JAZZBO NOTES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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Alright, a little disclosure here. I’m not a big fan of either Milt Jackson or Wes Montgomery (I know — total heresy). So you might want to take my opinion of Bags Meets Wes with grain of salt.
I actually think it’s really good.
First off, it’s a straight bebop date, which […]

JAZZBO NOTES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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Power To The People is one of those releases that tend to fall through the cracks. Like much of Joe Henderson’s solo work, it is not overtly innovative, but instead works through already established forms. It also lacks the simplicity and clarity that would endear it to the small jazz […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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I used to think that guitarist Joe Pass was kind of square. I don’t know what I was thinking.
Sure he’s a straight up bebop player, but when you’ve got the chops, endless creativity and taste of a Joe Pass, who cares? He can play with a big band and get himself […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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First off, let’s get one thing out of the way. There’s no denying the historical importance of Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane - At Carnegie Hall. Until now, the only available recordings of Monk’s quartet with Coltrane were three tunes on Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane: Ruby, My Dear; Nutty; […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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Cool Blues is one of the better Jimmy Smith outings for three reasons:
#1 It’s not just the Jimmy Smith show
Smith’s bandmates, alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson, guitarist Eddie McFadden, and tenor man Tina Brooks, are having a good night.
Musicians are like anyone else. Some days, they struggle to make it […]

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING
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The point of Friday Night At The Village Vanguard (reissued on the Original Jazz Classics label) is not the tunes or the arrangements — it’s the quartet of Art Pepper (alto and tenor sax), George Cables (piano), George Mraz (bass), and Elvin Jones (drums).
The band was assembled for this gig, but 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 […]

WORTH A LISTEN
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I love Elvin Jones, but I’ll be the first to admit that Earth Jones (on the Quicksilver label) is a mixed bag.
The first sign of trouble is the opener, Three Card Molly. Elvin has elected to double the tempo at which he played this tune on his 1971 date Genesis. At the old tempo, […]

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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If you’ve never heard Charles Mingus before, Modern Jazz Symposium is a great place to start. It’s utterly accessible, and yet it contains all of the earmarks of what makes Mingus special.
Although free jazz had not officially been invented yet, there are free sections in this music. Mingus’ aesthetic was fluid. […]

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, […]