So tonight I turned the sound down on the Phillies game and turned up the stereo and spent a jazzy Saturday night listening to albums from Blue Mitchell, Wynton Kelly, and Hank Mobley. Of the three Hank Mobley is the musician I know the least about, but his album Soul Station was my favorite of the evening. The link between the three albums is the piano artistry of Wynton Kelly.
So on Monday while I was exploring new jazz artists, I read a forum thread about flutists and someone included Jane Bunnett among their favorites. I knew nothing about Jane, but here’s what I found about this accomplished musician at her website :
So last night I had the television on and there were no games on the Phils played in the afternoon and the NBA playoffs start tonight so a surfed a little, and then switched to the Music Choice jazz channel. I listened for a bit and heard two artists that sounded interesting, so I turned off the TV and went to MOG to find them. The first was jazz pianist Aaron Diehl and the second was drummer Jordon Young. Both of their albums were very, very good. particularly Diehl’s début album The Bespoke Man’s Narrative, which was released by Mack Avenue Records in March of this year. I was just blown away listening to this album! There are not many jazz pianist that I really love the list includes, Thelonious Monk, Oscar Peterson, Wynton Kelly and Bill Evans and now I will add Aaron Diehl to the list. Just how good is Aaron Diehl…..from his website:
Yesterday marked the 31st anniversary of the death of one of the greats of jazz, On that date Thelonious Monk died of a stroke, at the age of 64. I really didn’t get into Monk’s music until the last few years. I do have one album Monk Plays Duke on vinyl, but I have Brilliant Corners and Alone in San Francisco on the iPod! I had the album Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall on an mp3 player as a download from Rhapsody, now that’s one great album. (Note to self get that album on the iPod!).
Anyway here’s some background on Monk from Wikipedia:
So today I doing some work that required a bit of concentration, so the soundtrack was jazz oriented. Last night I had turned on Pandora and was listening to some jazz albums and one of the tracks was from the album Very Tall by Milt Jackson and Oscar Peterson, since the track that played last night was very good and I had never heard this album I thought that the album would be a good place to start my afternoon music. I was right! What a great album, but then I” wouldn’t expect anything from these two great jazz masters! here’s some information in the album from CD Universe:
So today was a jazzy kind of day. This afternoon I was doing some writing so I decided to listen to some jazz. I had download a Chick Corea and Gary Burton a while ago, so I decided to start the afternoon with another Chick Corea album. I chose his 2012 release Further Explorations. The album is a two disc tribute to Jazz legend Bill Evans.. On the album, Corea he leads original Evans alumni – bassist Eddie Gomez and the late drummer Paul Motian – on Further Explorations. The album was recorded on May 4-17, 2010, live at the Blue Note in New York City. (2011 marks the 50th anniversary of the release of Evans’ original Explorations LP. Not being a huge fan of either Corea or Evans I didn’t realize that the album was a tribute album to Evans, but I did know that the album evoke the feel of Bill Evans and the second album that I listened to was Bill Evans’ The Complete Vanguard Recording 1961. As I look at the track lists for both albums tonight I see that two of the tracks I listened to “Gloria’s Step” and “Alice in Wonderland” appear on BOTH albums! Well, I’ll be, again, I’m not that familiar with either artist and the music was on in the background so I guess maybe I can be excused for not noticing that they were the same songs on each album!
So this morning was as jazzy kind of morning as I was out and about doing some errands I had Smokin’ at the Half Note by Wes Montgomery and Wynton Kelly playing on the iPod! The album was recorded live in late June 1965 at the Half Note Club in New York City, and September 22, 1965 at Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey and released by Verve.
So I listened to a lot of bluegrass on this Twang Tuesday but at one point this morning when I was doing some writing and the bluegrass was put on hold and I listened to some jazz. I put on something different and listened to A Night on the Town an album by the Oscar Peterson Trio featuring Herb Ellis on guitar, Ray Brown on bass and of course Oscar Peterson on piano. Now I have listened to Oscar Peterson before and am not really a big fan mostly because I really don’t jazz piano all that much, but this album most have caught me in the right mood because I thought it was exceptional. Throughout the album both Ellis’ guitar and Peterson’s piano were great and a few times Brown’s bass playing was pretty darn good, too! All I know when I listen to bluegrass my foot is usually a tappin’ which it was also doing with this album
In the early 70’s John Mayall released those two albums that I always talk about Jazz Blues Fusion and Movin’ On Blue Mitchell played some great trumpet on those two albums today I listened to a nice album of Blue’s titled Blue’s Blues. The album was released in 1972 between the two Mayall albums and Mayall played harmonica on the album and another featured player on Mayall’s albums Freddy Robinson added some great guitar. The album only has five tracks but the shortest track is 7 minutes long and the longest is over ten minutes.
