"1959 The Year that Changed Jazz": Monday YouTube Fix

The third documentary for Documentary Month here at the Monday YouTube Fix is titled "1959 The Year that Changed Jazz".  It is a fascinating look at that seismic year in jazz history that featured the release of four legendary recordings:

Miles Davis "Kind of Blue"
Dave Brubeck "Time Out"
Charles Mingus "Ah Um"
Ornette Coleman "The Shape of Jazz to Come"

This film is filled with nuggets like the fact that Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" was recorded in just 7 hours and that all but one of the tracks was the very first take! This is a fantastic documentary on some of the most important music ever recorded.

Enjoy!

1959 was the seismic year jazz broke away from complex bebop music to new forms, allowing soloists unprecedented freedom to explore and express. It was also a pivotal year for America: the nation was finding its groove, enjoying undreamt-of freedom and wealth social, racial and upheavals were just around the corner and jazz was ahead of the curve.

The Most Marketable Commodity in the Music Business

"I always wanted to play something different than the way most trumpet players played." -Miles Davis

The single most marketable commodity in the music business is originality.

Sand Beach at Acadia National Park © 2014 Andrew Hitz

Monday YouTube Fix: Boston Brass and Imani Winds

This footage is from a concert with our dear friends the Imani Winds.  We're playing the Gil Evans/Miles Davis version of "It Ain't Necessarily So" arranged by our horn player, Chris Castellanos.  This version features our trumpet player, Jose Sibaja, doing his best Miles impersonation.  The entire original Porgy and Bess album is a master class on orchestrating.  Gershwin was a genious! I love the colors that Chris got out of this very cool instrumentation, which includes Dan Hostetler on the drums.

Enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4bauqWXa0I]

Playing Like Yourself

"Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself."

This might be my favorite Miles Davis quote ever.  Practicing is essential to both improving as a musician and mastering an instrument.  But sometimes we can all focus too much on the technical aspects of practicing and lose sight of our only true goal: finding our own voice.

Jamey Aebersold 'Historically Significant Recordings' Playlist on Spotify

I saw someone mention all of the resources available on the Midwest Clinic website today on Twitter.  This inspired me to go perusing through the handouts from the last several years and one that caught my eye was from Jamey Aebersold's 2008 session 'Anyone Can Improvise'.  Page 8 of his PDF is an exhaustive list of what he deems historically significant recordings.  The key to speaking any musical language is of course fully immersing yourself in it so I was curious to see how many were new to me. His list is filled with all of the usual suspects: Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, Wayne Shorter, Horace Silver, Wes Montgomery, Art Blakey, Chick Corea, Buddy Rich, Joe Henderson, Bill Evans.  The list goes on and on and on.

I own a number but some of the names were brand new to me.  I immediately opened up Spotify to see what I could find.  I was able to find 92 of the 103 albums on Jamey's list were available on Spotify.  Some of them were not completely available but I'd say 90% were the entire album!  It is 776 tracks and the length is listed as 3 days! I made a playlist for my own reference and figured it was a valuable tool for all players and teachers so I thought I'd post it here.

Jamey Aebersold's 'Historically Significant Recordings' Playlist on Spotify

'Anyone Can Improvise' Handout from Jamey Aebersold's 2008 Midwest Clinic by that name. (PDF)*

Enjoy!

*A full list of the albums is on page 8 of Jamey's handout.

For your reference, here is the list of albums from Jamey's list which are not currently available on Spotify:

John Coltrane - Mainstream 1958 Frank Rosolino - Free For All Stan Getz - For Musicians Only Lester Young - The President Play's with The Oscar Peterson Quartet Red Garland - Groovy Miles Davis - Steamin' Lee Konitz - Subconcious-Lee Milt Jackson - Bags Meets Wes Woody Herman - Keeper of the Flame Miles Davis - Miles Smiles Miles Davis - Nefertiti Johnny Griffin - Tough Tenor Favorites