March Listenings

 



3/1 Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy in Belgium - 1964 YouTube

Charles Mingus: bass

Dannie Richmond: drums

Jaki Byard: piano

Johnny Coles: trumpet

Clifford Jordan: tenor saxophone 

Eric Dolphy: alto saxophone, flute, bass clarinet


3/2 Gabrielle Cavassa 2020 spotify

Supposedly she's going to get a Blue Note release in 2026. 


Switching to Classical music now


3/3 Vox Luminis Kantaten 2025 spotify

The ensemble Vox Luminis, led by Lionel Meunier, specialises in English, Italian and German repertoire from the 17th and early 18th century and is internationally acclaimed for its unique sound. A core of vocal soloists is supplemented, depending on the repertoire, with an extensive continuo, solo instruments or a complete orchestra. Vox Luminis is artist in residence at Concertgebouw Brugge.


3/4 Edward Elgar Symphony No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 63 1994 spotify

3/5 BBC3 Radio is classical music. Great online station. 

3/6 Piotr Anderszewski Brahms: Late Piano Work 2026 spotify

Guardian review


Jazz

3/7 OM (1965/1968) John Coltrane spotify

John Coltrane - tenor and soprano saxophone

Pharoah Sanders - tenor saxophone

Donald Rafael Garrett - double bass and clarinet

Joe Brazil - flute

McCoy Tyner - piano

Jimmy Garrison - bass

Elvin Jones - drums

I was reading The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Biography by Donald S. Lopez Jr. and I saw this album mentioned, so I listened to it some while I was reading the book. 


Pink Floyd's first 3 on Spotify:

3/8 The Piper at the Gates of Dawn 1975 by Pink Floyd spotify

3/9 A Saucerful of Secrets 1978 spotify

3/10 More 1969 spotify


3/11 Ted Curson - Pop Wine spotify

3/12 Black Codes 1985 Wynton Marsalis spotify

Wynton Marsalis – trumpet

Branford Marsalis – tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone

Kenny Kirkland – piano

Charnett Moffett – double bass

Jeff "Tain" Watts – drums

Ron Carter - bass on "Aural Oasis"



3/13 Ganavya: Tiny Desk Concert YouTube

3/14 Ganavya Nilam 2025 spotify.

3/15 Ganavya: Daughter of the Temple 2024 spotify

3/16 Ganavya: like the sky I've been too quiet 2024 spotify

3/17 Ganavya: sister, idea 2023 spotify


3/18 Ravi Shankar Three Ragas 1965 spotify

3/19 The Sounds of India 1967 spotify

3/20 1959 India's Greatest Musician spotify

3/21 1967 Raga Khamaj spotify


Piano trios from Reddit. I chose first albums from many. 

3/22 Esbjorn Svensson Trio When Everyone Has Gone 1993 spotify

3/23 Vijay Iyer Trio Acccelerando 2012 spotify

3/24 The Bad Plus Motel 2000 spotify

3/25 MMW Notes From The Underground 1992 spotify

3/26 Gogo Penguin Fanfares 2012 spotify

3/27 Hank Jones, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams, Kindness Joy Love & Happiness YouTube

3/28 Brad Mehldau Trio Anything Goes 2004 spotify

3/29 Tyshawn Sorey Trio Paradoxical Frog 2010 spotify Free jazz type with saxaphone.

3/30 Chick Corea Trio Trio Music 1982 spotify

3/31 McCoy Tyner Trio Inception 1962 spotify

Reading up on McCoy Tyner. He converted to Islam when he was 17 and chose the name Suleiman Saud, but continued to perform under his pre-Islam name. He lived near Bud Powell in Philly growing up. Thelonious Monk's percussive attacks inform his style some. 

He was of course with John Coltrane 1960-1965, but left when the free jazz stuff happened because he wasn't into that. He also didn't feel electronic keyboards, stayed with the piano, but experimented with harpsichord and celesta. 

Tyner was left handed, maybe you can notice his dexterity with the lower notes and the solos were usually done with his right hand. 

Vijay Iyer, a younger jazz pianist who acknowledges Tyner's influence, said, "I've studied Tyner's fluidity, hard groove, and deep sonorities for decades."

Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead wrote that Tyner "plays thundering, ambiguous chords under fast, right-hand melodies often based on five-note scales, a marker in jazz of African roots. His sound was heavy, but buoyant, billowing like blue smoke. His piano could toll like church bells. And he could really move, too."

In his History of Jazz, Ted Gioia sums up Tyner's style as follows: "Blessed with a crisp, clean piano attack and a sure sense of melodic development, Tyner could have been a premier hard-bop pianist. But alongside Coltrane, Tyner gradually grew to be much more. Where other pianists would have backed Coltrane's horn lines with throwaway comping chords, Tyner challenged the soloist with a tsunami of sound. ... Tyner delighted in ambiguous voicings, liberally spiced with suspended fourths that rarely resolved, often played with a thunderous two-handed attack that seemed destined to leave permanent marks in the keys. ... Single-note lines, leavened with wide, often unpredictable interval leaps, jostled with sweeping arpeggios, cascading runs, reverberating tremolos. His touch at the piano, which originally possessed brittle sharpness, took on volume and depth, eventually emerging as one of the fullest and most easily identifiable keyboard sounds in jazz. Tyner's career continued to flourish long after leaving Coltrane, and ... would influence many jazz pianists who came of age during that period. But though others mimicked Tyner's mannerisms, his voicings, and modal runs, these acolytes seldom approached the intensity of the original."

On spotify you can look at only albums and then start from early to late by clicking the arrow after you click on the release date. And thus you can listen to every McCoy Tyner album from earliest to latest, which is what I'm doing. And then I'll listen to Coltrane 1960-1965. 


Bonus:

Bluegrass in China on Reddit.

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