What kinds of music do you listen to?

**Hombre de Maiz** · 12-09-12, 08:09

I seem to find myself stuck or repeatedly going back to the late 1950s to early 1970s period for a range of genres.

**john madden** · 12-09-12, 08:16

Originally Posted by Hombre de Maiz

I seem to find myself stuck or repeatedly going back to the late 1950s--early 1970s period for a range of genres.

The difficulty with nostalgia, Hombre, is that it's not what it used to be.

**Hombre de Maiz** · 13-09-12, 10:13

It's not nostalgia. It's the quality of the music and the musicians for I had not even been born when most of that music was made. That period saw the emergence and apex of, for example, soul, funk, R&B, jazz, Afro-Cuban, salsa, Rock, etc. It was just a tremendously fertile period. It was also one in which expensive and slick studio jobs did not seek to make up for a lack of talent and virtuosity. I am often stunned how some records like Miles Davis Kind of Blue and Coltrane's Blue Train were recorded in a matter of days.

Here's an example, Coltrane's rendition of I'm Old Fashioned. That kid blowing on the trupet starting at 6:00, Lee Morgan, was only 19 years of age at the time! All acoustic and no vocals. These are the timeless "un-plugged" sessions, not those Johnny-come-latelys like Clapton and Bon Jovi.

**Hombre de Maiz** · 13-09-12, 10:37

Here's the kid once again, one year later at age 20, with Art Blakey's Jazz Messangers. He's on the first solo. The kid is blowing so hard (or Rudy van Gelder sleeping at the console) that you can hear some compression on the harder blows. Fantastic stuff.

It really does pay to get yourself good rips of the Rudy van Gelder remastered CDs of these Blue Note sessions. Music of this type is also a good antidote to the almost overbearing extent to which the electric guitar plays in popular music.

**bad_azz** · 13-09-12, 11:53

@John... re nostalgia;
Rolling Stones, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday<<< a few amongst the many... timeless in my opinion.

**Hombre de Maiz** · 15-09-12, 10:38

I mean, check out this modal piece by McCoy Tyner from 1967. Sick, absolutely sick...

**redsnapr** · 15-09-12, 21:40

Now that we're in the mood, let's include master Dave Brubeck's classic.

Dave Brubeck - Take Five - YouTube

**Hombre de Maiz** · 16-09-12, 12:03

Nice alto sax work on that piece.

Very pretty song by Brubeck, La Paloma Azul, again with fantastic alto sax work...

**Hombre de Maiz** · 18-09-12, 08:59

Originally Posted by lone_ranger

For better or for worse, RVG's influence on the sound of recorded jazz is enormous. I don't have a lot of RVG remastered recordings, but some of the ones I have from Blue Note (Monk, Rollins) I rate very highly, sound-wise that is. Some say there's too much warmth, however, and gives you that typically recessed mid frequency range for instruments such as piano. Even musicians like Mingus refused to work with him.

I picked up about 15 RVG Blue Note remasters from the 1960s a couple of months ago when I went home. Very good sound quality, particularly when one keeps in mind the age of these recordings. It's incredible that this one person was there for all of those landmark jazz recordings.