Sunday Music Muse Day - Gary Burton and Friends, Sting, Bill Nelson.

For this week's Sunday Music Muse Day, I present one new CD purchase, and several vinyl selections from my record collection.  The CD is Gary Burton, Like Mind.  Joining the legendary vibraphonist is Chick Corea, on piano, Pat Metheny, on guitar, Roy Haynes, on drums, and Dave Holland, on bass. This 1998 session, won a 1999 Grammy award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Individual or Group.  That should have a no-brainer the selection committee considering the musicians on this CD.  Gary Burton's liner notes are very interesting as he relates how the various members, met and criss-crossed each others career.  The most surprising note, for me, was that this session was the first time Chick Corea and Pat Metheny played together.  The other item of note was how highly Burton  regarded the writing skills for Corea and Metheny.  He wrote, "Chick and Pat are two of the most enduring and prolific jazz composers around."  The resulting CD bears this out.

 

My two next selections are the result of conversation with Facebooks friends. This week marked 35th anniversary of the Police Zenyatta Mondatta album. I posted, "the Police was one of the last popular Rock groups I followed. Also I enjoyed each member's individual projects after they broke up."   So, I checked out some Sting videos of his solo tour, so that made me pull out vinyl of the Sting Bring Out the Night live double album set.  Great music with Sting, plus Branford Marsalis, on saxophone, Omar Hakim, on drums,  Darryl Jones on bass, and Kenny Kirkland, on keyboards.  These are all young turks of jazz who have played with jazz legends like Dizzie Gillespie, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Weather Report, and others.  One of the nice aspects pulling out the vinyl is the large cover art, which this set has many of, by artist Donna Muir and Su Huntley. Very nice.

The last selection was also the result of another Facebook exchange.  A FB friend asked about the rock group Be Bop Deluxe.  I recognized the cover, but remember I have a LP and CD by the guitarist of the group, Bill Nelson.  So, that led to me pulling those items and giving them a listen.

It nice to have any reason to dig out some old music.  I'll have to do it more often.  Enjoy.

Sunday Music Muse Day - Bill Frisell, Pat Metheny, Freddie Hubbard and Patricia Barber.

I missed posting last week, due to family stuff, so I'm back with this week's Sunday Music Muse Day with four solid selections.  First up, a favorite guitarist of mine, Bill Frisell Big Sur, with another eclectic and adventurous outing.  Big Sur finds Bill playing with a drummer and a viola, cello, and violin  string trio.  The title comes from the music being written at Glen Deven Ranch in Big Sur, a legendary region in California Big who's relative isolation and natural beauty began to attract writers and artists, and performed at the 2012 Monterey Jazz Festival.

Next up is another, favorite, Pat Metheny The Way Up, which find Pat teamed with long time musical band mates Lyle Mays, on piano and keyboards, and Steve Rodby, on acoustic and electric bass.  The CD consist of one long 68 minute composition.  A very engrossing music.

Here's another Rudy Van Gelder Edition CD which he transferred and remastered a classic Blue Note album with 24-bit technology, Freddie Hubbard Hud-Tones. Again, a chance to fill my hole in my collection is a classic Blue Note reissue.  An interesting personal note, in a sort of a "six degrees of separation", when I was in Paris when my father was sick, I stayed at the home of the sister of the bassist Reggie Workman.  Small world.

Last but not least in a female pianist and singer Patricia Barber, the Cole Porter Mix CD.  I like to think of Patricia as my personal "Diana Krall" in that I like her rendering of standards and her own originals.

Until next week, enjoy.

Sunday Music Muse Day - Django Reinhardt, The Modern Jazz Quartet, and Kenny Burrell

Time again for another Sunday Music Muse Day.  I originally started these to help me keep up my interest in playing music, but they seem to have become an excuse to buy more CD's.  Actually, that's not a bad thing, as I was missing the pleasure of adding new music to me collection.  Especially, as I find myself fulling more holes in my jazz collection as this week's selections do. First up is Django Reinhardt: Nuages with Coleman Hawkins, a nice collection of the legendary Gypsy guitar's playing with the Quintet of the Hot Club of France, from the 1930's and 40's.  The Quintet also featured legendary violinist, Stephane Grappelli.  I have some Django tunes on several guitar anthology LPs, but it's nice to have solid collection on one CD.  The bonus is the the two cuts alto saxophonist, Coleman Hawkins, joins him on.  The picture of Django is an iconic image of a "Jazzman", it just draws you it.

Continuing with the concept of filling gaps in the my collection, is The Modern Jazz Quartet Blues on Bach.  By the title you can tell the music is themed around the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.  I always loved the sound of the Modern Jazz Quartet, but surprisingly never pickup a LP.  I always enjoyed hearing them on the radio.  So this gives me a chance to spend more time with their music.

Here's another Rudy Van Gelder Edition CD which he transferred and remastered a classic Blue Note album with 24-bit technology, Kenny Burrell Midnight Blue.  I can't get enough of this classic jazz guitar playing.

A nice thing was I have a copy of the first tune on the CD, Chitlin Con Carne on the Best of Blue Note CD, I featured before.  In case you missed it, here it is again.  There a lot of great classic tunes on it.

I spied more of these Rudy Van Gelder Edition CDs at the record shop. I may have to pick them up.   Until then, enjoy.

Sundy Music Muse Day - Herbie Hancock, The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Dave Drubeck and Paul Desmond, and Margaret Explosion, again.

This week's Sunday Music Muse day finds me, again, happily embarrassed to feature  CDs of classic LPs the should have been in my music collection ages ago.  First, two classics by Herbie Hancock,  Maiden Voyage and Empyrean Isles.  These are solid, highly regarded sessions, of pre-Headhunter Hancock dates with many well known tunes and legendary sidemen. I'm at lost to think of reason why I didn't have the original LPs.  I do have Herbie Headhunter LP and his VSOP LP.  These are Rudy Van Gelder Edition CDs which he transferred and remastered these classic Blue Note albums with 24-bit technology.  They definitely fill another hole in my collection.  While playing Maiden Voyage, my wife asked who was playing, because she like it.  That's a sign of great music when it grabs the attention of a casual listener (in all fairness she has good taste music).

The next two selections should also have been in my music collection before now, The Dave Brubeck Quartet Time Out, join the other Brubeck CDs I've picked up this past year.  I do have other Brubeck LPs, but not "Time Out".  I know I have versions of tunes like "Blue Rondo a la Turk" and "Take Five" on other Brubeck CDs and on some Jazz collections.  It's nice to have CD of the original session.  Brubeck and Desmond, 1975: The Duets is new to me, but I love the intimacy of it.

Just to show I'm not totally stuck in the past. I picked up another CD of the local group, Margaret Explosion, who was featured in last week's post.  They "play spacey, floating dreamscapes with smart improvisational skill" and I'm liking them a lot.

Going forward to enjoy these CDs.  Enjoy.

Another Delayed Sunday Music Muse Day

Life, a college visit, and the start of the NFL season, combined to push this week's Sunday Music Muse Day to Monday, again.  This time I have some interesting and solid picks for music lovers.
First up, is another great Jazz find with my father, Sam Woodyard, on drums.  It's a Verve Master Edition reissue of the LP Johnny Hodges, Soloist with Billy Strayhorn and THE Orchestra.  "THE Orchestra" has to been the Duke Ellington Orchestra, without the Duke.  Jimmy Jones is on piano, with Billy Strayhorn as bandleader and arranger.  I enjoy finding and listening to Sam's outings with other groups, although this has him familiar grounds.  It's a great set.

 Here the original cover.

 And the original back cover.

My next selection is a local band the I saw listed to play at the Little Cafe, a small music venue, the our independent movie theatre. I checked their website and sampled their tunes from their CD, Margaret Explosion - Live Dive.  From my first impression of their name, I expect it to been a female-centric, folk-rock band, but to my surprise they're avant-garde jazz band, as one review noted they "play spacey, floating dreamscapes with smart improvisational skill".  Margaret Explosion's music reminds me of "a little" Miles Davis "In a Silent way" era music.  Even, my wife Lisa like it on first listen.  Most of their tunes are totally improvisational live tracks, so in a way they only exist on CD, so if you see them live you should expect a "Greatest Hits" set.  I missed their show this past weekend, but plan to look out for their next performance.

I also like this animated video they  did the music for.

Next is another CD by guitarist Charlie Hunter, titled "Charlie Hunter".  I think it's his first release.  I'm such a sucker for the 8-string guitar sound he gets.  The radical neck design is so interesting.  Some of his stuff can be hit and miss, it's always worth giving it a listen.

The last selection really take me back, Return to Forever - Returns.  It's 2 CD set of the Chick Corea's Return to Forever fusion band with the original members, Al Di Meola, on guitar (actually Bill Conners was original guitarist on the first album) , Stanley Clark, on Bass, Lenny White, on drums, and Chick, of course on keyboards.  This are live track recorded during their 2008 world wide reunion tour, which I missed somehow.  It's fun to listen to the old standards played with new fire and intensity of players who have continue to grow and mature.   Many times there are music nods, musical quotes, to each member's solo efforts.  This is a nice compliment to the Corea-Mclaughlin CD I featured last week.

After a busy weekend, I'm looking forward to spending time with these great tune.  Enjoy.