After Hours At Minton's - Thelonious Monk

Advantages: Intimate, excellent recording of the master of jazz piano alone doing what he does best.
Disadvantages: There's just not enough of it.

...Thelonious Monk is unquestionably one of the greatest musicians of the last century. Joyous, wild, insane, romantic, ecstatic, otherwordly, desperate, monumental - and that's just his facial expressions. There are musicians who play their instruments, then there are musicians who just play, the instrument and the musician each being and becoming each other's instrument. Monk is one of these, and you won't find a better example of his greatness than on this record. Recorded in just a few days, every track here sounds like it burst out the sticky centre of a donut the size of the galaxy at the beginning of time, imploding with wonderous uncontrollably joy at the very fact of existence. The recordings themselves are so crisp and balanced that you can hear Monk humming and tapping along as he plays the piano with his whole body, somehow... Read review

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Advantages: Good for finding out about early chili peppers, fun and funky
Disadvantages: Early chili peppers does not stand up to modern stuff

...This album is a sister album to the 'What Hits' lp, and contains B-sides and demo versions of the chili peppers early work, up to before the release of Blood Sugar Sex Magik. It contians 19 tracks, Including 4 mixes, all of which are quite well done and in most cases sufficiently different to the original to merit thier inclusion, 3 live tracks, including Jimi Hendrix's Castles made of sand, and F.U. by Thelonious Monk. Next comes Demo versions of chili's songs, which for the fan are interesting as they do in places differ from the recorded versions, and feature the original members playing. There are then 5 other 'demo's' which are little more than studio outtakes, but fun all the same. If you are a chili peppers fan and want to hear thier early music, i suggest you start here before buying a complete album, as this gives you a wide... Read review

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Advantages: amazing interpretation of a classical piece
Disadvantages: Let me think about that.....hmmmmmm...........aaaaaaaaa...no

..., John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Jimi Hendrix if he was not dead and many many others that I would need pages to enumerate them(actually 10 lines would be sufficient but anyway). It is in the late 50's when Miles after he introduced the cool jazz idiom as a kind of an answer to the hard-bop idiom of the time, he decides to reorchestrate the whole "Concerto d' Aranjuez" for guitar, by Rodrigo, in a more Miles way. His main assistant? Famous jazz orchestrator and composer Gill Evans, not to be mistaken with the other great jazz pianist Bill Evans, who also as mentioned above collaborated with Miles from times to times. The result is a completely personal interpretation of a classical piece of music, that for sure stands at least as equal to the original concerto. Gill's orchestration throughout is ideal(I love those bell chimes... Read review

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