Jazz Britannia

Here's a piece on Britain's jazz scene - a pitiful scene for the last thirty years. Then again, if you go with the theory (and I do) underlying Ken Burns' Story of Jazz docs, the music died around 1975 anyway, with the five-year sabbatical taken by Miles Davis.*

Actually, I'd argue (poker style) that Bitches Brew is the last important jazz record - important in its effect as the bullet Hitler used on himself was the last important bullet of World War II.

As you listen to that double album, you can, I swear, hear Jazz going Jism.

A brutal Bluffer's Guide to the pout-out of our benighted isle? Keep Stan Tracey, bin the rest.

* Though much to my disappointment, Burns' series sped through the sixties in one episode, after shilly-shallying - sorry, dwelling lovingly - through earlier periods, and literally licking clean Louis Armstrong's shoes.

Trouble is, pre 55 recordings of Jazz have shit sound, whereas the sound (ie the production) achieved on, say, the Impulse! recordings of the sixties is fantastic - Rudy Van Gelder take a bow. Ditto the pout-out from Miles's Columbia recordings from that era - and ditto props to Teo Macero. Blue Note? Overrated in every single way, aside from the covers.

Link