NoJoMo 20: In a Silent Way
Again with the short entry. Way too late, and in fact it is after midnight so technically I missed a day. But it is still the 20th elsewhere in the world, in fact most of you who will read this are still experiencing Saturday so it counts.
Nothing much even happened today. Cleaned a bit, fed the kids, shopped, went to a church bazaar (Hey, look at me, in a church!) where the point was basically to spend as much money as possible, for the church and all. Cool enough. Got to eat some pastries and such and the kids go to chorus there for free so whatever. Then it was sending Emma off to stay overnight with a friend, and tacos for dinner. Then an evening watching episodes of Modern Family. Holy crap, that is a funny show.
Better entry tomorrow, while I am watching football.
Videos!
One summer when we were back my brother burned me an entire 100 CD spindle of Jazz. He basically took all the biggest artists from bop and hard bop and experimental and gave me a copy of every essential disc, the five star AllMusicGuide.com albums. It was awesome, and a really good primer on what I needed to hear in order to experience Jazz. Here are three of my favorites.
I’ve always been partial to the trumpet over the saxophone which is why I love Lee Morgan, one of the greatest. He was a child prodigy who ended up murdered by his girlfriend at the age of 33. Lucky for us he left great songs like this one, The Sidewinder.
Miles Davis is of course a giant that looms over Jazz. Frankly, I think his early stuff, the cool jazz period is boring. Oh, he is good, just kinda boring. I really liked it when he started experimenting and my favorite is still In a Silent Way, the first album where he really starts to go electric. This is just the first piece of the first side of the album. Follow it to Youtube to hear the rest. It is totally worth it.
Art Blakey was a drummer who had his own band, The Jazz Messengers. This band was a breeding ground, much like the bands that Miles Davis put together, for major jazz musicians. On this recording (I could have found a live one but the sound on this is so good) is Lee Morgan (again!) and Wayne Shorter, doing a classic Dizzy Gillespie composition, Night in Tunisia.
Zaphod