Columbia Archives - JAZZ IMPRESSIONS

Routes: A Jazz Impressions Podcast – Episode 9

We take flight in Episode 9 with two classic live cuts: Joe Henderson’s ‘Junk Blues’ and Don Pullen & George Adams’ ‘Saturday Night In The Cosmos’. But what’s the best route? Via Italy and Japan? Or as the crow flies? Ornithophobics need not apply. Thanks for all your support in this first year of the podcast and stay tuned for more Routes in the new year. Keep watching the skies!

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Tracklists below (SPOILERS!)

Routes: A Jazz Impressions Podcast – Episode 7

What links the ambient jazz of Bennie Maupin’s ‘Past + Present = Future’ and the dusty grooves of DJ Krush’s ‘Dig This Vibe’? What is the best soundtrack to getting probed by aliens? And what is the French version of the Mafia? Find out all this and more in this abstract episode of the podcast – along with more of Ollie’s flawless impersonations of instrumental jazz.

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Tracklists below (SPOILERS!)

Routes: A Jazz Impressions Podcast – Episode 4

In episode 4 we connect two very different tracks recorded 10 years apart – the free-leaning post-bop of Eric Dolphy’s ‘Green Dolphin Street’ and the dark, funky, cinematic vibes of Gary Burton’s ‘Las Vegas Tango’. Plus hip-hop and samples and films, oh my!

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Tracklists below (SPOILERS!)

Mahavishnu Orchestra – Vital Transformation

Category is: skull-crushing breakbeats. Enter the Mahavishnu Orchestra, whose high-intensity fusion of psychedelia, prog and jazz took the rock world by storm with its explosive debut The Inner Mounting Flame in 1971, which according to critic Richard S. Ginell “may have been the cause of more blown-out home amplifiers than any other record this side of Deep Purple.”

Miles Davis – Rated X

Two years after Miles released On The Corner came his album Get Up With It (1974) on Columbia Records, marking the end of a seven year period of electric jazz experimentation. This was a compilation album of songs Davis recorded between 1970 and 1974, many of which were part of the sessions for his earlier albums Jack Johnson (1971) and On The Corner (1972).

Miles Davis – Black Satin

Following on from Herbie Hancock’s jazz-robotics on ‘Rain Dance‘, we turn to another album that was Miles ahead of its time, and features three of the musicians who would go on to appear on Sextant: Herbie Hancock (keys), Bennie Maupin (bass clarinet) and Billy Hart (drums).

Herbie Hancock – Hang Up Your Hang Ups

In terms of musical revolutions, Herbie Hancock going electric rivals Bob Dylan at Newport and Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday’ for the title of most controversial industry moment.

Santana – Going Home

When people hear the name Santana, depending on their generation they’ll probably either think of the ’60s heyday of ‘Black Magic Woman’ or their turn-of-the-century comeback hits like ‘Smooth’. Arguably though, the band’s most creatively fertile period was in the ’70s, when Carlos and co. were experimenting with jazz, spirituality and collaborating not with pop stars (no offence to Rob Thomas – I like Veronica Mars as much as the next guy) but with such virtuosos as Alice Coltrane and John McLaughlin.

Miles Davis – Bitches Brew

Who better to lead us into the weird world of Miles Davis than his biographer, Ian Carr? We heard his electric Miles-inspired jazz-rock on ‘Torrid Zone’, and Bitches Brew (1970) is more or less fusion ground zero. Influenced by the music of Jimi Hendrix – and pissed off that rock stars were making more money than him without the musical ability – Davis mixed the aggression of rock with the most experimental aspects of jazz to create an album that sounded like neither genre, producing something closer to alien funk.