Comments on: Jazz Isn’t Dead, It Just Smells Iggy

By: luakapop

luakapop — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 21:23:18 +0000

Iggy has always loved and cited avant jazz as part of his stooge influence..this started a while back,heres some press.
NEW YORK – Fans of the music of punk godfather Iggy Pop might be surprised to hear the quite rocking singer/songwriter has a softer side. In 1998 his longtime touring and recording bass player Hal Cragin suggested a jazz collaboration to Iggy as a relaxing departure from their relentless (and high volume) touring schedule. “Our first collaboration was in my apartment/studio on 3rd Street,NYC, something very informal just duo things which I added to later. We did some Jobim and Cole Porter, it was a lot of fun, and Iggy was really on”
These tracks were put aside for more than a decade while Iggy and Hal went on to other musical creations until “Iggy got a call to do music for a documentary about a writer named Michel Houellbecq trying to direct a movie version of his popular book,” The Possibility of an Island.” at that very same time I had sent Iggy our old jazz tracks just for posterity’s sake, the timing was right, and we used this excuse to resurrect and complete our particular collaboration,”

By: Rob J

Rob J — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 11:47:40 +0000

Thanks for the feedback. There has been always been much more to Ig than what’s meets the eye. Check out the Stooges’ astonishing “LA Blues”, and play it back to back with Coltrane’s “Sun Ship”.
“Fun House” is almost a direct lift from James Brown’s “Licking Stick-Licking Stick”. Ig has always cited JB as another massive inspiration, but this fact seems to get overlooked, I guess The Doors and The Velvet Underground are more easily appreciated.
The remix of “Raw Power” revealed another influence, namely Funkadelic especially on “I Need Somebody”. James Williamson’s guitars on that track are very similar to Eddie Hazell on the early Funkadelic songs like “I’ll Bet You”. It should came as no surprise that Funkadelic and The Stooges once appeared onstage together at some mythical gig in Detroit, in the very early Seventies. Back in 1987, I went to see If and the music that was played before he came onstage came from Dexter Gordon’s classic Blue Note album “Go” ! I was very impressed to say the least. He would make one hell of a DJ…..

By: Pat Darnell and Friends

Pat Darnell and Friends — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:50:20 +0000

will know that he has nothing left to prove….

As an artist goes through the “life” and actually accomplishes many of his\her goals… it can be very rewarding to attribute one’s achievements to the “masters” one studied in the beginning.

I agree Rob J. I never even considered Iggy Pop as one who had such ambitions, and also a distaste of shaggy yobs with guitars. It is important to get this out to young ‘uns… invest your precious study time on the “greats,” it pays big dividends.

By: Pribek

Pribek — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:42:39 +0000

I never did see the Stooges live, Ron. But, I can see the connection between that music and jazz, for sure.

By: Rob J

Rob J — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:19:50 +0000

As far back as I can remember, Iggy has cited Coltrane, Archie Shepp and Sinatra as influences for decades. As a direct result, I got into these artists as well.

I wish him well. Anybody who was lucky enough to see The Stooges in concert will know that he has nothing left to prove….

By: Pat Darnell and Friends

Pat Darnell and Friends — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:20:03 +0000

“Mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy, a kid’ll eat ivy too, wouldn’t you?”