Mr. Heartbreak Posted February 11, 2013 Share Posted February 11, 2013 Another great jazz player.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/arts/music/donald-byrd-renegade-jazz-trumpeter-dies-at-80.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LouieB Posted February 13, 2013 Share Posted February 13, 2013 Yup, another of graduate of the Blue Note hard bop school. That generation is really about gone. LouieB Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mr. Heartbreak Posted February 13, 2013 Author Share Posted February 13, 2013 Reading this news made me want to see some of the guys who are still around. I see Ron Carter and McCoy Tyner both have dates booked at the Blue Note club in NYC. I only wish they toured like Buddy Guy does, all around the southeast. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LouieB Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 There are still some members of that generation around, but mostly the youner ones (I guess Donald Byrd was not that old really) including Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter. Shorter has been getting alot of press of late. LouieB Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mr. Heartbreak Posted February 14, 2013 Author Share Posted February 14, 2013 Wayne Shorter is one of my old favorites. I love a bunch of his solo Blue Note albums from the early to mid-60s, much more than his time with Miles. But then he started doing some awful stuff in the 70s and onward. Not sure what he's up to lately.Herbie also did some fabulous work on his own, and he was in Miles' band in an interesting time as well. Like Wayne, he has done quite a lot of material since then that is definitely not my cup of tea. He piqued my interest with the Joni Mitchell tribute album, but when I listened to it, I found it almost intolerably boring. Of course, it's hard to cover someone like Joni, but it was just dull, IMHO. I have a friend who's a big Joni fan, and he liked it, but he is much more tolerant than me. Nicki Minaj could cover Joni and he would love it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LouieB Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 I was interested in the Joni album but never pulled the trigger on it because of luke warm reviews. (Dave Douglas did an album with some of her material a long time ago, which is now impossible to find and I didn't get it either.) Big article on Wayne in the NY Times a couple weeks ago. Innteresting stuff, but i have also not bought any of his more recent albums. The old Blue Note material is pretty good though. Since this is a post about Donald Byrd, I found his more funk oriented material to not be that interesting. Some folks like it a whole lot though. LouieB Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mr. Heartbreak Posted February 14, 2013 Author Share Posted February 14, 2013 Yeah, I was never much into Byrd's funk-oriented material either, though I can see where it was a natural progression for an African-American musician at that time. I really mostly dig his 50s-60s material. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LouieB Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 Yeah, I was never much into Byrd's funk-oriented material either, though I can see where it was a natural progression for an African-American musician at that time. I really mostly dig his 50s-60s material.True....and he was a pretty good sideman. LouieB Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mr. Heartbreak Posted February 14, 2013 Author Share Posted February 14, 2013 I'm going to say '61 was the peak year for Byrd. He recorded four albums, Chant, The Cat Walk, Royal Flush and Free Form. Most of these feature the (very young) Herbie Hancock. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LouieB Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 I'm going to say '61 was the peak year for Byrd. He recorded four albums, Chant, The Cat Walk, Royal Flush and Free Form. Most of these feature the (very young) Herbie Hancock.Wow, you are really tracking this. I assume these are all on Blue Note with the usual stable including Herbie. LouieB Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mr. Heartbreak Posted February 14, 2013 Author Share Posted February 14, 2013 Yeah, on Blue Note. I just looked him up on Wikipedia while I was bored at work. I definitely have The Cat Walk and Royal Flush at home, not sure about the others. They were at least enjoyable, can't recall if they were great. Wayne Shorter, on the other hand, had some undeniably great Blue Note records during the early 60s: Juju is probably the best, along with Night Dreamer and Speak No Evil. Phenomenal stable on those, including folks like Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter, Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock...really the cream of the crop. Shorter had an unreal run on Blue Note from about '64 to '68, though I am also kind of partial to one of his his more out-there releases from 1970, Moto Grosso Feio. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LouieB Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 I figured you made a run at Wiki. That is what I would have done. I have a few Byrd albums, but none stand out for me. I kjnow I have Black Byrd, which is just okay. Wiki says it used to be Blue Note's biggest seller. But the Shorter ones that I have are all great. There is a semi--good book about Blue Note that I read a few years ago. It is truly astounding that one label was able to corner the market on this entire group of artists and put out uniformly excellent releases over so many years. LouieB Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mr. Heartbreak Posted February 15, 2013 Author Share Posted February 15, 2013 It is truly astounding that one label was able to corner the market on this entire group of artists and put out uniformly excellent releases over so many years. LouieB Agreed. There were so many great players, not just the ones I have mentioned, but Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley, Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Lou Donaldson, Grant Green, etc. etc. It seems they could just jump in with any configuration of the others and produce good to great results in a matter of days. FYI, I checked the sound samples on Amazon to refresh my memory, and Cat Walk and Royal Flush do sound good. There's nothing as unique as Wayne Shorter's Juju or Lee Morgan's Search for the New Land on them, but I think they are very solid and enjoyable. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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