Album For Today

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAcO0ahmw4w

:cool2: block chords red!

[burning dog]

On Spotify

[charles t]

If John Fordham recommends, then...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jan/27/meadow-blissful-ignorance-review

[charles t]

Meadow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9UbcipkloU

[Ian Thumwood]

I've been listening to a lot of Pat Metheny over the last few weeks and dug out "Offramp" to play in the car today. I haven't given this CD a spin for ages and it is remarkable just how PM's music has developed over the period of thirty years. This disc has some of Metheny's most memorable compositions on it including "James" which is almost a jazz standard. However, I am taken by the free improv thrash of the title track, an Ornette-ish riff played at break-neck speed over a series of major chords which serve as tonal centres for the solo. This must be extremely difficult to accomplish with a group.

Also on the play list has been the album by Bob Curnow's big band of Metheny music which serves to demonstrate that the PMG is effectively working with an orchestral palette. Many of Curnow's charts seem like a literal translation of the PMG charts but are very much brought to life by soloists of the calibre of Bobby Shew and Buddy Collette. Mention is made of Curnow's old boss, Stan Kenton, in the liner notes and this seems very wide of the mark as the arrangements lack the tasteless bombast of the older man's orchestra. There are plenty of tunes on this disc which stand out (the ballad "Always and forever" is particularly beautiful) but none is quite as effective as "Every summer night."

Listening to this music has prompted me to get the Pat Metheny songbook from out of the cupboard and look once more at the writing. Some of the material has a naiveness about it whereas a significant element seems unsuitable for solo piano as it is a transcription of a fleshed out score. There are few compositions here that you could class as "blowing vehicles" although when you do find something like "Soul Cowboy", even this blues is modified harmonically. Few musicians in any field of music has done as much as Metheny to make very complex musical ideas so accessible.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

.........and now for something completely different:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6Fs_dgKM_Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgP38dJfquI

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPZj6mY5kjw

... i defy you not to dance Thelonious style, shuffling around your chair in reveries of smiling good cheer ....

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

and this gem with Henry Grimes and Pete LaRoca

one for connoisseurs


calypso man, calypso ... it's joyful .....

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Wynton Kelly with Wes Montgomery

plus Johnny Griffin


jazz may be many things in different times and places; but the above two tracks are hard core jazz at any time or in any place .... and provide a living demonstration of jazz time, this is the 'groove' the 'feel, swing in an archetypal form ... and Kelly is at the centre of the action ... more on him here

... born in Jamaica Kelly built his career in the USA; he died in 1971 at the cruelly early age of 39 of an epileptic seizure

[charles t]

Perfect nomenclature for this latest from Donny McCaslin - Perpetual Motion.

This tenorist's style has the effect on this listener, as having a fixed arrival point in mind - particularly on the longer (namesake) tune - Perpetual Motion.

Also the CD clocks in at an honest 70" - unlike many current releases I have forked-out at 45" - 48" - back to the LP era.

[Ian Thumwood]

Charles

snap!!

Just ordered this cd myself today. It received some very good reviews on all about jazz

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i sometimes think we didn't know we were born in the 60s




when i look in your eyes with Helen Merrill

[Pianorak]

Ah - Bösendorfer!

[Byas'd Opinion]

Happy birthday, Ornette!

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

indeed! happy birthday Ornette