Jazz Land

Jazz Music Origins

Touch $10.58 Adding to her already transcendent collection of solo piano recordings for Origin Records, Jessica Williams furthers her legacy with Touch, recorded live at the Triple Door concert hall in Seattle. In her detailed and expansive liner notes, Ms. Williams reveals a thought process obsessed with voicing's and touch - apparent in this program of originals and classics such as Goodbye, Porkpie Hat - an...

Harlem Renaissance / Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Nat King Cole $10.76 Recounts the vibrant personalities and remarkable cultural movements that flourished in America's leading Black community during the 1920s and 1930s.Genre: DocumentaryRating: NRRelease Date: 27-JUL-2004Media Type: DVD...

Bobby Broom Plays For Monk $10.92 For his third Origin release, master guitarist Bobby Broom pays tribute to one of the most important voices in jazz with a set of Thelonious Monk compositions and several standards Monk recorded during his time on Riverside Records. He is joined by his long standing trio-mates, bassist Dennis Carroll and drummer Kobie Watkins, as he again puts his own very personal spin on the classic repertoire. ...

The Last of the Blue Devils - The Kansas City Jazz Story $17.09 Kansas City in the 1930s was a wild, wide-open place. Under political boss Tom Pendergast, the booze flowed freely, prostitution and gambling flourished, and the Depression pretty much passed the city by, making it an ideal spawning ground for some great music. Pianist-bandleader Count Basie, saxophone immortals Lester Young and Charlie Parker, and blues belters Big Joe Turner and Jimmy Rushi...

Two for the Road $30.99 ...

Jazz/ World- Origin Series $35.00 Superbly recorded, engineered and played, "Jazz/World" is a consummate production from Harvey Summers. Sublime playing by some of the best session musicians and African master drummers has led to a truly original concept sample CD that will blend seamlessly into your productions. The CD includes live played saxophones, flute, double bass licks and multis, keys, synths and a superb range of drum ki...

Origins of the Popular Style: The Antecedents of Twentieth-Century Popular Music (Clarendon Paperbacks) $19.95 Analyzing popular music from a musical, rather than a sociological or political viewpoint, this book examines the nineteenth-century split between classical and popular music and surveys all styles of Western popular music to uncover the musical language uniting them....

Jazz: From its Origins to the Present $99.95 This entertaining one-volume comprehensive history of jazz and the artists who made it popular contains musical examples so that students who do not read music will not be inhibited. Combines a rich detail of the origins of jazz with insightful biographies and contributions of jazz legends, including Duke Ellington, Count Bassie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davies, John Coltrane, and the jazz bands of...

Exploring Early Jazz: The Origins and Evolution of the New Orleans Style $21.87 One night around 1897 they say Buddy Bolden stood up in a New Orleans Dance Hall and played the first hot blues. It was not until 1917 that the Original Dixieland Jazz Band made the first jazz recording. By 1927, after becoming the popular hit music of the Jazz Age, what we now call Classic Jazz was giving way to a new type of hot music; big band Swing. This book tells the story of the hectic thi...

It’s a real shame that the entertainment industry has to label things a certain way.

I am very familiar with ECM, having listened to that label for decades and enjoying Pat Metheny, Ralph Towner, Jan Garbarek, Eberhard Weber, Keith Jarrett and a host of other ‘modern’ jazz musicians who emerged in the 1970s. It is a European label (German I believe) and they were a really ‘cutting edge’ sound back in the 70s. If you were to listen to Ralph Towner’s Winter Solstice LP from the mid-70s, you would hear a lot of what may have influenced a New Wave movement.

New Age also began in the 1970s (on a parallel track) with recordings by Oregon, Mannheim Steamroller, George Winston (and the rest of the Wyndham Hill catalog). New Age then evolved and split into: (1) a minimalist movement, with lots of solo instrument recordings such as Alex deGrassi’s guitar and George Winston’s piano works, and (2) A more jazz and fusion sound with bands like Shadowfax, Acoustic Alchemy and others.

Eventually, New Age became so benign and mindless, it was labeled as ‘Elevator Music’ and pretty much dismissed by most serious musicians and listeners. However, there were some really great moments in some of Mannheim Steamroller’s works before they became so mindless and ‘cutesy’.

I do not agree that what you cited as ‘inspirational’ jazz is the basis for New Age. Coltrane’s A Love Supreme is one of the greatest jazz compositions of all time and any New Age music totally pales in comparison – not even in the same ballpark.