gdogus

Duke Ellington & John Coltrane (with Elvin Jones, Aaron Bell, Jimmy Garrison, Sam Woodyard) - Impulse! 1963.

Miles Davis - The Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel 1965 Right now, it's December 22 - second set

Alice Coltrane - Ptah the El Daoud (Impulse! 1970) - featuring Pharaoh Sanders and Joe Henderson

Joshua Redman Quartet, MoodSwing (1994) - with Brad Meldau, Christian McBride, and Brian Blade.

Wayne Shorter, Night Dreamer (Blue Note,1964) - with Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman, Elvin Jones. Always wondered why Tyner was relegated to "etc." on the front cover...

Kenny Burrell with the Brother Jack McDuff Quartet - Crash! (Prestige, 1963) Seeing if we can make this an "all-Kennys" page... ;-)

Just finishing Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, which I'm re-reading after 35 years or so in this great translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky. Much different than I remember.

Sorry to hear it, but a great long career - not least of mentoring wonderful musicians.

Wow. 1972, baby! I am listening as I write.... Such an intriguing line up of horns, and as it turns out, a very eager,varied, roiling percussion landscape from Keno Duke. The "Reasons in Tonality" track is fantastic - searching, probing, brimming with ideas. The live setting gives this an off-hand, impromptu sound scape overall. It all evolves, of course, but the horns push and halt, bubble, stop, and pulse with intensity. Mabern's piano is by turns bluesy and starkly staccato, at points reminding me of McCoy Tyner. Now searching out the second side of the original album, consisting of Keno Duke's composition "3-M.B."

Hardly "obsessive," but Trane and I are birthday buddies, so I just spent the weekend re-communing with his music (along with some Springsteen and Ray Charles on the side - also 9/23 dudes). Listened to a range: Some first Miles Quintet - Relaxin' and Cookin' Miles again, Kind of Blue Coltrane, Plays the Blues Coltrane, Africa Brass Coltrane, Meditations Coltrane, Ascension I found myself absorbed in it all, but I was surprised by how much I was enthralled by the later albums I spun - Meditations and Ascension. I've listened to them and admired them a number of times off and on, but somehow they just now clicked for me in a different and more complete way. Time now to revisit some later, stellar spaces, perhaps.

Thanks, everyone, for all the wishes over the years! Hope to be around more often in the days to come!

Not to bring up the subject yet again, but Somewhere has far less of Keith's "vocalizations" than most of the trio's recordings. It's a terrific and inventive single-disc set on all fronts, but it does warrant that distinction. I love this trio, but that .. um... "feature" of the group has been a consistent problem for me. Largely removed here, i'm glad to say.

Miles Davis - The Complete In a Silent Way Sessions

Just downloaded the IASW sessions from Amazon. I hadn't gotten around to this box yet - thanks for the tip!

To start, I'd advise Barshai/WDR for the complete symphonies (on Brilliant Records), and Fitzwilliam Quartet for the complete string quartets (London label, I think?). Both of these sets are cheap; sound is great and performances are great, though as with all "complete" sets, there are better individual performances/recordings of certain symphonies/quartets out there. These are excellent reference sets, though, and as others have said, you can explore other recordings of individual works from here quite nicely. Have fun!