@pjw81563 I don’t know Dan Weiss personally, but I know his playing and he is very very good. He has a great rep. One of the best young drummers and part of the very hot and creative Brooklyn Jazz scene.
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.
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@frogman I figured you may have heard about Weiss, you and he being neighbors so to speak. And I agree with you about the Brooklyn Jazz Scene. Very hot indeed. A man is as good as his reputation...
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This short 45 minute Bill Evans documentary, created in 1964, is very interesting. "Its much more important, Evans feels, to master fundamentals, both in theory, so that you understand what you're doing, and then in active practice developing ones musical muscles. Not just technical facility but also the brain connection with the arm muscles so to speak, developing that facility to the point where the subconscious mind can take over the basic mechanical task of playing, thus freeing the conscious mind to concentrate on the spontaneous development that distinguishes the best jazz... Universal Mind of Bill Evans (1966 Documentary) - YouTube
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Arguably, this is a prerequisite for performing ANY style of improvised music well. It’s pretty hard to stay "in the zone" while switching back and forth between right and left brains. Your topic brought the following to mind: "Just a little more and this instrument is gonna be so connected with my brain that my fingers aren’t gonna have to play it" -- Duane Allman |
Great post stuartk... thanks ...😊
The threshold of virtuosity is passed when this is the instrument which play you, no more you playing the instrument ... Music only grows ,not without, but certainly out of virtuosity ... I had this impression listening all great musicians ... By the way it is true of the thinking process too in the same way as it is true for a set of artistic gestures , the thought process must go on its own and the thought process work better without the ego ....Mathematics thinking is the best example of this ...
" The tools think better than you , let it work " -- Anonymus craftmanship artist |
"There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will destroy the line or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible". --Bill Evans
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Wonderful lines by my most revered jazz pianist about his art that he explained so well here ... Nature is only one complex and simple gesture with no ego behind this gesture manifesting through all phenomenon ... Japanese zen culture as Chinese Taoism integrate it perfectly... In Europe Goethe seeing of plant and mammals and physical phenomenon as light and colors expressed it so well that few understood it ... Goethe never used mathematical formulas to exorcise nature or never hypothetized an evolutionary mechanism , his scientifical goal what not establishing a new theory but to change the way we look by forgetting any abstract theory and learn how to look before and behind our ego ... Bill Evans dont play piano with his ego; we feel he play without any ego, lost in music or lost in meaning ...
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So I’m trying to listen to Walter Davis Jr. Trio, Scorpio album and it is so hard for me to get past Walter’s noises that are as loud as everything else on the album. Even my wife came out of the back room to ask what that horrible noise was. I don’t understand why they would leave that in the recording. Getting off my soapbox now. |
I like Keith Jarrett and Miles Davis but i love Bill Evans and Chet Baker ... Keith Jarret is a marvellous super talented pianist with an ego he never learned to forgot though ... He play for himself first ...than there is mannerism in his playing so captivating it is and it is... I own one hundred albums of Jarrett by the way then nobody can accuse me of hating him 😁 ... But Bill Evans play for people, forgotting himself, without an ego or forgotting his ego , lost in music with us and moved by the music as we are with him ... Keith Jarrett impress me more than he moves me ... It is the reverse for Bill Evans....
I exactly remember the first time i listened Keith Karrett in 1976 in the Koln concert with a friend in his appartment ... i was impressed...Something pulsating in my mind i never forgot ... I remember exactly where and with whom i listened Bill Evans in a car long time ago and i was instantly moved ... Not so much impressed but moved by his playing something beating in my heart not in my mind at all ...I never forgot... Now Jarrett cannot stop speaking, mumbling etc because he is alone with the music, oblivious of us, we are not with him for him ... Evans is with us silently ....Music for him is not a show so good it can be but a sacred intimate moment he partake with us and never just for himself ... It is the same for Chet Baker ...I own 100 albums of Baker too ... I admired Keith Jarrett and Miles Davis; but Evans and Baker are more my friends than mere idols ... They spoke to me personaly more than they play music... I remember even thinking the first month : are Baker a top virtuoso and Evans too are they top good musicians ? I never doubt one second that Keith Jarrett and Miles Davis were top musicians virtuoso and never ask that question in my first listenings because it was evident from their playings... But like as you are with a woman that moves you a lot, you dont think about his way of making love if it must reflect a perfect or imperfect love making styles mastery waiting to be evaluated ... We think as such with a woman who we paid for entertainment not about a woman we love nevermind what ... I apologize for my example... I could not have a better one ...😁 For me Baker and Evans are in a class of their own with no comparison with anybody even to musicians with more virtuosity ... And they are many other top musicians at the trumpet as at the piano ...But they are not my personal friends...
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I saw Bill Evans in mid 70’s. With Evans, I’d just begun to listen to Jazz and wasn’t able to really take it in. Jazz still sounded "foreign" and "abstract’ to me. I didn’t know how to connect with it. Oh well. I saw Jarrett in late 70’s. By that point I was much more tuned into Jazz and was eagerly exploring the genre. At the Jarrett gig, the crowd treated him as if he were a god and when he got up and reached into the piano and began plucking the strings (in a not particularly musical fashion) they went nuts, as if he were walking on water or something. It was at that point that I realized that what I’d assumed was a concert was in fact a cult ceremony and I left. Subsequently, I’ve come to appreciate both, although forced to choose, it’s no contest for me -- I’ll go with Evans. If I had to choose just one piece of music to be played at my memorial service, it would be the live V. Vanguard performance of "My Foolish Heart" .
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Love that Peter Erskine album. Thanks @acman3 |
Listened to Peter Erskin, Peter Erskin. Thanks @acman3 . Listening to Kenny Drew Trio, Kenny Drew Trio now. |
I did not find any albums parts of the pianist i listened too on youtube only live events ... He had three albums all very good ... And he seems to be unknown ... It is hard to be a great French jazz pianist for sure...😆😁😊 Gabriel Zufferey ... There is three albums on "Bee jazz " label : Apres l’orage, Contemplation, ( amazing solo) Hear and know ... All three albums are creative ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=752iTxH3Ug8
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My new low cost tube preamplifier with three tone controls well done (50 bucks) for my active speakers make my soundfield even better and it was good already... Then i listened the sound ( not the music) of my system for the last 24 hours...😁 It is really a joy to have a better component which help but nothing beat relaxed musical listening ( not excited sound testing ) ... I will begin to listen music after my calming of nerves ... 😊 «Sound accompany music and reveal his beauty as a wedding dress for a woman it dit not replace it or her so beautiful the dress or the sound could be »-- Anonymus single frustrated audiophile soon maried and listening music for the first time of his life relaxed ...😉 |
@curiousjim Check on how many albums Victor Feldman played,as sideman, you will be surprised...few suggestions, his solo albums
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Thanks very much ... It is the music i need to goes out of my sound nervosa disease...😉 |
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@curiousjim I rally like that acoustic guitar rendition of Take Five. Very tasty! And I am happy you like Blue Mitchell's Blue Soul album. Mitchell recorded 6 albums for Riverside between 1959 and 1962 before switching over to Blue Note in 1963. All Music's Scott Yanow rated 5 of them at 4 stars while Michael G. Nastos, also from All Music rated Blue Soul at 4.5 stars. IMHO all 6 deserve the high ratings given to them and I have all 6 on CDs. All 7 records Mitchell recorded for the Blue Note label were also rated at least 4 stars. Only one, "Heads Up", was rated 3 stars, with 1964s "The Thing to Do" rated at All Music's highest mark at 5 stars. Mitchell was a great trumpet player and when credited as the leader for a recording session always used the cream of the crop with his backing personnel including, among many other greats: Benny Golson, Joe Henderson, Jimmy Heath and Junior Cook on tenor sax, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Wynton Kelly and Andre Previn on piano, Paul Chambers and Sam Jones on bass, Art Blakey, Philly Joe Jones and Billy Higgins on drums. You cant go wrong with musicians like that playing well thought out arrangements. |
@alexatpos Those are great Victor Felman sessions. Thanks for posting. Drummer Stan Levy and bassist Scott LaFaro need no introduction. LaFaro went on to play bass in the Bill Evans Trio (the great Evans-LaFaro-Motian trio). Stan Levy is a great and under rated drummer who played with many of the greatest be boppers in the 40s. Levy was one of the few "white men" Miles Davis liked and a young Miles roomed in Levy's NYC apartment for weeks at a time while he was up and coming. Your second selection does not drop off one bit. Great jazz and great personnel. This Bossa Nova session with Feldman leading, is an under rated gem. Probably because it was overshadowed by the Getz/Gilberto sessions evan though Feldman released his album 4 years prior to the Getz/Gilberto collaborations. It has a great cover too. Do you have this on vinyl? If so how do you like the music and that great album cover?
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Oh and I’m glad you liked the Paul Desmond video. I watched it with great envy. I tried desperately to learn guitar in the last century and never got better than bad! So when I see a video of someone making it look easy, I flash on how hard I tried and how I could never move my fingers, I get a little jealous. |
@ho249 I agree with Curious Jim. Etudes is a great album. Here is another by the same trio that is on my desert island list.
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