Today jazz music mourns two losses – two indisputably great musicians. Alice Coltrane and Michael Brecker. Alice Coltrane was not given the credit she deserved given her marriage to JC, and she did devote much of the later part of her life to the legacy of her husband. But in her own right she made some great Impulse recordings, particularly Ptah: The El Daoud and the Warner recording Eternity. She was musically very close to Pharoah Sanders (whom she collaborated with) and will be best remembered for her introduction of the harp into jazz which gave her music spiritual colour. The spiritual edge to her music and JC, Pharoah and Archie Shepp too are where I get closest to complete musical bliss.
Many believe Michael Brecker to be the best tenor saxophonist since Coltrane. His influence is huge because he could play in a variety of idioms and sound great in all of them. I even noticed him on a Parliament album recently. But he wasn’t a musical tart. Just a great musician who was open-minded enough to test himself out in a wide variety of settings. He completed his last album two weeks ago. It will be a spine-chilling moment when I buy my copy of it.
May they both enjoy the long jam session they have now begun.
Song of the Day: Blue Nile – Alice Coltrane
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment