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Results for "My Blue Note Obsession"
Ornette Coleman at the Golden Circle - 1965
by Marc Davis
Let's start with a disclaimer: I'm not a fan of free jazz. So why would I even bother with an album I was pretty sure I'd dislike? There's a practical answer: It was on sale. I was in a record store recently that was having a buy-one-get-one-for-$1 sale. So I got a CD I ...
Dexter Gordon: Our Man in Paris – 1963
by Marc Davis
For some reason, Dexter Gordon doesn't immediately leap to my mind when I think of A-list bop saxmen. He should. Our Man in Paris is all the evidence you need. Gordon made a bunch of terrific records for Blue Note from 1961 to 1964. Some say Go! from 1962, with pianist Sonny Clark, is ...
Charlie Rouse: Bossa Nova Bacchanal – 1962
by Marc Davis
What a happy record! And what a delightful change from the usual 1960s Blue Note formula. You know the drill. In the 1960s, Blue Note was the go-to label for two kinds of jazz: hard bop and soul-jazz. But Blue Note was never the reigning bossa nova label. When the Brazilian phenomenon swept the ...
Donald Byrd: A New Perspective - 1963
by Marc Davis
A New Perspective is unlike any jazz album you've heard before--and the change is refreshing. The biggest difference? Voices--singers, but not jazz singers. A New Perspective includes a seven-voice gospel choir, singing wordless syllables. Not scat, but pure notes. At first, the choir feels wrong. The very first notes of this 1963 ...
Stanley Turrentine and The 3 Sounds: Blue Hour – 1960
by Marc Davis
Every good record collection has music for many moods. Feeling frantic? Try Dizzy Gillespie or the Ramones. Feel like dancing? Definitely the big bands. Feeling wistful? Maybe Ben Webster or Frank Sinatra. But if you're feeling blue, you need Stanley Turrentine, and Blue Hour is exactly the right prescription. Stanley Turrentine is ...
Joe Henderson: Page One – 1963
by Marc Davis
Joe Henderson is one of those jazz guys who made such a spectacular comeback late in life that you tend to forget how good he was in the beginning. Page One is all the evidence you need of Henderson's early heroics. Let's start at the end. The last four albums of Henderson's ...
George Braith: The Complete Blue Note Sessions - 1963-64
by Marc Davis
Playing two saxophones at once is a gimmick, and not a very good one. It can be done, and maybe if your name is Rahsaan Roland Kirk, you can even sell a few records doing it. But it's not a great artistic achievement, and the sound you get is mostly tinny and obnoxious. Which ...
Laid-Back Jazz Guitar: Kenny Burrell and Grant Green
by Marc Davis
When I'm in the mood for jazz guitar, I have two go-to albums: Kenny Burrell's Midnight Blue and Grant Green's Idle Moments. It always surprises me. Growing up in the 1960s and '70s, I was a big fan of hard and fast rock guitars. Who wasn't? Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Pete Townsend. ...
Sonny Clark: Cool Struttin’ – 1958
by Marc Davis
Blue Note Records was many things in the 1950s and '60s, but it was never the home of cool jazz. Yes, it was ground zero for hard bop in the '50s. And yes, it was the capital of soul-jazz in the '60s. But to release an album in 1958 (one year after Miles Davis' Birth of ...
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Moanin’ – Blue Note 4003
by Marc Davis
Jazz fans will argue forever over the best version of The Jazz Messengers. Was it the group with Wayne Shorter and Lee Morgan that made A Night in Tunisia in 1960? The 1954 edition with Horace Silver, Clifford Brown and Lou Donaldson that made A Night at Birdland? (Which isn't technically a Jazz Messengers album, but ...
