Wes Montgomery - Boss Guitar Year: 1960
Style or Subgenre: Hard Bop, Guitar Jazz
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
Wes Montgomery - Bumpin' Year: 1965
Style or Subgenre: Hard Bop, Jazz Pop, Guitar Jazz
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
Boss guitar is right! This is Master Montgomery at the peak of his powers, playing with lively fluidity and grace, laying down expressive licks in excellent compositions and arrangements. Maybe Wes's best studio album after The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery.
As great as Boss is, Bumpin' may be a bigger surprise. This was released after Montgomery started his migration into more commercial territory and there's the oft dreaded strings in jazz. But make no mistake, Wes is still Wes, and amazingly, these are strings with real soul! A dandy album to be sure.
Wallace Roney - No Room For Argument Year: 2000
Style or Subgenre: Post Bop, Fusion, Avant Garde, Progressive Jazz
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
Trumpeter Wallace Roney leads an excellent ensemble through a range of music from post bop to progressive jazz, including improvisation over recordings of Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcom X. In addition to the impressive playing of Roney himself, pianist Geri Allen adds many highlights on the album.
Jacky Terrasson - Mirror Year: 2007
Style or Subgenre: Post Bop, Piano Jazz
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
1993 Thelonious Monk piano competition winner brings his powerful and unique voice on the piano to a solo setting and in doing so, brings new musical paradigms to old standards along with new compositions to provide some creative breadth of repertoire. Very interesting, and enjoyable music.
Hank Mobley - A Slice Of the Top Recording Year: 1966
Release Year: 1979
Style or Subgenre: Hard Bop
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
Alto Saxophone – James Spaulding
Bass – Reggie Workman
Drums – Billy Higgins
Euphonium – K!ane Zawadi
Piano – McCoy Tyner
Tenor Saxophone – Hank Mobley
Trumpet – Lee Morgan
Tuba – Howard Johnson
This 1966 date has the great Hank Mobley leadiing some absolutely killer hard bop while stretching out significantly within that genre. Not only is the ensemble larger and more instrumentally varied than the norm, but the musicians make some adventurous choices in their lines. By the time of this session, hard bop was pretty well played out, but this album brilliantly proves there was still creativity left to be had, and great music to be made, within that construct.
Fiona Ross - Red Flags and High Heels Year: 2021
Style or Subgenre: Vocal Jazz
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
Sunday morning vocal time!
On her 5th album, Fiona Ross serves as vocalist, lyricist, pianist, arranger, and producer, and the album does reveal great unity of artistic vision. The final product is as flawless as one coold hope to expect from a contemporary jazz vocal album. My only problem was with Ross's voice. Don't get me wrong; it's a fine voice and she has mastery of it..... but the timbre of it often sounds to me more suited to youthful modern pop than mature jazz.
Kendra Shank - Mosaic Recording Year: 2008
Release Year: 2009
Style or Subgenre: Vocal Jazz
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
After a very straightforward (and beautiful) cover of Carole King's So Far Away, Kendra Shank returns to her more improvisatory jazz vocal for the album. Her approach is then highly distinct and individualized, with phrasing that is both thoughtful and obviously heartfelt.
Oregon - Out of the Woods Year: 1978
Style or Subgenre: Post Bop, Fusion, Folk Jazz, World Jazz
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
This album was everything I heard it was.
It's just so.... organic. I mean that in the sense of one of the dictionary definitions: denoting a relation between elements of something such that they fit together harmoniously as necessary parts of a whole. The group cover a pretty good range of mood and style, but they're always of a single musical vision, and there is magic in their output.
Stanley Cowell - Regeneration Year: 1975
Style or Subgenre: Post Bop, Jazz Pop, World Jazz
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
Stanley Cowell - Musa-Ancestral Streams Year: 1973
Style or Subgenre: Post Bop, Piano Jazz, Spiritual Jazz
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
Today, it was time to dive into some Stanley Cowell. For no reason in particular, I started with 1975's Regeneration and lets just say Mr. Cowell and I didn't quite get off on the best foot together. The opening vocal number needed far stronger lyrics for a song dependent on them, and the underlying music did little to lift the song further. Fortunately, the rest of the album showed better variety, yet it still never really grabbed me. I didn't get bored as songs changed from style to style, mood to mood, but nothing said "you gotta' listen to this again!" At the end of this album long introduction, I felt like this is okay, but nothing I'd bother to seek out more of.
Still, I know this is a respected artist and I wanted to give him another go. So I moved back one album and two years time and grabbed Musa-Ancestral Streams. Not having cared much for Regeneration, in which Cowell is backed by a competent rhythm section and had other musicians to carry the load, I had little hope for this album, pure solo piano. Well, Gimme' a dress and call me Shirley fellas, because boy was I wrong! This is probably one of the most sublime solo piano albums I've heard in any genre. All the spirit missing from the latter release is here, in spades, and capturing my soul through the entire length of the album.
Really glad I stuck with this artist! I suppose more exploration is now in order.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
