Great musicians of the 20th century

[himadri]

hi ajay
coltrane is free jazz.Thats what he really is , when he broke down the barriers of bebop.His 'sheets of sound' approach, when one note merges into the other was the secret which no one else could copy.his earlier miles davis recordings were stifling him and thats where he really took off.in fact, if you listen carefully, his melodic/modal improvisations are quite similar to the extensive aalaap in our hindustani classical where in the end the musician comes back to the sthaayi.the only difference is in the form of improvisation over a central theme.coleman took over from him but coltrane's range was unlimited.
i dont have many of bird's recordings so i wont be able to compare.but he had a real melodic voice and he needed only a small space to express himself.
the only other musician with the improvisatory skills and sheets of sound voice is allan holdworth.his fluid legato technique resembles coltrane's style and he also has the melodic range of coltrane.
if you like coltrane and also like guitar,you are bound to like holdsworth. do get some cds of holdsworth (not available in india but freely available everywhere else including amazon and i tunes). i would begin with his retrospective AGAINST THE CLOCK.listen to it .im sure you will like it.
cheers
himadri

 

[ajay124]

hi ajay
coltrane is free jazz.Thats what he really is , when he broke down the barriers of bebop.His 'sheets of sound' approach, when one note merges into the other was the secret which no one else could copy.his earlier miles davis recordings were stifling him and thats where he really took off.in fact, if you listen carefully, his melodic/modal improvisations are quite similar to the extensive aalaap in our hindustani classical where in the end the musician comes back to the sthaayi.the only difference is in the form of improvisation over a central theme.coleman took over from him but coltrane's range was unlimited.
i dont have many of bird's recordings so i wont be able to compare.but he had a real melodic voice and he needed only a small space to express himself.
the only other musician with the improvisatory skills and sheets of sound voice is allan holdworth.his fluid legato technique resembles coltrane's style and he also has the melodic range of coltrane.
if you like coltrane and also like guitar,you are bound to like holdsworth. do get some cds of holdsworth (not available in india but freely available everywhere else including amazon and i tunes). i would begin with his retrospective AGAINST THE CLOCK.listen to it .im sure you will like it.
cheers
himadri

Its a pleasure to discover somebody talking passionately and knowledgeably about jazz!Tried Allan Holdworth on Rhythm House site and came up with zilch.Will check him out elsewhere.Curious...I have never heard of him before...
Bird Sounds....
Rhythm House Product Details
http://www.rhythmhouse.in/Detail.aspx?productListing=85312
Amazon.com: Yardbird Suite: The Ultimate Collection: Charlie Parker: Music
Amazon.com: Boss Bird: Charlie Parker: Music
Amazon.com: Chasin' the Bird: Charlie Parker: Music
http://www.jazzdisco.org/charlie-parker/catalog/album-index/
Boss Bird and Chasing the Bird have INCREDIBLE music but the recording quality on these Box Sets from Proper is BAD!The first two titles have excellent sound quality which is a miracle with Charlie Parker.Many other jazz greats also suffer because of bad recordings---Bud Powell,Lester Young,Roy Elridge,Art Tatum,Charlie Christian.
Since you like guitarists how do you rate Django Reinhardt and Paco De Lucia?Personally I really like both of them.Joe Pass of course is in a league of his own.

 

[Colecutter]

Did someone forget Jerry Garcia. Songwriting talent apart, his guitar work was unique and perhaps incomparable in its beauty - subtle and hypnotic. Here's Jerry just about a year before his death, playing on "Rosebud". I couldnt upload it so have pasted the url address:

YouTube - Grateful Dead - Peggy O - 6-26-94

 

[ajay124]

Grateful Dead was one of the finest acts of the good ole late 60's early 70's.Somehow I always loved 'the great outdoor feeling thumbing their nose at people who stay put' feeling they bought to their songs.
My favorite Dead's
Box of Rain
Truckin
Me And Bobby Mcgee
Candyman
Me and My uncle
YouTube - Gr@teful De@d MAMU/CB

 

[Colecutter]

Oh they were great all the way into the 90s. Listen to "In the dark" from 1987 and "Terrapin Station" from 1977. And of course the live albums. I had the good luck of seeing Phil Lesh and Friends play the Dead's songs, twice. They did a good job, but without Jerry it just isnt the same.

And wasnt Me and my Bobby McGee a Janis song?

 

[moktan]

me and bobby mcghee was a Kris Kristofferson song (the same Kris who went on to form The Highway Men with Waylon Jennings, Johny Cash and Willie Nelson)..the orginal Bobby was a woman..and yes Jerry did cover that song...
my personal favorite is Pig Pen..love his Katie May, Smokestack Lightening and Turn on Your Love Light (i have quite a few versions of this never ending favorite...)..my favorite Dead album is American Beauty also love The Working Man's Dead and Blues For Allah...towards the end I felt they lost their way, perhaps after the commercial success of Touch Of Grey..never quite liked Picasso Moon or for that matter even that formulaic Standing on the Moon...i used to be quite a deadhead at one time..now i am a nethead since so much of the Dead music is available online....

 

[Colecutter]

Did you mean American Beauty? That's such a classic I dont have words really. Workingman's Dead, released the same year, isnt far behind. I know Touch of Grey was some kind of a hit, but I like almost all songs on In the Dark, despite their 80s production sound. Havent gone too deep into their earlier stuff, when Pigpen was alive - the pre American Beauty era.

 

[himadri]

Thanks for the bird links ajay.will check them out.unlike coltrane whose impulse remasters are of real audiophile quality, bird suffers from lack of quality recordings.As for jazz guitarists , lucia and reinhardt are right at the top but whereas lucia's audiophile recordings are freely available, djangos are not so many.al demeola, pat metheny, john schofield are some of my other favorite jazz guitarists.
colecutter-jerry garcias voicings are really unique and he can sit and play for 2 hours, improvising throughout in tone ,touch and melody without boring you a little bit and people still call him a rock/blues guitarist.That's where the compartments blur because actually he's playing jazz-like improvisations most of the time.
cheers
himadri

 

[moktan]

Did you mean American Beauty? That's such a classic I dont have words really. Workingman's Dead, released the same year, isnt far behind. I know Touch of Grey was some kind of a hit, but I like almost all songs on In the Dark, despite their 80s production sound. Havent gone too deep into their earlier stuff, when Pigpen was alive - the pre American Beauty era.

yeah its American Beauty , thanks did the corrections....the only person who sounds close to Jerry Garcia is David Thomas of Pere Ubu (though David Thomas is kind of like Garcia on steriod and Acid together)...some one called his voice "James Stewart trapped in an oboe", while another wrote that "Mr Thomas's voice is that of a man muttering in a crowd. You think he's talking to himself until you realize he's talking to you."...
forum members should check our some music of this unique sounding yet influential band...their synth player Ravenstine took this instrument to another level...

 

[doors666]

never liked any of the studio albums of dead... but their shows rock like nothing else... but then I am not a huge fan.

 

[ajay124]

American Beauty was probably their best studio album but my personal favorite was a 2 LP set I had on tape which included Me And My Uncle,Me and Bobby Mcgee and Johny.B.Goode(for me the best covers of all three tracks).My tape had the title 'Live Dead' but now when I Google this title it comes up with an entirely different album.But these tracks on my Sony C-90 Cassette were truely remarkable!I found the Bobby Mcgee version on YouTube and its dated Filmore West 07/02/71.
YouTube - Grateful Dead - Me & Bobby Mcgee - Fillmore West - 07/02/71
1969-1974 were pretty much the peak Dead years.Since the mid 80's I felt they started rambling.The Dead lifestyle cannot be sustained beyond the age of 40.Which is why 'Hope I die before I get old' and 'It's better to burn out than it is to rust' defined (MY) generation.Well I'm not dead but I'm rusting.Even Mick Jagger and Keith Richard have turned respectable in their old age!Sir Paul Mc was respectable even in his teens.
Incidentally have you guys dipped into the entire beat generation thing....Jack Kerouac's On The Road,William Burrough's Naked Lunch,Allen Ginsberg's Howl,Ken Keasy's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest,and Norman Mailer's Advertisements For Myself(My reference text as a young man)?
That entire non conformist culture has been turned on its head and what we are left with is an ambitiuous,career obsessed,greedy,consumerist,dumb generation of below 30's,without a single spark of rebellion or adventure in their bones and the world is a poorer and utterly boring place because of that.
FREEDOM'S JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR NOTHING LEFT TO DO/NOTHIN' AIN'T WORTH NOTHIN' BUT ITS FREE!

 

[moktan]

i think one helluva great beat poet is Amir Baraka (Leroy Jones)..some of my favorites being It's Nation Time and The New World...but speaking of subversive verses none so pithily potent than this Harlem by Lanston Hughes ..

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-
like a syrupy sweet

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load

Or does it explode?

...........and here is Baraka

Monday in B-Flat

I can pray
all day
& God
wont come.

But if I call
911
The Devil
Be here

in a minute!

 

[moktan]

another Langston Hughes ....

The Weary Blues

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of a old gas light
He did a lazy sway......
He did a lazy sway......
To the tune o' those Weary Blues
With his ebony hand on each ivory key
He made the old piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard the Negro sing, that old piano moan-
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self,
I's gwine quit my frownin'
And put my troubles on the shelf"
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor
He played a few chords the he sang some more-
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied-
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died"
And far into the night he crooned that tune
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.

 

[ajay124]

Billie Collins.Poet Laureate.
YouTube - The Country - Billy Collins Animated Poetry

 

[Colecutter]

Beautiful poetry; thanks. Ajay124, i think the album youre refering to is called "Grateful Dead". It's their second live album released in '71 i think, and is also known as 'skull and roses' because of its cover art. There are people who're fond of their early phase, perhaps till 70, and then there are those who like them as they grew up and matured and released those terriric studio albums, right till "In the Dark". And as a live act, they were good right till the end.

and are you sure keith richard's respectable now; i watched him in "shine a light" (2008) and he was anything but .

 

[ajay124]

@Colecutter
Yeah! Keith is special!
I always felt R is for Rock'n'Roll and the Rolling Stones
and B is for Boring and the Beatles.

 

[Colecutter]

I'm inclined to agree with you there. I'm fond of just a handful of Beatles songs, perhaps just 6 or 7, and could never quite lap up ther albums like the rest did. It's essentially their later (post Sgt Pepper) stuff that's worth it. But that's about when the Stones really kicked in, and I still cant get enough of Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile.

 

[ajay124]

I'm inclined to agree with you there. I'm fond of just a handful of Beatles songs, perhaps just 6 or 7, and could never quite lap up ther albums like the rest did. It's essentially their later (post Sgt Pepper) stuff that's worth it. But that's about when the Stones really kicked in, and I still cant get enough of Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile.

There are several nice Beatles tracks Eleanor Ribby,Hey Jude,A Day In The Life,Strawberry Fields,Long And Winding Road,Fool On The Hill,Let It Be,In My Life etc....But no way were they the greatest.For me that would always be CREAM!
But on the whole I like the Stones.Love some of their oldies like Ruby Tuesday,She's A Rainbow,Mother's Little Helper,Dandelion,Paint It Black....
YouTube - Ruby Tuesday. Rolling Stones

 

[ajay124]

Sites for Music Reviews
W & A's Record Reviews
Top Albums of All-Time at TopTenREVIEWS

 

[hrd.hrishikesh]

Hi,

Vocals: Abdul Karim Khan, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Amir Khan, Bhimsen Joshi

Instrumental:
Sitar: Ravi Shankar, Vilayat Khan, Nikhil Banerjee
Sarod: Ali Akbar Khan
Sehnai: Bismillah Khan

Tabla: Ahmedjan Thirakuwa, Anokhelal, Shamta Prasad, Kishen Maharaj, Keramatullah Khan, Zakir Hussain

Semiclassical vocals:
Thumri: Siddheshwari Devi
Ghazal: Begum Akhtar

Regards.

I would add Pt Kumar Gandharva in the vocals list, what exotic singing, as if an angel is crooning.
Instrumentals: Sir, you forgot Pt Shivkumar Sharma. I'm aware that many dismiss Santoor as unworthy of classical music but he singlehandedly changed the scene. What a genius to listen to, his mastery over layakari is simply out of the world.
Am a little saddened by your later comment about hesitating to put U. Zakir in the list. Other masters you mentioned have their place but Zakir is the rockstar of classical. So many of my generation got into tabla just because of his sophisticated playing (not the hair or the charm, only sheer tabla of his earlier days). The jugalbandis between these two masters are my absolute favourites in classical performances.
I do envy you for the privilege of listening to U Thirakwa in his prime, what I wouldn't give for that! Would you happen to have any recordings of the old of these masters?
Regards.