What Jazz are you listening to now?

Started by Gurn Blanston, June 12, 2015, 06:16:31 AM

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San Antone


San Antone

A new recording of Ellington's masterpiece.



Black, Brown and Beige
Recording date: April 26-28, 2018
Release date: March 6th, 2020

Quote"It sits alone in the history of jazz," Wynton Marsalis says of Duke Ellington's groundbreaking masterpiece Black, Brown & Beige. Since its 1943 debut at Carnegie Hall, the piece – a sprawling survey of African American history – has been heralded as one of the most significant compositions in American orchestral music. Now, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis is releasing a definitive, present-day recording of Black, Brown & Beige that conveys all the nuances and emotion of Ellington's grandest work.

Captured during a live, Rose Theater performance in 2018, Black, Brown & Beige is Marsalis's first recording of the work and Blue Engine's first release dedicated entirely to Ellington. As Marsalis explains, the piece "covers a mosaic of not just Afro-American but of American styles of music," and the expert musicians of the JLCO – not to mention special guests Brianna Thomas (vocals) and Eli Bishop (violin) – are perfectly equipped to tackle its stirring stylistic breadth. The JLCO's spirited take on Ellington's epic not only pays tribute to some of the maestro's most personal work but adds another important chapter to its enduring legacy.

San Antone



Unforgivable Blackness – The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson

QuoteTrumpeter Wynton Marsalis' soundtrack to Ken Burns' documentary Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson is a compelling and rootsy mix of blues and swing. Having worked with Burns on the PBS "Jazz" series, Marsalis' Unforgivable Blackness soundtrack seems like a natural progression of a fruitful partnership. Not dissimilar to such past Marsalis projects as the Jelly Roll Morton album Mr. Jelly Lord, the album features Marsalis in various small-group settings along with such longtime Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra regulars as drummer Herlin Riley, pianist Eric Lewis, saxophonist Wessell Anderson, bassist Reginald Veal, trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, and others, including guitarist Doug Wamble, who adds his unique blend of old-time blues, folk, and jazz to Marsalis' own signature updating of '20s and '30s jazz. Although four previously released tracks appear here, two off Standard Time, Vol. 6: Mr. Jelly Lord and two from Marsalis' Reeltime, the majority of the album is newly recorded and all of it sounds of a piece. Ironically, Marsalis' deepest musical influence and aesthetic nemesis, trumpeter Miles Davis, also recorded an album for a film about the troubled boxing champ Johnson, 1970's fusion classic Tribute to Jack Johnson. However, where Davis' album seemed to reflect the counterculture and Black Power movements of the time, Marsalis is more traditionally cinematic in his approach, with each track evoking the pride, urbanity, strength, and tragedy of the legendary Johnson.

T. D.

#4343
Quote from: hvbias on March 21, 2020, 12:52:28 PM
What recordings do you like of John Gilmore outside of Sun Ra (I am a huge fan of Ra)? The only one I've heard is Blowin' In From Chicago, a mediocre play for pay session.
Only things I can recommend offhand are Andrew Hill's Andrew!!! and Compulsion!!!!! and Pete LaRoca's Turkish Women at the Bath.
There's a Paul Bley album Turning Point which is supposed to be excellent, but it's hard to find and I haven't heard it.
I've heard good and bad things about Blowin' in from Chicago, never bothered to listen.
Gilmore was with Art Blakey's group for a short while in the '60s, but I don't know what recordings exist.
Allmusic shows credits with McCoy Tyner, Dizzy Reese and Freddie Hubbard, but I don't know any details.

And since I spent so much time editing my various senior moment mistakes, might as well add current listening:
 

San Antone


George

"It is a curious fact that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves seriously." –Oscar Wilde

San Antone

Quote from: George on March 23, 2020, 07:50:01 AM
A perfect album for right now!

IMO, it is a perfect album, period.  But, yes, especially so right now.  I listen to it, probably, at least once a month.

8)

staxomega

Quote from: T. D. on March 22, 2020, 08:35:31 AM
Only things I can recommend offhand are Andrew Hill's Andrew!!! and Compulsion!!!!! and Pete LaRoca's Turkish Women at the Bath.
There's a Paul Bley album Turning Point which is supposed to be excellent, but it's hard to find and I haven't heard it.
I've heard good and bad things about Blowin' in from Chicago, never bothered to listen.
Gilmore was with Art Blakey's group for a short while in the '60s, but I don't know what recordings exist.
Allmusic shows credits with McCoy Tyner, Dizzy Reese and Freddie Hubbard, but I don't know any details.

And since I spent so much time editing my various senior moment mistakes, might as well add current listening:
 

I did forget about those Andrew Hill albums, great albums. I've never heard Turkish Women at the Bath but I've been meaning to for a while, Basra is a top BN for me. I'm a huge fan of Destination Out and Evolution as well! I was listening to Some Other Stuff not too long ago.

George



Another great mastering by Alan Yoshida.
"It is a curious fact that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves seriously." –Oscar Wilde

T. D.

#4349


San Antone

#4350


Levee Low Moan, Vol. 3 of Soul Gestures in Southern Blue.  Fantastic.

QuoteA blues cycle for quintet and sextet that, as Wynton says of the title track to THICK IN THE SOUTH, comprises "a condition, a location, an attitude, a pulchritudinous proposition, and an occurrence," SOUL GESTURES IN SOUTHERN BLUE ranges through the full glory of the blues tradition. Among other things, it introduces us to the Uptown Ruler, a mythic New Orleans hero whose "persona is obviously multifaceted," Wynton remarks, because he is "accepted without question in the houses of worship . . . [and] ill repute." Most of all, the cycle reveals the complex human message of the low moaning blues that echoes in the foghorn of a riverboat, the lament of a spiritual, or the simmering dishes of a home cooked meal. The performers include Marcus Roberts on piano, Bob Hurst or Reginald Veal on bass, Jeff "Tain" Watts or Herlin Riley on drums, Todd Williams and Wes Anderson on saxophones, and Wycliffe Gordon on trombone, with special appearances, on THICK IN THE SOUTH, by two of jazz's greatest virtuosos, drummer Elvin Jones and tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson.

The compositions are excellent, the improvisations are wonderful and the recorded sound of the instruments is first rate.  You can't ask for more.

The three volumes of this series are mandatory for anyone wishing to hear the state of art of jazz in the late 20th century.

San Antone

Sweet Release & Ghost Story : Two Ballets by Wynton Marsalis

Written for Judith Jamison's choreography for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and performed by the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, SWEET RELEASE tells the story of a man and a woman, represented by the trombone and trumpet, and the temptations that threaten their romance. GHOST STORY was written for a small ensemble – Ted Nash on reeds, Eric Lewis on piano, Carlito Henriquez or Rodney Whitaker on bass, and Jaz Sawyer on drums – to serve as a score for choreography by Zhong Mei Li.



T. D.

Going to spin a lot of the All Monk complete Riverside box, starting with

San Antone

Quote from: T. D. on March 29, 2020, 02:28:33 PM
Going to spin a lot of the All Monk complete Riverside box, starting with


Great stuff.

San Antone

Such Sweet Thunder is a Duke Ellington album, released in 1957. The record is a twelve-part suite based on the works of William Shakespeare.


San Antone



Black, Brown and Beige - Jazz at Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra - Wynton Marsalis, dir.

It is so valuable to have this recording of the original work.  The score was meticulously assembled from Ellington's original manuscript score, the 1943 Carnegie Hall live recording, and existing parts from both the 1943 and the 1956 recording.  The performance documented on this recording has to be treated as definitive, despite the existence of a decent recording of the 1943 recording, the sound on this CD is vastly superior.

8)

Mookalafalas

Quote from: George on March 26, 2020, 12:47:05 PM


Another great mastering by Alan Yoshida.
Quote from: San Antone on March 23, 2020, 07:40:08 AM


   30+ years ago I had these back to back on a cassette, and I played it nearly every day on a cassette deck with non-stop play back. I often put it in when I went to bed and let it play all night...
It's all good...

George

Quote from: Mookalafalas on March 31, 2020, 08:51:16 PM
   30+ years ago I had these back to back on a cassette, and I played it nearly every day on a cassette deck with non-stop play back. I often put it in when I went to bed and let it play all night...

Nice!

Ohhh, cassettes, you're taking me back. When people ask, are you from the vinyl or CD generation, I always proudly say I am from the cassette generation.  8)
"It is a curious fact that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves seriously." –Oscar Wilde

SimonNZ

My most-played cassette was a C90 I made with the Round Midnight soundtrack on side one and the second "The Other Side Of Round Midnight" on side two.

San Antone

Lester Young with Count Basie : The Columbia, Okeh & Vocalion Sessions (1936-1940) Vol. 1



Excellent 4 volume collection