His music took a shift similar to many jazz musicians post-sixties, but he really made it work. I actually prefer his seventies output to his sixties stuff on Impulse.
Even something like Joe Farrell's Moon Germs? I think that's a great one, though it suffers greatly from album pricing there.
Also see his oop Outback, another good session.
So what are you saying we haven't heard the last of the Theremin
Greetings Karg it's been while
RE CIT: I'm a big fan, but then again, I'm a fan of arrangements and you have to be to get through some of that stuff. It becomes as much, if not more, about the arranger than the soloist. Farrell is a good recommendation for people who don't like CTI (Outback should really be in print. It's his finest work, IMHO.) I'd add to that Freddie Hubbard - Red Clay and George Benson - Beyond the Blue Horizon. Both of which are fine records in their own right but they're also as close to straight ahead jazz as anyone was doing at the time.
I am really enjoying Umbo Weti. It is a little ragged in places but like knots in fine wooden furniture, that is what gives it character. I highly recommend.
Colors
Try Shepp with Parlan; you may well find him back in your corner after the years outside.
Even those. There's something about the CTIs that just don't sit well with me. I'm sure if I went through their entire catalog, I'd find a few albums that I'd want on my shelf. I think it's just a combination of where my ear is at and, also, the timing of the first time I gave CTI a listen. It was "Red Clay" (Freddie Hubbard), and it was right around the time I was also getting into Ornette's Free Jazz output, and I think that resultant clash soured CTI to my ears for good. Well, at least until my ears are looking for something else. Great thing how cds don't have a spoilage date.
The thing is (for me, at least) is that jazz has always had a pioneering aspect to it, and often the new directions that jazz takes don't sound like the jazz of the day (or past) that they are an offshoot of. But, IMO, this has more to do with time and acclimation than it does jazz bloodlines. Ornette Coleman's free jazz albums were not thought of as jazz back in the day, and now they're widely recognized as a shining example of jazz innovation that inspired many jazzers that followed. Miles's fusion period, a likewise occurrence. And while there are still those that don't consider free jazz or fusion (of any sort) real jazz, the two sides of that argument are much more evenly dispersed than they once were. It takes time for our ears to get acclimated, but just as importantly, it takes time for the musician innovators to get their ideas fleshed out. Very rarely does a new sound represent the final product; only a stage in a process, often a very long process. And that innovative sound doesn't usually reach a conclusive resting place with the original creators. Often its the disciples of the innovators who pick up the baton and tweak the sound, improving it where it needs it, discarding what doesn't seem to work, and like a relief pitcher in baseball, pitching a scoreless final innings after the starting pitcher's seven inning gem.
I don't know if ECM jazz or Nu-jazz or Indie-jazz or electronica-jazz will ever cement themselves as respected sub-genres of jazz, much less be the jazz New Thing, but I do think patience is a better mantra than ostracization.
My daily two cents, there you have it.
I read your dissertation closely prepared to pounce on your ass like stank on shit at the first sign of weakness.
Oddly enough I do not disagree with your points. I think you captured much of my perspective on the state of jazz.
Innovation is a wonderful thing as long as the would be leaders of the next new thing in jazz are careful that they do not lead us down another dead end.
Musicians today have unparalleled access to all eras of jazz - and all musics on the planet - and are picking and choosing what they feel best from each without regard to stylistic orthodoxy. Today jazz is "the sound of surprise" as much, if not more so, as it ever was. But there are many problems today trying to be a jazz listener. It is work today to find great jazz, not because it isn't out there, but because there is no particular place to go to find it. The radio? Not for many years. Jazz labels? Too many, too small. Your local record/cd store? Not unless you live in a few select cities. Emusic, Lala, forums like emusers, all can help, but it is still a lot more work than just waiting for the next Blue Note release to come out. Too much work for many people to bother, and that is understandable - but a real shame too. I'm more excited today about jazz than I have ever been, because I'm hearing something new and amazing
every week. (Damn, Uri Caine and Craig Taborn have even made me like the Fender Rhodes, which I wouldn't have believed possible a decade ago.)
Jazz didn't die in the seventies. What died were the jazz clubs and the classic jazz labels. The great labels of the following years - Steeplechase, Muse, Strata-East, CrissCross, Black Saint/Soul Note, etc. were smaller and harder to find. And then came the deluge of reissues. With little access to new jazz and the domination of reissues in the jazz record/cd racks, hard bop became institutionalized in a way no jazz style had before. I love hard bop/modal jazz, but jazz didn't stop growing just because it disappeared. There was an excellent quote from the great trumpeter Bobby Bradford, that I think sums up my attitude toward the current state of jazz. "Bobby Bradford: I cant believe interviewers are always asking me if Im concerned about the future of jazz. I say Dont you listen to any records?
Also, labels no longer attempt to conform to some aesthetic (well, aside from ECM). Most labels focus more on the individual artist than on label promotion. These days, there's no way to predict what a new Blue Note will sound like, or even if its jazz at all. A smaller label like Nonesuch is the same way.
Agreed. But then again, with blogs and BB forums, those of us who do enjoy searching out the hidden gems of jazz, the internet gives up a much louder voice to spread the word about what jazz is essential to have. IMO, what's lost in the centralization of music in the old brick & mortars, the convenience of flipping on the computer in the comfort of our homes, no travel time or store hours involved, evens things out.