So much love for Sonny!
I love a lot of his stuff. Way Out West has always been a favorite. Sonny takes classics and standards, but the man can make them swing.
There can be only one…
No doubt that there is only one Coltrane.
But if I had to pick one record for the proverbial stranded on a desert island, it would be
I sincerely have no idea if Moon Hooch counts as jazz, but Sons of Kemet lead me to them so…
On the vastly more mellow side of the equation, Portico Quartet. This is just lovely:
And finally, some more Sons of Kemet. I think this might be my favorite one yet, of those I’ve heard, and also just a deeply weird video:
Back to old-school - Miles’ “Second Great Quintet” Herbie Hancock - Wayne Shorter - Ron Carter - Tony Williams
This video of Agitation seems (based on a couple of the comments) to be from a 1967 concert. You can get lost for days at a time in this quintet on the “Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel” 8 CD set (costs a fortune these days, but you can stream it on Spotify or Prime and probably other platforms).
For jazz guitar, I think Wes Montgomery is the unalloyed master of the instrument, but man…so much of Wes’s playing can at times just sound like the music they played on Beverly Hillbillies when Mr Drysdale would pull up to the mansion. So smooth, but…
…I’ll take me some Grant Green, with his harder, funkier edge. As in:
Don’t think I’ve ever seen any film of Horace Silver until now (thank you internet!)
1968, with Bill Hardman, trumpet; Bennie Maupin, tenor sax; Johnny Williams, bass; Billy Cobham, drums
More European TV Thelonius Monk
Kamasi Washington is touring this summer with Herbie Hancock
Changed the title to expand the scope. Stuff like Vulpeck gets lost in all the indie rock shoegaze emo stuff in the main new music thread.
Speaking of people associated with Vulfpeck:
New music from Shabaka and The Ancestors (The Ancestors are South African)
And another Shabaka Hutchins project:
Discovered another young UK jazz artist - Yazz Ahmed. British-Bahraini flugelhornist who describes her style as “psychedelic Arabic jazz”.
Here’s a nice, new ambient jazz release by Nala Sinephro. I get serious Blade Runner vibes from the extended final track…