Introducing Johnny Griffin is the debut album by the tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin. It was released on Blue Note in February 1957.
This record has been an important documentation to me, as it’s one of the best playing by Wynton Kelly; his comping and soloing has taught me numerous things, and still keeps influencing my playing every time I listen to it.
People Time is a live album by saxophonist Stan Getz and pianist Kenny Barron which was recorded in March 1991 at Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen, Denmark.
This album is one of the greatest documentations of piano/sax duo playing, it is a great source for learning piano accompaniment in a duo setting, among many other things.
McCoy Tyner is one of the most important jazz pianists of all time; his distinctive style has been considered as one big part of jazz piano language.
The Real McCoy is the seventh album by McCoy Tyner and his first released on the Blue Note label. It was recorded on April 21, 1967, following Tyner’s departure from the John Coltrane Quartet.
This album is a great documentation of Tyner’s style, that has influenced pretty much every piano player since.
Soul Station is an album by saxophonist Hank Mobley, recorded on February 7, 1960.
In the liner notes to the Rudy Van Gelder CD edition, jazz critic Bob Blumenthal explains how the album is understood to be, for Mobley, what Saxophone Colossus or Giant Steps were for Sonny Rollins or John Coltrane. Blumenthal goes on to describe the recording as “one of the finest programs of music on Blue Note or any other label.”
Personnel
Hank Mobley - sax
Wynton Kelly - piano
Paul Chambers - bass
Philly Joe Jones - drums
Tracks I’d recommend to start with:
Remember
One of the greatest saxophone solos of all time!
This I Dig Of You
Famous Wynton Kelly Piano Solo - definitely worth checking out!
This recording is a fine documentation of Bill Evans’ solo piano work from the early 60’s. Recorded in 1963, it shows the incredible artistry of Evans; in harmony, rhythm, sound, as well as melody.
In his five-star review in the May 16, 1957 issue of DownBeat magazine, Ralph J. Gleason called the album “modern jazz conceived and executed in the very best style.”
Birth of the Cool is one of the most legendary jazz albums of all time, by the American jazz trumpeter and bandleader Miles Davis, released in February 1957 by Capitol Records. It compiles eleven tracks recorded by Davis’s nonet for the label over the course of three sessions during 1949 and 1950.
Featuring unusual instrumentation and several notable musicians, the music consisted of innovative arrangements influenced by Afro-American music and classical music techniques, and marked a major development in post-bebop jazz. As the title suggests, these recordings are considered seminal in the history of cool jazz.
Tracks I’d recommend to start with:
Jeru
Budo (Check and compare to Bud Powell’s composition ‘Hallucinations’!)
At the Deer Head Inn is a live album recorded at the Deer Head Inn jazz club (where Jarrett performed very early in his career) on September 16, 1992 and released by ECM in April 1994. The trio features rhythm section Gary Peacock and Paul Motian.
“It seems unlikely that Jarrett will ever need to go back to bar-room gigs, but here he’s demonstrated his ability to work a small audience with powerful, unpretentious jazz.”
-The Penguin Guide To Jazz
Matt Pierson produced this and several following trio recordings. “Matt had the idea of documenting the development of the trio with Larry and Jorge in a series of recordings,” says Mehldau. “He had the foresight that we were a band that would stay together – maybe more than I did at that time in fact.” The opening track, ‘Blame it on My Youth,’ marks the beginning of an approach to ballad playing unique to this the trio, characterized by a deeply felt empathy between the three players, a loose freedom in their collective rhythmic phrasing, and a certain rhapsodic quality in Mehldau’s melodic statements. The arrangement here of ‘I Didn’t Know What Time it Was’ is still a favorite encore piece in performances. Mehldau’s compositional voice continues to develop and is represented here as well, like on ‘Ron’s Place’, the moody waltz recently recorded by bassist Charlie Haden.
The Köln Concert is a live solo double album recorded at the Opera House in Köln, West Germany on 24 January 1975 and released on ECM Records later that year. It is the best-selling solo album in jazz history and the best-selling piano album.
There is a consensus among critics, listeners and musicians alike that this, Keith Jarrett’s second solo piano concert recording (after Solo-Concerts Bremen/Lausanne ), is a milestone not only of Keith Jarrett’s work, but of the entire history of jazz. Already in the year of its release, The Köln Concert was met with great enthusiasm: „The fingers are often startling, the melodies infectious, the piano arranging richly diverse, the self-propulsive rhythmic stomp sections glorious in their vibrancy“, wrote Down Beat in a five star review upon the concert’s release. Time Magazine included the album in its year’s best list claiming, “Long, intricate piano solos give a new dimension to the old art of improvisation”, while the Rolling Stone raved: “Köln is a complete solo piano concert. The classical, baroque, gospel, boogie and impressionistic strains […] have been synthesized here into a seamless whole of undeniable brilliance”, concluding, “Almost anyone should be immediately attracted to it, and that’s the really amazing thing about Jarrett.”
Hank Jones: Satin Doll: Dedicated to Duke Ellington
“On this solo piano date, Jones, always a masterful accompanist for singers and a heavily in-demand player for all kinds of recording dates, displays his elegant taste, imagination, and effortless ability to swing throughout this memorable session.” -AllMusic
Jones’ chords on the theme of Satin Doll are worth mentioning. He harmonises the melody in such a way that has puzzled and intrigued pianists for decades, check out the attached transcription!
“Milestones is a classic album with blues material in both bebop and post-bop veins, as well as the “memorable” title track, which introduced modalism in jazz and defined Davis’ subsequent music in the years to follow.” -Thom Jurek, AllMusic
“This release has long been considered Thelonious Monk’s acknowledgement to the flourishing youth-oriented subculture from whence the collection takes its name. Certainly the Grammy-winning cover art – which depicts Monk as a World War II French revolutionary toting an automatic weapon – gave the establishment more than the brilliant swinging sounds in the grooves to consider. Underground became Monk’s penultimate studio album, as well as the final release to feature the '60s quartet: Charlie Rouse (tenor sax), Ben Riley(drums), and Larry Gales (bass) behind Monk (piano). One of the motifs running throughout Monk’s recording career is the revisitation of titles from his voluminous back catalog. The tradition continues with the autobiographical leadoff track, “Thelonious.” The instantly recognizable stride piano lines are delivered with the same urgency and precision that they possessed over two decades earlier when he first recorded the track for Blue Note. The presence of Charlie Rouse throughout the album is certainly worth noting. “Ugly Beauty” best captures the sacred space and musical rapport that he and Monk shared. Each musician functions as an extension of the other, creating solos that weave synchronically as if performed by the same pair of hands. Newer material, such as the playful “Green Chimneys” – named after the school Monk’s daughter attended – as well as the unbalanced hypnotism of “Raise Four,” asserts the timelessness and relevance of Monk’s brand of bop. The disc ends as it begins with a new twist on an old favorite. Jon Hendrick – who provides lyrics and vocals on “In Walked Bud” – recalls the hustle and bustle of the real and spontaneous underground Harlem jam sessions of the late '40s. It is likewise an apt bookend to this chapter in the professional life of Thelonious Monk.”
Lennie Tristano , also known as Tristano , is a 1956 album which at its release was controversial for its innovative use of technology, with Tristano overdubbing piano and manipulating tape speed for effect on the first four tracks.
The New Tristano consists of seven solo piano tracks – six are Tristano originals that are based on standards. The performances are largely improvised. Most of the tracks contain left-hand bass lines that provide structure to each performance as well as counterpoint for the right-hand playing; block chords, unclear harmonies and contrasting rhythms also appear. “Scene and Variations” differs, particularly in its third part, which does not feature a walking bass line.
Empyrean Isles is the fourth studio album by Herbie Hancock, released on Blue Note Records in November 1964. The album features Hancock alongside trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams.
AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave the album five out of five stars, calling it “a record that officially established Hancock as a major artist in his own right.”
‘Empyrean Isles’ is a great example of Hancock’s style moving from ‘straight ahead’ jazz to more modern, ‘post-bop’ aesthetic, check out the transcription and analysis (attached below)
Sonny Side Up is an album by trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and the tenor saxophonists Sonny Stitt and Sonny Rollins, recorded in December.
“The pairing of Rollins and Stitt was highly inspired. More important than their common nicknames (and the punning album title), tenor saxophonists Rollins and Stitt were both influenced by Charlie Parker, but each took a vastly different approach to improvisation. Stitt transferred Parker’s white-hot intensity to the tenor after several fans and critics pointed out the tonal similarity of their alto sounds. Rollins was a more thoughtful player who expanded the vocabulary of bop improvisation by incorporating thematic elements into his solos and by experimenting with different melodic shapes and unusual phrase lengths.”
-Thomas Cunniffe
The rhythm section consists of ianist Ray Bryant, bassist Tommy Bryant, and drummer Charlie Persip.
Stephen Cook of AllMusic described the album as “one of the most exciting ‘jam session’ records in the jazz catalog. …both a highly enjoyable jazz set and something of an approximation of the music’s once-revered live cutting session”.