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Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: First Flight to Tokyo: The Lost 1961 Recordings
by Chris May
There is a saying in the opera world which, though innocuous on the face of it, damns a work before the overture has begun let alone after the fat lady sings. The saying, beloved of breathless publicists deaf to its implication, is that such and such an opera is “rarely performed." The reason it is rarely performed, of course, is because nine times out of ten it is a dud. When it comes to jazz albums the parallel ...
Continue ReadingKick It: A Social History Of The Drum Kit
by David A. Orthmann
Kick It: A Social History Of The Drum Kit Matt Brennan 371 Pages ISBN: #978-0-19-068387-0 Oxford University Press 2020 Matt Brennan's Kick It: A Social History Of The Drum Kit is a complex, meticulously researched piece of work that spans several centuries. In the course of over three hundred pages, Brennan explores the evolution of the design and construction of drum kits and their influence on various kinds of music. He unpacks ...
Continue ReadingNew Faces - New Sounds
by C. Michael Bailey
In the early 1950s, Blue Note Records introduced new artists in the label's series New Faces -New Sounds. It highlighted such young artists as Horace Silver (1952); Lou Donaldson (1952); Elmo Hope (1953); and Frank Foster (1954). All of these recordings were released as part of Blue Note Record's 5000 Modern Jazz Series, all on 10-inch vinyl 33&1/3 LPs. This electronic space considered earlier Wynton Kelly's debut recording New Faces -New Sounds (1951) and now turns to another pianist with ...
Continue ReadingArt Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: Just Coolin'
by Mike Jurkovic
Great moments play all over Just Coolin', the new archival Blue Note Art Blakey release from 1959, recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's studio with Lee Morgan, Bobby Timmons and Jymie Merritt. For a bit of history, let's just point out that Hank Mobley was returning to the tenor chair he held from 1951-56, but which had just recently (for back then) been occupied by Shorter, and before him Benny Golson. Not the slightest expectation here. And should there have been ...
Continue ReadingArt Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: Just Coolin'
by Chris May
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man or woman in possession of a good quantity of Art Blakey albums, must be in want of a lot more. Previously unreleased albums are particularly enticing. So do not be fooled by the Reid Miles-inspired cover of Just Coolin': the disc is previously unissued. It presents Blakey in his pomp fronting a dream-team Jazz Messengers lineup. AAJers do not need to be reminded that Blakey was at the ...
Continue ReadingHank Mobley: Soul Station
by Greg Simmons
Music Matters continues to release exceptionally high quality, all analog reissues of classic Blue Note Records' albums from the golden mid-century age of small-combo jazz. They've recently upped their game with the introduction of a higher-quality raw material formulation they call SRX Vinyl. Hank Mobley was Blue Note Records' most prolific artist, with over thirty albums released under his own name, countless sessions as a sideman, and—according to his own telling in a rare interview shortly before he ...
Continue ReadingTina Brooks Quintet: The Complete Recordings
by Chris May
Mosaic Records' spring 2020 release The Complete Hank Mobley Blue Note Sessions 1963-70, the second of the label's box sets devoted to the copiously recorded (and rightly so) Hank Mobley, prompts thoughts of another of Blue Note's singular hard-bop tenor saxophone stylists. Unlike Mobley, Tina Brooks was woefully under-recorded, making just four albums under his own name. But like Mobley, Brooks had an instantly recognisable sound, was a spellbinding soloist and was also a gifted composer. In addition to his ...
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