What jazz have you been listening to today?

intet_at_tabe

Rear Admiral Appassionata (Ret.)
Ralph Towner on another solo project, the album "Old Friends, New Friends". All compositions by Ralph Towner, by ECM Records 1979.

The musicians:

Ralph Towner - Acoustic 12 string and classical guitars, piano and French horn
David Darling - cello
Kenny Wheeler - trumpet and flugelhorn
Eddie Gomez - double bass
Michael DiPasqua - drums and percussion

Some of the best jazz musicians, I have had the pleasure to listen to often record the same composition severel times in a row on various albums, like Miles Davis often did over the years around his participation at the Montreux Jazz Festival, in Schwitzerland but in different arrnagements and with different musicians. So the same composition may sound very different to the very same composition from other albums with other co-musicians.

On this Ralph Towner album having the cellist David Darling in the band brings a completely new sound to the first tune "New Moon". The number three song "Celeste", also played and recorded by Oregon sounds quite differently from the original first edition of "Celeste", Ralph Towner playing solo acoustic 12 string guitar, back in the middle of the 1970´s. On number 4 song "Special Delivery" Eddie Gomez performs one of his best solos on the double bass, since the days with Chick Corea on "Friends" 1978.

Of course Kenny Wheeler (Canadian born, living in England) playing the flugelhorn in itself is AWESOME, because the sound of the flugelhoern is AWESOME. Eddie Gomez known for his ten years playing in the Bill Evans Trio and Michael DiPasqua having recorded twice with the German Eberhard Weber and prior with the American group Double Image.

I have a long story on the partnership between Towner and Wheeler going back to the group Azimuth, with Ralph Towner, Kenny Wheeler, and the two English musicians Norma Winstone (voice) and John Taylor (piano). But it will have to wait for another time.
 
Last edited:

intet_at_tabe

Rear Admiral Appassionata (Ret.)
The album "My Spanish Heart"" by Chick Corea, recorded by Polydor Records 1976.

The musicians:

Chich Corea - piano, keyboards, synthesizers, Mini Moog
Gayle Moran - vocals
Jean-Luc Ponty - violin
Stuart Blomberg/John Rosenberg/John Thomas - trumpets
Ron Moss - trombone
Stanley Clarke - double bass, el. basses
Steve Gadd - drums
Don Alias/Michael Walden - percussion
The Arriaga String Quartet

No one like Chick Corea mesmorises me with his incredible compositions. On this album remembering his mexican/spanish origin.
 

intet_at_tabe

Rear Admiral Appassionata (Ret.)
Chick Corea and friends on the album "Friends", by Polydor Records 1978.

The musicians:

Chick Corea - piano, el. piano
Joe Farrell - flute, tenor and soprano saxophone
Eddie Gomez - double bass
Steve Gadd - drums

Unfortunately only one album with this awesome quartet, who have played together in severel other groups. Chick made an album called "The Mad Hatter", which was around the same time in 1978 post the RTF period. These guys are on this album added up with a brass section. Unfortunately this particular album I lent to someone of questionable character. I never got it back.
 
Last edited:

intet_at_tabe

Rear Admiral Appassionata (Ret.)
Miles Davis on the album "Kind Of Blue", CBS Records 1959, remastered for CD by CBS Records 1992.

The most famous album of all jazz albums according to www.allaboutjazz.com to which I can only agree. Each member of this seven men band made school in improvisation and technicle sublime performances on their personal instruments.

Each of the five compositions have been recorded by thousands of other musicians all over the world. These are:

1. So What
2. Freddie Freeloader
3. Blue In Green
4. All Blues
5. Flamenco Sketches

The musicians:

Miles Davis - trumpet
John Coltrane - tenor saxophone
Julian "Cannonball" Adderly - alto saxophone
Bill Evans/Wynton Kelly - piano
Paul Chambers - double bass
Jimmy Cobb - drums

It happened in 1959. Miles Davis was already an ikon then.
 

intet_at_tabe

Rear Admiral Appassionata (Ret.)
So one could ask what the next jazz musician, the Dane Niels Henning Ørsted Pedersen aka Nils Pedersen (in the US) and NHØP in Europe, for short, has to do with Miles Davis.

Well, NHØP was the house bassist in the first Jazz House Montmartre in the center of Copenhagen on the street Store Regnegade, where also the Dane Alex Riel was the house drummer at the same time. Both of them highly regarded in jazz from the early 1960´s internationally.

Bill Evans (piano), asked for Alex Riel to replace Paul Motian (drums) from the US on a European tour of Bill´s, with bassist Eddie Gomez, and NHØP was headhunted by Oscar Peterson during an Oscar Peterson performance at Jazz House Montmartre, where Oscar Peterson signed up NHØP for a ten years contract touring, playing, recording and performing with Oscar Peterson throughout the world.

That´s how NHØP became famous on the double bass in the USA. That´s also why a lot of African American jazz musicians through the introduction to NHØP came to Europe and Denmark to play and do jam sessions "Round Midnight" after the ordinary show with the audience, because they had been told by NHØP of the Jazz House Montmartre, and that they could work there.

Don Cherry (trumpet and piccolo trumpet) lived in Sweden for a number of years married to a Swedish woman. Kenny Drew (piano) and Ed Thigpen (drums) lived in Copenhagen for a number of years, while they could not get regurally jobs in the USA. Charlie "Byrd" Parker (alto saxophone) lived and worked in Paris, France for a number of years.

So here´s an album in memory of the late Great Dane Niels Henning Ørsted Pedersen aka NHØP (double bass) called "Unchanted Land", by Epic Records 1992, before his all to sudden and early death, with a lot of the musicians he personally favoured in his years as one of the very best double bass players in the world.

The musicians beside NHØP:

Liza Freeman (Sweden) - vocals
Steve Swallow (USA) - 5 string el. bass guitar
Jan Garbarek (Norway) - tenor and soprano saxophone
Mehmet Ozan (Turkey) - acoustic guitar
Michel Petrucciani (France)/Ole Kock Hansen (Denmark) - piano
Marilyn Mazur (half American, half Danish) - drums, percussion
 
Last edited:

intet_at_tabe

Rear Admiral Appassionata (Ret.)
"Belonging" by Keith Jarrett and his Scandinavian Quartet, recorded in Oslo, Norway April 24 and 25, 1974. Released by the ECM Records 1974.

The title song Belonging, only playing 2:12 - A duet between Keith Jarrett and Jan Garbarek.

The musicians:

Keith Jarrett - piano
Jan Garbarek - tenor and soprano saxophone
Palle Danielsson - double bass
Jon Christensen - drums

Besides Belonging, there are so much beautiful tempered jazz music on this album like "Blossom" 12:11 and the last song "Solstice" 13:12. The very first album by Keith Jarrett and the Scandinavian Quartet.
 

intet_at_tabe

Rear Admiral Appassionata (Ret.)
The second album by Keith Jarrett and the Scandinavian Quartet "MY Song", recorded in 1977 and released by ECM Records 1978.

Among the 62 Keith Jarrett albums on my CD shelves, I treasure this one among the top 5.

The title song "My Song" 6:09 with no comparison to anything else by Keith Jarrett, and the last majestic song "The Journey Home" 10:33 - a two part song. Beginning in a speedy rhytm, only after six minutes or so to slow down to a slow ballade of such extremely delightful tones.

Whenever someone around here have heard, by the local jungle drums, I am a huge jazz fan and the biggest fan in the North of Jutland of Keith Jarrett (probably in Denmark) this is the album, I always pick first for any one to get acquainted to in listening to the AWESOME musical universe of Mr. Keith Jarrett.

The musicians and instrumentation the same as on "Belonging", except Keith Jarrett also plays percussion.
 
Last edited:

intet_at_tabe

Rear Admiral Appassionata (Ret.)
Keith Jarrett "The Impulse Story", by Impulse Records 1975, remastered for CD in 2006.

Keith Jarrett recorded 8 albums with the Impulse Records in the 1970´s, either as the trio with Charlie Haden and Paul Motian, the American Quartet added up with Dewey Redman or the quintet with Guilhermo Franco or some times Sam Brown on the electric guitar.

This album is a collection of some of the best songs composed by Keith Jarrett throughout the 1970´s beside his membership of the Miles Davis Electric Band.

To Ashley Kahn, the author of the biography "Kind of Blue", about the life of Miles Davis and his huge influence on jazz, Keith Jarrett was like a new wind in jazz. It says in the liner notes by Ashley Kahn:

"Keith Jarrett became the advocate of acoustic jazz, beside the two years with the Miles Davis Electric Band".

One of my favourite compositions on this album is "Everything That Lives, Laments" 10:00 with the quintet:

The musicians:

Keith Jarrett - piano
Dewey Redman - tenor saxophone
Charlie Haden - double bass
Paul Motian - drums, percussion
Guilhermo Franco - percussion

Close to 65 minutes playing time.
 
Last edited:

intet_at_tabe

Rear Admiral Appassionata (Ret.)
Keith Jarrett and The Scandinavian Quartet on the double album "Nude Ants" recorded Live at the Village Vanguard, New York - May 1979 released by the ECM Records 1980.

One can roughly part this album in two. First song is the first Part "Chant Of The Soil" 17:12, where Jarrett show his exellence in playing the timbales and other percussion instruments, while Jon Christensen on the drums back Jarrett until Jon himself does his drum solo. A very rare tune with Jarrett on timbales and other percussion instruments.

The rest of the album is the other Part, where "Oasis" 30:44 first song on CD 2 ranks higher IMHO than the other songs. A very long impressive seach for Oasis mostly Jarrett in some meditative solo on the piano.

Six compositions played Live. In all 103 minutes - Way to go Keith!!

The musicians:

Keith Jarrett - piano, timbales, percussion
Jan Garbarek - tenor and soprano saxophone
Palle Danielsson - double bass
Jon Christensen - drums, percussion
 

intet_at_tabe

Rear Admiral Appassionata (Ret.)
Off topic:

So today the final program for the Copenhagen Jazz Festival 2008 is ready:

http://www.jazzfestival.dk/Start.aspx?NodeID=300

Cassandra Wilson, Charles Lloyd, Wayne Shorter, Ornette Coleman, Brad Mehldau, Enrico Rava, Marilyn Mazur and Paul Bley - Yes!! I´ll be there from July 4 and as long as I can stand up each day. All the Danish bands as well playing from clubs and restaurents all over Copenhagen.

My first Ornette Coleman concert. If I don´t like it, I will be out of there in 10, but he did play with Pat Metheny and Jack DeJohnnete, so I figured perhaps the live performance would open up his music to me.

We´ll see.

On topic:

Cassandra Wilson on her album "Glamoured", by Blue Note Records 2003.

The first song is "Fragile" by Sting in her own bluesy version acompained only by two acoustic guitars and percusion. I am looking forward to attend her concert.

The musicians:

Cassandra Wilson - vocals, acoustic guitar
Gregoire Maret - harmonica
Fabrizio Scotti and Brandon Ross - guitars, banjo
Reginald Veal or Calvin Jones - double bass
Terry Lyne Carrington or Herlin Riley - drums
Jeff Haynes - percussion
 
Last edited:
Top