http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIEQak9Vh6w&feature=related

Sometimes I think of Lee as being sort of the Dee Dee Ramone of jazz (when you consider, say, “The Sidewinder” or “Mr. Kenyatta”). But beyond that, here’s a truncated version of his sublime, epic “The Search for the New Land”, always one of my favorite jazz cuts… if you can pick up the whole thing on vinyl or CD, it’s money well spent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht-WGjPhQKw&feature=related

I always loved how this bunch, in spite of their enormous chops and taste for high-altitude art, nevertheless did not disdain to throw in a bit of showmanship too. Lee at his best, turns his little spectactular show-off bits into pieces of poetic metaphor instead of just sparks. Anyway enjoy.

Oh, and p.s. — thanks to Jazz Creepo for turning me on to Vince Jones… I checked out some of his stuff on youtube and it was lovely…

there are clips of tatum playing chopin, dvorak etc on youtube, but not in the 1 above:

Oh, except for Don Van Vliet and The Mascara Snake, getting themselves lost on sax and bass clarinet. Those guys had no idea what they were doing. The Captain was kind of an idiot savant with a horn or a paintbrush; but with a pen or a microphone, he was sublime.

Oh, Coltrane studied formal technique like you wouldn’t believe. So did most of those guys — well, the good/great ones. (Coltrane also did his post-docs, as it were, in the Schools of Miles and Monk. IIRC, even in Coltrane’s great years, he spent a few hours a day just playing scales.) Just like Pollock studied formally with T.H. Benton and the Mexican muralists, and (informally) over all the minutiae of Picasso, so he could learn to fling paint the exactly *right* way. James Schuyler was Auden’s personal secretary. None of this stuff is ‘freedom’ from ‘constraint or convention’ — none of the stuff that’s any good, that is.

Relief is in sight.

http://www.weatherzone.com.au/radar.jsp?lt=wzcountry&lc=aus&ane=1&anf=1&and=1&ana=7&anb=333&anc=3&lya=1&lyk=1&lye=1&lyf=1

So not sure about some of the stuff written above nor of the link @ 46, to an official Aust Govt site stating that jazz ‘only became popular here after WW2 when a local jazz musician’s convention started’. I thought this was when jazz, like in the US, was becoming less popular with each passing year ….and by the mid 50’s, black kids in the US were getting into R&B, and all kids into rock n roll. And the charts had lots, as always, of syrupy pop tunes & novelty songs, as well as many re-recorded even then ‘jazz standards’ by big singing stars etc, but the golden years of jazz were kaput. ‘Modern jazz’ otoh, which had come to dominate the jazz music scene itself, was never going to be a popular idiom, it was self-acknowledged and proudly so after, the formal, orchestral-like restraint of the big band/swing era etc.

As per Nabs @ 52, the range of jazz styles/sub-genres is pretty deep and wide after 100 years.

And there had been mega jazz hits of varying degrees of ‘hotness’ (ie blackness) since the early 20’s. Of course, white jazz composers and band leaders like Paul Whiteman, the self-titled ‘King of Jazz’ had many huge hits during the 20’s and 30’s…Hoagie Carmichael’s Stardust was released in 1929… but Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington had a few big hits leading up to big band/swing jazz era, although the depression saw hundreds of artists dumped from labels..

As to Jazz Creepo’s question:

A correlation between lefties and I’m assuming ‘modern jazz’ in Oz? Firstly, you are talking about a tiny live music scene or wine bars etc located in a couple of inner cities, with probable links whatever arts/literary and theatre scene was happening and the one university in town, and then any link to politics through all of that. Modern jazz was cerebral, and referenced/played w/ genres of music and/or abandoned/extended them etc. so I would think any correlation in white Australia esp. rather than being left or right wing, was more likely if any, to be ‘further educated’ and continued to be so.

I don’t agree whatsoever with Jazz Creepo’s statement that black musicians “didn’t understand the conventions nor did they wish to be constrained.” They may not have wanted to have been constrained, but…there is no way that you can play, let alone develop and create complex music without knowing musical conventions…In terms of modern jazz in particular, Jazz Creepo, you might like to read Miles Davis’ autobiography & disabuse yourself of the notion that these guys weren’t intensely intellectualising every note. As for study & technique:

Charlie Parker: Well,you make it so hard for me to answer, you know, because I can’t see where there’s anything fantastic about it all. I put quite a bit of study into the horn, that’s true. In fact the neighbors threatened to ask my mother to move once when we were living out West. She said I was driving them crazy with the horn. I used to put in at least 11 — 11 to 15 hours a day.

PD: Yes, that’s what I wondered.

Charlie Parker: That’s true, yes. I did that for over a period of 3 to 4 years.

hhhm…. Ella…. Duke….Miles…..Bird…umm … ‘33 Cab:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D44pyeEvhcQ&feature=related

Peace.

With added Dacron.

Tho’ I once stumped him live by asking what rhymed with “orange”.

I have to be careful not to let Katz know my formative years were spent listening to The Voice of America. OTOH maybe that accounts for my perfectly balanced political views: growing up in a Labor family, while the CIA was whispering in my ear.