Musical Selections

I had a chance to listen to a lot of music this week. The selections were mostly jazz.

Wednesday was Thelonius Monk day. I listened to his stuff for most of the day.
The best of the bunch was "Brilliant Corners:, which really is brilliant. Its from the period when he was recording for the riverside label. The word on the riverside stuff is that half of it (about 7 CDs/albums are great, and the other 7 are OK). Brilliant corners is a great album from that period in Monk's career. Another highlight worth checking out is Thelonius Monk and John Coltrane, the Complete 1957 Riverside Recordings, two masters working together -- what more can you ask for. I listened to a few others, which didn't stand out as much as the other two (Alone in San Francisco, Monk's Music, Misterio), but they're a lot better than the stuff that gets passed off as jazz these days.

Thursday was Grant Green day. Grant Green is really overlooked, although he was probably quite heavily sampled during the golden age of hip hop. The early part of his career was more blues and modal jazz, and then there is his jazz-funk and soul jazz period. The blues stuff can be a little on the mellow side, which is fine if that's what you want. Am I Blue is really mellow, Idle Moments is a little more upbeat. Both are pretty good. Where Grant Green's stuff really comes alive is when he plays soul jazz. When I listened to his Alive!, which is a live recording, all I could think was WOWWWWWW. Then I listened to Live at Club Mozambique, and I thought this is even better than Alive!. While not at the intensity of the two live recordings his Blue Breakbeats also has some great soul jazz/jazz funk -- you should definitely check out his Ain't it Funky Now on that recording.

Today I'm listening to Bobby Hutcherson. He's someone that also doesn't get talked about a lot, but if you listen to any hip hop with really chilled out samples of someone playing the vibes then most likely its a sample of a Bobby Hutcherson recording. I've got something called the Stick-Up! playing right now. It's really a mixed bag, some of the stuff is a little more up tempo, while the rest is more chilled out. I kind of like the chilled out vibe stuff better. This is from the 60s. I also got a chance to listen to some of his stuff from the 70's, an album called Cirrus. This is really something that you have to check it out. This really takes the chilled out vibe to an atmospheric level.