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Brubeck/Smith - Near-Myth


JSngry

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Ok, I've tried to write this one off as just being too lazy to put something else in the player, but after three days...no, it's got something different. for starters, the presence of Bill Smith's compositions and playing. Everything else goes from there, it seems. By the time it's over, if you want to play the "it's like..." game, it's like, maybe Tony Scott  playing an album of new Ellington/Mingus collaborations, with Duke and Mal Waldron taking turns at the piano bench, and oh by the way, Gil Melle was there in an uncredited capacity.

Is that close? Hell if I know, but let's start there and see where it leads. Just a fresh, fresh album of music, expectations neither met nor exceeded, expectations DEFIED!

When Perry Robinson showed up in Brubeck's band in the early-ish 70s, I wasn't sure where that came from. Well, DUH.

 

 

Edited by JSngry
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That Bill Smith record on Contemporary has its esoteric pleasures as well.

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What do you think of this one?


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Not quite Tristano / Konitz / Marsh, but not a complete stranger to that aesthetic either.

Edited by Joe
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I picked up Folk Jazz after hearing it on my Frank Wright (sic) Pandora station (Pandora just  thorws shit at you for crazy noreasons, it seems), and liked it well enough to have left it in the player for a day. Monty Budwig, kind of a weaker link for me, but otherwise, those players came to play, and they did. The way Shelley Manne tuned his kit is always an ear-catcher for me, especially when he veers away from a "novelty" delivery (don't know if that's the right word, but...). And Jim Hall, jeesus, I am developing a re-appreciation of Jim Hall, all over again. Those chords, those accompaniments, those ears.

Reunion, I tried, should probably try again, but it seemed a little too dry for me. Potential unfulfilled. But a second go-round is no doubt in order at some point.

Edited by JSngry
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Pandora is its own kind of entertainment. The other night, it went from Frank Wright ESP to Trane Meditations to Sonny Clark Cool Struttin'. BAM. So I said, hell, I can do this myself, so went to my Paul Desmond station, where they gave me a really florescent gelatinous A&M cut followed by a Ben Webster Verve ballad and yeah, taht made a lot of sense, really, but I don't think that's what they had in mind.

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