Announcing Rediscovery at All About Jazz

[jkelman]

Today I will begin a daily column called Rediscovery at All About Jazz. The purpose of the column is to bring an older album deserving of attention back into the spotlight - and not just jazz either. It started on social media where, for example, Hatfield and the North's The Rotter's Club ran the other day.

The purpose of Rediscovery is not to be simply me feeding you information, though; as with social media, I am trying to engender discussion about albums that I think are important, and the reason for moving it to All About Jazz was to make it possible to centralize discussion in one place. If you have a Facebook, Twitter or Google account you do not need to create a new account with the site's comment software, DISQUS; you can sign in with any of those accounts and if your browser has cookies enabled you should only have to do that once.

So here goes today's first Rediscovery at All About Jazz, Don Byron's wonderful Tuskegee Experments. The first column explains the reason behind its creation, so is longer than usual. Most entries will be just a couple paragraphs because your thoughts matter, so please read and post your comments.

Ok, as usual, the first bit of each day's column will be posted in this thread, with a link to the full article at All About Jazz. Enjoy....and please participate!!

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For this column I step away from my avoidance of personalization because its roots and intent are, indeed, very, very personal.

The germination of this column began as the result of two coinciding events. First, after months of relative inactivity due to a health matter that, while thankfully non-life threatening and treatable, could take several more months to get me back to my usual breakneck speed and has slowed my writing to a crawl, I began to feel like I needed to do something to keep promoting music that moved me, but in ways that required less physical and mental energy.

The second—and much happier—event was acquiring the best sound system I have ever owned (and will likely ever own) recently, as part of an upcoming home renovation. Still waiting on the Tetra 111 Subwoofers to complete my 333 stacks (combined with the renowned Ottawa company's 222 bookshelves), Oppo BDP-105D multimedia player and Leema Tucana II integrated amplifier, the sound is still so many orders of magnitude beyond what I had that I have truly begun hearing albums as if for the first time...the increase in fine detail, depth, breadth and transparency has truly been that significant.

And so, as I began pulling out albums I'd not heard in weeks ... months ... years ... decades ... I thought: why not share these records with others who may or may not know them? Focusing largely on reviewing new releases, I've never had the chance to pay respect to so many older recordings that have shaped my ears and my love of music.

Continue reading here...

[Bytor]

Will be checking this column regularly then

[Dave (in MA)]

Also,

The forum appears to be back.

[jkelman]

Also,

The forum appears to be back.

been back a few weeks...

[jkelman]

It's always great to go back and revisit a longtime favorite not heard in too long. Today's Rediscovery? Percussionist/sitarist Collin Walcott's Grazing Dreams, an ECM classic with trumpeter/multi-instrumentalist Don Cherry, guitarist John Abercrombie, bassist Palle Danielsson and percussionist Dom Um Romao. A truly deep recording that makes Walcott's death in a car accident while on tour with Oregon nearly 30 years ago all the more tragic.

Continue reading here...

Please remember to post your thoughts about this record at All About Jazz, thanks!

[jkelman]

Today's Rediscovery rerun? Jan Garbarek Group's Wayfarer, the saxophonist's 1983 ECM recording with Bill Frisell, Eberhard Weber and Michael DiPasqua. I was fortunate enough to have seen this group in a small club while on a trip to Boston the same year, and I still remember it to this day.

Continue reading here...

Pls pst @All About Jazz, tx!

[jkelman]

Some days you want to hear a bit of everything, so today's Rediscovery? Eberhard Weber's :rarum Selected Recordings, a compilation of some of his work as a leader and a guest for the venerable ECM label, ranging from his own Colours group to collaborations with Pat Metheny, Gary Burton, Ralph Towner, Norma Winstone and Jan Garbarek.

Continue reading here...

[jkelman]

Today's Rediscovery steps away from ECM for Quietananomaly in John Scofield's career for his exclusive use of nylon-string guitar.

Continue reading here...

Please post your comments with the article at All About Jazz, thanks!

[NogbadTheBad]

Nice, I will be reading.

[jkelman]

Nice, I will be reading.

And please feel free to comment, but am hoping you'll do it at All About Jazz as it would be nice to see all comments in one spot to try and spark some discussion. No luck so far, but am still hopeful, since we started this at the holidays...not exactly the best time.

Best!
John

[Dave (in MA)]

I don't think John linked to the list of Rediscovery articles, just each individual one.

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/arti...hp?in_type=219

[jkelman]

I don't think John linked to the list of Rediscovery articles, just each individual one.

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/arti...hp?in_type=219

Thanks, but I am adding a post here every day with the new column entry. The above link is great to get to all of 'em at any time, but I'll be adding a new title every day, so thought it would be best to add a new post to this thread to keep it active.

But thanks for the free advertiIng!!!

[jkelman]

Today's Rediscovery rerun? This Land, guitarist Bill Frisell's landmark 1994 album with Don Byron, Curtis Fowlkes, Billy Drewes, Kermit Driscoll and Joey Baron. Coming on the heels of 1993's eclectic covers record Have a Little Faith (Elektra Nonesuch), This Land is as much about Frisell the writer of distinctly American music—informed in equal parts by Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, Julius Hemphill and Robert Johnson, all filtered through the guitarist's personally skewed lens—as it is Frisell the idiosyncratic player and improviser.

Please pst your comments at All About Jazz at the end of the article, where you can sign into DISQUS with your Facebook, Twitter or Google account,

Continue reading here...

[jkelman]

Today's Rediscovery is a bit of a lie, because Hatfield and the North's second album, The Rotter's Club, is rarely far from some kind of media player for long. A group that never received the acclaim it deserved back in the day, the core group of keyboardist Dave Stewart, guitarist Phil Miller, bassist/vocalist Richard Sinclair and drummer Pip Pyle were accompanied, at least in the studio, by guests like reed/woodwind multi-instrumentalist Jimmy Hasting and French hornist (and, for Stewart, ex-Egg co-conspirator) Mont Campbell, alongside the angelic Northettes (singers Barbara Gaskin, Amanda Parsons and Ann Rosenthal).

Hatfield was comprised of serious players who never took themselves too seriously. Who else, after all, came up with song titles like "(Big) John Wayne Socks Psychology in the Jaw" or, on its eponymous 1974 debut a year earlier, "Lobster in Cleavage Probe"? Part of the vibrant and unique Canterbury scene that also included groups like Soft Machine and Caravan, Hatfield may well be the quintessential Canterbury group and The Rotter's Club the quintessential Canterbury album.

An album without a single weak nanosecond, The Rotter's Club seamlessly blends often idiosyncratic but sometimes flat-out beautiful pop songs with more complex compositional structures and effortless improvisational élan, all delivered with a harmonic language that somehow links the group to jazz yet in a way that remains distinct and separate. Nobody before or after ever sounded like Hatfield and the North...unmistakably British but self-effacing and as far from stiff upper lip as Monty Python's Flying Circus, whose "Your Majesty is like a Cream Donut" became the title for the rallying theme to Stewart's near-sidelong multi-part epic, "Mumps."

Continue reading...

[NogbadTheBad]

Lovely lovely album

[jkelman]

Lovely lovely album

Thanks, man, but I'd really appreciate it if you would post comments, as suggested by the post, against the article at All About Jazz. If you have a Facebook, twitter or google acct you can log into the DISQUS comment software using one of those.

trying to centralize everything, since this goes to 7 social media portals, including two additional Facebook groups, plus two bulletin boards. Having to run around to all of them to see what folks say (a) is a bit of a time consumer, but more importantly, (b) if they were all in one place we might have more active discussion, and one of this Rediscovery column's purposes is to engender discussion.

Thanks, as ever, for your cooperation!
John

[NogbadTheBad]

Thanks, man, but I'd really appreciate it if you would post comments, as suggested by the post, against the article at All About Jazz. If you have a Facebook, twitter or google acct you can log into the DISQUS comment software using one of those.

trying to centralize everything, since this goes to 7 social media portals, including two additional Facebook groups, plus two bulletin boards. Having to run around to all of them to see what folks say (a) is a bit of a time consumer, but more importantly, (b) if they were all in one place we might have more active discussion, and one of this Rediscovery column's purposes is to engender discussion.

Thanks, as ever, for your cooperation!
John

I've posted comments there.

[jkelman]

I've posted comments there.

Ah, then thank you very much!!

[Oreb]

John, I have often posted in praise of your reviews, but I think it's pretty poor form to be posting on PE to advertise a thread on a different site and at the same time be actively discouraging people from discussion here.

[jkelman]

John, I have often posted in praise of your reviews, but I think it's pretty poor form to be posting on PE to advertise a thread on a different site and at the same time be actively discouraging people from discussion here.

First, I've appreciated your support, truly, and take your comment seriously. However, I have tried to explain why I am asking people to post in one spot. With seven social media portals, amongst them three facebook groups as well, and two bulletin boards, it's conversation that I have really been hoping to centralize at the site in which it originated, in the hopes that it will feed itself and create more. But let me try to explain further:

First, I am not asking you to post on another forum - I am, in fact, asking the same of people who see my posts at the All About Jazz forum as I have PE and all the social media I frequent.It may seem like splitting hairs, but I would absolutely never ask folks here to put ther comments on another bulletin board. Posting thoughts in the comments section of the article is, I think, a different beast, however, as it allows the article and discussion to co-exist in the same place.

Please consider that this is something a little different than anything I've done before: a daily column that I am also using to try and throw some support to All About Jazz founder Michael Ricci, since I am no longer associated with the site in any capacity beyond being a writer like all the others.

I absolutely accept your criticism, but I'd also like to ask you to consider this: I've been posting reviews here for years and have never asked this before, so hope you'll at least accept that, agree or no, there's a special reason for this, an out-of-the-ordinary circumstance. I've a particular hope about how discussion happens...this time and this time only. I don't see it as poor form, given the amount of content I've provided to PE and the discussions I've both engendered and participated in here. This is an exceptional, one-time case and I'm counting on your being a reasonable enough guy to perhaps see that. I see your point, but wouldn't conversation in one place, where people engage with many more people, be a better thing?

Would you consider my reason, and reconsider you're stance? From my perspective, this column has now been running for just over a week...and I plan to continue with it indefinitely. If it really turns out to be problematic to get folks to post their comments at All About Jazz, then i'll probably end up lifting the request as I can only best my head against a wall for so long

But for now, I would still like to try and see it succeed the way I've asked, and hope you'll give my request some serious reconsideration. Thanks, in advance, for giving my explanation some additional thought.
Best!
John

[jkelman]

Sometimes it's a great experience to hear a live recording where you were actually at the show and can recall some of its most exhilarating moments. In the case of today's Rediscovery, Oregon's In Performance, I was at only one of the dates from which this original double-LP (reissued on a single CD by Wounded Bird in 2003) was culled--Montreal, which was recorded along with shows in Quebec City and New York City. Still, the free improv that opens the album (and opened the show), "Buzzbox," was one of the pieces from that Montreal show, and remains so memorable--representing the group's ability to truly compose spontaneously, in the moment, pulling real form from the ether--that I still get shivers up and down my back when I hear it.

In Performance was Oregon's third and final recording for Elektra, a signing that represented a major step up in production values for the group that was playing world music long before the term existed. Every one of the group's earlier Vanguard records were superb, but when guitarist/pianist Ralph Towner, reed and woodwind multi-instrumentalist Paul McCandless, double bassist and occasional pianist/violinist Glen Moore and tablaist/percussionist/sitarist Collin Walcott--who died in a tragic car accident five years later, while the group was on tour in Europe--released its first Elektra record, 1978's Out of the Woods, it was clear that a sonic leap had been made--the recording clearer, more delineated and more present than the Vanguard dates.

Continue reading here...

As usual, and irrespective of the post below (well, at least, for now), I am asking folks to post their comments against the article at AAJ, and thank you for your cooperation.

[jkelman]

In the fall of 1990, I was visiting Amsterdam for four days between business engagements in other European countries and, as usual, the first order of the day was to scope out a good music store. Luckily, there was one within walking distance of the hotel, and amongst the goodies I bought that day was Vince Mendoza's debut recording as a leader and today's Rediscovery: Start Here.

I'd already begun to encounter Mendoza's name as a composer of no small promise on albums by Peter Erskine, John Abercrombie, Gary Burton and Michael Brecker—pretty damn good credentials for a composer/arranger who was relatively fresh out of school and some experience in Los Angeles as a scorer for film and television—and so his name already bore significant weight. Start Here's lineup largely alternated between two star-studded groups: one, with John Scofield, Bob Mintzer, Jim Beard and Erskine; the other, featuring guitarist Ralph Towner, pianist Marc Cohen (soon to change his name to Marc Copland), bassist Gary Peacock and, again, Erskine. As intrigued as I was by a full album of Mendoza's music, his choice of musicians is what turned the record from curiosity to "must have."

Continue reading here...

As ever, posting your thoughts against the full article at All About Jazz would be greatly appreciated.

[jkelman]

Today's Rediscovery is both a long lost and sadly overlooked gem of a record: electric bassist Kevin Bruce Harris' Folk Songs —Folk Tales.

Harris first emerged as part of the M-Base collective that began with saxophonist Steve Coleman and his Five Elements group, with whom the bassist played and recorded from 1986 to 1988. Early credentials for Harris also included stints with Cassandra Wilson and Graham Haynes. His career may have stalled by the turn of the millennium, but he's left a small discography of his own, the strongest of which is undeniably Folk Songs —Folk Tales, a superior blowing date that features saxophonist Steve Wilson, pianist Uri Caine and drummer Ralph Peterson, with a spoken word guest spot by Tracy Morris on the closing "Skin," a song composed by Harris and Morris, as he writes in his liner notes, "about useful beauty in the everyday."

But it's the eight other tunes—four by Harris, one each from Caine and fellow M-baser, guitarist David Gilmore (who doesn't appear on the record), and two from Peterson—that make Folk Songs —Folk Tales the exciting and criminally undervalued recording that it is. The material ranges from powerful modal workouts like Harris' opening "Attack of the Shrews," the incendiary "Safari," dark-hued "As She Glows" and reggae-tinged "Master Divine" to Peterson's funkified "Inertia" and equally groove-centric "Freight Train," Gilmore's lyrical but thematically knotty "Sophie's Dance" and Caine's synthesized vibraphone-driven "Iona Laughing."

Continue reading here...

As ever, your cooperation in joining the discussion All About Jazz, ofthe comments associated with the article, would be much appreciated!

Happy New Year, everyone!

[jkelman]

Today's Rediscovery? Michael Brecker's Now You See It ... (Now You Don't)

After the one-two punch of his first two recordings as a leader (excluding his 1982 collaboration with Claus Ogermann, Cityscape)—Michael Brecker (Impulse!, 1987) and Don't Try This At Home (Impulse!, 1988), both featuring high profile guests including Pat Metheny, Charlie Haden, Jack DeJohnette and Herbie Hancock—Now You See It...(Now You Don't) received somewhat less enthusiastic acclaim from critics. Still, it was recognized as the strong recording it is because even a lesser Michael Brecker album—with the combination of his increasing confidence as a writer and ongoing growth as an unmistakable and inimitable improviser possessed of an equally identifiable tone on his instrument—is one well worth hearing.

But time and hindsight has repositioned the album to be just as impressive as its two predecessors. If Now You See It didn't have the overall star power of Brecker's previous outings—focusing more on members of his touring band including pianist Joey Calderazzo, guitarists Mike Stern and Jon Herington, Jay Anderson and drummer Adam Nussbaum, but still including some high octane guests like Weather Report alumni Omar Hakim and Victor Bailey, along with percussionist Don Alias—it was no less compelling a record...and a different one in its greater reliance on technology and percussion. Some tracks, in fact, included as many as three percussionists in addition to a drummer—and, in one case, drum programming from Jimmy Bralower that added even more color to an already rich Brecker composition, the rhythmically knotty and appropriately titled opener, "Escher Sketch (A Tale of Two Rhythms)," where two different but coinciding rhythms interacted and intersected throughout in a continuos shifting of dominance.

Continue reading here...

Please post your comments against the article at All About Jazz, and thanks!

[Dave (in MA)]

In the same vein as Rediscovery, I just wanted to mention how much I enjoyed this article as I've played my recent Nucleus CDs.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/ian-carr...ohn-kelman.php