Kent Burell Midnight Blue

Sean Croghan's amazing first solo offering is a desolate, razor-burned troubadour's record loaded with confessional angst both real and artistic, a few full revolutions from the music he made with Crackerbash and Jr. High. His outpouring of woeful emotion runs the gamut, from an almost whimsical kind of feigned misery ("Gweneveire") to the adamant, resentful sort that sounds genuinely hurt. By mixing up the approach, the tenor of the album never seems like too much or too little of a painful thing. It isn't strictly an open wound, although there's an element of that. But Croghan is also smart enough to know that, as messy as love may be, there is an element of silliness that comes with investing so much into a single venture.

Kenny Burrell - Midnight Blue (1963) {Blue Note, CP32-5229, Japan Early Press}
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© 1963, 1986 Blue Note / Toshiba-EMI | CP32-5229
Jazz / Bop / Cool / Guitar

Great great stuff – and for some folks, THE album by Kenny Burrell! This classic set features the guitarist in a quintet with Stanley Turrentine on tenor, Major Holly on bass, Bill English on drums, and the great Ray Barretto on conga – a really great lineup that sparkles with soulful imagination, and moves with a very rhythmic groove – thanks to Ray's extra percussion contribution on the bottom! Burrell's guitar somehow seems a bit harder and grittier than ever – and titles include the classic groover "Chittlins Con Carne", an early jazz dance classic – plus "Soul Lament", "Wavy Gravy", and "Mule".

Art Hodes - Midnight Blue (1989) {Jazzology JCD172 rec 1987}
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© 1989 Jazzology Records | JCD 172
Jazz / Hot Jazz / Dixieland / Piano

Hode's trip to Britain in 1987 was a laying-on of hands, a chance to make contact with someone who belonged to an apostolic line back to the origins of jazz. Traditional jazz players of all sorts made their way to listen to and sit in with the great man. The results are pretty uniform, with most of the best music coming in solo performances by Hodes himself. … The larger groups [i.e. than on Jazzology JCD 237 & JCD 307] called on more seasoned and experienced musicians and the playing is better in proportion, with some excellent moments from that Chris Barber stalwart, Pat Halcox. Fawkes is still underrated and Greig is as good in this style as one could hope to find.