Verve is a record label that has been around for a while, so they have that going for them.  They have also been the leading jazz label for a long time as well.  Once you get past Jazz record labels like Blue Note, you run into a lot of stuff by Verve.

This collection has romantic music played by jazz greats like Charlie “Bird” Parker, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Carmen McRae, Stan Getz,  Chet Baker, Louis Armstrong and more.  Just how much romance can a jazz fan take?  Well, here would be you chance to find out.

On a personal note, I can vouch for the fact that jazz can truly set the mood for a romantic evening.  I have done it myself.  You just need to be careful that the cool jazz sounds of classic jazz don’t drift into stranger things like avant garde jazz, but finding the right radio station can really help.  Having a collection of CDs and music like Verve is selling here might help as well.

I am not getting paid by Verve and I am not even getting free CDs.  I cannot vouch or endorse the quality of these CDs or even the selection of the music.  I just found it interesting that so much music was being released at once.  It’s somewhat rare to see the market flooding quite like this, especially when it comes to jazz.

So, if you are planning those Valentine’s Day activities, you may want to browse the jazz collection and pick up a few CDs.  For me, Valentine’s Day was best summed up in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre…seven men lined up in front of a wall and shot in the back.

But this is a jazz blog…not a blog for my rants against holidays.

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Even I have to admit having an admiration for the man.  I am not the world’s biggest expert on Mr. Coltrane.  I am one of those folks who feel that his later works are just noise.  I am not a fan of Ornette Coleman either because, to me, avante garde jazz is just loud noise played without any construction or control.  It’s the kind of music that makes me think “I could do that” and any music that does that is hard for me to admire.

However, I have to admit admiring two albums of Mr. Coltrane.  These are important albums in the history of jazz, and key albums to have in your collection.  The first is the only one he ever did for the Blue Note label and is, appropriately enough, entitled “Blue Train.”  The next album is one he did of self-composed tunes called “Giant Steps” and the title track is still considered one of the most complex in the world of jazz music.

Coltrane is yet another musician who died too young.  He was only 40 when liver cancer took him.  At the time it was reported he was seeing a Hindu sort of faith-healer to cure his ailment instead of using Western medicine, but his wife has since repeatedly denied this.

Coltrane is another musician who played with very key and influential jazz musicians.  Once you find the two albums mentioned above, you may want to seek out the ones he did with Thelonius Monk and Miles Davis.  He also played with Dizzy for a time.

His influence is still felt today.  For some reason, Coltrane’s work seems to influence rock and roll artists more than just about any other jazz musician.  At the very least, it is considered very hip and cool to mention him as an influence if you are a popular rock or pop musician.

If you would like a more-detailed biography of Coltrane, click HERE and check out this well-written Wikipedia article about him.

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Not long ago I wrote about the man who called himself the “inventor of jazz” Jelly Roll Morton.  Well, there isn’t any video of him that I can find, but you can still listen to his music at YouTube.  Click right HERE and hear one of his classic compositions, performed in 1926. 

How about some footage, in black and white, of the great Thelonius Monk performing his classic piece “Blue Monk?’  Well, yeah, you can find that by clicking right HERE.

The only thing missing from that Monk piece is the names of his side men, which is something most jazz fans like to know.  It was once told to me that were you to buy all of Miles Davis’ CDs and then buy at least one album from each of his side men, you would have a truly solid and outstanding jazz collection.

Want to see what Earl “Fatha” Hines looked like?  How about hearing him play in Berlin in 1965?  Well, you can do that by clicking right HERE. 

By clicking HERE you can check out a performance of Julian “Cannonball” Adderly recorded in 1964 for BBC television.

OK, I think that should keep you satisfied for now.  Will I post more?  Probably, I will post more later this week.  I am just having too much fun not only finding these recordings, but watching them and listening to them. 

Is it possible for someone to reach the end of YouTube?  Probably not, but it will sure be fun to try.

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Well, I found it.  What was even more cool was the sheer amount of classic 1950s and 60s Miles Davis footage I was able to find.  For my money, this is the heyday of Miles and some of his best music.  Those of you who are “Bitches Brew” fans, I apologize for that, but it’s my opinion.

My favorite? Click HERE for some footage of Miles and John Coltrane doing the classic “So What.”

How about Miles Davis playing with Carlos Santana in 1986?  Click HERE and you can check that out.  It just shows you that Miles may have slowed down a tad in his later years, but that he could still hold a huge audience in the palm of his hand and play with power.

How about Miles Davis and his classic quintet that includes Herbie Hancock?  Yessir, they have footage of that too.  You can click HERE and check out the quintet doing another classic jazz standard, “Round Midnight.”

I could go on, and I probably will.  However, I do recommend you visit www.youtube.com and check out Miles Davis.  Just enter the name in the search engine and you can spend a good part of your day checking out some of the best jazz you are likely to see.

And if you don’t have the time, don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of time to waste looking for more classic jazz for you.

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The list of the “25 Must-Have Jazz CDs of All Time.”  It is on a website called “bkroll.com” and I am not sure who wrote it.  However, the author acknowledges right up front that the entire task of narrowing the list down to 25 is an impossible one.  At the same time, after reading his list, I have to say, I agree with a lot of it.

Of course, I agree with it first and foremost because it has  Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” featured prominently.  For me, that is the Rosetta Stone of jazz.  It was the CD that got me to understand the music as a true art form.  It was the one that made me stop and really listen and give the entire genre a chance.  If I had someone who expressed an interest in jazz, but wanted to know where to start, that would be the CD I would hand them.

You can click HERE to see the entire list.

I like how he starts off with a Louis Armstrong CD, which, as mentioned here, is a key player in the field of jazz.  All of the big names are on the list like Bill Evans and Count Basie and John Coltrane.  Anyone who would go out and buy all of these CDS would have a truly outstanding start on their classic jazz CD collection.

It also gives me some great suggestions of further classic jazz artists to feature here.  I intend to do that, but more in the new year than now before Christmas.

Enjoy and debate!

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Also known as the “vibes”  you may be asking, what the hell are they?  Well, it looks like a xylophone except that the bars you hit with the mallets are alluminum and the instrument has a sustain pedal.  The pedal behaves a lot like a pedal on a piano and adds seconds to the notes.  Vibes are used a lot in jazz and one of my all time favorite jazz musicians played them like no one else I have ever heard.

Lionel Hampton came into prominence during the big band era.  Initially he was a drummer when he was playing as a teenager in Chicago.  Eventually he moved on to the vibes, grew in talent and ability and ended up playing for Benny Goodman in one of the first intergrated bands around at that time.  Lionel had a way of working with some of the greats in jazz and music in general.  Buddy Rich, Louis Armstrong, Quincy Jones and others all had dealings with Hampton.

He formed his own orchestra in the 1940s and that’s when he recorded the tune that he is best known for.  The tune is called “Flying Home” and if you download no other jazz tune from reading this blog, I urge you to download and listen to some version, performed by Hampton, of this tune.  There has rarely been a tune that sounds like it is played with such joy and rarely one that will leave you wanting to dance, tap your toes, or pound on a table along with it.

The best versions, I feel, are the live recordings of it and like most of the jazz greats there are a lot of live recordings to choose from.  Just about everyone that I have heard has been very good.

Hampton himself had some problems, like many jazz musicians, when the 1960s and 70s came around.  He kept playing though, and never lost a recording contract.  He also nurtured young talent, kept forming bands and orchestras and never stopped recording new albums. 

In 1984 the University of Idaho named their annual jazz festival the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival.  In 1987 the university renamed its school of music after Lionel.

Hampton was still playing and touring the planet when he suffered a stroke and collapsed on stage in 1991.  Even then he stilled kept active and he played his final live performance in 2001, mere months before he passed away.

So, please, add another name to the list of great jazz musicians.  Give Lionel Hampton a try.  You can do a Google search for him and find some of his collections of music and live recordings.  At the very least, you need to listen to “Flying Home.”

You won’t be sorry.

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Of course, Chip and other purists will be quick to point out there are a lot more than two types of jazz.  I know that.  There’s Latin jazz and other forms of jazz from around the world.  New Orleans jazz is just a little different than Chicago jazz and on and on it goes.

For me, the two types of jazz are classic jazz and the new Smooth Jazz that you hear on most commercial jazz radio stations like WNUA.

I am a fan of classic jazz.  For me, this includes all of the forms of jazz I mentioned before in that list of jazz genres.  Any jazz that has horns and sounds like something you would hear from Gillespie, Davis or Parker is classic jazz as far as I am concerned.

WNUA plays mostly Smooth Jazz.  For me, there is nothing very musical or enjoyable about this type of music.  It is bland.  It is electronic.  It lacks all of the soul and passion of a Miles Davis riff or a Charles Mingus’ “Haitian Fight Song.”  It sounds, to me, like the kind of stuff that plays in the background while the dentist grinds your teeth or the stuff that plays in the background, slowly melting your brain, while you read old and outdated magazines in your doctor’s office.

Still, even I have drifted.  My own CD and music collection, in addition to the Miles Davis and John Coltrane, also has Tom Scott, David Sandborn and a group called Flim and the BBs.  So, even I can slip up.

I am not embarassed by that, though.  I celebrate the fact that this country and this genre is so diverse that it makes room for Wynton Marsalis and Kenny G.  I prefer to listen to Wynton, but if Kenny manages to crank out a good tune (it has yet to happen, as far as I know) I would give it a listen and maybe even download it.

So, for those of you wanting to listen to cool jazz sounds in Chicago, you can listen to two radio stations online.  The first is WDCB and the second is WNUA.  If you Google them you’ll find how to listen to them online.

Celebrate diversity.

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I realized that when I was talking about some of the great classic jazz albums that I have loved, how many of them are on Blue Note.  That Cannonball Adderly album “Somethin’ Else” is a Blue Note release.  All of the greats of the jazz era recorded with Blue Note at one time or another.

Blue Note was known for “hard bop” as their mainstay.  They also were the voice of some of the avante gard jazz, like Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman.  Neither of those two were ever my cup of tea, but I know people who do like them.

Blue Note started to lose sales during the 70s when jazz itself seemed to fall on hard times.  Heck,with the coming of disco, it seems like all of music fell on hard times there.  Still, it was eventuall bought by a larger label and came back in the 80s to do reissues.  Eventually, it started to sign and release new artists.  Nora Jones’ first album was a Blue Note release.

I strongly recomend that if you have the means, find a record player and listen to some of those classic jazz albums on vinyl.  I am glad I had the chance at the radio station I worked at in college.  I know some of you digital audiophiles will blanch at that idea, but many of the jazz recording artists knew the medium they were recording in.  Therefore, their sound was geared to be listened to on vinyl.  There is a warmth to those records that you can’t get with the harsh digital media.

So, find a good needle, learn how to cue up a record, listen and enjoy. 

If you want to start a classic jazz collection, one of your first stops needs to be the Blue Note website and record label.  It really was the label of choice during jazz’s greatest moments.

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