Jazz, c. 1950-1970: Recommendations (and jazz in general)

[Bogey]

Booyah.
   

[KevinP]

In the sense that we have favourite movies in a separate list from greatest movies, Nancy Wilson is one of my favourite singers. In the past year or two, I've managed to get pretty much every CD of hers (though there's a LOT of albums that have yet to make it to CD). She's had some phases that I don't particularly appreciate, but when she's good, she's great.

Bird: Washington Concerts. The first notes you hear Bird play on the opening track were the first I ever heard and they literally made me laugh, with delight of course. I was just getting into jazz when the album was first released (had it on cassette), which was just the big band sides and the RR interview. Good stuff to be sure.

[Heather Harrison]

Thanks to a Borders 40% off coupon, three new jazz CDs have entered my collection.  That coupon brought them below the prices typically seen in the used bins, so it was definitely worthwhile.

Here is the first.



Charlie Parker - Bird's Best Bop on Verve.  This is a selection of recordings from 1950-1953.  They are great classic bebop tunes, many of which are quite famous.  (I recognized a few, even though I didn't previously have any of these recordings.)  Performances are all great, and the recording quality is as good as can be expected from the early 1950's.

I will post the other two after I listen to them.

Heather

[Heather Harrison]

Here are the other two jazz CDs that I bought at Borders.



These recordings date from the late 1940's to mid 1950's; this CD includes extended versions of some of Ellington's best known compositions, as well as two suites.  As usual, the performances are great, and Ellington's compositions are always interesting.



Thelonious Monk - Monk's Music.  This CD features a number of Monk's compositions and a combo including some very famous musicians.  It is typical of the style of 1950's jazz - very accessible and easy to appreciate, but also quite interesting to listen to.  As expected, given the presence of many of the top musicians of the time, performances are excellent.

Heather

[Bogey]

Thelonious Monk - Monk's Music.  This CD features a number of Monk's compositions and a combo including some very famous musicians.  It is typical of the style of 1950's jazz - very accessible and easy to appreciate, but also quite interesting to listen to.  As expected, given the presence of many of the top musicians of the time, performances are excellent.

Heather

I have this album and like it as well.  However, I continue to enjoy the "idea" of Monk more than his music itself, but I'm getting there. 

[KevinP]

Good choices, Heather. I have all the Bird recordings though not the actual disc you have. Should be good.

The Duke disc is one of those titles I've bought at least three times. Do check out Duke in the 40s if you haven't already, but this early LP-era stuff is great in a different way.

One of my favourite moments on the Monk disc, and indeed in all of jazz, is just before Coltrane's solo in 'Well You Needn't' when Monk has to yell, 'Coltrane! Coltrane!' to awaken him from his drug-induced stupor, and then he takes his solo without missing a beat.

[Shrunk]

Thelonious Monk - Monk's Music.  This CD features a number of Monk's compositions and a combo including some very famous musicians.  It is typical of the style of 1950's jazz - very accessible and easy to appreciate, but also quite interesting to listen to.  As expected, given the presence of many of the top musicians of the time, performances are excellent.

...and isn't that a fabulous cover?

[Heather Harrison]

The Duke disc is one of those titles I've bought at least three times. Do check out Duke in the 40s if you haven't already, but this early LP-era stuff is great in a different way.

I have a lot of Duke Ellington recordings from the 1920's through 1940's; it is through those that I came to appreciate him.  I'm now gradually moving into his later material.

Heather

[George]

...and isn't that a fabulous cover?

Yep.

[Shrunk]

I have this album and like it as well.  However, I continue to enjoy the "idea" of Monk more than his music itself, but I'm getting there. 

If you really want to grok Monk, I think you have to hear him playing solo.  In particular, when he plays standards it really shows the uniqueness of his approach to the piano.  Try this disc:



Monk Alone: The Complete Columbia Solo Studio Recordings of Thelonious Monk 1962-1968

[Bogey]

Just caught this thanks to Muriel on the non-classical thread.  In case you missed, like I did, here was Kevin's thoughts on Lady in Satin.  Did not want it to get buried over there; hence the repost.

Her voice was completely shot by then. She never did have a pretty voice, nor did she ever need one. She could make it, well, sing. She could get inside a song and turn it inside out. Most of the songs she sang I learned from her, and if I ever heard it later by another singer, I often found myself saying, 'Oh, so that's what the song is really supposed to be about.' (And I mean that with the utmost respect to Lady.) The early, swing-era sides she cut for Columbia are among the best recordings in my rather vast collection. 'Strange Fruit' is one of the most daring songs ever written, especially for 1939. But by the end of her life, her voice was gone, leaving only the naked pain. And that's what some people like about it and what some people don't. I hear the pain; I just don't find it musical. (And yes, the orchestration is pretty bad. The tunes are okay to great. And the dress....I never noticed it before now. I do find her some of the B&W pictures of her in the remaster CD rather attractive though, at least the ones where she's actually singing.)

When the album was released in 1959, it was pretty widely panned I believe. It is only with time, and with Lady's iconisation, that it's taken on the status it has, leaving people like me behind. Part of what bugs me is that some people hold it up as an example of 'Look what white society does to blacks, pushing them to drugs, etc.' These are people (and I'm not saying you're one of them or anything like that) who have some need to see her as a victim, as if it somehow puts the black American experience into a neat little box that they can understand. Screw the music. Now they can hear the pain of victimisation. It's the musical equivalent of her ghosted autobiography and the even more fictionalised movie of the same name. I don't want her to be an icon. I don't want her to symbolise anything that overshadows her music. She's not Elvis or James Dean. Nor was she an athlete dying young.

I'll readily admit that perhaps I've only ever met one person like that, whom I met early on, and that I may transfer his feelings to others who like the album.

I hope nothing I say pinches the joy you get from it. Believe me: if you like it, I envy you. Lady is not just my favourite singer of any genre but also one of the most important, with only Bessie Smith and Mahalia Jackson approaching in both aspects, and I would love to love this album. I take it out every now and then to see if my feelings have changed. Phil Schaap, writing the liner notes of the remaster, notes that for decades he could never understand what people saw in this album, and then, while unearthing the a cappella 'End of a Love Affair,' he suddenly had an epiphany and understood it all. I envy him too.

All that said, I should retract my 'absolute worst' comment and apply that honour to the album that came next, with the unoriginal and confusing title of Billie Holiday, recorded for MGM. It's really much the same, just worst. And there's no dispute about that between lovers and detractors of Lady in Satin.

And I'm going to listen to it right now.

[bhodges]

Fascinating comments!  Thanks for pointing this out, Bill, and thanks to Kevin for his candid thoughts.  I don't have much Holiday, for some reason--just never explored her adequately--but the comments here are intriguing.

--Bruce

[Heather Harrison]

I just got this one.



Art Blakey - The Jazz Messengers.  This early release by Art Blakey's group is a varied and interesting collection.  The music is fun and energetic, and it is easy to appreciate.  Everything flows nicely; the musicians obviously understand each other and play together well.  I enjoyed this one at least as much as the somewhat later "Moanin'" album.

Heather

[Bogey]

Now in the tray:

[George]

Now in the tray:

This is a tough act to follow, best to end the night with this one.

Why?

Well, after listening to Something Else, what are you going to listen to - something else? 


(bad joke but I had to try it) 

[Bogey]

This is a tough act to follow, best to end the night with this one.

Why?

Well, after listening to Something Else, what are you going to listen to - something else? 


(bad joke but I had to try it) 

Not as bad as you think George.  However, after finishing this one I was feeling Kind of Blue.

[George]

Not as bad as you think George.  However, after finishing this one I was feeling Kind of Blue.

[MN Dave]

I was listening to that album last night. Classic.

[Bogey]

Getz and Coltrane together...and a few others you may have heard of  :

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8309607948080115360&q=John+Coltrane&total=1160&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=5

[Bogey]

Grabbed today and enjoying ...a lot: