So, What Are You Listening To NOW?

[Peter Friedman]

[soulpope]

1 hour ago, HutchFan said:

Roots & Herbs playlist -- compiled from the Mosaic's Complete Blue Note Recordings of Art Blakey’s 1960 Jazz Messengers:

Recorded in February and May 1961, but not released until October 1970.  For those who heard this for the first time in 1970/71: Was it strange to be hearing "new" Blakey music that had been recorded nearly ten years earlier? ... And all Wayne tunes, at that!

A true showcase for Wayne Shorter as composer .... and super bass performances by Jymie Merritt .... 

[HutchFan]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

I severely underappreciated Nancy Wilson for far too long. It's not that I started hearing different things there, just that I've become able to hear those things differently.

About 25 years ago, a friend of mine gave me his old beat-up copy of Hollywood - My Way.  When I heard Wilson sing "My Shining Hour" and "Days of Wine and Roses," I was hooked.

In my mind, Nancy Wilson and Lou Rawls sorta go together.  It seems like they could sing in any style: jazz, blues, GAS, pop, R&B, soul.  And they could do it all at the highest level. ... They were like utility infielders.  But utility infielders who had MVP-level skills.

I think you could also make a case that they were both the end-of-the-line for even the possibillity of doing that sort of thing. 

 

Edited March 8, 2022 by HutchFan

[JSngry]

I used to dismiss her as a "showbiz" singer who often sang with jazz backgrounds. The record with Cannonball was an anomaly. shouldn't they all be that good? And they weren't. Or so I thought.

It was the rediscovery of Jimmy Scott and her advocacy of him as as her #1 influence (even above Dinah Washington) that got me to relistening and hearing that it wasn't that she was a showbiz singer, she was a singer who did showbiz. Because Jimmy Scott put me in a DEPP zone from the git-go. So...son of a gun, he was all over Nancy, sure enough.

And then THAT let to the crate digging, I'd see a Nancy Wilson record for a few bucks and home it would go. Plenty of enjoyment but no real surprises until T.L.C. a superb presentation in every way, including the tuba-enhanced arrangements of Billy May. That one REALLY made me reconsider a lot of things that I was already reconsidering.

As "jazz vocal" records, eh...whatever. Just a singing records, hey, stop it right there, what's all you need. Just a singer, some charts, and a song. Everything else can be argued amongst musicologists and polemicists and all that. Not that I'm immune to that type of thing, but not about Nancy Wilson, not now.

[HutchFan]

8 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I used to dismiss her as a "showbiz" singer who often sang with jazz backgrounds. The record with Cannonball was an anomaly. shouldn't they all be that good? And they weren't. Or so I thought.

It was the rediscovery of Jimmy Scott and her advocacy of him as as her #1 influence (even above Dinah Washington) that got me to relistening and hearing that it wasn't that she was a showbiz singer, she was a singer who did showbiz. Because Jimmy Scott put me in a DEPP zone from the git-go. So...son of a gun, he was all over Nancy, sure enough.

And then THAT let to the crate digging, I'd see a Nancy Wilson record for a few bucks and home it would go. Plenty of enjoyment but no real surprises until T.L.C. a superb presentation in every way, including the tuba-enhanced arrangements of Billy May. That one REALLY made me reconsider a lot of things that I was already reconsidering.

As "jazz vocal" records, eh...whatever. Just a singing records, hey, stop it right there, what's all you need. Just a singer, some charts, and a song. Everything else can be argued amongst musicologists and polemicists and all that. Not that I'm immune to that type of thing, but not about Nancy Wilson, not now.

Adding T.L.C. to my "to get" list right now.   

 

[HutchFan]

Next up:

The John Lewis Piano (Atlantic, 1958)

 

[JSngry]

41 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

Adding T.L.C. to my "to get" list right now.   

 

 

To whet your appetite, hopefully.

[BillF]

22 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

Next up:

The John Lewis Piano (Atlantic, 1958)

 

[Larry Kart]

2 hours ago, Peter Friedman said:

 Just picked that up a few days ago. Dexter is in intense form, and Cees Slinger's at times somewhat off-the-wall comping is an asset.

[Peter Friedman]

[John Tapscott]

[HutchFan]

Now:

with Tommy Flanagan, Reggie Workman, and Joe Chambers

 

Earlier tonight:

as heard on Sparks' Legends of Acid Jazz CD

 

[soulpope]

5 hours ago, HutchFan said:

Now:

with Tommy Flanagan, Reggie Workman, and Joe Chambers ....

Outstanding ....

[soulpope]

6 hours ago, John Tapscott said:

Treasurous archive release ....

[EKE BBB]

[Rabshakeh]

Randy Brecker - Score (Solid State, 1969)

[mikeweil]

Last MJQ Atlantic CD missing in my collection arrived this morning.

[BillF]

9 hours ago, John Tapscott said:

[BillF]

Now playing:

[EKE BBB]

[jazzbo]

Eliane Elias "Brazilian Classics" Blue Note compilation cd

Great music for this morning. Sunny skies not expected til mid-afternoon.

[mikeweil]

[Peter Friedman]

[jazzbo]

Eliane Elias "Around the City" Bluebird cd

[mikeweil]