Listening lounge
May 5, 2007 | 1:37 pmHere comes another two recommendations for real good jazz:
Les McCann/Eddie Harris – Swiss Movement, Live at Montreux Jazz Festival (1969)
I stumbled over this album a year ago and I have kept playing it at home. Now everybody in the house loves it, even my 13 year old daughter. It is said to be the peak of McCann’s career. I don’t know about that, but I do know that this recording is magic, total magic. It is infectiously joyful and so funky and the intermingling solos of saxophonist Eddie Harris and the trumpeter Benny Bailey have such great intensity. I want more of this, definitively.
Yellow Jackets – Time Squared (2003)
The albums Time Squared and Dreamland have been spinning in my car for the last month. Some parts remind me of Joe Zawinul and other of The Flecktones minus banjo. I especially like the drummer’s light and playful work on the cymbals. Bass player Jimmy Haslip is great of course. The melodies are gorgeous and weaved together, with intricate and subtle changes. This is an album that you typically can listen to again and again and find new interesting passages all the time. They have been going for a long time and yet they are not boring.










