Milestones

I've turned on several people (most with no interest in jazz) to Benny Golson's "Gypsy Jingle-Jangle."

The Adderleys created some serious earworms!

Really there is so much jazz music that can appeal to just about everyone, either through lovely ballad performances, catchy melodies, or amazing grooves. Who would not like? "Someday My Prince Will Come"--Miles "Central Park West"--Trane "Ask Me Now"--Monk "Strange Meadowlark"--Brubeck How about Sonny performing a calypso? How about the insane catchiness of "Hottentot" (Scofield) or "Cross the Heartland" (Metheny)?

Shades of Pat Martino.

That's interesting. I didn't think Joni was able to perform these days.

Some good solo records, long-running collaborations with Dave Stryker, occasional meetings with Joe Lovano, contributions to Mingus Big Band. I find him to be highly underrated. Much to be enjoyed--just my opinion.

If the group was a "novelty" and "designed to attract attention," did they actually attract much attention?

Why weren't The Leaders bigger? This was the group with Lester Bowie, Arthur Blythe, Chico Freeman, and an impressive rhythm section. They were leaders indeed and should have been a high-caliber collective force. But their albums were on several different and very small labels. Their records have been quite hard to find. Are they still around, with largely different players? Did anyone see the band live in its prime? I have just two albums. One is Mudfoot--recently acquired and it sounds quite good. The other is Slipping and Sliding, which is notable (to my ears) for two ballad-like pieces: "Everything Changed" and "High Summer." But otherwise it just seems average. Was it a group with great potential that wasn't quite achieved?

Most jazz musicians don't retire until they're dead or physically can't play a solo longer than 20 seconds.

Great writers usually piss off the people who are their raw material.

I was pleasantly surprised by Agent Running in the Field--a rather fine work for so late in his career. I heard that Silverview was written a few years back and Le Carre felt it wasn't good enough to be published. Yet here it is.

Having Ornette's quartet back you (on one track) perhaps counts for something. But actually I do find myself enjoying some of her songs on Double Fantasy. Here they are considerably less avant garde than what she usually did.

You have to be in a certain mood to listen to Stanko, or at least I have to be. He very much typifies the "ECM sound."

Mostly Coltrane--Steve Kuhn, with Lovano prominently featured.

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.