I was a jazz musician - still am - but I'm no longer pro. I play the drums, and I got my degree from Manhattan School of Music - I lived and played in the jazz scene in NYC for quite a while before trying to make it as big fish in a small pond rather than vise-versa.
It's interesting to hear about blue-train. I was playing with that record when I was in Junior high. I loved Philly's double time groove during the solos - when I first heard that I was like: WTF??? But I eventually got it. Lee's solo on the record - I can still hear it my head as my wife snores away - man that's the **** -
Oddly, as musicians, we don't really play "Blue Train" (the tune) all that often - it's not a standard per se. I think the most widely played/covered song on that record is "Moment's Notice" - and man now there are so many variations. That's a great tune.
I would recommend if you like Blue Trane, check out Cannonball Adderly's "Minority" - it's a very similar feel to that post-bop NYC genre of the fifties that is mirrored in Kinda Blue and Blue Train. In fact, I kind of liked "Minority" more than these other records - that's a great record. These were my three favorite records when I started playing jazz in the seventh grade - and they're still a favorite - but I don't think I've listened to them in over fifteen years or more. Now I only listen to newer younger artists playing more modern avante guardy stuff coming out of NYC.
BTW - Ken burns IS NOT the authority on Jazz - his documentary upset the jazz community very much. We actually tout it as the Wynton Marsailas show! IOW - the documentary made it look like white jazz musicians and black jazz musicians hated each other (couldn't be farther from the truth) and white jazz musicians (especially on the west coast) were FoS anyway. It seemed very one-sided. In fact, the way to tell if someone isn't a jazz musician is if they liked Ken Burns' doc LOL. I'm just joking there - but my point is that his documentary angered a lot of "cats" in the jazz community that's all. The whole race issue in jazz is moot anyway cuz without slavery we wouldn't even have this great american artform. Race is absolutely not an issue with musicians - if you can play you can play. That's how Miles Davis felt. It's the authors and movie makers - like Quincy Troupe (a real racist) and Ken Burns - blow the race issue way out of proportion. It's a load of garbage. Enough on that for now.
Thanks for this thread! More to come later