Daily best music in the world: a good first jazz album

If we learned about music in a nice orderly way, where everything started at a logical beginning with music that was clear and expository, this would be a good first record for finding out about jazz: Oscar Peterson Trio + One. With Ray Brown, Ed Thigpen, and Clark Terry. 

Everything is stated real plainly, for real clear reasons. All the features of the genre are here— to the extent that jazz is a genre. And it's a good sounding recording, with Thigpen playing the drums in a modern way. 

I could have used this sooner than I ever listened to it— I had to figure out how to support this kind of setting on the gig. I came to this music differently— the first things I sought out were by Charlie Parker, Art Blakey, and Miles Davis. Also “classic” jazz, but also rougher, less obvious music. The functions weren't so plain. Listening to a lot of Tony Williams and Elvin Jones I was looking to create a lot of drum energy, but I wasn't so clear on the underlying musical duties, even as I knew the music, forms, and vocabulary generally.  

Here's one track, you can go buy the CD: 

OK, two tracks: 

Very occasional quote of the day: soloing

“My idea of a drum solo is that you play like you sing. It comes from different things you listen to. And the beauty is always in the simple things.”

— Kenny Clarke, from 1984 Modern Drummer interview by Ed Thigpen

Larry Appelbaum: Before & After with Ed Thigpen

Over at Let's Cool One, Larry Appelbaum, jazz specialist at the US Library of Congress, does a Before & After (his variation of the blindfold test) with Ed Thigpen, from 2005. My favorite part, on a Papa Jo Jones recording:

“I Got Rhythm Pt. II” (from Jo Jones The Everest Years, Empire). Jo Jones, drums; Ray Bryant, piano; Tom Bryant, bass. Recorded in 1958/re-issued 2005.

Before: [immediately] Jonathan. Everything about him is wonderful. Nobody has as clean a sound. Is that with Ray Bryant? That’s a classic recording. You hear the clarity, the touch. It’s just so perfect. I don’t know if he’s the first to play brushes like this but as far as I’m concerned he’s the best. The way he played music. He knew music. And the effect he had on the musicians he played with. All this was very inspiring to me. What he brought out in the music. [listens closely to the breaks] He’s a dancer. He’s so happy. It’s classic. It’s an example of taking a small unit and making it sound like a full band.

After: Jo was my mentor. I didn’t take formal lessons from him. The way you learned from Jo Jones was by listening to him. And I learned from him about life and how to take care of yourself as a man. We didn’t talk that much about drums per se, we talked about music and life. But after I’d talk with him I’d play better that night, because you play life. We talk about all types of things; the children, the grandchildren, and his experiences with the people he knew. Never negative. He was very concerned about humanity. The things that made him unhappy were the people who were not respectful to one another. He had virtue, let’s put it that way. People like Jo Jones and Milt Hinton were our leaders and our mentors.

Read the entire piece.

Kenny Clarke on the invention of the ride cymbal

...and modern drumming in general, excerpted from Ed Thigpen's Kenny Clarke interview in the Feb. 1984 Modern Drummer. I originally posted this last year on the Drummerworld.com forum.

From Thigpen's introduction:

It's understandably difficult for a young drummer to imagine that the various components of the drumset were ever utilized in a manner unlike the way they are today. In actuality, the approach was, at one time, considerably different, and Kenny Clarke had a whole lot to do with changing it all. His drumming led the way towards usage of the bass drum for accentuation as well as timekeeping; the establishment of a jazz-time rhythm for the ride cymbal, and freedom from a strictly metronomic role, forcing the bassist to share in the responsibility of timekeeping. Kenny Clarke can also be credited with freeing the left hand so it could interact with the soloist—the obvious reason why thousands of young student drummers still sweat over Jim Chapin's Advanced Techniques For The Modern Drummer...

To say that Kenny Clarke was "important,"or "influential, "or even "a key musical figure, "does not do his contribution justice. To state, unequivocally, that he was drumming's all-time Great Emancipator, a man to whom every jazz drummer who's ever lived owes a debt of gratitude, is perhaps a much more honest appraisal.