Essential Solos

[mikeweil]

On 30.7.2018 at 0:21 AM, JSngry said:

Essential.

 

[Peter Friedman]

Doing some traveling this summer. Listened to the following two below on my iphone while out walking in the Colorado Rockies.

Wheatleigh Hall - one of the great Sonny Rollins solos. Full of creativity and swings like mad. from The Eternal Triangles session.

Sighin’’ and Cryin’ - this track from the Song For My Father album is all Horace Silver on piano with some horns in the background. The playing here by Horace is so damned good that I want to keep playing this track over and over again.

 

[jeffcrom]

I'm choosing to interpret this thread my own way - I don't know how many of these solos are "essential," but here are half a dozen of my favorites that (I think) haven't been mentioned in the Jazz Times article or in this thread:

Miles Davis - Move (from the Birth of the Cool sessions). Miles builds this solo up from fragments in a way that doesn't totally make sense until he's finished - then it's apparent what he had been up to.

Louis Armstrong - That's My Home (Bluebird alternate take). This take was issued on Bluebird several years after the original Victor record. It gets to me far more than the originally issued take - it's some of the most eloquent music I've ever heard.

Von Freeman - Footprints (from Live at the Dakota). Weird, raw, and kind of frightening.

Lester Bowie - Obe (from David Murray's Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club, Volume 1). Long and avant-lyrical.

Bix Beiderbecke - Sweet Sue (Paul Whiteman). At the end of a long, "classy," ponderous arrangement with a painful falsetto tenor vocal, they turn Bix loose for 32 bars which make the previous three minutes disappear.

And not to slight the bass players:

Wilbur Ware - Decidedly (mono take from Mulligan Meets Monk). Ware takes the "walking" bass solo to the next level, at times shifting to walk on the off-beat.

 

Edited August 13, 2018 by jeffcrom

[paul secor]

18 minutes ago, jeffcrom said:

I'm choosing to interpret this thread my own way - I don't know how many of these solos are "essential," but here are half a dozen of my favorites that (I think) haven't been mentioned in the Jazz Times article or in this thread:

Miles Davis - Move (from the Birth of the Cool sessions). Miles builds this solo up from fragments in a way that doesn't totally make sense until he's finished - then it's apparent what he had been up to.

Louis Armstrong - That's My Home (Bluebird alternate take). This take was issued on Bluebird several years after the original Victor record. It gets to me far more than the originally issued take - it's some of the most eloquent music I've ever heard.

Von Freeman - Footprints (from Live at the Dakota). Weird, raw, and kind of frightening.

Lester Bowie - Obe (from David Murray's Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club, Volume 1). Long and avant-lyrical.

Bix Beiderbecke - Sweet Sue (Paul Whiteman). At the end of a long, "classy," ponderous arrangement with a painful falsetto tenor vocal, they turn Bix loose for 32 bars which make the previous three minutes disappear.

And not the slight the bass players:

Wilbur Ware - Decidedly (mono take from Mulligan Meets Monk). Ware takes the "walking" bass solo to the next level, at times shifting to walk on the off-beat.

 

A very thoughtful post, Jeff. It deserves attention. I'll try to give it some.