The second volume from Jazz Sabbath is considerably more ambitious musically than the first and, to my ears, considerably more campy. The first volume is tagged/categorized as, among other things, musical parody. But, aside from the “liner” notes, I honestly didn’t hear any parody. I heard a genuinely earnest and serious attempt to play Sabbath …
Tag: Jazz
Jazz Sabbath (2020)
Once, many years ago, when I was describing Paranoid to a friend who was skeptical of Black Sabbath, I used the term “jazzy” (or, perhaps, “relatively jazzy”). He scoffed. (He was probably thinking of the title track and thought I was crazy). I was referring, specifically, to Butler and Ward, who I felt played their early metal …
Sounds Unheard (2022) by the Joe Policastro Trio
Rarities compilations can be a bit of a mixed bag more often than not. It’s the music the artist didn’t think was good enough to release in the moment, obviously. But sometimes, they’re great. And this is a pretty great one.
Nothing Belongs Here (2019) by the Joe Policastro Trio
This is the first JPTrio record with originals. And I think I just like it less than their earlier records. That’s far less of a comment on their originals than it is on how easy it is to like the earlier records, when their material is pretty well known.
Screen Sounds (2017) by The Joe Policastro Trio
The third album by the Joe Policastro trio focuses on movie and TV themes (with one exception) and is, in some ways, even more fun than their second record. Certainly, it’s even more diverse. This time the material is just as varied, if not even more so. I’m particularly delighted by the presence of the …
Pops! (2016) by the Joe Policastro Trio
So I saw these guys live before I ever listened to a record, and that has really predisposed me to like them. I had only heard one cover they did and was not prepared for how much fun they were live. I have no idea what I would have made of this record if I …
The Joe Policastro Trio Live at The Rex October 26, 2022
A few weeks ago, I was browsing Cover Me’s Best Cover Songs of September and I came across a fun jazz guitar cover of “Take on Me.” I liked it. Jenn liked it. So I followed the group on the socials and saw that they would be in Toronto in a few weeks.
Pathways to Unknown Worlds (1975) by Sun Ra and His Astro Infinity Arkestra
Sun Ra was one of the first jazz artists I was aware of (outside of the absolutely most famous ones like Louis Armstrong). And I resolved that I would become a fan, I guess because of how weird he seemed. Well, that never happened and, decades later, this is only my second Ra album. It …
Jazz Portraits: Mingus in Wonderland (1959)
I’m listening to this as part of a compilation which focuses primarily on Mingus’ earlier work in the mid 1950s and I have no idea why this particular live album was included, as it is from a while later both chronologically and artistically. (Licensing is always the answer to these kinds of questions.) At this …
Jazzical Moods, Vol. 1 (1955) by Charles Mingus
This is a 10-inch album from back when those were still a thing. The compilation I have doesn’t include its sequel (Vol. 2), which has been combined with it on an LP in 1957, though I think that LP dropped a couple tracks from both and its sequel. (I mention this because I believe it …
Pithecanthropus Erectus (1956) by Charles Mingus
According to everything I’ve read, the is the first studio album where the Charles Mingus every knows and loves first emerged. He had been a leader on a number of releases prior to it but it’s this record, and particularly its title track, where his unique fusion of music from bop (and earlier) with musical …
Mingus at the Bohemia (1956)
I miswrote when I stated that The Charles Mingus Quintet & Max Roach was the first of the two parts of this concert released. It is sequenced first on the compilation I am listening to, but it was this record that was released first (years earlier) as far as I can tell. Perhaps that’s one …
The Clown (1957) by Charles Mingus
This record is, for some, probably the most controversial of Mingus’ prime, for its infamous title track, a piece which contains spoken narration by Jean Shepherd. And it’s the one piece I’m not entirely sure what to do with so I’ll try to leave it for last.
The Charles Mingus Quartet + Max Roach (1955, 1963)
Even though it was the dominant form of how we listened to music for decades, it’s interesting to think about how much LPs affected the way people enjoyed music. Limited to 44 ish minutes, artists had to either curate their recordings and performances, or released more than one LP, the latter of which was just …
Mingus Three aka Trio (1957) by Charles Mingus, Hampton Hawes, Danny Richmond
If you asked me to name my favourite jazz musician, the first person I would probably name, before equivocating, would be Charles Mingus. And yet I’ve heard so little of his discography, really, with my listening focused pretty much entirely on what people would call his prime. Until I listened to this record, I’m not …
Far From Over (2017) by ViJay Iyer Sextet
This is my second Vijay Iyer record, the other one I’ve heard was a trio record which was obviously not as full band as this one. That makes him one of the 21st century jazz artists I’m actually paying attention to, because my popular music podcast has me ignoring jazz basically altogether at the moment.
Winter in America (1974) by Gil Scott-Heron, Brian Jackson
I knew one thing about Gil Scott-Heron, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” And I don’t know it well. So I came into this expecting a record of spoken word with few expectations about the music backing the poetry. All I basically knew is that this guy was regarded by some as the first MC.
Post-Crash (2018) by Missing Waves
Jazz is at a weird place in the 21st century, like basically every other form of music. Boundaries between jazz and other genres sometimes completely disappear, as they do with this record. At times, I think for sure this is some kind of modern art pop (i.e. not jazz) but then there are tracks when …
Introducing The Eleventh House With Larry Coryell (1974)
This is fusion very much in the Mahavishnu Orchestra mode. In fact, listening to the opening of “Birdfingers,” you wouldn’t be faulted for thinking this was the Mahavishnu Orchestra itself, or perhaps Jeff Beck and the Jan Hammer Group, or something like that. As jazz fusion goes, a lot of it is very much on …
The Element Choir at Rosedale United (2010)
It must be hard to be in the art music field these days. Sure, you’ve got a world of genres to play with – most of them unknown or nonexistent in the recent past – but sometimes having too much choice is worse than having little choice. (Actually, that’s true a lot of the time.) …
Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary (2016, John Scheinfeld)
This is a prestige documentary about John Coltrane featuring Denzel Washington of all people reading Coltrane’s own words, as well as a collection of interviews with Coltrane’s children (and step-daughter), critics, historians, biographers, fellow and later musicians and Bill Clinton. But if you are at all a fan of the man’s work, and you have …
Grupo Irakere (1976, 1978)
So much of what I’ve read about this band focuses on their Grammy-winning North American breakthrough, as if the first time North Americans heard this music was the first time it was really vital and worth listening to. And I do understand that distribution was a different beast in the ’70s, but still, it’s a …
Epitaph by Charles Mingus, conducted by Gunther Schuller, Live at Walt Disney Concert Hall, May 16, 2007
What the hell do we do with Epitaph?
The Bad Plus Joshua Redman Live at the Wintergarden Theatre, Toronto, Occtober 15, 2015
The last time I saw the Bad Plus they blew me away. But with Joshua Redman they are significantly more jazzy, significantly closer to the mainstream, far more within the tradition than I was expecting. It’s not that their old music wasn’t within the tradition – jazz musicians have been covering non-jazz songs since jazz …
Piano Man! His Greatest Recordings (1995) by Earl Hines
This is collection of 25 recordings featuring Earl Hines – solo, leading his orchestra, with Armstrong, Bechet and some other, less famous bandleaders. It jumps around a little too much… The title track appears to be the 1939 “Piano Man” (there are four, confusingly) and it’s more of a celebration of Hines’ legend than anything …
Whiplash (2014, Damien Chazelle)
I need to see hyped movies either right away or years later when I’ve forgotten about them. Inevitably, whenever I see a hyped movie after I’ve been inundated by hype but before I’ve forgotten the hype, I am disappointed.
RIP Ornette Coleman
I am not the man to write an obituary about Ornette Coleman, but what the hell, I’ll try to tell you what he meant to me anyway. If you don’t know him, Ornette Coleman ostensibly invented free jazz, that is the style of jazz that abandoned the previous rules of jazz and embraced free improvisation …
Ken Burns Jazz (2000) by Fletcher Henderson
This is a decent one-disc compilation of Fletcher Henderson’s big bands, which are more notable for the featured performers than for anything Henderson did (with an exception or two). Like all single disc compilations of a productive artist, it doesn’t give us the greatest picture of his work. But what it does function as is …
Swiss Movement (1969) by Les McCann, Eddie Harris
The myth-making goes to hilarious extremes in the liner notes – with the writer denying the band had ever played together before this date before then detailing how they played together before the date – but that’s something that’s quite common to jazz (and to music in general) and this band still sounds fantastic for …
Mingus, Songza, and the Problem of Curated Music
So I have been getting to know Songza lately, whether I knew it or not. For the last month or more, my boss has been putting on Songza playlists as our office music. These playlists have mostly replaced internet radio as our workplace soundtrack of late. (I wasn’t fully aware what this was until a …