hypnotic Archives - JAZZ IMPRESSIONS

Pete La Roca – Lazy Afternoon

One of the many attractive qualities of jazz, more than any other musical genre, is how the same song can be interpreted in many different ways. Whether this is Bill Evans and Yusef Lateef offering their personal takes on a classic soundtrack, or Ahmad Jamal and Bobby Hutcherson reworking a Herbie Hancock original, the musical freedom that underpins jazz allows its musicians to constantly reinvent and offer fresh perspectives on popular classics. In his last post, Dan wrote on guitarist Grant Green’s version of the ballad ‘Lazy Afternoon’. Whilst Green’s version is excellent, the definitive version in my opinion of this well known standard is found on drummer Pete La Roca’s album Basra, released in 1965 on Blue Note.

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).

Herbie Hancock – Rain Dance

Happy International Jazz Day 2020! After a spell of beautiful spring sunshine, the British weather has gone back to its usual rainy habits. What better way therefore to celebrate with another Herbie track released a couple of years prior to his funky ‘Hang Up Your Hang Ups’.

Pharoah Sanders – Greeting To Saud (Brother McCoy Tyner)

To mark the recent passing of pianist McCoy Tyner, the subject of our last post, the track for today is ‘Greeting To Saud (Brother McCoy Tyner)’ from the live album Elevation by tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, released in 1974 on Impulse! records.