Disc of the day
Heaven 17 - Penthouse And Pavement
From Sheffield, synth pop and funk to stick it to Thatcher. Currently being played live!
Features Disc of the day
Miles Davis
Kind Of Blue
(Columbia, 1959)
Empathetic masterpiece that’s a boon to everyone with S.A.D.
This is the last of MOJO’s “winter warmers”. From Monday, we leave our seasonal theme behind and go freeform.
Winter has no fears for the lover of melancholia, the kind of sadness that is somehow delicious; moreish you might even say. I blame my seemingly hard-coded taste for melancholy partly on the children’s literature and television that were the staples of my generation – from the people=shit subtext of the late, great Oliver Postgate’s Clangers narrations to the Scandinavian gloomscapes of Tove Jansson’s Moominland. But whatever the cause, Kind Of Blue is always the best companion, not the too-hearty back-slapping sort, but one who understands all too well where you’re at. Especially on a day like today, when post-New Year revel self-loathing may still nibble at the psyche.
It’s in this kind of context that Miles’s trumpet makes best sense: careful as an OAP crossing an icy road, gentle as a nun nursing the sick. Then there’s pianist Bill Evans, introducing So What with those troubled notes of sophisticated resignation. Whenever covered, So What becomes an excuse for breeziness; on Kind Of Blue it’s the broken, nothing-matters complaint of the 5am barfly. Besides, it’s hard to imagine a sextet better balanced than on this track; Cannonball Adderly, here as elsewhere, emphasising the silver lining with bubbling trills on the alto; John Coltrane on the tenor, scratching an itch that won’t go away. Without Evans – Wynton Kelly takes the keys on Freddie Freeloader – the band play great, but straighter, less in the emotional depth-charge terrain of, say, All Blues.
Kind Of Blue’s place in music history (it’s the first “modal jazz album” – wish I really understood, rather than merely knew what that meant) can sometimes obscure its everyday qualities. I don’t think I’ve played one piece of recorded music more often or derived more comfort from another. Winter could last six months of the year, as long as I could hibernate with Kind Of Blue.
Danny Eccleston
Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 10:54 AM GMT 02/01/2009
Further Listening
Miles Davis – In A Silent Way (Columbia, 1969)
John Coltrane – My Favorite Things (Atlantic, 1961)
Van Morrison – Astral Weeks (Warner Bros, 1968)
Previous Disc of the day
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Heaven 17 - Penthouse And Pavement
From Sheffield, synth pop and funk to stick it to Thatcher. Currently being played live!
6:00 AM GMT 18/03/2010
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The Pop Group - Y
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6:00 AM GMT 11/03/2010
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What can say, my brother, my killer? It's the most beautiful record ever made alongside "Astral Weeks" and will be by centuries.
Posted by carneham at 8:25 PM GMT 05/01/2009 Report Abuse
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