“Carmen Sings Monk” Interesting recording featuring great rhythm section playing. Two of the cuts are live performances and feature the recently discussed Larry Willis and Monk’s tenor player Charlie Rouse. Clifford Jordan and Eric Gunnison replace them on the studio cuts. Al Foster on drums and one of my very favorite bass players, George Mraz play on all cuts. Mraz is an amazing bass player who besides having a great feel has one of the most beautiful bass tones with amazing intonation and clarity (for a bass player). Each note of his bass lines is heard with unusual clarity and definition. Carmen McRae had by then lost the beatiful youthful quality that Schubert refers to, but she shows a tremendous amount of character and soulfulness. Not many singers can handle Monk’s unusual melodies with their angular and obtuse shapes; a real challenge for singers. https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhMWpDR-czg-g96KLDvAx12uqZLyLjCjP |
A couple of additional factoids. McRae was 66 when this album was recorded; six years before she would pass away. This record was nominated for a Grammy (Best Jazz Vocal Performance).
0-10, I truly do hope we can figure out a way to not continue to have unnecessary conflicts over a subject that should be the source of nothing but positive feelings; differences of opinion and all. I wish you well. |
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mary_jo, I like to keep and catalogue quotes by musicians. I read this quote by the great Wayne Shorter some time ago:
**** There are a lot of people walking around, full-grown and so-called normal—that have everything that they were born with at the right leg length, arm length, and stuff like that. They’re symmetrical in every way, but they live their lives like they are armless, legless, brainless, and they live their life with blame. I never heard Michel complain about anything. Michel didn’t look in the mirror and complain about what he saw. Michel was a great musician, and great because he was a great human being. He had the ability to feel and give to others of that feeling, and he gave to others through his music. ****
In answer to your question “should we value Michel, due to his struggle, more?”. I would say, no. Artists want to be judged based on artistic merit, period. As a good friend likes to say, the answer is often in the question. As you pointed out, he was frustrated because he felt the awards were given because they felt sorry for him. I would say that as fellow human beings we can admire and respect how he dealt with his struggle, but I suspect that he would have wanted his playing to be judged independent of that.
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Nice! For anyone who still doubts the importance of stylistic lineage in jazz; aka “influence”. Lester Young recorded this two years before this other famous player’s first record as leader. Stan Getz, anyone 😉? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o7l1Qbtphaw |
pjw, how was the Larry Wlllis set on Friday? Do tell. |
So sorry to hear that. Best to your family, Glad you liked the Prez clip. One of the amazing things about that recording is how he only barely hints at the melody of the tune. He improvises an entirely new melody over the harmony of “These Foolish Things” that stands on its own while only making subtle references to the original. With a little more recognizable original tune: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4S7oqCo3_aUA little more still: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dzyXbsXJGQY |
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Very funny, mary_jo. Right back at you:
Q: What do you call one hundred “Smooth Jazz” saxophone players at the bottom of the sea?
A: A good start 😊
Your joke reminded me of this old one:
Q: What do you call a trumpet player without a girlfriend?
A: Homeless |
Today is Sonny Criss’ birthday. Beautiful, easy alto sound. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj00v0ssjqUpryso, mary_jo’s clip is of the Mingus Big Band. “Essential” is just part of that album’s title. Mingus Big Band is a fourteen piece band and like the septet Mingus Dynasty is a Mingus repertory band. They share personnel and were both created and run by Sue Mingus. |
Thanks, Schubert. I guess I have one. |
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Amazing young talent and clearly a prodigy. Especially amazing given his background. Also clearly still developing as is to be expected for someone that young. Your first two clips are a good illustration of his development.
On the one hand, on the simple blues in the first clip he shows a really good command of the “basics” of the language and does a lot of great and very idiomatic things like starting his solo (@ 3:09) with the same melodic figure that Wynton finishes his solo with in order to create continuity. On the other hand, while his solo has a lot of great and very impressive individual moments, it meanders after a while without the kind of relationship between those individual moments that a more fully developed artist brings to the table to give a solo good musical shape. The solo goes on too long and almost feels like he doesn’t quite know how to end his solo in a logical way; something that is harder to do than may seem. But, the kid was twelve years old!!! Incredible composure to be able to play like that with experienced players like Wynton on a stage like that. Pretty amazing!
Fast forward two years and he sounds much more relaxed on the Monk tune in the second clip; even the tone he gets from the piano is more developed as is to be expected given his larger physical size. Much more challenging tune to play and improvise on and he sounds impressively confident in the way that he plays a lot fewer notes, but with a lot more musical depth. If this kid continues on the path he seems to be on he could be one of the best. Thanks for the clips! |
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pjw, I commend you for your inquisitiveness. One of the things that most musicians hold as dogma is the idea that there is always more to learn about the art form; and there is no reason that listeners shouldn’t feel the same way. We all “have a long way to go” and your refreshing lack of ego about this and open mind to different genres suggest that you are a great candidate. Since the art is always evolving one way or the other, there is always something new to learn or understand. This is not to say that there can’t be deep enjoyment or appreciation without understanding the technical aspects of music, but a better understanding can definitely deepen the enjoyment and appreciation. Unfortunately, there is sometimes a mistaken idea that some fall victim to that suggests that knowledge is in conflict with the enjoyment of the emotional component. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am not familiar with that particular book, but I know Gioia’s work as a critic and reviewer and the guy definitely knows what he’s talking about. The reviews of that book are very positive. I would definitely check it out and please get back to us with your thoughts on it. |
nsp, important player indeed! I agree with Alex about the two recordings you mention and the other two he recommends.
Keeping in mind that some feel that Pres’ best recordings were his earlier ones, I would also definitely recommend “The Complete Aladdin Recordings Of Lester Young”. This reissue set includes the recording of Those Foolish Things that I posted and that you liked. “Lester Young with Oscar Peterson” is a must have, imo; some of his very best playing and excellent recorded sound. If I had to choose only one “later” recording (1952) that would be the one. Pres’ recordings with Count Basie are also important for a good overview. I like “The Complete Decca Recordings”. Very swinging big band and wonderful early Pres. Sound is more than acceptable. |
The great Jimmy Cobb. RIP. Discography:
As leader- So Nobody Else Can Hear (Contempo Vibrato, 1983)
- Encounter (Philology, 1994)
- Only for the Pure of Heart (Fable/Lightyear, 1998)
- Four Generations of Miles: A Live Tribute to Miles (Chesky, 2002)
- Cobb's Groove (Milestone, 2003)
- Yesterdays (RteesanCobb Music, 2003)
- Tribute to Wynton Kelly & Paul Chambers (Sound Hills, 2004)
- Cobb Is Back in Italy! (Azzurra, 2005)
- Marsalis Music Honors Series: Jimmy Cobb (Marsalis/Rounder, 2006))
- Taking a Chance on Love (Azzurra, 2006)
- New York Time (Chesky, 2006)
- Cobb's Corner (Chesky, 2007)
- Jazz in the Key of Blue (Chesky, 2009)
- Live at Smalls (Smallslive, 2010)
- Remembering Miles `Tribute to Miles Davis` (Sony Music, 2011)
- The Original Mob (Smoke Sessions, 2014)
- You'll See (SteepleChase, 2016)
As sideman[edit]With Pepper Adams-Donald Byrd Quintet With Cannonball Adderley With Nat Adderley With Toshiko Akiyoshi With Lorez Alexandria With Geri Allen With Dorothy Ashby With Kenny Barron and John Hicks With Walter Benton With Walter Bishop, Jr. With Nick Brignola With Paul Chambers With Al Cohn With John Coltrane With Miles Davis - Porgy and Bess (Columbia, 1958)
- 1958 Miles (Columbia, 1958)
- Jazz at the Plaza (Columbia, 1958)
- Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959)
- Sketches of Spain (Columbia, 1960)
- Someday My Prince Will Come (Columbia, 1961)
- In Person Friday and Saturday Nights at the Blackhawk, Complete (Columbia, 1961)
- Miles & Monk at Newport (Columbia, 1963)
- Miles Davis at Newport 1955-1975: The Bootleg Series Vol. 4 (Columbia Legacy, 2015)
With Joey DeFrancesco With Kenny Dorham With Kenny Drew With Ricky Ford With Curtis Fuller With Benny Golson With Paul Gonsalves With Bunky Green With Bill Hardman With Joe Henderson With John Hendricks With John Hicks and Elise Wood With Wynton Kelly With Hubert Laws With Johnny Lytle With Harold Mabern With Pat Martino With Ronnie Mathews With Billy Mitchell With Wes Montgomery With Frank Morgan With David "Fathead" Newman With Art Pepper With Jimmy Raney With Sonny Red With Shirley Scott With Wayne Shorter With Don Sleet - All Members (Jazzland, 1961)
With Sonny Stitt With Teri Thornton With Bobby Timmons With Norris Turney With Phil Upchurch With Sarah Vaughan With Cedar Walton With Dinah Washington With C. I. Williams |
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Schubert, I would be interested in learning who the Quartets were should you learn their identity, thanks. Saxophone quartet is fairly common as you know and a great sound; fantastic playing Bach transcriptions. Clarinet quartet much less well known, but a surprising amount of literature for it. Don’t know this group, but they sound pretty good. One of the most popular works written for clarinet quartet. Not the usual 2 sopranos, alto and bass, but three sopranos and bass instead: https://youtu.be/z2FiupE-xYU |
Classic, indeed. Awesome record and one of the first three jazz records I ever bought. While in High School I had just been introduced to Jazz by a young teacher with Billy Cobham’s jazz/fusion “Spectrum”. I went to the local Sam Goody’s (I’m showing my age) and bought that record, Maynard Ferguson’s “McArthur Park” and Duke’s “Money Jungle”. Truth is it took me another couple of years to understand and appreciate “Money Jungle” which was serious jazz and neither Rock/Jazz Fusion nor “commercial” Big Band jazz. Some interesting reading about that record: https://www.allaboutjazz.com/deconstructing-money-jungle-duke-ellington-by-graham-e-peterson.php?wid... |
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Great to see you back, learsfool! +1 Copland’s famous book; a must read. I look forward to any new posts from you. |
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“Censorship”?! Are you kidding? Seems to me that only the moderators have the power to do that. As has been correctly pointed out, everyone is free to comment on any topic and in any way he/she chooses.......just as everyone is free to comment on the foolhardiness and indulgence that this sometimes is.
Nice comments on love/sex, Schubert.
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Great clips, acman3. And good analysis of the Harry Allen clip; I agree. Harry Allen has been a fixture on the still fairly vibrant Swing scene in NYC along with others like Ken Peplowski and Frank Vignola; great player. That recording is new to me and one to put on my list to buy. Thanks! Interesting that they went for the sound of the “Four Brothers” saxophone section sound with three tenors and baritone. When I hear current players like Allen, Smulyan and Magnarelli it’s obvious Jazz is not going anywhere. Good to see you back, Chazro. Dafnis Prieto is a force of nature. Amazing drummer with an uncanny ability with multi-rhythms. Thanks for the clip. I checked out some of the cuts from that record and I like them a lot. I posted this a while back. May not seem like much at first, but it’s pretty amazing. His sense of time is remarkable in its ease and ability to pull the listener in. https://youtu.be/YXpxsXC4TdwI like Dafnis’ big band record a lot. I tried, I really tried with Henry Threadgill on that big band clip. I do get it. I know he is a bit of a giant in the “out”/avant-garde scene, and he does have some moments in that solo when he sounds highly emotive and lyrical (in a way). But, I just can’t get past that sound and funky (as in bad) intonation. The “out” guys sometimes get a free pass on those aspects of playing. In certain settings that aesthetic actually works well. In a ballad (bolero) like this, I’m not so sure. Just me. In the studio with Dafnis’ big band: https://youtu.be/rWm1s3ze8d4More Dafnis Prieto: https://youtu.be/J4TxjKzxuQo |
Nice! One of the unsung heros of the alto; very interesting character also. Great clips, thanks. Since I commented on Henry Threadgill in my last post, it strikes me that Hal McKusic’s style is diametrically opposed to Threadgill’s. Not a put down of Threadgill; apples and oranges. Traditionalist, great command of harmony and beautiful tone leaning toward the “cool”; all strike a nice balance between a classic Desmond/West Coast sound and the classic Bird/East Coast sound. Loved the clips. |
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mary_jo, old Jazz musician joke. Funny and true. Thanks. In fairness, usually the result of the only way for the band to get on the band stand in most small clubs and not necessarily disrespect for the musicians. Old fave (subtle):
* Two musicians and a drummer are at a bar… *
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**** She reminds me a bit of a female Evans ****
Very good observation and I agree. Sung has a very similar touch and tone.
**** It's much better to know what the rules are if you want to break them a bit . ****
So true. Old truism in Jazz: ** You can't play "outside" (the harmony) before you know how to play "inside" ** Otherwise it's just bs and reveals the imposters. Nice clip. |
Bill Evans came to mind while reading that. Thanks. |
Next month CBS will broadcast the 41st Kennedy Center Honors with honoree Wayne Shorter, one of my very favorite musicians. Amazing musician with an unusually unique and personal voice both as a player and composer. I’m pretty sure that I posted this previously. I think this record is a masterpiece; unusual jazz language. One of my very favorites: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydXVO6lViQnCVaGC3kuFW7nTeB_Ez_cz |
Schubert, great to see you posting clips. Kurt Elling is probably the greatest male jazz vocalist today. Thanks for the clip as well the Stitt. Great stuff! |
mary_jo and nsp, in answer to your question, the feeling that the text invoked is not unlike the feeling that I often experience when I listen to Bill Evans play.
**** a story about a man afflicted by one of those personal tragedies born of extreme shyness ****
**** he having disguised even his voice, and since he didn’t take careful note of whoever had listened to him, he could enjoy the ample sensation of knowing that somewhere in the world there was someone who knew him ****
Bill Evans is one of my favorite jazz pianists. If forced to choose only one as my favorite, he would probably be the one. His playing has always given me a sense of introspection, even shyness. The tone he produced on a piano was gentle and round without much percussive quality. At the risk of being politically incorrect, there was something very femenine about the attitude in his playing. I saw him live at the Village Vanguard about half a dozen times back in the late 70’s. He would walk unto the band stand without saying a word to either the audience or band mates. The aura he projected was one of someone who had something heavy on his mind; never even a hint of a smile. He would sit at the piano hunched over with his head almost touching the keyboard. The music was glorious. Great introspection and sense of tenderness in his playing. I hope that clarifies my comment.
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Can’t have too many “greats” in jazz 😊 |
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Loved the Paolo Conte clips, mary_jo. Salma Hayek and Ashley Judd!!! That clip almost killed me.
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As Shubert commented earlier, excellent performance.
Original orchestral instruments sound with a different sonority (timbre) than modern instruments. Generally speaking they were softer textured. This often means that certain compositional musical detail can potentially be heard more clearly. May sound counterintuitive, but the more powerful sound of modern instruments en masse can obscure subtle detail that the composer intended to be more clearly heard. The argument against period instruments is that some music lacks that sense of power. Ultimately, it is the interpretative skills of the conductor and players that determines wether its is a good performance of not. The use of period instruments, by itself, will never make up for mediocre playing or conducting.
One of the driving forces of the period instrument movement is the stated goal of observing very strictly the composer’s indications in the score. Beethoven included specific metronome markings in his scores so that there would be no ambiguity as to what the tempo of the music should be at various points in the piece. In modern times, the trend has been to perform the music faster than is indicated in the score. This is probably the main reason that the “repeat” indications are not observed. It is fairly common practice for modern conductors/orchestras to not observe the indicated repeats of certain sections in the “written score”.
Just as in Jazz there is a general playing style that is typical of a particular period in the music. This is in part a product of the inherent sound of the instruments available at the time as well as accepted performance practices at the time. Not sure what the author of your article means by “demanding playing style of the time”. It is demanding because it is not how most modern players approach playing that music.
I like the “period instruments” approach and its attempt to get as close as possible to the sound that the composer wanted...as one valid approach. However, there are a couple of things that make me a (little) bit of a skeptic. The case of Beethoven is particularly interesting....he was deaf by the time he wrote his 9th. It is entirely possible that the sounds that Ludwig heard coming from the orchestra in his head were quite a bit different than the sounds of instruments at the time were able to produce. Secondly, composers were often frustrated by the limitations of early instruments.
Great performance with some unique qualities, but don’t throw out you Kleiber recordings yet. In most great scores is built in the potential for different and still valid interpretations.
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Background usually has value. A while back an unnecessary dispute ensued after a matter of fact reference to the use of production/studio techniques in a particular version of a song. The dispute arose because the reference was interpreted as being an automatic pejorative. Not so. For me the important point, and which got lost in the dispute, is simply whether the use of those production techniques serves the music in a really meaningful way; or, is it just meaningless sweetening. All subjective calls in part, of course. This record is one of my “guilty pleasure” records. While not a jazz singer, in some ways this woman can sing like no other and, whether one likes her particular style or not, she sings from the heart. The use of production techniques on this record is pretty amazing in the way that it serves the music and that particular genre’s aesthetic. Very “digital” all the way around, but great. One of those records to play for the visiting relative who is a very casual music listener, but wants to hear your “stereo”. Stephen Sondheim, composer. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQL8vLGlM3mnr7QHXHE_SIU_iIfpy2il8 |
Rok, a correction/clarification to my post above. There is much controversy re Beethoven’s metronome markings in his scores. Many of those markings indicate that the music should be played much faster than how it is often performed by many modern day conductors and performers. I should have written that the trend in modern performances is often to have less tempo contrast between the slow and fast movements.
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I think that drummers don’t get enough love. A notable exception here has been Joe Morello. Many listeners “endure” drum solos; sometimes with reason, but other times because, in the context of a tune, it’s a bit jarring for the listener to all of a sudden lose tonality and melody (in the usual sense). On this extremely swinging record Philly Joe Jones does an amazing job of, when its time to solo, not suddenly take the tune to another musical planet as often happens, but stays grounded in the feel of the tune. Love this record. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOAhcCb9en7BrHu6wfPmdcoCTCYiJV531BTW, in honor of our OP and his love of Grant Green, I would point out that on this record, to me Grant Green sounds as good as I have ever heard. |
