A jelly bread of a song, the rare meeting of psychedelia and reality, a most electric and eclectic homage to the ephemeral bliss of the carnal–Derek & The Dominos’ rapturous recording of ‘Little Wing’.
Continue reading...Gil Evans
055: Miles Davis/Gil Evans, ‘Concierto de Aranjuez’ (“Sketches of Spain”)
In which a jazz recasting of classical favorite trumps the classical original. Gil Evans and a taste of heaven.
Continue reading...130: Thelonious Monk, ‘Let’s Call This’ (Monk’s Advice to Lacy)
You talk about a different drummer? Thelonious Monk inhabited a not-so-parallel universe. He played very few notes, and those unpredictable. Metronomes were witnessed imploding in his presence. He pounded the keyboard with extended, flat fingers. He got up in the middle of a song to dance. He wore funny hats. Sometimes he just refused to talk. But he gave soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy some unforgettable advice about how to be a ‘cool’ musician. Or maybe about How To Be. “A genius is the one most like himself,” Monk says. Clearly, Monk was exactly like Monk.
Continue reading...081: Maria Schneider, ‘The Pretty Road’
Maria Schneider’s music has been called “evocative, majestic, magical, heart-stoppingly gorgeous.” It defies genre-categorization. In format, it’s standard Big Band, but the music exhibits a symphonic palette, broad and complex and rich and intriguing. Her compositions are often compared to those of Mahler and Copland. They’re ephemeral, transcendental and melodic, often simultaneously. Not impressionistic, but carefully thought out and planned and considered. Incorporating the vast, open, airy Minnesota landscape where she was raised. Thoroughly modern, thoroughly American, thoroughly personal. She’s even been called Nabokovian! A brainy romantic, passionate, an aural aviatrix.
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