Jazz for aficionados

I heard a young (36 years old) saxaphonist live recently. Her name is Melissa Aldana. I was very impressed because she had her own voice, with influences, of course, but like nothing I'd heard before. And it was a feminine voice in a genre of music that is dominated by strong male voices.

I was very happy to hear a new jazz voice that would be worthy of playing in your listening room, competeing with all the giants of the past. A breath of fresh air. I think we should all be on the lookout for these new voices and open our doors and windows to new sounds.

Two other fantastic female Brazilian jazz musicians: Tania Maria (now in her late seventies) and Flora Purim (also in her late seventies.) Flora Purim's abstract jazz album "Encounter" is in regular rotation on my turntable. As is Tania Maria's "Brazil With My Soul." 

In many endeavors, I think it is time that we men open the doors and windows to women . They are much stronger than you think.

stuartk, I have Dashlane to remember my passwords, but Audiogon is not accepting the Dashlane psswd.

This conversation feels a bit stuffy to me. Why? I was a good chess player in high school. When I went off to college I looked for chess games. A whole bunch of guys were playing in the student union. But the question hit me immediately. Where are the women? I was outa' there. 

There are some mentions of Ella, and Sarah, but those are singers. In the seventies I got deeply into Brazilian jazz and man do they have some tasty women. I'd suggest Tania Maria for one. She sings, scats, and plays the piano like no get out. Now we're talking juicy jazz. I think the two best Tania Maria albums are "Brazil with My Soul" and "Piquant." Have a blast finding them on vinyl but that's the way to listen. Tania Maria is one of the best jazz pianists I've heard. 

Then Flora Purim. My God! She sings on one of the best selling jazz albums of all time: "Light as a Feather" with Chick Corea. As for her own albums which she usually makes with her percussionist husband, Airto, I recommend "Encounter." But be ready to bend your ear a bit. The lady is abstract. For some "stuffy" credibility, Ron Carter, Joe Henderson, and McCoy Tyner are also on that album. I go back to it again and again and again. Again, listen to it on vinyl if you can.I have purchased all the Flora Purim albums I could get my hands on.

Sliding into the 21st century, I recently went to a concert of a saxaphonist named Melissa Aldana. I was extremely impressed that she had her own voice (on the saxaphone). I immediately purchased a couple of her albums.

IMHO, the best jazz standard I have is Coltrane playing "My Favorite Things" on Selflessness. I have more Coltrane albums (vinyl) than I can count, but that's my all time favorite. He flies in the album. Here's a poem I wrote to Coltrane back in the day:

              ON HEARING A RADIO INTERVIEW
               WITH JOHN COLTRANE NOV. 13, 1985

 stepping out of the past
 on careful paws of a cat
 hissing & scratching
 thru car speakers
 in the Sepulveda pass
 a gospel intelligence
 where family words
 are polished in deep drums                           

 he doesn't say it
 but somehow I hear
 that music wasn't doled
 out over cloistered walls
 it comes from the streets
 where women's bodies
 turn rags to style

 I stop the car &
 close my eyes
 listening to "Green Dolphin St."
 & picture large black hands
 like Icarus's wings

 & think that grace lands anyplace  
 like snowflakes
 promiscuously kissing faces
 

I forgot one of the best classic female jazz musicians of all time. Alice Coltrane. She flies very high in "Journey in Satchidananda" accompanied by Pharoah Sanders.

stuartk, good question about intellect versus funk, or what I call raw emotion. What the poem is saying is that music doesn’t come from the intellect, it comes from the streets, and I include the feminine because it is often excluded from discussion of the arts. 

I am not a music scholar, but I know that many classical composers find their themes in folk music. Bartok is probably one of the most well-known for this since he studied Hungarian folk music. But I have also heard that Haydn used folk music for themes. Folk music, in my mind, comes from the streets.

I like your choice of jazz musicians, Parker, Coltrane, Davis, Shorter. All of these men include a strong emotional content in their music. A lot of jazz I hear tends more toward the intellect and I like it less. Strong emotion coralled into artistic form is what I like in all the arts. De Kooning, for example, in painting.

I apologize for my judgment. I was trying to shake things up a bit. But I judge the world--yes, the entire world--for their exclusion of the feminine, especially in the arts. I have been researching and writing a novel about the suppression of the feminine, especially in religion, so I see pretty much everything through that lens.

But in regards to music, I’m not just talking the talk. I play more female jazz musicians than male. Although, right now I am listening to Charles Lloyd’s Forest Flower. Keith Jarrett has some great passages on there, and he is a male jazz musician I listen to a lot.

Back to the feminine for a bit. It is my belief that women were our first artists. I think that they were the early cave painters who created those beautifully drawn animals. I have a lot to say about that, but I’ll stop here.

I would ask that you try Tania Maria, especially "Brazil With My Soul." I think you will immediately be struck with a feminine strength that is not found in other jazz you might have heard. You must remember that she is playing the piano. She was classically trained in Paris.On my stereo those songs fill the room and wash over me. One thing I heard that might apply is that men show their swagger by the way they move their shoulders when they walk. Women show their swagger by the way they move their hips.

Stuartk, yes I think you are right about tuning one's ear to complex melodies. I'll stream some Wayne Shorter and see. Can you stream music?

stuartk, very well said! I do understand how difficult all jazz is and the degree of study and musicality that is involved. And I am really glad that you mentioned the inner feminine. As a writer, it something I have to struggle to find within myself. I think like a male, but I am learning. 

In regards to appreciating the degree of musical sophistication and intellectual understanding of music that is required by jazz musicians, I am in awe of all jazz musicians I hear, especially live. I began listening to jazz is the 60s, and at some point, perhaps in the 90s, I felt I wasn't hearing anything really new, except in Brazillian jazz. And maybe that wasn't so much new as new to my ear.

Many years ago i went to hear Wynton Masalis live. Obviously the man is a great musician. Any musician who is adept at both classical and jazz has my respect. I found his music, however, not exciting. He played what I will call older jazz. I like Brad Meldhau and have seen him live a few times. Clearly he is a great musician, and I appreciate that, but I am not excited by it anymore. Whereas when I put on Tania Maria or Flora Purim, I am literally up dancing at my old age.

I went to hear Melissa Aldana live and she excited me because I found her voice to be new and unique. Although, like most young saxaphonists, she was influenced by Coltrane, her notes wavered softly in a way I'd never heard before. In a way, I felt like the first time I heard Stan Getz (backing up Astrid Gilberto on the Johnny Carson show.) What's this! My young mind asked of my young body. I'd never heard anything like that before. Bossa Nova. Wow! At that time (I was probably 15) I listened to Wagner in classical music. 

I have a lot of jazz records I haven't listened to in many, many years, and I am beginning to pull them out again to see what I missed the first time I listened. And I am reeducating my ear to jazz classics. I have also been streaming some female sax players like Anat Cohen. I may be old, but I want to listen to new things, especially jazz.

Back to my poem. Yes, it does take a lot of work to become a jazz musician. I don't think it is work, though, for those who were born with a passion for music. I like to say I get lost when I am writing, and I love being lost creatively. All of these musicians, whether I think they are exciting or not, are excited by music. And that is what I mean at the end of my poem by "garce lands anyplace/ like snowflakes/ promiscuously kissing faces. I think of how so many of these jazz musicians were born into poverty, yet they were kissed by the muse who does seem to be promiscuous. I think that's partly what the movie Amadaeus was about. 

So, stuartk, I think you and I are on the same page, except you can play guitar and I was a failure at playing guitar. I love music, but cannot make it. I was not promiscuously kissed, at least not by the muse of music. 

Thank you for not abandoning me. I know I can be a pain sometimes.

stuartk, writing poetry was never difficult for me because I was bursting with something to say and I wanted very badly to say it.  I studied with Gary Snyder and other notable poets, so I had a technical foundation. Once a poem burst out of me, like the Coltrane poem which I did write on a roadside, then I lovingly worked on it to refine what I wanted to say. But I don't write poetry anymore.

Writing prose, on the other hand, is a bitch. I should be working on my novel, but it's more pleasurable to write you. I think I was touched with poetry. I started writing in 9th grade. My high school poems were good enough to get me entry into a much-coveted spot in Gary Snyder's upper-division class at Berkeley. I was hungry for the tools he gave me.

To me poetry is a burst of emotion crafted into form. Prose, prose, prose... it is too long to be a burst of anything. And I do tons of research. I have been researching the book I'm working on for at least fifteen years. I didn't even know exactly what the book was about until research led me there. 

From my research, I believe that music was first made during humanity's spiritual quest, about 40,000 to 60,000 years ago. Nietsche says there is no tragedy without music. And we all know there is not ecstasy without music. I think Coltrane had a direct pipeline into music's spirituality. I'm listening to Pharoah Sanders now, and he shared what Coltrane had. So did Alice Coltrane, whom I think should be on anybody's list of top jazz musicians.

The musicians you mentioned to me, Davis, Shorter, Coltrane, Parker, all broke through some barrier. And barriers are only broken with raw emotion. Parker brought us into bebop. Out of bebop, Coltrane and Miles took us into a raw, spiritual territory that jazz had not yet explored, at least not in their way.

I am not saying that they did not have to work, but I'm saying I don't think it was "work" for them. If somebody falls in love with somebody else, it is not work to spend days traveling to see them, even for a short time. Coltrane had something bursting to get out of him, and fI think he would have been anxious to find the tools and learn how to use them 

Roots of jazz: for those discussing the roots of jazz, I think the U.S. and Brazil are two countries where jazz and pop emerged because they're such melting pots with so many roots. Early jazz had so many influences. Obviously the blues from slaves and other Blacks, but there was also Scotch-Irish influences, and Jewish Klezmer music. The Gershwins were clearly part of jazz's beginnings, and Italian singers weren't wanting. This is one area of the arts where Europe had to look to the Americas.

Frogman, I meant no disrespect to Wynton Marsalis. I have recordings of him playing both jazz and classical music. And I was very impressed with his knowledge of jazz when he was interviewed in Ken Burns' great series on Jazz. I'm an old guy and I've heard a lot of music, and I've come to a point where I like what I like. I often tend toward 'abstract' jazz, John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Flora Purim. At other times I like old-school jazz. I've been playing a lot of the album of Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden playing standards. But I think you're right that I should express my views with more respect. And I will.

Ty Ray, a lot of the Brazillian jazz I own (on vinyl) was pressed in Brazil. I have old Wando albums from the sixties that were impossible to find in the U.S. Most, if not all, of my Tania Maria albums are from Brazil. I go fairly deep into Brazilian music. I would venture to say that you could spend a week at my house listening to my reocrdings of Brazilian music for ten hours a day and not get through it all. I know a bit about the different roots, but I don't lean toward history. I just like certain things and then maybe find out a bit about it. I even have recordings of Brazilian musicians who are still fairly young (in my book) like Luciana Souza. I went to hear her live several years ago.

But thank you folks for the welcome. I look forward to reading and learning. 

stuartk, I think it's true for everybody that as we age our tastes tend to get frozen in time. I also try to resist this by going to concerts and hearing new things. I live in L.A., so there's plenty of music around. I also have granddaughters (twins) who just entered college and they introduce me to new pop music. And I also poke around the internet and that's how I found this forum. As you know, one of my loves is Brazillian music, and I have checked out new Brazilian groups, but a lot of it is rap related. To me, rap has little to no feminine side, and often tends toward misogyny. Explaining my resistance to the misogynistic would take a long time. You'll have to read my book when I finish it.  

stuartk, BTW I don't think Patricia Barber and Diana Krall are equivalent, although I like them both. Diana Krall has some of the best recorded CDs I've ever heard. It doesn't sound as though you care that much about reproduction, but it makes a difference when it sounds like the music is live. If you listen to Clique (you need to stream it on something better than youtube) and you wait until Barber is done singing, you'll hear some damn good piano work. 

I turn on my turntable more and more because it sounds so much better than anything else. I am listening, however, to Wayne Shorter's Night Dreamer on Qobuz and it sounds very good. Better than a CD. Having a decent streamer is amazing. 

Tyray, thanks for the Brazilian site. I'll check it out. I bought the Black Orpheus album when I was in high school in the early sixties. The film blew me away and then I went out and bought the album. I took it to college and played it all the time. That and Stravisnky's Firebird. I beat that album up pretty bad but I have a perfect  copy in my collection now. I have a number of Elaine Elias CDs. But if you can, poke around, try to find Tania Maria. I think she'll blow you away. I heard her in L.A. a couple of times. You can't sit down and listen to her music. Another recording I'd recommend is Flora Purim's Encounter. I had that album for years and couldn't listen to it. It was too abstract for my ear. Then one day--boom--it hit me. I was totally into that s**t. I listen to her all the time when my wife isn't around. It's like nails scratching a blackboard to her. For Bossa Nova, the female voice that really gets to me is Maria Creuza. She's got this husky fragility that touches me. For the Salvador da Bahia music, try Maria Bethania. I have an album with her, Vinicius, and Toquinho in which they sing Samba Da Benacao which became famous in the French film A Man And A Woman, that famous samba you can't get out of your head once you've heard it.

stuartk, yes you're right about the fusion aspect of Flora Purim. But I like it. I think Tania Maria might also have some of that. I like music you want to dance to. I can also listen to more cerebral jazz, though. With Flora Purim see if you can find the album Encounter. It is very abstract to my ear, but maybe some fusion in places.

Stuartk, in the sense you're talking about it's a bit like listening to classical music. I am now listening to a Ravel string quartet. Ravel incorporated jazz into his later classical pieces. He came to America to hear jazz. He and Debussy had a heavy influence on modern classical music. Bartok, one of my favorite composers, said he was most influenced by Debussy.

One of the problems I have with some of the jazz you're talking about is their lack of melody. They are often driven by rhythm, and there is a lack of what I would call a strong melodic hook. Perhaps I have not attuned my ear to their melodies. It took me years with many modern composers, like Shostakovitch whose piano concerto I'm now listening to. His melodies are a bit dissonent but they are there.

I think a lot of the older jazz musicians based their music on themes that were standards, like "My Favorite Things." Then the melody is not a problem. Of course, Coltrane comes up with some heavy-duty melodies in "A Love Supreme" and Miles Davis in "Kinda Blue." A good melody is very hard to find, though, and I think some intricate jazz pieces eschew a strong melody and base their music on structural intricacy and rhythmic drive. Those are more difficult for me to listen to.

Stuartk, I listened to Wayne Shorter's Speak No Evil. Love it. I went to see what it would cost used on vinyl. I don't want remastered because it has been digitized and Qobuz has it at 192khz, which is close to vinyl and probably as good as remastered. A 1967 release of the album in M- condition is in the hundreds of dollars. Too much. I'll enjoy streaming it. Thanks for the suggestion.

Stuartk, since Freddie Hubbard plays trumpet on Hear No Evil (great choice! Along with Herbie Hancock!) I will suggest a couple of Freddie Hubbard albums which are among my favorite jazz albums: Red Clay and First Light.

Stuartk I’ve Qobuzzed all the Freddie Hubbard I can find. I like the two I have on album more than any others, which is a good thing. I’ve upgradded my rig lately and it sounds very good on vinyl. It’s difficult to listen to CDs and stream, although high sampling streaming does sound pretty good. I’ll check out your suggestions. Thanks.

You’ve probably probably listened to Patricia Barber. Her album Clique sounds better streaming than anything else I’ve heard streaming. I like her singing but she’s damn good when she just plays jazz piano.

stuartk, I think I'm getting an idea of what you might like. I thought of recommending Paul Desmond, but I have a feeling you've heard him and he doesn't have the complexity you're looking for. In that light, I might recommend Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. Sometimes Pharoah Sanders screams with his horn. A friend of mine called it dinosaur music. When Pharoah and Coltrane would scream back and forth like dinosaurs communicating from miles away. He doesn't always, though, and a deep soul comes through his horn. Journey in Satchidananda would be the one album I would suggest.  

Fair enough about "live" music. I listened to music on a $100 Sears Silvertone stereo in college and enjoyed it well enough. I am sure there are faults I overlook in my system, although it sounds close to live to me and my friends, who aren't really audiophiles. It's taken me many years to cobble together a good system. A recent inheritance put me at a different level, but it was at best mid-fi most of my life.

I enjoy both Krall and Barber, but I listen to many more female jazz vocalists than that. Cassandra Wilson is one of my favorites. Her album Traveling Miles is exceptional. I also like Morgana King from way back when. I have an album of Teresa Brewer singing with Stephan Grapelli. And then there are the Brazilian singers of which I have more than I can now name.

I'm quite ecletic as you have probably figured out. I've liked the Wayne Shorter I've been playing for the last couple of days, but I broke it up with an interlude of Paul Simon's Rhythm of the Saints. 

I'm curious. What else do you listen to but jazz? Classical? Rock? I find elements of jazz in both.

For anyone who has not seen Ken Burns 19 hour series on the history of jazz, I highly recommend it. It can be streamed on PBS.  It's worth joining PBS for a month to watch it. You see jazz at its inception going chronologically to more modern jazz. 

maghister, frogman, stuartk, are any of you guys Mose Allison fans? I know he sings, but he's also a jazz pianist. He blows me away. Here's a sample of him playing "Seventh Son."

In regards to your audio setup, I suggest your next purchase be a streamer that will both play through your stereo and offer a headphone jack. Then you can listen through a decent set of headphones. There are a number of reasonably priced streamers. My method of buying audio equipment has mostly been to read reviews and look for something used. 

Why the streamer? When I, or anyone else, suggests an album, it will 99% likely be on Qobuz or Tidal. You can also load Qobuz, which is now $10 a month, on a computer as an interface. People used to tell me about albums and I didn't want to lay out the cash to experiment. You suggested Wayne Shorter and I have probably found every album of consequence he's ever done on Qobuz. Too many for me to listen to.

On to music. I went to see The Dead a number of times in the sixties when I was going to Berkeley. I have one of their albums which I don't play often. I do, however, really like David Grisman. I have a album with him and Stephan Grapelli, who I saw live many, many years ago. Stephan Grapelli died in 1997. He was a member of the famous Django Rheinhardt Hot Club, an early French jazz band. Rheinhardt had three finger of his left hand (on the fret board) blown off in WWI, yet he was still considered one of the greatest jazz guitarists. Hot Dawg is another of David Grisman's albums I really like. He played "Dawg music."

There is a world of great young jazz singers. When somebody tells me about one, I jot down their name and head for Qobuz. That way I can listen to everything suggested to me. I absolutely do not want to get stuck in the past!

Regarding classical piano, I love Debussy. At times, he is very close to the best jazz. Another piece that I think is wonderful is Schubert's Impomptus. They are absolutely beautiful. If you poke around for it on youtube, I think you can find Mitsuko Uchida. She has the most wonderful touch. I have heard the Impomptus by many pianists, but she is my absolute favorite. 

stuartk, I left you a long post above but forgot to put your name on it. I am now listening to Judy Collins singing Dylan's Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues. One of my favorite all-time cuts.

Stuartk, try to find Debussy's Preludes and Images for piano. Many people think that Arturo Benedetti is the best pianist for this. He is brilliant and exacting. Pierre-Laurent Aimard has a bit more emotion. Phillipe Entremont leans into emotion. Perhaps the best interpreter is Walter Gieseking, but he died long ago before modern recordings, yet I find his CDs to be fine. You can even buy a CD of Debussy playing some of his own music which he recorded on piano roll. If you could find an inexpensive set of Gieseking playing Debussy's piano works (5 CDs), I'd go for it. I don't think anyone is considered to be better than him. He may have even studied with Debussy. I can't remember.

stuartk, I don't know what a PM is. Sorry, although I worked in the computer industry for many years, I left it around 2,000, and I fall behind.

Spotify is streaming and has a lot of music. Qobuz has more classical music and jazz, I think, but I don't know for sure. I don't know how good your audio rig is, so I don't know if you'd hear the higher quality of Qobuz. On my stereo it blows away CDs and anything else but vinyl. If you don't care about that, then see if you can find all the jazz and classical you want on spotify.

I am now listening to Wayne Shorter's last album "Live at the Detroit Jazz Festival" at 96 khz, more than double the resolution of a CD. I chose that Wayne Shorter album because it has Esperanza Spaulding, a force of nature. It's quite abstract and I don't know how abstract you like music. I have a feeling you might like this. Does spotify have it? If you wanted to dabble in Qobuz, you can buy a D/A converter at Schiit (in California) for $119. Pick up an audio USB cable and hook it to your computer with Qobuz. A pair of interconnects to your receiver or preamp or whatever and you're in business. At $10 a month you can see if you like it.

Listen to Mitsuko Uchida playing Schubert's Impromptus on youtube, and if you like it you can pick up the CD. I have heard so many pianists play it I can't count them all. To me, Uchida is the best. She can touch the keys with such a light, sparkling stroke it's amazing.

See if you can find Bartok's String Quartets. The 5th and 6th are his best. If you can get into Bartok, you've found a whole new universe. 

stuartk, Cambridge Audio also makes a Dacmagic 200 for $399. It is both a headphone amp and will plug into your stereo. You can't do both at once, but who wants to? Again, you could use your computer as a front end interface for spotify, Tidal, or Qobuz. I don't know how many CDs you buy, but depending on how good your CD player is, you probably won't need to with this rig. 

I bought a Moon 280D recently for $4k. It's so good, I simply don't play any of my 1200 CDs anymore. If you wanted to splurge, I saw one used on eBay for $1500. It will literally make your CDs and your CD player something of the past. It has an interface on your phone or Ipad and you can pull up artists or albums or whatever really easily. My nextdoor neighbor is Greek and when he saw it he said it won't pull up world music. He couldn't come up with one Greek artist that wasn't on there. The abundance of music, however, is a function of Qobuz. 

stuartk, I agree. I do not want to hijack this thread. I see no PM at the top of my screen, however. I have gone to the beginning of the thread to see if it's on the first page and on the end of the thread where we're talking. I see no PM on either.

stuartk, I poked around under "my profile." Apparently I am supposed to have my private messages turned on, but the post about how to do that was removed by the moderator. Think we're not supposed to email each other.

stuartk, I went into my profile and did a few things. For one thing, I needed to have Audiogon text me a code to verify who I am. Try another PM. Maybe it will show up.

stuartk, I received your PM, but Audiogon says to me: You must have a verified phone number and payment method to send messages. I just went through an exercise to do confirm this, but apparently it didn't work. I'll look more deeply into this when I have time.

@acman3 I first listened to Nancy Wilson when she first came out in the early sixties. I have many of her albums. I am not such a Cannonball Adderly fan, but I want to listen to him again now that must understanding of jazz is a bit deeper. Also, now that I'm streaming I can sample him. 

stuartk, I'm trying to change my password to see if I can then receive and send PMs. I can't remember my old password (correctly), so I've written in for help.

stuartk, yes I have heard him on "Kind of Blue," which is on my turntable as much as any other album. As I've read through the thread I saw the recording Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley mentioned. I found it in my record collection and am listening. It's in perfect shape! And I hear Cannonball flying high as I write.

stuartk, I liked the album Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderly. I appreciate his playing, but the problem I have is that his riffs sound old to me. I've heard them before or something extremlely similar from other players of his period. I became more into jazz with the soul from Coltrane and Davis. I know they did bebop early on, but they both blossomed into something else. Jazz becomes more interesting to me with that soulful change. That's why I tend toward Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, and others who developed more into a soulful jazz sound. 

I have the same inclinations with classical music. I recognize that Haydn and Mozart were geniuses, but I become more involved with the Romantics, beginning with Beethoven. I do like the neo-classicists like Stravinksy, though.

As someone said above, I like music that makes me feel like dancing, too. I have been playing an album by Lizz Wright called "Holding Space." Very soulful, but you can only get it through streaming. The more I hear modern jazz by living musicians the more I like it. I like the women sax players Melissa Aldana and Lakecia Benjamin. I feel as though they have something new to say that hasn't already been said by Coltrane or Wayne Shorter.

stuartk, I appreciate their skill but probably wouldn't listen to them. Here is Coltrane at his best in my opinion. He takes off and flies above the band. His riffs are all his own. I'd know it was him even if I hadn't heard the song before. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqpriUFsMQQ  I don't listen to Coltrane when he screams with his horn. It's painful. I think it's supposed to be. But I love abstraction when it works. Here is an example of Flora Purim's abstractions when I think it works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=watyACzR5n8

Stuartk, I like her in both settings. As I said, it took me 15 years of trying to listen to her on Encounter and in other abstract settings for me to really click with it. See if you like this cut by Tania Maria. Same sort of Brazilian soulful tunefullness. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52iRJke0auA

stuartk, when you get a chance, please send me another PM. Supposedly I've resolved all the issues. No hurry. I know it's a holiday weekend. I have to work on pages to get them in to my editor Sunday night. 

stuartk, I have quite a few Paul Desmond albums, but not that one. I pulled out one called "From the Hot Afternoon" I'm about to play. Ron Carter and Airto or on it.

John Klemmer--does anyone listen to him anymore? When he first came out I had a friend who said he was the next Coltrane. Obviously, that didn't happen.

stuartk, I saw photos of your system in your listening room. I could find no way to respond. I have a room the same size with an open wall. What kind of speakers are on those stands?

stuartk, I only have heard Klemmer from the 70s. He was commercial. I wondered if he ever changed and went anywhere in the jazz world. It sounds like he didn't.

Dynaudio drivers are tight and precise, am I right? I have Sonus Fabers, a splurge at $18K a pair, which my wife went along with because we'd just inherited money. Otherwise, they would never be in this house. They are tuned by ear, not by electronic analyzers. You have to like the ear that tuned them. I do.

When I learn how to PM, I'll PM a longer message on hardware.

Sonus Faber have been known to be on the warm side also, perfect for jazz. This new Olympica Nova line, however, was tuned by a new owner who has worked there for years. He made them more transparent. Old-time Sonus Faber guys don't like that. Some think they're bright. I think they're perfect.

mahgister, all jazz begs for a good audio system. With each upgrade I can appreciate albums I never appreciated before. I think jazz is also partial to turntables. 

Being on this forum has motivated me to dig into my record collection for old jazz albums I haven't played in many years. This morning Bob Brookmeyer with Stan Getz, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Elvin Jones. Very mellow.

I dug up Gato Barbieri playing the score to Last Tango in Paris. Anybody else familiar with that album? I play it often. Or any other Barbieri fans?

frogman, I like Blue Trombone. I'll stream it. 

mahgister, Bach's Mass in C Minor, Mozart's Requiem, Carmina Burana, the last movement of Beethoven's 9th are among my favorites. And Yes, a good audio system helps a lot to hear more deeply into the music. Although, when I was in college with my Sears Silvertone stereo that folded into a suitcase ($100), I loved music dearly. I think the most important component in the audio chain is a curious and receptive brain.

mahgister, Mose Allison is in his own world. He has played jazz piano behind Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Zoot Sims and others. He writes many of the songs he sings, although the Seventh Son was written by Willie Dixon. I first heard him in the mid-sixties, when I was in my early twenties and I was blown away, not just by his voice, but also because he was white. I never would have guessed it listening to him. He seems to ride the line between jazz and rhythm & blues and has influenced many rock stars. Here he is singing one of his most famous songs "Parchman Farm." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRAYLabbHPk

I think I was lucky to hear him in my early twenties because I had no expectations considering genre, jazz, rock, rhythm and blues. I just flat-out was blown away by the guy. If you don’t think of him as "jazz," you might like him better. I’ve heard him live several times and seen him in the movie "The Score" (De Niro, Brando, Angela Bassett, Edward Norton) as the jazz guy in the background. When I heard him live once he didn’t sing at all, just played jazz piano.

maghister, I like music that rides between genres. I’m listening to Herbie Hancock’s "River," a tribute to Joni Mitchell who was much interested in jazz. I saw him at the Hollywood Bowl do the album "River." One thing I remember, the bass player was in the back where bass players usually are. But it was Esperanza Spalding and her fingers were like a fast, fast spider splaying all over that finger board. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She really dominated that concert.