Anyway, about a year ago Jones calls me with this epiphany that he's had about music...that he started to actually listen to jazz. And not just any jazz but jazz piano. For most of us who do listen to a lot of jazz, piano seems like an odd place to start. Not that there aren't many great jazz pianists, but most of us started with maybe a trumpet player, but probably a sax player. For some reason sax is the most approachable instrument in jazz. I personally started out with Charlie Parker, but there are a lot of people who started with John Coltrane. 'Trane is very listenable, especially the early stuff.
And no, Jones doesn't start with Theolonious Monk or Herbie Hancock or maybe a Dave Brubeck. But with Oscar Peterson. Not necessarily that odd of a choice for piano...but...never mind. Just struck me as odd.
The strange thing about jazz pianists is that there's not "the guy" for that instrument. You know how with all of the other instruments in jazz there's one person you can point to as being the definitive master for that instrument...well, most of them (I mean I'm sure there's a flugelhorn "the guy," but I sure don't know who the hell he is). For bass, it's Charles Mingus. Vibes...Milt Jackson. For trumpet, it's Miles Davis. And no, for all of you who are foaming at the mouth, it's not Louis Armstrong, IT'S MILES FREAKIN' DAVIS. For sax it could go two ways. My personal "the guy" for saxophone is Charlie Parker, but you could definitely make a valid point for John Coltrane. Anyway, for piano there's no "the guy." Or maybe there are just lots of the "the guy"s. Thelonious Monk, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett. McCoy Tyner was good enough to be "the guy" for John Coltrane all those years, so you have to give him some consideration.
So here's a disc's worth of some of "the guys" (and gal) of keyboard jazz. I tried to spread it out a little bit among eras, and even added a little bit of Hammond organ and electronic
sythesizer. I realize that there's no Duke Ellington or Count Basie here. I'm not really a big band fan, so maybe that's why they got left at the curb. But also probably because I see them more as band leaders than as pianists.
1. Keith Jarrett, "My Song," My Song
2. Ahmad Jamal, "A Foggy Day," Chamber Music of the New Jazz
3. Jimmy Smith, "Motorin' Along," Home Cookin'
4. Bill Evans, "My Man's Gone Now," Sunday at the Village Vanguard
5. Oscar Peterson, "Night Train," Night Train
6. Herbie Hancock, "Chameleon," Headhunters
7. Carla Bley, "Ups and Downs," Fleur Carnivore
8. Chick Corea, "Matrix," Now He Sings, Now He Sobs
9. McCoy Tyner, "Blues on the Corner," The Real McCoy
10. Thelonious Monk, "Blue Bolivar Blues," Monk's Dream
11. Dave Brubeck, "Blue Rondo A La Turk," Time Out
Disc of Manual Manipulation
For my full album post, I'm sending out the latest Bob Dylan Bootleg Series, Vol. 8 that my sister-in-law was nice enough to give me for Christmas. While I don't like the idea of posting newly released music, because that's the thing that gets you in trouble with the music-police, I felt that I would make an exception for symmetry's sake. I posted the first Dylan album last week, so I'll post the last one today. I've only listened to the first disc so far. It's good. Not Blood on the Tracks by any means, but still better than Bigger Better Bang. For those of you lucky enough to not know what that is, it's the last Stones studio album. Freakin' horrid!!! Bob style has obviously changed yet again in the last 5 or 1o years...back to folksy, but in a different way.
Besides, I can't think of a better Christmas present than to give everyone a littl
e Bob.Disc One
Disc Two
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