I saw a terrific jazz concert the other night here in The Berkshires. The pianist Isaiah. J. Thompson led a quartet playing holiday music, including a familiar batch of songs written by Vince Guaraldi for the “Peanuts” series. I became aware of Thompson during the past few years when he appeared here in Great Barrington with the guitarist/vocalist/raconteur John Pizzarelli. I was extremely impressed with his playing. He has really strong technique and, even better, he really swings. When I saw that he would be appearing with his own group at a relatively new venue in Great Barrington, I got tickets immediately. Read more
Podcast: Duets
This week’s theme: Duets. Featured artists include John Cotrane, McCoy Tyner, Sonny Rollins, Philly Joe Jones, Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Peterson, Art Pepper, George Cables, Al Cohn, Jimmy Rowles, Tal Farlow, Dan Axelrod, Stephane Grappelli, Marc Fosset, Zoot Sims, Bucky Pizzarelli, John Lewis, Hank Jones, George Shearing, Carmen McRae, Rosemary Clooeny, Ed Bickert, Nancy Lamott, Christopher Marlowe, Ken Sebesky.
Podcast: Who’s That Lady, Part Two
This week’s theme: Part two of our exploration of jazz tracks that have the name of a woman in the title. Featured artists include Miles Davis, Gil Evans, Bill Evans, Eddie Costa, Ray Charles, Paul Desmond, Jim Hall, Art Blakey, Eddie Jefferson, Lee Morgan, Bobby Timmons, Benny Golson, Billy Taylor, Stan Getz, Al Haig, Jimmy Raney, Cannonball Adderley, Nat Adderley, Sam Jones, Louis Hayes, Barry Harris, Jimmy Rushing, Coleman Hawkins, Jackie McLean, Freddie Redd, Tina Brooks, Nat King Cole, Sweets Edison, and more.
New Old Jazz, Or Old New Jazz, on Vinyl
Now that I’m doing the radio show, I’m a bit more in touch with what’s going on in the world of new reissues (sounds like an oxymoron) and new discoveries of music that had previously been unreleased. For example, on newly released material, I recently ordered a record album, as in vinyl, called Horace Silver, Silver in Seattle: Live at The Penthouse. This is a 1965 live recording featuring Silver with Woody Shaw and Joe Henderson. It was recently issued on Blue Note. I have no idea what the quality of the packaging or the sound is like, so I will report to you once I get it and have a chance to listen. For reissues, I did order that Bill Evans release on Craft, Haunted Heart, also on vinyl, and a few other Blue Notes to fill in gaps in my collection of original vinyl. I’m glad the labels are back to issuing vinyl, and it has piqued my interest in buying stuff again. Not sure that’s a good thing, but, alas, I am a collector and it is what we do, is it not? Read more
In Search of Tina Brooks
I’m preparing to record a radio show this week on Tina Brooks. I have the Mosaic boxed set, The Complete Blue Note Recordings of the Tina Brooks Quintets. Do you believe that set was released 40 years ago? It does a great job of telling his tragic life story and chronicling the music he made as a leader. In addition, I have these records he made as a sideman on the Blue Note label: Jackie’s Bag, Open Sesame, Street Singer, Shades of Redd, The Sermon, and House Party. I’m not familiar with all of the tracks on all of these records, including the Mosaic boxed set. I’m trying to do a better job of integrating the Jazz Collector Live Radio Show and Podcast with the JazzCollector.com web site. Here’s an opportunity for you to help. In your collective wisdom, what are the tracks that are “must listens” among the music I will be bringing into the studio? Thanks in advance.
Live Jazz, With A Classical Touch
I saw an excellent jazz concert the other night here in my amazing community of The Berkshires in Western Massachusetts. It was the Ted Rosenthal Trio with Special Guests. The trio being Ted Rosenthal on piano, Noriko Ueda on bass, and Quincy Davis on drums. The special guests being Anat Cohen on clarinet and Sara Caswell on violin. The theme of the concert was “Classics Reimagined.” It featured a number of pieces by classical composers such as Chopin, Dvorak, Beethoven, Satie, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, and others reimagined, arranged, and performed as jazz pieces. I know very little about classical music, but I know a lot about jazz and, to me, each of the pieces sounded as if it could have come out of a standard jazz songbook. They closed the set with a Tchaikovsky piece that echoed Diz and Bird right out of the bebop era. There were also beautiful ballads, such as a duet by Rosenthal and Cohen on a Chopin piece called Waltz in E-Flat. Anyway, the trio travels all over the world, so if you ever get a chance to see them, I recommend them highly. Also, if you’re interested in hearing the music, it is available on CD and perhaps other formats under the title Ted Rosenthal Trio, Classics Reimagined: improp2. I walked out of the concert with a copy of the CD. Actually a couple of CDs, as well as a video clip I was graciously allowed to record and subsequently post on YouTube. If you want to listen, here it is: Ted Rosenthal Trio With Guests, Linde Center, Tanglewood, Nov. 28, 2025, Classics Reimagined.
Catching Up: Bill Evans, Tina Brooks, Hank Mobley, Et Al
Life has been busy. Artificial Intelligence tells me the adage “man plans, God laughs” is a Yiddish proverb: “Der mentsh trakht, un got lakht.” Who knew? While I may not believe in the actual wording, I do understand the sentiment. Fortunately, my health has been good, so that hasn’t been an issue. All of which is to say that most of the time that I’ve had to devote to my passion for jazz and jazz collecting has been put into my radio show and podcast. As I said, I love doing the radio show, so that’s not a problem. But I do sometimes feel guilty about not writing more frequently here at JazzCollector.com, especially when I go through the emails I’ve saved and realize that I’ve been saving some of them for more than half a year. In any case, I will try to catch up now, even if some of the conversations with readers are too dated to do anything about. Read more
Favorite Blue Notes, One More Once
I figure if I keep writing about Blue Notes and putting Blue Notes in the headline, I’ll start scoring well on Google and all of a sudden the many people who have abandoned Jazz Collector in the past year or so will come charging back. Or not. In any case, to follow up on yesterday’s post and some of the comments, I’ve narrowed down my list of Top Ten Blue Notes and I believe I can settle soon on a Top Ten. Seven of them are known because they were on the list I began compiling in February 2010 (More Blue Note Favorites, Courtesy of Downbeat). Hard to believe that was nearly 16 years ago. My tastes haven’t changed in all those years. Read more
Favorite Blue Notes, One More Time
So, speaking of my radio show/podcast, I’ve been thinking for a while about doing a show titled “My 10 Favorite Blue Notes.” Three things have stopped me so far: 1. It’s not so easy to identify my 10 favorite Blue Notes; 2. Even if I did identify them, would I want to take them out of the house, bring them in the car, and place the vinyl on the turntables/needles in the radio station’s studio; and, 3. I recall a Downbeat issue from several years ago in which a variety of musicians were asked to name their 10 favorite Blue Notes. I wanted to consult with that issue before doing the show. It would give me more interesting fodder to discuss. My Downbeat collection is sitting up in my attic and combing through them all to find a single issue would be a bit of a hassle. Of course, it might not be necessary to comb through all of them, now that there is this thing called the internet and this other thing called artificial intelligence. So this morning I got up early and did a search: Downbeat 10 Favorite Blue Notes. What came back was fascinating. Read more
Duets, Anyone?
It’s been a while since I’ve done a “regular” post. But as you can see, I’ve been very busy doing my two-hour radio show and podcast every week. Listenership at Jazz Collector is way up, but readership is way down. I love doing the radio show and it is really helping me extract more pleasure from and appreciation for my collection. I have no intention of slowing down there. But I would like to do more writing on Jazz Collector now that we are heading into the winter doldrums here in the lovely Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts. One way to do that is to combine my passion for doing the radio show with a renewed commitment to do more writing. So, let’s see how it goes, starting now. Read more
April is Jazz Month
