This album is 1 of guitarist Kenny Burrell's best-known sessions for the Blue Note label. Burrell is matched alongside tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, bassist Major Holley, drummer Bill English, together with Ray Barretto on conga for a blues-oriented engagement highlighted yesteryear "Chitlins Con Carne," "Midnight Blue," "Saturday Night Blues," together with the lonely measure "Gee Baby Ain't I Good to You."
I hit got been searching for beautiful jazz guitar albums, together with this is nearly equally to a greater extent than or less perfection equally I hit got found. For an album recorded inwards 1963, it soundless sounds remarkably fresh today. Beautiful playing never goes out of style. How shine tin 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 yesteryear 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 yesteryear concluding telephone yell upwardly together with all that remained of the twenty-four hr catamenia was an overwhelming air of what could exclusively live called the blues. "The blues," Duke Ellington wrote, "the blues ain't nothin' but a mutual depression temperature grayness day, together with all nighttime 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, laid upwardly to wear."
Leonard Feather begins his liner notes for Burrell's seminal album alongside this quote, invoking 1 of the destination jazz guitarist's greatest influences, together with 1 of his greatest champions. Now 81, Burrell fifty-fifty teaches a course of educational activity on Ellington at UCLA. Part Lawrence Lucie, business office 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 improve than Midnight Blue—a consistent laid of original tike grooves meant to live experienced inwards its entirety, rather than padding for 1 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 upwardly to critical scrutiny, or to a pairing alongside a half-empty bottle of Scotch. Undoubtedly, 1963 was a high-water grade 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 fashion that tin live readily accessible on its aspect upwardly yet challenging plenty to vantage repeated visits. As e'er alongside Burrell, though, never fault 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.
H5N1 truthful master, Burrell has internalized the form, giving him the feel of placidity together with restraint that is the cornerstone of whatever bluesman worth his salt. On this outing, he is joined yesteryear like-minded players who hit 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 season into the mix.
Burrell got his start equally a Detroit musical rhythm guitarist; equally 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 peachy coach driver, he doesn't describe 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 shine ride allows passengers to hit got inwards the scenic vistas.
The album opens alongside Burrell's classic tike blues, "Chitlins con Carne." Often covered yesteryear artists ranging from Horace Silver to Stevie Ray Vaughan, this is the low-key original that laid the measure for this straightaway measure Latin-tinged blues. The eight-bar intro lays downward a pulsing Latin clave, alongside Holley pedaling the bass equally Barretto takes liberties on the congas. Turrentine's matter-of-fact contention of the tune establishes his yesteryear turns lugubrious together with diaphanous sound.
Burrell's lean comping sets the album's precedent for succinctness, 1 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 aspect upwardly of dice that comes from having been downward together with out together with having lived to say nearly it. Turrentine plays foil, Captain Kirk to Burrell's Spock, singing the blues correct out of the gate, but the 2 present their psychic connective 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 fundamental 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 yesteryear Holley's downward bass slide riff together with English's ambling hi-hat, Turrentine together with Burrell stretch out on this quintessential boring jam.
Burrell keeps it mellow on the crepuscular "Soul Lament," a solo tike groove that departs from the blues shape but soundless 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 measurement picks upwardly abruptly on the championship track, which reintroduces the musical rhythm section, but non Turrentine. Taking some other deviation from the 12-bar blues, Burrell shows his prodigious bebop chops here, cutting loose on some extended lines juxtaposed alongside subtler musical rhythm 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 tike 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 nation 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 equally 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 eve that shifts the blues from tike to major. Turrentine simply wails; his trend contrasts perfectly alongside Burrell's cavalier detachment. The 2 move along riffing over each other until it all starts to fade out—the blues are never finished, only abandoned at dawn—as Sabbatum nighttime palpably fades into Dominicus morning.
Track listing
Except where otherwise noted, all songs composed yesteryear 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
EmoticonEmoticon