Publisher's note: I have initiated this new segment on BCN, where I determine the Best Music Ever ... and, 'with a little help from my friends'. I do this from my opinion, for what that is worth, where I will measure the best music that I am familiar with.
I do this for two reasons: 1) I want to expose the best music that I know to the rest of us. 2) Popular Music today may be the very worst it has ever been, and that is saying much, since I lived through Disco. For a list of all of the contributions to this series, please click here. As previously mentioned, there will be others who share their favorites with our BCN readers, in particular here, Bobby Tony. Jazz is a form of music, which starts with laying down a basic track, then adding different layers of interpretation. Often it includes multiple instruments weaving and bobbing around the basic melody. Great jazz is when several musicians take off on an uncharted journey through the basic chords unusually with different instruments and improvise the harmony eventually returning to the basic melody. Rather than using the Dueling Hits format of showing the Image Frames in the post, I have decided to include multiple jazz renditions by various artists. Most Jazz pieces are longer than the 2:30 -3:15 minutes in length of pop music. A dedicated jazz aficionado will quibble with my choice of music. Trying to list the hit parade of the greats like Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Count Basie and Louis Armstrong is sure to cause a debate right up there with who screwed up the Southern Baptist Convention. I have chosen several that are a bit more contemporary and hopefully will ease newcomers in to the genre before they are ready to tackle the greats above. Click on the underlined text to follow a link to the song. Hang on Sloopy. -- Ramsey Lewis Trio Hard day's Night,-- Ramsey Lewis Trio Mercy Mercy Mercy,-- Cannonball Adderly Memphis Soul Stew. -- King Curtis You came a long way from Saint Louis. -- Jimmy Smith Finally here is a traditional version of the jazz great Take Five. The horn is Paul Desmond and the piano is Dave Brubeck. Take Five, -- Dave Brubeck Quartet
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