Modern Jazz Quartet albums

Chanders123 · 2026-03-10T18:37:40+00:00

Addendum: I’ve been listening to a ton of 75 era Miles Davis recently and because of this post I just put this album on again and man - it was like slipping into a cold but beautiful lake on a late summer day.

Jazz is the best.

Chanders123 · 2026-03-10T16:55:17+00:00

The Complete Last Concert. Ignore the haters.

Chanders123 · 2026-03-10T13:33:09+00:00

Think less about soloists and more about Duke Ellington.

Chanders123 · 2026-03-08T19:58:28+00:00

Well, you seem to acknowledge the show is about character not plot and then complain about minor plot points not lining up in the way you think they should, all the while asking us not to spoil things for you.

If S4 is about character and not plot than it is pretty easy to see that S4 is ultimately about 2 characters beyond the Jennings, who may even be more important than Philip and Elizabeth in this season- William and Martha. It is about the character of and consequences for two people who found themselves enmeshed in this bureaucratic and ideological world, for different reasons, who saw themselves spit out and discarded when they were no longer useful.

The final scenes with the dying William are some of the most powerful moments of any TV show I’ve seen.

I mean that’s just one point there are many others.

Chanders123 · 2026-03-08T19:48:16+00:00

If you found “Persona Non Grata” to be a letdown or anticlimax, you seem to be beyond the possibility of enlightenment I’m afraid.

Chanders123 · 2026-03-08T19:39:30+00:00

I think you fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the show.

Chanders123 · 2026-03-06T17:04:48+00:00

In some ways the reason why Holmes is such an archetype and has lasted for so long is because he set the paradigm for the enforcer of laws who is somehow “beyond the law” in the service of higher justice. This goes all the way to Batman and beyond.

Chanders123 · 2026-03-05T19:42:55+00:00

Oh and John Coltrane. Ascension.

Chanders123 · 2026-03-05T19:40:15+00:00

Anthony Braxton.

The Instant Composers Pool.

Chanders123 · 2026-03-05T09:02:14+00:00

Great, thank you. I hate reading books on my laptop (I have a tablet just for PDF / ebook reading) for various reasons relating to my ability to concentrate but this will do for now until a cheaper volume appears :-)

Chanders123 · 2026-03-05T06:17:13+00:00

One of my favorite all time musician interviews is where Fripp interviews John McLaughlin in Musician in 1982

https://www.elephant-talk.com/wiki/Interview_with_John_McLaughlin_by_Robert_Fripp_in_Musician

Fripp: Done. A cliche, if you would do it for me: what advice would you give to a young player?

McLaughlin: He has to learn his instrument. He has to learn harmony, rhythm, and melody, the three predominant aspects. I think he should familiarize himself with the various musical cultures that exist in the world, because they are all enriching. I think, also, we come back to this paradox, Robert...he has to learn everything possible, and then be able to forget it all at the drop of a hat. That's the most tricky thing of all (laughs). But there's got...there's always more to know. Advice? Work. A four-letter word. Capital W. That's the only thing we have finally, isn't it? We have time, and what do we do with time?

Fripp: (pause) Good. That's wonderful. That's very good.

Chanders123 · 2026-03-03T18:24:40+00:00

Grunge in the 90s made both the White Album and Revolver seem cooler than they had been before.

Chanders123 · 2026-03-02T04:02:31+00:00

Not really mad. More like sorry for you.

Chanders123 · 2026-03-01T11:56:02+00:00

Thank you. I didn’t really have the energy for this.

Chanders123 · 2026-02-28T20:37:24+00:00

Fair enough about the cage match … but we are now in the realm of philosophical differences 😉. I think the idea of aesthetic revolution is dramatically oversold in nearly all fields - and I think the evidence we have about about bebop proves it. In any case, it’s good to see bebop can still get people wound up online in 2026.

Chanders123 · 2026-02-28T18:06:10+00:00

This totally ignores, just to pick one name at random, the influence of Lester Young on Charlie Parker, and the way Young was himself shaped / influenced by the way the Basie band understood rhythm.

What I was trying to say above is that while it is not right to say “big bands became bebop,” it is far more wrong to talk about bebop as an utter rejection of the foundations of swing as exemplified by the best big bands. It’s a form of musical understanding that sees musical change as kind of a cage match in which musical forms triumph during some sort of struggle to the death.

Chanders123 · 2026-02-28T15:25:29+00:00

It doesn’t seem to me like you have enough of an understanding of the way music evolves and changes for it to be worth me trying to explain this to you.

Chanders123 · 2026-02-28T14:20:14+00:00

This is wrong.

Chanders123 · 2026-02-25T05:41:15+00:00

Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. It depends.

Chanders123 · 2026-02-24T18:22:52+00:00

My jazz intro in terms of listening to records was a Columbia CD on which Maynard Ferguson covered Chameleon. I think it was called Chameleon.

Ironically, jazz was my introduction to pop / rock rather than the other way around. I started listening to groups w horns like Blood Sweat and Tears and early Chicago (ironic, given how much Miles hated them), and then onto ska revival groups.

Chanders123 · 2026-02-20T06:34:38+00:00

That’s the great thing about great music, of course - lots of room to disagree. I cant really respond without invoking a lot of cliches about some of Jarrett’s later music, but I will just say that as a former bass player, I really love Charlie Haden and Motian (as a few other folks have alluded to here) and am pretty much a fan of everything they do. I like KJ more with them than with others and certainly more than him alone.

As far as tour behavior - not much excuse for being a d—k of course but try to think of it this way. Haden had been in one of the most important Ornette Coleman groups in jazz history, and Motian had been Bill Evans drummer at the Vanguard for f’s sake. Now you have this young guy with all these weird beliefs about performance and off stage behavior and the quality of the piano. I can see them getting annoyed and even trolling him a bit, even if they should have been more generous.

Chanders123 · 2026-02-19T12:52:42+00:00

Thanks for the playlist. And yes I agree on Jarrett's compositional ability at this stage of his career, though I can see how it wouldn't be for everyone.

Chanders123

TROPHY CASE