The Evolution of Modern Jazz

West coast jazz, WCJ from here on out; is rapidly vanishing. The old records in my collection are out of print. Since it wasn't a radical departure from mainstream jazz like "fusion" was, most did not recognize it as a separate genre. I've included the names of musicians who were the primary west coasters, while they weren't as well known as artist's in other genre, they were just as good.

Curtis Counce, Bob Cooper, Bob Perkins, Conti Condoli, Pete Jolly, Harold Land, Carl Perkins, Shelly Manne, Teddy Edwards, Hampton Hawes,Stan Levey, Monty Budwig,and Mel Lewis are a few great west coast boppers that recorded in the 50's and 60's.

Some WCJ was well represented by soundtracks like "The Man With The Golden Arm" and the TV series "Peter Gunn". This genre will soon be gone with the wind, and I intend to get my share before that happens. This is "The Man With the Golden Arm".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlf1PEwnD7w

"Peter Gunn"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWscwxNBla4&feature=autoplay&list=PLA00348ADE1F4B401&index=45&playnext=2

Harold Land "Invitation"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhFC7LB5OXs&feature=related

Curtis Counce "Nica's Dream"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trjO7TWe6ME&feature=related

Enjoy

This band is tight. Weckl is on form.

The music always sounds better when you can actually see it being made, and they showed us every aspect of the reproduction; outstanding!

Now that you know the names of the players, you can mine the WCJ genre on your own. These are my last recommendations in hard bop before we go to "fusion". Ike Quebec, "Heavy Soul" "The Cannonball Adderly Quintet in San Francisco" Charles Mingus, " Mingus AH-Um Charles Mingus" Art Blakey, "A Night in Birdland" "The Best of Horace Silver" "The Best of Lee Morgan" The sidemen on these CD's became leaders, These few CD's can take you a long way.

Tomorrow we'll begin "Fusion". Since there are many experts here, I hope for a lot more help in that genre. While I liked fusion initially, it got boring in a hurry. I guess that tells you why I'm not the best person to take us through fusion. Next we get into some of the most beautiful music in jazz. It's so beautiful, that I've had people tell me it's not jazz because they don't like jazz. The next phase of this wonderful music incorporates music from around the world, maybe that's why some say it isn't jazz; whatever it is I love it.

That clip of Dave Grusin comes from the excellent 'DG presents West Side Story' DVD. I own both the CD & the DVD. Unfortunately, this clip and the whole DVD are unsynced video shown with the original recording. It's easy to get caught up in the incredible playing but if you watch closely the players are rarely playing in sync with the tune! Even the Michael Brecker solo can be clearly seen as him alone in the studio overdubbing his part. I picked up this DVD expecting to see a video of the band playing the music from this magnificent recording but the whole thing is this unsynced mess! Doesn't alter the fact that it's a fantastic record! This was the last GRP Big Band recording. The 1st 3 were 'official' releases from the GRP Big Band. The 2nd group of three, although released as Dave Grusin records were actually the Big Band; 'The Gershwin Collection', 'Homage To Duke', & 'West Side Story'. GRP's usually remembered for the glut of 'smooth/fuzak' records they released but they also put out quite a few great records!