Exploring vintage jazz vinyl with a focus on label and pressing details, discographical information and critical musings on the music found within the grooves.
Genesis is a fantastic piece of spacey post bop jazz featuring a fiery piano-less quintet with a talented three horn frontline. The music is a gorgeous mix of the soulfulness of hard bop with the freer styles of the avant-garde, and Jones anchors the whole affair with the type of inventive playing on the skins that has made him a legend.
Read MoreWhile Fats Navarro didn't leave us a large body of work to appreciate, his true lasting legacy is the influence he had on the trumpeters that would come after him in the '50s and '60s. It would not be incorrect to say that as far as the jazz trumpet style and sound we know and love, all roads lead back to Fats Navarro. The double-LP Prime Source focuses on what is generally considered his finest period - the years 1947 to 1949 - when he worked with Tadd Dameron and Bud Powell, as well as in a group he co-led with his close friend and mentor Howard McGhee.
Read MoreBy the time Enlightenment was released in 1973, McCoy Tyner had already been all over the jazz scene in the 1960s, before making the move to Milestone records 1972. With Milestone he would release a string of outstanding records, the earliest of which (including Enlightenment) would play an important part in cementing his status as one of the giants of jazz piano.
Read MoreConference Of The Birds is rightly considered a masterpiece of avant-garde jazz, due in no short order to the giant talents of the musicians involved, and it remains an immensely pleasurable and listenable album to this day.
Read MoreOpus De Jazz is an "all-star" session from the 1950s that brought together a talented group of like-minded musicians who could lay down some outstanding hard bop. Milt Jackson is, as always, a delight to behold, but the real revelation here is the strong showing by Frank Wess.
Read MoreAt the time Taylor went into the studio with Quincy Jones to record jazz versions of songs from My Fair Lady, the 1956 musical was a monster hit on Broadway. The outsize talents of the Taylor trio and Jones are respectful of the originals while undoubtedly adding the flair of modern jazz to the proceedings.
Read MoreFor many years I figured Pre-Bird was a compilation of early recordings by Mingus, made in the years before he hit the big time on his own. Man, was I ever wrong on that one. The wonderful music on the album was recorded in 1960 and is every bit as fantastic as one would expect from Mingus during this period of his illustrious career.
Read MoreDespite countless hours enjoying the music of Miles Davis there has always been one period of his that has alluded me: his time spent with Gil Evans in the late 1950s. I haven't yet fully embraced that period, but when I chanced upon an original pressing of Miles Ahead I jumped at the opportunity to explore it further.
Read MoreArt Farmer's Something You Got is not a record that will make anyone's list of classic or must-have jazz LPs, but it is nonetheless an excellent example of a late 1970s jazz funk recording by a true jazz legend.
Read MoreA true all-star affair, The Blues And The Abstract Truth finds Oliver Nelson leading a group of legendary jazz musicians on a record that just about sums up the essence of the hard bop sound that had been building momentum since the mid-1950s.
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