JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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When Charles Mingus recorded Changes Two in 1975 (reissued on the Rhino label), his kind of music was considered completely irrelevant. That made him extremely angry, which I completely understand. Only fifteen years before, he was on the cutting edge of jazz, incorporating post bop, free jazz, gospel, and even the […]

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 ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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Black Beauty (on Columbia Records) is an imperfect document of what could have been potentially a near perfect band. Check out this lineup: Miles Davis, Steve Grossman (soprano sax), Jack DeJohnette (drums), Chick Corea (keyboards), Dave Holland (bass), and Airto Moreira (percussion).
It pains me to say it, but the main problem is saxophonist […]

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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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 […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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Schizophrenia comes after the universally lauded Blue Note releases of Wayne Shorter, like Night Dreamer, Juju and Speak No Evil. On Schizophrenia (also on the Blue Note label), Wayne was edging into more overtly complex structures, approaching atonality and free jazz at times, which doubtless made the majority of critics more […]

CLASSICS THAT I HATE
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Boy, am I going to get in trouble for this review. Maybe I’m one of those philistines that just doesn’t get late Coltrane, even though I liked Sun Ship, which was recorded after Meditations. But I’ve got to say, I find Meditations (released on the Impulse label) difficult to sit through.
The first […]