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Miles Davis: Miles '55: The Prestige Recordings
by Richard J Salvucci
It is hard to imagine any casual jazz fan failing a blindfold test on the vinyls on offer here. It is a game people play: how quickly can you identify the performer. A lot of horn players make it into the competition, because horns are boisterous and mimic the human voice and persona. Clark Terry, some say, requires one note. And for much of his career, starting in the mid-1950s, a compatriot and mentee of Terry's: Miles Davis was equally ...
Continue ReadingThelonious Monk, John Coltrane: Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane 1957. Revisited.
by Stefano Merighi
Ci sono sodalizi artistici che segnano in maniera indelebile la ricchezza creativa dei protagonisti. Tra questi, di sicuro quello tra Thelonious Monk e John Coltrane, anno di grazia 1957. L'estroso pianista e compositore, ancora lontano dal ricevere i riconoscimenti meritati, trova finalmente qualcuno che interpreta le sue partiture con rara dialettica esecutiva: leggerezza e profondità, acume sottile e abbandono istintivo. L'apollineo sassofonista, all'epoca ancora turbato dalla tossicodipendenza, passa dalla frustrazione di un licenziamento da parte di ...
Continue ReadingGiant Steps: Rahsaan Roland Kirk to Vijay Iyer
by David Brown
This week on the Jazz Continuum will be a “cover band" take on John Coltrane's historic recording, Giant Steps. Recorded May 4-5, 1959, several pieces on this album went on to become jazz standards. Each work will be played in album order as performed by Rahsaan Roland Kirk, The John Coltrane Quartet (live), The Vijay Iyer Trio, organist John Patton, and pianist Tommy Flanagan. A set of piano music will follow with Barbara Carroll , Geri Allen, Matt Mitchell, Roland ...
Continue ReadingJohn Coltrane, Ted Curson, and Gretchen Parlato
by Jerome Wilson
This show gets into venerated “New Thing" masters such as John Coltrane and Ted Curson as well as current musicians such as Gretchen Parlato, Joel Harrison, and Kris Davis. Playlist Henry Threadgill Sextett “I Can't Wait Till I Get Home" from The Complete Novus & Columbia Recordings of Henry Threadgill & Air (Mosaic) 00:00 Joel Harrison “Shady Grove" from So Long 2nd Street (ACT) 00:53 Bill Frisell “It's Nobody's Fault But MIne" from Beautiful Dreamers (Savoy Jazz) 5:49 ...
Continue ReadingJohn Coltrane And Johnny Hartman
by Ian Patterson
When little in the world seems to make much sense anymore, when all the noise, turmoil and strife is getting to be too much, there can be no better medicine than beautiful music to soothe the troubled mind. The pairing of tenor saxophonist John Coltrane and baritone singer Johnny Hartman might have seemed like a left-field choice in 1963 but Impulse! knew exactly what it was doing, The company smelled a hit, and so too in all probability did Coltrane. ...
Continue ReadingDoes Jazz History Weigh Too Heavily on Today’s Practitioners?
by Ian Patterson
It is no outlandish claim to say that jazz is obsessed with its past--just look at the number of tribute albums, songs and concerts inspired by the music's forbearers, or at the never-ending stream of historical reissues. For many jazz musicians, navigating jazz means honoring the music's “ancestors" and playing “in the tradition." Jazz education programs generally look to the past to instruct their students. Reviewers of albums by contemporary jazz musicians, almost without exception, make ...
Continue ReadingWalter van de Leur: Jazz & Death, Part 1—A Closer Walk With Thee
by Ian Patterson
Part 1 | Part 2 What is jazz? Beacon of the oppressed; music of New Orleans bordellos; popular dance music; revolutionary music; high-art music with an established cannon; progressive music that absorbs and grows; hermetic traditional music... Jazz has always meant different things to different people. Even the term 'jazz' is political and contentious. Black American Music, or borderless music of the world? The most democratic form of music, or a club that is stubbornly resistant ...
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