Jazz - Don't say I didn't warn you

What is Jazz? The dictionary definition is as rooted in the past as John Thompson's Fast Show character. "Jazz is a music of black American origin characterised by improvisation, syncopation, and usually a regular or forceful rhythm". Perhaps in 1928 it was, since then it has grown up a bit.

I discovered jazz during a brief, ill advised attempt to play the trumpet at school. It was a short step to Louis Armstrong and then on to Miles Davis. The trumpet disappeared but the Jazz remained. For some time I stuck with Miles, almost a genre on his own, but later on discovered all sorts of other stuff. Jazz has drifted in and out for me over the years. Currently it's in.

Jazz is as plagued by category-itis as any other music. I could go on about Hard Bop vs Mainstream vs Fusion and bore myself, and you, stupid. In the past record companies tended to have house styles, often dictated by the label owner producer or engineer.

Blue Note: The obvious place to start as it is the one label that non fans may have heard of.  Reid Miles' artwork has been influencing graphic design since the 1950s, and the music, rooted in "Hard Bop", (a mix of BeBop with R&B, soul, and blues) has been a dominant style for much of that time. This list from Apple Music covers 10 of the really essential bits of Blue Note to get you started.

 

Blue Note's sound was inspired by founders Alfred Lion & Francis Wolff. They allowed artists paid rehearsal time to develop ideas, which competing labels like Prestige didn't, so their records sounded better and bursting with ideas - because they were.

Impulse!: Starting in 1960 Impulse! was Jazz without stabilisers, it could get a bit wobbly on some of the wilder bits of the avant garde. John Coltrane was it's headline act and was followed by a raft of angry tenor sax players. There are also some real gems on Impulse the Duke Ellington/John Coltrane album has some of 'Trane's finest ballads, and there are classic albums from Gil Evans, Oliver Nelson and others that don't require a high tolerance for squalling horn solos. Set up by producer Creed Taylor the label was shepherded through the sixties by Bob Thiele. Impulse! was another label with a strong visual presence, it's orange and black spines translating well to the CD age.

CBS/Columbia:  Home to Miles Davis from 1955 until the eighties Columbia came into its own with Electric Jazz in the seventies. Many of Miles' sidemen found a home here. Tony William's Lifetime, Herbie Hancock's Headhunters, John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra and Weather Report. While not always made from the best quality tapes, the Contemporary Jazz Masters series is worth keeping an eye out for as it is pretty much the best of 1970s Jazz Rock Fusion. Tell them by the red borders and this stamp. Columbia had many great Jazz artists before they plugged in, Erroll Garner, Ellington and Brubeck amongst others. Avoid like the plague the corresponding blue border Jazz Masterpieces series, they couldn't even get the covers right. It's a good reference list of what to buy elsewhere though.

If you are new to Jazz then checking out these labels will give you a fair range of Jazz to explore. One name to keep an eye out for is Rudy Van Gelder recording engineer extrordinaire for Blue Note, Prestige, Impulse! and CTI (Creed Taylor's 70s label). His records have a distinct feel and sound and his RVG remasters for CD are amongst the best transfers to digital. 

With some very cheap downloads available, and Fopp and secondhand shops selling Jazz CDs for £3 or £4 you can afford to experiment. There are also some great books on Jazz, Richard Cook's Biography of Blue Note, any of Ashley Kahn's books and David Rosenthal's "Hard Bop" are good places to explore. Less well served than rock for magazines, Jazzwise is the news magazine and while Jazz Journal has it's good points the semi pro feel is off putting. There were a couple of tries in the nineties at a Mojo style legacy magazine perhaps time to try again?

You may have noticed that I haven't talked about current jazz artists much. They are coming up in part two and also what Jazz is actually on my iPod.

Z Records

Z Records, home to some fine classic and hard rock acts are offering a free compilation download. Just search @zrecordsrocks on Facebook, like the page and send them a message.

Yes - Flight Delayed

I said last time that I had ordered the rejigged Fly From Here album - Return Trip, and that review would follow. Pledge Music managed to upload faulty files (twice at least). The mp3 files I have show at least one loud "pop" on track 3, and faults on another track that was uploaded to Soundcloud for free download. I managed to reduce the pop to manageable levels with Audacity and am happy enough. Replacements for all files have been promised and were allegedly on line on 2nd May (if so can't find them).

The music? Oh yes! Compared to the 2011 version it is a richer sound, more keyboards, and Squires bass higher in the mix. Horn says he took singing lessons before embarking on the vocals, and while he is still not the strongest singer the Buggles vibe (and these were Buggles songs first) works for me. It's more evident than ever that Benoit David (singer of 2011 album) was following a guide vocal from Horn. The main let down remains Steve Howe's guitar. On the early parts he appears to be using a Stratocaster giving a very thin reedy sound, where his ES175 or something like that would have given a much more "Yes" sound. They could have worked that over as well surely and turned this into the last great Yes album.

In the end having now heard the most recent studio album Heaven & Earth I won't be back for more. Archival live albums certainly. Repeating the 7 shows from '72 box set with possibly the Union Tour or the "Ten True Summers" tour from 1979 where plenty of high quality bootlegs exist.

Pledge Music have taken responsibility for the whole download mess, and Geoff Downes has tweeted the bands apology. But given that it takes about 5 minutes to rip a CD to a FLAC or mp3 file why all the problems?

One question has to be why did Yes go the Pledge Music route, are they not marketable enough to make the release of the new album attractive to a label? Or is it as I would suspect the usual with Yes, shooting themselves in the foot by simply being bad at business.

The march of time

Which line up of a band is the "right" one? A question of vital importance in some fans minds, especially so when it comes to Yes.

This week there are two bands calling themselves Yes. The "official" one with two long standing members, one who was there for a bit and came back, and two who came from tribute bands. Then there is Anderson, Rabin, Wakeman now also calling themselves Yes. Anderson & Wakeman have form here as they were in an off shoot in the 80s with Steve Howe and Bill Bruford called ABWH. Keeping up? Thought not, nor am I.

The legitimacy of line ups is an odd question, particularly as many of the heroes of the seventies are getting on a bit and may not always be up for too much touring. In an effort to top up the pension the few remaining "real" members recruit some new talent as band mates retire and hit the road. AC/DC lost their singer, and recruited Axl Rose to complete a tour. For me the picture to the right is all the reason you need why this shouldn't have happened.

In the end you pay your money (or not) and take your choice of continuing to follow these artists. Personally I have been to see Procol Harum (great), Robin Trower (struggling), and others over the last few years because the chance clearly won't be there soon. Others however, like Yes, Renaissance, and Steely Dan I passed on because it feels like time for them to finish as performances don't seem up to scratch or politics has got in the way.




To return to Yes there is still another version of the band that has justput out an album. This one has Downes, White and Howe from "official" Yes, the late Chris Squire on bass and Trevor Horn rubbing out the original singer on "Fly From Here", their 2011 album, and adding his own voice.  Now this one I am interested in. This lineup made my favourite Yes album "Drama" in 1980, which was at least partly written by Horn & Downes in Buggles mode. The 2011 version always sounded like the singer (called Benoit David should you care) was following a guide vocal by Horn, and I gather he was. So my order is in and we will see what the difference is. Watch this space...

Who said print was dead?

It’s Record Store Day 2018 so I’m going to talk about music magazines.Find it on my Linkedin feed HERE

Amy Rigby and Wreckless Eric

A while ago I talked about some artists who you should know about but probably don't. Here's another two.

I have followed Amy Rigby on and off for a good few years. I joined the party with "Til the Wheels Fall Off" which contains 'Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again?' a typical Amy song with pointed lyrics over a subversive sounding slide guitar based backing. Moving from there to "Little Fugitives" featuring 'Dancing With Joey Ramone' a song you need to hear now...

Convinced yet? Her new album "The Old Guys" has just come out and is one of her best. The themes have moved on with life, but the words remain to the point. She also writes a mean blog, and should write a book. She has recently toured the U.K. so like me you missed her, but she did a BBC session. Find it here during April 2018. The comparisons to Randy Newman, Paul Simon and Carol King are not wide of the mark.

Backing her on the tour was her significant other, Eric Goulden, better known to the world as Wreckless Eric. They have three duets albums to their name the best of which is "Two​-​Way Family Favourites". Eric also has a new album coming out and if it matches his last "AmERICa" then it will be well worth your time. Eric's voice was one of the highlights of the punk era for me, and it is still there, again the themes have grown up, but the music remains as it always has been, excellent. You haven't missed Eric's tour dates. See you at The Thunderbolt in Bristol on May 18th.

Wherever possible the album links are all to Bandcamp pages. This really is the best way to support the artists as they get more of your money than buying from A****n, which means they get to make more albums and we get to buy them. 

Why Pod?

I don't like Apple, I can't understand why the iPhone is so popular when to my mind there are so many better phones available, and as for the computers with their silly mouse and finder screen... So why do I write about the iPod, and what alternatives are there if you want a dedicated music player?

To quote Philip K Dick, I think, "nothing Ubiqs like Ubiquity", and on marketing power alone Apple has blasted most of it's rivals out of the water. Let me be clear the iPod I love is the classic 160gb one that was discontinued a few years ago. I have two, one bought when they were discontinued, and one with a 256gb ssd in it. I'm hoping that will see me OK for a good few years, but the healthy second hand market suggests they will be available, at a price, for some time.

The Pros
I listen to a lot of Podcasts and Audio books, and iTunes, whatever you think of it supports these very well. There are apps, Audible, Stitcher and so on but iTunes does it all. I have a cable that allows the iPod to talk to my car radio, ubiquity again, and cables, docks, and holders are all easily available, even for discontinued product.

The Cons
It's made by Apple and the sound isn't as good as some of the HiFi players, although to be fair decent headphones (I use Sennhesier buds) makes it more than acceptable.

I started my proper MP3 player journey with an old Sony 20gb purple egg which sounded great, but the Connect music manager was hopeless. From there I went to a 120gb iPod which lasted years. When that started to fail I looked at some of the HiFi MP3 players and that is where it all went pear shaped. Having been used to the convenience of iTunes dragging and dropping and having artwork files in place was a nuisance. I tried a couple of different players. The Colorfly C3 sounded great but the stupid little screen and impossible user interface made it unusable. Much the same applied to the Fiio X3 except that it just didn't work properly, freezing constantly, and with minimal interest in problems from the "expert" supplier, who thought that great sound excused everything

The problem with these players seems to be that while it is easy enough to make something sound good, play lossless files and so on, the resources to create well designed easy to use players and a user interface with supporting software are beyond the mostly Chinese companies making these things.

So back to Apple. Yes they are a triumph of design over sound, but in a world of compromises being able to listen to my music or other stuff without constant frustration and glitches is worth it. Anyway my ears are over 50 years old so how much am I losing? File format makes a lot of difference of course and wherever possible I use ALAC, and buy downloads in 320kbps MP3 or better. In the end it comes down to convenience. Apple has taken over the world because they provide a mix of convenience and quality that works for most people. So perhaps I am wrong about their other products, a couple of clients use iMacs and my daughter won't hear of a phone that isn't Apple. The accessibility and interconnectivity is also persuasive.

Apple are slowly killing off the remaining iPods in their range and look to be phasing out mp3 downloads (as are Amazon) in favour of streaming so we can assume that dedicated music players will start to fade away over the next few years. This will of course drive us all to music, podcasts and the rest on our phones. Where does that leave me? My music life committed to iTunes and my phone world with Android...