Yes, good to see, but I've always found this kind of jazz hard to penetrate. One of my friends is right into it. I have some theories about it, to do with the concept of melody. In my view, if you repeat any sequence of notes, it becomes a melody - it kind of sticks in the ear. If you repeat it many times and build on it, then you have the standard song melody we are all familiar with.
What I found is that if you just repeat it once, the mind registers it differently to not being repeated at all. But the strange thing I subsequently found, is that if you focus on this concept of repetition of a phrasing of notes, to lift it into the mental classification of a melody, you can begin to add that melodic stamp to note phrasing even without repetition - it's a certain way of playing.
What this kind of jazz does, is to purposely avoid that melodic-making process altogether. To my ears, it takes on what I call the character of gratuitous notes. I could never understand the appeal of gratuitous note playing, but if you listen to jazz a lot, eventually you begin to understand what they are doing - it is a feeling over and above the specific playing. It is a rhythmic and emotional vibe, highly aligned with darkened smoky atmospheres and whisky.
