Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis died on September 28, 1991, at the age of 65 from the combined effects of a stroke, pneumonia, and respiratory failure in Santa Monica, California. He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.
Davis helped found several of the major genres of modern jazz, including bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, and jazz fusion. His groups included many musicians who went on to greatness, including John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Wayne Shorter, Horace Silver, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, John McLaughlin, Paul Chambers, Ron Carter, Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones, and Jack DeJohnette. His album, Kind of Blue, is generally regarded as the best selling jazz album of all times and one of the most influential albums in jazz.
In his book, The 101 Best Jazz Albums, Len Lyons recommends seven albums by Miles Davis, more than any other artist. These include:
'Round About Midnight (Purchase the CD at Barnes & Noble.)
Jazz pianist Bud Powell (1924-1966) was born on September 27 in New York City. Powell was one of the great bebop musicians and is often known as "the Charlie Parker of the piano."
The great jazz pianist Bill Evans said of Powell, "If I had to choose one single musician for his artistic integrity, for the incomparable originality of his creation and the grandeur of his work, it would be Bud Powell. He was in a class by himself."
Powell's technique — the sharp, jabbing chords of the left hand and the rapid improvisations of the right hand — can be heard in "Tempus Fugit":
In his book, The 101 Best Jazz Albums, Len Lyons recommends The Amazing Bud Powell, Volume 1, which is available on CD from Amazon.com.
Jazz singer Betty Carter died on September 26, 1998, of pancreatic cancer at the age of 69. Carter was cremated, and the location of her ashes is unknown.
Fellow vocalist Carmen McRae once claimed that "there's really only one jazz singer - only one: Betty Carter."
Carter was especially known for her ability to capture the instrumental timbres in her voice. In fact, she insisted that the voice was as legitimate an instrument in jazz as any other. She was also fiercely independent and had her own Bet-Car label in the 1970s.
In his book, The 101 Best Jazz Albums, Len Lyons recommends the album Betty Carter (Bet-Car MK 1002). Jim Determan, who updated the Lyons list, also recommends The Audience with Betty Carter, which was not available when Lyons wrote his book.
Blues singer Bessie Smith died on September 26, 1937, at the age of 43, in Clarksdale, Mississippi, following an automobile accident.
Smith was known as the Empress of the Blues, but she was also the first major jazz singer and can be said to have used the blues in jazz. Her phrasing, in particular, allowed her to transcend the rigid framework of the blues.
In his book, The 101 Best Jazz Albums, Len Lyons recommends Bessie Smith's album, Nobody's Blues But Mine (Columbia CG 31093, 2 LPs). Unfortunately, the album is only available in vinyl. (There is a CD with the same title but without the same tracks.) Jim Determan, who updated the Lyons list, recommends instead the following:
Bessie Smith: The Essential Bessie Smith (Purchase at Barnes & Noble.)
Bessie Smith: Bessie Smith - The Collection (Purchase at Barnes & Noble.)
Bessie Smith: The Complete Recordings, Vol. 1 (Purchase at Barnes & Noble.)
Bessie Smith: The Complete Recordings, Vol. 2 (Purchase at Amazon.com.)
Bessie Smith: The Complete Recordings, Vol. 3 (Purchase at Barnes & Noble.)
Bessie Smith: The Complete Recordings, Vol. 4 (Purchase at Amazon.com.)
Bessie Smith: The Complete Recordings, Vol. 5 (Purchase at Amazon.com.)
An excellent example of Smith's singing is "Reckless Blues," which she sings with accompaniment by Louis Armstrong on the cornet and Fred Longshaw on the reed organ. The call and response between Smith and Armstrong is remarkable.
Art Tatum: At All About Jazz, C. Michael Bailey reviews the remastered Art Tatum album, Art Tatum: Solo Masterpieces, Volume One. (Purchase the album from Amazon.com.)
September 23 is the birthday of a real giant in the world of jazz, John Coltrane (1926-1967), who "challenged himself artistically to a greater extent than any saxophonist in jazz's history," according to Len Lyons.
In his book, The 101 Best Jazz Albums, Len Lyons recommends four albums by Coltrane, all of which are available in CD:
Coltrane plays "Giant Steps" (with animated sheet music) here, a good example of what critic Ira Gitler referred to as the "sheets of sound" that Coltrane produced.
George Benson: At All About Jazz, Belinda Ware discusses George Benson and, in particular, his latest album, Inspiration: A Tribute to Nat King Cole. (Purchase the album from Amazon.com.)
John Coltrane: According to JazzWax, WKCR will present its annual John Coltrane birthday broadcast on Monday, September 23.
Bassist Jaco Pastorius died on September 21, 1987, at the age of 35, at the Broward General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The cause of death was a massive brain hemmorhage caused by injuries he sustained in a scuffle with a night club bouncer. Pastorius was buried at Our Lady Queen of Heaven Cemetery in North Lauderdale.
Pastorius is best known for his work with Weather Report and is generally regarded as one of the most influential bass players of all time. He is one of only four bassists to be inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.
In his book, The 101 Best Jazz Albums, Len Lyons recommends Weather Report's album, 8:30. The album features Pastorius on cuts like "Black Market," "Teen Town," and "Slang." It is available from Amazon.com.
Pastorius plays "A Portrait of Tracy" from a Weather Report concert in Germany in 1978 here:
Yesterday, the DJ on the Sirius XM jazz station played three versions of "Over the Rainbow." I'm posting the three versions so that you can decide which one you prefer.
First, a couple of notes about the song itself, which was written by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Hardburg for the 1939 film, "The Wizard of Oz." The tune was sung in the film by Judy Garland, of course, and in 2004, the American Film Institute listed it as the greatest movie song of all time, beating out "As Time Goes By," "Singin' in the Rain," and "Moon River," among others. As Ted Gioia notes in his book, The Jazz Standards, however, the song was almost cut from the film, because studio head Louis B. Mayer felt that it slowed down the film and because he didn't like the fact that Garland sang it in a barn yard. Luckily, Arlen and others were able to convince Mayer to keep the song in the film.
The tune has long been a favorite of jazz musicians, and among the many versions are the three featured here.
First up is Art Tatum. Tatum made this 1939 recording just days after the debut of the film, and its interesting to listen to Tatum play what was for him a new song. As usual with Tatum, his virtuosic playing takes center stage. As Scott DeVeaux and Gary Giddins argue in their book, Jazz, "when it comes to Tatum, there is a temptation to call him a virtuoso and the retire the word." In his version of "Over the Rainbow," much of his virtuosic playing takes the form of incredible ascending and descending runs.
Second, we have Bud Powell. This version is from the 1951 recording, "The Amazing Bud Powell," and shows Powell mixing elements of stride with the same kind of runs that Tatum displayed. Powell is more willing than Tatum to change the song's tempo, going slow at some points and faster at others.
Third, we finish with Oscar Peterson, whose version is more romantic, more lyrical, more delicate, and less exploratory than those of Tatum and Powell. Interestingly, according to Len Lyons in his book, The 101 Best Jazz Albums, Peterson was intimidated by Art Tatum for a long time and would sometimes end his sets abruptly when he heard that Tatum had walked into the room. Tatum finally took Peterson aside and told him, "I don't care if you have to hate me when I walk into the room. I want you to play." That broke the spell.
"Over the Rainbow" is a marvelous song, and the three jazz giants featured here all provide beautiful and very individual versions.
Tatum's version can be found on "Standard Transcriptions: '35-'43," available at Amazon.com.
Powell's version can be found on "The Amazing Bud Powell, Volume 1," available at Amazon.com.
Peterson's version can be found on "Oscar Peterson for Lovers," available at Amazon.com.
Jazz singer and lyricist Jon Hendricks was born on September 16, 1921 in Newark, Ohio. He was a member of the trio Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross and is one of the originators of vocalese, a technique that adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs. The great jazz singer Al Jarreau called Hendricks "pound-for-pound the best jazz singer on the planet."
In his book, The 101 Best Jazz Albums, Len Lyons recommends the Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross album, The Best of Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross (Columbia C-32911 or JCS-8198). Unfortunately, the album is only available in vinyl. Jim Determan, who has updated Lyons's list of albums for CD, recommends instead the following title:
Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross: Everybody's Boppin' (Columbia Jazz Masterpieces) (Buy at Barnes & Noble)
A good example of vocalese is Hendricks's version of the Herbie Hancock piece, "Watermelon Man":
Dave Brubeck: Indiana Public Media's Night Lights features a piece entitled "Jazz Goes to College," which includes Dave Brubeck's album, Jazz at Oberlin. (Purchase the album from Amazon.com.)
Miles Davis: Miles Davis Online announces that nine of Miles Davis’s earliest albums on Columbia Records will be issued together on CD for the first time as Miles Davis: The Original Mono Recordings. (Purchase the album from Amazon.com.).
Miles Davis, George Russell: Open Culture shares videos of Miles Davis playing in April 1959 on CBS’s "Studio 61" program and George Russell explaining his theory of the Lydian chromatic scale.
Herbie Hancock: According to Jeff Tamarkin at JazzTimes, Herbie Hancock will receive a 2013 Kennedy Center Honor.
Sarah Vaughan: C. Michael Bailey reviews the album Sarah Vaughan: Sophisticated Lady - The Duke Ellington Songbook Collection, at All About Jazz. (Purchase the album from Amazon.com.)
Alto saxophonist Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley was born on September 15, 1928, in Tampa, Florida. Adderley is best known for his 1966 single "Mercy Mercy Mercy," which was a crossover hit on the pop charts, and for his work with trumpeter Miles Davis, including the iconic 1959 album, Kind of Blue.
Critic Scott Yanow says that Adderley "had an exuberant and happy sound that communicated immediately to listeners" and that his "intelligent presentation of his music (often explaining what he and his musicians were going to play) helped make him one of the most popular of all jazzmen."
In his book, The 101 Best Jazz Albums, Len Lyons recommends Cannonball Adderley's album Coast to Coast. Unfortunately, the album is only available in vinyl. Jim Determan, who has updated Lyons's list of albums for CD, recommends instead the following titles:
A good example of Adderley's hard bop style is "Autumn Leaves," from his 1958 album, Somethin' Else, which included Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Sam Jones, and Hank Jones:
Pianist Bill Evans died on September 15, 1980, in New York City of a bleeding ulcer, cirrhosis of the liver, and bronchial pneumonia. Evans's friend Gene Lees called Evans's struggle with drugs as "the longest suicide in history." He is buried at Roselawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum, Baton Rouge, East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana.
Critic Richard S. Ginell says of Evans that he is "an entire school unto himself for pianists and a singular mood unto himself for listeners. There is no more influential jazz-oriented pianist." He had an impressionistic sound and an introverted style that allowed him to expand the traditional jazz repertoire and introduce a more European, classical style of playing.
An excellent biography of Evans is Peter Pettinger's Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings. (Available from Barnes & Noble.)
Evans plays "My Foolish Heart" here:
In his book, The 101 Best Jazz Albums, Len Lyons recommends two albums by Evans, The Village Vanguard Sessions and Intuition. Both are available from Barnes & Noble: the remastered The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961 and Intuition.
Jazz keyboardist and composer Joe Zawinul died on September 11, 2007, in Vienna, Austria, at the age of 75. Zawinul was hospitalized in his native Vienna after concluding a five-week European tour and died from a rare form of skin cancer. He is buried in the Zentralfriedhof Cemetery in Vienna.
Critic Richard S. Ginell describes Zawinul as "a category unto himself — a European from the heartland of the classical music tradition (Vienna) who learned to swing as freely as any American jazzer, and whose appetite for growth and change remained insatiable."
Zawinul first played with Cannonball Adderley and Miles Davis before co-founding the groups Weather Report and the world fusion group Zawinul Syndicate. He was also a pioneer in the use of the electric piano and synthesizers in jazz and was named "Best Electric Keyboardist" 28 times by the readers of Down Beat magazine.
Weather Report plays "In a Silent Way," one of the more lyrical pieces from the 8:30 album, here:
In his book, The 101 Best Jazz Albums, Len Lyons recommends the Weather Report album, 8:30 (Columbia), which is available from Amazon.com.
Miles Davis: According to All About Jazz, nine of Miles Davis’s earliest albums on Columbia Records will be issued together on CD for the first time as Miles Davis: The Original Mono Recordings. (Purchase the album from Amazon.com.)
September 7 is the birthday of arguably the greatest living jazz saxophonist, Sonny Rollins, born in 1930 in New York City.
As critic Michael G. Nastos says, Rollins "will go down in history as not only the single most enduring tenor saxophonist of the bebop and hard bop era, but also the greatest contemporary jazz saxophonist of them all. His fluid and harmonically innovative ideas, effortless manner, and easily identifiable and accessible sound have influenced generations of performers, but have also fueled the notion that mainstream jazz music can be widely enjoyed, recognized, and proliferated." Rollins is also known for the energy and exuberance of his live concerts, a feeling that some critics have argued cannot be captured in studio recordings.
In his book, The 101 Best Jazz Albums, Len Lyons recommends Saxophone Colossus and More (Prestige P-24050, 2 LPs) and More from the Vanguard (Blue Note BN-LA475-H2, 2 LPs). The former is now available on CD — see below — but the latter is not. Jim Determan, who has updated the Lyons list for CD, also recommends the last four CDs in the list below.
Saxophone Colossus and More (Purchase from Barnes & Noble.)
John McLaughlin, Charles Mingus, Weather Report: According to JazzTimes, Legacy Recordings will release five new jazz titles in its “Essential” series, all being made available exclusively as digital downloads. The featured artists in the initial digital run include Charles Mingus, Weather Report, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra with John McLaughlin.
September 2 is the birthday of Horace Silver, whom Len Lyons referred to as one of the "founding fathers of funky hard bop." Jazz critic Chris Kelsey agrees, noting that "it is clear that few jazz musicians have had a greater impact on the contemporary mainstream than Horace Silver."
Silver was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, in 1928 and was influenced by the Cape Verdean folk music of his Portuguese-born father as well as gospel and Latin American music.
In his book, The 101 Best Jazz Albums, Len Lyons recommends Silver's album, Doin' the Thing: At the Village Gate (Blue Note), which can be purchased from Amazon.com.
Silver plays one of his best-known compositions, "Song for My Father," here:
