Wednesday, January 09, 2008

A quick 2007 footnote on jazz, specific to emusic. First off, the David Murray Black Saint Quartert record "Sacred Ground" is outstanding, peak-period Murray with all of the amazing expressiveness, mood dynamics etc that he offers at his best. Derek, you may already have this (plus a few of the others listed below)....but a heads up for the rest of you.
Other recent favourites of mine, all available on emusic are:

(tenor sax) Grant Stewart's "In the Still of The Night"
(tenor sax) Jerry Bergonzi's "The Tenorist"
(pianist) Enrico Pieranunzi's "Ballads" (gorgeous, quiet player)
(trumpeter) Wallace Roney's "Jazz"

On a non-emusic note, the latest, highly-touted Herbie Hancock record "River - The Joni Letters" is indeed filled with beautiful musical moments, but for my taste suffers from some poor vocal performances (and poor choices) from pop/jazz singers, particularly Nora Jones, Tina Turner. I don't love the Leonard Cohen spoken piece either. The non-vocal tracks are quit sublime though, Wayne Shorter continues to amaze at 74.

I'll be bringing one or two of these to our next gathering, so don't y'all rush out and sample them this week.

(look at me...I posted!)

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