I Don't Dig Garbarek's Music, But If You Do...

I'm interested in anything categorized under the uncategorizable family of jazz, while being aware of the problem that most of it turns out to be anything but jazz. The video I'm posting here, at least to my ears, falls into non-jazz category. Yet, it is an example of a product sold as jazz and bought in huge quantity by European jazz festivals.

Since I've promised to digitize and publicize all my jazz VHS tapes, I do post this as an act of completion: The Jan Garbarek Group playing Jim Pepper's Witchi-Tai-To in Stuttgart, Germany, 1992.

This ECM artist sounds so thin and mechanical that I wonder why the labeled never released, for instance, Kenny G.?

To me, jazz remains to be an urban, modern sound, always transcending the most materialistic objects and situations into sublime beauty. And it doesn't sound like music played by Scandinavian shepherds in 17th century.

Monterey Jazz Festival (1967)

MONTEREY JAZZ FESTIVAL (1967)
Directed by Lane Slate
The event hosted by Jimmy Lyons.


Set list:

Illinois Jacquet
Flyin' Home
Illinois Jacquet (ts), John Lewis (p), Ray Brown (b), Louie Bellson (d)

Ray Nance
Some of These Days
Ray Nance (violin), John Lewis (p), Ray Brown (b), Louie Bellson (d)

Ray Nance, Jean-Luc Ponty, Svend Asmussen
C Jam Blues
Jean-Luc Ponty, Ray Nance, Svend Asmussen (violin), John Lewis (p), Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Ray Brown (b), Daniel Humair (d)?

The Dizzy Gillespie Quintet
The Gentle Rain
Something In Your Smile
Dizzy Gillespie (t, v), James Moody (f, ts), Mike Longo (p), Russell George (electric b), Candy Finch (d)

The Modern Jazz Quartet & Dizzy Gillespie
Round Midnight
Dizzy Gillespie (t), John Lewis (p), Milt Jackson (vib), Percy Heath (b), Connie Kay (d)

The Don Ellis Big Band
New Horizons
Don Ellis, Glenn Stuart, Alan Weight, Ed Warren, Bob Harmon (t), Ron Myers, Dave Sanchez, Terry Woodson (tb), Ruben Leon, Joe Roccisano, Ira Schulman, Ron Starr, John Magruder (reeds), Mike Lang (p), Ray Neapolitan, Dave Parlato (b), Steve Bohannon (d), Chino Valdes (congas, bongos),
Alan Estes, Mark Stevens (percussion)

Three Little Bops (Friz Freleng, 1957)

This short, all-musical animation titled Three Little Bops features a soundtrack by Shorty Rogers. Although the three little pigs of the story are not exactly bop musicians, nevertheless the film relies on the myth of fraction between the modernists and traditionalists in jazz when the New overtly rejects the Old (here, portrayed as an old-fashioned wolf trumpet player).

Directed by Friz Freleng for Warner Bros., this 7-minute long film is good fun.

Watch here: