Once championed to eclipse the likes of June Christy and Chris Connor, Beverly Kenney was found dead a few months after the release of Born To Be Blue (1959), wearing only a pink nightgown and surrounded by empty bottles and scattered pills. With this in mind, the album takes on a haunted quality, and Kenney becomes an enigmatic figure whose legacy exists in the twilight of myth and verity. If there were a Mount Rushmore of “Midnite Jazz” artists, Kenney would be on it, her short life as bittersweet as the songs she sang.
Category: Jazz
Phi-Psonics :: New Pyramid
Phi-Psonics is a spiritual jazz collective headed by Los Angeles-based composer and acoustic bassist Seth Ford-Young, whose prolific session work can be heard on releases such as the recent stunner by Takuro Okada. The uninhibited, meditative soundscapes of previous studio offerings The Cradle and Octava quickly made waves after catching the attention of Manchester jazz label Gondwana, flashing nods to A Love Supreme and a lush framework playing off of Ford-Young’s Mingus-inspired upright bass, lifting woodwinds and the Wurlitzer piano of Mitchell Yoshida.
Keith Jarrett: No End, Newness and the Power of the Low-Key Jam
Keith Jarrett didn’t have to make a rock album filled with noodly guitar and muted boogie. But he did, and in its unusually obvious imperfections, eccentric choices and rambling longueurs, it shows the famously demanding pianist at his most mercurial and relaxed. In his perpetual hunt for wells of inspiration and rivers of feeling, Jarrett’s curious detour still leads to some fascinating backwaters and rewarding reservoirs.
Midnite Jazz :: The Tommy Flanagan Trio (1960)
The Midnite Jazz column returns with The Tommy Flanagan Trio (1960): a purely laid-back rendezvous into classic jazz ballads and standards. With a sprightly runtime of just over a half-hour, it’s the perfect soundtrack for late-night strolls after last calls, when the streets are as hushed as the trio’s dynamics.
John Coltrane :: A Love Supreme (60th Anniversary Edition)
In 1966, an interviewer in Japan asked John Coltrane what he hoped to be in five years, to which he replied, ‘a saint.'” Whether you’re an audiophile, record collector, or Coltrane-fanatic (or all of the above), the sixtieth-anniversary edition of A Love Supreme is a welcomed addition to any vinyl library. One small recording session for jazz musicians, one giant leap for all music.
Eric Dolphy :: Last Date (Documentary, 1991)
The documentary’s title Last Date is lifted from an album of posthumous live recordings from a Netherlands radio session in the summer of 1964 (the Dutch trio from the session feature prominently in the film). Just a few weeks later, Eric Dolphy tragically passed after slipping into a diabetic coma during a performance in Berlin.
Pangaea Deluxe: Live Miles in Japan, 1975 (Mixtape)
Drifting from spiraling psychedelia into frightening soundscapes and ecstatic funk, the Miles Davis septet built a universe unto itself across its 1975 tour of Japan. This tour-spanning mix gathers some of the choicest cuts and most experimental moments from the unissued tapes.
Total Blue :: S/T
The Los Angeles-based trio of Nicky Benedek, Alex Talan, and Anthony Calonico have been making music together in various configurations for well over a decade. Their newest project, the outstanding Total Blue, takes the ingredients of smooth jazz and world fusion–fretless bass, muted horns, piles of synthesizers, global rhythms–and vaporizes them into a shimmering mist. The result is one of the most alluring things to come out of LA’s adventurous post-jazz scene.
Jakob Bro :: Taking Turns
Recorded in 2014 but somehow only released late last year, this multi-generational session delivers ensemble playing and collective improvisation at an extraordinarily high level. Danish guitarist Jakob Bro is joined on Taking Turns by a murderer’s row of talents — Lee Konitz (alto/soprano sax), Andrew Cyrille (drums), Bill Frisell (guitar), Jason Moran (piano) and Thomas Morgan (double bass) — for seven marvelously moody pieces.
Agharta Deluxe: Live Miles in Japan, 1975
The Miles Davis septet’s 1975 tour of Japan produced the bandleader’s final definitive statements of his electric era with the Agharta and Pangaea double live LPs. Until a Bootleg Series entry celebrates the tour with a much-deserved box set, unofficial tapes of the 3-week run remain our deepest look into this expanded universe. Here’s a primer on the best of the lot. The shows that burned the hottest and those that explored the furthest reaches of terrain to which no artist has returned.
Lamentations: Twenty-Two Songs about John Coltrane
In the nearly six decades since his untimely passing, musicians from all over the world have never stopped honoring John Coltrane. And not just artists in the jazz tradition, those in rock, funk, prog and soul as well. We put together a compilation of twenty-two of our favorite tributes to the visionary saxophonist. In the extraordinary variety of ways musicians have chosen to honor him, you can see an outline of the magnitude of his impact on modern music.
Keith Jarrett :: Live In Norway, 1972 (Molde Jazz Festival)
August 2, 1972. Keith Jarrett performing solo in Molde, Norway the at the eleventh annual Molde Jazz Festival. Clocking in at 46 minutes, the concert is comprised of one continuous improvisation that Jarrett dubbed “Molde-72”. This recording was later paired with Jarrett’s return performance at the festival the following summer as the 2-CD collection, Keith Jarrett – Molde Jazz Festival 1972 & 1973 — a 2021 Japanese import.
Miles Davis :: Rated X
“Rated X” lacks the monumental sound collage quality of its taped compatriots. The quick (for this era of Miles) seven-minute tune leans into a minimal chaos, almost as if In a Silent Way was recorded in the depths of hell. What begins in disarray slowly becomes the most cohesive thing you’ve ever heard.
Miles Davis: Four More from Brazil, 1974
50 years ago this month, the Miles Davis octet traveled to Brazil for three-night stands in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo – a stretch of gigs featuring the same personnel that recorded the Dark Magus live set at Carnegie Hall earlier that spring. While Dark Magus documented guitarist Dominique Gaumont’s incendiary first night with the band, the tapes from Brazil capture Miles’ well-oiled three-guitar lineup in full flight; Gaumont layering waves of feedback between flights of Hendrix-inspired indulgence, Pete Cosey supplying gobs of heavily modulated riffs and theatrics, and rhythm ace Reggie Lucas abandoning the steady throb of the wah-wah to solo at will.
Light Pollution: The Roots of Ambient Jazz
As Aquarium Drunkard recently reported, ambient appears to be the shape of jazz to come. The newest new thing is cross-pollinating with electronics and minimalism, new age and drone. But even these currents have a history. We dove deep into our favorite space jazz of yesteryear, and put together a mixtape for your astral travelling pleasure.