Jazz for aficionados

O-10:

I have both of the MJQ CDs. The Swingle Singers disc I don't like. It's one of the type of discs I will use to justify buying the Mingus Box Set. :) It was a nice try, but no cigar. Not very good Jazz or Classical. Or at least it was not interesting enough.

Now I will have to revisit my 'Blues on Bach' album by MJQ to see if they fared any better there, with the classical tyhingy.

'Concorde' is owned by everyone calling themselves a Jazz lover. The MJQ creates a sound you never get tired of hearing. They play Exquisite Jazz, and 'softly as in a morning sunrise' is typical. They also look and act the part.

What's not to like??

I remember a guy from NYC I knew in college, introducing me to MJQ, and what he called 'Third Stream' Jazz. I don't think that worked out.

Cheers

"Nica's Dream" composed by Horace Silver is my favorite tune, and this "messenger's" version is my favorite; but first, let me tell you a little bit about "Nica".

Kathleen Annie Pannonica de Koenigswarter was a British-born jazz patroness and writer. She was a leading patron of bebop music. In New York, de Koenigswarter became a friend and patron of many prominent jazz musicians, hosting jam sessions in her hotel suite, and lending them her chauffeur and Rolls Royce when they needed a lift to performances. She is sometimes referred to as the "bebop baroness" or "jazz baroness" because of her patronage of Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker among others. Following Parker's death in her Stanhope rooms in 1955, de Koenigswarter was asked to leave by the hotel management; she re-located to the Bolivar Hotel at 230 Central Park West, a building commemorated in Thelonious Monk's 1956 tune "Ba-lue Bolivar Ba-lues-are".

She was introduced to Thelonious Monk by jazz pianist/composer Mary Lou Williams in Paris while attending the "Salon du Jazz 1954", and championed his work in the USA, writing the liner notes for his 1962 Columbia album Criss-Cross, and even took criminal responsibility when she and Monk were charged with marijuana possession by the police. After Monk ended his public performances in the mid-1970s he retired to de Koenigswarter's house in Weehawken, New Jersey, where he died in 1982.

There are numerous compositions in her honour. Gigi Gryce's "Nica's Tempo", Sonny Clark's "Nica", Horace Silver's "Nica's Dream", Kenny Dorham's "To Nica", Kenny Drew's "Blues for Nica", Freddie Redd's "Nica Steps Out", Barry Harris's "Inca", Tommy Flanagan's "Thelonica" and Thelonious Monk's "Pannonica" were all named after her.

Here is by far my favorite version of "Nicas's Dream", I can feel it in my bones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lju13U1zEE

Enjoy the music.

Rok, I agree on the singers; while I like the MJQ in general, on occasion they have gotten too moody and introspective, those are the LP's that didn't get turned into CD's.

Enjoy the music.