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Jazz for aficionados

Jazz for aficionados

I'm going to review records in my collection, and you'll be able to decide if they're worthy of your collection. These records are what I consider "must haves" for any jazz aficionado, and would be found in their collections. I wont review any record that's not on CD, nor will I review any record if the CD is markedly inferior. Fortunately, I only found 1 case where the CD was markedly inferior to the record.

Our first album is "Moanin" by Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers. We have Lee Morgan , trumpet; Benney Golson, tenor sax; Bobby Timmons, piano; Jymie merrit, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

The title tune "Moanin" is by Bobby Timmons, it conveys the emotion of the title like no other tune I've ever heard, even better than any words could ever convey. This music pictures a person whose down to his last nickel, and all he can do is "moan".

"Along Came Betty" is a tune by Benny Golson, it reminds me of a Betty I once knew. She was gorgeous with a jazzy personality, and she moved smooth and easy, just like this tune. Somebody find me a time machine! Maybe you knew a Betty.

While the rest of the music is just fine, those are my favorite tunes. Why don't you share your, "must have" jazz albums with us.

Enjoy the music.
orpheus10
rok2id's avatar
rok2id
7,859 posts
 
And the winners are, Don't go to strangers and Lenny Welch.

Cheers
frogman
7,476 posts
 
pjw, thanks for the clip. Great stuff. He does a great job of explaining the harmonic details of the tune. I applaud your inquisitiveness about all this; it all adds a great deal to the appreciation and enjoyment of the music. There are so many different layers to this music and the experience of listening to it.

I think that James’s organ/drums duo does more than play the tune “adequately”. They are really good rhythm players. It’s all a matter of degree. Do I think they are as swinging and nuanced as some others? No; but they are certainly good. Just my opinions. Check out Peter Erskine on the Brecker/Mintzer clip. Amazing.

You write that in that Flanagan and Taylor were replaced on two songs, GS and Naima. I don’t know about Taylor, but Flanagan’s performance on GS is the stuff of Jazz lore, but not in a good way. He really struggled with the tune’s changes, is very tentative and actually stops improvising and just comps for the last several bars. He just could not cut it. Much has been written about all this. Playing over changes that intricate and FAST was something that even the best players at the time were not used to and some were never able to do it.  Some didn’t even try. I don’t know the dates of those alternate takes, but if they are from a later date (even just a day or so) then the reason for the change is pretty obvious.

Trane practiced incessantly and worked on all these harmony techniques methodically in order to expand his musical vocabulary. None of it happened by accident. He was always searching for new sounds and new techniques and hanging with Monk, being the great individualist that he was, was probably very appealing to Trane. It’s interesting to me that, in a way, there is a similarity to both of their general rhythmic feels. Not what could typically be called smooth and laid back, but a little angular even jagged instead. Great question, btw. Regards.
frogman
7,476 posts
 
**** My point was that Carter can play GS anyway he wants to play it. That’s what Jazz is all about, individual freedom. Freedom from the written page. ****

Of course he can. And it can also not be very good, or may even suck, as a result. The whole idea of “individual freedom” at all cost has been used as a fallback position for justification of a whole lot of mediocre or even bad playing; just look a some of the “out” or avant garde stuff. Not saying that JC is mediocre at all, he’s a great player in many ways. Just saying that something like Giant Steps is not where he excels.

Honoring the changes of a tune is sacrosanct in Jazz and this is not just opinion. That doesn’t mean that there can’t be a lot of “personal freedom” within the confines of the tune’s structure (includes the changes). That is the whole idea behind what players like Trane strived for. He stretched the harmonic boundaries. However, that “stretching” is an organized and logical “extension” of the harmony; never a free for all. It is not that hard to tell when a player is “stretching the boundaries” and when he’s just doing what jazz players simply refer to as bullshi##!ng one’s way through the changes. The changes to GS are a bitch.

I must say that I find contradiction, and irony, in the fact that you can acknowledge that players “avoid GS like the plague”, but then you dismiss the importance of the very reason that they avoid the tune.... honoring the changes.

I think that nsp’s post on the matter is really on the money. Regards.


frogman
7,476 posts
 
O-10, that must have been some lady that caused you to spill your beer all over your shoes without you even noticing ☺️. That was probably the reason that they were looking at you instead; not to mention the forlorn look on your face.

Great renditions of that great tune; thanks all. Here’s a version that I have always liked. Much more commercial and produced than the others; but one time when even though the producer went to town with a whole lot of “sweetening”, it all seemed to work well. With Dave Sanborn at his best.

https://youtu.be/3XG8Eg01uwY

pjw81563
1,829 posts
 
The Kid and Brute!  Illinois Jacquet and Ben Webster:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VqoNBffCBU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlBTWH1gfxg

Listen closely to this one, from the same album as the above two, and you can hear the great Leo Parker on baritone:

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

Leo Parker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7my8ZQYIUmQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-G9JVyZv3c

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