Michael Ullman
Play or Die brilliantly showcases what Miles Davis heard in Tony Williams’ playing: variety of sound within a restricted framework.
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Even without the new takes, this Rhino reissue would be welcome: Mingus Three is to my mind one of the great trio albums.
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Live in Paris: The Radio France Recordings 1983-1984 is an example of solid, appealing late Chet Baker, doing what he did best with standards and the occasional original.
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The centenary of bassist/composer Charles Mingus’ birthday is days away and I am listening to the beautifully packaged and processed and richly annotated 3 lps of Mingus’s Lost Album, recorded live at Ronnie Scott’s London club in 1972.
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This cooperative music is deliberately international in instrumentation and personnel and theme, proffering its own characteristic, and often quite beautiful, mix of sounds.
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With their shifting textures and compositional variety, the relatively short pieces show the ways — in this case mostly gentle and lyrical — five musicians can fruitfully interact.
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Oscar Peterson always seemed at his best live, which is how we find the pianist in this beautifully recorded, newly issued set.
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To this listener, the quartet generates a drama of gradual enlightenment, as if extroversion signified some sort of illumination.
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“When you play with authority, then that’s what the music is about, like ooooh baby, and sing it.” — Cecil Taylor
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Soprano saxophonist Emile Parisien’s new disc is deliberately, and satisfyingly, international.
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Music Commentary: New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest versus French Quarter Fest