Off Off Minor

The most brilliant of Belgian composer César Franck's compositions were written during the final decade of his life; the Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra, the famous Violin Sonata, the D major String Quartet, and, perhaps most important, the Symphony in D minor are all the products of a single, remarkable five-year period. The Symphony, by no means an immediate success with critics or audiences, has nevertheless become so fused with the popular image of César Franck that it is nearly impossible to think of him without also thinking of this 40-minute orchestral juggernaut.

The Dubliners - Drinkin' & Courtin' (1968) {Major Minor-EMI rel 2012}
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© 1968, 2012 Major Minor Records Limited / EMI Records | 50999 4 64297 2 8 | Remastered
Folk / Irish Folk / Traditional Irish Folk / Celtic / Drinking Songs

The Dubliners released three albums on the Transatlantic label between 1964 and 1966, but it wasn't until they moved to Philip Solomon's new Major Minor label in 1967 that they had their first real success. A Drop of the Hard Stuff was released in the spring of 1967 followed by the rather unimaginatively titled More of the Hard Stuff later that year - both albums heavily promoted by Radio Caroline. Drinkin' & Courtin' was released in 1968, the year the original Radio Caroline went off the air, so had to rely more on the BBC for airplay.

It's Christmas time, by gosh and by golly, and here comes Santa, only the sleigh has been commandeered by Colin "Mad Yeti" Tench and is being pulled by thirteen granny prog tracks. In the back are several helpers, elves who are chucking digital copies of the new Colin Tench Project album "minor Masterpiece" to the crest of the new fallen snow below…

Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane - The Complete 1957 Riverside Recordings (2006) [2CD]
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© 2006 Concord / Riverside | 88807230279 | 24-bit Remastering
Jazz / Hard Bop / Cool

This fine two-disc set brings together all the recordings Thelonious Monk made for the small, influential Riverside label in 1957. The piano eccentric cut excellent versions of some of his best compositions during that year, including "Off Minor," "Epistrophy," "Well, You Needn't," and the lovely "Ruby My Dear." The exhilarating saxophone work of John Coltrane makes these dates instant classics. Like most "complete sessions," the set features plenty of false starts and alternate takes that might seem extraneous to the casual fan, but Monk fanatics will be overjoyed at being provided with a glimpse into the brilliant artist's studio process.

Following a stream of magnificent and hugely influential albums in the early to mid-1950s, the latter part of the decade and the lead up towards his signing for Columbia Records proved a major transitional period for jazz composer and pianist Thelonious Monk.

Steve Lacy - Five Facings (2008) {Jazzwerkstatt jw025}
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© 2008 Jazzwerkstatt / FMP | jw025
Jazz / Free Improvisation / Saxophone / Piano

This set, recorded between April 4 and April 8, 1996, teamed soprano saxophone giant Steve Lacy with five different pianists. Half the cuts were composed by Lacy, three by Thelonious Monk, and one improvisation by Van Hove and Lacy – the least interesting work included here, because it didn't work. The first five tracks would have made an album for any jazz fan, and the rest, while interesting, don't touch the first half, and perhaps that's because the first two pianists are Marilyn Crispell and Misha Mengelberg. Two pieces by Lacy, "The Crust" and "Blues For Aida," start things off with Crispell playing an inspired counterpoint to the artist during the melody, moving into a piano solo that combines a total shift of Lacy's compositional thought into an almost purely classical realm (Bruckner anyone?) before entering into a dialogue that brings the work back to the jazz tradition, and there is no seam.