Jazz for aficionados

Rok, I forgot to add the most important part; still in basic training, can not leave the base.

There is something about Grant Green's music that resonates with my sub-conscious; when I hear his music, I hear St. Louis when I was young, when St. Louis was St. Louis. When I freely roamed a fascinating city where you could find like minded people whose company you enjoyed.

Grant Green belonged to St. Louis before he belonged to the world, he was one of us before he ever recorded his first LP. Unlike Miles Davis, who left early, and went to New York, and never came back, they had a hard time getting Grant Green to leave. We heard Grant at various small local lounges before he was famous, and it wasn't like he was playing to entertain us, but he was playing his music for Grant Green, and we were there enjoying the music he was playing for himself.

As I listen to this music, my mind is flooded with images of nights enjoying Grants music with friends in our most special lounge where Grant appeared professionally on the weekends, and sometime in the middle of the week he dropped in. This lounge was like his home away from home. I recall one such off night, when he came in and just played to himself while we listened; he played awhile and left. That was in 1959, just before I went into the Air Force.


        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqNhx5TYn-g&list=RDXqNhx5TYn-g&start_radio=1


        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvZl0rreNtw


        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR9TSccJuAo


        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDfFjsUN8e4


        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ugFD8jjAcw

Obviously ,Your personal life effects what you like in Music . I will buy anything made by anybody if it its something I heard with my late wife .
rok, were you serious about that pop junk ?

While not written specifically
for Christmas this is one you hear a lot this time of year  in praise of God  here in USA's ground
zero  of choir music .
This IMO is the  most profound single religious piece ever written by an American.The  Belgium choir sounds like they were shot down from heaven just for this recording !
https://youtu.be/fRL447oDId4?t=6

Rok, re “blowing” session.

In Jazz parlance “blowing” is soloing/mprovising, Obviously, the literal meaning refers to blowing air (into a horn), but in Jazz when a piano, guitar, bass player, or even drummer plays a solo he is also “blowing”. A “blowing session” is a session in which the emphasis is the soloing with less emphasis on the compositions or attempt at any particularly interesting arrangement, One usually hears a basic, even generic, reading of the melody (usually standards) and then everyone “blows” usually extended solos. One could say that the music is usually characterized by a looser, even more causal, vibe; the players are having fun.

That is one of my favorite Cannonball recordings. He kills on that record with Milt Jackson. An interesting (for me) personal story: In the summer of 1975 (was about to start college) I was in a record store in Miami, Fla with a short stack of records under my arm. The local Jazz radio station was playing and the DJ announced that Cannonball had just died. That record was one of the five or six under my arm.

Another of the records under my arm, and on the subject of West Coast players, one of my favorite West Coast saxophone players. A very swinging player that goes under the radar way too often:

https://youtu.be/pERO8m_9sIU

https://youtu.be/2joWrHSsNUY

https://youtu.be/V9eNtsqfpzQ

https://youtu.be/IzveIxkjApo

Btw, the above third and fourth clips in particular, would never be referred to as “blowing sessions”. Characteristic of much of West Coast Jazz there is an emphasis on interesting, sometimes intricate, arrangements and compositions.

Speaking of West Coast Jazz, Pryso’s “cheesecake” and Rok’s love of great album covers (more Herb Geller”:

https://youtu.be/gfGKqERBRLk

     Speaking of Herb Geller and Christmas. Merry Christmas to all!:

      https://youtu.be/P7meYOaEmVU