Entire genres that only need one thread #1: "Jazz"

[Kevin Davis]

Pretty excited about this--coming out late January:


This is a notable release as it's the first time this particular incarnation of his band (dubbed my many as his "Lost Quintet"--Miles, Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Dave Holland, and Jack DeJohnette) is being featured on an official release. In his autobiography, Miles lamented that Columbia never documented this ensemble on record, calling them "a bad motherfucker of a group," or something to that effect. The posthumous album "It's About That Time" (from the Fillmore East in 1970) featured this group plus an extra percussionist, but this is the first time the uncut quintet is getting a record all to itself. The first installment of this series was beautifully done so I have high hopes for this one.

Also:


I got this for Christmas and can't stop listening to it. Thelonious Monk might be the one artist I feel it virtually impossible to feel depressed while listening to--the big band arrangements only add to weird, off-kilter humor of his compositions, and the Monk/Rouse partnership is firing on all cylinders. For anyone who still buys CD's, this album is only $4.99 on Amazon (for a double album), so it's a total steal for anyone in the market for some good jazz.

[washing machine]

I've been listening to Brad Mehldau's The Highway Rider a lot over the holidays. There's nothing explicitly seasonal about it, except that those piano lines really put me in the mind of Vince Guaraldi. I haven't quite gathered the gist of the narrative that this album is weaving together, but I'll get there.

I've been traveling for the last few days so I'm really looking forward to getting back to my apartment and throwing this on the stereo while cooking a wintery stew.

Thanks for sharing, KD.

[Kevin Davis]

Glad you're enjoying, Reid, or at least find yourself intrigued enough by it to keep coming back to it.

I think "Don't Be Sad" and "The Falcon Will Fly Again" are my favorite tracks.

[washing machine]

The song titles are great on this thing.

A little known washing machine fact: I title each morning's cell phone alarm with some random string of words that I've either put together myself (e.g. "alarm yourself"), a fragment I've heard in a song (e.g. "challenges you give man") or simply a good song title (eg "Radiator Sister".) I've been mining the tracklist of The Highway Rider for new alarm ideas lately.

[Kevin Davis]

I'm sure I've posted this before, but here's B-Rad playing the hell out of some "Martha My Dear":

[Norah]

That was really fucking great.

[Kevin Davis]

I just made Thelonious Monk my avatar.

It's a shame I'm already friends with durdencommatyler on Facebook, otherwise he'd think I was a black piano player with a funny hat and an awesome goatee.

[@SkitchP]

I just made Thelonious Monk my avatar.

It's a shame I'm already friends with durdencommatyler on Facebook, otherwise he'd think I was a black piano player with a funny hat and an awesome goatee.

WOAH. Hold it right there Kevin Davis. What is a funny hat to you, is an awesome hat paired with an old black guy. It's the only meaningful reparation they got for slavery, don't take it away from them.

[puttermesser]

if year-end lists were in my bailiwick, Vitamin F would be right there near the top

[Fuzzcharger]

I just picked up this baby..

[Kevin Davis]

Nice pickup. That's my favorite era of Miles.

This beaut just fell through my mail slot yesterday morning:

[Fuzzcharger]

There's something about Miles after this period when he starts getting into funkier realms that loses me as a listener but the second great quintet I find really satisfying. I need to explore more live material. Oh and I realised when I went to rip the discs into iTunes that I'd already downloaded this box. Doh! Nice book though!

I also got that Monk cd from Amazon. I haven't really delved into Monk much so for that price you can't really go wrong.

[Kevin Davis]

I tend to prefer the live albums from Miles's electric period (except for "In a Silent Way," which is my favorite Miles album overall). A couple favorites would be "It's About That Time" (from the Fillmore East, 1970) and "Dark Magus" (from Carnegie Hall, 1974). You get a good sense of the shapeshifting nature of that period from those two releases, the first representing the frenzied outer limits of the soloists' approach, the second just a pure sonic assault with any trace of "jazz" purged totally from it. As for the second great quintet, you can't go wrong with the first Bootleg Series release, "Live in Europe 1967"--I much prefer it to the Plugged Nickel material from 1965, though you can get the "Highlights From the Plugged Nickel" compilation brand new for next to nothing.

I hope you like Monk--he's been one of my favorite players and especially composers for a long time, but for some reason his Prestige albums had managed to pass me by. When I got into him, his Columbia catalog had just been remastered and reissued, so those were all available and affordable, as I suspect they still are. There's a lot of redundancy in his catalog--despite being one of the most famous jazz composers ever, he only wrote somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 tunes, and he recorded them and re-recorded them over and over again throughout his career. A few of his most famous compositions ("Round Midnight," "Straight No Chaser," "Well You Needn't," "Ruby My Dear") don't appear on the Prestige box, but it's still a great, concise overview of his songbook and his famously crooked playing style. My favorite moment might be the stretch of tunes with Sonny Rollins from the end of disc 2--that "The Way You Look Tonight" is pure joy:

[washing machine]

And right about here is when things began to change, but really change. Not the least of which our clown changes his act. He bought himself a set of football pads, a yellow helmet with red stripes, hired a girl who dropped a 5-pound sac of flour on his head every night, maybe twenty feet up. Oh man!, what a pit, that just broke them up every night, but not like the buke. And all those colors, all those yellows, all those reds, all those oranges, a lot of gray in them now, a lot of blue... And all he wanted was to make this crowd laugh, that’s all he wanted out of this whole world...

They were laughing alright, not like the buke but they were laughing, And all the dough started coming in. He was playing the big towns. Chicago, Detroit, and then it was Pittsburgh one night. A real fine town Pittsburgh, you know. But three quarters way through his act, a rope broke, down came the backdrop, right on the back of the neck, and he went flat and something broke, this was it.

[Simple Torture]

I just started listening to E.S.T. and really dig their sound; any other person/group that you'd recommend? Help me, Jazz Thread, you're my only hope.

[doug rr]

I just started listening to E.S.T. and really dig their sound; any other person/group that you'd recommend? Help me, Jazz Thread, you're my only hope.

Ornette Coleman

[washing machine]

I just started listening to E.S.T. and really dig their sound; any other person/group that you'd recommend? Help me, Jazz Thread, you're my only hope.

Ornette Coleman

I was going to recommend Tortoise, but I haven't heard enough E.S.T. to really make an informed reply.

[Simple Torture]

I just started listening to E.S.T. and really dig their sound; any other person/group that you'd recommend? Help me, Jazz Thread, you're my only hope.

Ornette Coleman

I'll give him a shot!

[washing machine]

I predict you'll love Coleman. I'm a little surprised that you don't already own anything by him, actually.

[Bob Loblaw]

Just listened to On The Corner for the first time. So good.