A video of The Modern Jazz Quartet has been getting wide viewership on the internet. The YouTube presentation does not disclose that the group we see and hear is the MJQ’s predecessor, the rhythm section of Dizzy Gillespie’s big band from 1946 to the early fifties. To give his brass section rests during concerts, Gillespie occasionally featured interludes 
with vibraharpist Milt Jackson, pianist John Lewis, bassist Ray Brown and drummer Kenny Clarke. They first recorded as an entity in 1951 as the Milt Jackson Quartet. After Percy Heath replaced Brown the following year the group changed its name to The Modern Jazz Quartet. When Clarke concentrated on freelancing around New York in 1955 and then moved to Paris, Connie Kay assumed the drum chair.
The group we see and hear in the video is the Milt Jackson Quartet reunited. History aside, the music is what matters. The four old friends are clearly delighted to be together, and something is amusing them during their performance of Thelonious Monk’s “’Round Midnight.†The brief onscreen title in German near the beginning translates as “Jazz in a Christmas Night.†YouTube provides no information about where the concert was, or when. From the musicians’ appearances, my guess is that this was the 1990s. YouTube identifies the drummer as Heath, but it’s Clarke.
Here are Jackson, Lewis, Brown and Clarke forty years or so earlier, on August 24, 1951, with Jackson’s “Milt Meets Sid,†originally released on Gillespie’s Dee Gee label.
That performance and 22 other early Dee Gee and Savoy recordings by Jackson are in this album, some with guest artists including Kenny Dorham, Roy Haynes, Walter Benton and Julius Watkins.
This Rollins collection validates yet again the magisterial status conferred on him in the title of a 1956 album: Saxophone Colossus. In concert performances recorded over more than three decades and never before released, Rollins’s energy, melodic inventiveness, humor and rhythmic daring are breathtaking. The most recent piece, from 2012 when Rollins was 81, is no less gripping than the earliest, from 1979. The ’79 track, recorded in Finland, is an expanded version of “Disco Monk,†first heard on that year’s 
Miles Davis (1926-1991) would have turned 90 today. He apprenticed with Charlie Parker when he was 19 and quickly became a soloist whose signature style was recognizable even as he was still refining it. Davis is frequently quoted as claiming that he changed music five or six times. The circumstances of the alleged quote and to whom he may have addressed it are in dispute. Hyperbole aside, from his bebop beginnings to his integration of jazz with rock and pop during his final years, Davis had a profound effect on music in the twentieth century. He continues to influence musicians of several generations and in several fields. 
The wisdom of Allen’s choice of material is borne out in nine performances that illustrate an article of faith he expresses in his notes, “…the blues is the gateway to the past and future of American music; the well from which gospel, jazz, rock, country, rhythm & blues and hip hop are drawn.†In the album’s audio spectrum, Allen’s tenor saxophone is firmly between bassist Gregg August and drummer Rudy Royston. The sonic relationship emphasizes the interdependence the three have developed in their years as a working band. The power of August’s bass lines and the responsiveness of Royston’s drumming frame Allen’s deep musings and the harmonic coloring he uses to stir emotions. Seven of the nine blues lines are his. The trio’s passion makes this a living blues statement and a landmark in Allen’s impressive discography. 
When he was a member of the Ray Charles band in the 1950s, saxophonist David “Fathead†Newman was frequently the featured soloist on Paul Mitchell’s and George V. Johnson’s “Hard Times.†It became a musical signature that Newman made indelibly his own. He featured the piece for the rest of his life. In this case, he played it with an all-star group assembled for a festival in New Jersey in—we think—1993. The other members of the band are Steve Nelson, vibraphone; Walter Bishop, Jr., piano; David Wiliams, bass; and Eddie Gladden drums.
John Goldsby and the young veteran German pianist Ranier Böhm. Strassmayer has absorbed, internalized and personalized what John Coltrane gave to jazz and often evokes him purely on the power of her tone and inflection. The subtlety of Mondlak’s drumming is epitomized in his unaccompanied feature “Cascades.†Pauses and silences are among the attributes of that four-minute work of the imagination, made all the more effective by Mondlak’s upwellings of contrasting intensity. Strassmayer’s closing duet with Böhm, “Still In Her Ears,†is notable for her emotional range and the purity of her flute sound.
Pianist Vijay Iyer’s new collaboration with the ceaselessly adventurous trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith stems from the closeness they developed when Iyer was a member of Smith’s Golden Quartet late in the late 1990s. In his notes, Iyer calls Smith his “hero, friend and teacher.†The centerpiece of their album of duets is the album’s title suite, seven movements in which the fluency of Iyer’s playing often contrasts with Smith’s pointillism, split tones and abstract musings. And yet, for all of the metaphysics of his approach, the trumpeter now and then smoothes out into the held tones of a balladist. That aspect is striking in the section called “Notes on water,†with electronic keyboard background from Iyer that is both supportive and ethereal. The album begins with Iyer’s “Passage.†It closes with Smith’s “Marian Anderson,†both imbued with power that grows out of quietness. Close listening to this music is a must. Frequent listening discloses depths and surprises.
dominant role in placing Sweden second only to the United States as a force in the evolution of modern jazz. This pair of four-CD box sets contains substantial amounts of the music that Gullin recorded from 1951 to 1960 when he and Swedish jazz were flourishing. They contain his collaborations with countrymen like pianist Bengt Hallberg, 
alto saxophonist Arne Domnérus, trombonist Åke Persson, trumpeters Jan Allan and Rolf Ericson and clarinetist Putte Wickmann. There are also celebrated encounters with visiting Americans Lee Konitz, Zoot Sims, Conte Candoli and Frank Rosolino. Throughout, the smoothness, swing and harmonic inventiveness in Gullin’s playing demonstrate what made him a perennial poll winner on both sides of the Atlantic. These volumes provide a fair picture of the state of Swedish jazz during one of its yeastiest periods. Ray Comiskey’s comprehensive liner notes are a bonus. 
With young Kansas Citians Dominique Sanders (bass) and Brian Steever (drums) in his trio, the prolific Italian pianist follows up his 2015 Emigmatix. Magris decorates his improvisations with keyboard runs and swirls that enhance excitement without putting a hitch in his solid bebop approach. The compositions are primarily by Magris. Highlights include “Out There Somewhere†and “What Love,†which is nearly ten minutes of exhilarating soloing and interaction on famous Cole Porter harmonic changes. The trio invests the late Don Pullen’s “Joycie Girl†with insistent bounce. Magris plays beautifully on Billy Eckstine’s “I Want To Talk About You,†but a guest female vocalist has problems with the song’s low notes. A different vocalist sings two other songs without range difficulties but is saddled with mundane lyrics. Perhaps as a service to listeners who don’t get the message from the music, two narrators in a final “Audio Notebook†promote the goal of the album’s title.
explains that he writes music not to label it “about something†in order to snag foundation grants, but to employ what he’s learned and make it work for him and his players. Interview Music does that. Even better, it works for the listener. Carey’s influences reflect not only his extensive academic study but also include a long list of composers from before Bach to Stravinsky, Ellington, Mingus, Hindemith, Gil Evans, Clare Fischer and Maria Schneider. His sextet plays the five-part suite with drive, wit, swing and a palpable unity of purpose. It is complex chamber music with solo space for Carey, long an impressive trumpeter; bass clarinetist Sheldon Brown; alto saxophonist Kasey Knudsen; pianist Adam Shulman; bassist Fred Randolph; and drummer Jon Arkin. They are among the cream of the Bay Area’s jazz community. In a victory for his creative policy, the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music supported Interview Music with a grant despite its not being “about something,†which, of course, it is. It’s about music.
Joe Temperley is dead at 86. In recent years, he was a mainstay of the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra. In the 1970s following the death of Harry Carney, his glorious baritone saxophone sound anchored the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Temperley was born on September 20, 1929 in Crowdenbeath, Scotland and moved to New York in 1965. Also a master of the bass clarinet, he worked with the big bands of Woody Herman, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis, Clark Terry, Duke Pearson, Charles Mingus, and with a score of all-star groups.
The unprecedented double recommendation this week is because both albums have the brilliant Tom Harrell on trumpet and flugelhorn as a sideman, a rare role for him these days— and because they are among the most compellingly conceived and executed quintet collections in years. Kirk MacDonald is a Canadian tenor saxophonist whose imagination, firmness and drive recall Dexter Gordon and other mainstream tenor heroes. The rhythm section of pianist Brian Dickinson, bassist Neal Swainson and drummer Dennis Mackrel might have been made to order for MacDonald and Harrell.
MacDonald’s ten compositions are perfect for the band. The Russian tenor saxophonist Kireyev and American pianist Javors have recorded together before, but The Meeting, with Harrell’s buoyant contribution, takes the collaboration to a new height. Ben Williams on bass and E.J. Strickland on drums round out the rhythm section. Surprise: Kireyev’s Tuvan throat singing in “Caravan.†
Bing Crosby introduced “Love Thy Neighbor†in a scene with Ethel Merman and Leon Errol when Crosby co-starred with Carol Lombard (both pictured left) in the 1934 motion picture We’re Not Dressing. Crosby followed up with a hit record of the song for Brunswick. The record was on the charts for weeks and on the radio and jukeboxes for years. It seems unlikely that John Coltrane (born in 1926) would have missed hearing it in an era when radio was omnipresent in American lives. By the time his family moved from North Carolina to Philadelphia in 1944, Coltrane had been a saxophonist for about three years.
Neighborâ€â€”rarely used for jazz improvisation. In addition, as the scholar Carl Woideck has pointed out, Coltrane and pianist Red Garland recorded so often for Prestige that to assure variety, they maintained a constant lookout for unusual material. Coltrane’ solo on the song has plenty of variety, and a few hints at stylistic changes he was germinating that would flower a year or two later. It is one of his happiest solos of the 1950s. Coltrane with Garland, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb and flugelhornist Wilbur Harden on July 11, 1958.
demands close attention. At the piano, the clarity of Bley’s musical intelligence intertwines with Andy Sheppard’s saxophone mastery and Steve Swallow’s transformation of what he recently called “this rock and roll instrument‗his electric bass guitar—into a medium of unprecedented subtlety. 