MetaFilter posts tagged with saxophone and jazz

A relentless curiosity and desire to move beyond

flapjax at midnite — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 01:28:30 -0800

The World According to John Coltrane is a one-hour documentary, featuring lots of music footage and interviews with prominent jazz musicians such as Wayne Shorter, Tommy Flanagan and many others. It's an excellent primer on the enormously influential saxophonist's life and music.

The legendary giant of free jazz

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 08:42:32 -0800

My Name Is Albert Ayler.

Eric Dolphy

Trurl — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 21:56:34 -0800

Eric Dolphy [auto-music] was a true original with his own distinctive styles on alto, flute, and bass clarinet. His music fell into the "avant-garde" category yet he did not discard chordal improvisation altogether (although the relationship of his notes to the chords was often pretty abstract). While most of the other "free jazz" players sounded very serious in their playing, Dolphy's solos often came across as ecstatic and exuberant. His improvisations utilized very wide intervals, a variety of nonmusical speechlike sounds, and its own logic. Although the alto was his main axe, Dolphy was the first flutist to move beyond bop (influencing James Newton) and he largely introduced the bass clarinet to jazz as a solo instrument. He was also one of the first (after Coleman Hawkins) to record unaccompanied horn solos, preceding Anthony Braxton by five years. - AllMusic (previously: 1, 2)

Dean Benedetti

Trurl — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:00:11 -0800

On Saturday, March 1, 1947, at the Hi-De-Ho nightclub in Los Angeles, in a booth near the bandstand, Dean Benedetti switched on a Wells-Gardner disc cutter - starting what would become the most legendary jazz recordings in history. (400 KB PDF) I expected that the recordings would not live up to my image of them. After all — even during the years when I “forgot” about them — there was the image of that sound catalog of amazing Charlie Parker solos night after night. But it did live up to the image, and in some ways it surpassed that image. There were those wonderful solos, unburdened by heads or other people’s lesser improvisations. They stood quite well in isolation, typically revealing the vehicle theme (by implication) and other “essentials” that really were not necessary, as Parker demonstrated. But there was more. There were some outstanding complete sets of music and an unexpected bonus of “bad” Parker. It was good to learn that Charlie Parker was human after all. The recordings demonstrated that, given enough drugs (or perhaps withholding them), Charlie Parker could sound downright mortal. I consider that set of recordings to be truly a treasure.

Ornette Coleman's "The Shape of Jazz to Come"

Trurl — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 20:31:36 -0800

"Ornette in '59" - a BBC documentary segment about Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come. "Lonely Woman"

Lester Young Centennial

ism — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:26:14 -0800

Lester Young (Aug. 27, 1909–March 15, 1959) is given not just a memorial, but extensive musicological criticism and contextual information in this ten-chapter series by jazz pianist and blogger Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus. Solo transcriptions and analyses, interviews with Lee Konitz, Tootie and Jimmy Heath, Benny Golson, an essay on Young's influence on Miles Davis, a discographic primer and more. (Previously.) For more of Iverson's top-notch jazz blogging, here's Do the Math's table of contents. A lot of this deserves to be published outside of the blogosphere.

Lester Young (1909-1959)

Joe Beese — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:58:48 -0800

50 years ago today, we said goodbye to Pork Pie Hat. One of the saddest lives in jazz was the inspiration for Geoff Dyer's But Beautiful - which Keith Jarrett praised as "the only book about jazz that I have recommended to my friends. It is a little gem". You can read an excerpt here. [On the left side of the screen, click the "Excerpt link.]

Frank Morgan disappears

nicolin — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 05:46:20 -0800

Frank Morgan died yesterday. He was 73. Interview. Some sounds. (another beautiful american saxophone stylist).

Some saxophonists.

flapjax at midnite — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 07:06:56 -0800

Here's a chance to acquaint (or reacquaint) yourself with the music of some of the great saxophonists who've made their mark in American improvised music. The following MySpace Music pages feature audio, video, photos and text aplenty, to get your jazz mojo working. In no particular order: Lester Young, Hank Mobley, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Don Byas, Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayler, Charlie Parker, Joe Henderson, Earl Bostic, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Johnny Hodges, Wayne Shorter, Sonny Stitt, Benny Carter, Sidney Bechet and David Murray.

RIP, Saxophonist Michael Brecker

milnak — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 17:10:34 -0800

Michael Brecker has passed away Arguably, one of the most influential saxophonists of all time, he has lost his fight against myelodysplastic syndrome. Truly a major loss for the jazz and rock worlds.

"He suggests living is language".

matteo — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 13:01:18 -0800

The Language of Saxophones At 55, L.A. musician and poet Kamau Daáood is finally beginning to acknowledge the possibility of his own place in local letters with his debut book of poetry, The Language of Saxophones, a 30-plus-year retrospective published by City Lights. Though he’s recorded a solo CD and read nationally and internationally, Daáood had never seen fit to collect his material in a book. Until now. “I never liked the idea of poetry sitting on a shelf somewhere, lost in all those book spines”.