Exploring the Symphonic Prog of Germany’s Traumhaus – Ausgeliefert and Das Geheimnis!

So one of the things that I really like about Prog Rock is that the genre is global in nature, and the bands can virtually come from anywhere in the world!! Typically, most of the vocals are in English making it harder to pinpoint the homeland of the band. That is not a problem with Traumhaus, whose vocals are in their native language – German!! I discovered the band on progstreaming, where I saw their latest release Das Geheimnis (The Secret) I listened for a bit and then went to Spotify to find the album so that I could download it,…

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Exploring the Crossover Prog Rock of Finland’s The Chant – New Haven!

The album that was the soundtrack for my run on Thursday was New Haven, the latest release from the Finnish crossover prog. band The Chant. The album has been in my rotation for about a week now and it’s one of those albums, that get better with each repeated listen! The Chant has been around since 1999. First, there were three Jussi Hämäläinen(guitar/vocals), Mari Jämbäck (keyboards) and Ilpo Paasela (vocals), then four when  Kimmo Tukiainen(guitar) joined the group. The final count which has been fairly stable over the life of the band was six, after Markus Forsström (bass) and Roope Sivén(drums) came…

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Exploring the Symphonic Progressive Rock of Netherland’s – Minor Giant – On the Road

One of the albums that has been in my listening rotation for a while now is the debut album of a symphonic rock/progressive rock band from the Netherlands Minor Giant, and with each listen I like the album more and more. The first seeds of the band were sown in 2010 when at 16 years old the founder of the band Rindert Lammers composed and recorded several instrumental symphonic progressive rock tracks. Then in 2011 Rindert posted an instrumntal demo to Soundcloud, soon thereafter vocals from Christiaan Bruin (Sky Architect, Chris) were added to the track. The second seeds were…

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Exploring the Bebop Classic – “Donna Lee” – Charlie Parker & Miles Davis and others!

Last week when I went to the library, one of the books that I checked out on jazz was Hard Bop: Jazz & black music 1955-1965.  by David H. Rosenthal. Rosenthal is a free-lance jazz critic whose articles on music have appeared in Down Beat, Jazz-Times, Keyboard,the Village Voice and other publications. Hard Bop is his first book about jazz. Rosenthal starts his look at hard bop with a look at its immediate precursor BeBop. One of the first songs that he discusses is Charlie Parker’s composition “Donna Lee”. Rosenthal uses the song as an example of BeBop’s use of…

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Morning Explorations: Charlie Haden, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Kenny Dorham and Theo Croker!

So on this beautiful Sunday morning, let’s explore the jazz that has been playing on the iPhone this week. I’ve listened to mainly four albums this week. Here’s a twelve track playlist with tracks from each of the albums and some comments….. Nocturne – Charlie Haden – the jazz world is still mourning the loss one of its bright lights in bassist Charlie Haden. Charlie passed away on July 11th. Last week on a visit to the library, I picked up three books on Jazz. Among the ones I check ed out was The New York Time Essential Library: Jazz…

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Exploring the Jazz of Milt Buckner and Jo Jones! Hammond B3 and Drums, All Right!

Among the jazz musicians birthdays yesterday was Hammond B3 organist and pianist Milt Buckner. Buckner was an influential musician on both instruments. He started out playing piano in Detroit in the 1930s. By 1941 he had joined Lionel Hampton’s band and over the next 7 years he worked with the band as its pianist and staff arranger. Milt’s love of rocking rhythms and boogie-woogie messed nicely with Hampton;s style!.During this period, Buckner developed a uniquely percussive technique employing parallel tonal patterns, later referred to as “block chords.” Buckner’s locked hand technique would later be used by such greats as Red…

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Stanton Moore – Conversations

with Conversations – Jazz/Rock Drummer Stanton Moore returns and reinvents! Drums – Born: July 9, 1972   Checking the birthdays at All About Jazz, yesterday I saw that it was drummer Stanton Moore’s 42nd birthday, and that he had released a new album Conversations this year. I first discovered Stanton’s drumming back in 2010, when he released Groove Alchemy, Anyway I enjoyed that album, additionally, when I looked back at the old post that I wrote I saw that I also heard Stanton’s drums on Anders Osborne’s album American Patchwork! So it didn’t take me long to head on over…

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Exploring the Dynamic Jazz Piano of Hiromi Uehara – Alive!!

Originally posted at Let’s Explore Jazz So while I did really enjoy all of the albums on the Jazz playlist that I created yesterday. There was one album though, that caught my attention very quickly and  that was Alive by Hiromi! The album was released on June 17th on the Telarc label and currently the album is No, 37 on the JazzWeek Chart and No 11 on the Billboard Jazz Chart. Alive is Hiromi’s ninth studio release and her third release as Hiromi’s  Trio Project.  The current trio features: Simon Phillips on drums and Anthony Jackson on bass. Her first four…

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Exploring Neo Prog from the United States’ Roy Strattman – The Lie of the Beholder!

This morning I took a moment and gave a quick listen to a few of the albums now on progstreaming, I picked two, found the albums on Spotify, put them on the iPhone and listened today. The two albums were from Roy Strattman: The Lie of the Beholder and Mike Kershaw’s Ice Age. Of the two I listened to more of Strattman than Kershaw, so I guess I’ll begin there. The Lie of the Beholder is the first album produced by Roy Strattman under his own name, prior to this release Strattman has been, since 2002, the sole guitarist and joint…

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Which Artist’s Music Should I Explore?? Listen – Then Vote!

So this morning I sat down and made a list of five Jazz artists whose new albums I thought I would like to explore. Rather than listen to each of them fully today, I made the following playlist picking a few tracks from each of the albums. I figured I’d listen to the playlist and see what album stood out the most for me and then listen to that album. So here is the playlist give it a listen in full or one track from each artist and then vote for our favorite….. I already know mine ….all of them…

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