Check out Schubert's piano trios if you haven't. The Andate of the 2nd trio (and it miraculous recapitulation in the finale) haunted me for the longest time.


Since you like chamber music, you may like Ginastera's quartets - I know I do. I also like his piano, cello and violin concertos. This is potent stuff.

I am not all that much into Grisey or Johson, but I like a few things. Grisey: Partiels and a couple of other things. Johnson: Combinations for string quartet, especially Tilework and Combinations V. Narayana's Cows (I don't much care about all this mathematical structure behind the music; I just find the music itself - complete with the reading of the text - hypnotically attractive). And this is just fun:

Thanks for this. Will take a closer listen to the Ginastera quartets, the Schubert piano trios and the Johnson quartets. Regarding the Schubert, is there a particular recording that rises above the others?

Thomas Chapin Trio "Haywire"
plus strings

John Surman "Adventure Playground"
Paul Bley
Gary Peacock
Tony Oxley

Lee Konitz and Red Mitchell "I Concentrate on You"

Art Blakey "Buhaina's Delight"

Christopher Fox "Topophony"
WDR Sinfonieorchester
Axel Dorner and Paul Lovens
John Butcher and Thomas Lehn

JS Bach: Goldberg Variations - Jean Rondeau (harpsichord)
A Schoenberg Verklärte Nacht

Regarding the Schubert, is there a particular recording that rises above the others? — ThinkOfOne

Well, you can't go wrong with the Oistrakh / Knushevitsky / Oborin classic recording that I linked in my post (it is old, but very good sound quality). There are others of course.

JS Bach: Goldberg Variations - Jean Rondeau (harpsichord) — Tom Storm

Gotta listen to that. Which recording were you listening to?

A while ago I came across this interesting project: #BachUpsideDown

It's on YouTube - was part of the Bach anniversary. Just pop that in and you'll get it. Rondeau is an extraordinary player. The older I get, the more I appreciate and 'feel' Bach. Perhaps that's how it is meant to work.

I was asking because I found two recordings: one released in 2017 for the Netherlands Bach Society's All of Bach series, and another released on Erato label a few years later. The Aria on the latter recording seemed much too slow for me; the earlier one's tempo is about right. I have to admit, though this is not to my credit as a listener, that hearing a beloved work in an unaccustomed tempo seems almost as wrong as hearing a false note.

I'll listen to any version of this and other pieces as I like multiple interpretations - even 'wrong' ones :wink: I'm talking about the earlier one.

I remember listening to the first movement of Barbirolli's slow Mahler 6th from 1967 and thinking this is way too slow - I love it!

I'll listen to any version of this and other pieces as I like multiple interpretations - even 'wrong' ones — Tom Storm

Have listen at Dan Tepfer's "upside-down" version then :)

I listened to the All of Bach recording - it's beautiful. Now of course I have an earworm or three. Oh well, it was worth it.

I remember listening to the first movement of Barbirolli's slow Mahler 6th from 1967 and thinking this is way too slow - I love it! — Tom Storm

I got my introduction to Schubert's great B-flat major sonata from Richter's classic recording, and instantly fell in love with it. I didn't know at the time how unusual that interpretation was in terms of tempo. Later a friend gave me Schnabel's recording of the same sonata - which goes about twice as fast. My first reaction was: How dare he! It sounded like a disrespectful parody. In time I learned to appreciate other interpretations, especially Clara Haskil's

I find the "Jazz and Classical" a bit restrictive, because a lot of the music I like doesn't quite fit in either. I'm going to assume that the other interesting kinds of music I like are welcome here--I'm coming round to the view that the other thread is too rock/pop-centric.

Fred Frith might be neither jazz nor classical, but his music has aspects of both. Today I've been listening to my favourite two of his albums. The first, the album Gravity, inspired by Eastern European folk music, has been called "avant-garde dance music", which gets the idea across; and the second, Traffic Continues, is a long multipart composition played primarily by the Ensemble Modern on oldy worldy orchestral instruments.





Also Pat Metheny's The Way Up

As much as I philosophically oppose this thread, I've had this stuck in my head for the better part of two days.

Hopefully there'll be folks who have jazz and/or classical as their primary interest. — ThinkOfOne

Jazz and/or classical music I listen to and appreciate when I'm in a certain mood or frame of mind.

The reason I've popped in. I've been listening to Liszt and I'd be grateful if anyone could answer my question below:
Liszt, La tombe et la rose, S. 285 (1844) - with score and subtitles



From the 'Poem meaning' thread: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13562/poem-meaning/latest/comment

Next, "phrase" is also a word used in music theory: a phrase is built from lower level stuff, too, like, say, motifs, but I'm not that knowledgable here. In any case, if you riff of this term, you might consider a phrase a compositional unit that somehow completes a rhythm. A phrase might co-incide with a line, with half a line, with a couplet... depending on the poem. You can then compare the rhythmic units with units of meaning: Do they co-incide? Do they overlap? And so on.
— Dawnstorm

I'd be interested to hear how well the music, song and singer interpret the poem and the phrasing.
Any ideas? — Amity

Your thoughts would be appreciated :sparkle:

Good stuff. Very modern sounding. At times it reminded me of Riley and Reich.

I've been getting myself back into jazz. I've always liked Wayne Shorter, not only for his playing but also for his composition. No matter how primary the improvisation might be in jazz, everyone likes a good tune, and the harmonic simplicity of the compositions in modal jazz just sounds great to me; I never really got into the busier styles of bebop (or hard bop), aside from Charlie Parker (for me, Miles Davis and John Coltrane come alive around the Kind of Blue era, when they move away from those crazy bebop changes).

This is from Shorter's album Juju and features McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, and Reggie Workman, all from John Coltrane's group. But in contrast with sixties Coltrane, to whom he was often compared at the time this album was recorded, Shorter doesn't have the desperate searching quality that can get a bit much if you're not in the mood. And I do love Elvin Jones's drumming. I can't really get my head around it but the mercurial, impressionistic, responsive way he plays is amazing.



A couple of years later Shorter played in McCoy Tyner's band on one of my favourite albums, Expansions. Again, it has a similar modal approach, and again with good tunes. Shorter's playing is fantastic throughout.

This is "Peresina":



The album begins with a classic, "Vision". It's heavier and faster than, e.g., "Peresina", but still has the expansive, open and soaring sound that I like in this kind of jazz.



Those solos by Shorter and Gary Bartz, not least because of the help of Freddie Watts's drums, are really something.

And I do love Elvin Jones's drumming — Jamal

If you haven't heard it listen to Out of This World, the opening track of Coltrane's self-titled release on Impulse!

Mine for today is

Pharaoh Sanders, Heart is a Melody
Pharaoh, ts; William Henderson, p; John Heard, b; Idris Muhammad, d

and it's very special to me. (Got to to see Pharaoh in Atlanta a couple years ago.)

Many years ago, I used to live in the DC area and would sometimes listen to Jazz 90, knowing nothing about jazz but a little curious. One late night driving up Connecticut, I heard the opening track of this record and became a lifelong jazz fan. I was blown away.

But I didn't hear who the performer was, only that it was a performance of John Coltrane's composition Olé.

Next day I went to Tower Records and bought a copy of that album, my first jazz record. As I learned about jazz and branched out - Eric Dolphy is on the record, under a pseudonym, and he led me to Mingus - I learned there was tenor player Coltrane knew (the west coast expert on mouthpieces, when Trane was having trouble with his) and later played with, in his free period and who also recorded on Impulse! in the 60s and 70s, so eventually I found my way back around to Heart is a Melody.

It's a beautiful record and the performance of Olé has one of the most jaw-dropping moments in recorded jazz, far as I'm concerned.

If you haven't heard it listen to Out of This World, the opening track of Coltrane's self-titled release on Impulse! — Srap Tasmaner

Thanks for the recommendation, I hadn't listened to that album before.

Cool to read your personal jazz story.

I have mixed feelings about Sanders. Some of it I love (or loved; it was in my twenties and I'm now trying to remember the bits I liked), and some of it sounds weak and rambling. It could be that my expectations are wrong, as they were when I first listened to Ornette Coleman after having listened to Coltrane for a while.

Couple things about Elvin Jones: he told some interviewer that part of the secret of his style, the polyrhythmic thing, is that he always hits something on the beat, just not always the same thing. Also, when Mingus was forming a group in the late fifties, the only drummer he wanted was Elvin Jones, but Elvin was playing with someone else at the moment, so Mingus taught saxophonist Danny Richmond how to play drums, and Danny was his drummer for the rest of his life.

I think it might be the liner notes to the Coltrane I recommended where Trane says of Elvin, "Sometimes he's too much even for me."

I have limited understanding and appreciation of free jazz. I mostly know Pharaoh from later albums, not his Impulse! stuff. Coltrane's last couple years, I don't do. I've listened to lots of Cecil Taylor, and find him really interesting, but I there's a lot I don't really get. Ornette is easy compared to a lot of stuff out there. Understanding and loving the many varieties of free jazz (and fusion, for that matter) remains on my to-do list.

Couple things about Elvin Jones: he told some interviewer that part of the secret of his style, the polyrhythmic thing, is that he always hits something on the beat, just not always the same thing. Also, when Mingus was forming a group in the late fifties, the only drummer he wanted was Elvin Jones, but Elvin was playing with someone else at the moment, so Mingus taught saxophonist Danny Richmond how to play drums, and Danny was his drummer for the rest of his life.

I think it might be the liner notes to the Coltrane I recommended where Trane says of Elvin, "Sometimes he's too much even for me." — Srap Tasmaner

:cool:

Coltrane's last couple years, I don't do — Srap Tasmaner

I don't much like Ascension or the later stuff like Interstellar Space, but I like a few things from around 1965 and 1966, like Kulu Se Mama and Transition (which have some tracks in common).

The track "Welcome" is calm and beautiful. As a jazzhead you may know it already, but I'll put it here anyway:


But it was the track "Transition" that first really got me into jazz. As a teenage fan of thrash metal, I was looking for something even more heavy, and that did the trick (along with Stravinsky). I still love to listen to it, even though my appetite for that kind of intensity has waned. It's intense and dark, but driving and controlled. His playing is clear and strong, although at first I didn't like the altissimo explorations, which I felt detracted from the strength of his normal registers. I changed my mind about that, mostly.

I love how it starts, right in it.

Understanding and loving the many varieties of free jazz (and fusion, for that matter) remains on my to-do list. — Srap Tasmaner

Yeah, I feel I ought to try getting into Albert Ayler, who might be more akin to Ornette than to Coltrane. Anthony Braxton is another sax player who seems fascinating but who I can't get to grips with. Otherwise, I'm tentatively exploring non-idiomatic free improvisers, among whom I like Fred Frith and the fairly obscure Lol Coxhill, who seems to have been an outsider even in that scene.

But with both free improvisation and free jazz, I can't often listen to the large groups, so I don't feel much desire to get into the large group improvisations of Coleman and Coltrane (the former, Free Jazz, sounds like more fun to me though).

If you've listened to some other earlyish Ornette but not to Free Jazz, just spin it. There's just more players, but it's very listenable. I only finally got around to it in the past year, and it's nothing to be afraid of. (It used to be said there were two routes into free jazz (my music theory is almost non-existent, so grain of salt here): Ornette just passes right by the theory of harmony and frees melody from it; Cecil layers in more, augmenting traditional harmony, broadening it. Free Jazz the record is definitely still on Ornette's end of the spectrum.)

I'll certainly revisit late Coltrane, so thanks for your impressions.

If you've listened to some other earlyish Ornette but not to Free Jazz, just spin it. There's just more players, but it's very listenable. I only finally got around to it in the past year, and it's nothing to be afraid of. — Srap Tasmaner

I've got it playing now. Thanks :up:

(It used to be said there were two routes into free jazz (my music theory is almost non-existent, so grain of salt here): Ornette just passes right by the theory of harmony and frees melody from it; Cecil layers in more, augmenting traditional harmony, broadening it. Free Jazz the record is definitely still on Ornette's end of the spectrum.) — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, that's how I see it.

Cecil Taylor is baffling. I guess I haven't given him enough of a chance.

My starting point was maybe his first record as a leader. He does a killer version of Bemsha Swing. Gets how Monk had already broken into, let's say, tactical atonality. Monk understands what can be done with a piano as a physical thing, not just as a manifestation of music theory.

For a sort of point between Monk and where Cecil ends up, don't miss the incredible Don Pullen.

I'll give some earlier Cecil a spin.

Don Pullen — Srap Tasmaner

Now that's someone I know absolutely nothing about.

He and George Adams (ts) were in Mingus's last quartet, and then carried on as a band.

Pullen had a unique technique that involved rolling his hand over the keys to get clusters of notes (and some otherworldly effects). There's a cute video on YouTube of his band appearing on a show Ramsey Lewis hosted, and Ramsey tells him, I tried it, tried to play like you do, and I ended up with bandaids all over my hands.

Here's a good place to start:

I see what you mean. Sounds quite conventional to begin with and then goes a bit mad later on. I like it.

@Srap Tasmaner

I took some time to explore Cecil Taylor and, rather than the early stuff, I've settled on the solo live album Garden, recorded in 1981, as a way in, because I liked it from the start (it's the re-issue split over two discs, Garden Set 1 and Garden Set 2).

I read that Duke Ellington was one of his heroes, but I couldn't see how his playing related to him at all. However, despite initially thinking the music was totally abstract, and closer to non-idiomatic free improv than jazz, I began to hear the jazz in it pretty strongly, and not only in the occasional blues phrases and inflections. The track "Pemmican" on Set 2 is almost close to being a conventional jazz ballad, and this is where I can see how his playing is an extension of the tradition (jazz is not dead, it just smells funny).

In a nutshell, I don't really know what he's doing, and although I can discern the repeating motifs and chords, I find it difficult to hear the carefully worked out structure that people say is there. But I like it. It's exciting, technically stunning, and somehow very precise and organized. And in this performance (Garden) he leaves quite a lot of space, which I appreciate.

Before finding that, I watched a video of him playing, and that's maybe why I was more interested in his solo work, because I dug it. I wondered why it should help to see him play, thinking that I ought to focus on the purity of the music, but on the other hand he was a kind of performance artist who liked to emphasize the physicality.

Duke Ellington — Jamal

As a pianist, Ellington is thought of as having a percussive style, as opposed to say the fluidity of Art Tatum, the great pianist of the swing era. So there's a tradition that runs from this



through Monk to Cecil. Watch Monk play, oh my god:

Charles Mingus, Blues and Roots

Story behind this one, I believe, is that one of the Ertegun brothers suggested he do a whole record in the vein of Haitian Fight Song, from The Clown.

So here's that:

I have always had a soft spot for this. It starts very softly and builds.

It's all beginning to make sense.

The first time I heard that, I didn't know the story behind it, but I found it fascinating and moving all the same, which is significant I think.

Truly unhinged: