He does it all, and he does it in ways that surprise you and conform to the needs and the genius of the soloist.
~Gary Giddins, jazz writerEvans, like most musical geniuses (a title bestowed by Miles [Davis]) shows a roving spirit and a probing desire to create new sounds, investigate new territories, and not be pigeon-holed into one space.
~R.J. Deluke (allaboutjazz.com)
Gil Evans Documentary 1997 Amerimage – 54min
videre sending
There’s little else to say except that ‘Round About Midnight is among the most essential of Davis’ Columbia recordings.
~Thom Jurek (allmusic.com)An absolute classic of modern jazz, with brilliant solo work from the leader and from Coltrane, who was preparing for his own solo career at this point, plus subtle backing from the rhythm section. Tunes range from Monk’s famous title track to the ancient standard “Bye Bye Blackbird.”
~Wilson & Alroy’s Record ReviewsStylistically, Midnight encompasses standards (or soon-to-be standards) such as “Dear Old Stockholm”, “Bye-Bye Blackbird”, Tadd Dameron’s “Tadd’s Delight”, and Jackie McLean’s forward-thinking composition “Little Melonae.” Miles and company reprise “Budo” from the historic Birth of the Cool sessions. The standout track is Davis’s Harmon-muted reading of Thelonious Monk’s ballad, “‘Round Midnight”, which is still a Miles standard bearer… If you want to hear the origins of post-bop modern jazz, this is it.
~Eugene Holley, Jr.
‘Round Midnight:
Continue reading March 18: Miles Davis released “Round About Midnight” in 1957
Egil makes the lists from the 60s and 70s, and I will hereby start doing the 90s. The remaining decades? we’ll see when we get there 🙂
The 1990s, pronounced “nineteen-nineties” or abbreviated as “nineties”, was a decade that began on January 1, 1990, and ended on December 31, 1999.
Culturally, the 1990s was characterized by the rise of multiculturalism and alternative media, which continued into the 2000s. Movements such asgrunge, the rave scene and hip hop spread around the world to young people during the decade, aided by then-new technology such as cable television and the Internet.
The 90s will not be done sequentially, I will start with 1995 and then, well, who knows…
Earlier posts:
What happened in 1995:
The 10 best Movies in 1995:
A good year at the movies!
Egil has commanded:
Here is a Spotify playlist (missing Palace Music and Van Morrison)
Lake Marie by John Prine from the album Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings, released 4th April 1995:
In a 2009 interview with The Huffington Post, Prine fan Bob Dylan commented, “If I had to pick one song of his, it might be ‘Lake Marie.'”
The song was inspired in part by Prine’s crumbling marriage and a series of grisly murders the singer remembered the Chicago news media having a field day with when he was a kid. The John Prine Shrine website quotes the singer discussing his inspiration for the song: “It’s an actual place along the Illinois-Wisconsin border. There’s an entire chain of lakes along there, small lakes, and I remember as a teenager growing up in Chicago, a lot of the teenagers would go to these lakes and in the summer time kind of get away from the city. Lake Marie was kind of just one that stuck out in my mind. About ’59, ’60, ’61, I grew up in Maywood – it’s a western suburb of Chicago, and we started hearing about murders that weren’t related to the mob. You know, John Wayne Gacy was like, about two towns away from me and you just hear about it. The suburbs were kind of thought to be a pretty safe place at the time, and then some of these unexplained murders would show up every once in a while, where they’d find people in the woods somewhere. I just kind of took any one of them, not one in particular, and put it as if it was in a TV newscast. It was a sharp left turn to take in a song, but when I got done with it, I kind of felt like it’s what the song needed right then.”
Perfectly balancing the raw energy of My Aim Is True with the more elegant pop songwriting that would come to characterize much of his later work, This Year’s Model is not only Costello’s best work, but one of the most distinctively brilliant albums ever to be released. For fans of rock music bursting with wit and character, it really just doesn’t get any better than this.
~Matt LeMay (pitchfork.com)
The Beat:
Continue reading March 17: Elvis Costello and The Attractions released “This Year’s Model” in 1978
Session:
4 great songs, but my fav is Hey, Good Lookin’.
Continue reading March 16: Hank Williams – Hey, Good Lookin’