Michael Ullman
Play or Die brilliantly showcases what Miles Davis heard in Tony Williams’ playing: variety of sound within a restricted framework.
Even without the new takes, this Rhino reissue would be welcome: Mingus Three is to my mind one of the great trio albums.
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.
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.
This cooperative music is deliberately international in instrumentation and personnel and theme, proffering its own characteristic, and often quite beautiful, mix of sounds.
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.
Oscar Peterson always seemed at his best live, which is how we find the pianist in this beautifully recorded, newly issued set.
To this listener, the quartet generates a drama of gradual enlightenment, as if extroversion signified some sort of illumination.
“When you play with authority, then that’s what the music is about, like ooooh baby, and sing it.” — Cecil Taylor
Soprano saxophonist Emile Parisien’s new disc is deliberately, and satisfyingly, international.
Classical Music Commentary: Boston’s Lost Opportunity — How the BSO Board Chose Charles Munch over Leonard Bernstein