alt Hacker NewsI love jazz, but my problem with newer stuff is a lot of it feels like the composition is second to the players showing off their chops. Maybe I just listen to bad playlists, but often it will be a 7-8 minute track where everyone takes turns vaguely riffing on the melody. That's cool from a technical perspective, but doesn't interest me compositionally.
Compare that to some of the older stuff like Take 5, Giant Steps, or any of the big band stuff from the 50s. Sure, there was a lot of incredible skill on display, but the music itself didn't seem to take a back seat.
One of my favorite albums of the last couple of years was Against the Fall of Night by Sungazer. Whalefall, the first or second track is probably my favorite song on it - there's still a lot of technical skill, but the composition is also on display. So you get this conversation between the song and soloists, instead of a backing track with a few skilled players. Moon Hooch and Fox Capture Plan are also in this same vein IMO.
So... Any recommendations of newer groups like that? Would love to find more like it.
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Didn't know Moon Hooch but made me think a bit of The Comet is Coming, possibly James Brandon Lewis? Fox capture plan are different to, but possibly parallels with Bill Laurance, Aaron Parks, Gogo penguin?
Try Lewis Cole or The Comet is Coming
I hadn't heard much Sungazer, though I'm familiar with Adam Neely. Have you heard Knower? Not purely jazz, but superduper tight riffs and the vocals of Genevieve Artadi are ridiculous and catchy, and drummer Louis Cole is outstanding. Sometimes Snarky Puppy is just too damn tight and well-oiled for me to truly appreciate (same with Vulfpeck) but they have some wonderful songs and impressive group interplay.
TBH most of the best jazz/jazz-influenced/-adjacent music coming out in recent years has fully absorbed the "gridification" this thread bemoans, and plays with the tension in the continuum between lockstep and loosey-goosey. TBH what makes ?uestlove unique/influential as a drummer is not his chops or expressiveness, but his ability to sound exactly like a programmed/sampled Dilla beat, and then go on to more human-sounding grooves. Sorry I can't find the link but there are videos of master drummer Nate Smith, whose sense of time is so machine-y tight that he can make a metronome sound like it's off time. Yussef Dayes is another fantastic drummer whose groups have interesting sounds and genuine interplay. Anything involving drummer Chris "Daddy" Dave is worth a listen, too.
I'm impressed with the composition and chops of guitarists Julian Lage and Molly Miller, both of whom know all the fancy theory but prioritize communicating with their fellow musicians and the audience. Not newcomers but guitarists John Scofield, Bill Frisell, and Pat Metheny continually re-invent themselves every few years and have fantastic compositions that aren't just jam vehicles. Everything I've heard from Charlie Hunter since coming out in the '90s, same thing.
TBH I am less impressed by the majority of the latest generation of jazz horn players, can't really say why. Not strictly jazz, but Alabaster dePlume builds on the tradition of "spirit jazz" a la Alice Coltrane or Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra in terms of making sure that everyone in the room, onstage or off, has a real human experience together.