[Monday’s Notes No. 100] Santa Claus Is Coming To Town is a Christmas piece from the 1930s. Its harmonic structure is typically jazzy in that it combines the beginning of the Rhythm Changes, a musical form widely used by jazz musicians, with a second part that is common to many songs of the time. To…Continue readingSanta Claus Is Coming To Town, a Christmas jazz piece
Tag: jazz
[Monday Notes no. 99] Sweet Georgia Brown is a song that dates back to 1925, when jazz was taking its first steps. The piece became a very popular jazz standard and Miles Davis used its harmonic progression in his song Dig. We hear a version by Sidney Bechet, a true master of 1920s jazz.Continue readingSidney Bechet, Sweet Georgia Brown. A jazz piece with very few chords
[Monday’s Note 98] I Remember Clifford was composed by Benny Golson as a tribute to Clifford Brown who died tragically in a car accident. However, the piece does not express despair, it is music inspired more by the memory of the friend than by the sorrow for his death.Continue readingI Remember Clifford, a theme by Benny Golson for his friend Clifford Brown
[Monday Notes no. 96] Booker Little in an interview declared: ‘the most important aspect of music is the emotional aspect’. You only need to listen to Man Of Words to realise that this was not a generic statement, but that Booker Little lived music in a truly intense and profound way.Continue readingBooker Little, Man Of Words. Improvisation in Aeolian mode
[Monday Notes no.95] An experienced musician once advised me: “if while improvising you come up with a phrase you have already used, don’t play it. Rather take a rest, and think of something different.” This is a very radical position for a jazz musician, yet there is one saxophonist who sometimes seems to think in…Continue readingArt Pepper, Lost Life. A jazz piece with a Hispanic tinge
[Monday Notes no. 94] Jackie McLean is one of the most original and modern alto saxophonists, perhaps the one who most continued Charlie Parker‘s experiments. Hip Strut is an excellent example of his unique position between tradition and innovation. It is in fact a classic blues progression, which Jackie McLean nevertheless transforms in his own…Continue readingJackie McLean, Hip Strut. A very unusual blues
[Monday Note No. 90] Acknowledgement is the first track on the album A Love Supreme, a suite in four movements in which John Coltrane describes his religious conversion. A spiritual path that is also an original and innovative musical journey.Continue readingJohn Coltrane, Acknowledgement. A Love Supreme, Jazz and spirituality
[Monday Notes no.88] Abbey Lincoln is an inimitable singer, not only because of the timbre of her voice but also for her special ability to sing powerfully and deeply, delivering the words sometimes with gravity and sometimes with sharp sarcasm. Her performance of Laugh Clown, Laugh is beautiful and moving.Continue readingAbbey Lincoln, Laugh Clown Laugh. From Opera to Jazz
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Boplicity, Gil Evans and cool jazz
[Monday’s Notes no. 29] It is rare in jazz for musicians to simply conduct without also being leading instrumentalists. Gil Evans is perhaps one of the most famous conductors, in the late 1940s he made a series of recordings published under the title Birth of the Cool, which created a sonic mixture never heard before.…Continue readingBoplicity, Gil Evans and cool jazz
[Monday Notes no. 21] Of all the possible nicknames for Frank Sinatra, The Voice is probably not the most appropriate. To be clear: his voice is warm and pleasant, but Frank’s greatness is not so much in his voice as in his ability to interpret songs as if he were singing them for the first…Continue readingFrank Sinatra, The Girl Next Door. The singer always tells a story.