Uncharted Passages is one of Sun Ra's strongest solo piano albums... I could have more to say about it, but lately I have been almost obsessed with Duke Ellington... it's funny, but back in the '70s when I was first starting to learn about jazz in earnest, basically teaching myself through reading and listening (by myself and with friends), I was drawn to Ellington's early decades, from the 1920s through to the early 1940s... I spent years getting really deep into that era, and I was in hog heaven when the CD era emerged and reissues of so much of that stuff, which had previously been hard to come by, became readily available... but even before that, the Smithsonian LP reissues of Ellington's music from 1938-1941 in those three two-record sets was a real revelation... of course I was aware of the later stuff, but not only was I not drawn to it, I even thought a lot of it was corny, stuffy, old hat... how wrong I was... I can't even put my finger on exactly when my feelings changed about his music of the 1950s, '60s, and '70s... my friend Cal has always been a strong proponent of the late era, and that certainly helped... an early CD of Blues in Orbit he gave me languished on my shelves for a while before I really got into it... key elements were a deeper appreciation of Billy Strayhorn's role and sensibility, and an even deeper appreciation of Sam Woodyard's amazing shuffle... but most of all, what's drawn me to this music is the stellar long-running sax section of Johnny Hodges, Paul Gonsalves, Russell Procope, Jimmy Hamilton, and the masterful Harry Carney... it's not just their playing, but also the writing and arranging of Ellington (and Strayhorn), their use of the individual sonorities and personalities of those players to create moods and effects unlike any other in music... so for the last twenty years or so I have been trying to wrap my head around Ellington's massive late discography... of course I still listen to the older music (it's always popping up on the Magic Jukebox), but this later stuff... maybe it's because I'm older myself... I have grown to appreciate late Ray Nance, and the wonderful Clark Terry, and even Cat Anderson, whose squeaks and high notes used to strike me as grandstanding, but which I now see as a precursor to John Gilmore's high-register explorations... anyway, there's so much great music out there... but the Duke always swings, and always gets my fingers snapping, my shoulders swaying, and my hips shaking... long live Ellington!
Playlist 2025-04-14:
*[Ahmed]: Giant Beauty (disc 4)
*Air: Air Raid (sides 1, 2)
*Lotte Anker/Craig Taborn/Gerald Cleaver: Floating Islands
*Louis Armstrong: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 1923-1934 (disc 4)
*Art Ensemble of Chicago with Anthony Braxton & Frank Lowe: 1975-09-11 Five Spot, NYC (CDR) (disc 2)
*Art Ensemble of Chicago: 1976-11-27 The Kitchen, NYC (CDR) (discs 1, 2)
*Fred Astaire: Starring Fred Astaire (disc 1)
*Johann Sebastian Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier (Glenn Gould) (disc 2)
*Beatles: The Alternate Anthology Part 1 (disc 1)
*Derek Bailey/John Butcher/Gino Robair: Scrutables
*Daniel Barbiero/Sam Byrd/Jimmy Ghaphery: 2017-12-02 Rhizome DC (CDR)
*Jim Black: Alasnoaxis
*Boris: Boris at Last -Feedbacker
*Anthony Braxton: Wesleyan (12 Altosolos) 1992
*John Butcher/John Edwards/Mark Sanders: Last Dream of the Morning
*John Coltrane Quartet: 1965-03-19 Half Note (CDR) (disc 1)
*Miles Davis Quintet: Miles in France 1963 & 1964: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8 (disc 1)
*Jim Denley/Peter Farrar/Dale Gorfinkel: Vents
*Bob Dylan: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack (disc 1)
*Bob Dylan/Various artists: Theme Time Radio Hour S01 E31 "Tennessee"
*Duke Ellington: The Private Collection, Vol. 6 Dance Dates California 1958
*Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: Newport 1958 "Princess Blue"
*Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: A Drum Is a Woman
*Duke Ellington: Duke Ellington Live! At the Newport Jazz Festival '59 "Idiom '59"
*Duke Ellington: Blues in Orbit
*Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: Three Suites "The Nutcracker Suite"
*Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: Piano in the Background
*Duke Ellington: The Popular Duke Ellington (sides 1, 2)
*Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: Concert in the Virgin Islands (side 2)
*Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Armstrong: The Complete Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong on Verve (disc 1)
*Grateful Dead: 1969-04-04 San Francisco (CDR) "Dark Star"
*Grateful Dead: 1969-04-21 Boston (CDR) "Dark Star"
*John Greaves: Songs
*Andrew Hill Sextet Plus 10: A Beautiful Day, Revisited (disc 2)
*Darius Jones: Legend of e'Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye)
*Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66: Look Around
*New Ting: 2017-11-20 "Fluid Dispersal" (wav)
*Marek Pospieszalski Octet & Zoh Amba: Now!
*Max Roach featuring Anthony Braxton: Birth and Rebirth
*Masahiko Satoh/Otomo Yoshihide/Roger Turner: Sea
*Ravi Shankar: Master of Sitar
*Sparks: The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte (sides 1, 2)
*Sun Ra and His Myth Science Arkestra: We Travel the Spaceways
*Sun Ra and His Arkestra: Bad and Beautiful
*Sun Ra and His Myth Science Arkestra: Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy
*Sun Ra and His Mythic Science Arkestra: The Paris Tapes: Live at Le Théâtre du Châtelet 1971 (disc 2) "Discipline Number Unknown"
*Sun Ra: Uncharted Passages
*Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Up Above My Head (disc 1)
*Various artists: That Devilin' Tune: A Jazz History (1927-1934) (Vol. II, disc 4)
*Anna Webber: Third Floor People
*Yes: Tales from Topographic Oceans (side 4)
*Frank Zappa: Apostrophe (50th Anniversary Ed.) (disc 2)
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