Milestones

I think there were six albums by Weather Report in the 1980s, although most seem to prefer their earlier work.

R.I.P., Grachan. I very much agree that he was greatly underrated. In a fair world, he would have made 8 or 9 records as a leader for Blue Note (rather than two) and about 50 albums overall (rather than 10).

From what I can tell Connelly has a Frank Morgan obsession. Nothing wrong with writers inserting their jazz obsessions. Peter Straub seems to be a jazz fanatic.

#10 is "Midwestern Nights Dream" composed by Metheny. This version appears to be from a bootleg (official?) Gary Burton album. Two names that come to mind on #11 are George Adams and David Murray. Would #12 be Paul Bley? I'm saying it mostly because you mentioned Bley was on the BFT.

Steve Slagle (alto) and Dave Stryker (guitar) have played together countless times, although I can't think of any performances where is it just the two of them. The record Free with Lee features Lee Konitz with two guitarists.

This sounds good. I had a period when I was pretty big on Murray, but I couldn't tell you the last release I picked up.

A good player...not earth-shaking, but he offers plenty of enjoyment.

An unexpected collaboration, but maybe we would say the same about the Coltrane meeting--and that one worked out!

Emotion, ranging from melancholia to unfettered joy, is one of main reasons for listening to music--thus the lists could be enormous.

Good choice on Sonny. His "You Don't Know What Love Is" would definitely be one of the greatest performances of that song, though some others are very powerful too. For this thread, I usually think of the performance of the song over the song itself.

Many, many songs do this: "The Weight," "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," "Redemption Song," Dylan's "Dark Eyes"....countless songs. In jazz, some that comes right to the top of my mind are Miles with "Flamenco Sketches" and "The Man I Love," Mingus' "Duke Ellington's Sound of Love," "My One and Only Love" by Coltrane and Hartman, "African Sunrise" by Randy Weston, and "Bessie's Blues" by Tyner with David Murray and Arthur Blythe.

This was a great Blindfold Test. I enjoyed so much of the music on here, and it was a fine idea to do the theme (or partial theme) of jazz firsts.

Carla Bley is a truly major figure in jazz. You will be greatly rewarded by going deeply into her work. The range from duos with Steve Swallow to big band is phenomenal, and of course her many compositions. Not to mention what she brought to Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra. She is unique and very gifted.

Who knew Grant Green played with Lawrence Brown and Johnny Hodges? See Joe's Blues.

That sounds like it's worth checking out. But I'm principally interested in Brown's solos with Ellington.

I have always enjoyed the work of Lawrence Brown. I think he is one of the great trombonists, and he spent many years in the Ellington Orchestra (not a lot of work outside that great ensemble). Of course, Duke really knew how to utilize Brown, and credited him as a superb accompanist. I've taken more notice of his solos. Any recommendations of Brown solos are welcomed. I have over 600 Ellington tracks on my computer, so it would take some time to go through them. Or if there is an online listing of his solos, that would be great. I have searched a bit, but I've not found a thorough listing.

Clearly a lot of classic Blue Note albums featured studio get-togethers, and this appeared to be pretty common with Prestige and Riverside as well. But there are an awful of live albums in jazz (and many great ones at that), and presumably they would feature working groups. It seems to me that Miles, Coltrane (once past the Prestige phase), Monk, Blakey, Mingus, Silver essentially stuck to the same groups in the studio and on the road.

Well, a cadenza usually comes at the end (or near the end) of a piece. But they can occur anywhere. Isn't banning a "Sonny Rollins" a bit like banning cadenzas?

I will never tire of Joe Lovano and I will be seeing him in concert in June. With Lovano you find little gems like this (Three Days of Rain) with some frequency. There is much to enjoy here. The title track features Lovano in fine ballad form.

Just saying that for that price it ought to have belonged to a legend.

Was this Wes Montgomery's guitar?

Also a huge fan of The Quest--a great record even when great jazz records abounded. It sure doesn't hurt to have Dolphy and Ervin in the band!

Wasn't the topic Mal Waldron?

Part of the appeal of all those studio jam sessions comes from Mal's composing, which were included pretty regularly. They helped these records feel less like jams. I'm thinking of records like Dakar (usually under Coltrane's name), although Teddy Charles did more of the composing on that one.

A gem indeed. The world would be a lesser place without Miles' ballads.