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

@mahgister, what I am hearing from you, while listening to Scriabin played by Richter, is about how a musician can translate the composer's passion, and a large aspect of that is in the understanding of timing, or perhaps the composer's magical heartbeat. I was talking about the listener getting so involved in the music that she loses a sense of time. I think that is what passionate moments are about.

@stuartk, I will post a poem below about jazz. It might help in the understanding of the poem to know how I work. I was taught, and I have taught others, to write in images. As one of the most influential American poets, William Carlos Williams, said: "There are no ideas but in things." So poems are not about ideas, they are more about dreams and the translation of images. That approach to poetry is difficult to accomplish but also freeing. Perhaps it might free you?

Max Beckman was a pre-Hitlerian German painter who sensed what was coming and captured the distortions of Germany to come under Hitler. In Germany, as in America, jazz was considered "decadent" music. It was played in speakeasys here and in clubs in Germany shunned by conservative society. 

As @maghister said, rhythm is a very integral part of poems. And I worked carefully on the lines and the way the rhythm works.

                         

MAX BECKMAN'S FACES

 

 

they were all caught

looking over

their shoulders stunned

by how easy young bodies

glide into jazz

&

the way cigarette

smoke

from a vamp

aging before our

eyes crawls

up the cheek

of an idle dandy

& disappears

in his hair

 

 

 

                       

Qobuz directed me to Alan Broadbent, Threads of time. Recorded in ‘24 and released in ‘25.

A new recording with a very old feel.

An old recording with an old feel. Django Reinhardt with perhaps the greatest jazz violinist of all time Stephan Grapelli. They played in the 1920s and 1930s in the Paris Hot Club. I was lucky enough to see Stephan Grapelli live playing with David Grisman and his "Dawg Music."

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

Stephanne Grappelli and Dave Grisman introduced by Johnnie Carson a long time ago. I went to see them live at UCLA and it was an exceptionally memorable concert. They were hot together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIbL9uw139s

Stephanne Grappelli and McCoy Tyner live. I’m streaming an album of theirs on Qobuz.

https://jazzonthetube.com/video/how-high-the-moon-1991/