This weeks thread ended up in the archives already, so here's a new one for Saturday.
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THIS WEEK'S THEME: ??? COMPILED BY: BlindfoldTest
NEXT WEEK: ??? COMPILED BY: Jazzpossu
Here are the links for the mystery tracklist. Download the tracks, record your thoughts/guesses/evaluations for each one, and then come back and post them in the thread. Remember, people will be posting guesses and thoughts in this thread so don't read the thread until you have listened to the music and collected your thoughts in order to avoid spoilers. Track info for this week's tracks will be posted on Saturday, so if you see the thread is close to dying before then, give it a bump.
Just gonna post what I ended up getting done cause I'm not gonna get another chance to listen to the rest today. Need to stop leaving this shit to posting day cause most weekends, I barely have enough time to check the thread. >track one This is a very well executed ballad. The trumpet player gives a very lyrical and heartfelt performance with a lot of very pretty melodic ideas and a lovely sort of conversational style of soloing. The piece moves fairly at a slow tempo but the trumpet manages to get in some more difficult sounding phrases. Could be Kenny Dorham…sounds a little like Chet but Chet often lacked the precision this guy has. A lessor ballad player trying to do stuff like this might come across as rushed and flashy for the sake of it but this guy’s sense of swing and timing are just impeccable. He plays the faster licks with the same sort feel he was playing the slower lines at so they fit into the same sort of emotional register, it’s just a pleasure to listen to. The bass player really stood out to me too. He was filling his harmonic function there in the back but his playing was very melodic too and added a nice counterpoint to the trumpet and the piano solos. >track two This has a melody similar to another jazz tune I know. It’s definitely a different song but I think I might be hearing something similar to a reasonably popular Art Blakey or Freddie Hubbard tune or something? One of those hard bop guys… Anyway, this is nice. Very percussion heavy which I like though they kinda drown out everyone else who isn’t soloing. I wish I could have heard the piano a bit better in the sax solo, every time I heard him come through he was always on a really cool offbeat.
Carson Ramirez
>Track three This is Everybody Wants to be a Cat! The jazz band I’m in covers this. We’ve got this French singer who does a verse in French and a verse in English and her accent just sets it off. I’d get pretty sick of playing it though so I used to play a game where I’d shoehorn in as many chromatic lines as I could to see how far I could push it before it started sounding shit. Our guitarist used to just play his stuff for that song with a bunch of chromatics anyway cause that’s how he liked voice leading it and it would just start sounding ridiculous at times cause he’d be doing chromatics down and I’d be trying my best to fuck in as many ascending chromatic phrases as I could, shit was cray yo. I like their interpretation of the melody tho. They way they’re tugging around at the rhythmic phrasing is cool. The soloing is enjoyable too. There’s a certain degree of swagger you need to have for a song like this and I think they all pull it off. Nothing to write home about but passable. >track four Kept waiting for the hopelandic lyrics to kick in at the start. The trumpet player reminds me of the guy who did trumpet on Talk Talk’s albums. It’s got a pretty strong post-rock feel to it but the pianist sounds a little like Keith Jarrett. He isn’t making orgasm noises into the mic though so I presume it isn’t actually Keith. It drags on a bit though and by the end, the pianist is the only one I was really enamoured with. He was a bit more adventurous with the harmony which kept things more interesting than they otherwise would have been.
That's all I got written up. I listened to the rest of the tracks and they were pretty nice. That cover of On Green Dolphin Street was awesome. I was also pretty amused by the Armstrong imitator who was doing Black and Tan Fantasy. I'd be curious to see who it is; I don't think it's the man himself. The vibrato on the vibes was a bit much. Haven't a clue what the theme is.
Nicholas Torres
>Black and Tan Fantasy Track six was reminding me of that too, but I don't think it is...
Landon Lewis
yeah, it starts similarly, but I don't think there's any sign of that second joyous part
Jonathan Mitchell
bump
Joshua Robinson
You're right, it's not actually Armstrong
Jackson Brooks
I don't have the tracks here with me but I was pretty certain it was. If it's not, then it's like sueable levels of similar because that was deffinitely the main theme from B&TF they were playing.
Christian Murphy
>Track 1 Reminds me of Chet Baker. I heard a quote in there somewhere but I'm not sure what it was. Piano player reminds me a bit of Erroll Garner actually. He gets pretty active with the single note lines before the trumpet comes back in, which makes me think I'm off base in my piano choice. I'm really liking a lot of the bass playing too, great note choice and great rhythm variation as well. I definitely feel like I should know this tune. 3 stars >Track 2 I would guess this is a 70s recording based on the piano playing. The trumpet's technique is impressive; very smooth high notes. I liked the sax player's phrasing. The piano player has definitely listened to a lot of McCoy Tyner but I don't think this is him. I like the inclusion of the percussion solo but I wish it was more up in the mix. It took me a second to even realize he was soloing. I don't really have a guess on the theme so far. 2.5 stars >Track 3 We haven't had much cool jazz on these blindfold tests, have we? The head reminds me a ton of Sonny Rollins' "Alfie's Theme" including the open bridge and everything. Piano reminds me a bit of Wynton Kelly, but he's probably a little too active to be Kelly. I dunno, I haven't really heard a lot of his recordings. The alto sounded like Cannonball, but I don't think the line choices are really something Cannonball would play. Was that a "Four" quote back into the head? 3 stars
Still listening.
Henry Cruz
>Track 4 I like the little reversed things in the intro, and how thick everything sounds. This is an interesting version of "All Blues". Although now he's strayed away from that a bit. It started off the same but never went into the rest of the head. I'm trying to think of piano trumpet duet records. I'm also not sure about this guy's tone, because it seems to light to be Akinsure, and I want to say Tomasz Stanko but I've only ever listened to him maybe twice so I feel like I'm talking out of my ass. I also don't think he would play something like this. Very nice, simple and beautiful. 3.5 stars >Track 5 Sounds like Miles in the 60s. Is the theme just trumpets? The sax could be George Coleman I guess, otherwise I'm not really sure. Whoever it is they're really influenced by Coltrane, like everyone is post-Coltrane. Interesting polyrhythmic stuff in the piano solo. I definitely feel like I should know who these players are. I want to go ahead and say it's Tony Williams on drums, but I'm just not sure. If it is him he's being subdued in his playing. I don't think the piano is Herbie at all. Who's a bebop piano player that played with Miles? Maybe this isn't even Miles. This track made me feel like an idiot, because I should definitely know these players. 3.5 stars >Track 6 I like the inclusion of an older recording. I would guess this is Louis based on that vibrato. I'm not that well versed on early guitar players. He had a lot of bluesy stuff in there, and the string bending was nice. 3 stars
Tyler Robinson
>Track 7 This is a Monk tune, I think "Evidence", but I'm not sure. Interesting use of soprano on this type of recording. The bass player has some cool note choices. They caught the mood of this tune pretty well. The phrasing in the solos was quite good too. 4 stars >Track 8 This is "Thriller". Interesting tune choice. I like what they've done with the beat, and the trumpet solo is doing well to keep things interesting. Interesting guitar tone, not something you'd often hear in jazz. Solid percussion solo. Man that trombone tone is mean. I like it when things get real dissonant like this. Very solid ending, and surprisingly good for a pop song cover. 3.5 stars
Cooper James
>Track 9 The rhythm section and the soloist might as well be separate. They're just doing their thing with occasional variance and no relevance to the soloist whatsoever. I didn't think much of any of the solos. 1.5 stars >Track 10 Very sparse beginning. The tune sounds familiar when they all come in. This was pretty good. I actually stopped typing because I was so into it. 4 stars
Samuel Rogers
Yeah so this is definitely Miles' second quintet. It's interesting hearing them in live settings because of the amount of variation they put on the standards. I feel pretty silly for not knowing this is Green Dolphin Street, and also for not being confident it was Miles. The solo definitely seemed lackluster on Wayne's part. I guess I haven't really listened to their live stuff outside of Live at the Plugged Nickel.
Samuel Watson
I'm going to start posting the reveal info soon so if anybody has any more guesses about the theme or any of the tracks or anything now's the time.
Sebastian Sanders
next week's theme is Connecting links - each track has exactly one musician in common with the next
So the theme this week was pretty similar to the last time I did a mystery theme.
This week's selections all came from Ambrose Akinmusire's Blindfold Test for JazzTimes Magazine (they call their version Before and After). His was done in front of a live audience at the Umbria Jazz festival in 2012.
I'll be posting the track info and selections from what Akinmusire had to say about it.
Ayden Baker
1. Lee Morgan- All the Way from Candy (Blue Note, 1958)
Trumpet- Lee Morgan Piano- Sonny Clark Bass- Doug Watkins Drums- Art Taylor
BEFORE: I know that’s Sonny Clark on piano. I went through a huuuge Sonny Clark phase. I’ve always loved his voicings, and his sense of time is amazing. I imagine he sounds like what Monk would have sounded like if Monk wasn’t as adventurous as he was. Right now I’m in a Bud Powell phase. Originally I thought it was a Sonny Clark date, but I think that’s a Lee Morgan record and the song is “All the Way.” Lee Morgan was the first trumpet player that I really, really gravitated toward. I had never heard that amount of passion coming out of the trumpet. What first got me was the break he takes in his version of “A Night in Tunisia.” I played that record over and over. The next record I got was [Art Blakey’s] Moanin’, and the CD version had alternate takes. And on every take he was still playing with that same amount of passion. I never really heard a trumpet player putting himself out there like that. Morgan was only 19 when he recorded the tracks for Candy, unusually young to step out as a leader. I think everybody has their own individual time. When I had certain opportunities presented to me at a younger age, I knew I wasn’t ready.
Andrew Reed
2. Brian Lynch/Eddie Palmieri- Freehand from Simpatico (ArtistShare, 2006)
Trumpet- Brian Lynch Alto Sax- Donald Harrison Piano- Edsel Gomez Bass- Luques Curtis Drums- Robby Ameen Congas- Giovanni Hidalgo Bongos- Pedro Martinez
BEFORE: Right off the bat, I thought it was something I had played on. Then I thought it was Roy Hargrove, but once the solo started I realized it wasn’t him. I have no idea who that was. AFTER: I met Brian when I was 16 years old at the Stanford Jazz Workshop. He helped me out when I was a little bit younger. He’s definitely one of the students of the music. I have the majority of his records but I never really sat down and checked him out. And I have this album. This one won a Grammy, right? [Ed. note: It did, in 2007 for Best Latin Jazz Album.]
Aaron Allen
3. Roy Hargrove- Everybody Wants to Be a Cat from Disney Jazz Volume 1: Everybody Wants to Be a Cat (Disney, 2009)
BEFORE: [immediately] Is that Gerald on piano? That’s Roy and Justin Robinson and Ameen Saleem. I don’t recognize the tune but let it play. AFTER: What gave it away was Gerald Clayton. I’ve played with him for many years, and I’m really sensitive to chords. So usually if I have heard someone play or if I’ve played with them, I know who they are after two chords. Gerald particularly has a very, very specific touch. I think any young trumpet player today has been influenced by Roy. In my case, he’s also someone who would help me out when he came through Oakland. I would go to his hotel and get lessons, things like that. I like to call him the sleeping lion: If you end up on the stage with him and you back him into a corner, you just have to barrel down and get ready for the ridiculousness that’s going to come back because he’s so unpredictable and so strong.
Kayden Bailey
4. Paolo Fresu and Omar Sosa- Old D Blues from Alma (OTA, 2012)
Trumpet- Paolo Fresu Piano- Omar Sosa
BEFORE: It sounds like someone I heard last night. He’s a great trumpet player. I think that’s Paolo Fresu. AFTER: Ohhh! I used to play with Omar Sosa in Oakland. That’s crazy. It doesn’t sound like what I remember him sounding like. I mean, that was 14 years ago, but I really like this track. Paolo I heard at a festival two years ago; I think it was Marseilles, and he was playing something similar to this. He wasn’t playing mute on the festival, but I do remember I really liked his attack; it’s really, really clean and he’s really, really patient. That’s why I knew that it was him. As for Italian trumpet players, I don’t think I know enough about Italian jazz musicians in general to say what they sound like or really to even begin to make a comparison with American players. But I would imagine that one can’t necessarily distinguish an Italian sound from an American approach.
Isaiah Morgan
Heh. I've read that Blindfold and this thought didn't cross my mind. For all I know it's where I learned about the Thriller version first.
Nathan Allen
5. Miles Davis Quintet- On Green Dolphin Street from Live in Europe 1967 (Sony Legacy, 1967)
Trumpet- Miles Davis Tenor Sax- Wayne Shorter Piano- Herbie Hancock Bass- Ron Carter Drums- Tony Williams
BEFORE: [immediately] 1967! [laughs] Miles Davis, Tony Williams, Herbie Hancock. [A journalist in the audience points out that this is the first time he’s witnessed a musician identify a track simply by the sound of the applause at the start.] But there was a chord in there. Yeah, you gotta play me something without a piano. AFTER: This particular group is amazing. To me it always sounds like modern Dixieland music, in the way that everybody is contributing 100 percent. No one is just playing a role. It’s not like Miles is soloing and everybody else is sitting back. Everybody is active at the same time. This is how each player in a group can maintain their own individual identity and contribute to a group sound at the same time. I think that you can hear this in my quintet right now. I think everyone in the band has been influenced by this particular period of Miles. I don’t necessarily recognize Miles’ shadow in my own playing, but I think that in terms of his artistry he is what every musician should aspire to be. Miles recreated himself every 10 to 12 years, and I think it’s so important to reevaluate the things that you believe. That’s his primary influence with me. I think those shadows exist when you try to copy what players like Miles did, but that’s not really what I’m out here trying to do. In general I don’t feel pressure from anything that was created before me, and I probably won’t feel pressure from anything that will be created after me. So I’m good.
Nolan Nguyen
6. Henry “Red” Allen and His Orchestra- Biff’ly Blues from The Chronological Henry “Red” Allen and His Orchestra 1929-1933 (Classics, 1929)
Trumpet- Henry “Red” Allen Trombone- J.C. Higginbotham Clarinet- Albert Nicholas Alto Sax- Charlie Holmes Tenor Sax- Teddy Hill Piano- Luis Russell Guitar- Will Johnson Bass- Pops Foster Drums/Vibraphone- Paul Barbarin
BEFORE: Wow, that’s pretty amazing. This one’s a little tricky for me. I think I know. Henry “Red” Allen? AFTER: There was this video called Trumpet Kings that I watched every day during my sophomore year in high school. Wynton Marsalis is the host, and he goes through the history of trumpet. On it, Henry “Red” Allen picks up the horn after singing a blues and he plays a couple choruses, doing all of these extended techniques on the trumpet. He was doing all these glissandos and playing these wide intervals. He sounded like a modern Louis Armstrong to me. Trumpet is a really difficult instrument to begin with, and for someone to growl above a G on the staff is extremely hard. Allen solos like an old blues singer as opposed to a jazz singer or somebody like Louis Armstrong. And when he sings, he sounds like one of the down-home blues singers.
Blake White
7. Steve Lacy with Don Cherry- Evidence from Evidence (Prestige, 1961)
Trumpet- Don Cherry Soprano Sax- Steve Lacy Bass- Carl Brown Drums- Billy Higgins
BEFORE: Steve Lacy, Don Cherry. Is that Ed Blackwell? No, Billy Higgins. Is that “Evidence”? AFTER: When I was 16 or 17, I played a couple of gigs with Billy Higgins. For some reason I thought it was Blackwell at first. Also, I used to play with Peter Apfelbaum when I was in high school, and he had played with Don Cherry. Peter’s a multi-instrumentalist, plays mainly saxophone and is an amazing composer. He went to Berkeley High School, the same high school as Justin and myself. He would actually hire the two of us for local gigs and eventually to go on tours with him. Anyway, Peter gave me these bootlegs of Don Cherry. I really believe that besides Woody Shaw and Charles Tolliver, Don’s the only trumpet player who really investigated wider intervals, playing stuff above an octave. Trumpet players don’t usually play anything above a fourth, even Freddie [Hubbard]. But Don Cherry is all over the horn, not really caring about if it was going to come out. It was more about this reckless abandon approach to trumpet, and that’s something that really, really influenced me. Don is one of the unsung heroes of trumpet, and he was one of the best-dressed trumpet players, too. He always had on a great outfit.
Mason Perry
8. Enrico Rava- Thriller from Rava on the Dance Floor (ECM, 2012) Trumpet- Enrico Rava, Andrea Tofanelli, Claudio Corvini Trombone- Mauro Ottolini Alto Sax- Daniele Tittarelli Tenor Sax- Dan Kinzelman Keyboard- Franz Bazzani Piano- Giovanni Guidi Bass- Dario Deidda Guitar- Marcello Giannini Drums- Zeno de Rossi Percussion- Ernesto Lopez Maturely
BEFORE: This sounds like the beginning of “Thriller” [laughs]. It is! You’re joking. I know who this is: Enrico Rava. AFTER: I’ve never heard this record but I recognize his tone. Yeah, just the tone. [Later on I recognized] the phrasing, but I knew it was Rava before I heard him solo. Rava is a bad dude. He’s always been pushing. Even on his stuff in the ’70s and ’80s, he always sounds like he’s not really concerned with what’s going on right now, he’s concerned about where he’s going and how he is going to develop in the future. He’s still curious, and that’s something I find really inspiring in people like him and Wayne Shorter, Jimmy Heath, Benny Golson—older musicians who are still investigating, trying to figure out what the next step is. I think that’s really important and definitely a lesson. Plus they all look really young, so maybe that’s the reason why.
Liam Lewis
9. Hugh Masekela- U Dwi from The Americanization of Ooga Booga (MGM, 1966)
Trumpet- Hugh Masekela Sax- Eric Gale Piano- Larry Willis Bass- Uncredited Drums- Uncredited
AFTER: He’s so soulful, definitely soulful. When I listen to him, it’s like that Ornette Coleman thing: You can tell that to him the expression and the emotions are more important than the actual notes he’s playing. I’ve checked out a lot of Hugh Masekela, for two reasons. One was that when I was in high school, me and a friend would go to Amoeba Music every day and dig in the bins for the $2 and $3 records, and this particular record was always in the bin. Also, I used to play with Goapele, a great R&B singer in the Bay Area. Her father is from South Africa, and she used to always try to get me to play Hugh Masekela licks. I remember in Oakland they had a jazz festival run by one of my mentors, [trumpeter and educator] Khalil Shaheed. They brought Hugh Masekela out around 2005, and that was the first and only time I’ve heard him play live. Actually, wait a minute. He was one of the judges for the Monk competition when I won in 2007! So I know he’s heard me, too [laughs].
Michael Hernandez
10. Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy- When the Spirit Returns from I Only Have Eyes for You (ECM, 1985)
Trumpet- Lester Bowie, Stanton Davis Jr., Bruce Purse, Malachi Thompson French Horn- Vincent Chancey Trombone- Craig Harris, Steve Turre Bass- Bob Stewart Drums- Philip Wilson
BEFORE: Lester Bowie with his Brass Fantasy group. AFTER: It’s interesting, because I had this record when I was in high school and since then I’ve played with a few of these players, like Bob Stewart, Vincent Chancey and Steve Turre, but I didn’t really draw the connection. So to hear them now, it’s kind of weird that I now know so many of them. Lester was in the first jazz show I ever saw—the Art Ensemble of Chicago. I remember I went to Yoshi’s and they got onstage and then faced east for about 10 minutes. Just stood there for 10 minutes straight. The audience was completely silent and this amazing energy was created. I was in eighth grade then, so I must have been 13 or something like that. I probably wasn’t able to sit still, but I remember Lester Bowie was amazing. He had such a beautiful sound and was one of the players of the avant-garde school who could play anything—bebop, free. And he chose to do it his way.
Jaxson Bailey
See everybody next week for Connecting Links
David Phillips
Huh. Wouldn't have guessed Lee. Mind, the only one of his records I'm strongly familiar with is The Sidewinder and he doesn't do any ballads on that. This is an interesting side to the man I haven't heard much of.
Nolan Gray
Same. I think I knew about the Rava album earlier though. I'm surprised that didn't make me think of this article though.
Evan Lee
I've been meaning to check out more of Lee Morgan, I'll add this to the list. I never really think about Sidewinder or Searching for the New Land (the only ones I've heard) but whenever I listen to them they're amazing, and some of his solos on Blue Train are my favourites of the album.
Austin Barnes
I will note that the U Dwi on the list was the studio version from Grrr, here's the live version from The Americanization of Ooga Booga: youtube.com/watch?v=pFVmPcrxyrY
Charles Anderson
I saw these gentlemen live with Trilok Gurtu on percussion last year - I remember it being on overly joyous "let's celebrate world music" type thing, very different from this track
