Stars must be aligned; I was just listening to Miles recently on a prestige album; been awhile.

And I could write a book:

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yes, Johnny Mac is fabulous
also love his acoustic stuff - full subtle chording

for the longest time i've considered this to be his apostrophe period. it took me a while to separate the recording dates from the release dates, because many of those Prestige albums were released several years after recording.

Walkin' was recorded in '54 so really doesn't count, but Relaxin', Workin', Steamin', and Cookin' were all recorded in the same period between May-Oct 1956 for Prestige. He was just wrapping up Round About Midnight for Columbia before those sessions. Workin' and Steamin' weren't released until the early 60's.

thanks for this...haven't heard it before.

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your welcome redeye - thanks for your stuff too - a lot of it I didn't know about


a few years down the road, not all that many, if I'm in a nursing home and can't live my life and feel depressed - they just need to let me listen to this and I'll start feeling better

Sunday Jazz: (to Redeye, thanks for the info on Miles)

such a powerhouse ensemble.

Sonny Stitt recorded it in 1972 but sounds like it is from 20 years earlier...not surprising since it's a Miles song from the early 50's.

Sam Jones on bass and Barry Harris on piano. look them both up and you'll likely discover you've heard them dozens of times in the past while they were playing with a variety of well known artists. Harris is still alive at 90.



the original Miles song

Miles Davis - Blue Moods - recorded 1955

Mingus on bass and Elvin on drums, along with Britt Woodman on trombone! and Teddy Charles on vibraphone!

Love it. I thought it was turning into a Nat King Cole song -- and then it did...

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Alice Coltrane was in the shadow of John but she was a great talent in her own right
her music reflected her spirituality and was influenced by themes in Eastern music
in the top link she's on piano, the bottom one on harp, an unusual instrument for jazz to say the least
she's a gem that many who like jazz aren't very familiar with





thanks to redeye for Miles Blue Moods - great stuff

yeah, i think Alice suffered from something akin to a Yoko syndrome. not saying Yoko was anywhere close to the musician that Alice was, but just being known as the spouse of a legend can create a huge hurdle to overcome. of course it helps when you have Pharoah Sanders and Rashied Ali playing with you.

many many years ago my brother lived in a studio apartment directly above the St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church in San Francisco. directly as in his floor was the church's ceiling.

services were held pretty much every Sunday morning and you couldn't block the sound if you wanted to. of course we didn't want to.

when i visited him we would wake & bake after a hard night of partying and stare at the walls with something similar to this as the soundtrack to our morning. they would play for hours.

Airegin w Sonny & Miles.

one of the things i really love about jazz is the amount of cross-pollination between players. so many greats played with other greats at different times, often times recording an album or two in a two week session only to never get back together again with the same personnel because they're off experimenting with someone else.

And I'm always discovering new (to me) artists and saying to myself, Wouldn't it have been great if he had played with X! Then I do a search and sure enough -- they cut some tracks together in 1957 or 1993.

And because avatar

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I had to search real hard and finally found Wes doing this without an orchestra backing him up because I don't want to hear an orchestra backing up a jazz track
this is a classic if there ever was one IMO

This has been posted before. But it showed up on my feed begging to be shared:

Illinois Jacquet

curious if you got to Illinois from the connection to Sonny Stitt or somewhere else?

this is probably his most famous tune and extremely progressive for 1942

just goes to show that some things never change, even after half a century.
i'm afraid that song will still be relevant even after another 50 years, but i'm hopeful to be convinced otherwise.

i'm sure i've posted this at least once before, but i'm feeling a little raw right now and i'm going to do it again 'cause it's what i'm listening to

I had a friend in college who listened to a lot of Illinois Jacquet because of his melodic style and (I think -- it was a long time ago) because of the way he could jump octaves.

Thanks for the pointer to Sonny Stitt -- he's definitely somebody I have to check out.

It would be impossible to post too much Nina Simone. I know I overuse the phrase "force of nature," but there's no other way to describe her.

And on the same subject, it would be impossible to post too much Gil Scott-Heron for the same reason.

Nina had to be a force of nature to do what she did. Born poor in NC in the 30’s and went to Juilliard to study classical piano. to be a black woman singing songs of protest in the early 60’s is almost unthinkable.