Soundance Mood

Taft Jordan - Mood Indigo (1960) {Prestige PRCD-24230-2 rel 1999}
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© 1960-61, 1999 Prestige / Fantasy | PRCD-24230-2
Jazz / Bop / Mainstream / Trumpet

1999 was the year of the Ellington Centennial, and, as such, the Maestro's music was very much in the air. It was also an ideal year in which to reissue Taft Jordan's first-rate, long-deleted tribute to the Duke, Mood Indigo. It's paired with a fine, equally rare set by the Swingville All-Stars, with Jordan on trumpet. An Ellingtonian from 1943 to '47, Jordan renders some choice material by his ex-boss. Long a first-call New York session man, he's as impressive on open horn as with a mute. Here he's surrounded by two empathetic but distinctly different groups: a younger, more boppish quintet that numbers guitarist Kenny Burrell, and a sextet–whose program offers two more tunes from the Ellington band's voluminous book–featuring three other Ducal alumni (the other horns, plus bassist Wendell Marshall). Mood Indigo recalls the manifold gifts of a trumpeter who seldom recorded as a leader.

After the relatively straightforward pop of Wish, the Cure moved back toward stranger, edgier territory with Wild Mood Swings. Actually, that's only part of the truth. As the title suggests, there's a vast array of textures and emotions on Wild Mood Swings, from the woozy mariachi lounge horns of "The 13th" to the perfect pop of "Mint Car" and the monolithic dirge of "Want."…

Sun Ra & his Myth Sience Arkestra - Fate In A Pleasant Mood / When Sun Comes Out (1993) {Evidence ECD 22068-2 rec 1960-1963}
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© 1960-63, 1993 El Saturn / Evidence Music | ECD 22068-2
Jazz / Experimental Big Band / Avant-Garde Jazz / Cosmic Jazz / Progressive Jazz

Before Sun Ra careened into the jazz avant-garde with his banks of electrickeyboards and highwire group improvisations, he made recordings like *Fatein a Pleasant Mood.* Rich with Ra's persistent astro-mythology, *Fate* is equally rich with an immersion in the history of big band music. The charts played on Fate are as orchestrally complex as anything Duke Ellington wrote, yet they still maintain a clear position on the cusp of the avant-garde. More than anything, changes are the order on Fate, fast runs across difficult melody statements, on-the-fly changes in harmonic aims and rhythmic jumps that illuminate just how completely Sun Ra understood the overlap of jazz traditions as the 1960s approached.

This CD is actually a combination of two different T. Lavitz projects. The Bad Habitz and also Players. The original Players band consisted of some fusion heavyweights whose credintials would blow you away. This CD is partly the reformed unit of that band and partly the Bad Habitz band. Both units play great. The players unit on this disc includes Dave Samuels, Rod Morgenstein, and Danny Gottlieb.

Yusef Lateef - Yusef's Mood: Complete 1957 Sessions with Hugh Lawson (1957-58) {4CD Fresh Sound 24bit Remastered rel 2008}
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© 1957, 2008 Fresh Sound Records | FSR-CD 492
Jazz / Hard Bop / Saxophone / Flute / Post Bebop / World Fusion

4CD Set, 32 page booklet. Digitally Remastered 24-Bit / 96 kHz. In 1950, after a year on tour with Dizzy Gillespies band, Yusef Lateef returned to Detroit, the city where he had grown up as a jazz musician. With his powerfully preaching tenor sax tone and fluent, driving style he established himself as an influential presence in the Motor City scene, forming his own quintet in 1955. He made his first recordings as a leader in 1957, a productive year for him, as this gripping 4-CD set reveals.

When you are tired of Christmas music you can play this CD simply to hear good jazz. Likewise when you are in that magical mood for Christmas this will enrich your mood.

Charles Mingus - In A Soulful Mood (1960) {Music Club-Candid MCI 50004 rel 1996}
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© 1960, 1996 Music Club / Candid | MCI 50004
Jazz / Post Bop / Bass

Very nice set of Mingus' legendary Candid recordings – produced in 1960, after Mingus angrily departed Columbia records, and was finally given the freedom to work in the way that he wanted. The recordings are some of Mingus best – and they feature a righteous anger and sheer jazz power that's unmatched by few other recordings.