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Bud Powell, The Amazing Bud Powell: Vol. 1 (The Rudy Van Gelder Edition)

2001 | Label: BLUE NOTE

As bop piano goes, Thelonious Monk had the ideas and tunes, but Bud Powell had the chops. More than anyone, he created bebop piano, influencing everyone who came after, partly by adapting saxophonist Charlie Parker's mercurial wit, speed and timing to the keyboard. (Hear Parker's "Ornithology.") His right hand melodies dart and zag like Bird, but his left was another story. Pre-bop, most pianists kept a regular rhythm going in the bass. Bud's southpaw rapped out terse punctuations, for a leaner, looser approach that became second nature to jazz… more »

The Art Blakey Quintet, A Night At Birdland, Vol. 1 (The Rudy Van Gelder Edition)

2001 | Label: BLUE NOTE

Drummer Art Blakey to the audience at Birdland, one night in 1954: "I'm gonna stick with the youngsters…keeps the mind active." He called that right. For 40 years hard bop's great talent scout schooled Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Watson, three Marsalises and umpteen others in how to navigate complex and intensifying rhythms and to build and pace a solo. His Jazz Messengers start here, really, with this golden quintet fronted by standard-setting new trumpet virtuoso Clifford Brown (fearsome uptempo, and a precocious ballad player at 23) and… more »

Sonny Rollins, A Night At The Village Vanguard (The Rudy Van Gelder Edition)

1999 | Label: BLUE NOTE

Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins was entering his peak decade in 1957, and his pianoless trio records are extraordinary, even for that period. On this roundup from two shows one Sunday in New York, he runs long with plenty of harmonic leeway, without piano to hem him in. Rollins's tone is garishly, pitilessly, gloriously harsh, and supremely expressive. On most of the program, he's joined by an ultramodern dream rhythm section, drummer Elvin Jones (before joining John Coltrane) and under-acclaimed bass thumper Wilbur Ware, fresh from the Monk-Coltrane quartet. (Donald Bailey… more »

Terell Stafford, This Side of Strayhorn

Label: MAXJAZZ / The Orchard

This is a disc for the Strayhorn connoisseurs. You hear it in the understated rendition of one of Strayhorn's best-known songs, "Lush Life," with Terell Stafford's buttery flugelhorn refusing to pander or wallow. You know it by the omissions of "Take the 'A' Train" and "Chelsea Bridge." Instead, Stafford digs into the obscure "Smada" (an outtake on the first Duke Ellington LP, from 1950) for one of the finest solos of his career (and his second of the song); conjoined phrases that ripple and surge and bob with an… more »

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Bop ’til you stop: Bebop, Hard Bop and Post Bop

By Britt Robson, eMusic Contributor

Bebop is the fundamental vehicle by which the carbohydrates of modern jazz—harmony, melody and rhythm (starch, sugar and fiber) — are churned and burned into the fuel of life. Since it first emerged nearly 70 years ago, bop has become pervasive, spouting various hybrids that include West Coast jazz, hard bop, and soul jazz. All of this is wrapped up in Bop 'til you stop, our celebration of bebop in all its permutations and splendor. We'll keep… more »

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