I concur for Blue Mitchell trumpet singing mastery...😊
Jazz for aficionados
Jazz for aficionados
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.
Enjoy the music.
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.
Enjoy the music.
Showing 50 responses by mahgister
I will check thanks ... I dont have this one ... Seems good ..
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I had hard time to listen to all suggestions here everyday and pick what i must keep... It is the results of good dudes crowding with astonishing always better suggestions .. i felt like a sultan complaining that i had too much beautiful women in my harem ... 😁 And i cannot afford ten more ... 😁 Thanks anyway for the last suggestion i must come back to her but tomorrow 😉... Because i was sleeping so to speak with Blue Mitchell for a while now ... But piano is my favorite instrument then ... |
Rereading my post i guess it suggest a misreading from my part... Remember english is not even a daily spoken language where i live... All my life i never used english... I only read science and philosophy in english not even poetry or litterature ... Then my mastery is limited at lot ... I prefer to read Dickens in translation ... Slang words , Victorian idiom, the same for Mark Twain ...I read Peirce in english but he was not a great writer just a thinker with abstract vocabulary ... The greatest english writer i was able to read was Santayana , he was so mesmerizing to read , i loose the thread a couple times in ectasy with his style forgetting the deep content and he was born spanish ... But it was an exception ... I got your point for sure but answered as if not ...My fault ...
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Happy new year mary_jo The right cut-off is just before 21 of June for ladies ... Then you are spot on in my book ...
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Armstrong for me is the embodiement of jazz... His voice , his trumpet playing , and his improvising joy ... I love Chet Baker but only Armstrong is jazz itself ... My impression never changed anyway my first jazz album was one with Armstrong ... ( the second was Al Hirt 😊).. His voice is almost an archetype manifested on earth ...
Other great jazz voices exist for sure ... I love Ella Fitzgerald ...Billie Holiday , Chet Baker etc ... No one exhude irresistible joy with irresistible rythm with trumpet and voice... I remember also Ray Charles who is with Armstrong no doubt for the same reason ...In a league of their own...
Thanks frogman and Happy christmas to you and your family ...🎄
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How do we recognize a jazz master ? I dont know at the end save we cannot stop listening him ...
Ron Carter is well known...You dont need me to buy this album with him ... But the surprise is Attila Zoller playing guitar ... Borderline between ballad and adventure, a singing master ... The recording is top notch ....
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I dont know if they will be accessible in cd before i die , they just discovered 200 hours of recorded unknown session even with Oscar Peterson etc ....😁 I like his higher frequency tone... It sound marvellous on my system ...( especially with my new tube pre-amplifier) . If it sound fatiguing you have a problem with the gear synergy... 😁
Zoller was named among the 10 most underrated jazz guitarists in history by JazzTimes.
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I like Lonnie Smith ... But i must confess i like too much Hammond organ ... I dont know why ... It is illogical ...I could not discover why ...I can even discover many reasons why i must not like it so much ... But love and reasons dont partake the same house and dont have much to say to each other save acknowledging each other ... 😊 What strike me when i was 15 years old with the first Hendrix albums was the complete innovative sound and creative experience as no one ever seen before...No showmanship artificial, just a true guitar poet ...At this time i was listening mostly Bach and Choral music then i was not an easy customer ... 😁 |
I am glad to coming back to this interesting comments and suggestions thread... I am glad to give my deepest salutations to all here.... I was forced by circonstances ( health and selling my house) to go back to headphone... Details are in a new thread of mine in headphone section ... I discovered few Japan jazz albums...Among many... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNv2RxjsbWA&t=312s
This pianist of Japan, very original playing, is one of my favorite... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRdhE4lGo4Y
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Thanks For your kindness...
Yes my health is ok now... But the new house management is not finished... The only good news for me was that being in the obligation to quit my speakers/room was a benediction in disguise... The AKG K340 is probably the best designed headphone ever in the ratio price/S.Q. scale... it is very hard to drive it optimally... i opened it and make modifications for vibrations controls, cut the obstructing plasstic grid, and more; after few months of experiments i discovered that a ll my other 9 headphones dont compete at all ... Then i am more happy with my audiophile experience than ever....Minimalistic system but the best i listen to in my life...
Hiromi is a tornado.... Yes....I must look for his jazz albums more...Junko is astonishing in creativity...
Many japan jazz pianists or musician are underestimated a bit... But it is my opinion ... :) Certainly we must ask frogman opinion because he a more learned one in jazz than me and a musician himself .... |
Thanks....
We think the same about Japan jazz.... I love nordic jazz pianist too a lot... I am curious about frogman opinion... I bought 10 junko Onishi albums... :)
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Wow! thanks...
I did not know him at all and it seems more than just good to my ears ... I will investigate.... My best to you...
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Alexatpos, This Jan Johansson is a genius, i suffer because there is no way to buy a cd files ... I listened to him on Youtube and his way of playing is addictive... he die very young and make many albums now impossible to get our hand on... It was a genius then difficult to forget and difficult to replace him by anyone else...
In music each and everyone great musician is UNIQUE and a necessary world in itself then knowing one without having it at our command is like missing an entire new unique world after seeing it.... No great musician can replace another great musician ever... No more than tomatoes can replace berries... Music is a drug more powerful than any drug known to man... And those non addicted to music are the unlucky one... Thanks really for this marvellous unique hypnotizing jazz pianist ... |
Half of my time is listening what i already love and know as Bach or Chet Baker , The other part is listening to a musician i love already but from an unknown album...The minor part of this second half listening time is for listening a new musician , unknown to me... The last one is a trombonist genius, i immediately look for many albums ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jUWsNrNklQ
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It is a pleasure for me to recognize fellow music lovers... Viva Django https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3RjISiW7gA
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oups! i dont merit the title professor here, especially after frogman, a real musician and a real music teacher... Anyway thanks for your kindness...
The light of Brazil is amazing...And being in love especially with brazil and the great Villa lobos... This album is pure UNKNOWN fruit delight...Thanks my friend ...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT77qQqdSNc JIM HALL trio featuring TOM HARRELL A marvellous album... Very imaginative but relaxing... I own many albums of Tom Harrell... I think he is very good in improvisation melodic line and rythm and stay natural and minimalistic... I am in love with trumpet for a long time ...it even prevent me to understand sax playng for a long time ... Nobody is perfect... But recently i fall in love with a trombonist of the greatest gifted musicality : Steve Turre .. A genius I am in love with his instrument which surprize me to begin with ..But none of his albums are bad... I cannot pick one... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kCZM0a0guU My very best to you ... |
Thanks i will look at it... I advised students about books and ideas for thirty five years... But i was not teaching any course, they come for me for months years and in some case decades...Mostly between 20 years old and thirty years... But here the only teacher is frogman... He is musician not me... I read less after my retirement 4 years ago and almost got depressed because i loose touch with the students with whom i can discuss any subjects in their field and interests and LEARN from them way more than the advise i can gave them ...I even read their doctorate or masters thesis in some case as an unofficial adviser for discussion .. Now if i made a discovery about a thinker i will not be able to speak with a student the day after...I realized that ideas motivated me way more if i can communicate them and help someone ... I was never a specialist in my life, i spoke linguistic with a linguist, or poetry with a poet, music with a musician or mathemathic with a student in maths philosophy with a student in philo. i became friend with a lawyer and spoke with him about Roman law. because he published a book about it .. etc... What interested me was the relation between field not any field in itself alone ... This is the reason why for me music is not only music, it is history of human consciousness, it is acoustic and it is brain neurology of hearing, and it is about phenomenology of the perception, it is even the way by which we enter in the most intimate contact possible with the world INSIDE of the phenomena... For example i stumbled on a book, complete genius, which created ideas and new mathematics over neural networks andmore deep mathematics and the writer of this book is a not well known Indian scientist working in Japan : "nanobrain" his book throw the basis of A. C. artificial consciousness and not mere A. I. artificial consciousness... His idea are so deep and remind me of an experience i felt when i was younger... Now with who can i discuss that ? Only with a student in A. I. or in maths or in philosohy... Did you got why i felt depressed ? Why reading new ideas if i could not give them to a student to motivate him tomorrow and importantly LEARN from him by feedback ? It is why i came here by despair, after my retirement being motivated by the idea to create my audio room by learning some basic acoustic ...I succeeded and spoke about here to help people to spare their money...Now i lost my house ten months ago and my room... It takes me 6 months to recreate a top audio system with headphone... Now less sad i am back again here ... I will look for your book suggestion... Thanks my friend... By the way do you know why i am interested by your book sugggestion? I read a marvellous book about sound: "sound sources" by Ekpan J. Essien.. This african man takes twenty years to create his doctorate research about sound sources ...His doctorate are so disturbing for classical acoustic he was refused in London to be received as doctorate fellow and he succeded only in Paris...He used Yorumba drum musicological studies and linguistic to achieve his acoustic research on acoustic phenomenology and history of sound perception and the physical basis of acoustic ... Very interesting and revolutionary for me... Very interesting book founded on the perceived body-image of the sound source : «The definition of sound in physics as vibrations in an elastic medium establishes a link between the sound source and the organism. Thus, it satisfies an essential psychophysical prerequisite for a theory of perception. However, over the past 170 years since Ohm’s law (1843), and some 137 years since Helmholtz’s resonance theory (1877), psychoacoustic procedures founded on air vibration have shrouded music and speech in mystery. Ecological theories have fallen short, not only of Gestalt invariance, but also of the link between the distal object and the organism. This paper approaches auditory analysis from the standpoint of sound production. It argues that although air vibration produces sound, sound is not air vibration; and that exploitation of features of air vibration can hardly (if ever) lead to accurate understanding of the principle of the auditory mechanism in speech or music perception. Evidence is provided in support of the definition of sound as the vibratory image of the sonorous body. It establishes isomorphism between characteristics of a sonorous body and auditory attributes of sound. Wherefore, a body is different from the sound it produces in much the same way as steam is different from ice ─ two different forms of the same entity. The data under consideration offer succinct insights into the way the auditory mechanism extracts from sound wave invariants for use in speech or music regardless of chaotic production and acoustic variability. Implications for future research in speech, music and all aspects of auditory analysis are discussed.»
i apologize for this long post not about jazz but i will include this album of jazz absolutely marvellous and Unknown and INCREDIBLY GOOD : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNv2RxjsbWA&t=314s
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Yes i apologize i forgot...i gave only the youtube adress without the title... An album way more than just good for me... You will accept my excuse if you listen to this two hours album of jazz from japan : "spiritual Jazz"... It is way more than just good too... Completely relaxing totally original with no musician i know of but all great... One of the top best album of jazz in my big collection... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNv2RxjsbWA&t=314s I just listen to it after the Tom Harrell and jim Hall album... The recording sound is top notch.. Thre hours of ectasy with these 2 albums spritual jazz and Tom Harrell... I am very picky in my jazz taste... As in classical... i ask for ectasy... It does not means that all my choices would be for the taste of everyone, not at all, but it said that my choices are there for a reason...Just good is not enough...All the albums i recommended gave me ectasy if not i never listen to them again... But those who give me ectasy i came back again and again... I will said to you an anecdote... I had the habit to read and meditate about a subject... Many years ago i enter into a deep study, it takes me 3 years, and each day i listen to a one hour album of Heinrich Schutz Geistliche chor music by Mauesberger as conductor of the chorus , now count the days : it was around one thousand listenings...This is my favorite work in German choral music ever with Bach different albums which i listened to for each day for these three years.. Then if something gave me ectasy i sometimes cannot be used to it easily... The "art of the fugue" is my favorite work with Scriabin( but it impossible to listen Scriabin each days one after the other here we must wait for some SACRED day as with most composers ) ... I own many interpretations of the art of the fugue... The deepest musical work ever... Nothing touch it... I suspect God is envious of his own creature listening Bach and say to him : "you know son dont be too proud, i created you and your music"... 😊
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I just check all the 13 albums of the spiritual jazz collection... They seems interesting... But the double albums from japan is made by unknown artists here and is so good i did not hope it will be beat in ORIGINALITY and RELAXING power ... I recommend this one... i will try some others and i will spoke about it here in the months to come... |
The japan spiritual jazz double album even if experimental jazz in many way, is balanced well between hypnotizing rythm and some melody with japan musical instrument sometimes... I like it and experimental jazz is not my cup of tea very often... The sound quality is top notch... All japan music lover will kill themselves before the slighest recording error can be faulted to them ... 😉 |
Thanks
For sure there is more good Jazz unknown to me than the hours of all the rest of my few years left ... This is another proof from kooljazzman... thats a problem ? Yes especially if we must choose which albums to buy... And it is another problem if we cannot decide which one is the better... Anyway some problems make our life fuller...Even if they stay unsolved... Thanks for your enthusiastic existence kooljazzman...
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Thanks very much to remind me of this one...
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Thanks... I own it already but i never listen to it...it is useful to remind me of it ... i have perhaps most of Keith Jarrett albums... It is very long to listen each of them... it takes years...because i listen to others music too... But i like Jarrett a lot... The Koln concert was a sentimental memory of mine in 1976... Then i had almost all his albums...I invested in music not in gear...it is useless to have 15,000 bucks dac and not one of the almost 200 albums of Jarrett... Audio people switch gear, i switch albums...😊 |
Bill Charlap never played so well than with his pianist wife Renee Rosnes , a great one too, i dont know why ? ...😉😊 Try this album at any cost... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6g3d53aklc
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I just listened to Toshiko Akiyoshi big band compositions.. Astoundingly good... And i am not a big band fan because i am too difficult customer for big band jazz music... this woman is musical genius, but being from Japan and a woman, let her behind... Few jazz musicians rrival his creativity...His two husbands jazz musicians marry her for his talent for sure... Charlie Mariano and Lew Tabackin... it is a revelation and the soundfield and timbre recording qualities are top... It is a MOSAIC box of three cd with this image I dont remember who recommend it to me ? stuartk ? Thanks very much... i will grab all his others albums... but these three cannot be beaten ... It is in my personal hall of fame of the one hundred best jazz albums ... |
Yes i was lucky... 😉 I did trust your advice... I will go for the Holland big band soon... Thanks ... Akiyoshi is a genius...
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Being in the shadow of an unrecognized genius composer, who is a woman and a japanese, in an american style music as jazz, this astonishing musician , his husband, Tabackin , is well under the radar... You are right...His flute mastering is very good, i listened Japan master of the flute, they are the best in the world by the way with some turkisch and persian masters.. I dont invest in my audio system , which is near perfect for me now, even in headphone listening now... i invest in music... people will spend 50,000 bucks for a system inferior to my 700 bucks one because they dont know what to buy and why , and where to put it and how to embed it rightfully ... They trust the price tag of their components not their untrained ears... 😊 My money goes only to music not audio ... My system is the best in the world for the bucks... I dont even doubt it a second... Each evening is an ectasy... I work hard to understand acoustic... its pay off now from my acoustic and my experiments...I was lucky too with my purchases... I bought the AKG K340 after despair because i hated headphones unnatural in the head sound.. but this one was the good one... 😉
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Thanks stuartk... He suggested her... i even ordered others albums... Money well spent is in music... My soundfield is so extraordinary i am the luckiest man on earth... Their recordings sound is very good and in fact exceptionally good compared to many...
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My best Sun Ra album is with Walt Dickerson , another genius... "Visions" Their complicities is completely amazing... None of the two take the floor, they spoke together... And Piano and vibraphone of two unsurpassed masters... I valued also " impressions of a patch of blue"... It is jazz at his peak creativity... I was very sad that these two only make two albums... |