redrawblak

currently reading the rest is noise, alex ross (new yorker music critic). mostly about 20th century classical music, mahler/strauss to present. interesting book.

got me thinking about different ways/levels of knowing a particular composer or improviser’s music. i’ve listened to literally hundreds of records and/or tracks and/or shows at this point i would think (thousands?), but that certainly doesn’t mean that i know each and every individual piece of music i’ve heard, or at least not in the sense that i think most people would use that word. some i know only peripherally—say, some louis armstrong record i only listened to one time, or pretty much any of the braxton records i own. some i know fairly well, but i haven’t really internalized or picked apart. half of keith jarrett’s trio records are like that for me…i end up listening to them four or five times (“Standards in Norway”, for instance), and will pull out again from time to time, but generally i keep returning to the same albums repeatedly (“Vol. 1”, “Vol. 2”, “Still Live”, maybe). some are wedged in deep in my childhood/adolescent subconscious and i don’t want to let them out (i’m looking at you, soundgarden, alice in chains, green day). some, though, are my semi-conscious musical dna, the things i listen to over and over and over again, the things that pop up in my playing without my even realizing it (the way miles plays the melody in autumn leaves is the only way to play it [or hear it] to my ear). the records i’ve listened to more times than i can count, the melodies and harmonies and thoughts and approaches and voices that i’ve internalized on a conscious, theoretical, or any other kind of level. so what are these records? i thought of a few. this ain’t supposed to be some kind of ‘best of jazz’ list. this is just the stuff that i’ve found myself drawn to return to throughout all the stages of my life.

john coltrane ‘lush life’

matthew shipp ‘new orbit’

uri caine ‘blue wail’

keith jarrett ‘changes’, ‘changeless’

mark turner ‘in this world’

paul motian ‘on broadway, vol. 4’

stefon harris ‘a cloud of red dust’

wayne shorter ‘speak no evil’

keith jarrett ‘köln concert’, ‘sun bear concerts: osaka’

john coltrane ‘sun ship’, ‘coltrane’, ‘crescent’, ‘a love supreme’

joe lovano ‘trio fascination’

jan garbarek ‘twelve moons’

don byron ‘you are #6’

bobo stenson ‘serenity’

andrew hill ‘time lines’

keith jarrett ‘eyes of the heart’, ‘survivors suite’

mat maneri ‘sustain’

miles davis ‘bitches brew’ ‘in a silent way’

…that’s probably enough. i’d love to hear what other people might come up with.