I'm going to review records in my collection, and you'll be able to decide if they're worthy of your collection. These records are what I consider "must haves" for any jazz aficionado, and would be found in their collections. I wont review any record that's not on CD, nor will I review any record if the CD is markedly inferior. Fortunately, I only found 1 case where the CD was markedly inferior to the record.
Our first album is "Moanin" by Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers. We have Lee Morgan , trumpet; Benney Golson, tenor sax; Bobby Timmons, piano; Jymie merrit, bass; Art Blakey, drums.
The title tune "Moanin" is by Bobby Timmons, it conveys the emotion of the title like no other tune I've ever heard, even better than any words could ever convey. This music pictures a person whose down to his last nickel, and all he can do is "moan".
"Along Came Betty" is a tune by Benny Golson, it reminds me of a Betty I once knew. She was gorgeous with a jazzy personality, and she moved smooth and easy, just like this tune. Somebody find me a time machine! Maybe you knew a Betty.
While the rest of the music is just fine, those are my favorite tunes. Why don't you share your, "must have" jazz albums with us.
Wow thanks it seems completely different playing than the other pianists i already own...
You said it : introspective and a gentle tone...
I love him....
I will lok for his albums thanks....
I am grateful because you have discerning taste not only taste....I will read all your recommendations, like say someone else we are lucky that you are here with us....
Sometimes musicians impose on themselves rigorous constraints that put them in the directtion that synchronize entirely with their soul expression ONLY and first...Music expression is subordinated to their soul expression...Music serve them...
Sometimes musicians impose on themselves rigorous constraints that put them in the direction that mobilize all the soul powers ONLY and first to the music expression... Their soul expression is mediated by the musical thema, line or exact written score chosen expression at the time...They are the great servant of music...
Most musicians are a MIX of music expression and soul expression one through the other, time to time ...They serve music time to time and music serve them time to time...
But sometimes some extreme case musician choose squarely one or the other MOST of the time if not all time...
Oscar Peterson is a huge talented musician able to express his soul in any stylistic musical form...Be-bop included...but not only...He is more first the perfect servant of any music form,songs,or style... He can play anything...In any style...
Bill Evans is an extreme case where only some musical style and form are picked to serve first his soul expression and ONLY that...He is very different animal than Peterson...
Chet Baker is in the same boat than Evans , who never serve really the existing music FIRST but express his own soul first through any song more than playing the song...Some even call that a "limitation" compared to other more "creative" trumpeters ...
In classical piano Ervin Nyíregyházi is a stunning example of someone able to transform any written score in the sea of Ervin Nyíregyházi soul...He does not play nor serve Liszt, he become Liszt or Liszt become Ervin Nyíregyházi when he play...He does not serve Liszt but transfigure him through himself...No other pianist i know are able to do this to this level....
Like Bach was not the ordinary servant of any existing music or styles....But able to transform any music in Bach soul with the power of his brain ...This is the reason why he is the greateast composer of all times because any music is recreated , any style, is recreated in Bach soul for Bach soul expression first...
Great musicians in history become great composers for example by serving themselves first more than serving other music or existing style first...
In jazz where improvisation is so important, the musician serving itself first predominate...The servant musician exist also....But jazz lived through many transformations in a short time period because of that trend of the soul expression first in non written music...
I apologize if expressing my own feeling and idea seems too simplistic for musicians here or for some others.... Feel free to criticize...
I only listen music and i dont have any formal knowledge of music....This post is only an expression right or wrong about the matter...
Music listening is a survival mode for me, then even without any formal knowledge of the art, i was always very blown away by some musicians or by some pieces in ANY genre or style... I always wanted to understand why?
The answer was found in me, my own spritual metabolism.... Music is not only a nourishment but also a therapeutic with various musicians/doctors, all skilled, and with many medecines in their hands, akin to each specific soul diseases or actual needs....
Music is the most underestimated " medecine" even in medecine science.... Only for the last decades this fact begins to emerge slowly now ; but it was very well known by our own prehistoric ancestors who created language and music from the same mold: their mouth and body rythmic system...
Alas! Someone deaf to music may seems sometimes to be blind to his own soul..... It is the reason why if God gave me a choice between being deaf or blind, i will choose to be blind on the spot instead of being deaf....And i was teaching high level reading in my working life ....😁😊But we can read books even without sight anyway...
I will remember all my life this anecdote: A french crew documentary gang was going after Ray Charles on each of his steps 24 hours by day... They pick him someday in his monthly routine in an hospital, and a young female children walked swiftly toward him jumping in his embrace...The crew was stunned to learn that Ray was giving help and money for this children which was deaf... He pay for medical bills.... The crew ask him why? Why not blind children like him? He laugh very loud and said being blind is absolutely nothing.... Deaf is the problem.....
I never forgot this moving scene nor the meaning of Ray's laughs....
To me Jussi Bjorling has the most beautiful voice I ever heard. No doubt Pavarotti would get more votes , and deserve them .
IMO Bach is the most profound composer who ever lived or will, if someone thinks it Mozart or Beethoven , that is up to them .
In Jazz I like Mingus and Sunny Stitt the best.
Your choices make perfect sense if someone think about them...
We are all different and because i like to discuss a bit too much, (my job was to teach by arguments) myself i like when someone contradict me though....It is an occasion to discuss... 😊😁😊
But some people are, like you, with "big heart" and dont like this so much and i understand why...
Anyway, all our choices are "absolute" because they are motivated by our own history...And we must all learn WHY someone we know like something or not and we must understand why, because partaking something with him him make our world more vast and less small....
I like that when you say that Jussi Bjorling is the most beautiful voice ever, because it make me conscious of other possibilities of experience unknown to me and mysterious.... And anyway anyone with ears know that Bjorling is a very great singer....
Then why not listen to him with "others" ears than ours for an hour and learn something out of our world sometimes? Or discover surprizingly that perhaps ,yes, Bjorling is the most extraordinary voice, why not?
For Bach you are more than right in my book....
And your choices of Mingus and Sony Stitt are very interesting and surprizing for me by far....I cannot wait to listen to these 2 in another "body" and "soul" than only mine this time....( yes it is possible! We all can listen with someone BESIDE ourself, with him in ourself) It is called learning.....
Thanks for your great passion.....It is very important for all here....
It is not that God exist or not, like some philosopher think about....
God is that part of us that "orchestrate" everything around us and in our lives....It is this part of us in which reside our freedom...
This part of us exist if we use it....If not, there exist a visible nail but with an invisible hammer... 😁
Or we live in invisible shakles when we "externalise" this part of us in an " idol" with a collective name of our own making.... 😁
History of music reflect this relation also in reflecting the history of our own consciousness...
Music, at the end, is no more only about our taste.... At the end..... 😊
For "heavy metal" like in any genre and styles, out of our own tastes, there is always EXCEPTIONS... I dont like heavy metal like shubert in general....But might i suggest "nightwish" with his first female singer...
Tremendous poetic energy coming from the female voice of Tarja Turunen....I am in love with this album for example.... Never mind it is called "heavy metal".... There is a powerful poetic force to recount with that is nowhere to be found save for this group+Tarja Turunen ....They lost it when they lost her after some few albums...
I search less a "genre" in music than i search for great musicians now.... There exist musical giants everywhere but not in too numerous quantity...
Is Bill Evans jazz? Or is Cher Baker jazz? Perhaps...
For me not at all, there exist Bill Evans and Chet Baker and i discover " jazz" with them and this coach me toward others...
Is Muddy Waters blues?
For me no, there exist Muddy Waters singing and some others powerful musicians.... We can call them bluesman....But i know i love Muddy WEaters and few others like him.... I cannot say i love blues....Like i cannot say i love jazz... I dont even claim to love classical , i love Bach more than my own life....I love Scriabin in the same way....
Music = musicians.....
And i dont like to group playing musicians in the prison cell of a style or a genre but it is necessary when we analyse musical culture and try to understand it for sure.... But at the end any great musician is a cosmos of his own....
One reason I believe in God is I look back at 80+ years and I see there were AT LEAST 20 times in my life I have walked or driven away from death when that was IMPOSSIBLE !
i completely share and understand your experience....Being a few years younger though....
One of the greatest Jazz records of all time, IMO; and if I’m not mistaken, the very first record that I mentioned on this thread.
Amazing lineup. What is interesting about the lineup is not only that each of the players was one of very greatest on his instrument (some might argue the greatest), but just how varied their respective styles were. The quiet introspection of BILL Evans to the fiery hard bop of Hubbard to the wild abstractions (😉) of Dolphy. And it works! Add to that the writing of Oliver Nelson, one of the greatest composer/arrangers of the music and you have something really special. Of particular note for me is the reminder of just how good a saxophone player Nelson was. His playing on the record gives a wonderful peek into the mind of a composer. The logic in his solos beautifully reflects how a composer thinks; with solos which are a model of motivic development. Classic compositional and improvisation approach: take a simple musical idea (motif) and build an entire solo using and developing that idea:
Thanks for frogman contribution to the happiness of all here and to me in particular...
His warm recommendation about Oliver Nelson make me very happy indeed.... Not only this cd is one of the greatest jazz recording but all his 6cd big band series is astonishingly good....
i think improvisation in a general sense, and not only in the jazz context, but linked to what we call an "interpretation" in classical music is the "gist" of music experience....
A pure objective rendition of a classical written piece never was possible and never existed....
I then concur with frogman...
A real concert, jazz or classical, is always an "improvised" one....And would never be the same again....It is the writing phenomenon and the recording technological phenomenon that erased this fact from our consciousness...
Music is never completely written but always played then improvised...
For sure music without improvisation and without interpretation exist but is not for my usual taste....
I discovered lately in life that music is the musician first....Not a piece of paper....
It is one of my 10 best artist at this instrument and not the 10th by far......He is a musical genius not for his virtuosity only but mainly his poetic creativity and his particular phrasing with the trumpet...
I will add this to my opinion because i am in no way a musician but Phil Woods is...:
« “Tom Harrell is the best musician I’ve encountered in 40 years of playing music,” says saxophonist Phil Woods, in whose quintet Harrell has played trumpet for the past five years. “I’ve played with some great musicians and I’ve never played with anyone better than Tom Harrell. I think the whole group sounds better because of him.”»
And if someone here object that this description is not "objective" by Woods describing his partner craftmanship...Freddie Hubbard put Harrell over Wynton Marsalis...And he knows something about trumpet playing... 😊
Anyway all the opinions in the world speak less than a listening session...
I will dedicated my post recommendation to the generous mary_jo
Knowing a little about what you admire in a musician, I can understand why Harrell appeals to you. There is a warmth in his sound that is reminiscent of Chet Baker; the expression of humanity. His playing is very lyrical, like Baker’s, but with a more advanced (modern) harmonic concept. This is not intended as a criticism of Baker; two players representative of two different periods in the evolution of the music.
Thanks for these remarks spot on about me and these 2 artists...
Bror Fredrik "Esbjörn" Svensson (16 April 1964 – 14 June 2008) was a Swedish jazz pianist and founder of the jazz group Esbjörn Svensson Trio, commonly known as e.s.t.
Svensson became one of Europe’s most successful jazz musicians at the turn of the 21st century before dying, at the age of 44, in a scuba diving accident.
Swedish Guitarist extraordinaire Ulf Wakenius created a tribute album in memory of the pianist Bror Fredrik "Esbjörn" Svensson after his untimely death in 2008.
Happy to help. I like the trio as well. Are you familiar with guitarist Terje Rypdal, drummer Jon Christensen, bassist Arild Anderson and brass/reed man Jan Garbarek?
Thanks...I know those names and own many albums tough but not some of these albums....
**** Gotta wonder if he ever expressed being spellbound by geniuses other than Hendrix. Anyone know? ****
Based on what I’ve read and on hear say:
Gil Evans Claude Debussy Mike Bloomfield Tony Williams, reportedly his favorite drummet. Sly (“Sly and the Family Stone”) and, surprising to me…Buddy Rich. He loved Buddy Rich
I think that what is at plays in music appreciation is way more deeper than craftmanship only and mastering of the instrument evaluation points and virtuosity appreciation ...
The musical content specifically played by a specific musician some day and not an another one is more important sometimes than the objective level of craftmanship "per se"...
In music miracles drew our attention to the content which is also a miracle sometimes in a way the usual and the ok did not...Sometimes what seems only ok to one reveal itself to be a true miracle to an another one....
Like love, music bath itself each day only in miracles....
Be it an interpretation or an improvisation or the two in a specific content and from a specific content, written in part or not....It is all miracles...Save for the deaf or for the part of ourself which is deaf again for the time being...
Then our tastes are hidden mysteries.... Even to ourself....We open them by listening to our own soul....
It is the reason why music history is also one of the deeper chapter of the human consciousness history....
And Miles choices a list of improbable picks at first sight....His own consciousness is a mystery in the making...And we must perceive this becoming to learn from it....
Listening so imperfect it is, is the door to pure consciousness....
For some masters the cosmos is only one sound: OM....
Why?
or How?
Perhaps OM is like a fractal, and any sounds is in it like the filament and thread that comes from it and go back to it at the sames times...
My deepest respect to our friend and musician frogman....
Perhaps you would like to discover great Japanese Jazz, from the 70’s and on. To give you a flavor you may want to stream from https//www.mixcloud.com/jgueron/globeat-japanese-jazz-rebroadcast/ While the recording quality of this episode is not optimal, the playlist includes some great Jazz players that deserve a wider audience. You will find them in Tidal or Qobuz I hope you enjoy it Regards, Joe
A lot of drums in it, I guess it could be called Native Hawaiian Jazz . I just bumped into the huge man with the unique voice who is the icon of Hawaiians still in Trauma , which is a about half of then .
It truly is not a joke , he speaks for them . Got to me .
Ray Charles is way more than a musical genius...He is a spiritual artist whose mission is to manifest only humanity and kindness ....And this mission never manifest so clearly than in his old age.....
But i will be very annoyed to choose a best or a "better" trumpeter between for example , Lee Morgan, Miles Davis and Chet Baker...
We can judge an artist on many counts too numerous to enumerate, and not all listeners could perceive each one of these numerous factors by which we can judge a player anyway...
It is our natural ability, our knowledge of music, and mostly our tastes history and our sensibility coming from our brain or heart connections in some order, that determine our favored choices...
For example if we choose only 3 factors among many others:
-pure virtuosity and ability to play dynamically with all sounds potential of the instrument at the "same time",
-musical innate talent to improvise and create astounding complex musical development on the spot and without safeguard,
-Ability to create a unique timbre and more than that ability to make the instrument not only sing but spoke, in a word ability to interpret a melody..
Only for these 3 factors which trumpeter is the best?
Answer: there is no best for these 3 factors together at the same time...No trumpeter by himself beat all the other trumpeters on these 3 counts taken simultaneously...
And if i add a fourth factor completely different, ability to play with others to merge and emerge at the right time...
Who is the best trumpeter with these 4 factors?
I can add a fifth factor which would be a new one or a precise sub-part aspect of these 4....
Ad infinitum......
Myself for reason i could explained but which are of no importance to every one else here now , the trumpeter i love the most is Chet Baker...
Chet Baker is not the best or the better trumpeter there is on all counts, even me i know this; but i love him so much because of his imperfections on the first two counts, he concentrate on the third factor in a way that is unforgettable and look like or speak like no other with most of the times the slow pace of a beating heart..
Once it’s said, we keep each one of us like a personal sacred treasury our privileged relation to whom we chose....
If there is a greatest i would be in the mood and with reason greatly inclined to vote for Armstrong....
It is the first i has listen to at my teens years, his voice and instrument sunny and luminous craftmanship, and his role and influence in all jazz at the golden era....i think it is a good choice for the best ever....
My law: Even if there is no best in the world there is always one in our heart....
The “light and heartful” is what I hear as the infectious swagger in his playing.
Yes and to be honest it is after reading your comment that this comes back to my mind, and searching for a comparison the particular exhuberant effortless way Morgan play remind me of Armstrong in the screaming high notes...Screaming is not a critic here in my mouth at all only a metaphor to convey my subjective impression...
After my 3 hours listening of this 6 cd box...( i am lucky to have almost another 4 hours to go)
Wayne Shorter and Lee Morgan "The complete Vee Jay sessions"
I really think that it is one of the greatest jazz album series of all time...
Shorter is not less than pure genius on the saxophone, and believe me i am particularly "picky" for ANY sax part.... Lee Morgan is abolutely one of the more gifted trumpeter there ever is...What is miraculous Is that these 2 plays at the same level AND in absolute symbiosis and complementarity.... Which is not so much common to begin with.... And their lever of playing is indeed of the highest order.... I am breathless...
The other many various musicians are absolutely top one also, at near the level of the two masters....
Not necessarily in overall concept, but in how his playing became more and more economical; as if he found ways to say what he had to say with fewer and fewer notes. One of the most expressive of saxophone players, he could express so much emotion with one or two notes.
It was my impression but having not your knowledge and experience, i miss the "word" economical... Thanks...Minimalistic but powerful expression yes.... Controlled in a mysterious way....
It is the first time in my life that a sax player induce in me the same love some trumpeter do...( i am excessive in my love or dislike or neutral gesture yes )
This 6 albums series is now one of my favorite one....
Jazz Giants....
Thanks for the recommendations.....I will swiftly look for them....
I listen the 2 short Wayne Shorter clip.... This guy play sax like i ,at the end, love the instrument at the level of my appetite for trumpet playing...I was ready to discover it....Timing is important in life.... I am in paradise....
I am passionate yes, but only hyperbole can convey my surprise listening their playings... And my surprize that jazz can hide jewels and gems like these...
Lee Morgan and Wayne Shorter are a "musical deal squad" made in heaven for sure....Like Coltrane and Davis in "Kind of blue"....But these two ressemble more each other for me and they integrate deeply their playings in one another, not one beside the other at all...It is not criticism of the 2 other geniuses only my way to describe my impression of their playings...I am not a musician tough feel free to correct me....
Lee Morgan is stupendous in his easiness and fluidity always meaningful chords....He play to surprise us with some chords inscribed in the "great musical book" already there and now here forever... He is so great that no showmanship is needed....
« Do you think that a blind who just see the light could be outrageous with too much hyperbole?»-Groucho Marx 🤓
«No,but Groucho you fall of your chair each day... »- Harpo Marx
« I quit my chair each week my dear, dont exagerate with hyperbole....»- Groucho Marx 🤓
Jazz or classical music are created by musicians that wrote it before playing it in one case and others that improvise first and call it a "work"...
Jazz or classical music are too big dynamical machine to be classified always on the separate label where we put them...They intersect in some audible way in the works of Kurt Weill and Gershwin for example...
I do no more labelling now, jazz, classical, iranian or Persian music.... I dont listen composers so much like in my past life, i listen mainly to musicians interpretations or improvisations...And some musicians interpretations are almost improvisations...
The golden Age of classical for me is Bach.... But what will be our understanding of Bach without Schoenberg or Scriabin ?
I will take the " debatable hypothesis" that Armstrong is the Bach of Jazz then what will become of the legacy of Armstromg and others golden era musicians without Sun RA or Roland Kirk for example true uncircumscribable geniuses or those inspired nowadays by more calm revolutionaries like Miles Davis or Wayne Shorter ?
These are only my thoughts and i am not a musician by far tough.... Then feel free to disagree....
If Bach was the last person to compose after those who did before him I would understand him and easily !
Great point! That reveal that the center of gravity of a wave is more important than the periphery if we want to understand the way a wave fall in the ocean of creativity....In this perspective Schoenberg or Scriabin make sense AFTER Bach or AROUND Bach like you rightfully suggest...
But the succession of composers is an "history" which like a river has a direction...
This direction is the result of consciousness creative dynamic mysteries way more than the results only of our individual or collective taste around any center... Only my intuition here...
I cannot resist to post this link to Tom Harrell, "Time’s mirror" album...
A big band album done right...
I have already said that, for me trumpet lover, i put him among the great magicians in my own trumpet temple...Our friend and one of our ultime musician mentor here, frogman, had not contradicted me on that....
Waiting for my first Art Farmer set....Fingers crossed....
I was listening for the last 5 hours to some magnificent improvisation in Bengla desh "Jazz " at the sitar...
A truly great female musician living in the Us....Alif Laila whose name means : One thousands and one nights ....No joke here....
Ok it is not pure " jazz" ...
But anyway i will not create a sitar improvisation thread for the time being but it would be a great idea...
Sitar is one of the most difficult instrument to play right...
And one of the most mesmerizing one...I love dearly all lute, setar,tar, sitar, veena, guitar, oud, rudra veena,vichitra veena, name them....Just beside piano and trumpet....
By the way indians, muslims or hindouist, had used violin, guitar, or harmonium for example, all native occidental instrument and they incorporated them in a unique way in their playing transforming completely the instrument sound.... Incredible...
I listened sitar even before even thinking about jazz in my teen years with Ravi Shankar between Bach and Josquin Des Prez and some french poet singers......
I already own it but others here may not know it...
The video is interesting , she is very expressive, this lute like many others in the lute family is a work of art in itself, even mute suspended on a wall...
Bach waves are like waves in the sea... How comforting!....
I wait for my jazz ordered last album but this is jazz in the german way centuries ago...
After all , all the best in music is jazz....Improvising Musician....And what is an interpretation: a micro dynamically controlled improvisation around one note or one chord, each one at a time.... 😁😊😊😊 With a continuity here nearer of the Glenn Miller style than of Sun Ra though ....
If we listen carefully enough, this woman is "Jazzing" ....
Anyway i own all albums of Jacques Loussier...My first Bach ectasy was out of the pharmacy window at 12 years old , listening Jacques Loussier jazzing Bach.... It introduce me so to speak.....
One of the greatest pianist i ever heard was Ervin Nyiregyhazi...
One of my gods...With some others like Vladimir Sofronitsky, and Hans Moravec...
He says after someone made to him the remark that in his playing he did not reproduce what it is written sometimes, he answer that the music is under his hands and in his heart not on a paper sheet mechanically activated by the brain ...
i cannot retrieve the link for the exact citation....But these words of mine reproduce what he said....
These words convey this idea, if not at least converge to this idea that, in spite of what separate Jazz and classical music, they manifest the same spiritual phenomenon because music is ultimately the focus where interpretation and improvization converge/diverge and even unite.....
Writing my last post give me another idea about Ervin Nyiregyhazi...
Something new about his style of playing...
He plays like was playing Lizst itself....And Liszt is the first pianist who become famous "interpretating" the music of other pianist live and "possessed" on the scene.... Before Liszt all concert was with a pianist playing his own composition in a very intimate way and with a more intimate public generally, like Chopin did because the piano was a recently invented new instrument......
E.N was pupil of Frederic Lamond a pupil of Liszt itself....
Then something of the FAUSTIAN Liszt playing has crossed through Lamond into E.N.
And this something is the total freedom for the WILL to create or recreate any works and any cosmos.... The great philosopher of the WILL is Schopenhauer after Nietzche...
This is the style of playing i will describe associated with the playing so powerful and more telluric than only refined of Ervin Nyiregyhazi...
I apologize here because i realize my post is in the jazz section...
I remember my first transistor radio with battery in 1963 and one of the song that move me in my bed, not a man at all at 13 years old, was this song among few others that i could remember only by stumbling on them a second time...
I dont think that someone in music could "stole" more than he can chew....
There is no stolen thing, but insemination and creativity....
Music is like the miraculous fishes multiplication in the Gospel, it is a meal like at Easter nobody can chew more than his share or stole and keep to himself alone...Or if music is a disease, it is contagious, and your symptoms ( style) correspond exactly to your exact external viruses load exposition....
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