Miles Live at the Plugged Nickel

Miles Davis' Plugged Nickel recording might represent his most profound statement on the avant garde idea.  I wouldn't call the recording avant garde, but that is precisely the point.  Miles explored the avant garde idea while remaining just barely within the hard bop tradition.  

Miles' second great quintet included Wayne Shorter on tenor, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and the brilliant Tony Williams on drums.  They play a series of standards, many of them from the earlier quintet, but what a difference!  They cut up and dissect each part of a melody, squeezing out all the juice and laying out all the veins and organs.  

I am playing two consecutive numbers: 'Round Midnight' and 'Milestones.'  Both are brilliant club jazz documents.  This is a superb box set, a monumental statement at the center of modern jazz. 

RIAA, Angst, Audacity, and Jim Snidero

Okay, that was quick. In about a half hour's time I managed to produce an MP3 clip from Alto man Jim Snidero's version of 'Round Midnight', on the marvelous album Standards + Plus. I am pretty sure I can post this under fair use law, as this is a scholarly website. Trust me, I am a scholar. It strikes me that there are advantages in this procedure. I can talk more or less intelligently about portions of a jazz number. Maybe the RIAA has done us a favor.

I have been listening to Standards + Plus today, and it is, as the Penguin Guide puts it, "a strong, vibrant set." Everything on the album is good. Here is some of the information at the Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians:

Snidero is on the faculty at the New School University, is an active jazz clinician for the Selmer Company, and author of the best selling Jazz Conception and Easy Jazz Conception series, published by Advance Music. As a side man, he has worked with some of the biggest names in both jazz and rock. He was in Frank Sinatra's orchestra for 4 years. He has been a member of the Downbeat poll winning Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra for 20 years, and toured extensively with The Mingus Big Band.

This is a jazz academic who walks the walk. Anyway, here is the clip:

Jim Snidero/Round Midnight/Standards + Plus/solo

Was that not enough? Well here is Mike LeDonne's piano solo.

Jim Snidero/Round Midnight/Standards + Plus/piano solo (Mike LeDonne)

Backing Snidero and LeDonne were Dennis Irwin on bass, and Kenny Washington on drums.

Okay, readers, I really need your input on this. Is this kind of thing worth coming to the site for? It will be interesting to see if this affects my traffic. Like I said, it may make the site better, as I can focus on some bits of music that seem most interesting to me. Anyway let me know.

Christmas List 3: Best Jazz Compositions

One way to give the gift of jazz is to prepare your own mixer tape of best jazz numbers from several different recordings. A possible theme would be great covers of great jazz compositions. That, of course, requires a list of great compositions. I will put some items on the list over the next few days. Maybe it will be in time for Christmas.

I was tempted to do a countdown series, ending with the number one best composition by a jazz hero. I won't do that, because I am too disorganized and lazy. I will start with number one. Here I have empirical data. I scrolled down the list of songs in my iPod, and one stood out from the crowd. I had to twiddle my thumb about three times to get through all the covers of "Round Midnight," by Thelonious Monk. I am guessing I have about thirty versions of that tune.

"Round Midnight" stands, I think, as the best single composition by a working jazz man. It is deeply romantic and, if you can remember hearing it for the first time, musically surprising. But more than anything else, it conjures up what I take to be the essential jazz setting: a dark city street, moisture on cobblestone, and a heart full up with tragedy. Hell, it even served as the title and theme for a movie. Dexter Gordon starred in Round Midnight. It got panned, but I loved it.

The composition has been done hundreds of times, I would guess. So which version is best? That would be a week long project. I have a couple of suggestions. I have already posted on version on my drop.io site: Thelonious Monk and Gerry Mulligan. Here you have the composer and an excellent horn player beside him.

But if you are looking for something new, try this one, from Joe Henderson, The Standard Joe. Rufus Reid on bass and Al Foster on drums. Henderson is trying to find new nuggets in well sifted soil here, but I think he finds them.