JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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John Coltrane’s producer, Bob Thiele, persuaded Coltrane to record this release (on the Impulse label) with Duke Ellington in an effort to quiet jazz critics who were horrified at Coltrane’s innovations, labeling them “anti-jazz.” While the reasons for the date might be silly, the music is anything but.
For some of the […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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It’s kind of funny to hear an CD of soul jazz covers of Beck tunes. I think maybe that’s the point.
Oddly enough, Beck’s tunes turn out to be pretty well suited to a jazz organ trio format. Lonnie Smith (organ) and Doug Munro (guitar) do a good […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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As regular readers of this website know, I tend to focus on jazz since the 60s, but every once in a while, I have to make an exception. Art Tatum was mostly a stride, boogie woogie, and swing pianist. All of these are styles which are rarely […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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Freefall wasn’t actually the first Dixie Dregs release. That was The Great Spectacular, but bandleader Steve Morse was unhappy with the results, which were recorded as a class project at the University of Miami School of Music, and most of the tunes on that album were re-recorded for Freefall. Freefall has […]

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CLASSICS THAT I HATE
Somebody’s got to say it: Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy is the sort of uninspired drivel that hastened the decline of fusion as an artistically viable form of musical expression.
It fails on every possible level. The arrangements are busy all right, but it’s all sound and fury, signifying nothing. The grooves […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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Face First (on the Mesa/Bluemoon label) sounds an awful lot like Tribal Tech’s previous release, 1992’s Illicit. They had not really made the transition to mostly improvised song forms that would mark 2000’s Rocket Science. Nothing wrong with that, but there aren’t really a whole lot of surprises here. Just a […]

There’s a forum on this site, but no one is using it. Maybe because no one is aware that it’s here.
If that’s the case, it’s an easy fix. The link to the forum is in the top left corner menu.
If you guys don’t want to talk about what’s in the forum, let me know what […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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Normally, I wouldn’t include an album like Milton on this website. It’s a Brazilian pop album. All of the songs have lyrics and are sung by the great Brazilian singer Milton Nascimento.
But I have my reasons for including this release. Milton (released on the Verve label) includes improvisations by Herbie […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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4 Generations of Miles (on the Chesky Records label) is just what it sounds like. Miles had a very long career, spanning the 40s to the 90s. I don’t know if it was a deliberate choice from the start or they decided on the name of the album after the fact, […]

WORTH A LISTEN
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First of all, let me say that I’m not really the audience for In Angel City. I’m not a huge fan of mainstream jazz, which is what Quartet West really is. Sure, Ernie Watts’ tenor sax solos show the influence of Coltrane and King Curtis and the rest […]