Best track you heard all week

[paul secor]

Thelonious Monk Quartet: Blue Bolivar Blues (take 2) from Monk's Dream

Monk and company wailing like a swinging r&b band!

Edited August 26, 2009 by paul secor

[Dan Gould]

I'll go with a surprising one this week:

"Please Come to Boston" by Dave Loggins

This is from Wolfgang's Concert Vault and captures the successful songwriter (who knew Kurt Cobain called him an influence? Certainly not me) on the cusp of when his big hit was starting to rise up the charts (the fact that the song was #2 in the setlist and doesn't really get much of a response from the audience shows this). What can I say? A blast from my past, a seventies hit that stands up to the passage of time, and its cool to hear the tune as it was written, guitar + vocals and no studio sweetening.

[Big Al]

All 17 minutes of Lionel Hampton & crew roaring through "Flying Home" on the Lionel Hampton Quintet VME. I've GOT to get that box!

[Peter Friedman]

Clifford Jordan - Summer Serenade

from Live At Ethyl's

[Matthew]

I've been grooving to this version of

for about two weeks now.

[WorldB3]

Jazz:

Seriously Deep - Eberhard Weber, Silent Feet

On the rock side:

Essence - Lucinda Williams.

[save0904]

Declaration - Donny McCaslin (Declaration)

[ghost of miles]

David Bowie, "Queen Bitch." They used it in MILK, which my wife & I watched the other night--man, hadn't heard that song in years! Still love it.

[JohnS]

Art Blakey; The New Message. Columbia (with Ira Sullivan, nice tenor and trumpet chase)

[paul secor]

Big Youth: "Honesty" from Screaming Target

Maybe not the "best" track - I've listened to a lot of good music this week - but one that caught my attention like it hadn't before.

[WorldB3]

Big Youth: "Honesty" from Screaming Target

Maybe not the "best" track - I've listened to a lot of good music this week - but one that caught my attention like it hadn't before.

Thats a great tune, when I am in the mood for it I love Big Youth.

Track that stood out for me this week was:

Sea Song - Bill Connors - Theme to the Guardian

Gorgeous acoustic guitar record.

Edited September 11, 2009 by WorldB3

[paul secor]

Roscoe Mitchell: "Full Frontal Saxophone" from Sound Songs (Delmark)

A monster solo performance.

[AllenLowe]

For John Coltrane -

by Albert Ayler (AA in Greenwhich Village) -

[jeffcrom]

For John Coltrane -

by Albert Ayler (AA in Greenwhich Village) -

One of my favorites.

The track that is getting to me right now gets to me every time I play it - the 1940 RCA recording of "Midnight Special" by Leadbelly and the Golden Gate Quartet. This can be such a silly, throwaway song if it's not done well, but this version has the perfect feel and tempo. It's especially touching if you know the story behind it - the Midnight Special ran on the Southern Pacific tracks near the prison at Sugarland, Texas, and the inmates believed that if you were lucky enough to have the train's headlight shine on you, you would soon go free.

[jazztrain]

Jeff:

Ironically, I just read something about the Leadbelly/Golden Gate Quartet session last night in the recent "Worlds of Sound: The Story of Smithsonian Folkways" (Richard Carlin). His take on the session, as I recall, is that the GGQ was too "uptown" or sophisticated for Leadbelly and that they really weren't compatible. That struck me as a bit odd, and I made a note to go back and revisit the session.

For John Coltrane -

by Albert Ayler (AA in Greenwhich Village) -

One of my favorites.

The track that is getting to me right now gets to me every time I play it - the 1940 RCA recording of "Midnight Special" by Leadbelly and the Golden Gate Quartet. This can be such a silly, throwaway song if it's not done well, but this version has the perfect feel and tempo. It's especially touching if you know the story behind it - the Midnight Special ran on the Southern Pacific tracks near the prison at Sugarland, Texas, and the inmates believed that if you were lucky enough to have the train's headlight shine on you, you would soon go free.

[jazztrain]

I've been listening to music from the entire Ella Fitzgerald song box CD box on my Ipod while driving to and from work the last few weeks and finally finished. Two items stand out as particularly moving:

- "I Didn't Know About You" (from Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook, Vol. 1), and

- "I Remember You" (from Ella Fitzgerald Sings Johnny Mercer Songbook)

[jeffcrom]

Jeff:

Ironically, I just read something about the Leadbelly/Golden Gate Quartet session last night in the recent "Worlds of Sound: The Story of Smithsonian Folkways" (Richard Carlin). His take on the session, as I recall, is that the GGQ was too "uptown" or sophisticated for Leadbelly and that they really weren't compatible. That struck me as a bit odd, and I made a note to go back and revisit the session.

Let me know what you think, but I totally disagree. As a matter of fact, this is my favorite Golden Gate on record, because they are more raw and less slick than usual on these sessions.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

"Come rain or come shine" by Betty Roche, from "Singin' and swingin'" (OJC)

The whole song is a duet between Betty and Jimmy Forrest, with the very quietest support from Jack McDuff & co. One of the loveliest bits of tenor playing behind a singer I've ever heard. I have had the LP for years and years but it's never hit me before like this time.

MG

[WorldB3]

Boogie Woogie Waltz -Weather Report - Sweetnighter

been one of those weeks, needed the groove to calm me down.

[Royal Oak]

"Grooveyard" from Harold Land's "Harold In The Land Of Jazz".

There's a riff towards the end of Carl Perkins's solo which drove me mad for days; couldn't help thinking I'd heard it somewhere. After a while, it occured to me that it sounds a lot like part of "Sighin' and Cryin'" off "Song For My Father". I wonder if Horace meant it that way?

[paul secor]

Von Freeman: "This Is Always" from The Great Divide (Premonition)

[WorldB3]

Moving Finger - Dorothy Ashby - The Rubaiyat of Dorothy Ashby.

Funky beats and phat vibes, strings, killer jazz harp solo's and fuzz guitar!! I love this!

With all the hipsters, dj's and hip hoppers in the bay area its so hard to find old Richard Evan's produced Cadet stuff on vinyl, this was a major score.

[king ubu]

a recent favourite is "Caravan" from Van Morrison's album "Moondance"

[WorldB3]

Round Midnight - Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants.

Been obsessed with this and Bag's Groove all week.

[ejp626]

Well, this is more of an earwig song, but it certainly has got me. I've got Lexxus & Benz by Macka Diamond running through my head. Part of it is the weird juxtaposition of harmonica overlaying dancehall rhythms. Part of it is probably just really listening closely to it in a failed effort to untangle all the lyrics. I suspect that if I can get ahold of the lyrics, it's hold over me will be broken. If that doesn't work, I'll listen to TMBG's Here Comes Science, which is insanely catchy.