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Hey, it's Rick Beato!

I love his "Top 20" this and "Top 20" that.

"#1 guitar intro". I guessed that one :)

"#1 best drum intro". I guessed that one, too :)

"#1 best drum fill".

Guess what? :)

"#1 best vocal intro".

Hmm. This is getting a bit old :lol:

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I've listened to this track like 20 times over the past two days

 

 

Also it's subtitled "Blues in 3rds" and I'm pretty sure the opening melody is harmonized in 4ths actually :lol:

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/30/2021 at 4:08 PM, Disco Stu said:

I've listened to this track like 20 times over the past two days

 

 

Also it's subtitled "Blues in 3rds" and I'm pretty sure the opening melody is harmonized in 4ths actually :lol:

 

Augmented thirds?

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  • 1 month later...
12 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

My "home base" for jazz will always be music from the 20s-40s (and later music made by musicians that started in that era), but sometimes I just wanna chill to some Benoit.

If you like Benoit, try some Ramsey Lewis, and some of the less kinetic Corea. 

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3 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

That's dope, man! :thumbup:

Charged Particles is my favourite Elektric Band track.

 

I suppose when you used the word "kinetic" you meant the kind of thing Chuck Berry was referring to when he sang "I got no kick against modern jazz, unless they try to play it too darn fast" :P

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  • 2 months later...

An incredibly infectious melody that, once heard, won't leave my head for days

 

Plus this performance swings so hard.  Paul Gonsalves' tenor solo is fantastic.

 

Duke Ellington & Count Basie - "Corner Pocket"

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Yes, Duke was not a man of flawless character, but he was a great man nonetheless.  He was very negligent of the business side of managing his organization, which included both the band and music publishing by the '40s, and at one point in the late 40s/early 50s even in his own independent record label.  He gave ample credit to his collaborators (Strayhorn chief among them of course) from the bandstand when introducing music, but that did not always translate to credits and copyrights, sadly.  In the manner of so many artists, he stacked his organization with relatives and friends that did not know how manage things correctly and fairly.  To me this is all fascinating history and backstory to an important life of great music.

 

Duke was also a very underrated pianist.  It's nearly a cliché to say that the band was his instrument, and its basically true, but he was a great pianist as well.  He may not have had the finesse of a Teddy Wilson or the virtuosity of a Bud Powell, but he had a brazenly original musical voice and imagination.  He painted pictures at the keyboard.

 

A few of my favorite examples:

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This afternoon, I luxuriated in one of the very greatest live albums of all time: SINATRA AT THE SANDS.

Frank; the Count; Quincy, and it's all overseen by Sonny Burke. Recorded entertainment at its finest.

Honestly, guys, you just cannot go wrong!

 

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I love this (sadly) very obscure Duke song from 1950.  Throughout his career Ellington had a consistent preoccupation with imitating trains using his band, there are several examples!

 

 

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"Blues in the Night" has been stuck in my head all day.

 

I can't stand listening to the version sung by male vocalists.  Something about the word "knee-pants" I just can't take.  Seriously, I skip that song on Sinatra's "Only the Lonely."

 

Peggy Lee's with Benny Goodman is the best version of course.

 

 

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27 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

It's a crime that Sony hasn't remastered most of their Goodman catalogue since the late 80s / early 90s.

 

Yes, very much so.  The situation with shitty bootleg-sounding compilations/reissues of Goodman is way out of hand too.

 

The '39-'45 Columbia years is my personal favorite Goodman time period (you got the Charlie Christian/Cootie Williams sextet, the Sauter-Powell arrangements, both Helen Forrest and Peggy Lee doing stints on vocals, etc. etc.).  I got the 2008 Mosaic box for that period for a fairly decent used price, and the sound is fantastic, but for some reason they only included the instrumentals, and none of the vocal pop tunes.  Some of the best arrangements were for the vocal tunes!  Still it's nice to have.

 

$_57.jpeg

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On 25/01/2022 at 7:32 PM, Disco Stu said:

 

Yes, very much so.  The situation with shitty bootleg-sounding compilations/reissues of Goodman is way out of hand too.

 

The '39-'45 Columbia years is my personal favorite Goodman time period (you got the Charlie Christian/Cootie Williams sextet, the Sauter-Powell arrangements, both Helen Forrest and Peggy Lee doing stints on vocals, etc. etc.).  I got the 2008 Mosaic box for that period for a fairly decent used price, and the sound is fantastic, but for some reason they only included the instrumentals, and none of the vocal pop tunes.  Some of the best arrangements were for the vocal tunes!  Still it's nice to have.

 

$_57.jpeg

 

The Mosaic boxes are licensed and freshly remastered, right?

 

There's indeed a lot of bad sounding bootlegs, but I'm glad we've got some serious labels that make such great music available by remastering from good sounding LPs.

 

Helen Forrest was good, but Martha Tilton had an amazing voice and intonation. Too bad she didn't have a greater career. I was amazed when I acquired a recording of BG's 40th anniversary Carnegie Hall Concert, and Tilton was still glowing in And the Angels Sing. 

 

My favourite BG recordings are mainly from the swing era, but I've started digging more into later recordings. I recently acquired the Yale University archive series, and a few late albums remastered by Dutton. Interesting stuff, especially the Yale series. Oh, and the Neatwork series of four albums of alternate takes from the swing era was a great discovery!

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6 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

My favourite BG recordings are mainly from the swing era, but I've started digging more into later recordings. I recently acquired the Yale University archive series, and a few late albums remastered by Dutton. Interesting stuff, especially the Yale series. Oh, and the Neatwork series of four albums of alternate takes from the swing era was a great discovery!

 

The Yale disc I've returned to the most is the "Live at Basin Street, 1954" concert with Mel Powell on piano and Charlie Shavers on trumpet.  The material is all well-worn 30s vintage stuff, but there's such a joy and lightness to the performances that is really infectious.  It's just so much fun to listen to.

 

Disc 1 here is the set I mean: https://www.discogs.com/release/7612663-Benny-Goodman-The-Yale-University-Music-Library-Benny-Goodman-Volumes-9-and-10

 

The second disc has the 60s reunion of the great classic 30s quartet, and it's nice, but never really takes off for me.

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On 24/01/2022 at 4:01 AM, Thor said:

Was Duke ever called "The Duke" (like Basie was called "The Count"?). I can't remember having seen a "The" in front of his nickname.

 

Just watched this where Ed Sullivan introduces them as "Louis Armstrong... and.... THE DUKE".  Ah to think you could once see this kind of musicianship just any old night on broadcast television.

 

 

 

And here Ed says "The Duke and Ella!" So Ed at least referred to him consistently as The Duke ;) 

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

It's "Jazz on a Sunday morning", at Chez Pet, so I'm luxuriating in the wonderful KIND OF BLUE.

It features, at approximately 1:30, on So What, the greatest cymbal crash, ever recorded. The rest of it's not too shabby, either :)

Honestly, to say that this is "groundbreaking", is an insulting understatement. It - literally - rewrote the book on what jazz is, and what it could be. It's a milestone (no pun intended) in every sense of the word.

Fabulous stuff.

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Bought this album that was produced for the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion as a 'Jazz Night' featuring jazz arrangements of a selection of songs and score cues. 

 

 

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20 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

It's "Jazz on a Sunday morning", at Chez Pet, so I'm luxuriating in the wonderful KIND OF BLUE.

It features, at approximately 1:30, on So What, the greatest cymbal crash, ever recorded. The rest of it's not too shabby, either :)

Honestly, to say that this is "groundbreaking", is an insulting understatement. It - literally - rewrote the book on what jazz is, and what it could be. It's a milestone (no pun intended) in every sense of the word.

Fabulous stuff.

Who is the artist?

😉

On 15/03/2022 at 1:11 AM, Thor said:

1b39c30fc3c6154ac60d4fa73391b7445fe0c2fc

 

It was Les Baxter's centenary yesterday. So I'm listening to this sweet exotica album from 1959, featuring a certain John Williams on piano.

"Culture appropriation".

😎

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I really can't believe how completely joyous this is.  These teenagers have jaw-dropping talent and capture the feel of late 1920s jazz so perfectly it blows my mind.  It's like someone went back in time to the Cotton Club with modern recording equipment.  Who knew "gen z" could swing like this?

 

Also it's a great underknown early Ellington piece.  Although very confusingly there are three distinct Ellington tunes named "Cotton Club Stomp" that bear no relation to one another: one from 1929, one from 1930, and the last from 1939 (the latter two written by Ellington and the first not).

 

 

The original for comparison:

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Man, I just love Ray Nance's trumpet solo in the great Strayhorn arrangement of "Rhapsody in Blue."  A pitch perfect interpretation that adapts Gershwin's fun but buttoned-up jazz theme into a loose stanky blues style.

 

 

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