Jazz badly needed some new life. I’m so happy to see these two completely reinvigorating a nearly dead genre.
Julian Lage too. We’re lucky to hear such inspired, confident, daring artists after 30 years of people doing their best impression of their grandparents.
Yeah. It’s TOTALLY different. I just so happen to like both. I’ve been bored of jazz for a long time and Julian and DOMi and JD Beck excite me.
Before that, the only people I heard trying something new were Herbie Hancock or Allan Holdsworth. You certainly can’t say Wynton Marsalis was treading any new ground.
I don’t know if I agree with that, off the top of my head Makaya McCraven, Kamasi Washington, Zs, Terrace Martin, Louis Cole, Thundercat, Kendrick Lamar, Colin Stetson, and BBNG have all done interesting stuff with it in the last 10-20 years. Always room for more good musicians, tho.
Julian Lage
That’s actually a new name for me, just picked a few of his songs at random and Boo’s Blues was good and Omission was good and a surprising sound for a jazz song, so I’ll have to look for more of his stuff for sure
I wouldn’t consider Kendrick Lamar jazz. R&B for sure.
I had never heard of any of those other musicians. Thanks for making a list that I can check out! :)
So, maybe I should rephrase and state that the problem isn’t jazz but rather how hard it is for us to discover new acts. Regardless, I haven’t heard anything that inspired me like the musicians I listed. Thanks for taking the time to show me some newish inspiring acts.
Julian’s work is definitely inspired by Ornette Coleman (not to mention how close his guitar sound and sensibilities are to his buddy Bill Frissel).
Here’s my personal favorite performance of all time. The intro is absolute catharsis for me. He has even progressed further from here but IMO nothing else in the musical world after the year 2000 really matches the nuance and playfulness of this one moment for me. Edit: I switched to an individuous link after a Reese’s ad interrupted my favorite part of the intro. 🤣
Yeah, I might be stretching a bit with Kendrick, he definitely isn’t jazz for full albums, but he’s got some moments that pull so deeply on the roots of the genre (like, his flow in “For Free?” is more scat than rap) that I think it’s fair to say he’s one of the artists keeping it vital
For sure! If I find the time/energy I might try to link some songs into that list. Haha, knowing me (whose understanding of musical genre has been thoroughly demented by a lifetime of looking for new weird sounds) there might be a few on that list that are questionably jazz too (but, hey, it’s a genre that goes from Sun Ra to Kenny G, who knows)
Listening to that now, and I see what you say about catharsis and Coleman, that rhythm he starts playing around 1:04 is amazing and really shows that influence. Definitely going to have to check out more of him.
😊 This is such a wholesome conversation. Thanks for taking the time to listen. I’m pleased to hear that it hits you in the same way it does for me.
Here’s something pretty that he wrote and performed recently with a similarly divine feel. youtu.be/bFRVK_1o2cUThis one reminds me of Debussy.
You should post some jazz links on here for the acts you mentioned. I’d love to check them out. You seem to have great taste.
I should also share one of the most divine musical moments I’ve ever witnessed live. I was a student at UMass at the time and sat in the front row of the cavernous Fine Arts Center auditorium and saw Herbie Hancock, Michael Becker, Roy Hargrove, Brian Blade, John Pattitucci playing a tribute to Miles Davis and John Coltrane. IMO, my recording of Brecker’s interpretation of Naima is better than the performance that made the album where they used his performance. Sorry about the microphone noise! youtu.be/nU7x2odQGfM
For sure, music is honestly one of the few things that doesn’t make me kinda loathe other human beings (I usually feel compelled to use my online time to raise awareness about terrible current event things), so, yeah, the wholesomeness has been mutually appreciated
Wow, that Lage track is a great showcase for him, it shouldn’t be possible to get all those different sounds out of an electric guitar without having an array of pedals but he’s got such a delicate touch, it’s like the aural equivalent of what a good painter can do with brush strokes.
And thank you for sharing that live Brecker recording, that was something special and something I probably never would have stumbled across on my own. That combination of venue performers and composers sounds incredible, and speaking as someone who’s done a bootleg or two the microphone noises just add to the authenticity and story of it for me.
I wouldn’t want to spam/overwhelm the community by posting all these on their own at once, but a quick list of some favorite songs/moments,
Anyway, this has been weirdly uplifting and I don’t know what to do with positive emotions, so I’m going to have to go seek out like a nextdoor thread on an upcoming city council meeting with a proposal to license a youth homeless shelter on the agenda or something
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