Jazz in Manchester?

[snorky]

Up the wrongun

 

[Bill Walker]

The stuff from the late 60's on is where I get off the bus. Jazz properly lost its way in the 70's and 80's I think - music so clever it sounded shit and no one could understand it, or the cheesy electro crap.

We're all different cheesy but a lot of my favorites were 70s.
Weather Report
Chick Corea, Return to Forever
Herbie Hancock etc.

80s was famous for the genre smooth jazz. I like some of that, Grover Washington yes, Kenny G no :)

 

[stonerblue]

I recognise you’re joking here, but jazz is probably the only form of music that I just don’t get.

Years ago, whilst doing my music degree, the uni hosted a World Young Jazz festival.

I was a steward and saw loads of it. It just gave me a headache.

One of my course-mates has a PHD in it now and his music is still bonkers to me.

It‘s structured, but unless you understand the structure, it just sounds like chaos.

Each musician playing their own 'tune' at the same time. Absolute racket.

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

The stuff from the late 60's on is where I get off the bus. Jazz properly lost its way in the 70's and 80's I think - music so clever it sounded shit and no one could understand it, or the cheesy electro crap.

Don't go along entirely with you, Mazzarelli.
I got into jazz in a big, big way in the early eighties, when I was thoroughly alienated by what was going on in rock. I had grown up as a child of pop and rock through the sixties and seventies. I drank deep of that music. I bought Melody Maker religiously every single week from about 1967 through to about 1974. There was plenty of shit around, and you've only got to go back to Pick of the Pops and listen to the Top Twenty several times over through several years to realise it. Let's be honest.
I rejected punk vigorously (which I was supposed to do, I now know that) although I came back to it later and realized that I actually really liked groups like the Clash, and that “God Save The Queen” was a banger and it a was much needed tonic at the time. Then got into Costello, big time, and some of the other Stiffs roster.
Then everybody in the early eighties seemed to be listening to Duran Duran, Boy George and Spandau Ballet. And I wasn't into any of that. It struck me as cold, formulaic, and poseurish. All the Americans I met were either listening to Madonna, or Bruce Springsteen. Since both leave me absolutely cold (then and now), there was no comfort to be got there. Discovered by accident while in Japan that there was a group called The Smiths out of Manchester, and consoled myself with them. And also liked Heaven 17 who, although synth based, had clever lyrics and a sense of self-deprecation that appealed to me.
Anyway, when I got to Japan, I was lucky enough to know some big, and knowledgeable, jazz fans. The Japanese love their jazz. It's no accident that people like Jarrett much prefer to make their live recordings there. They introduced me to Bill Evans, who I fell in love with immediately. I then backtracked and set about educating myself as to everything that had happened in the late forties, fifties (the golden decade, as far as I'm concerned) and right through the sixties. Parker, Gillespie, the Miles of the first great quintet, Shorter's early work, the Miles of the second great quintet, etc. There was plenty of stuff I hated in there (then and now) — Coleman Hawkins sounds like the mooing of a cow in distress to me. Albert Ayler I cannot fucking stand at any price. Ornette Coleman has never done anything for me. Coltrane? He rose to heights that virtually no-one else has reached. But there's some pretentious stuff in there, as well. Lester Young is ok — particularly when he's playing with Lady Day.
So where do I part company with you? In the nineties and noughties I discovered that there are genuine jazz musicians who had taken on board the newer arrrangements and technology, making stuff that I do recognise as jazz, while sounding up to date. I'm thinking about Nils Petter Molvaer, for instance, or someone that I've discovered quite recently, who I find quite brilliant — Jon Hassell. This stuff, I'm aware, is probably what you would call “cheesy electro crap”. I beg to differ. And all the while, in the standard trio format, there were things going on that I find still valid and listenable — E.S.T., as long as Estbjörn Svensson was alive — I have every single one of their CDs, and was lucky enough to see them three times on stage before Svensson's tragic death— and some of Brad Mehldau's early stuff.
If I feel like listening to something, what do I put on these days, in the main? Rock from the seventies, sometimes the eighties. Jazz from the fifties, sixties, seventies. And classical, which has accompanied all my life. What do I listen to from what is being produced right now? It is with a sense of defeat that I say it, but perhaps it's just the way of the world — virtually nothing. Not long back, a friend put me on to Stromae, who I think I ought to get a listen to. His voice is magnificent. Oh and Caetano Veloso. But neither are jazz, by any stretch of the imagination.
The other day, without having listened to them for, oh, two or three decades, I suppose, I bought Chopin's Etudes played by the young Russian virtuoso, Zlata Chochieva. Listened to them closely, and realised for the umpteenth time and with a renewed sense of shock that, well, they really are rather fucking ace, in fact…

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

I recognise you’re joking here, but jazz is probably the only form of music that I just don’t get.

Years ago, whilst doing my music degree, the uni hosted a World Young Jazz festival.

I was a steward and saw loads of it. It just gave me a headache.

One of my course-mates has a PHD in it now and his music is still bonkers to me.

It‘s structured, but unless you understand the structure, it just sounds like chaos.

You know, AHT, I've got several friends who know nothing about football, and hate it. When they watch City in full flow, it just looks like chaos. Lots of people running everywhere, one of them's got the ball. We know better.

Everything looks like chaos from the outside. Perhaps everything is chaos. Isn't that what Heraclitus believed? And he's an old timer, might be on to something.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

You know, AHT, I've got several friends who know nothing about football, and hate it. When they watch City in full flow, it just looks like chaos. Lots of people running everywhere, one of them's got the ball. We know better.

Everything looks like chaos from the outside. Perhaps everything is chaos. Isn't that what Heraclitus believed? And he's an old timer, might be on to something.

I admire jazz players. I just don’t “get it”.

The format is simple in some ways, which allows impromptu gigs with players that have never played together before and also Blues musicians to play without music.

Improvised jazz means you’ll never hear that performance done again, ever.

Whilst the framework is simple, there are infinite ways in which it can be performed.

You can see the delight on jazz performers’ faces when they’ve stumbled across something magical. That’s the best bit I can take out of the genre.

 

[bluechippie]

Ganders Go South near the Barton Arcade was pretty good last time I was in there, but that was about 1986!

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

I admire jazz players. I just don’t “get it”.

The format is simple in some ways, which allows impromptu gigs with players that have never played together before and also Blues musicians to play without music.

Improvised jazz means you’ll never hear that performance done again, ever.

Whilst the framework is simple, there are infinite ways in which it can be performed.

You can see the delight on jazz performers’ faces when they’ve stumbled across something magical. That’s the best bit I can take out of the genre.

They're working within a very disciplined framework. There's a chord sequence, a melody over it, a clear time signature, and everybody's got to get it, and to able to move in and out of it, to bend it without breaking it. Freedom within structure. Without that, there can be no real creativity.
A bit like — mutatis mutandis — what Pep demands from his players…

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

They're working within a very disciplined framework. There's a chord sequence, a melody over it, a clear time signature, and everybody's got to get it, and to able to move in and out of it, to bend it without breaking it. Freedom within structure. Without that, there can be no real creativity.
A bit like — mutatis mutandis — what Pep demands from his players…

Well, there could, but it would literally be chaos!

 

[M16 citeh]

Matthew halsall is a prominent jazz musician based in Manchester and he runs a label called gondwana records - he's just got a new album out. I'd say it's worth checking out their website to see if any local artists doing gigs. Nat Birchall plays a lot as well. As others have said, mat and phreds is good, the rncm might be worth checking out and other venues like the blues kitchen or band on the wall.