What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Stanfordian]

‘Reminiscin'’
Gigi Gryce with Richard Gene Williams, Richard Rylands, Reggie Workman, Eddie Costa & Bob Thomas
New Jazz (1960)

[Joseph K]

Wayne Shorter - Night Dreamer

I'm only half way through the third track, but I say to member teamsaint that, on the strength of what I've so far heard, it is well worth buying the Shorter 5 original albums boxed set.

[Stanfordian]

Wayne Shorter - Night Dreamer

I'm only half way through the third track, but I say to member teamsaint that, on the strength of what I've so far heard, it is well worth buying the Shorter 5 original albums boxed set.

I agree the Wayne Shorter box set is superb. Indispensable for a collection.

[burning dog]

Sonny Criss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj00v0ssjqU

Prestige
Recorded at RCA Studios in LA, January 20, 1969

Tracklist:
A1 Don't Rain on My Parade (Merrill, Styne)
A2 Blue Sunset 4:25
A3 I Thought About You (Van Heusen, Mercer) 12:37
B1 California Screamin' 17:23
B2 Cry Me a River (Arthur Hamilton) 23:27
B3 I'll Catch the Sun (Rod McKuen) 29:10

Sonny Criss (as)
Hampton Hawes (p)
Monty Budwig (b)
Shelly Manne (dr)

[Stanfordian]

‘Heavy Soul’
Ike Quebec with Freddie Roach, Milt Hilton & Al Harewood
Blue Note (1961)

[Ian Thumwood]

I have dug out my copy of "Shades of Redd" by Freddie Redd which I had previously acquired on Jazzrook's recommendation. This album perfectly captures for me the essence of that late fifties / early sixties Hard Bop. Anything with Jackie McLean is worth having but the writing on this record is it's main strength. It would be difficult to argue that this record pushed any boundaries yet I think it took an idiom and perfected it. I cannot imagine anyone not really loving this album. It is a gem.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"The Thespian". Jackie and Tina Brooks worked exceptionally well together, sufficiently distinct stylistically, but with a wonderful blend. It's a great album Indeed. The follow up "Redd's Blues", with Benny Bailey is OK but not in the same class. Apparently, it was under rehearsed (Redd's fault) and a "problem" session. BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

Freddie Redd was still recording up to few year's ago. For me, this record is very similar to Tina Brook's "True Blue." Both really go against the grain of the writing being limited to the heads. Brook's album is quite strange because pf the domination of written parts and the fact that not every musician solos on each tune. "The Thespian" is a really great tune but I am also partial to "Shadows." The Redd album includes a number of tracks later recorded on John Zorn's excellent "New for Lulu." Quite intrigued by the similarities between "Ole" and "A night in Tunisia."

[Ian Thumwood]

The other album I have been playing almost continuously in the last few evenings whilst working at home has been the Paul Bley disc "Chaos" with Tony Oxley and bassist Furio Di Castri - not a familiar name to me but a player who reminds me a bit if Gary Peacock. This album is a real grower. I was not over-impressed to begin with although the drumming has increasingly pulled me in to this music. What a fabulous drummer Oxley is! He sometimes sounds like someone drunkenly falling in to a pile of dustbins yet the sounds he produces are totally appropriate to the music.

I sometimes think that one of the worse things Sonny Rollins said was that jazz was "the sound of surprise." All too often in the last twenty years this seems to be used to describe something which has increasingly less and less to do with jazz. On this disc, the levels of creativity are quite full on and Oxley definitely provides a function which fully matches Rollin's famous comment. The whole box set of ten discs is fascinating and there are at least four of these records that are amongst Bley's finest. The duet with Paul Motian takes the biscuit and I also like the duo with Gary Peacock. The three musicians are united on a new ECM disc which captures a live performance by the trio. Listening to Paul Bley makes you realise just how disposal a lot of contemporary jazz pianists are.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

The "suprise" phrase originated by/with ...
"The Sound of Surprise": 46 Pieces on Jazz.
Book by Whitney Balliett.

He was the New York Times jazz critic for years and broadcast key programs on AFN which is where I first heard him.

BN.

[Jazzrook]

Steve Lacy & Eric Watson playing 'Peggy's Blue Skylight' live in Paris from the 1991 album 'Spirit of Mingus':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iToF9dsLvh4

JR

[Stanfordian]

‘Take Twelve’
Lee Morgan Quintet with Clifford Jordon, Barry Harris, Bob Cranshaw & Louis Hayes
Jazzland (1962)

[Joseph K]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXjTxC-HbKY

'Solar' performed by Pat Matheny, Herbie Hancock, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette.

[Stanfordian]

‘Tex Book Tenor’
Booker Ervin with Kenny Barron, Woody Shaw, Jan Arnet & Billy Higgins
Blue Note (1968)

[Jazzrook]

Cecil Taylor, Jimmy Lyons, Alan Silva & Andrew Cyrille in Paris, November 1966:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U01okZHnIQ

JR