Dear Nathaniel,
Hello my angel. We're really starting to look forward to moving to Norway, it's still scary of course but it feels like this is something we need to do before we start really recovering. I'm just glad I can do this for you, even if it's very little. I'm sorry I'm a bit over midnight but we've been a bit busy and I wasn't able to find the time during the day where I could be listening to music.
We're maybe thinking of building a house if everything lines up nicely, but we're not entirely sure. In the end it's turning out to be very difficult to get a foothold in Norway, because once we're there it should be a lot easier to be able to sort things out. But obviously the big problem right now is taking that first step into Norway and getting somewhere to live temporarily, but that's proving difficult too.
In the end even if we're renting it's far better than living here in terms of money we'll be making but it would be much better if that money was spent on paying off a mortgage rather than renting. For the first few years we'd still technically be throwing half the money down the drain because of interest repayments but that's better than all of it of course and it decreases as time goes on. And of course if our situation ever changes we'd be able to pay off the mortgage even faster hopefully.
I had always wanted to teach you fiscal responsibility when I felt you were ready but I suppose that would have been a long time from now. Continuing where we left off yesterday today we're listening to the second album of Genesis' brilliant trilogy Foxtrot. This album shows a further growth in the band and is topped off by one of the greatest progressive rock tracks of all time Supper's Ready, a 23 minute epic, I'll not spoil it for when we get to it my angel, just be assured it really does live up to whatever hype it's given.
I'm not sure what first drew me to Genesis, or at least these three albums. But I think I had heard Selling England By the Pound when I was quite young because when I re-heard the album it all felt incredibly familiar to me and I immediately liked it. Genesis often have a very soft touch which makes them easy to get into since there's not much to turn the average listener away, the same can't be said for the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway which I just can't stand, much like Pink Floyd's The Wall.
Don't get me wrong I love extravagance as much as the next prog rock fan, if I didn't I wouldn't be saying how awesome Supper's Ready is. But there's a certain point where it just gets silly like with the Wall, Lamb or everything by Emerson, Lake and Palmer. At one point too much ambition just makes the music unlistenable and I can't even admire what they tried to do because it just sounds so awful.
I love you my angel. I hope you enjoyed Supper's Ready, it really is a great piece of music. Certain epics just make a day feel a lot brighter. This I believe will be the fourth such epic over 20 minutes we've listened to with the other three being Lizard by King Crimson, Caravan's Nine Feet Underground and of course Thick as a Brick. Goodnight Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Sunday, 23 October 2011
Saturday, 22 October 2011
Day 45: Genesis - Nursery Cryme
Dear Nathaniel,
Hello my angel, I love you. Was up very late last night after driving to pick up some friends and driving them home. Probably wouldn't have gone to bed early anyways but I'm feeling very sick so I ended up getting up a lot later. It's hard to get to sleep but it's even harder to get up. I just get up and look forward to playing some music to you.
Tonight I decided we're going to do a trilogy of albums, the best three albums of Genesis. We'll be listening to Nursery Cryme tonight and then Foxtrot and Selling England By The Pound the next two nights. These three albums were created under the direction of visionary band leader Peter Gabriel who led the band until after the abomination that was The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. But before his ideas got too far ahead of him these albums are absolute masterpieces.
Genesis of course went on top replace Peter Gabriel with their drummer Phil Collins have made dreadful music ever since. But for three years in the 70's Genesis were one of the greatest bands making progressive rock. It's a huge shame that their main popularity came from their pop albums of the 80's which have caused a lot of people to merely shudder at their name and not appreciate the greatness that they once had.
The great thing about the progressive rock movement was that there wasn't one specific sound, the whole point of prog was to experiment and create new types of music and it leads to a great collection of eclectic bands under the same banner. Genesis have an absolutely amazing and very accessible sound to them during this era with an interesting mix between organ, piano and guitar. Genesis remind me a bit of Gentle Giant in their members being multi-instrumentalists, not to the same extent as Gentle Giant of course but it gives the same type of feel to their recordings that feature a lot of different instruments.
Peter Gabriel himself went on to create a variety of interesting albums after his departure from Genesis which we can explore at a later time, but a lot of his Genesis brilliance is apparent in these later recordings, even if they come in a very different style.
I hope you enjoyed the prog stylings of Genesis my angel, and I hope you're ready for more tomorrow with Foxtrot and then Selling England By the Pound. I've figured that bands that release a range of quite similar material can be appreciated better if we focus on them for awhile, or at least through their classic albums. After this I'm not sure if we should ease into fusion or just keep up the study of certain bands and albums, we'll see how I feel. Goodnight my angel Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Hello my angel, I love you. Was up very late last night after driving to pick up some friends and driving them home. Probably wouldn't have gone to bed early anyways but I'm feeling very sick so I ended up getting up a lot later. It's hard to get to sleep but it's even harder to get up. I just get up and look forward to playing some music to you.
Tonight I decided we're going to do a trilogy of albums, the best three albums of Genesis. We'll be listening to Nursery Cryme tonight and then Foxtrot and Selling England By The Pound the next two nights. These three albums were created under the direction of visionary band leader Peter Gabriel who led the band until after the abomination that was The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. But before his ideas got too far ahead of him these albums are absolute masterpieces.
Genesis of course went on top replace Peter Gabriel with their drummer Phil Collins have made dreadful music ever since. But for three years in the 70's Genesis were one of the greatest bands making progressive rock. It's a huge shame that their main popularity came from their pop albums of the 80's which have caused a lot of people to merely shudder at their name and not appreciate the greatness that they once had.
The great thing about the progressive rock movement was that there wasn't one specific sound, the whole point of prog was to experiment and create new types of music and it leads to a great collection of eclectic bands under the same banner. Genesis have an absolutely amazing and very accessible sound to them during this era with an interesting mix between organ, piano and guitar. Genesis remind me a bit of Gentle Giant in their members being multi-instrumentalists, not to the same extent as Gentle Giant of course but it gives the same type of feel to their recordings that feature a lot of different instruments.
Peter Gabriel himself went on to create a variety of interesting albums after his departure from Genesis which we can explore at a later time, but a lot of his Genesis brilliance is apparent in these later recordings, even if they come in a very different style.
I hope you enjoyed the prog stylings of Genesis my angel, and I hope you're ready for more tomorrow with Foxtrot and then Selling England By the Pound. I've figured that bands that release a range of quite similar material can be appreciated better if we focus on them for awhile, or at least through their classic albums. After this I'm not sure if we should ease into fusion or just keep up the study of certain bands and albums, we'll see how I feel. Goodnight my angel Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Friday, 21 October 2011
Day 44: Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention - Freak Out!
Dear Nathaniel,
Hello my angel, I love you. I've been all over today, I got the passport back from the Australian embassy which feels great. Not sure when to go to Norway for a week to scope things out, it really depends on what we decide over the coming days in regards to timings. I hope we'll be able to move without much trouble when we finally get down to it.
I know I said we'd move onto fusion but I just really fancied this album for tonight as a little interlude. Freak Out! is not only an amazing album but it has many distinctions. Not only is it one of the first Concept Albums, it is one of the first double albums, and it's also the first album featuring Frank Zappa. At the time the band was simply called the Mothers of Invention after being called something altogether much cruder. Since Frank Zappa was essentially the band even though he was the newest member of the band, it is currently considered mostly just a Frank Zappa album.
I find it interesting that the Mothers of Invention are now mostly just remembered as Frank Zappa albums, even last.fm gathers all of his albums, including those with the mothers as simply Frank Zappa albums. I really love this album, it's an interesting social commentary and parody of popular music of the time. As such it features a very eclectic mix of musical styles that is not only quite funny but also really nice to listen to. Of course this isn't our first meeting with Frank Zappa since we had previously listened to Apostrophe ('). Over time we'll be able to hear all of his albums, hopefully more than once but there's no way we're going through all of them at once like with Led Zeppelin.
This album was incredibly influential in the UK and became essentially the earliest example of raw progressive rock, Zappa was experimental in nature and it was all about creating music that wasn't like anything that been heard before, which is the essence of progressive rock, avant-garde and experimental music. All of which can be associated quite heavily with Frank Zappa. I can never decide what I like most about Frank Zappa, because not only was he a brilliant and unique composer he could also be incredibly funny and cutting with his satire.
I think there's something horribly wrong with how few people are aware of who Frank Zappa even is, let alone have heard any of his music. It's so hard to introduce people to Zappa and have them appreciate the genius behind the man without them being willing to invest quite a lot of time becoming familiar with his music and style of humour, especially if they're not used to anything unorthodox. I hope you like it my angel.
Not quite sure what I'll play tomorrow, we will eventually move towards fusion with some prog rock scattered in between. Goodnight my angel Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Hello my angel, I love you. I've been all over today, I got the passport back from the Australian embassy which feels great. Not sure when to go to Norway for a week to scope things out, it really depends on what we decide over the coming days in regards to timings. I hope we'll be able to move without much trouble when we finally get down to it.
I know I said we'd move onto fusion but I just really fancied this album for tonight as a little interlude. Freak Out! is not only an amazing album but it has many distinctions. Not only is it one of the first Concept Albums, it is one of the first double albums, and it's also the first album featuring Frank Zappa. At the time the band was simply called the Mothers of Invention after being called something altogether much cruder. Since Frank Zappa was essentially the band even though he was the newest member of the band, it is currently considered mostly just a Frank Zappa album.
I find it interesting that the Mothers of Invention are now mostly just remembered as Frank Zappa albums, even last.fm gathers all of his albums, including those with the mothers as simply Frank Zappa albums. I really love this album, it's an interesting social commentary and parody of popular music of the time. As such it features a very eclectic mix of musical styles that is not only quite funny but also really nice to listen to. Of course this isn't our first meeting with Frank Zappa since we had previously listened to Apostrophe ('). Over time we'll be able to hear all of his albums, hopefully more than once but there's no way we're going through all of them at once like with Led Zeppelin.
This album was incredibly influential in the UK and became essentially the earliest example of raw progressive rock, Zappa was experimental in nature and it was all about creating music that wasn't like anything that been heard before, which is the essence of progressive rock, avant-garde and experimental music. All of which can be associated quite heavily with Frank Zappa. I can never decide what I like most about Frank Zappa, because not only was he a brilliant and unique composer he could also be incredibly funny and cutting with his satire.
I think there's something horribly wrong with how few people are aware of who Frank Zappa even is, let alone have heard any of his music. It's so hard to introduce people to Zappa and have them appreciate the genius behind the man without them being willing to invest quite a lot of time becoming familiar with his music and style of humour, especially if they're not used to anything unorthodox. I hope you like it my angel.
Not quite sure what I'll play tomorrow, we will eventually move towards fusion with some prog rock scattered in between. Goodnight my angel Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Thursday, 20 October 2011
Day 43: Bud Powell - The Amazing Bud Powell
Dear Nathaniel,
Hello my angel. We went to see you tonight and we brought you a nice little elephant called Ollie, I hope you like him, he's super cute. We haven't gotten a proper place to him yet so he's in the little jar until we can put him in the big see through bag with the teddies from uncle Sean and great uncle Les. Hopefully we can get the gravestone sorted soon, but we want to make sure it's absolutely perfect for you.
I absolutely love Bud Powell's piano playing on this album, it really is amazing, shame there's less than 30 minutes of it. But I find jazz re-releases extremely tedious, especially how poorly they arrange the track list so I always go for the original article, it's very rarely I'll get excited about bonus tracks unless it's from one of my absolutely favourite artists such as Led Zeppelin where I'm already very familiar with all of their work.
Bud Powell was the main reason I started to enjoy jazz pianists, even before Thelonious Monk I already enjoyed Bud Powell, of course Monk was more influential, but I really like how Powell plays. It just has a great feel to it. There was a time where Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell were considered equally influential in the late 40's to early 50's but today more people have heard of Monk, partly due to his prolific compositions and longer lasting career.
I love you my angel. I hope you really like your elephant and that you really enjoyed the jazz, I think we will be moving on to some more progressive rock tomorrow before launching into full fusion for a couple of days. We'll return to proper jazz every now and then but after we're finished with the fusion I think I'll just play whatever I fancy for the day and stay away from themes until it's more appropriate. Goodnight my angel Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Hello my angel. We went to see you tonight and we brought you a nice little elephant called Ollie, I hope you like him, he's super cute. We haven't gotten a proper place to him yet so he's in the little jar until we can put him in the big see through bag with the teddies from uncle Sean and great uncle Les. Hopefully we can get the gravestone sorted soon, but we want to make sure it's absolutely perfect for you.
I absolutely love Bud Powell's piano playing on this album, it really is amazing, shame there's less than 30 minutes of it. But I find jazz re-releases extremely tedious, especially how poorly they arrange the track list so I always go for the original article, it's very rarely I'll get excited about bonus tracks unless it's from one of my absolutely favourite artists such as Led Zeppelin where I'm already very familiar with all of their work.
Bud Powell was the main reason I started to enjoy jazz pianists, even before Thelonious Monk I already enjoyed Bud Powell, of course Monk was more influential, but I really like how Powell plays. It just has a great feel to it. There was a time where Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell were considered equally influential in the late 40's to early 50's but today more people have heard of Monk, partly due to his prolific compositions and longer lasting career.
I love you my angel. I hope you really like your elephant and that you really enjoyed the jazz, I think we will be moving on to some more progressive rock tomorrow before launching into full fusion for a couple of days. We'll return to proper jazz every now and then but after we're finished with the fusion I think I'll just play whatever I fancy for the day and stay away from themes until it's more appropriate. Goodnight my angel Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Day 42: Thelonious Monk - Thelonious in Action
Dear Nathaniel,
Hello my love, I hope everything is perfect for you. I am having a lot of trouble sleeping for a variety of reasons I suppose. It's gotten to the point now where I'm always tired since I haven't been able to have a full nights sleep for so long. I just wish I could get that for just one night right now. Things just felt so much simpler when we were still expecting you.
I know we will never forget you, and that's not something I'd want to happen. But it's so hard day to day just knowing you're not with us anymore. I dream of you every night but recently I feel like I dream more about the fact that you're gone instead of dreaming about what should have happened. And at the moment since I can't do anything right now it just feels like I'm always waiting for something out of my control. Like waiting to get my passport back or waiting for various appointments and important days.
As such it really feels as if we've lost whatever small control we did have over our lives because we're always waiting for something to happen, and whenever that does eventually happen we end up waiting for something else. That's why I really want to just get a fresh start in Norway and in doing so, at least to some extent finally taking control of our lives. I know once we get to Norway and I'm in a job and we have somewhere to live there will be more arbitrary things to wait for especially when it comes to money, but at least in a job it won't be a constant concern.
And once we are settled we'll be able to think about giving you a brother or sister when we feel ready and safe to do so. I suppose I should be able to talk to you about money, I had always expected that talk to come much later. It's our intention to try to buy a house with whatever deposit we can scrape together and then spend most of our earnings paying off the debt as fast as possible, of course we will still try to enjoy ourselves and decorate the house to fit our needs but paying off debt should be our number one priority.
While in Norway the economy is booming at the moment due to the oil industry especially in Stavanger we can never know how long it will last so I don't want to end up in debt without a job if worst came to worst. I also want to plan so that we can live comfortably and not have to worry when we're older, and of course the quicker you spend to pay off the debt the less we have to pay in interest over the years.
I still need to introduce the wonderful jazz we've been listening to however, and it is none other than Thelonious Monk with a 1958 live recording. Of course the nature of the recording is really of little importance given that at the time songs were recorded as parts of full takes without much editing if any at all so a live setting with a good recording setup has very similar sound quality to that of a studio recording. Without the occasional clapping and voices being heard every now and then it would have been hard to tell that this is indeed recorded live.
Of course this record is attributed to the Thelonious Monk Quartet but we'll just stick to the simpler definition as Monk was the band leader on this brilliant show. All four of the musicians were at the top of their game this day. Of course Monk's piano and Johnny Griffin's sax take precedence as the main solo instruments but the rhythm section is very tight as well and not without solos. The band plays incredibly well together live which I'm guessing was the main way for their music to be heard during this era.
I'm not entirely sure about this but it really feels like the whole jazz scene is centered mainly around New York, at least the idea of this cool style of jazz and hard bop. If not solely New York then at least the area around it as well with things such as the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island (it was also held in New York in the 70's). Although the location of the scene isn't entirely important it is interesting to think about considering the vast amount of collaboration between the individual artists especially at a time where travel could have been difficult for the musicians themselves due to discrimination.
Whatever the reason the 50's Jazz scene is an amazing wealth of great music. I would probably have played jazz to you very early around bedtime or when waking up or just generally doing stuff since it's amazing background music as well, even if it's a bit of a waste given how nice it is to straight up appreciate. Although I suppose most of everything I play you right now serves as background music to my various rantings, but it's fun anyways.
I love you my angel, I hope you really enjoyed today's album. I miss you so much but I know everything will be okay one day. Goodnight my angel Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Hello my love, I hope everything is perfect for you. I am having a lot of trouble sleeping for a variety of reasons I suppose. It's gotten to the point now where I'm always tired since I haven't been able to have a full nights sleep for so long. I just wish I could get that for just one night right now. Things just felt so much simpler when we were still expecting you.
I know we will never forget you, and that's not something I'd want to happen. But it's so hard day to day just knowing you're not with us anymore. I dream of you every night but recently I feel like I dream more about the fact that you're gone instead of dreaming about what should have happened. And at the moment since I can't do anything right now it just feels like I'm always waiting for something out of my control. Like waiting to get my passport back or waiting for various appointments and important days.
As such it really feels as if we've lost whatever small control we did have over our lives because we're always waiting for something to happen, and whenever that does eventually happen we end up waiting for something else. That's why I really want to just get a fresh start in Norway and in doing so, at least to some extent finally taking control of our lives. I know once we get to Norway and I'm in a job and we have somewhere to live there will be more arbitrary things to wait for especially when it comes to money, but at least in a job it won't be a constant concern.
And once we are settled we'll be able to think about giving you a brother or sister when we feel ready and safe to do so. I suppose I should be able to talk to you about money, I had always expected that talk to come much later. It's our intention to try to buy a house with whatever deposit we can scrape together and then spend most of our earnings paying off the debt as fast as possible, of course we will still try to enjoy ourselves and decorate the house to fit our needs but paying off debt should be our number one priority.
While in Norway the economy is booming at the moment due to the oil industry especially in Stavanger we can never know how long it will last so I don't want to end up in debt without a job if worst came to worst. I also want to plan so that we can live comfortably and not have to worry when we're older, and of course the quicker you spend to pay off the debt the less we have to pay in interest over the years.
I still need to introduce the wonderful jazz we've been listening to however, and it is none other than Thelonious Monk with a 1958 live recording. Of course the nature of the recording is really of little importance given that at the time songs were recorded as parts of full takes without much editing if any at all so a live setting with a good recording setup has very similar sound quality to that of a studio recording. Without the occasional clapping and voices being heard every now and then it would have been hard to tell that this is indeed recorded live.
Of course this record is attributed to the Thelonious Monk Quartet but we'll just stick to the simpler definition as Monk was the band leader on this brilliant show. All four of the musicians were at the top of their game this day. Of course Monk's piano and Johnny Griffin's sax take precedence as the main solo instruments but the rhythm section is very tight as well and not without solos. The band plays incredibly well together live which I'm guessing was the main way for their music to be heard during this era.
I'm not entirely sure about this but it really feels like the whole jazz scene is centered mainly around New York, at least the idea of this cool style of jazz and hard bop. If not solely New York then at least the area around it as well with things such as the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island (it was also held in New York in the 70's). Although the location of the scene isn't entirely important it is interesting to think about considering the vast amount of collaboration between the individual artists especially at a time where travel could have been difficult for the musicians themselves due to discrimination.
Whatever the reason the 50's Jazz scene is an amazing wealth of great music. I would probably have played jazz to you very early around bedtime or when waking up or just generally doing stuff since it's amazing background music as well, even if it's a bit of a waste given how nice it is to straight up appreciate. Although I suppose most of everything I play you right now serves as background music to my various rantings, but it's fun anyways.
I love you my angel, I hope you really enjoyed today's album. I miss you so much but I know everything will be okay one day. Goodnight my angel Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Day 41: Miles Davis - Sketches of Spain
Dear Nathaniel,
Hello my angel, I love you. Today has been quite busy for me, and I suppose it's these kind of days that help every now and then. I'm still barely sleeping so I'm too quick to get tired and I just don't feel like I can get properly refreshed at night, doing this every day helps me more than anything.
Tonight, as promised we're listening to Sketches of Spain, Davis' first album of the sixties and the first album after his first great masterpiece Kind of Blue. Miles had something quite special, a sense of timing and scale and how to use it to absolutely great effect. He also gives us an incredibly accessible version of jazz, although it feels as if that was merely an added bonus. What we get is something that's incredibly easy to listen to on the surface but very challenging when you get down to it.
His style of composition flows really well but at the same time there's never anything overtly unexpected until he gets into his fusion period. He was also not scared of moving away from the hard bop style of small bands and brought in nearly 20 musicians to play on this album. It does give the album a very interesting feel especially for someone mostly used to hard bop. Miles Davis was essentially the pioneer of modal jazz with his previous albums and continued to experiment with the jazz sound ever since.
Jazz is one of the styles of music that I absolutely adore however I'm incredibly ignorant when it comes to the goings on outside of the album releases themselves. I know what I like within jazz and it doesn't take me long to find out if I will like something. However I don't have the slightest clue about most of the history and the stories surrounding the scene other than the most basic information that can be gleaned from who played on what album and in what year.
There is probably a whole wealth of information about the jazz scene but I never found it as interesting as the rock of blues side of musical history, even if the music itself is generally superior.
I love you my angel, I hope you enjoyed Sketches of Spain, it's a great album to just chill out to, and we'll continue that tomorrow with some cool hard bop, unless something else takes my fancy. Goodnight my darling Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Hello my angel, I love you. Today has been quite busy for me, and I suppose it's these kind of days that help every now and then. I'm still barely sleeping so I'm too quick to get tired and I just don't feel like I can get properly refreshed at night, doing this every day helps me more than anything.
Tonight, as promised we're listening to Sketches of Spain, Davis' first album of the sixties and the first album after his first great masterpiece Kind of Blue. Miles had something quite special, a sense of timing and scale and how to use it to absolutely great effect. He also gives us an incredibly accessible version of jazz, although it feels as if that was merely an added bonus. What we get is something that's incredibly easy to listen to on the surface but very challenging when you get down to it.
His style of composition flows really well but at the same time there's never anything overtly unexpected until he gets into his fusion period. He was also not scared of moving away from the hard bop style of small bands and brought in nearly 20 musicians to play on this album. It does give the album a very interesting feel especially for someone mostly used to hard bop. Miles Davis was essentially the pioneer of modal jazz with his previous albums and continued to experiment with the jazz sound ever since.
Jazz is one of the styles of music that I absolutely adore however I'm incredibly ignorant when it comes to the goings on outside of the album releases themselves. I know what I like within jazz and it doesn't take me long to find out if I will like something. However I don't have the slightest clue about most of the history and the stories surrounding the scene other than the most basic information that can be gleaned from who played on what album and in what year.
There is probably a whole wealth of information about the jazz scene but I never found it as interesting as the rock of blues side of musical history, even if the music itself is generally superior.
I love you my angel, I hope you enjoyed Sketches of Spain, it's a great album to just chill out to, and we'll continue that tomorrow with some cool hard bop, unless something else takes my fancy. Goodnight my darling Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Monday, 17 October 2011
Day 40: Charles Mingus - Pithecanthropus Erectus
Dear Nathaniel,
Hello my angel, I hope you're having a great time my love. I miss you my angel.
Tonight I wanted to go back to Jazz, I should probably have chosen something a bit more standard but I felt like I needed something more off the wall after Led Zeppelin before we settle back into the standard. This is one of my favourite Jazz albums, recorded in the middle of the hard bop era this experimental style was quite far ahead of its time.
The interesting thing about jazz is the concept of band leaders and members of that band, while a band leader generally has the most influence over the recording given the improvisational nature of the band a lot of the brilliance comes from the members involved with the recording. Mingus himself contributes the bass on the album which while important doesn't have the same role at the forefront as the piano or saxophones, however his influence and direction is clearly evident and easily distinguishable as being his style.
Of course Mingus also created a lot of the compositions that are played, or at least the arrangement of them. One of the finest examples of his direct composition is the title track which tells the story of human evolution and subsequent devolution. However the concept of the band leader I find quite important. It is quite rarely that you will find someone playing on a strong record that haven't served as a leader themselves.
The Jazz scene at the height of hard bop was rife with collaboration and a huge amount of music was created, thankfully. It's incredibly easy to link all the great artists together, for example Charles Mingus has played with Bud Powell, my favourite jazz pianist, Miles Davis, one of the absolute greats of jazz and Duke Ellington who can simply be described as the Duke. Miles Davis himself has played with Coltrane, who we have already had a small listen of, and a huge list of other musicians.
We're going to listen to some Miles Davis tomorrow and will definitely be revisiting Mingus as well at some point. I think over the next week we'll be exclusively be playing jazz before moving into the jazzier side of Progressive Rock and the Canterbury scene and then we'll start to focus a bit on fusion with Miles Davis' later work, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Weather Report probably starting with Soft Machine to bridge the gap between prog and fusion. It will also be a great excuse to play some more Zappa.
I absolutely love this style of jazz, it really showed the potential of the piano outside of classical music, and probably one of the last ways in which the piano was still relevant as a main player on a whole album, with Billy Joel of course being the exception. It was of course mostly replaced by the keyboard and the Hammond organ in relation to progressive rock especially, the same can be said for the saxophone which has unfortunately been relegated as a novelty instrument in pop songs.
I hope you've enjoyed this album as much as I do my angel. Sleep well Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
Hello my angel, I hope you're having a great time my love. I miss you my angel.
Tonight I wanted to go back to Jazz, I should probably have chosen something a bit more standard but I felt like I needed something more off the wall after Led Zeppelin before we settle back into the standard. This is one of my favourite Jazz albums, recorded in the middle of the hard bop era this experimental style was quite far ahead of its time.
The interesting thing about jazz is the concept of band leaders and members of that band, while a band leader generally has the most influence over the recording given the improvisational nature of the band a lot of the brilliance comes from the members involved with the recording. Mingus himself contributes the bass on the album which while important doesn't have the same role at the forefront as the piano or saxophones, however his influence and direction is clearly evident and easily distinguishable as being his style.
Of course Mingus also created a lot of the compositions that are played, or at least the arrangement of them. One of the finest examples of his direct composition is the title track which tells the story of human evolution and subsequent devolution. However the concept of the band leader I find quite important. It is quite rarely that you will find someone playing on a strong record that haven't served as a leader themselves.
The Jazz scene at the height of hard bop was rife with collaboration and a huge amount of music was created, thankfully. It's incredibly easy to link all the great artists together, for example Charles Mingus has played with Bud Powell, my favourite jazz pianist, Miles Davis, one of the absolute greats of jazz and Duke Ellington who can simply be described as the Duke. Miles Davis himself has played with Coltrane, who we have already had a small listen of, and a huge list of other musicians.
We're going to listen to some Miles Davis tomorrow and will definitely be revisiting Mingus as well at some point. I think over the next week we'll be exclusively be playing jazz before moving into the jazzier side of Progressive Rock and the Canterbury scene and then we'll start to focus a bit on fusion with Miles Davis' later work, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Weather Report probably starting with Soft Machine to bridge the gap between prog and fusion. It will also be a great excuse to play some more Zappa.
I absolutely love this style of jazz, it really showed the potential of the piano outside of classical music, and probably one of the last ways in which the piano was still relevant as a main player on a whole album, with Billy Joel of course being the exception. It was of course mostly replaced by the keyboard and the Hammond organ in relation to progressive rock especially, the same can be said for the saxophone which has unfortunately been relegated as a novelty instrument in pop songs.
I hope you've enjoyed this album as much as I do my angel. Sleep well Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
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