The Jazz.com Blog
May 29, 2008 · 0 comments
Weekend Track Review Roundup
As regular visitors to this site know, jazz.com takes a different approach to reviewing music. Our team of more than 30 critics review individual tracks, not entire CDs. We believe that this approach allows for greater focus and specificity in critical evaluations and encourages closer listening to the music.
"The 75 minute CD was not a favor to anybody," Gary Giddins recently noted, in a wide-ranging conversation with Loren Schoenberg published on jazz.com. (You can read the complete article at this link.) "People didnt play them the way they played an LP, listening intently to a 15 minute side. They started to zone out. So youd listen to a few tracks at a time, but you would never quite get the intimacy with that CD that you got with LPs, let alone 78s."
The age of downloading is not without its pitfalls. But the emphasis on approaching jazz music one track at a time has a number of advantages. As Giddins has explained, close listening to a few songs is often much more rewarding than hours spent multi-tasking with jazz CDs playing in the background. Jazz.com's intensive focus on individual tracks has been designed with the aim of encouraging this degree of deep familiarity with the music.
Our stated goal -- quixotic, yet noble -- is to cover all the great (and not so great) tracks recorded by jazz artists since those bygone days before St. James Infirmary got its first patient. We aim for a fairly even balance between covering new music and old music. Five times each week, we highlight a Song of the Day drawn from the best of the current releases. We also offer a daily retrospective glance at a jazz masterpiece from the past, as part of our A Classic Revisited feature.
We aim to provide candid appraisals, and a ranking based on our proprietary 100 point scale. We also include, whenever possible, links for fast (and legal) downloading. And site visitors can add their own views laudatory, vituperative or vacillatory, as the mood suits them -- at the bottom of each review.
Below are links to a few of the track reviews we have published during the last two weeks.
Stan Getz: Blood Count
Diana Krall: If I Had You
Branford Marsalis & Ellis Marsalis: Laura
Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gilespie: Leap Frog
Frank Sinatra: September in the Rain
Charlie Haden: The Long Goodbye
Gene Krupa: Disk Jockey Jump
McCoy Tyner: Satin Doll
Sonny Rollins: Softly as in a Morning Sunrise
Cassandra Wilson: Polka Dots and Moonbeams
John Abercrombie: Follow Your Heart
Michael Blake: The Creep
Richard Galliano & Michel Portal: Viaggio
Steve Smith: Elm
Red Norvo: I Surrender, Dear
Mad Duran: How Deep Is the Ocean?
Eric Dolphy: On Green Dolphin Street
Artie Shaw: Sweet Lorraine
The Esquire All Stars: I Got Rhythm
Art Tatum: Sweet Lorraine
Rick Laird: Soft Focus
Blue Mitchell: Polka Dots and Moonbeams
J.J. Johnson: My Funny Valentine
Bill Evans: Eiderdown
John McLaughlin: Dear Dalai Lama
Katia & Marielle Labeque: Rhythm-a-ning
Eric Dolphy: Glad to Be Unhappy
Thelonious Monk: Misterioso
Warren Haynes: Lilas Dance
Duke Ellington: Satin Doll
Mose Allison: Do Nothin Till You Hear From Me
John Coltrane: After the Rain
Pee Wee Russell: That Old Feeling
Ornette Coleman: Focus on Sanity
Ken Peplowski: Variations
Zakir Hussain: Anisa
Bill Evans: Reflections in D
Duke Ellington: Reflections in D
Charles Mingus & Langston Hughes: Consider Me
Shirley Horn: Heres to Life
Marilyn Scott: Cry Me a River
Trilok Gurtu: Baba
Tina Brooks: Star Eyes
Fats Waller: Your Feets Too Big
Larry Coryell: Zimbabwe
Danny Gottlieb: Glorias Step
Tina Brooks: For Heavens Sake
Roy Haynes: Reflection
Roy Haynes: Bright Mississippi
Chris Cheek: Whats Left
Masada: Khebar
Roberta Gambarini: On the Sunny Side of the Street
Sonny Rollins: You Dont Know What Love Is
Gil Evans: Let the Juice Loose
Moods Unlimited: All the Things You Are
Keith England: At Last Now
Art Tatum: I Cover the Waterfront
This blog entry posted by Ted Gioia
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