During the 1964-68 period while he served as the “idea man” in Miles Davis’ Second Quintet, Wayne Shorter reeled off album after album under his own name that were extremely creative and sometimes breathtaking.
Here are a couple of stories. One is amazing and funny. The other is just amazing.
Better known for helping shape the Blue Note Records hard bop sound as a producer in the 1960s, pianist Duke Pearson also led his own big band before succumbing to the ravages of multiple sclerosis at age 47.
Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis continue a stirringly offbeat musical dialogue begun with their 2008 release Two Men with the Blues, this time focusing on the music of Ray Charles.
by Nick DeRiso Cassandra Wilson, who consistently defies convention as this restless chanteuse, doesn’t disappoint with Silver Pony — issued today on Blue Note as the long-awaited part-in studio, part-live followup to her celebrated Loverly. She has the vocal phrasing, the dusky intellect, of Charlie Parker and the elastic intuition of Betty Carter. Yet, Wilson is no throwback. She writes [...]
Here’s a free mp3 download of Cassandra Wilson’s “Silver Moon,” a tune featuring saxophonist Ravi Coltrane from the forthcoming Blue Note recording Silver Pony. A hybrid live/studio album set for release on Nov. 9, Silver Pony features live songs from a European tour and studio work done at New Orleans’ Piety Street Studios. Wilson also collaborates on the tune “Watch [...]
by S. Victor Aaron One of my favorite funk-jazz albums of all time isn’t by a crossover act like the Crusaders or Herbie Hancock‘s Headhunters, but by a living giant of a jazz alto sax blower. I’m talking about Lou Donaldson. Starting out as a very good Charlie Parker disciple leading bebop sessions on par with his most logical contemporary [...]
“The Magic Hour” by Louisiana-born trumpeter Wynton Marsalis was that sweetest of swinging homecomings – like time spent laughing with old friends on a front porch. We have Marsalis returning finally to small-band work – where he once sparked the kind of mainstream interest in a jazz trumpeter enjoyed long ago by the likes of Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis. [...]
NICK DERISO: Cassandra Wilson, unlike so many, never turns a cover tune into a math problem — trying to get it too note perfect, or make it add up. Instead, her hypnotic, sensuous contralto transforms other people’s work, often giving it a power and meaning never dreamt of before. That’s writ large on Wilson’s new “Closer To You,” set for [...]
NICK DERISO: “He and She,” trumpeter Wynton Marsalis’ fifth Blue Note recording, is a toe-tapping celebration, a cautionary tale and a loving requiem for the journey that passion takes. There’s poetry in the playing but, perhaps unfortunately, also actual poetry. “He and She,” recorded live over a two-day period and minimally edited, features a heady mix of New Orleans street [...]
Don’t Miss A Thing
Bad Behavior has blocked 3187 access attempts in the last 7 days.
RSS
E-mail
Twitter
Facebook
Tumblr
MySpace
YouTube
Comments