some of that stuff, for sure.... there's a lot of room in that music!

It's just not always my cup of tea, there's that problem with the far out avant-garde and , well, how do I put it.... dead end street musical freedom?

The first 6 Coleman albums and early Cecil Taylor are amazing... but after that there's some stuff I just don't get... not that I didn't try...

Jazz is the same as any worthwhile art, one has to be hip to it to really get it.

This is especially true of free jazz and the extremities of the avant garde, without the knowledge of what went before, it's unlikely that the un-initiated will appreciate it. Knowledge gives added depth and meaning that reinforces the aesthetic or listening beauty. And there's no way someone brought up on a strict diet of pop music and Know That's What I Call Music compiliations is going to dig Ornette, Taylor, Sun Ra or the AEC.

Never heard of the Wenger Boys, the only Dutch music I have in the house is K3. Quite like the red headed one before she got pregnant.

Love a bit of Archie Shep too - great blues sensibility.

A young person asked me recently:

"You like jazz - but, I dunno, where do you start?"

I leaned back, metaphorically smoking a pipe in a sage manner.

I think having a grounding in soul, rnb etc helped me. Liking many of my generation, jazz wasn't really on the radar until I started clubbing and heard Jimmy Smith. From there I bought a Blue Note compilation and vividly remember hearing the first chords of 'Blue Train' and just...wow. Slipping into a parallel universe. Only after a few years training did I venture into the realms of Ornette, travelling via Monk with a few diversions into MJQ.

Ornette I think is a good test. My wife is an art history lecturer and occasionally uses music when teaching to get some atmosphere (Velvet Underground when doing Warhol, that sort of thing). One time she was lecturing on Pollock and put on 'Free Jazz'. I tell you, these radical young kids just about blew their stacks. They didn't know what was happening, up from down, time of day. They couldn't handle it. So, start slow.

PS Hank, I have an admiration for the mighty Hank Williams too. Lyrically, pared down, no fucking about. Completely lacking in pretension but crafted so beautifully the average nebbish thinks they are simple. The fools, the fools.

PPS Just read back some of the old posts in this thread - Gibson, yes we do live in diminished times and you are an old fart. Aren't we all and happy to be so.

To people investigating the free genre, suggest checking out Sam Rivers. He was one of the hot snot players back in the 70s -80s but don't hear much about him anymore. I used to be way into the free jazz scene in NYC and Philly back then and a lot of it sounds to me, in retrospect, buzzy and disjointed.  Rivers always had the blues connection.

Kind of reminiscent of the School of Ornette--killer album here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcSxVH6kE3k


Here's some late 70s stuff that links back to Trane:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J83DsYQJ_D0


With James Blood Ulmer, "harmelodic" Ornette meets funk genre that was poppin in the 80s (e.g. Defunkt, Ornette's Prime Time band)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdkcHzDW7ck&feature=related

Just another way in...

Philly Joe

Just happened across this thread whilst doing searches for Guy Warren and King Pleasure.  RR&P was being silly and has since recanted.

Gibson Gardens - the Mrs. Danvers of Ivy.