JAZZBO NOTES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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Usually, I’m usually not too fond of records in which Keith Jarrett insists on playing instruments other than his main axe. Really, the only instrument which he has really mastered is the piano.
Death And The Flower (on the Impulse label) is the exception. It is disciplined in the same way […]

JAZZBO NOTES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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Mosaic Select: Dave Liebman & Richie Beirach is a tough box set to review. It features three distinct periods and styles of music, and not all of them are equally pleasurable to listen to. First, there’s Lookout Farm, Liebman’s first band. Then there’s Quest, the 80s group that evolved out […]

DON’T BOTHER
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Okay, here’s a question for you. Imagine that you’ve come across a date you’ve never heard of before with the following personel: Jim Pepper on tenor, Larry Coryell on guitar, Steve Swallow on bass, Keith Jarrett on keys, and Bob Moses on drums. Would you be interested? Hell, yeah!
Sucker.
I’m always in favor of […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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At This Point In Time was made at the very end of Elvin’s tenure at Blue Note Records. It’s a very gutsy record, made at a time when fusion was in full swing. Elvin has his own approach to the musical atmosphere of the times.
Elvin keeps a foot firmly in the […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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In jazz festivals these days, programmers always face a quandary. Young musicians naturally want to showcase new music, but audiences respond to familiarity, in the form of standards. The SFJazz Collective has come up with an ingenious solution to this dilemma. During their first year, they focused on the works of […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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First off, I should point out that the title of this Miles Davis release is a little misleading. Half of the tunes on Live Evil (released on the Columbia label) were recorded in the studio. The other half were indeed recorded live at The Cellar Door in Washington, D.C. I suspect that […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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I’ve got to admit, I feel a little bit sorry for Charles Mingus. (Just a little bit, okay? I mean, I’d be happy to have the talent he had in his little pinky or one tenth his career in music.)
You see, back in 1959, Charles Mingus was absolutely at the vanguard […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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Around the time Sweetnighter came out on the Columbia label, Joe Zawinul was frustrated. He had initially put together Weather Report as a unique combination of free jazz and through composed tunes, in which it was difficult to tell where one began and the other ended. When it worked, it was […]

DON’T BOTHER
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If the inclusion of multiple musical genres and thematic cohesiveness were enough to make a piece of music a masterpiece, Bob Moses’ The Story of Moses would surely qualify. A cursory analysis of The Story of Moses would reveal hip hop, funk, salsa, rock, and traditional Yiddish musical influences. No less an authority […]

DON’T BOTHER
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You know, I really want to like the 70s albums of Miles Davis, but I keep striking out. You see, I totally recognize that Miles’ experiments were really important and influential and resulted in some wonderful music when musicians in the 90s and 00s started to pick up on his innovations. But somehow, […]