Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 exptools; site hlexa.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxj!mhuxh!hlexa!wjhe From: wjhe@hlexa.UUCP (Bill Hery) Newsgroups: net.music Subject: Re: Chick Corea (actually Kool Jazz and George Wein) Message-ID: <4367@hlexa.UUCP> Date: Mon, 8-Jul-85 10:38:36 EDT Article-I.D.: hlexa.4367 Posted: Mon Jul 8 10:38:36 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 9-Jul-85 06:08:31 EDT References: <594@vaxine.UUCP> <367@mhuxr.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Short Hills, NJ Lines: 55 > > FLAME BEGINS: > As for George Wein, he probably means well, > but I feel he is slowly strangling the festival by serving us a rehash > of the Jazz at the Philharmonic every year. Oh, some of the concerts > are quite good (I remember a Freddie Hubbard-McCoy Tyner-Ron Carter- > Elvin Jones that blew the roof off Avery Fisher Hall....) but > why does Kool consistently ignore the new traditionalists. Putting the > David Murray Octet in Saratoga is tokenism. Where were Henry Threadgill's > Sextet, Olu Dara's Okra Orchestra, ..... > I wholeheartedly agree--I didn't even bother going to any of the Kool festival events this year, the music in the NY clubs all year long being far superior. Even when he does bring in some of the less commercial musicians, he puts them in some rather strange combinations with other musicains--last year's Cecil Taylor/Oscar Peterson concert comes to mind (I wasn't there, but I heard that most of the audience left when Cecil started playing, and thos who didn't hadn't been there for Oscar's set...) I don't know how much of the problem is Wein and how much is (was) Kool. When he was at Newport and in the early years in NY (when it was the Big Apple Jazz Festival), Wein SOMETIMES put on more interesting shows. I remember going to Newprot once (about '67), and the concert included Miles (with Hancock, Shorter, Carter, Williams), Bill Evans trio, Max Roach quartet and Dave Brubeck (well, Take Five was only 8 years old then...). He also had another concert featuring 'Trane and Archie Shepp (recorded by Impulse as New Thing at Newport). Maybe a new sponsor will help > Did anybody attend any of the Kool events this year? I was on the > road during the week (work does get in the way sometimes doesn't it?) > and had to miss it all? Particularly, did anybody catch Liberation Music > Orchestra at Sweet Basil's? > I did catch LMO at Sweet Basil's and it was great. About half of the musicians were from the group that recorded Ballad of the Fallen (Charlie Haden, Paul Motian, Mick Goodrick, Jim Pepper, Dewey Redman, and the French Horn player whose name I can't recall), and several were New York musicains who show up in a lot of local groups, like David Murray's Octet/Big Band (Craig Harris, Bekida Caroll, Bob Stewart). Also in the group were Amina Claudia Myers (who didn't get to solo much), and Cecil Bridgewater (often heard with Max Roach). Interestingly, Carla Bley (who wrote much of the music and was part on both recordings of LMO was in the audience, as was Steve Swallow. The music they played was mostly from the Ballad of the Fallen lp, using basically the same arrangements. A major difference was that there was a lot more solo space--Craig Harris, Dewey Redman, and Bekida Carol were particularly good. My one reservation about the performance was that most of the longer solos got too far away from the lilting, Spanish feel in the arrangements (and maintained in most solos on the lp). LMO is definitely worth going to see. Bill Hery