Re: Guest Post - Jazzbeaux

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Wait, does he just want jazz from after Bitches Brew, or jazz from after Bitches Brew that's remotely similar to Bitches Brew?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 11-25-13 9:50 PM
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I'm kind of stuck in the 40s and 50s when it comes to jazz. Interested to hear what others have to say.


Posted by: Chopper | Link to this comment | 11-25-13 10:06 PM
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2 gets it right. I like various McCoy Tyners and Modern Jazz Quartets and Andrew Hills from the cooooool days of jazz. I am familiar with that sort of thing.

But as for music that sort of sounds like "Bitches Brew", all I am aware of is other Miles Davis albums.


Posted by: Cryptic bned | Link to this comment | 11-25-13 10:24 PM
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Andrew Hill seems like an odd choice there. Though I don't know a whole lot about all that.

Anyway, Urban Bushmen (e.g.) is decidedly post BB, but it doesn't sound anything like it. Out to Lunch comes from before BB, but it isn't McCoy Tiner-like. Angles' Epileptical West is a great album, but doesn't exactly smack of post-Davis jazz-rock.

You could do worse than to check out the archives (and the FMP re-releases!) at Destination: Out!.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 11-25-13 10:41 PM
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There's all of the bands that basically spun out of the late 60s Davis electric bands.

Herbie Hancock formed the Headhunters
Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter with Weather Report
Chick Corea with Return to Forever
John McLaughlin with Mahavishnu Orchestra

However, to my ears most of those bands are missing the things that are great about the Davis groups. Still, it's worth checking them out. The Headhunters are very funky/danceable, also much sampled.

The Bitches Brew band is partly British, and there's quite a bit of British jazz of the same period that you might like. They are closer sounding, I think, to the Bitches Brew band than most of the US stuff.

Ian Carr's Nucleus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsVEhUF1qws

various Graham Collier things, e.g. his sextet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SVKg-gCKo8
[More orthodox jazz]

But his Graham Collier Music stuff is very 'Davis':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As9PbwKJJ8E

Then there's Harry Beckett:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUTKOfrIWFw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v4eTK-iz8Y

Plus McLaughlin's stuff before Mahavishnu [basically pre- or contemporary with his Davis stuff], e.g.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwu57BeGgOY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9aUxPcA6Co
[Extrapolation, with John Surman]

I think Bitches Brew is really strongly influenced by the 'British' sound in some ways, via McLaughlin and Dave Holland.

In terms of more modern stuff, Dave Douglas has done some stuff that's reminiscent of the electric Davis bands. Also, British groups like Sons of Kemet, or Roller Trio. They don't sound anything like the Davis bands, but they have something of the same approach to groove.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 3:37 AM
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Also, maybe the Heliocentrics [with Mulatu Astatke]?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLoWBmpGDfg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJtmjk2eJPc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlXf2OPKnp0

Bit of hip-hop influence, plus the Ethiopian thing via Astatke.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 3:44 AM
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I'm not totally sure what is being asked but Herbie Hancock's Thrust and Art Ensemble of Chicago's Les Stance á Sophie are both pretty great.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 5:08 AM
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Also Lenny White's Adventures of Atral Pirates, which lacks the seriousness of Miles, maybe, but is way funky in parts.

I'm confused about the McCoy Tyner reference above, as I think of his albums from around the time of Bitches Brew (particularly Expansions and Extensions) as feeding off a lot of the same influences as Miles at the time.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 5:14 AM
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Davis' next album after Bitches Brew, A Tribute to Jack Johnson, is one of my favorites in his discography. If you're looking for a similar sound to BB, these three albums by Herbie Hancock: Mwandishi, Crossings, and Sextant.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 5:17 AM
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Oh right, Sextant is the one I was trying to think of.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 5:26 AM
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I don't think I've heard either Crossings, or Sextant. I'll need to check them out.

It's been a while since I listened to Expansions but my vague memory is that it has more in common with Filles de Kilimanjaro Davis than Bitches Brew, but I might be completely wrong about that, as it's been years.

...Jack Johnson is indeed great. I would love to have heard how Davis' albums would have gone if McLaughlin had stayed in the band, as the post-McLaughlin electric groups don't work as well for me. Agharta, Pangaea, etc are (for me, anyway) more of 'academic' interest than stuff I'd listen to a lot for pleasure.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 6:17 AM
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Moving a bit later, into the 80s, maybe try Ronald Shannon Jackson and the Decoding Society?

a: Mandance
b: Decode Yourself
c: Beast in the Spider Bush -- Live at the Caravan of Dreams

I also hugely love Ornette Coleman's late 70s and 80s electric group:

a: Dancing in Your Head
b: Of Human Feelings
c: In All Languages
d: Virgin Beauty


Posted by: tierce de lollardie | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 6:24 AM
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Shannon Jackson just died, which I am really sad about.


Posted by: tierce de lollardie | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 6:25 AM
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The Brecker brothers ... obviously.


Posted by: wolfgang | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 6:39 AM
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One possible place to start, with a link to Miles, would be the most recent Wayne Shorter album, with John Pattituci, Brian Blade, and Danilo Perez. I saw them this year and it was in maybe the absolute top concert of any kind I've ever seen -- not that I have that an amazing record of jazz attendance -- just devastatingly, incredibly beautiful.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 8:13 AM
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Will check out the things in 4, 5 and 12 at least. Thanks!

I guess I consider any the move away from traditional jazz instrumentation as more of a seismic rift than it really is.


Posted by: Cryptic bned | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 8:15 AM
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One more for 2.

For newer jazz-curious music, I like Mulatu Astatke a lot as well. There's a label, Ethiopiques, that has both straight Ethiopian music and stuff like this

I like Ibrahim Maalouf a lot, Anouar Brahem as well.

Possibly fatally middlebrow, but Keith Jarrett and Jan Garbarek are pleasant company.

I like Gil Evans, again maybe too middlebrow.

Don't know much about it, but Turkish music is rewarding every time I've tried exploring-- Erkin Koray, Erkan Ogur both have interesting material.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 8:26 AM
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Lawrence of Newark.

Graham Collier is great. He died a couple of years ago.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 8:45 AM
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If Emerson were here, he would recommend Don Cherry, so why not check out Old and New Dreams or the album with Bengt Berger, Bitter Funeral Beer?

There are two different groups playing Steve Lacy's music that are really good, The Whammies and Ideal Bread.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 8:50 AM
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I'd never listened to Decoding Society before but played one of the links in 12 on the way into work and it was pretty great. Thx


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 9:13 AM
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Henry Threadgill! Steve Lehman! Szilárd Mezei!


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 9:26 AM
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This is probably good.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 9:28 AM
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Halford, you should listen to Last Exit.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 9:30 AM
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I love Mulatu Astatqe already. Other things in that style are always welcome.

Art Ensemble of Chicago, I can already tell there will be some rewarding listens.

21 is getting too abstract.


Posted by: Cryptic bned | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 9:41 AM
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I have loved Miles electric period for a while*, and, in spite of how influential it was, I also haven't found much that has a similar mix of groove plus melodic/harmonic abstraction (I second the Ornette recommendations in 12).

Sonny Sharock, who appears on Jack Johnson, has a beautiful album, Black Woman (1969), but the rhythms are freer (it's more like electrified Albert Ayler). In general, I feel like 70s Afrobeat gets closer to what Miles was doing than a lot of British/American jazz fusion.

*Great documentary that talks with his players from the era and shows a fair amount of concert footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow2owSQ0Mkk


Posted by: Criminally Bulgur | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 11:07 AM
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Also, Don Cherry Brown Rice (1976).


Posted by: Criminally Bulgur | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 11:11 AM
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I know some Last Exit already and really like it. I need to be in a pretty specific mood, but it's the best in certain occasions.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 11:11 AM
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James Blood Ulmer, Sonny Sharrock, some of Stanley Clark, Larry Young (Lawrence of Newark), Jan Garbarek, Don Cherry in Norway, John Handy, some of John McLaughlin.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 11-26-13 2:59 PM
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Art Ensemble of Chicago certainly are hit-and-miss. Both in terms of what their music sounds like, and whether it's on YouTube. Quite intriguing.

I think I reached a breakthrough in my dart-throwing technique last night while "Stances à Sophie" was playing. So that worked.


Posted by: Cryptic bned | Link to this comment | 11-27-13 7:44 AM
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I've actually always been underwhelmed by Last Exit, perhaps because I got very over-excited by the idea of them when they first arrived. I slightly feel that Bill Laswell -- who had the idea and logistical chops for forming the group -- is actually not quite the right bass player to make it gel. Though I'm not sure what I could point to as the relevant lack in his style.

Pushing further out into post-jazz formations, the first two Material records -- Memory Serves and One Down -- are a fascinating document of an era, and what was happening in New York after No Wave. And the Melvin Gibbs/Shannon Jackson/Bill Frisell trio Power Tools is pretty great. Electric Miles's shadow falls over all of this, though often very slant-wise.


Posted by: tierce de lollardie | Link to this comment | 11-27-13 8:00 AM
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Doesn't really fit into your category since it was recorded in 1965 but I love Krzysztof Komeda's Astigmatic (studio version). Here's a link. The other two tracks on the album are also quite good.


Posted by: teraz kurwa my | Link to this comment | 11-27-13 4:12 PM
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Though I should probably not be recommending here since while I love Davis, I'm not a big fan of Bitches Brew.


Posted by: teraz kurwa my | Link to this comment | 11-27-13 4:14 PM
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