Grant Green, Lewis Grizzard...Happy Times

Fine, easin' right along jazz guitar music sure is interesting to me. Especially when the jazz guitar man is the super guy, Grant Green. I used to have a friend, an Atlanta writer named Lewis Grizzard. He used to write about enjoying all the good, simple pleasures of life. Well I remember the words of Grizzard and when I listen to great jazz guitar guys like Grant Green....well...my, my....it makes me really smile. Today, I massively enjoyed Grant Green playing that fabulous standard, 'My Favorite Things.' That made me a happy camper as us older souls say. On the Green work I was listening to they also had the ace of the keyboard, the marvelous individual, McCoy Tyner. That fella' can produce excellent keyboard jazz. Oh, Yeah! Oh my...this has been a so great Friday. Why yes indeed, my friends.

Bill Evans: Vivid Improvisatory Elegance

Poetic jazz piano performances are inspiring. One of the most eloquent jazz piano artists is the passionate man of intense creativity, Bill Evans. Some of his work on the incomparable Riverside label is so profound. A veneer of resilient passion shines in the immaculate improvisatory work of Bill Evans. A strong, favorite of mine in the Evans musical portfolio is the jazz composition with so much lyrical quality....the one called 'Waltz for Debby.' Just like other elegant jazz pianists like Bud Powell and McCoy Tyner, Bill Evans is an artist of tremendous power. His penchant for grand linear keyboard work is a marvelous joy to experience.

McCoy Tyner, Charles Mingus: Feisty Jazz!

McCoy Tyner is such an always bright shiny gentleman of the jazz piano veterans. He has so much modernism in his improv solos. The guy is a giant delight. I listened to him today and felt so refreshed. Also, I got into real focused listening to the incredible big band sounds of the magnificent Charles Mingus, the master impresario on the bass. I feel McCoy Tyner and Charles Mingus are so strong, yes full of artistic impact on the musical world around them. What a powerful joy it is to listen to Tyner and Mingus.

Mccoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard: Style Men

Profound, richly exciting piano jazz can be mesmerizing. A fella who really has this idea down to a science is McCoy Tyner. I listened today to an elegant composition written by the grand trumpet ace, Freddie Hubbard. The tune was 'Birdlike' and dedicated to the saxophone great one, Charlie Parker. On this set there was McCoy Tyner on piano, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Ron Carter on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. What an exciting musical unit of jazz superstars! I can be a cheerleader for this kind of fine, brash jazz music all day. It is amusing that when a person hears this kind of total musicality it so overwhelms most all other music modes one normally hears. There is a shiny, sparkling milieu to jazz that is so sleekly full of fascination for it is a set of sounds that provokes one and shows a maddening delicious life experiences panorama that really has a good edge. Jazz helps our psychic well-being and helps us to forget all the meaningless sloth types that might have come our way over the decades of our existence. It is a gigantic blessing letting the brain gorge itself on the trumpet of Freddie Hubbard, the bass of Ron Carter, the piano of McCoy Tyner and the drums of Elvin Jones.