Playlist – Jazz Kaleidoscope 3-23-16

Format: Artist – Song – Album – Label, as played in sets

Wayne Shorter – Speak No Evil – Speak No Evil – Blue Note
Miles Davis Quintet – Eighty-One – ESP – Columbia

Anat Cohen – Siboney – Notes From the Village – Anzic
Bill Moring & Way Out East – Hop Blues – Spaces in Time – Owl

Brazilian Trio – Paraty – Forests – Zoho
Guillermo Klein y Los Guachos – Ninos – Carrera – Sunnyside

Helen Sung – Equipoise – Anthem For A New Day
Charles Mingus – Self Portrait in Three Colors – Mingus Ah Um – Columbia
Andy Bey – Yesterdays – Ballads, Blues & Bey – Evidence

Geri Allen, Paul Motian, Charlie Haden – Blues in Motian – Etudes – Soul Note
Ingrid Jensen – Fallin’ – Here On Earth – Justin Time

Either / Orchestra – Premonitions – The Half-Life of Desire – Accurate
Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society – Transit – Infernal Machines – New Amsterdam

Richard Galliano – Bohemia After Dark – New York Trio – Deyfus Jazz
Ernest Dawkins – United – Afro Straight – Delmark

Darrell Grant – Tight – Truth & Reconciliation – Origin
Phil Ranelin – Black on the Nu – Inspiration – Wide Hive

Jackie McClean – On the Nile – Jacknife – Blue Note

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Playlist – Jazz Kaleidoscope 3-16-16

Format: Artist – Song – Album – Label, as played in sets

Roy Haynes – Question and Answer – Roy Haynes Trio – Verve
Yosvany Terry Quintet – Inner Speech – Today’s Opinion – Criss Cross

Hampton Hawes – Hip – For Real! – Original Jazz Classics
Gary Bartz – Freedom One Day – Libra – Milestone

Geri Allen – Your Pure Self, Mother to Son – Flying Toward the Sound – Motema
Bill Carrothers – Hope Song – Home Row – Pirouet

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – This is for Albert – Caravan – Blue Note
Cannonball Adderley – One for Daddy-O – Somethin’ Else – Blue Note

Mary Lou Williams – Dat Dere – Free Spirits – SteepleChase
Red Mitchell – Narbild – One Long String – Sunnyside

Jazz Soul Seven – Check Out Your Mind – Impressions of Curtis Mayfield – BFM Jazz
Charlie Hunter Trio – Hillbilly Heroine Chic – Let the Bells Ring On – Self produced

Vijay Iyer Trio – Work – Break Stuff – ECM
Thelonious Monk – Bye-Ya – The Columbia Years – Columbia

Joe Henderson – Miles Ahead – So Near, So Far – Verve
Duke Ellington & John Coltrane – Take the Coltrane – Duke Ellington & John Coltrane – Impulse!

Rudresh Mahanthappa – Stay I – Gamak – ACT

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Playlist – Jazz Kaleidoscope 3-9-16

Format: Artist – Song – Album – Label, as played in sets

Herbie Hancock – Maiden Voyage – Maiden Voyage – Blue Note
Joe Lovano – Cool – Streams of Expression – Blue Note

Toshiko Akiyoshi Trio – In Your Own Sweet Way – Dedications II – Inner City
Kei Akagi Trio – New Childrens Song – Circlepoint – Self-produced

Ahmed Abdul-Malik – Wakida Henna – Jazz Sounds of Africa – Prestige
Randy Weston – Niger Mambo – Mosaic Select – Mosaic

Wayne Shorter – Go – Schizophrenia – Blue Note
Duke Pearson – Empathy – Sweet Honey Bee – Blue Note

Luis Perdomo – Rebellious Contemplation – Universal Mind – RKM
Brad Meldau Trio – Aquaman – Ode – Nonesuch

Miles Davis Quintet – Circle – Miles Smiles – Columbia
Andy Bey – Midnight Blue – Shades of Bey – 12th Street

Jackie McLean – Hootnan – Action – Blue Note
Horace Parlan – Kucheza Blues – Happy Frame of Mind – Blue Note

Charles Lloyd & the Marvels – Of Course, Of Course – I Long To See You – Blue Note
Esbjorn Svensson Trio – Dolores in A Shoe Stand – Tuesday Wonderland – EmArcy

SF Jazz Collective – Lingala – SF Jazz Collective – Nonesuch

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Playlist – Shape of Modern Jazz – 3-7-16

Format: Artist – Song – Album – Label, as played in sets

Helen Sung – In Walked Bud – Going Express – Sunnyside
Michele Rosewoman – Lyons – Quintessence – Enja

Grachan Moncur III – Riff Raff – Mosaic Select 1 – Mosaic
Gerry Mulligan and Astor Piazzola – Reminiscence – Ans

Christian Scott Adjuah Atunde – Of A New Cool – Stretch Music – Ropeadope
Rez Abassi Acoustic Quartet – Blu Vindaloo – Natural Selection – Sunnyside

George Colligan – Song for the Tarahumera – The Endless Mysteries – Sunnyside
Tiptons Saxophone Quartet – Wave Waltz Hardcore – Tiny Lower Case
Tiptons Saxophone Quartet – Anthem – Laws of Motion – Zipa!/Spoot

Jazz Soul Seven – Check Out Your Mind – Impressions of Curtis Mayfield – BFM
Charlie Hunter Trio – Hillbilly Heroine Chic – Let the Bells Ring On – Self-produced

Duke Ellington – The Shepherd – The Pianist – Fantasy
Terri Lyne Carrington – Very Special – Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue -Concord Jazz

John Handy – If Only We Knew – Recorded Live at the Monterey Jazz Festival – Columbia

Ravi Coltrane – Self Portrait In Three Colors – Mad 6 – Columbia
Alice Coltrane – Blue Nile – Ptah the el Daoud – Impulse

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Passing of Ornette Coleman

One of the true greats, Ornette Coleman, died June 11, 2015. There are many obituaries, with a long one in the New York Times by the very good music writer Ben Ratliff. My favorite articles about Coleman are two: “Seeking The Mystical Inside the Music,” an interview with Ratliff in which Coleman reveals his focus on the essence and not the form of music, and David Yaffe’s article “The Art of the Improviser,” about Coleman’s unmistakably powerful influence on virtually every jazz icon of the 1960’s, whether they liked it or not. I think of Coleman’s arrival that Yaffe chronicles as an event like the atomic bomb – once it happened, the world was altered and everything after that referred to it in some way. (Links to articles at the foot of this post.)

 

I don’t have a lot to add to these pieces, as they mostly agree with my view that Coleman changed the way we hear music and expanded our notions of beauty and musical truth. For example, Iisten to “Peace”  – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJULMOw69EI – and realize that this was part of the music that in 1959 was considered by many to be unlistenable. Few would say that now. 

 

One great Coleman album that’s barely mentioned in these articles, and that stunned me as young man in the 1970’s, is “Science Fiction.” The inspired craziness and haunting songs of that session enlarged my conception of what music could be. I’m sure it opened me to many musical explorations I wouldn’t have made had I not laid on my living room floor a little drunk with my eyes closed and been transported to a world of strange and wonderful beauty I didn’t know could exist.

 

Since then, every time I’ve checked in with Ornette Coleman’s albums or seen him play, he’s continued to expand my view. I owe him a lot for showing me this spirit of perpetual exploration and enlargement, always reaching for new ideas and ways of hearing and being.

 

The good news is that because of recorded music I don’t have to miss him. Lucky me, I can summon that searching spirit to inspire me anytime I want. R.I.P., Ornette. 

 

Seeking the Mystical Inside the Music – http://nyti.ms/1L54fDC

 

The Art of the Improviser – http://www.thenation.com/article/art-improviser

 

NYT obit – http://nyti.ms/1TgmRTu

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