aberkok

This was the finest piece of writing I read all day.

Me and my buddy, who is a trombone player, listen a lot to J.J. Johnson and Coltrane and one of the things that we notice is missing from most players today is a sense of rhythmic development and fire. So many of our colleagues come out of school knowing how to play changes, but with flaccid time. For heaven's sake! Jazz is about rhythm! Harmonically, there's NOTHING new that came out of Jazz that didn't already come out of Debussy, Ravel, Schoenberg, Stockhausen or even Bach for that matter. Rhythm and the blues is where it's at!

But I digress.

I do have a feeling that the "cutting" sessions produced something that we don't have nowadays. Kenny Werner once said that Jazz musicians are like coat-hangers. You never actually buy any, but there they are, more than you need, filling up your closet. Maybe cutting sessions would weed out those who weren't dedicated enough to work to be the best. Me, I'm up for an ass-kicking (not that I'll get it living in Toronto - we Canadians go pretty easy on each other).

I digress from the thread again.

One problem I see which is related to the whole "neo-classical" thing is the glut of re-issues. I know that the existing models of record distribution are crashing down around us, but while they're still around, we have the problem of major labels spending very little money promoting new jazz artists. In the meantime, it costs them next to nothing to put out another re-issue of "Kind of Blue," make a mint off of it (mostly through guys like us), and Joe Schmoe continues to think that the cutting edge of jazz ends with Miles Davis and Bill Evans.

This is not to say that I'm not into the old stuff. I agree it's necessary to my development as a player and will always be in my heart. I'll be damned if Art Tatum playing Danny Boy isn't the most beautiful thing I can think of.

For the poster who wanted to check out some modern day jazz artists who break the mould, here's a few ideas:

Anthony Braxton - saxophone (hard to find his stuff)
Dave Douglas - trumpet
Django Bates - piano/E flat Peckhorn
Kenny Wheeler - trumpet
Dave Holland - bass/composer
Branford Marsalis - do I need to tell anyone him really?

and...last but certainly most, and still in their respective primes...

Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter

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