Jazz Articles
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Perry Como with Derek Bailey: Uncharted Harmonies
by Glenn Astarita
Imagine, if you will, the musical equivalent of a black-tie gala crashing into an abstract art exhibit. This is Uncharted Harmonies, where Perry Como, the man whose voice could soothe a charging bull, meets Derek Bailey, a guitarist who thinks musical notes are too mainstream. Together, they have created an album that is as unlikely as finding a Picasso in a thrift shop. It was recorded after hours at the Village Vanguard in 1974 on reel-to-reel tape. From ...
Continue ReadingProfessor Irwin Corey: Duets II, It's All About You!!
by Nicholas F. Mondello
In one of the more noteworthy album discoveries of recent years Schlossin Records, a division of Moyel Music, has unearthed a series of extremely rare cuts featuring the vocal skills of that instructor to the stars and game show celeb, Professor Irwin Corey. Originally recorded live (and without Corey's permission) at multiple locations, the prof sheds academic robe for a beret and zoot suit and sends up a dozen killer tracks with celebs who begged to sit in with Corey ...
Continue ReadingMiles Davis / John Coltrane: Live at the Washateria
by Karl Ackermann
Urban legend has it that in 1957 Miles Davis charged up to a frightened woman at the Washateria Laundromat on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 25th Street. He bellowed, “How long does this (expletive) dryer take to dry a pair of socks?" Before the terrified patron could answer, Davis spied John Coltrane in row two, washing his reeds on the delicate cycle. In another corner, Cannonball Adderley was growing impatient with a set of fitted sheets on the folding ...
Continue ReadingBob Dylan: The Bootleg Series Volume 21: To Be Likened Later, Spring 65: The Forgotten Gil Evans Sessions
by Mike Jurkovic
Veteran producer Tom Wilson was never a man known to shun aside inspiration. Prior to finding himself at the eye of the Bob Dylan hurricane, Wilson had not only founded Transition Records, but gave the world Sun Ra's unruly, post-bop big band debut Jazz by Sun Ra (Transition, 1957), Cecil Taylor's defiant and quixotic Jazz Advance (Transition, 1957) and Donald Byrd's initial live set By rd Jazz (Transition, 1955) So when Wilson, in a bar on a break ...
Continue ReadingAnthony Braxton & Lee Konitz: Chess Match
by Ken Dryden
Anthony Braxton and Lee Konitz were hardly strangers by the time they appeared together on Dave Brubeck's LP All The Things We Are (Atlantic), on the track “All The Things You Are." Prior to that 1974 session, the men had met, found common ground and planned to record together in Copenhagen, though that session evidently did not come to fruition. During the Brubeck session they discovered a mutual love of playing chess and got together for regular chess games when ...
Continue ReadingJimi Hendrix/Miles Davis: Rainy Day Chillin'
by Mike Jurkovic
Amid the swirling collateral from the societal and musical fever dream of the late 1960's, one could never tell who would show up at your door bearing gifts. Nor would you know for sure exactly how potent those gifts were. Within its thirty-eight minutes of chemically induced melancholia, magic, and spontaneous genius, Rainy Day Chillin' bears testimony to that and so much more. The upcoming Netflix doc goes likes this: In a penthouse atop the Hotel Navarro overlooking ...
Continue ReadingThe Dunbarton Oakes Trio: We Have Become Our Ancestors
by Karl Ackermann
"We didn't want just to deconstruct our catalog, we wanted to burn it down." So writes trumpeter Dunbarton Oakes in the liner notes for We Have Become Our Ancestors. His namesake trio (a group as old as the average U.S. Senator) did just that but torched Oakes' home studio in the process, resulting in a four-year delay in the recording session. The trio formed out of the 45th Airborne Division of the U.S. Army at the end of WWII. None ...
Continue ReadingGetting to the Jazz Point: An Exposé
by AAJ Staff
Jazz... famous for complex harmonies, syncopated rhythms and an emphasis on improvisation. The music at its best is a form of personal expression, valuing non-conformity and freedom. It has birthed and is to an extent, defined by musicianly quirks, idiosyncrasies and singularities. There are also a great many non-musical threads that bind the tradition together and perhaps none is more lasting and pervasive than the finger point. Ever notice how jazz musicians love to point at one another ...
Continue ReadingMarjorie Taylor Greene: Margie Shoot Your Gun
by Jack Bowers
In a previously undisclosed mega-blockbuster deal that has sent Hollywood into orbit and spinning its wheels, it was announced today that congressional maverick Marjorie Taylor Greene and former president Donald Trump have agreed to co-star in an updated film version of Irving Berlin's beloved Wild West magnum opus Annie Get Your Gun, to be retitled (in honor of Ms Greene) Margie Shoot Your Gun. The former president (whose singing voice as leading man Frank Butler will be dubbed ...
Continue ReadingMarvin Blague: Epistrophal Astronomy: The Hidden Code of Thelonious Monk
by Geno Thackara
If you've ever wondered what planet Thelonious Monk came from, you are not alone. According to Marvin Blague, you're not wrong to wonder either. Like most jazz listeners, he was not sure what to make of Monk's clunky-sounding playing style on first listen. But where many of us gradually come to enjoy how the pianist used harmonies in his own quirky way, this unassuming undergraduate student heard a deeper pattern. When a streaming playlist happened to turn up the weirdly ...
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