There is no sign of summer letting up just yet but there seems to be something of “Fall” in the air, with two excellent and very different approaches to this Wayne Shorter tune having been released recently by Jesse Fischer and Gilad Hekselman. “Fall” was done first by the Miles Davis Quintet, with Miles on trumpet, Wayne Shorter on sax, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter … [Read more...]
“And I Love Her”: A Critical Analysis of Covers
Brad Mehldau has a reputation for building beautiful piano trio versions of pop songs, notably including a lot of Beatles material. His trio release from earlier this year, Blues & Ballads, includes a fantastic version of "And I Love Her" with Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard. More recently, Gilad Hekselman, Petros Klampanis, and Ziv Ravitz played a trio concert with that … [Read more...]
Smells Like Teen Spirit: A Critical Analysis of Covers
Bringing outside influences into jazz and bringing jazz to other genres has been going on probably since there was a concept of jazz as a genre. Witness hip-hop and electronic producers sampling from jazz records and Robert Glasper playing J Dilla tunes. Witness David Bowie backed by a group of incredible jazz musicians, DJ Logic joining Medeski, Martin, and Wood, Miles Davis … [Read more...]
Black Narcissus: A Critical Analysis of Covers
Joe Henderson's 1969 album Power to the People featured a fantastic band: Herbie Hancock on keys, Ron Carter on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums (Mike Lawrence also joins on trumpet for several tunes, but sat out for "Black Narcissus"). They opened the album on a mellow note with "Black Narcissus". It's a catchy melody from Henderson's sax that floats nicely on Hancock's … [Read more...]
Syeeda’s Song Flute: A Critical Analysis of Covers
Having looked earlier at some variations on "Giant Steps" (to which I'll also add here Freddie Hubbard's "Dear John") and "Countdown", I'll take a look at some different versions of "Syeeda's Song Flute", also from Coltrane's 1960 album Giant Steps. "Syeeda's Song Flute" was written for Coltrane’s daughter, and the catchy melody does have a bit of a children’s song feel to … [Read more...]