So as a follow-up to listening yesterday to the music of Christian McBride, last night and today I explored the music of some of his jazz contemporaries. Today’s focus has been mainly on trumpeters. Typically, if I’m listening to the trumpet the musician is usually Miles Davis, Chet Baker, or Freddie Hubbard with Blue Mitchell occasionally thrown into the mix. Somehow last night I ended up on MOG checking out the music of Ambrose Akinmusire and his debut release on Blue Note, When the Heart Emerges Glistening. Here’s what Jeff Tamarkin at AllMusic writes about the album:
Every so often, a trumpeter comes along who redraws the instrument’s role within jazz: Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Clifford Brown, Chet Baker, Wynton Marsalis, Freddie Hubbard, etc. Ambrose Akinmusire has the potential to join that crowd. He’s not quite there yet, but When the Heart Emerges Glistening, the Blue Note debut from the young Californian, serves notice that he is one to watch. The winner of the 2007 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, and still just 28 when this album was released, Akinmusire has, since his indie label debut three years prior, cultivated a voice on the instrument that draws from much that preceded him but points squarely ahead. Read More
On the first listen this album may have been a little too avant-garde for me, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t like it, but rather that it will take a few listens to get used to it!! I listened tonight to some of his 2008 release Prelude: to Cora Maybe because it was more straight ahead jazz and less modern creative jazz I liked this album better. Artists on this album include: pianist Aaron Parks, vibraphonist Chris Dingman, tenor saxophonist Walter Smith III, bassist Joe Sanders and drummer Justin Brown.
I continued tonight listening to a couple of other trumpeters Terrence Blanchard and Jeremy Pelt. I listened to Blanchard’s 1999 release Jazz In Film which includes scores by Duke Ellington (Anatomy of a Murder), Quincy Jones (The Pawn Broker) and Jerry Goldsmith (Chinatown)Scores by Duke Ellington (Anatomy of a Murder), Quincy Jones (The Pawn Broker) and Jerry Goldsmith (Chinatown) which are reworked and are given new life by Blanchard. I enjoyed the album. The Jeremy Pelt album I listened to was his 2005 release Identity From AllMusic Guide:
Jeremy Pelt is a very talented trumpeter with a large sound and a creative style influenced by Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw. On Identity, the music ranges from early-’70s Miles Davis-type fusion (“Eye of the Beholder” and “Scorpio”) to a fiery tradeoff with vibraphonist Warren Wolf (“Angular”), from moody ballads with lots of space and Pelt’s muted horn to post-bop romps
and from Pelt’s website:
Pelt’s recordings and performances have earned him critical acclaim, both nationally and internationally. He has been featured in the Wall Street Journal by legendary jazz writer and producer, Nat Hentoff, and was voted Rising Star on the trumpet, five years in a row by Downbeat Magazine and the Jazz Journalist Association. Pelt is currently touring throughout the United States and Europe in support of his latest release, “Water And Earth” (High Note Records, January 2013).
Of the three artists on the first listen to each I think that I like the Jeremy Pelt album the best! So check them out I do know that I will be checking out more from all three musicians and many other names I’ve come across over the last couple of days!!
So let’s end the night and go into the morning with some quiet music from Ambrose Akinmusire @ Jazz à Vienne in 2012……