The Supper Table

Continuing in the vein of Duke albums that proved his relevance, beauty, and power to me after I had long considered him an irrelevant quaint musical relic, I present Duke and Trane. There's something about the Duke in these small band settings that makes his power immediately apparent, in ways that are somewhat masked in the big band setting. Bon provecho. Duke Ellington & John Coltrane side 2 My Little Brown Book Angelica The Feeling of Jazz

I am in the middle of an experience where I work 12+ hour days and have one day off each week. In random moments I remember my intention to post something weekly to this blog, usually late at night, looking at stars, far from a computer, and then occasionally while at a computer, just like now. It is unfortunate that I can say little more than 'why didn't I hear this sooner?' or 'why doesn't everyone know this?' I suppose it reflects on my inability to be creative while working 60 hour weeks, but mostly it's because it's a mystery how albums like Nina's 'Little Girl Blue', Roberta's 'First Take', or 'Mingus at Antibes', could be so unloved when we swim in a sea of musical crap, mostly recycled from crap that went before. This blew my mind when I first heard it. The almost out of control funkified drumming of Rufus Jones, seemed both incongruous and perfectly placed. A toast to the great collaborations of Duke Elli...

There are times when I listen to an album and all I can think is, 'see, this is what's wrong with America.' I should rename this blog 'National Treasures That Weren't,' if only because for every album I want to say this should be a friggin' national treasure. Is there anyone who doubts that it should be some kind of spiritual crime that more people have listened to Britney Spears than those who have even heard of this album. This made me reconsider Duke Ellington. This marked a period in which he returned to musical primacy, no longer just retreading past accomplishments, but moving forward to meet and challenge the young guard. There are not many in any field who have acheived his level of greatness, coasted on his laurels for so long, as to become almost irrelevant, an afterthought, only to decide to re-define himself and his work in the last 20 years of his life. This album made me reconsider Duke Ellington because I had been under the mistaken imp...