So this is about a year late, but to all cliche about it: better late than never, right? So here it is the long awaited sixth link the The Jazz Chain. For people new to The Jazz Chain it’s pretty simple: I am taking a tour through Jazz through a six degrees of Kevin Bacon kind of model. I started with one of my favorite albums of all time in any genre: Art Blakey’s Orgy in Rhythm. Then I took one of the “sidemen” from that album, Sabu Martinez, and went and listened to one of his albums, one where he was the band leader: Sorcery! And that’s the pattern. For each album I listen to I pick one of the contributing players and listen to an album of their own and so on and so on. The last album in the chain was Johnny Girffin’s 1957 debut, Introducing Johnny Griffin. The drum player on that album was the legendary Max Roach and that is who we’re here to listen to today. With his album Drums Unlimited.
Continue readingTag Archives: Art Blakey
The Jazz Chain – Link 2: Sabu Martinez
It’s time to forge the second link in our jazz chain. What’s this ‘jazz chain’ you ask? Well, I’m taking a tour through the history of jazz, one album at a time, and each week’s album will be linked to the previous week’s selection by a common artist.
For example: last week the chain started with Art Blakey’s Orgy in Rhythm. One of the musicians from that album was Sabu Martinez who played percussion and provided the vocals for three of it’s tracks. This week we’re looking at Sabu Martinez’s album Sorcery!. Next week’s album will be lead by one of the the other musicians playing on Sorcery!.1I’ve already chosen the artist and album for next week, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Sorcery! – Sabu Martinez – 1958
The Jazz Chain – Link 1: Art Blakey
Today I’m starting a new weekly series. When I created this website I called it “Looking for a Rabbit Hole” for a reason. Along with being a place to showcase some of my writing it was also supposed to be a place for me to talk about all the various bits of entertainment I like to lose myself in. I love stories in all the forms stories take, and I love music, and I love talking about stories and music. To that end I’m working up some on-going features I’d like to have here on the blog where I talk about the “Rabbit Holes” of story and music I’m losing myself in whether new, new-to-me, or old favorites.
This series then, “The Jazz Chain”, will be the first of these projects. Continue reading