Brookmeyer’s “Open Country”

December 23, 2009 by Doug Ramsey

“Open Country” is one of Bob Brookmeyer’s notable compositions from the 1950s. Here, he plays it with Gerry Mulligan in Mulligan’s quartet. Wyatt “Bull” Ruther is the bassist, Gus Johnson the drummer/

Monday Recommendation: Tommy Smith On Coltrane

Tommy Smith, Embodying The Light: A Dedication To John Coltrane (Spartacus Records) Fifty years ago in the aftermath of John Coltrane’s death, it would have seemed unlikely that a definitive tribute to the saxophone master would someday come from a Scottish tenor player. Yet, so universal is Coltrane’s presence in jazz and so deeply has […]

Monday Recommendation: Chet Baker Biography Revised

Jeroen de Valk: Chet Baker, His Life And Music (Aspekt) de Valk has revised his 2000 biography of the trumpeter. The new version includes a comprehensive index that is helpful to readers. It has a selection of new photographs of Baker on the bandstand, with family, and in times of trouble growing out of the […]

Monday Recommendation: Another Bill Evans Discovery

Bill Evans, Another Time, Resonance For years, it was thought that drummer Jack DeJohnette’s only recorded appearance with the Bill Evans trio was at the 1968 Montreux Jazz Festival. Then in 2013, producer Zev Feldman discovered that five days after Montreux, Evans, DeJohnette and bassist Eddie Gomez recorded privately for the owners of the MPS […]

Monday Recommendation: A Captivating Book Of Photos

Jean-Pierre Leloir, Jazz Images (Elemental) Jean-Pierre Leloir, who died in 2010, left a remarkable legacy of photographs from his work in the years when France was a destination for, and in a few cases home to, many of the world’s principal jazz musicians. The technical perfection of Leloir’s photographs was matched by his ability to […]

Recommendation: Miles Davis At Newport 1955-1975

Miles Davis At Newport 1955-1975:The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4 (Columbia/Legacy) Miles Davis’s importance and recognition grew dramatically in the decades covered by the recordings on these four volumes. When he played in an all-star group at the 1955 Newport Jazz Festival, the trumpeter was barely known to the general public. By the end of the […]

Monday Recommendation: Mat Walerian

Mat Walerian, Matthew Shipp, Hamid Drake, Jungle: Live At Okuden (ESP-Disk) His adventurism ranges far and he occasionally makes harsh sounds, but Polish reed artist Mat Walerian ultimately projects a calming effect not often found in avant garde music. The album is from the concert that produced a previous Walerian album with American pianist Matthew […]

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