Art Taylor - Taylor's Wailers

You might have heard of Art Taylor or maybe you have not. If you had then you probably heard him on a bunch of Coltrane records or perhaps somewhere else. He did a lot of drumming in his days with a lot of important people on a lot of great records. After all those features and groups you kinda get the will to do something on your own. So you invite a bunch of friends to a studio and you jam. But there's no stress because it's a friendly and known environment where you and your friends just sit back and have fun with some tunes.

That's basically what this album is. It's a meeting of good friends who all play their instruments masterfully. It was his debut album in 1956 but he didn't release a lot of albums under his own name so to have the opportunity to hear where he's in charge is great.

If you're into some nice jazz jamming be sure to get this hidden (or is it?) gem. Oh and Coltrane only plays on track two in case you're getting this just because it says Coltrane on the cover.

New one.

Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder

Lee Morgan was an amazing trumpet player who started his professional career at a very young age in the Art Blakey's Messengers organization. He was sort of a child prodigy. Sadly he was murdered by his wife in a very movie-like scene. Fortunately for us he left a lot of albums for us to look back on him and admire his talents.

Even though Blakey encouraged other members to write their original tunes for the band Lee never really tried any serious composing until this album. Sidewinder is probably his most critically well received album and it consists of solely his of own compositions. He hand picked his band mates for this album and he mostly chose people who already played with him so you have here a very tight and precise group of players. The songs themselves are all very catchy in a hard bop way. Lots of blues influence and a lot of rhythm with not that much dissonant solos and squeaking. Very easy to listen and follow it along. This never gets boring to me.

In glorious flac:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Moanin'

When bebop was king and when Charlie Parker along with his many copycats scoured the land during the 50s people began to forget what it was all about. Jazz evolved into a more intellectual and more demanding musical direction. It almost completely left behind its previous sound of pop music but it also started to forget its roots. Then came along Art Blakey with some other marvelous people and told everyone to calm the fuck down and remember the old blues days. This is pretty much (highly caricatured of course) how hard bop started. Instead of focusing solely on raging solos and all dem harmonies it focused on the melody and the blues feel of jazz. Moanin' is a seminal, and also great, album to explain just what hard bop was and is about. It was new and it was innovative but it also showed respect to the previous sounds of jazz fusing it with the new sound that Charlie Parker popularized. It's sort of a middle ground. And it rips shit up. :D It was also the first album that Blakey did for Blue Note.

Download.

What it was all about.