Kind of Blue and Other Jazz Classics

[Deleted]

Greater minds have spoken and told us that there are different types of music for different times in our lives, for each individual parts of our selves. Some music moves the hips other music stirs the brain cells as we scratch our chin and of course there is the music that moves delicately into the realms of the unknown place called the soul. Kind of Blue is one such album although it is also so much more.

It has been said that the jazz band is the perfect microsom of the idealized form of democracy; the individual is as important as the society they are a part of. In jazz the solo is just as important as the band effort to keep musical sense usually via time (musical time that is metaphysicts) and keeping in “tune”.

In the 20th century with societys attempts at democray where everyone could have their say as well as being considered part of society Afrcian Americans were still denied this. But listening to the playing of Adderley, Coltrane, Davis, Cobb, Chambers and Kelly there is a clear sense of community in the music all the while the artists spin their own personal musical stories within the arrangements of the compositions. Many believe this denial of community and individuality where the yearning feel of the album came from however like all GREAT ART it really does leave more questions than answers with regards to the more temporal questions us humans ponder.

Quincy Jones calls KOB his orange juice, he listens to it everyday while Donald Fagen called it sexual wallpsaper. Pink Floyd took insipration for the the song “Breathe” on Dark Side Of the Moon and Duane Allman famously listened to the music before going out on stage and playing like a God at the Fillmore. In my opinion if you are anyway involved in improvisation musical or otherwise you MUST listen to this music.

While it is untrue that the music you hear on the album were all first takes it is the case that each song is a full performance therefore you are hearing the musicians come up with their lines within the perofrmacne of the song. Given how melodic and taseful each lick is played it really is a miraculous album. There are virtuosos and maestros but it is clear that these are spiritual musicians playing for something higher than the plaudits of mere humans.

Miles Davis own autobiography which is a brilliant read he mentions two piano players Ahmad Jamal and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, if you track down the performaces and interpretations of these men you can really hear the influence they had on Bill Evans, who up until the age of 13 was a purely classical player. Evans playing alone is legendary but on KOB he adds a touch remeniscent of a soft feather pillow bed on which the horn payers can blow over in a much more delciate way while the bass playing maintain the timing discreetly. Cobb (who passed in 2020 the longest surving of the genuises who played on this masterpeice) was very different from Tony Williams or Billy Cobham a modest man who beleievd that a drummers place was to be heard but only just; he released his first solo album in the mid 1980s!!!!!!

As for Miles and Coltrane and Cannonball well if you know you know….I will add that some say Davis was not a technically proficient well who cares when you can play such beatiful notes instead?

Coltrane music is always peaceful, there is no sparring with Davis on this album the way other players might have tried to do although later on  he creates these sheets of sound that cover your hearts instead of suffocating you (unfortunately many imitators fail to work out the difference!!!).

Adderly perhaps seems the also ran of the group but be assured his Alto is key and his solo works along with his brother Nat Adderly are brilliant examples of jazz.

Anyways that’s more than enough of my rambings. Happy are those that have heard and still believe in the power of music to transcend.

Disclaimer: I am not claiming to be an expert or in possession of any original opinions in regards to this music so if you do possess these talents please contribute. I have no issue being corrected.

[fonz]

It seems like a cliché to say that KOB is wonderful… but it really is that good.

I shy away from playing too often. I don’t want it to become over familiar.

My wife loves it. Pretty much the only album in my collection that I can say that confidently about.

[loveless]

Something like "All Blues" really sums up the magic and appeal of KOB for me. Taking a 12 bar format and twisting it well past the point of recognition with these super advanced, modern, sophisticated (yet gorgeous and satisfying) harmonies...to my way of thinking, it's some seriously stealth shit. The fact that no one goes within a mile of "the skronk" only makes it more subversive.

[nolamike]

It's a classic for a reason. I don't listen to it often these days (I'd rather spend time with albums I don't already know so well), but when I do, it always hits the spot.

I'm not sure I'd rank it among my very favorite Davis albums, though, let alone my favorite jazz albums.

[Deleted]

I would.
It's got a great vibe - cool, confident, metropolitan. And I like that its tracks are concise and to the point, which is often hard to find in jazz music. It's almost got a pop sensibility, which some jazz fans ( or jazz snobs) hold against it, but I see it as huge point in its favour.

[DarknessFish]

It's one of those rare examples of a record which is held up as being the pinnacle of its oeuvre, and it lives up to it. There's something magical about the sound quality, it's got such a depth, such space, I swear even the gaps between the tracks sound better than any other album. I'm pretty sure when I first heard it I picked it up with a jaded air, expecting it to be a fairly run of the mill Blue Note album. I want my jazz to be free, I want it to be full of skronk, I want it to have an edge you could shave a rhino with. But this has none of that, and it is sonic perfection. Just doesn't have a moment which isn't wonderful.

[loveless]

Oct 18, 2021 15:49:01 GMT @madcyril1 said:

I would.
It's got a great vibe - cool, confident, metropolitan. And I like that its tracks are concise and to the point, which is often hard to find in jazz music. It's almost got a pop sensibility, which some jazz fans ( or jazz snobs) hold against it, but I see it as huge point in its favour.

Well, yeah - "confident" may be the key word here. That some of the world's greatest (and most expressive) musicians maintain such heroic restraint throughout is no small thing. Such a dedication to the greater good and such a selfless sublimation of "You wanna see what I can do?" instincts. It's like "People KNOW we can blow, but...do they know we can do THIS?"

[Deleted]

My Favourite Things by John Coltrane.





“John Coltrane once told Miles that he didn’t know how to stop and Miles responded:”

“Why don’t you take the horn out your damn mouth?”

There is a relentless searching energy to the music of Coltrane that has occupied musicologists and in fact even inspired a new religion; there is a church in San Francisco that is devoted to Coltrane and his music. Later on with works like “Love Supreme” it is perhaps easy to see the link between the musical pursuit of a higher spiritual plain however there is no doubt that “Favourite Things” is the prelude to this journey that Coltrane found himself on, inspiring many others musical or non musical in the process.

“Favourite Things” was an original composition by Rogers and Hammerstein, written for the musical “The Sound of Music” however the influence Coltrane has had on popularizing this song is an intriguing study on who copied who. “Favourite Things” has been covered many times since by artists as diverse as Andre 3000 (a drum and bass version) to chin scratching jazz guitarsts like Jonathan Keiserberg as well as many aspiring musical theatre performers. The melody and the lyrics have been adapted and interploated by many hip hop arists as well, a testament to its longevity and appeal. From a more historical perspective it should be noted that Coltrane released his own version before the release of the film starring Julie Andrews. Such was the influence and sucuess of Coltranes version it has been argued that her performance in the film was guided by the Coltrane interpretation. Despite his clear influence the record only went gold in 2018 having finally sold over 500,000 copies.









The song itself is enigmatic since it glides between major and minor modes which of course allows complete expression as well as mysterious ambivalence. It should be noted that Coltrane and his band are reckoned to have perfromed “Favourite Things” at least 500 times while on tour. Despite being a much humbler and quieter character than Davis, Coltrane demanded a devotion to practice and performance which unlocked some beatifully serendipitous moments caught in live performances as well as the famed recording which most people have encountered at one point.

McCoy Tyner the piano player on the record who would go onto play on many of Coltranes other legendary records plays a huge part in the sucuess of this record with many of the memorable pharses coming off the back of both his comping and his own soloing. McCoy Tyner had only really just joined Coltrane and when talking about playing alongside him he used words like “submitting to Coltranes musical vision”. In jazz where self expression is the goal it shows how different all these musicians approached the music.

Of course it is important to remember that while “Favourite Things” was hugley popular this was all relative and the heady days where jazz was king had come to an end. Jazz was fast becoming a marginal pursuit as RnB took over alongside vocal performances. This in turn allowed more creativity as well as forcing the musicians to reconsider their purpose. It is a logical that Tyner and Coltrane would think differently about the music in comparison to say greats like Art Tatum and Charlie Parker.

Jazz had come from the blues (another debate for another time perhaps) and was based mainly on live performance where the music served as a polite background to gentle dancing or the hushed voices of courting couples. Certainly it was not meant to be challenging or complicated. The Bebop era of Gillespie and Bird had initiated the move away from easy listening to a more complicated music that required more attention what was being played….Davis later with Kind Of Blue was incorparating a more European approach while Coltrane looked to the East with his interpretation of My Favourite Things…….both innovations would prove that sometimes a forward thinking new approach could also reap commercial sucuess as well. It should be added that My Favourite Things would be the last time Coltrane achived critical consensus with his music, the further he reached the harder it was for critics to keep up.

Often when describing this version of my Favourite Things it has been described as a “whirling dervish” a reference to the influence that Sufi devotional music had on the performance, to these ears there is clearly an attempt to use a simple well known song to achieve something that goes beyond human comprehension much in the way Sufi devotional music does. The fusion of a simple popular song with Eastern religious thought using modal theory as another tool is a staggering work of originality and thought, Coltrane unlike so many mediocre characters in the world of jazz truly was a genius. In a society that increasingly relies on stats, numbers and scientific explanation the appeal of this song continues to grow a further testament to the power of music, particularly that of Coltrane a true titan of the 20th century both as a performer and a composer.

I’ve tried not to write about the music mainly because words seem a poor substitute….it would be a bit like drawing a stickman trying to explain the Mona Lisa or the painting of the Last Supper being re-created using plasticine.


Disclaimer: I am not claiming to be an expert or in possesion of any original opinions in regards to this music so if you do possess these please contribute I have no issue being corrected.

[fange]

Another great choice and write-up, dante! This album and tune are very special for me; here is what i wrote about it many years ago on another site, and i still feel exactly the same way.



My love for jazz sprang from the Blues well, really, starting with the more accessible vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Chet Baker and Billie Holiday, who played with some of the biggest names in jazz - Louis Armstrong, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington and so many more. I would then graduate to guys like Monk, Miles, Coltrane, Blakey and Mingus, who would then lead me onto names like Silver, Morgan, Hancock, McLean, Dolphy and so on. The depth and diversity of jazz’ legacy is a constant joy to me, as there’s always something new to explore from its century-long history.

Albums like Miles’ ‘Round About Midnight and Porgy And Bess, or Coltrane’s Giant Steps, My Favorite Things and A Love Supreme have been firm favourites since my teens, and never fail to bring me joy and provide new things to savour. No kid I grew up with seemed to listen to jazz - even now I only have one mate here in HK who is a jazz lover and regularly goes with me to little jazz club shows - but it’s been an essential part of my musical life for more than 20 years, and in the last 10 years or so I believe it has begun to take up about 50% of my listening time. If I had to pick only a single track from my early jazz faves to take to my Desert Island, I might lean towards Coltrane’s ‘My Favorite Things’, 13+ minutes of the Trane quartet at one of their greatest peaks.

The way the group approach this famous song, which I’d heard as a kid in the horrible ‘The Sound of Music’, blew me away, and still does now, though in different ways. In my teens it was all about Trane’s sound, the sense of control and power when he first drives that melody, the small inflections and drawn out notes he uses to accentuate the moods and turn what was an overly theatrical, slightly silly wordplay of a lyric into an aural experience which is by turns joyous, bittersweet and fiery, and always captivating. Later on it was McCoy Tyner’s contributions which started to fascinate me, hearing the way he was using the repeated chords and notes over and over, some light and delicate as a breath, others strong and declarative, all worked together to create a deeply hypnotic and freeing feeling that takes the song to another level, and to which Trane immediately responds with another wonderful solo, this time more ragged and ferocious, tearing at fragments of that melody like a rainstorm tearing leaves off a tree. And the huge contributions of Steve Davis and Elvin Jones have become clearer to me over the years, how incredibly alive they keep that groove at the song’s heart, pushing or laying off Coltrane and Tyner when they feel the tune requires it, adding so much depth and colour to the emotions being played out, in ways that even old Rodgers & Hammerstein probably had never dreamed of.

[fange]

As a side note, i LOVE this version of 'MFT' as well, by guitarist Ronny Jordan and his group. Those drums are just fabulous - in fact the whole rhythm section are cooking - and the whole thing is a beautiful reworking of a clasic.

[Deleted]

I like that word "hypnotic" that must have been on the tip of my tongue when I was writing that and it just wouldn't come.

Cheers Fange!!!!

[Deleted]

Dec 27, 2021 12:25:51 GMT fange said:

As a side note, i LOVE this version of 'MFT' as well, by guitarist Ronny Jordan and his group. Those drums are just fabulous - in fact the whole rhythm section are cooking - and the whole thing is a beautiful reworking of a clasic.

Yeah I like Ronnie Jordan a lot.

A much missed voice on the jazz guitar.

[bungo the mungo]

nice one, dan!

your writing deserves more of a response, so just to let you know that i enjoyed reading your posts on both albums.

[fange]

Wayne Shorter - JuJu




Hot damn, 1964 was a hell of a year for Wayne Shorter. As well as all the brilliant dates he did with other artists, Shorter recorded all 3 of his first Blue Note albums during that year; just astonishing.

JuJu, his 5th overall but second for BN, featured McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman and Elvin Jones - you know whose group they often were - and musically it is an exceptional collection of jazz from that landmark time. I play it several times every year and my love of it just keeps growing with every revolution around the sun.

The title track is the perfect way to kick off the record – straight out of the blocks and we have the quartet working hard and in unison on that lovely melody, which has a repetitive, chant-like quality that obviously prompted Shorter to give the tune its name. Man, you wanna know what a jazz drumming octopus would sound like? He’d sound like Elvin bloody Jones, that’s who. Those incredible rhythms he keeps up all over the kit are not simply astounding but totally funky as well, and Workman is solid as a rock yet totally flexible enough to stay out of the way of Shorter or Tyner when they are soloing in particular, where a walking bass would’ve been like a series of potholes in the road for a song like this. Shorter’s solo is just off the hook with emotion but totally plugged into the melody still, following the measures even when he’s doing the little cyclone trills and long ragged notes that had become such a part of his style by ’64.

The calmer intro to ‘Deluge’ comes as a nice moment of relaxation after the intensity of ‘Ju Ju’, and the mid-tempo bluesy lope the song becomes feels like a bracing beer and shot to get a night out kicked off. There is a beautiful use of space in the melody to this tune, a delicious sense of FALLING as Shorter gets to the end part of the melody, plays the second last note and then pauses – just long enough for Jones to hit a couple more beats, leave another beat worth of space, and then they all hit back in on the last note, so that you feel your body moving to anticipate that note too; a head nod, a holding of breath before that release. That’s where the groove lives, in that space, and the way they all play around with the tune yet always land back together is the epitome of funk.

The ballad-like beginning to ‘House of Jade’ is beautiful yet deceptive too, as the subtle tempo shifts throughout really catch hold of you and keep you on your toes for what feel may come next – relaxed, tense, happy - so that it’s far from a conventional ballad. Again, I couldn’t see a tune like this working as well without a bass player of Workman’s skill; his playing is such a pivotal part of the way the tempos shift and he plays a very upfront but never domineering role in moving the group between the sections, it all happens very smoothly and beautifully. And Tyner is so in control of those big spaced out chords you almost don’t realize how important he is to the song’s sound after that initial cascade of notes at the beginning and before his brief solo, but going back and just listening to his contributions is something I love and will forever repay repeated listens. I think Shorter was such a terrific ballad player and writer. While he was still much more interested in the chord changes than Coltrane was by ’64, maybe the ballads allowed Shorter the room he needed to let the solo muse come to him more readily, as Trane was finding with the modal stuff he was doing a lot of. Not to knock Shorter’s uptempo playing at all, which is often terrific, but his ballad playing for me often has a range of tone and melodic ideas that sometimes don’t seem as rushed or blustery on these slower tracks.

Another tune named after an Eastern theme, ‘Mahjong’ really does have a kind of Chinese musical feel to the melody, especially in the way Tyner plays, both the notes and the intervals between them. Shorter gives the first solo to him as well and it sets up the song perfectly, the piano’s blend of percussive and melodic elements bringing out the different sides of the tune. The back-and-forth feel the different tempos the band use give the song that kind of combative element inherent in its name, and Jones’ genius with the sticks certainly doesn’t hurt, lots of noise and fury, dropping and rising. And Shorter just rides the changes nicely, never too far out from the melody, keeping things civilized but full of the give and take of a friendly game.

‘Yes and No’ feels about as close to a ‘normal’ hard bop bouncer as Shorter was gonna write or play during this period, but really it’s anything but, with the changes between the major and minor feels giving it modern 60s feel and Shorter’s brittle tone giving it an edge that is very much looking towards the new thing. The band play the hell out of the tune, whatever you wanna call it anyway.

And ‘Twelve More Bars To Go’ is probably about as close to a ‘normal’ 12-bar blues as Shorter was gonna write or play too, but again it’s a wonderfully inventive and unique take on the form. It’s become my favourite tune on the record in recent years – Shorter’s horn almost sounds like a drunk guy shouting as he seems to slur some of the notes, dropping up and down in volume, and with an almost backwards-sounding quality at some points. And the rhythm section have that hot, smoky nightclub blues feel wrapped up tight/loose just right, with Jones’ drumming absolutely fucking incredible, capturing the sometimes stumbling, sometimes weaving feel of a drunk guy trying to walk the streets as well as you could ever hope to hear. An absolute gem, and a brilliant way to close a wonderful record.

[Deleted]

Big fan of this one Fange.

Great pick.

Just going to listen again because of this......