Relax with Some Stimulating, Modern Chamber Music

Here's an album recorded (in excellent sound) in London and released as part of a series by F-IRE, a collective of young musicians dedicated to creative expression. Repose features Jiri Slavik on bass and Fred Thomas on piano in a series of what sound to me like semi-improvised pieces that take in impressionism; minimalism; simple rhythmic grooves featuring percussive bass playing; abstract sonic explorations, tempered with a restful ambience and concerned with beauty of sound. This is engaging, inventive music, and I can't seem to get tired of it.

Hat Tips to Miles

Miles Davis is one of the most influential Jazz musicians of all time. He was gifted with the ability to reinvent his music every decade or so and shape the history of Jazz by so doing. A seminal, pivotal figure in Cool Jazz, Hard Bop, Modal Jazz, and Jazz-Rock Fusion, he was, simply put, way ahead of the pack.

He began as a bebopper in the 1940's, and established himself as a peer of the likes of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. At the end of that decade he made his first major sortie on the annals, with the nonet recordings later known as The Birth of the Cool. These are particularly beautiful, exciting, and colorful Jazz recordings that added sophisticated, delicate arrangements and lighter textures to the relatively stark Bebop from which it emerged, and gave birth* to the dominant Cool Jazz sound of the West Coast for over a decade, a gentler, pastel hued counterpoint to the East Coast's Hard Bop. The Birth of the Cool recordings are also considered seminal of so-called Third Stream music, a fusion of Jazz and Classical styles. Give them a listen!

Twenty years later, a session was recorded in LA and released with the subtitle Birth of the New Cool. The leader of the session was Sonny Criss, the album Sonny's Dream. It is a gorgeous, well-recorded tribute that moves far beyond the recorded subjects of its admiration, while retaining their color and elegance (and also reprising their original instrumentation). Criss' saxophone playing is indeed a dream, and this Jazz record is another one for music lovers of all stripes. I note that Sonny's dream band includes musicians previously referenced by this blog, Pete Christlieb and (indirectly) Tommy Flanagan.

The music of Sonny's Dream was composed, arranged, and conducted by a man who was to become a major figure in West Coast Jazz for decades - Horace Tapscott. Tapscott never became exactly a household name in Jazz circles, partly because the West Coast was not a major center of Jazz throughout his career, and partly because much of his music is quite uncompromising (though very much worth seeking out by adventurous listeners). He was particularly active as a pianist and leader for LA's excellent, underground Nimbus West record label. Dissent or Descent (which features the superb bassist Fred Hopkins) is an evocative, original, and strikingly beautiful piano trio record.

Discography (with sound samples):

Birth of the Cool - Miles Davis

Sonny's Dream - Sonny Criss

Dissent or Descent - Horace Tapscott

LA's Unsung - Nimbus West Compilation

* OK, there were other players and leaders who also were significant progenitors of the Cool sound: Lester Young; John Kirby; Claude Thornhill; Tadd Dameron; and Lennie Tristano to name a few.