Tír Na HiFi

markof wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 4:34 pm

RIP Lyle Mays

Ah didn't know that! His piano solo on' September Fifteenth (dedicated to Bill Evans) is the one I remember from 'As Falls Wichita So Falls Wichita Falls'. R.I.P Lyle.....

I've been listening to this album all weekend - really like it.

Mark

Listening this afternoon to Bill Evans’ 6-CD boxset, Turn out the Stars, which chronicles the pianist’s residency at the Village Vanguard in June 1980. I never get tired of listening to Bill and he remains one of the most constant and nurturing musical presences in my life. There were no revolutions in the man’s musical odyssey but, rather, subtly refined evolutions in which he lovingly nurtured his tone over the course of his sadly curtailed lifetime. There is such an ache at the heart of this man’s piano playing. It is a deeply personal music instilled with a melancholy that never retreats into self-indulgence or sentimentalism, an intensity of emotion that gradually percolates into the listener’s heart and mind and takes hold. A wonderful musician who left us sadly far too soon.

Been playing a lot of Blues music wth good reason! Surprisingly good stereo for 1960s LPs. Much better than Pop records of the same era! Followed by Miles Davis LPs to spin!

Cyndale, If you haven’t yet heard Miles Davis Volumes 1 and 2 ( issued on Blue Note in 1955 but consisting of sessions recorded in 1952/3/4) and Bags’ Groove and Miles Davis and the Jazz Giants ( recorded for Prestige but predating his first great quintet) then I strongly suggest you pick them up.

Miles’s output between The Birth of the Cool and his extraordinary series of albums on Prestige with his first great quintet was relatively patchy ( in comparison to the rest of his later discography), but these 4 albums are some of his most consistent work before he formed his first great quintet and showcase him really finding his feet in the company of legends like Thelonius Monk, Sonny Rollins, Horace Silver, Milt Jackson, J.J. Johnson and Art Blakey.

Thanks for all the info, I will check it all out when we are allowed to go back to normality.

One of my most cherished possessions is a 16-CD box set of the great Art Pepper’s complete recordings for the Galaxy label between 1977 and 1982. Long out of print, I have happy memories of ordering it at my local HMV. This was in the middle of a manic splurge of obsessive Pepper purchases which included his iconic mid- to late-Fifties recordings as well as another box set chronicling his residency at the Village Vanguard in 1977.

What ignited this passion was reading the entry in the Penguin Guide to Jazz on Pepper. This book was a pivotal part of my jazz education and I still have my well-thumbed copy of the original first edition. The book’s writers, Richard Cook and Brian Morton, were admirably catholic in their selections and were just as passionate about Louis Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Sevens recordings as they were about Peter Brötzmann’s Machine Gun. What mattered most was a love of the music untainted by prejudice and a communication of that love to their readers. I was particularly struck by the entry on Pepper and I began with his remarkable series of seven albums that he recorded for Contemporary between 1956 and 1960. What I heard on these albums was a passionate urgency but also an intensely personal vision. This was particularly visible on his many ballad readings which, quite simply, left me breathless. The technique was masterful, to be sure, but what took my breath away was the degree of tenderness and delicacy that he could impart into his emotionally uninhibited performances.

The Galaxy box documents his studio and live recordings during the last five years of his life and that level of emotional authenticity remains intact throughout every performance. I have returned regularly to these performances many times over the past 25 years and they have remained a constant pleasure and a source of comfort and consolation to me. If I had to single out a single track to break your heart, it would have to be Over the Rainbow from the album, Tête-à-Tête, recorded with pianist George Cables shortly before his death. Nobody else plundered the depths of this song quite like Art Pepper. Timeless, just timeless.