Old And New Dreams

When we moved house 10 years ago, I finally found room in the attic for my vinyl and CD collections. I splashed out on a top notch hi fi system anticipating hours of listening to classic recordings from my vinyl vaults. Needless to say, that wish didn’t transpire. Our move coincided with the advent of streaming which, however regretfully, provides the basis for most of my jazz listening and of course Spotify provides the platform for my playlists. (Equally regretfully given Spotify’s policy of gouging musicians while signing deals with the major record companies.) One of my regular subscribers an esteemed UK jazz pianist reads the pieces but refuses to click on the playlist as a protest against Spotify. I empathize entirely but will stick with Spotify to optimize access to my subscribers and will continue to do so until something better and less rapacious comes along- any suggestions most welcome

Over that period there has been a revolution in listening habits to all types of music including jazz. I am aware of the trend now to listen to a particular tune-or a snatch of a tune rather than a whole album that has also impacted my own listening experience (also regretfully). For some reason streaming seems to have reduced our interest in experiencing long form music. Arias are replacing operas, single or partial movements symphonies and in “popular” music single tunes have displaced albums.

AI is driving another trend. Landing on Spotify or Tidal and you are presented with readymade playlists “based on your listening history”. Spooky and compelling in equal measure. Until recently I have avoided these AI generated collections, but curiosity has won me over. These selections unsurprisingly often do reflect my own interests; they also introduce me to new music and musicians within and beyond the reach of jazz and I am grateful for that.

As a jazz aficionado YouTube and the streamers provide access to virtually the whole history of recorded jazz and have become a favoured vehicles for comparing performances and recordings of jazz standards. Having said that I think I can detect a tendency in my own listening to listen more to new releases- not a bad thing- at the expense of historic recordings. And yet it is the classic recordings-Sonny Rollins’s Way Out West, Monk’s early Blue Notes, the achingly fresh three minute recordings of Bird, the township meets jazz mash up of the legendary Brotherhood of Breath and of course all four movements of Coltrane’s Love Supreme that continue to resonate for me.

And being  a jazz aficionado I am also a subscriber to three monthly jazz magazines. Downbeat, the daddy of them all in the USA, Jazz Magazine from France and the UK’s Jazzwise. All three feature pages of reviews of jazz albums both current releases and reissues of historic recordings. These reviews, particularly the contemporary ones have a big impact on my listening and the gigs I attend. A recent Downbeat feature on alto saxophonist Miguel Zenon prompted me to book to see him later this month at Ronnie Scott’s.

In recent months I have climbed up to the attic more regularly to reacquaint myself with great jazz rediscoveries the old fashioned way-via my vinyl collection and the evidence appears in at least half of the attached playlist

Branford Marsalis is one of the world’s great saxophonists. 30 years a bandleader whose interests and recordings have in recent years extended to classical music. I have read a number of long form interviews with Branford to mark his recent signing with Blue Note where.

he talks refreshingly about his own formation, his journey into jazz, why his long standing quartet remains the perfect vehicle for his musical ambitions and his continuing reverence for the giants of our music. This video interview is well worth a look;

Listening again to Branford’s 2002 album Footsteps of our Fathers offers a remarkable reappraisal of both Sonny Rollins’s classic Freedom Suite and Trane’s aforementioned Love Supreme. Branford Marsalis was courageous to reprise these epic recordings without obscuring his own voice or being merely imitative. It is interesting that his first Blue Note release this year offers a reappraisal of Keith Jarrett’s landmark European Quartet 1974 recording Belonging with Jan Garbarek on saxophone.

The title of this piece Old And New Dreams derives from a band of Ornette Coleman alumni, Dewey Redman on tenor, Don Cherry trumpet, Charlie Haden bass and Ed Blackwell which had a 10 year life from the mid-70’s combining their versions of the compositions of Ornette Coleman with their own original material all of which reflected Ornette’s enduring influence. Ornette without Ornette. Old and New Dreams.

Miles Davis’s great second quintet minus Miles-with Freddie Hubbard on trumpet- and collectively named VSOP -Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams paid their dues to Miles’s recordings from the 60’s while retaining a fresh and exploratory edge in the late 70’s.

Contemporary jazz provides a unique amalgam of the old and the new. What and who the future holds makes it even more compelling.

The Playlist

My playlist is a mixtape of music I’ve been listening too for a lifetime and stuff I’ve run across in the last few months. It references the sources of Branford Marsalis’s reworkings of landmark recordings by  Rollins, Jarrett and Coltrane and finishes with two historic recordings of Moanin’. Entirely different compositions by Bobby Timmons and Charles Mingus respectively.

I hope that you will agree that modern jazz is an amalgam of the old, the new and the yet to be discovered.