Listening | Noticing | Getting Down
July 28, 2011 Leave a comment
Here’s a fun Dizzy Gillespie recording. It’s a live version of a song that shows off Dizzy’s sense of humor. Listen to the whole song.
From 1967’s Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. Enjoy sweet cheeks himself.
May 30, 2011 Leave a comment
I guess it was a curse and a blessing to be a trumpet player when Miles Davis was also blowing on one. But probably more of a blessing.
Freddie Hubbard trumpeted… and flugel horned. He played on some incredibly influential albums, like Oliver Nelson‘s The Blues and the Abstract Truth and Herbie Hancock‘s Maiden Voyage.
“Here’s That Rainy Day” is a track I’ve been enjoying in the car ride home lately, as a mental salve for my burning brain. Life can be a bit much. Sometimes you need some music to soothe. This is one of those.
Freddie plays the flugel horn on this track, with George Benson on guitar, Ron Carter on bass, and a strong heartbeat on percussion, from Straight Life (1970).
Breathe deeply, and enjoy.
April 20, 2011 Leave a comment
Evan Weiss is a young new composer and trumpeter, raised in the Pacific Northwest and now living in North Texas. His debut release, Math or Magic, came out just a few weeks ago. I’ll call it “jazz chamber music.” It’s a large ensemble performing highly original compositions with Evan in front on the horn.
Evan Weiss on his philosophy of music: “The most powerful compositions stretch far beyond the abilities of the individual player. It is not the composer’s job to create the music, but rather to enable the members of his ensemble to perform. This distinction is especially prevalent in jazz because the composer of a given piece is often also a performer and an improviser. In improvised music, the writer must relinquish control to his fellow players for a piece to reach its full potential. That element of risk is the primary reason that I am a musician.”
–Inner Circle Music
And that element of risk is also the same reason why some people create multi-billion dollar businesses. Why some people jump out of airplanes. And why some people poop where they’re not supposed to. Go figure.
Enjoy my favorite track, “Circuitous Circuits” from Evan Weiss’ Math or Magic (March 2011).
April 8, 2011 Leave a comment
When you really wanna get funky, you gots to gets some flugelhorn.
Eddie Henderson played with Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi band for 3 years in the early 70’s, and you can sure hear that influence in this song and Eddie’s entire 1975 album, Sunburst.
Related topic… Everything is related… If you’re standing in just the right light, here’s a poem that can knock you on your ass:
Moment of Inertia
by Debra Spencer, from Pomegranate.
© Hummingbird Press.
It’s what makes the pancake hold still
while you slip the spatula under it
so fast it doesn’t move, my father said
standing by the stove.
All motion stopped when he died.
With his last breath the earth
lurched to a halt and hung still on its axis,
the atoms in the air
coming to rest within their molecules,
and in that moment
something slid beneath me
so fast I couldn’t move.
December 7, 2010 Leave a comment
Dizzy Gillespie. Trumpet player’s trumpet player.
Pay homage by stretching your smile as far as it will go in either direction, then stretch it a little farther… and a little farther… and then… enjoy….
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