Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa is currently learning the Parasite score on tenor sax.
We’re living in extraordinary and unfortunate times; we’re in the middle of a global lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, a disease that has caught the planet’s social and economic structures unprepared and in denial, as it’s currently proving these systems obsolete and unsustainable. Our political leaders have failed to take actions to reduce the impact of the virus, or even slow its momentum, and more and more people are dying.
It’s up to us, the citizens of every nation, to follow the medical and scientific recommendations, do the responsible thing and practice social distancing. We still don’t know how long it will take for us to beat COVID-19, or to make the situation more manageable, but we will. Mankind has defeated worse pandemics, from the Black Death and subsequent bubonic outbreaks, to the 20th Century’s Spanish flu, and now we have the advantage of worldwide technology and communications to combat it together. We just need to act correctly and, for now, stay home.
But even in the middle of a quarantine, we can still have a great time and enjoy the great things humanity has to offer, especially all the great music we have created. And April is International Jazz Month, a perfect month to commemorate perhaps the most crucial artistic creation in American History, the first true modern American art form. From the beginnings of recorded music, jazz has been an essential part of our cultural production, and generations of brilliant musician have shaped the genre, taking it all over the world, crossing borders and expanding minds.
For this month’s mix, I decided to focus on the jazz music of the 1950s; arguably the most important in the genre’s History. This decade witnessed a paradigm shift, in which the traditional forms of jazz were being transformed and taken to wild new directions, new sub-styles and compositional schools of thought were built from the ground up, and the new possibilities of recording technology helped usher in the creative revolutions that would become omnipresent in the next decades, from the avant-garde wave to the golden age of Fusion. The mix has everything, from Bird and Diz’ bebop masterpieces to Miles, Coltrane, Coleman and their innovations.
Enjoy the music, and please, stay safe and healthy.
Link:
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- Charlie Parker – Love For Sale
- Sonny Stitt – Strike Up The Band
- Sonny Criss – How High The Moon
- Oscar Peterson – Night And Day
- Dizzy Gillespie – Alone Together
- Milt Jackson & The Thelonius Monk Quintet – Summertime
- Clifford Brown – All Weird (Take 1)
- Wynton Kelly – Summertime
- Bud Powell – Un Poco Loco
- Wardell Gray & Dexter Gordon – Homecoming
- Jay Jay Johnson – Get Happy
- Kenny Drew Trio – Bluesville
- Mary Lou Williams – O.W
- Duke Ellington – Perdido
- Machito & His Afro-Cubans – Maní Picao
- James Moody – Mambo With Moody
- Modern Jazz Quartet – Milano
- Frank Foster & George Wallington – How I Spent The Night
- Art Tatum – Blues In B Flat
- Donald Byrd – Star Eyes
- Horace Silver & The Jazz Messengers – To Whom It May Concern
- Dexter Gordon Quartet – Confirmation
- Sonny Rollins – St. Thomas
- Thad Jones – April In Paris
- Hampton Hawes – Takin’ Care
- Cecil Taylor Quartet – Bemsha Swing
- Sahib Shihab – Rockaway
- Coleman Hawkins – Chant
- Hank Mobley Quintet – Funk In Deep Freeze
- Johnny Griffin – The Congregation
- Max Roach + 4 – Body And Soul
- Art Taylor – Exhibit A
- Thelonius Monk – Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are
- Ella Fitzgerald & Duke Ellington – I’ve Got Nothing But The Blues
- Herbie Mann & Buddy Collette – Theme From ‘Theme From’
- Yusef Lateef – Blues In Space
- Ahmed Abdul-Malik – Farah Alaiyna (Joy Upon Us)
- The Chico Hamilton Quintet – Gongs East
- Blue Mitchell – Big Six
- Steve Lacy – Four In One
- Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers – Moanin’
- Cannonball Adderley – Somethin’ Else
- Mal Waldron Trio – With A Song In My Heart
- Art Farmer – ‘And Now…’
- John Coltrane – Slowtrane
- Paul Chambers – Visitation
- Charles Mingus – Fables Of Faubus
- Wynton Kelly Sextet – Keep It Moving
- Sun Ra – Ancient Aiethopia
- Ornette Coleman – Peace
- Miles Davis – All Blues
- Abbey Lincoln – Come Sunday
- Ben Webster – Budd Johnson
- Lou Donaldson – Blues Walk
- Jimmy Smith – Lover Man
- Nina Simone – Little Girl Blue
