This album is i of guitarist artist/kenny-burrell-mn0000068780">Kenny Burrell's best-known sessions for the Blue Note label. artist/burrell-mn0000068780">Burrell is matched alongside tenor saxophonist artist/stanley-turrentine-mn0000012644">Stanley Turrentine, bassist artist/major-holley-mn0000673865">Major Holley, drummer artist/bill-english-mn0000127546">Bill English, together with artist/ray-barretto-mn0000341422">Ray Barretto on conga for a blues-oriented appointment highlighted past times "Chitlins Con Carne," "Midnight Blue," "Saturday Night Blues," together with the solely touchstone "Gee Baby Ain't I Good to You."
I cause got been searching for beautiful jazz guitar albums, together with this is nigh every bit approximately perfection every bit I cause got found. For an album recorded inwards 1963, it soundless sounds remarkably fresh today. Beautiful playing never goes out of style. How smoothen tin dismiss Jazz guitar get? Right hither is the answer. Every vocal on this album is showtime charge per unit of measurement together with has some of the best guitar I've ever heard when it comes to Jazz. Five stars actually isn't plenty when it comes to this album. It should live the showtime halt when considering listening to Kenny Burrell.
In an era dominated past times the glossy veneer of "Facebook blue," Kenny Burrell's Midnight Blue sets the mood for a brief supply to a bygone era when the deep indigo of the Yves Klein version was to a greater extent than common. Darker hues ruled the night, together with the pale moonlight of a lovelorn skyline meant it was past times final telephone telephone together with all that remained of the twenty-four hours was an overwhelming air of what could only live called the blues. "The blues," Duke Ellington wrote, "the blues ain't nothin' but a mutual frigidity greyish day, together with all dark long it stays that way…the blues is a one-way ticket from your honey to nowhere; the blues ain't nothin' but a dark crepe veil, create to wear."
Leonard Feather begins his liner notes for Burrell's seminal album alongside this quote, invoking i of the destination jazz guitarist's greatest influences, together with i of his greatest champions. Now 81, Burrell fifty-fifty teaches a course of written report on Ellington at UCLA. Part Lawrence Lucie, part Charlie Christian, he has a steely, cool-under-pressure audio on the guitar that dovetailed perfectly alongside Blue Note’s prevailing blues-infused character.
Few albums capture the aesthetic of Blue Note's golden era meliorate than Midnight Blue—a consistent laid upwards of original pocket-sized fry grooves meant to live experienced inwards its entirety, rather than padding for i standout track—and it justifiably occupies a house inwards the jazz canon, a mutual entry on countless essential listening lists. Recorded 50 years agone at Van Gelder studio inwards Englewood Cliffs alongside Burrell's pianoless quintet, the album soundless holds upwards to critical scrutiny, or to a pairing alongside a half-empty bottle of Scotch. Undoubtedly, 1963 was a high-water score for jazz, inwards New Bailiwick of Jersey together with elsewhere.
One of Burrell's most enduring achievements, the album plumbs the depths of the blues for its harmonic subtleties together with lyricism inwards a vogue that tin dismiss live readily accessible on its confront yet challenging plenty to vantage repeated visits. As e'er alongside Burrell, though, never error brevity for simplicity; the fathomless 12-bar mantra has no 2 identical choruses, together with Burrell doesn't rely on reflexive facility, the blues equivalent of fool's gold.
Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 truthful master, Burrell has internalized the form, giving him the feel of tranquillity together with restraint that is the cornerstone of whatsoever bluesman worth his salt. On this outing, he is joined past times like-minded players who create the illusion of a loose blowing session inside a tight framework: tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, bassist Major Holley, drummer Billy Gene English, together with conguero Ray Barretto, a highly regarded bandleader inwards his ain correct who injects a dash of Latin flavour into the mix.
Burrell got his start every bit a Detroit beat guitarist; every bit a result, his fourth dimension is unerring together with correct inwards the pocket, he e'er spells out the chords together with forecasts where he's going, but similar a slap-up motorcoach driver, he doesn't depict attending to the underlying mechanics. The outcome is a listener-friendly album alongside a tonally nuanced atmosphere easily shared betwixt the jazz aficionado together with the neophyte who precisely heard Kind of Blue for the showtime time; regardless of background, a smoothen ride allows passengers to accept inwards the scenic vistas.
The album opens alongside Burrell's classic pocket-sized fry blues, "Chitlins con Carne." Often covered past times artists ranging from Horace Silver to Stevie Ray Vaughan, this is the low-key original that laid upwards the touchstone for this forthwith touchstone Latin-tinged blues. The eight-bar intro lays downward a pulsing Latin clave, alongside Holley pedaling the bass every bit Barretto takes liberties on the congas. Turrentine's matter-of-fact controversy of the tune establishes his past times turns lugubrious together with diaphanous sound.
Burrell's lean comping sets the album's precedent for succinctness, i of his hallmarks. His deceptively build clean guitar solo walks a tightrope betwixt endless infinite together with airtight rhythmic motifs; a devil-may-care mental attitude inwards the confront of give-up the ghost that comes from having been downward together with out together with having lived to say nigh it. Turrentine plays foil, Captain Kirk to Burrell's Spock, singing the blues correct out of the gate, but the 2 demo their psychic connecter when seamlessly trading non fours, but ones, until the blistering out chorus.
"Mule" recalls Howlin' Wolf sideman Hubert Sumlin's experience together with precision, a slow-marinating, soft blues that the band plant over similar a bomb team that has seen it all. Unlike other jazz subgenres, the primal to the blues is to never permit the bomb become off, together with the 5 demonstrate an unwavering focus, keenly aware of this urgent fact. Punctuated past times Holley's downward bass slide riff together with English's ambling hi-hat, Turrentine together with Burrell stretch out on this quintessential tedious jam.
Burrell keeps it mellow on the crepuscular "Soul Lament," a solo pocket-sized fry groove that departs from the blues shape but even thus retains its spirit. Though nether 3 minutes, this represents some of Burrell's most sensitive playing, replete alongside embellishments, a rhythmic elasticity, together with complex inversions. The footstep picks upwards abruptly on the championship track, which reintroduces the beat section, but non Turrentine. Taking some other departure from the 12-bar blues, Burrell shows his prodigious bebop chops here, cutting loose on some extended lines juxtaposed alongside subtler beat guitar, employing technique that carries his feature fullness despite its comparatively fewer notes.
Turrentine returns on "Wavy Gravy," a smoldering mid-tempo blues waltz that brings the pocket-sized fry groove to a novel tension point. Holley establishes the groove alongside a well-articulated bass line, which Burrell glides over sparsely, until the saxophonist comes inwards to state the caput inwards unison alongside the guitar. Turrentine’s together with Burrell's solos are the prototype of cool, a relaxed but structured call-and-response that typifies the album's eponymous color.
"Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You," the album's sole non-original, is a lazy, schmaltz-free meditation on love. Burrell uses it every bit a springboard for his effortless, behind-the-beat bebop phrasing, playing off English's sultry brushwork. Burrell closes the album alongside "Saturday Night Blues," a driving nightcap to a bottomless flush that shifts the blues from pocket-sized fry to major. Turrentine simply wails; his vogue contrasts perfectly alongside Burrell's cavalier detachment. The 2 maintain riffing over each other until it all starts to fade out—the blues are never finished, precisely abandoned at dawn—as Sabbatum dark palpably fades into Lord's Day morning.
Track listing
Except where otherwise noted, all songs composed past times Kenny Burrell.
"Chitlins con Carne" – 5:30
"Mule" (Burrell, Major Holley, Jr.) – 6:56
"Soul Lament" – 2:43
"Midnight Blue" – 4:02
"Wavy Gravy" – 5:47
"Gee, Baby, Ain't I Good to You" (Andy Razaf, Don Redman) – 4:25
"Saturday Night Blues" – 6:16
"Kenny's Sound" (reissue bonus track) – 4:43
"K Twist" (reissue bonus track)– 3:36
Personnel:
Kenny Burrell – guitar
Stanley Turrentine – tenor saxophone
Major Holley – bass
Billy Gene English linguistic communication – drums
Ray Barretto – conga
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