[MUSIC] Nimbus West Records - Label Mix

Stepped over this nice gem today. It's called Cumulative Nimbus and gives you an idea of the sound of Nimbus West Records. Nimbus West started releasing some fine ass jazz records with a somewhat darkish and mystical/spiritual sound in 1979. Links to their Discogs and HP below the video..

Cumulative Nimbus: a portrait of a record label by Tonytales on Mixcloud

Nimbus West Homepage
Nimbus Discogs

[Music] BADBADNOTGOOD

BADBADNOTGOOD is a (jazz / hiphop / fusion / electronic) band consisting of five young musicians from Toronto, Canada. They released their second album BBNG2 some month ago. It's available via their homepage for free.

Let me tell you one thing: This album / band is fucking amazing. It's so hard to categorize this music but fuck categories anyways. The guys themselves tag their music with "hiphop jazz postbop", whereas hiphop goes too far since there is no vocalist or rapper. In the album they present their own tracks as well as covers from contemporary electronic music like James Blake's Limit to your Love (see video below) or CMYK. And it's this perfect symbiosis of styles that makes this album such a masterpiece for me. Things are just flowing, it never feels as if they're trying. Everything is working out just perfect.

More Infos:
Facebook
Bandcamp

[Records] Weather Report - Sweetnighter (1973)

Loooong time since I reviewed the last Jazz record here. Way to long! I will make sure to post Jazz record reviews on a more regular basis. Promise!

So, today it's gonna be Sweetnighter, the 1973 album by Weather Report, the legendary Jazz band around band leader and genius Joe Zawinul. Lucky me, since I was introduced to this record waaaay back in the days when I was a kid. That is, besides the fact that it's an awesome record, the reason why it is mentioned here before other records that some people might judge more important to post. Sadly, I couldn't find any YouTube Clips for that record so I chose a live clip which at leadst shows how fucking cool those guys were and still are:

Review I found on Amazon.com that I found good:

The first reason to get this disk is aesthetic. "Sweetnighter" is a unique recording: it includes the least structured, open-ended music that Weather Report recorded, and it was the last one they made before technological progress armed Joe Zawinul with more synthesizers than was perhaps healthy.

Some jazz fan acquaintances used to point to this recording and complain that Zawinul had kidnapped Wayne Shorter and was holding incommunicado in some safe house in Newark. To them there were no solos. They missed the point. Rather than soloing over an accompanying rhythm section, Shorter plays a kind of running commentary, coming in an out of a mix in which the bass(es) and percussion are given equal billing to Shorter's sax and Zawinul's keyboards. Sometimes everyone solos at once and it takes very, very accomplished musicians to pull this off without it degenerating into cacophony.

Yet it would be misleading to pigeonhole this record as Weather Report surrenders to the groove. Perhaps the most remarkable composition on the disk is Miroslav Vitous' ethereal "Will" which is percussion-less. Indeed, one of the remarkable things about this record are how varied the six pieces are: two open-ended jams - "Boogie Woogie Waltz" and "125th Street Congress;" a fairly conventional Shorter composition "Manolette;" two Zawinul tone poems a la "In A Silent Way" or "His Last Journey," "Adios" and "Non-Stop Home;" and Vitous' transcendent "Will."

The other reason to get this disk is the way it sounds. The mass conversion of analogue tapes to digital formats has yielded some real disasters - e.g. Shorter's "Native Dancer" where entire instruments disappeared from the mix. This recording, in contrast, is a case in which the move to CD is a clear improvement over the original vinyl. Now the two basses on "Boogie Woogie Waltz" and "125th Street Congress" are clearly distinguishable, and similarly the multitudinous percussion instruments are more clearly defined. As another reviewer noted, never have Moroccan clay drums sounded so good. Roller toys and Israeli jar drums, either.

DISCOGS: 
http://www.discogs.com/Weather-Report-Sweetnighter/release/481001

[Books] But Beautiful - A book about jazz (by Geoff Dyer)

But beautiful. Also special. Dangerous, maybe. Made me do things. Made me push my (musical) acting and thinking, too. Just check the infos I am posting here via video and reviews, paperback and so on. It should be enough to get a good idea about this book. I strongly suggest reading it in English as the original dialogues probably cant be translated too well. And I especially have to think about a dialogue between Charles Mingus and who was that again..Ben Webster? Yeah I guess so...Fucking hilarious..I was literally lying in bed, laughing out loud for about 5 minutes. Every new line making me laugh again...

 

'You dig them eggs, Mingus?'

'Yeah, I dig them eggs!'

I found a video by the Author Geoff Dyer. Cool Stuff. Cool author. I'll definitely check out his other books. Above the video I will put some editorial reviews. Enjoy. Buy here.

"May be the best book ever written about jazz."--David Thomson, Los Angeles Times

In eight poetically charged vignettes, Geoff Dyer skillfully evokes the music and the men who shaped modern jazz. Drawing on photos, anecdotes, and, most important, the way he hears the music, Dyer imaginatively reconstructs scenes from the embattled lives of some of the greats: Lester Young fading away in a hotel room; Charles Mingus storming down the streets of New York on a too-small bicycle; Thelonious Monk creating his own private language on the piano. However, music is the driving force of But Beautiful, and wildly metaphoric prose that mirrors the quirks, eccentricity, and brilliance of each musician's style.

The Cats - Tommy Flanagan, John Coltrane, Idrees Sulieman & Kenny Burrel

I bought this record last weekend. Pretty cool, until recently unreleased material of Coltrane (according to the guy in the record store). I also liked the fact that Tommy Flanagan is on it, playing the keys so fucking smooth again. Also featuring Kenny Burrell on the guitar.Nice.

Credits:

• Bass – Doug Watkins
• Drums – Louis Hayes
• Guitar – Kenny Burrell
• Piano – Tommy Flanagan
• Tenor Saxophone – John Coltrane
• Trumpet – Idrees Sulieman

Notes:

' 1957 may have been a watershed year for jazz, but this session, recorded for Prestige on April 18 at the Rudy Van Gelder Studio in NJ, was still a cut above the rest. While Coltrane may be the big name draw here, this session was actually led by pianist Tommy Flanagan, who would go on to be Ella Fitzgerald’s accompanist in the sixties, and appear on a number of historic jazz sessions including Coltrane’s Giant Steps, and Sonny Rollins’ Saxophone Colossus. In fact, every composition on this album was written by Flanagan, except for Gershwin’s “How Long Has This Been Going On?”, performed here in trio form. Also features some truly superlative trumpet playing by Idrees Sulieman, best known for his association with Coleman Hawkins.'

Discogs Info here

"Blue Monk" played beautifully by german dudes

Not many words needed on this one. Great interpretation on Thelonious Monk's "Blue Monk". Especially got hooked on the guitar solo..but everything is nice..lovin' Jazz...lovin' it!

The Cry of Jazz (1959)

'The Cry of Jazz' is reckognized as one of the earliest examples for Afro-American independent film making. It was produced in 1959 by Edward Bland.

Apparently, it is about Jazz. Less apparently, it is also about the theory, that the structure of Jazz mirrors the social situation of Afro-Americans back then. 

The great Sun Ra and his Arkestra are responsible for the music in this film. Reason enough to have a look. And listen!


More information is offered here:


International Movie Database


Wikipedia (EN)

 

John Coltrane - Giant Steps (1959) [Atlantic]

Tracklist 

A1 Giant Steps 4:43 

A2 Cousin Mary 5:45 

A3 Countdown 2:21 

A4 Spiral 5:56 

B1 Syeeda's Song Flute 7:00 

B2 Naima 4:21 

B3 Mr. P.C. 6:57 

Credits 

Bass – Paul Chambers 

Drums – Art Taylor (tracks: A1 to B1, B3), Jimmy Cobb (tracks: B2) 

Engineer [Recording] – Phil Iehle, Tom Dowd 

Piano – Tommy Flanagan (tracks: A1 to B1, B3), Wynton Kelly (tracks: B2) Supervised By – Nesuhi Ertegun 

Tenor Saxophone – John Coltrane 

Written-By – John Coltrane

Miles Davis - Bitches Brew (1970)

As this is the 10th post, it's about time for the first jazz record, eh?!
I will start with a true classic, which my Dad passed on to me (thx for introducing me so much good music):

Miles Davis' fantastic Bitches Brew, that was released in 1970 on CBS Records.
Must-hear, must-know, must-have! Nuff said!

Bass – Dave Holland
Bass Clarinet – Bennie Maupin
Bass [Fender] – Harvey Brooks
Drums – Charles Alias, Jack DeJohnette, Lenny White
Electric Guitar – John McLaughlin
Electric Piano – Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul (tracks: A to C1, D2), Larry Young (tracks: A, C1 to D1)
Percussion – Jim Riley
Producer – Teo Macero
Soprano Saxophone – Wayne Shorter
Trumpet – Miles Davis
Written-By – Miles Davis (tracks: B to D1)

 

Tracklist:

A - Pharaoh's Dance (by Joe Zawinul) - 20:07min
B - Bitches Brew - 27min
C1 - Spanish Keys - 17:30min
C2 - John McLaughlin - 4:23min
D1 - Miles Runs The Voodoo Down - 14:03min
D2 - Sanctuary (by Wayne Shorter) - 10:54min

B Flat Jazz Club

Finally I made it to a jazz club in Berlin. It took me about 2 years so this is definitly worth a blogpost, right?!

The name of the club is 'b-flat Accoustic Music and Jazz Club'. Its located in Berlin-Mitte,
Rosenthaler Straße, near U8 Weinmeisterstraße and it's supposed to be one of Berlins top addresses for live jazz. 


 



I'd definitely recommend this club to everybody who's down with jazz music. 
Cool atmo, cool view.Cold beer.
Cheers.

http://www.b-flat-berlin.de/

10119 Berlin-Mitte
Rosenthaler Str. 13
Fon+Fax +49 30 283 31 23

Öffnungszeiten:
So. - Do. ab 20:00
Fr. / Sa. ab 21:00 

Cream - Live Cream (1970)

Eric Clapton - Guitar, Vocals
Jack Bruce - Bass, Vocals
Ginger Baker - Drums, Vocals


Label:  
Polydor (EU,Japan) 
ATCO Records (US)

Tracklist:

A1 N.S.U.

10:13

A2 Sleepy Time Time

6:50

A3 Lawdy Mama

2:47

B1 Sweet Wine

15:08

B2 Rollin' And Tumblin'

6:36