What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Joseph K]

Joe Henderson - So Near, So Far (Musings for Miles) ... with John Scofield, Dave Holland and Al Foster

A great album to be sure.

[Ian Thumwood]

A great album to be sure.

For mt money, one of the best albums of the 1990s and certainly the best of the many numerous Miles tributes discs from that time, "Double Rainbow" is also really good too.

I am halfway through the new Ron Miles album "Rainbow Sign" which received some excellent reviews at the end of last year. The trumpeter leads a quintet with Bill Frisell, Jason Moran, Thomas Morgan and Brian Blade. I have to say that five tracks in, I am finding this very under-whelming. Frisell and Moran are two musicians that usually automatically grab my attention but in this context the music strongly reminds me of the work of someone like Art Farmer and there is a tendency for it to almost sound like aural wallpaper on the first listen. Somehow the guitar and piano seem to cancel each other out. I might feel different after a second listen although it does make you appreciate how a similar album by Cuong Vu that also featured Frisell called "Change in the air" is so much better. This Ron Miles disc is very reflective and some of the themes reminded me a bit of the first "Return to forever" record. Granted that this was a very personal record for Miles insofar that it was a tribute to his father, I would have expected the musicians on this disc to have produced something with a bit more bite. I usually like Ron Miles' playing even though I recognise the pitfalls with trumpeters playing the "cool" approach, whether it is Baker, Farmer , Rava in that the music loses a bit of edge. Still, not quite sure that this is up there amongst the very best of 2020 given the quality of jazz issued in the last 12 months.

[Joseph K]

Joe Henderson - Lush Life - the music of Billy Strayhorn

[Joseph K]

John McLaughlin - Que Alegria

This is an excellent album... three tunes either are based on the blues or feature sections based thereon, and it's a very jazzy sort, needless to say, right up there with the best hard or post- bop player's treatment of the blues (I notice Miles-esque lick from Gingerbread Boy in John's solo on 'One Nite Stand') so there's that, but then there are elements of what you could call I guess world fusion - Trilok Gurtu is a phenomenal and unique percussionist - with interesting forms which, like I've said take unexpected turns like into the blues, or at other times it's Latin or Indian music which is evoked but suffice to say John and the group's consummate mastery is there every step of the way, at whatever twist the music might take.

And the bass players are incredible ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_lqqw0NXzQ

(I have the CD - this youtube version is somewhat imperfect since it cuts off before the end, but it'll have to do, better than nothing...)

[Joseph K]

Miles Davis - Filles de Kilimanjaro

[Ian Thumwood]

I see that Jazzrook has reviewed the new Sonny Rollins in Amsterdam record. I had been tempted by this but was a bit pt off by some of the negative comments regarding the sound quality. The newly discovered Monk record recording at Palo Alto is also getting favourable reviews too. Wondered what the consensus was ?

[Stanfordian]

‘Heavy!!!’ - The Brooker Erwin Sextet
with Jimmy Owens, Garnett Brown, Jaki Byard, Richard Davis, Alan Dawson
Blue Note (1966)

[Jazzrook]

Booker Ervin with Booker Little, Mal Waldron, Teddy Charles, Addison Farmer & Ed Shaughnessy playing 'The Confined Few' at MoMA, New York, 1960:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=n3Rk-kBwtHI

JR

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Jimmy Rowles Trio - "Drinking and Driving", Paris 1978. This is an evocative "tune" written by Rowles and more known through Wayne Shorter's Bluenote version. There's also a very good one by Shelly Manne's group on "Perk Up" with Frank Strozier etc.

http://youtu.be/U6d2lyUh5p8

[Stanfordian]

‘Jazz Contemporary’ - Kenny Dorham
with Charles Davis, Steve Kuhn, Jimmy Garrison, Butch Warren & Buddy Enlow
Time Records (1960)

[Joseph K]

Just discovered this.

[Ian Thumwood]

Interesting to read this article about former Jazz Messenger Donald Brown who is highly regarded as a jazz pianist and revered as a composer in the States but is is largely unknown in the UK. He is very much in the post-bop tradition ofplayers like Mulgrew Miller and James Williams. I saw him perform about 20 years ago with the Space Time all-stars which also included trunpter Bill Mobley - another american musicians who is totally off the UK radar. He also wrote some charts for the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra who I heard perform at Vienne and have a CD they made together.

http://https://jazztimes.com/features/profiles/donald-brown-an-underrecognized-mind/

[Jazzrook]

Booker Ervin with Frank Strozier, Horace Parlan, Butch Warren & Walter Perkins playing 'Mooche Mooche' from the 1963 album 'Exultation!':

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=T3_W9msVNKg

JR

[Joseph K]

Booker Ervin with Frank Strozier, Horace Parlan, Butch Warren & Walter Perkins playing 'Mooche Mooche' from the 1963 album 'Exultation!':

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=T3_W9msVNKg

JR

Was expecting to hear a Charlie Parker cover, then I reread the title. Good stuff though.

[Stanfordian]

‘Ready for Freddie’ - Freddie Hubbard
with Bernard McKinney, Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner, Art Davis & Elvin Jones
Blue Note (1961)