I’m no great fan of jazz flute, and Herbie Mann would be right down the bottom of my list of favourite jazz flootlists. He made far too many albums – 42 in the 1960s alone – and plodded down far too many blind alleys, including getting down with ver kids.
But this, which turned up in my Spotify Discover playlist, is beyond appalling, and I felt i had to share. It starts off pleasantly enough – nice guitar by Larry Coryell in the background – but then degenerates into a dreadful noodlefest completely devoid of ideas and inspiration. And it goes on for ever, until it subsides into pleasant enough again.
It was Hunter S. Thompson’s campaign choon when he ran for Sheriff in 1970. No wonder he didn’t win.
Anybody agree/disagree?
This, on the other hand…
This is great for two great reasons!
1 It’s loloutloud hilarious
2 The flute playing is fantastic
And, I forgot to say, the tune itself isn’t substantial enough to bear the weight of ‘improvisation’ he’s loading on it.
Not keen, can you tell?
Sciatica giving you gyp again, Mike?
Not enough bad-tempered slagging-off on this blog, IMHO.
That’s true enough.
Hyperbole of course Mike but to answer your question no. As it happens this is the only album of Herbie Mann’s that I own – not being a fan of flute in general. The cast of musicians was pretty damn good and Battle Hymn is my preferred track.
I saw BB King in the early seventies and who pops up to jam….Herbie. Talk about kill some good blues songs with flute noodling.
The follow up album (I think) also featured top line players including Duane Allman
And how much better that track would be with a sax, or even a clarinet.
As it happens that’s the only Herbie Mann album I’ve ever owned too, given to me by the man who was briefly my father-in-law and knew I liked jazz. Not that jazz, I didn’t have the courage to say. Don’t even remember listening to BHOTR – perhaps I never got that far before I moved it on.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had to stand up and assert the rights and delights of the Aimless Noodle. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?
(Nice track, Mike – lovely way to start the day!)
Oh you…
Aimless noodling on sax , brass even keyboards, but far less so guitar and as for flute, flute can fuck right off.
What? What? All I’m sayin’, right, is give the noodle a chance. Recognise your Inner Noodle. Dance with it! BE FREE! We are all children of the Big Noodle! There is nothing else but NOODLE!
Wrong! The noodle is like a spoilt child that needs to be indulged by its earnest, proud parents. The noodle needs support, you see, it needs a framework, a protective safe space in which to function. Outside the bosom of a loving family, the noodle will perish on an empty stage.
Right! We are that loving family! That protective safe space! With our help, the NOODLE OF LOVE will ENCIRCLE THE WORLD!!!!!!
Your noodle of love couldn’t encircle a beansprout. Do put it away.
You’ve changed your tune …
Every fule kno taht the King of the NOODLE is the soba.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMWSQySvI2M
I’m waiting for the inevitable slew of flute-related YouTube clips from Kaisfatdad. Here, a sunny group of schoolkids in Haapajärvi play a version of Eye Of The Tiger, up to their waists in a glacier. What’s not to like? And there, world-renowned Nôrwêgįän flautist Öyvind Hyvinkää interprets “Snoopy And The Red Baron” while bouncing naked on a trampoline. Warming to his theme some two hundred clips into the thread, Kaisfatdad starts to improvise, posting clips that feature anything at all rhyming with “flute”. Here’s a man wearing a suit!
Shoot me now, I beg of you.
Give the man a break, HP, he’s 64 today. A mere stripling to some of us, I know, but he’s probably feeling a bit sensitive.
Damn right, Mike! I am impressed that you know this and am horrified to be outed. On a thread about appalling jazz noodlefests. The humiliation! I was hoping that if I kept quiet enough no one would notice.
Here to cheer me up are some Norwegian flautists playing The Mountain Milkmaid’s Sunday
and the magnificent Lyn Dobson from the golden age of the Soft Machine before Wyatt departed and the Noodlers took over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yux7kVmd9I
And if we are doing jazz flute we must have Harold McNair.
He played with Donovan who invented both the flute and the noodle.
AAAAAAAARGHHHH!!!!!! THE FLOODGATES HAVE BEEN BREACHED!!!!!!! TO THE HILLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Happy Birthday, K – how about a thread of “Happy Birthday” YouTube clips?)
Kaisfatdad has surely breached some kind of etiquette here,no? 😂😂😂
FFS HP stop encouraging him
I cannot tell a lie – Facebook told me…Happy Barfday anyway…
Happy birthday, KFD.
Jeremy Steig did some rather bland flute-tootling on some albums in the ’60s, aimed at the hippy demographic, I seem to recall. Not recalled in detail, thankfully.
Roland Kirk, on the other hand..
(You Did It)
Of course DONOVAN (obligatory capitals) had Harold McNair playing flute on some of his records.
Now he was good. And of course Jimmy Hastings got to do some quality tootling on Caravan’s early albums. Being the guitarist’s older brother an’ that.
Exactly – that’s what I call jazz flootling!
The flute is essential. Full fucking stop.
Even Tull , and I’m a Tull fan, would’ve been much better without the flute. Less distinctive sure but better than distinctively bad.
Dad had a few James Galway Records , actually a fiendishly large collection and one day in an act of masochism I gave a few a spin.
Conclusion – they’re all awful.
That Kirk clip demonstrates the direct line between Kirk and Sir Ian of Tull.
You’re both sad and in many ways lonely old men.
😂😂😂
In so many various, yet subtly different ways.
So many ways that are different, and yet subtly the same …
You guys are the best Granddadios!
I like a bit of jazz flute, but yes that track is quite wearing. In a charity shop on Saturday I saw a sealed CD comp horrifyingly titled ‘Jazz Banjo’. No doubt it’s still there.
(I did grab the 4-disc Brucie ‘Tracks’ set for a fiver though.)
I don’t like much Bruce, but I do like Tracks.
I’ve never indulged in Jazz Flute. Is the mouthpiece salty?
Oh dear.
I wouldn’t either.
Tracks …. hmmm … is “Brothers under the Bridge” on that? That’s a decent song, I reckon.
Just had a look, and it is.
Following on from yesterday’s RPO thread, I was initially confused by the appeal of a Ken Bruce 4 CD set. Been suffering from insomnia all week.
To be fair I’d buy that too.
Jazz banjo! Now you’re talking!!
The only acceptable use of banjo. Apart from sticking up a Mumford’s arse, of course
Waste of a banjo.
Herbie Mann got some great players around him on Memphis Underground (Coryell, Sonny Sharrock). He also did an album called London Underground (see what he did there?) featuring Mick Taylor and assorted Brits. It begins with a version of Bitch. Backing track rocks along alright, but the fluting takes it into James Last territory. Fuckinawful
Leave. The. Flute. Alone.
LEAVEITALONE
I say, has anybody seen my piccolo?
There’s a thread: musos who surrounded themselves with great players but weren’t actually very good themselves.
They’re called “drummers”, Mike.
Drummers are musos? Who knew!
I was actually thinking of John Mayall. 😉
Or the other way round, good musicians who surround themselves with lesser (therefore unthreatening) talents. Jeff Beck springs to mind. (He’s wearing a divine purple ball gown on the cover of his new album!)
In the absence of Mojo, I will bite. I have seen Jeffrey quite a few times and your suggestion is ludicrous HP.
What ARE the worst instruments in jazz? And the best? Let’s list them!
No.
You’ve changed your tune.
flute and vibes. World would be a better place without them.
Bad vibes? Thought you were an ECM fan. You must have some Gary Burton in there
Yes I do. The only exception is Roy Ayers.
Ayers Rocks
⬆️ Just drawing your attention to this amusing play on words.
You’re supposed to say Uluru Rocks now.
Noooooo! Vibes are the mutt’s nuts! I picked up a Gary Burton CD comp in a chazza a few weeks ago which has provided the soundtrack to many a happy bathtime.
If I had to ban an instrument from the world of jazz it would be the banjo. I’m trying to think of something worse, but can’t.
that’s a cop out MB – banjos are irrelevant to jazz.
Roy Ayers yes, Roy Ayers with Fela yes yes yes
Modern Jazz Quartet yep but beyond that yawn and that includes Gary Burton.
Irrelevant they might be, but ‘jazz banjo’ exists, so that’s what I choose.
Edit: Wait, I just looked below. There IS something worse: jazz bagpipes! AARGH.
Sorry Min I’m rather partial to the jazz bagpipes.
Isn’t that just a tartan bong?
Shh, don’t let everyone know.
You fiend!
I fear we can no longer be fwends, Hubes.
Your loss bagpipe h8ter!
The fabulous Rufus Harley!!
Wouldn’t it be great if he had done a duet with Bela Fleck?
Ahem!
Well, I googled “Alpenhorn Jazz” because it felt faintly ridiculous, but it exists.
It’s ok, if a bit odd. And I only have one earphone working at the moment, so all kinds of stuff could be going on in the right channel I have no idea about.
The girl’s lost one of her iBud thingies.
It’s close, but it’s no crumhorn is it?
Vibes are the big brother to the xylophone.
For what it’s worth, this is my favourite jazz vibraphone album of all time, “Impressions of a Patch of Blue” by Walt Dickerson, featuring the legendary Sun Ra on piano. It was the soundtrack to a Sidney Poitier in the mid-60s.
How about some Rufus Harley playing Coltrane on the bagpipes?
Whoops, hadn’t read that far down, but, as I am sure we can all agree, 2 Rufus Harley clips are better than none.
Really. What a grumpy bunch of miserable Philistines you are. I think there may be a compensatory thing going on here – flute and vibes are ethereal, quiet instruments. Delicate. It’s telling that the only flautist rated here is Kirk, who overblows everything. You can’t overblow vibes, though, so no vibes player gets his due from the tough outback yobboes who prefer manly, throaty instruments. Me, I like both instruments. They add to the tonal variety of music. I don’t feel my masculinity is compromised by enjoying them, and neither would you if you stopped bothering about your winkies.
Ok if pressed the flute would be out of the life raft way before the vibes. Flute is so, so err pootley. No resonance no soul. Next you will be championing the recorder.
Too right. I like a nice vibe.
Coltrane’s 26-2 played on a recorder:
I don’t normally like flute music, but that was all right. I especially liked the cry for help around 5.10, and the bit where it goes out of tune at 5.38.
Here’s some Fun Facts about Flutes
1. A flute and a vibraphone playing in unison sound really good, greater than the sum of the parts so to speak (Jazz Arranging 101)
2. THREE flutes sound better than one. Tchaikovsky knew this (Dance of the Reed Flutes from The Nutcracker)
3. The ALTO FLUTE is a beautiful instrument, lower than the regular squeaky one. Used to great effect on this famous record, and played by Bud Shank, a Famous Jazz Musician. (The Mamas and Papas – California Dreaming)
I didn’t know that was Bud Shank, or indeed that it was an alto flute…
I don’t have a problem with the flute itself – Poulenc’s Flute Sonata is one of my favourite pieces of music. Just its wilful misuse…;-)
re point 1 I guess that is a case of negative X negative = positive.
Prompted by this thread I played Hotel Hello an ECM album by Steve Swallow and Gary Burton. An old girlfriend who went off with a mate gave it to me so that hasn’t helped the cause for starters but apart from Hotel Hello’s intro where Steve Swallow is really grooving it was all rather yawn and I took it off before the end of side 2.