Exploring vintage jazz vinyl with a focus on label and pressing details, discographical information and critical musings on the music found within the grooves.
For 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 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.
Read MoreMingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus was Charles Mingus' last major studio recording of the 1960s and it's a real treasure in the great jazz bassist's discography. The album features a large band of talented musicians in top form performing Mingus' notoriously complex compositions, many of which are reinterpretations of some of his earlier classic songs.
Read MoreOrnette Coleman's radical ideas about melody and pitch in jazz have been so thoroughly absorbed by the jazz establishment that his early musical explorations simply seem like a natural progression of where jazz was headed at the time, and where much of it is today. There is, of course, one glaring exception to this rule, an album by Coleman that even today defies categorization and eludes easy explanation: Free Jazz.
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