WOEBOT

Totally agree. Faux jazz is not a good thing and should be sneered at with contempt. Some folks round these parts hailed his big band jazz as both progressive and orginal.....all I heard was a dull, laboured imagination at play. As for the new disc, I like it.

I dunno. Is "faux" jazz really worse than "real" jazz?

I'm suspicious of arguments or dichotomies founded on authenticity...

i think i mean "faux" like UB40 not "faux" like Adrian Sherwood.

Hmmm. Faux like UB40. Well, there's the first album which is a classic. Then there's the dub version of the first album, which is also a classic. (Don't believe me? Well, tell me that The Earth Dies Screaming is really that bad. Or Tyler. Or One in 10.) Then there's the fact that, despite the wrinkled noses of music snobs like me, many reggae fans worldwide like UB40 and don't see them as "inauthentic".

And as for "faux like Sherwood". I don't know what that means either! Sherwood has pretty strong credentials in the "straight" reggae world as you know probably better than me. Just cos he's done some "paler" styles means nothing -- so have Sly & Robbie, Mikey Dread, Bob Marley etc etc.

I just think the authenticity proposition is, as ever, a weak foundation for any argument. All critical distinctions and judgements collapse too easily.

Of course this argument is always suspended when I;m out with Eden, where I will happily use the term "let's go and listen to some REAL music" simply as a device to wind him up,changing the definition of real accordingly!

Tried very hard to like the Big Band stuff. Failed. Though I did kinda enjoy Patrick Pulsingers "Easy to assemble, hard to take apart" stuff, from 2001/2, which is in a similar vein.

Dani S was great at the Jazz Cafe last night, as is her album.

Never quite got the point of 'Erbert's big band thing: the actual scores sounded like rejects from Johnny Dankworth circa 1960, and it's all very well him saying that the percussion samples were of people dropping copies of Attali and Chomsky tomes on the floor, but had you not known that it wouldn't have had any effect, political or otherwise, on the music at all. Try and find copies of the two albums Gil Evans recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall in '78 (one on RCA, the other on Mole Jazz, neither has ever made it to CD status) - it still sounds about a couple of centuries ahead of what Herbert's lot did.

Shame because I generally do like what MH does. That having been said, I've just been sent a new EP from his big band (I don't know if it's the same one you have) but it includes a terrible big band-goes-glitch version of "Singin' In The Rain" which sounds as much of a mess as that Texas/Wu-Tang carcrash from several centuries ago.

Mmmm. (makes mental note) Must check those Gil Evans records. Bit of a fan of his, and weren't you also singing the praises of "Freedom Of The City 2002" by the London Improvisers Orchestra on Emanem Records within the same context? (scratches head) Yet more stuff to follow up!

Oh, definitely - I was at that LIO Freedom of the City gig and the atmosphere really was electric, especially the parts where Terry Day got involved; noticed lots of Crass Collective types in the audience. And what Pat Thomas and Knut-whatsisface-out-of-Resonance-FM were doing with electronics throughout the gig was way ahead of what MH's lot were doing (we got sent tickets to see the MH big band live at the South Bank and were a bit nonplussed by it all).

Re. the LIO gig: there was a gorgeous piece which didn't make it onto the finished album (I guess because of problems with acoustics) where Caroline Kraabel gave us all tiny cassette recorders to tape the orchestra improvising and then play the tapes back at different times while the orchestra was still playing (to see how they reacted/how the music changed). It was a lot quieter than you'd expect, very meditative, and ended with Harry Beckett up on the balcony blowing some very soulful flugelhorn. Lovely stuff.