Jazz Note 4: Thankgiving

Here's a playlist of the current show, which debuts at 9pm Central tonight, Saturday, November 27th.  Tonight's show is a mixed bag of more accessible music from mostly less accessible albums.  Something to cut the taste of turkey and give your digestion something to work with.  You'll find roaring blues and sad romance, spiritual highs and entertaining shadows.  Give it a listen and let me know what you think. 

1. Thanksgiving Suite/John Lindberg/A Tree Frog Tonality
2. Mikuro's Blues/David S. Ware Quartet/Live In The World
3. Ghosts/Albert Ayler/Spiritual Unity
4. Red Car/David Murray/I Want To Talk About You
5. Odin/David Murray/Body and Soul
6. Crossing the Sudan/Chico Freeman/Destiny's Dance
7. Stratusphunk/George Russell/Stratusphunk
8. O'Neal's Porch/William Parker/O'Neal's Porch
9. Contemplation/Mal Waldron and Marion Brown/Songs of Love and Regret
10. Sonny's Dream/Sonny Criss/Sonny's Dream
11. The Wane/Steve Lacy Trio/The Holy La
12. Both Sides/The Vandermark Five/Airports For Light

Update: Mikuro's Blues played at half speed.  I stopped the show and replaced the track.  I hope it works this time.  Of course, with avant garde jazz you can't always tell. 

Voodoo Drums & Ghostly Horns

Not exactly a Fourth of July theme, but then I am writing at 40 minutes into the new day.  After a wonderful day of cooking ribs and cleaning house, followed by eating ribs and drinking beer with friends, I am in the mood for something less wholesome and a lot less fattening.  

Here it surely is.  I've been listening to Birth and Rebirth, a duet album by drummer Max Roach and horn player and "philosopher" Anthony Braxton.  Wow, does Braxton have spooky eyes.  It is an odd meeting between the mainstream and the jet stream.  It is pretty dry, overall, but good in the way that a dry martini is good.  You can hear and appreciate everything these two jazz genies conjure up.  Here is a sample:

Max Roach and Anthony Braxton/Spirit Possession/Birth and Rebirth

If that is not enough to cut the fat in your bloodstream, try this one from one of my beloved Mal Waldron/Steve Lacy duets.  It's sad romance, but pairs the emotion down to something not much more complicated than a beating heart and a sigh.  

Steve Lacy and Mal Waldron/A Flower is a Lovesome Thing/Sempre Amore

Sempre Amore is one of those albums that nobody but me seems to listen to.  Well, suddenly I am in the mood for something a little richer, with the same mood.  So here is a cut from my latest Sonny Criss acquisition.  Would you ever have expected a brilliant jazz interpretation of this song?  Criss, whose flag I have long been flying, managed to wield all his hard bop magic without ever losing the original sad mood of the Beatles' hit.  God, but I love Sonny Criss. 

Sonny Criss/Eleanor Rigby/Rockin' in Rhythm

Well, that's all for tonight.  Pick up these recordings.  That's an order. 

The Music I love

Sonny Criss/All Night Long/Crisscraft