Many arguments prevailed both on here and the predecessor site allied to the magazine that nothing good was written post 1971. This view was very strongly put forward by Mr Hepworth which I thought was strange given he was trying to make a success out of a current music magazine. I believe there is plenty of great music out there that is the equal of the stuff that came before and it amazes me that there still persists this argument that the Beatles are the start and finish of all things great and that everything else trails in their wake. Clearly wrong I am glad to say. So whilst I still enjoy the Beatles and the Stones and the Kinks I am glad that stuff like this has entertained me in this century:-
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Joshua Van Brass says
Chalk me up on the side of ‘it was all better in the 70s’.
I don’t think it’s a question of quality necessarily. That song you posted is a good song, I can’t deny it. The craftsmanship of a lot of music today is much more honed than in ye olde days. Plus recording quality is better. But….
For me it’s a question of innovation. There’s just nothing NEW, truly NEW these days. I think Jungle/Drum and Bass was probably the last truly innovative sound to come out of the music world. And that was about 25 years ago now.
That song you posted? Yes it’s good, maybe even great. But it follows the exact same formula someone Steven Stills was following about 45 years ago.
JustB says
Is it just not more likely that you’re not hearing any of the new stuff? R&B, hip hop and electronic music are where innovation is happening. IMO the likes of Young Thug, Frank Ocean, The Haxan Cloak, Objekt etc are innovating pretty damn hard. And that’s in my very very limited experience. I’m a middle aged white bloke who doesn’t have a ton of listening time, and those names occurred to me just off the top of my head.
All art is synthesis, anyway. Pure innovation isn’t how humans work. Deafheaven, for example, make something entirely new out of the raw ingredients of extreme metal and 80s indie. Can you hear the precedents? Sure, of course. Like you can hear Haydn in Mozart and Buxtehude in Bach. That’s how it all works!
Joshua Van Brass says
Well there’s a difference though. I can obviously sit and pick apart all the raw ingredients and influences of drum and bass (by the way I’m not a fan, but I know innovation when I hear it) – but that whole genre was genuinely creating a new sound, a new groove, that would sound absolutely alien to anyone ten years previously.
Those artists you list – any suggested tracks I can taste them with? If I hear genuine innovation I’ll gladly eat my words.
Carl says
You are a bit harsh on Mr Hepworth Steve.
His contention about 1971 is that no other year had so many great albums released, the greatness being facilitated by artists having more control over what they produced than they had in previous years, and before they became victims of their own success which saw the accountants take control saying ” you produced that and it sold so well, so give us more of the same”, or “that label has artist/band X, we need our own version to produce something that will also go multi-gold”.
Mike_H says
Yep. Heppo, for all his faults has never said that no good music has come along since 1971. He merely pointed it out as a prime year in musical history. Which it was.
Diddley Farquar says
No that kind of fundamentalism tends to be found more among the devotees of The Word and Afterword blog who have always been more unadventurous and reactionary than the magazine itself which provided the umbrella under which they congregate.
Neela says
Don’t question THE HEP (the DONOVAN of music journalism). He will only come back stronger than you can possibly imagine.
Most likely he’ll be poking you with a new theory, probably related to 1971, and he won’t stop until you cry for mercy and beg for forgiveness.
Don’t forget to mention Richard Thompson!
(I haven’t got anything against either The Hep or The Don, but they tend to be entertaining in ways they may not be aware of.)
Having said that: Happy New Year!
Baron Harkonnen says
Hepworth was too full of himself, thinking he was always right and the only person who had the right to comment on music. He was wrong.
Regarding @SteveT‘s contention that great music is still made, I am sorry to say that he is right but only because everything he listens to has been recommended by myself.
Seriously, great music has been made in every decade since the ’70’s but in every year since you have to look and listen harder. Not that there is less great music around today, it’s just that, as we all know, popular music today revolves around TV talent(less) shows and the non-music of djs whose repetitive beats are celebrated by the youth of today.
@Joshua-Van-Brass you almost come close to saying you liked the music @SteveT posted and I agree with you that nothing much has changed since the ’70’s in today’s good/great music. Why should it, there are no copyists making good music today, just talented people with a love for the music they play.
mikethep says
To be fair to the Hep (did I just say that?), once you find yourself making a living as a member of the commentariat you are professionally required to have strongly expressed opinions, or you don’t get paid. Speaking as someone who had to do just that, and be witty into the bargain, every fortnight for nearly 15 years, I have a certain amount of sympathy. I dare say that at home he’s often heard to say, ‘Hmmm, really? I must give it another listen.’
Baron Harkonnen says
Nice bit of insight @mikethep, I still don’t like the fella.
mikethep says
Fair enough, not compulsory…
JustB says
Sure, Baron, but don’t you think “nothing much has changed since the ’70’s in today’s good/great music” might be truer if expressed as “today’s music that I listen to“? 🙂
Baron Harkonnen says
Today’s music that I listen to consists of several genres, Prog, world, Americana and all it’s influences, Krautrock, Psychedelia, left-field jazz (Pharoah Saunders, Alice Coltrane, Sun Ra). The genres I listen to, apart from jazz, of which my knowledge is not great, are performed by young, old, middle aged musicians. The younger guys are influenced by all that has gone before, as have all musicians. However they don’t sound like the 60’s & 70’s bands I still listen to. They have their own identity and sound and had I heard the music they play today in the 60’s it would have been WTF, what is this? Let’s hear more. Let me give you an example how would Roky Erickson have reacted to King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard? You tell me. Today’s music that I listen to has not changed since the 60’s/70’s but that is wrong isn’t it Bob?
Joshua Van Brass says
I like King Gizzard – but honestly they sound like a very good, very weird, mid 70s prog band. They are nothing new.
Baron Harkonnen says
Look Josh, there is no new music. That train left in the late ’70’s. What we have today are many good to very good bands/artists making good to very good music. There are influences all over this music just as there has always been with regards to popular music.
Why don’t you try fucking enjoying what your ears are telling you!?!
Joshua Van Brass says
I think we agree on this! If I switch off my expectations a little, I can enjoy modern music. I actually think I’m a lot less reactive than most people who prefer that ‘old’ music. But if you are looking for a reason people prefer old music to new music, than that’s it – there is no real ‘new’ music. It’s inevitable, it’s unavoidable, and pop music will probably still thrive by reinventing itself as it always does – but it annoys and deflates some people. Me included, sometimes.
Tahir W says
1980s pop (in tandem with the politics of the time) — some honorable cases excepted of course — ‘deflated’ and ‘annoyed’ me so much as to bring on a personality crisis, a kind of early and long lasting midlife crisis.
Tahir W says
I think you may underestimate the extent to which music acts try to be different to previous acts, and also other contemporary acts, just because they are AGAINST them in some way or other. Antagonism plays a big part, and you don’t have to see “I hate Pink Floyd” T-shirts to understand that.
retropath2 says
Nothing new since Jungle/D’n’b, @Joshua-Van-Brass? Depends where you look. Yes, of course there are limitations around what instrumentation is present and what the human voice is capable of, so most is variation around a theme, but the options are and remain endless. Personally I am happy with there having been so many genres “invented” (ak rediscovered) that the interpretations and re-interpretations of said genres, and their mixing and muddling, gives me loads of new and lots of old.
My best of list 2017 will have been way more varied than my list of 1971, which would have been, quick shuffle, based on the i=pod, in no order:
Killer/Alice Cooper
In the Land of Grey and Pink/Caravan
Tarkus/ELP
Nods as Good as a Wink/Faces
In Search of Space/Hawkwind
IV/Led Zeppelin
3/Santana
Who’s Next/Who
Probably that’s all.
Sure, I now have lots of other stuff from that year but there would be no way the 14 year old me would be listening to it.
Baron Harkonnen says
No John Denver ret?
Tiggerlion says
These days my listening is so much more diverse than when I was a teenager. I love the increasing influence of African and Latin rhythms on Jazz and Rock. I find it remarkable that it took until 2017 for there to be an album fusing Reggae and Jazz in the way that Zara McFarlane does. The musicianship is even better these days, apart from Jimi. There are so many superlative drummers and bass players and keyboard and horn and so on. Yet, there is no shortage of emotional intensity either. Kendrick Lamar is taking Rap into a new realm of expression. Melanie De Biasio is doing the same for torch jazz. R&B is evolving into something more soulful. Avant Garde Classical continues to break down boundaries and astound. The trouble is you have to dig deep to find any Pop or Rock music of high quality. Those of us dazzled by those two genres in our youth still mourn their relative demise.
For every year this century, I’ve struggled to exclude albums from my favourite fifty. Prior to that, I struggled to find thirty albums I really liked. 1971 was an excellent year but, even listening now with my ‘mature’ ears, it’s a push to compile a top fifty. However, it’s undeniably a cracking list with a great deal of variety.
Miles Davis – A Tribute To Jack Johnson
David Bowie – Hunky Dory
Marvin Gaye – What’s Goin’ On
The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers
Alice Coltrane – Journey In Satchidananda
David Crosby – If Only I Could Remember My Name
Sly & The Family Stone – There’s A Riot Goin’ On
Laura Nyro & Labelle – Gonna Take A Miracle
Pharoah Saunders – Black Unity
King Curtis – Live At Filmore West
T.Rex – Electric Warrior
The Temptations – The Sky’s The Limit
The Doors – L.A. Woman
Aretha Franklin – Live At Filmore West
Curtis Mayfield – Roots
Yes – The Yes Album
Booker T & The MGs – Melting Pot
Bob Marley & The Wailers – Soul Revolution
Serge Gainsbourg – Histoire De Melody Nelson
Gil Scott-Heron – Pieces Of A Man
John Lennon – Imagine
Harry Nilsson – Nilsson Schmilsson
Joni Mitchell – Blue
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles – One Dozen Roses
Elvis Presley – Elvis Country (I’m 10,000 Years Old)
Jimi Hendrix – The Cry Of Love
Isaac Hayes – Black Moses
Weather Report
Funkadelic – Maggot Brain
The Who – Who’s Next
Bill Withers – Just As I Am
Rod Stewart – Every Picture Tells A Story
Yes – Fragile
Chi-Lites – (For God’s Sake) Give More Power To The People
Herbie Hancock – Mwandishi
Leonard Cohen – Songs Of Love And Hate
Can – Tago Mago
War – All Day Music
Al Green Gets Next To You
Alice Cooper – Killer
Isaac Hayes – Shaft
Santana III
John Hooker & Canned Heat – Hooker ‘n’ Heat
The Beach Boys – Surf’s Up
Kevin Ayers – Whatevershebringswesing
Shuggie Otis – Freedom Flight
Traffic – The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys
Hawkwind – In Search Of Space
Paul & Linda McCartney – Ram
America
Led Zeppelin IV
Neela says
“For every year this century, I’ve struggled to exclude albums from my favourite fifty.”
I´m slightly jealous, @Tiggerlion. How do you find the time to listen to that much new music? If you find one a week you really like, how many new albums a week do you listen to?
Tiggerlion says
I have no life.
Moose the Mooche says
You can start one now that you know who Derek Griffiths is.
Tiggerlion says
You mean I can open a Twitter Account?
Moose the Mooche says
No, you can go onto YouTube and watch Playaway.
Never confuse having a Twitter account with having a life.
Tiggerlion says
Wise words. Wise words, indeed.
SteveT says
Nail on the head @retropath2 – when I was 14 I thought Bob Marley and his music was the Devil’s spawn likewise the jazz of Miles Davies/John Coltrane et al. Now I love it.
My argument wasn’t that current music is not derivative in many ways but that in this century there is a lot of great music and amen to that. As said elsewhere given the finite number of musical notes and a limited amount of instrumentation it is impossible not to stumble across something that has been done before.
Take the below song – the intro is very reminiscent of Wish you were here Floyd but then it goes off onto quite a few different tangents and for me was one of the best songs of 2016:-
Joshua Van Brass says
Again… it’s good, but I don’t hear anything new. To my ears, that’s Floyd mixed with a bit of Bill Withers.
Absolutely everything about that is based on established sound pallets (Hammond organ, soul drums, spacey guitar) that are at least fifty years old.
When Syd Barrett plugged his guitar into an echo box in 1966, he was doing something truly new.
I feel I need to emphasise this more – I like this clip, it’s good, I don’t deny there is a lot of good music around (probably more so than fifty years ago), but I just don’t hear the innovation.
SteveT says
Yeah but that’s my point. Where have you heard Floyd mixed with Bill Withers before? And the Zara MacFarlane album that @Tiggerlion introduced me to is an amalgam of reggae and jazz that I certainly haven’t experienced before.
Baron Harkonnen says
But Van that’s just it Syd was doing something new, something exciting but how far can you take this music before it’s unlistenable in the quest for something new. Young guys/ladies today are influenced by 60 years of rock music, Syd was influenced by whatever he had swallowed before plugging his guitar in. Maybe you are tired of the music you hear today and that’s OK, me it still excites me, even playing Revolver as I did today followed by Jane Weaver’s 2017 offering. That Michael Kiwanuka track is good, and would be in whatever year it was/is/will be heard, whether it’s 1968, 2018 or 2068.
Tony Japanese says
When you heard Syd Barrett plug his guitar into an echo box did you ever wonder what or who had inspired him to do so? All artists are influenced by what came before them, or by what’s happening around them. Nothing is ever going to be purely original and being able to detect where modern bands have taken their influences from and using it to criticise them shouldn’t be the way to listen to music.
Knowing that X are influenced by Y and Z doesn’t make me like X any less. If anything, it will probably encourage me to seek out Y and Z’s music.
JustB says
Internet Discussions About Artistic Originality Which Never Happened: a play in one act.
Vladimir: There’s no originality in modern music.
Estragon: Listen to this, though. [he cues up a demonstrably quite original recent piece of music]
Vladimir: Oh yeah, you’re right. I’ve changed my mind.
Estragon: Oh look! Godot’s here!
Baron Harkonnen says
Just seen your post Tony J, I posted something similar further up before I got down here. So obviously I totally agree with you.
Happy Harry says
I was 9 years old in 1971 and had little or no interest in music; Dinky, Corgi, Airfix and playing in the mud in the ditch over the road were much more my thing. Having taken an interest in music from around 1975 I have explored backwards as well as trying to take an interest in contemporary music – mostly gleaned from 6 music these days. Whilst watching Hootenanny last night I expressed the view that the likes of the Sheeran won’t be remembered in 30 or 40 years with the same degree of reverence as are artists from late 60s and 70s. His shite cover of Layla rather served to prove my point, in my opinion. Others were quite vociferous in their disagreement
Joshua Van Brass says
I watched it as well and I agree! There is no excuse for an artist as safe and unassuming as Ed bloody Sheehan in this century.
SteveT says
I agree Harry but for example I would like to think that people like Wilco or Grandaddy or Flaming Lips will be.
Sheeran is for a different audience to the one I had in mind when I posted this.
Tiggerlion says
Exploring the year end lists, I’ve encountered two albums that sound like nothing else. They are Vince Staples – Big Fish Theory and Thundercat – Drunk. Describing the former as Hip Hop and the latter as Jazz-Funk is a disservice to both. They are definitely WTF? albums. I haven’t given them the obligatory six listens yet. I’ll return with some thoughts later.
Baron Harkonnen says
I will await your thoughts on these 2 albums with some anticipation Tiggs, especially Thundercat, who seem to stir my interest.
mrxsg says
Thundercat’s album was my album of the year.
I guess I should have voted.
retropath2 says
“When Syd Barrett plugged his guitar into an echo box in 1966, he was doing something truly new”…..
Tell that to Keith Rowe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsCDVawMemI
Joshua Van Brass says
Or Les Paul, actually, now I think about it.
mikethep says
Not to mention Hank Marvin, a more likely influence.
Bingo Little says
A few quick thoughts on this:
* It’s very easy to decide that there’s no more innovation, and then adopt an incredibly narrow interpretation of what constitutes “innovation” to support your argument. Ultimately, the only person this costs is you.
* Sometimes in order to recognise innovation you need a bit of a background in the relevant genre. If you don’t really listen to much Hip Hop then it will be hard to see what’s new about Grime, in the same way that a person who mainly listened to (say) classical music during the 60s would probably consider the Beatles and the Ramones to sound identical.
* A lot of musical innovation is the result of combining existing styles or ideas to create something new. You don’t see that much of this in the Classic Rock space, which is why the Afterword often feels that no innovation is occurring, but if this were a Metal or Electronic Music forum you’d probably consider this a Golden Age of innovation. The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.
* New musical genres since drum & bass? Well, given that drum & bass arrived circa 1990, that would leave Dubstep (and its million variants), Grime, Post-Rock, Grunge, Nu-Metal, Shoegaze, 2 Step, Chillwave, Trap, Trip Hop, Folktronica, Stoner Metal – and those are just the ones off the top of my head. You can (and probably will) dispute whether these are actually genres/innovations by your own definition, and you may not enjoy the music, but they all represent new forms and they’re widely recognised as distinct genres.
* Innovation is what makes music fun. If there really was nothing new to be said or done then what would be the point?
Joshua Van Brass says
Fair enough, I thought Dnb was later – mid nineties maybe. I would agree trip hop was a further innovation.
Grime/ dubstep though? That’s just jungle with a cockney accent. 🙂
retropath2 says
What would you call this? I call it choraltronica.
Whilst Michael Head was my years favourite last week, repeated listens has made Compassion by Forest Swords beat him, lingering longer in my ears and head.
It is no newer than it’s constituent parts. (And anyone who says Karl Jenkins can fuck right off.)
Tahir W says
1971 was the year I began to abandon prog in favour of ‘American rock’ (Allmans, Dead). So I tend too see this as positive about that year. Later swervings in taste occurred of course. You gotta love them all, in retrospect. Maybe.
Mike_H says
This is the same pointless discussion we’ve had here several times before. There is no definitive answer. Probably no new insights to be had either.
Points previously made:
There has always been a majority of Bad Music (= music I hate/don’t like/don’t like enough) produced and a minority of Good Music (= music I like/love/makes me ecstatic) produced.
Compared to 1971, there is a helluva lot more of both categories and at the same time it has become loads easier to hear music of both types.
The proportions of each type are probably still roughly the same, but overexposure to music in general is such that, for non-musicians in particular, it’s easy to become jaded and either lose/reduce your interest in music altogether or to retreat into the familiar and stop bothering with the new stuff out of sheer fatigue.
Tahir W says
Oh I don’t know. I think a good philosophy to adopt is that what’s new TO YOU might be very fresh and enjoyable, no matter when it was produced for the first time. And, as someone just said, there’s a helluva lot more old music than there is new music. But the discovery of something that is new to yourself is what counts, as far as the potential joy of discovery is concerned.
But then I must add, that what is involved in discovering music also includes the thought of how it fits into its era, or reacts to its era (insofar as one can formulate an idea of this, of course).
Baron Harkonnen says
What TW said ^
deramdaze says
Is it “loads easier” to hear Ed Sheeran in 2018 than, just to give two examples, Wham! or Culture Club 30-odd years ago?
He may have filled (ridiculously) the whole of the Top 20 earlier last year, but has anyone heard any of those songs, unless they actively sought them out, given the lack of TOTP, a valid pop chart, high street music shops, a weekly music press etc.?
Tiggerlion says
True.
I wouldn’t recognise an Ed Sheeran song if you pinned me down and inserted one into my lug hole.
Joshua Van Brass says
(Sets up camp outside Tigger’s door with some duct tape and an iPod loaded with Ed Sheeran songs).
Mike_H says
It’s AS easy to hear Ed Sheeran now than to hear Culture Club or Wham in ’84. Just tune into a pop radio station and there he is in 2018/there they were in 1984 but that’s not what I was talking about.
In 1971, for instance, Radio 1, the pirate stations and Top Of The Pops every Thursday evening, yours and your mates’ record players were the primary sources of pop music. Most cars still didn’t have radios, let alone cassette players.
Now almost every building you go into has music playing. Nearly every car that passes you on the street has music playing. Your bus, tube or train journey has that scratchy sound of leaky earphone music. Joggers or cyclists go past oblivious to the world, earphoned-up and lost in music except when they’re talking on their phones. Pedestrians wander into the road without looking, lost in music (or texting). Music is EVERYWHERE now. It wasn’t in 1971 or before.
Back then you often had to actively look for music. Now you often have to actively avoid it.
deramdaze says
I miss London, a little.
I miss the local football and rugby grounds I used to attend, the East End pubs, and I like wandering around my old district when I return in a way I never would have done three years ago.
One thing I do not miss is music (always complete shite) on the top deck of London buses.
Joshua Van Brass says
I feel as if I’m trying to argue a point I didn’t really intend to make!
I’m not actually trying to say there is no good music these days. (Although I reserve the right to deny everything if I read back what I’ve written and it turns out I have said exactly that). When I stop and don’t think about it, I can objectively say some pop music is as good as it ever was.
But the trouble is (and hopefully sone if you might relate to this) I CANT stop thinking about it. When I hear something current I just think ‘well that sounds like so and so from 1974 or whatever’, which leads me to wishing they would find something new to do instead.
Trip hop was mentioned up there. When I first heard Portishead I was genuinely stunned. I could hear all the different elements (John Barry strings, Duane Eddy guitar, Isaac Hayes drums) but this was a group moulding familiar elements into an utterly new listening experience. That’s what I’m missing.
David Kendal says
A friend sent me a link to an article which quotes notes made by Steve Lacy of Thelonious Monk’s sayings on music. One of them is “A genius is the one who is most like himself.” Leaving aside the definition of genius, isn’t that true of the most innovative artists whether it’s Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis or Monk himself? They sound innovative, not because you can pick out some fine changes that they have made to the tradition they work in, but because they immediately sound like a new and unique voice.
I think innovation ebbs and flows in all arts; I can’t see why popular music should be any different. I love jazz, but when I listen to the contemporary artists on a programme like Jazz Line-Up, they are always impressive musicians, but they usually show their influences very clearly. The big time of change for jazz was from the 1920s to the 1970s, and I don’t think I have heard anything after that, which can really match it. For example, Laura Jurd is a BBC New Generation Artist, and is well-worth hearing, but sounds like electric period Miles Davis. Miles always sounded like himself.
The Monk article is worth reading if you’re a fan, or perhaps any sort of musician.
“What you don’t play can be more important than what you do play.”
http://www.openculture.com/2017/12/thelonious-monks-25-tips-for-musicians-1960.html
Joshua Van Brass says
Thanks for that article, I’d never heard of that.
And you’ve just done that very Afterword thing of putting into words something I was trying to say but you did it better, so thanks again!
Tiggerlion says
Very interesting. Monk said ‘sing in your head when you play.’ Sadly, Monk was an irrepressible out-loud hummer and his humming was, frankly, completely out of tune. It’s often said that other musicians found it difficult to play with Monk because of his peculiar style. More often than not, it was his damn humming. You can hear it on most of his albums.
(See also, Art Tatum.)
mikethep says
Perhaps, like the rest of us, Monk found his own tunes impossible to hum.
Tony Japanese says
What have Theolonius Monk and Andy Hinchcliffe got in common?
Tiggerlion says
Both left-handed? It’s Monk’s creative dissonance in the lower register that is especially unsettling (compare to the much smoother-sounding Bud Powell).
Either that, or they both like a fez.
Moose the Mooche says
But Bud bests Monk in the area of grunting. He makes Keith Jarrett sound like John Cage (I can’t work out whether that’s a good joke or a shit one)
Tiggerlion says
Yer but, did he dance a little jig during the other musician’s solos? One way to ‘lay out’ I suppose.
Moose the Mooche says
Yeah, I love his dancing. And his hats. And that weird shit he does with the flats of his hands, which is as much visual as musical. He was a showman.
My favourite record of his is Brilliant Corners. On the cover he’s almost unrecognisable because he’s smiling… and hatless. Dude was the Pharrell of post-bop.
Tiggerlion says
Of course. Just like Pharrell. Except for the musical talent.
Striking the keys with flat, rather than bowed, fingers does change the sound. Monk was utterly unique. All his albums are brilliant.
Tony Japanese says
The answer is of course, brilliant corners.
Incidentally, when I listened to that album I found the pace of it too slow to fully register, which may reflect my attention span at the time.
Perhaps there’s need for a reapprasial.
Tiggerlion says
Having watched Andy a lot in his prime, I agree many of his corners were brilliant, but never as consistently brilliant as Monk.
Tiggerlion says
I honestly believe we are living in a golden age of Jazz. There is so much mix and matching with African, Jamaican and Latin rhythms with Western lyricism and story-telling. The Brainfeeder label in the US is stimulating innovation that is far more visceral than, say, ECM. There is Manchester’s Gondwana label with GoGo Penguin, Matthew Halsall, Nat Birchall, John Ellis and Mammal Hands. Plus, Giles Peterson’s London label, Brownwood. Jazz vocalists like Melanie de Biasio and Cécile McLorin Salvant are pushing at emotional and dramatic limits respectively. I just love the New Orleans joi de vivre of Jason Moran and the punk attitude of The Bad Plus. Kamasi Washington and Thundercat have made it to the mainstream, thanks to Kendrick Lamar. Ambrose Akinmusire is a very singular trumpet player, the most distinctive since Miles Davis. And, don’t forget Mousey’s friends, The Necks. Definitely Jazz and utterly unique.
Here is an article about the British influence. Most importantly it includes a Spotify playlist.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/mar/15/jazz-london-moses-boyd-united-vibrations
2017 was much better for Jazz innovation than 1971. Look at the 1971 list above. Not much Jazz and most of it Fusion with Rock. My album of the year is Zara McFarlane’s Arise. I’ll be listening to it for many years to come, just as I’m still listening to Alice Coltrane.
Mike_H says
Also Germany’s ACT and Enja labels from Munich, Norway’s Jazzland and Smalltown Supersound labels.
I expect others will occur to me after I hit Post.
Here’s one from the ACT label from 2008. Vietnamese jazz fusion.
(Huong Thanh & Nguyen Lê – Tales Of The Mountain)
Tiggerlion says
Ooh. That’s lovely, thanks.
Mike_H says
..and one I’ve just this minute discovered, from the Jazzland label. Norwegian jazz violinist Ola Kvernberg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWga5Nim96M
SteveT says
I thank you for the Zara MacFarlane recommendation and her album was on my year end list. It is just thrilling.
And not just a golden age for Jazz – listening to Craig Charles for example on 6music and there is some great stuff coming out in funk and soul. Personally I am hearing more exciting new stuff than I have on years – is it all without influences from the past? Absolutely not but that doesn’t stop it being great
retropath2 says
7/2/18 @ the Hare & Hounds, @stevet? Wednesday night and all that but, interested?
http://hareandhoundskingsheath.skiddletickets.com/event.php?id=13081483
SteveT says
@retropath2 definitely. Well spotted. Do you want to get tickets.
My turn to drive I think.