Don’t get me wrong, I like a bit of the “nicer” end of jazz, not so much the challenging chin-stroking stuff you are supposed to like once you “get into” it. I am listening to ‘Mingus Ah-Um’ as I type this, and wonderful joyous life-affirming music it is, too. There’s even one on there that sounds like the 60’s Batman TV theme.
But for a genre that prides itself on improvising – indeed that’s the stated USP of it – I wonder why people revere LP’s that are by their nature one-offs, captured forever in time.
NO doubt this has been answered many times by clever people, but I ask again: what (apart from capturing a lovely song) is the point of recorded jazz?
Well?
I find it a bit of a squeeze getting a live quartet in the living room.
And as for bathtime – nightmare!
A Loofah Supreme!
Kind of loo.
(Wash and) Go!
Our Matey In Paris.
Now’s The Bathtime.
Steamin’!
Out of the Pool?
(oh dear, time for bed…)
So, Into The Cot then 🙂
Reminds me – not yet got round to picking up a copy of the Don Ellis album Electric Bath.
mmmm….nice question…
I’ve been listening to a lot of Miles Davis and John Coltrane recently. They both recorded iconic albums at a time when they played live set after live set in clubs. A lot of the live recordings weren’t released at the time. The difference is marked. The time limitations of a vinyl imposed a certain discipline. Live, they could stretch out beyond 15 minutes and stop when they felt they should. There is a live version of My Favourite Things that lasts over an hour.
The sound quality is very different too. Jazz was fortunate in that it had studio pioneers like Van Gelder dedicated to the cause. The balance and precision of the studio recordings, even in the fifties is exemplary, far better than live recordings in even the most acoustic friendly venue such as The Village Vanguard.
In addition, the studio recordings were improvised. They rarely rehearsed and were usually done in a first take. The first Miles Davis quintet, for example, recorded four albums worth of material over just two days in 1956. Coltrane did something similar a couple of years later.
Jazz musicians are amazing. The live albums are often as enjoyable and involve as high quality playing as the studio albums. Fortunately, we fans now have the opportunity to indulge ourselves in both. Try revisiting Kind Of Blue followed by the recent release of the final European tour of the Miles Davis Quintet featuring John Coltrane. They are entirely different and that’s largely because of the circumstances of the recording, studio v live.
Totally agree, Tigger.
The Miles Davis/Coltrane Final Tour album is as you say, a great illustration of the contrasts of different takes. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard ‘ So What’ from
‘ Kind Of Blue’ but the live versions on that recent release are a revelation to me. The familiar version is beautiful, an acknowledged masterpiece, which is positively stately when placed against the live versions. They are wild and almost frantic by comparison, which is thrilling & serves to highlight just how measured the studio version is. I have really relished having new life breathed into the experience of hearing the track- I think because I’ve now processed radically different versions I have a greater appreciation of the original.
So the live recordings were improvised. Again, they are still now static, preserved exactly as they were when recorded. Surely jazz is redundant if not live?
Well, every recording is just a moment, that particular time, that interaction between those individuals playing together on that day and the engineers and producers who helped them. When they are joyous, wondrous music they are revered. That’s the way it is for every genre.
Teo Macero and Miles Davis introduced overdubs and splicing to jazz. Previously, it had been a whole group performance preserved on tape for our listening pleasure for generations to come. That’s the point of a recording. It can be reprinted multiple times, exposing the music than more than the maximum of two hundred that can squeeze into The Village Vanguard, and it can be listened to at leisure and repeatedly according to the consumers taste.
I don’t see any logic in that statement. Just because something is improvised doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be kept.
A live-in-studio jazz record is a preserved slice of time. Like an artist’s sketch. Or podcast chat. Or blog posts.
Should artists destroy their sketches once they’ve completed them? Should Twang & co. not bother recording their Skype wibblings? Should our bletherings here disappear as soon as typed?
“Well, allow me to retort” 😉
Those other things are not improvised, they are worked on, edited, and so on. So they are not the same. Nerrr.
But if a take of a track isn’t going as the musicians like, they stop and do another take. Several takes of a tune may be recorded and the one the performers (or the producer) likes is released on the album. Or more pieces may be recorded than will fit on an album and some will be either left in the vaults or put on subsequent albums. Also, the length of time a piece was played for was often constrained by the necessity of fitting it onto a side of a record. Before the days of the long player, recordings had to fit onto a 78 RPM side. The LP album was introduced by Columbia in June 1948, but a 60 minute studio version of “My Favourite Things” wouldn’t have been available unedited on record until CDs came into use.
One hour-plus version of My Favourite Things, you say. Where might this be found?
July 22nd, 1966 in Tokyo. Here’s a reference:
http://coltrane.room34.com/thesis
Excellent article – thanks!
Well as long as Miles Davis is still dead that’s the only way I’ll get to hear him play.
Gentlemen we have a winner!
He may be dead, but he hasn’t stopped moving.
It’s an excellent question. But why stop at jazz? What’s the point of recording classical music? Or Mongolian nose flute music? Icelandic sphincter singing? Polka? Grime? Death metal? Pop, rock n’roll? What’s the point of recording any of this? What’s the point of ANYTHING? I think this is what Maurice is getting at with his provocative post. He’s using “recorded jazz” as a synonym for “anything,” a paradigm for post-modern malaise. It’s a bleak cri de coeur from a despairing soul as the entire world goes up in flames around him – all the ideals he once held dear have become cheapened, tawdry and meaningless. No more nicely-ironed shorts and Startrite sandals. Gone the days of Vimto and little blue bags of salt in wax-paper bags of crisps. Now it’s all … well, he doesn’t know what it is. But he knows it’s pointless. We’re here for you, Mo. Hugsies, big guy.
Possibly. Possibly it was a drunken “insight.” You’ve had those, right?
Vimto is still available here. ‘Vimto helps you vomit’, as the man on the wireless used to say.
Quite right, H.P. The permanent recording of everything, which we English speakers call “the past”, is an infernal nuisance, limiting our options at every step.
the loss of my ears in a hatchet throwing competition
the Kevin Spacey tattoo my back
the confinement of this prison cell
…if only I knew the location of The Great Bulk Eraser in the sky…
Icelandic Sphincter Singing loses a lot on record. It was responsible for the smoking ban in Iceland.
duc01 and kfd go to Icelandic Sphincter Singing concerts together. Then they whip themselves with nettles and go for a bracing geyser enema.
You are envy!
It gives you the chance to hear people do their thing. Most of these artists didn’t do world tours and the great majority of people live nowhere near a venue.
Also, you know, most of the dudes who made this stuff are, like, dead.
That’s their excuse! Lazy sods.
I know, I’ll post a comment.
That should stop this stupid thread
Go on then, Mousey.
It might be a stupid thread, but we got to make some jazz/bathroom puns, so definitely worth it.
Poo Train.
Kind Of Poo
Milestones
Piles Davis
How does Miles Davis break wind..?
In A Silent Way
Steamin’
Quiet Shites
Jack’s Johnson
Birth Of The Stool
Pupu
Miles Runs the PooPoo Down
It’s amazing* how quickly the puns went from general bathroom-related to very very toilet-specific indeed.
*not remotely amazing
Oh! Go on then. Ignore me. It’s not as if I’m a real person with FEELINGS or anything , oh no, definitely.
Art Pepper Meets The Bowel Section
Bitches Spew
Night Strain
Stretches Of Pain
Mingus A Hum
Bidet and Diz
Yes, thanks for that Mousey.
Let’s go back to doing lists of songs by [insert yet another list critierion here].
Songs that Shouldn’t Have Been Recorded?
To me, this seems to be a rather silly proposition.
Rarely do jazz musicians without anything sketched out as a framework for improvisation. I’m not even sure the recordings of The Necks are total improv in the studio. Classical recordings may be of the same music but the individual recordings vary, otherwise, we’d only need one of each.
Dylan recorded Blood On The Tracks in New York then a different version was subsequently released. Bands interact in the studio which is why they may do numerous takes of a song to “get it right”. Each time some element of spontaneity is present.
Based on the basic premise of your OP, why bother recording all this stuff?
I recall reading about a project of Bill Drummond’s a few years back, to perform something or other one time only, never to be played again and never recorded.
So… no-one’s really sure about this one, I guess.
Although if pressed I’d say perhaps there’s the slightest tentative consensus barely edging slightly towards the antithetical position. Hard to tell really.
It provides income for the musicians.
Yes
This is the best answer yet.
It also provides a taste of what you are likely to hear at a concert which is bound to help ticket sales.
The question makes me think of Aussie impro trio, The Necks. They have no material. Every performance is completely unique but they do put albums out.
Not the same as seeing them live but worth a listen anyway.
Think of it like this: when Miles conjured up Dominique Gaumomt on guitar and put him alongside Pete Cosey and Reggie Lucas at the Carnegie Hall concert in 1974, Miles wanted to shut Lukas up, who had been edging for a pay rise. He (Miles) will have known the gig was being recorded, likewise Lukas, whereas Gaumont will have thought, why would they record this, we haven’t rehearsed, this is my first gig with this band.
Their respective perspectives might have been: Teo will sort out the good bits and we’ll make the Billboard chart and that’s next month’s rent sorted (Miles); what’s this sonofabitch playing at, I only asked for $25 more (Lukas); wow, I’m in a band with Miles frigging Davis (Gaumont).
Horizons were short back then. Just like pop was not created for the aeons, neither was jazz. None of Miles or Lukas or Gaumont could have imagined punters 40 or 50 or 600 years later seeking out and paying for their product. Like I do. There’s a possible answer @MC Escher. There is no point, but circumstances plus technology can appear to give one one.
And Dark Magus will continue to be sought out in some form in the future.