You're a drooling, mindless zombie, and deep down you know it. You're being held hostage by Al Gore rhythms whose cunning exceeds your willpower like the midday sun outshines a firefly—and the worst part is that you like it. First they came for Facebook, then Twitter, then Reddit—do you really have an enshittification red line, or will you simply boil to death like the proverbial frog? Well, you…
My, my, where has the time gone? After writing just over thirty thousand words for Fifty Weeks of Jazz , I feel I'm overdue for some self-indulgent pontification. Frankly, much like an octogenarian marathoner, I'm amazed I made it to the finish line at all—now, with the celebrations long since wrapped, I'd like to reflect on what I've learned throughout the year. What I learned about jazz It's a…
Oh, dear reader: we've arrived at the ultimate entry in our jazzventure—and posted several weeks late, no less. You must think me the sentimental type; too attached to our journey to bear saying goodbye. Fortunately I suffer no such affliction—painters love to paint, writers love having written—rather, this week's album provoked such a fierce outburst of apathy from me that I required some extra…
Thelonious Monk has already had two at-bats during Fifty Weeks of Jazz, neither of which (I'm sorry to say) terribly excited me. Moreover, while we've heard from many of the greatest female jazz vocalists of all time, I still find myself more often reaching for instrumental albums. So I approached Carmen Sings Monk —which, unsurprisingly, features Carmen McRae singing vocal covers of Monk…
The more time I spend with the two box sets guiding our journey, the more structural similarities I notice between them. Each has one Armstrong , one Davis , one Mingus , a smattering of fusion , and also one movie soundtrack. Last time it was Bird (Clint Eastwood's elegy to Charlie Parker); this time it's Round Midnight , which chronicles the final years of Dale Turner, a fictional saxophonist…
For hundreds of thousands of years, the human musical experience was quite straightforward: if you wanted to listen to music, you needed someone to perform it for you. Then in 1877, Edison invented the phonograph and forever upended that requirement: music could now be recorded in advance, then replayed whenever. Over time, this recording process grew so elaborate that the final sounds delivered…
I'm beginning to think that as composers , jazz bassists may simply be built different. We've heard Jaco Pastorius pen some absolutely nutty tracks (both on his solo debut as well as on Heavy Weather ), and for my money, the work of Charles Mingus is even greater. Stanley Clarke, bassist par excellence, upholds that vaunted tradition with this week's album, School Days —six all-original tracks…
Ho, brave traveller! Wherefore dost thou haste? Thou seem’st to have covered many miles, but this storm would detain the gods themselves—come; tarry a moment by the fire, and regale us of thy travels… I'm in an unfortunate hurry this week, so let me get straight to the point: Romantic Warrior is a 1976 jazz fusion album by Return to Forever , a group founded by Chick Corea . Corea is one of those…
One thing I've learned this year about jazz is that her inspirations are multifold. Had you asked me in January, I would've guessed that most jazz compositions are wholly original: some meticulously crafted by musical geniuses; others perfectly extemporized by true virtuosos. Turns out, that's not even close to true; the jazz smelters hunger voraciously for musical ore, and they care little of the…
Indulge me in a little experiment: conjure up some "world music" in your mind's ear. What do you hear? If you're anything like me, the phrase evokes something anodyne and bloodless: vaguely African drumming, mellifluous but unintelligible vocals, and likely little complexity on offer. 1 Native Dancer has many of the accoutrements I associate with world music. But pejorative "world music," this is…
Last week , we heard a 1974 Chet Baker album that featured a prominent saxophonist (namely, Paul Desmond ). I wasn't so keen on it myself, but clearly the jazz gods are rooting for that specific niche, because this week they insisted upon a mulligan—a Gerry Mulligan , in fact. Yes, less than a month after the final recording date for She Was Too Good to Me , Baker performed at Carnegie Hall…
They say that no man ever steps in the same river twice. Well, it's been nearly eight months since we last heard from certified super-crooner Chet Baker—have the waters changed in the interim, or have we? As is so often the case, I think the answer is both. She Was Too Good to Me , released in 1974, is often described as a comeback album. That's… surprising, given that our last Baker album was…
The title of this week's album— The Beginning and the End —suggests some division into two pieces, and after a first listen it isn't difficult to spot the seam joining the two. The album is roughly 35 minutes long, and in the first five minutes we've already knocked out the first two tracks ("I Come From Jamaica" and "Ida Red"): both are fun and catchy enough, but they're immediately old-fashioned…
Mahavishnu Orchestra? More like "Make-Mah-Wish-True" Orchestra, because this psychedelic goodness is opening my third eye—am I right?? …ahem. You'll have to forgive me— two weeks ago we were debating whether we'd had our first sampling of proper prog; in this case there's zero ambiguity and I summarily overdosed. Birds of Fire is, to my ears, a space epic: 1 the opening track opens up a wormhole…
We first heard George Benson as a fresh-faced youth; he was barely 23 years old when recording his second album, It's Uptown . It would be another ten years before he hit pop-styled paydirt with Breezin’ , and this week's album— Beyond the Blue Horizon —was recorded smack-dab in the middle of that period. In the five years since It's Uptown , Benson kept himself busy: as if releasing six more…
Confession time: much as I try to maintain an air of aloof sophistication in all things I do, I have a particular fondness for anything that can be remotely described as "prog." Prog rock is my particular go-to, but I'm not picky—I take to any sprawling, overwrought, quasi-intellectual composition like a feline to catnip. So when I saw this week's album was 36 minutes spread across only three…
When it comes to how I listen to music, I'm decidedly unsentimental: keep your art piece turntable and $50,000 cables , thanks—a pile of FLACs on my home media server is more than enough for me; have fun flipping your records every 20 minutes. But every so often an album comes along that makes me feel foolish for not owning it in full 12" glory. Monk's Underground is one such album. I mean, just…
Last week , I declared that in terms of pure vocal prowess, Aretha Franklin surpasses any other female singer we've heard thus far. I stand by that statement, but this week allow me to add an equally important rejoinder: Nina Simone's work is still more important. Fundamentally, it feels to me like Franklin is trying to produce hits , whereas Simone is trying to make art . 1 Sure, Silk & Soul…
I won't fault you for forgetting, but the early weeks of this project were graced with many a diva strutting by—namely Sarah Vaughan , Billie Holiday , Helen Merrill , and Nina Simone . All incredibly talented musicians in their own right, but that particular assemblage of artists made for a musical Kanizsa triangle : amongst all those mid-century, jazz-adjacent vocalists, where's Aretha? Have no…
Always read the album notes, kids. The cover of The Bridge features a rather impassive Sonny Rollins waging a silent war against a gravitational force that seems to affect only human hair. But the back of the album elucidates the literal and metaphorical allusions the title intends to evoke—and that is a jazz heritage minute worth expounding upon. Background: Rollins graduates high school in 1948,…
I am a total sucker for the format of "famous musical group plus full orchestral backing". Symphony & Metallica ? Oh yeah. Symphonic Music of Yes ? Hell yes. The critics seem to hate these—Yes's attempt was only good for 1.5/5 stars from AllMusic—but I can't get enough of them. What's not to love? If you're a fan of the band, presumably you already like the original songs—how can you not like…
After 31 weeks of jazz research, I've finally hit upon a foolproof signal to identify the true crème de la crème among jazz albums. It's quite simple, actually: if the cover art is a painting by S. Neil Fujita , the album will be life-changing. 1 Our first such example was Time Out , back in week 6—a strong contender for my favourite album of the first half, rivaled primarily by Tijuana Moods…
Why is nearly every mass-market, commercially-produced creative work so universally crap? You know the answer—perhaps you've lived it—pointy-haired bosses, sticking their noses where they don't belong, rooting madly for pecuniary truffles to sate the unending appetite of beancounters and shareholders alike—all at the expense of preventing the true visionaries from making something special. But,…
We first heard Davis on his best-known album, Kind of Blue ; this week, with ’Round About Midnight , we wind back the clock just a few years before that landmark release. Recall that Kind of Blue was a pioneering exercise in "modal jazz;" by contrast, ’Round About Midnight is more transitional: we hear some of Davis' last mainstream work in bebop/hard bop alongside experiments in a "cooler" style…
Well, it's week 28 and we've officially come full circle: ol' Pops was the one to kick this whole thing off , and this week he's back once again. Interestingly, that earlier album and this one were contemporaneous releases as well: Louis Armstrong Plays W. C. Handy helped revive public interest in Armstrong in 1954; Satch Plays Fats was the follow-up in 1955. Overall, I prefer Armstrong Plays W.…
Jazz Goes to College‽ As a card-carrying pseudo-intellectual, this title has me salivating: I can't credibly claim to have jazz in my soul , but perhaps Brubeck and his quartet have distilled jazz's inscrutable mystique into pure mathematical equations; at last, unquestionable hipness might be within reach for any square willing and able to bring their intellect to bear upon the subject. …but…
In an attempt to remedy last week's bebop perversion of young minds , this week brings a double helping of wholesome jazz—straight from one of America's most beloved band leaders, Duke Ellington. The last time we heard from the Duke, he was going head-to-head with Count Basie ; this week his band has the stage to themselves. Ellington Uptown was first recorded in late 1951, amidst a somewhat…
Editor's note: for reasons beyond my current comprehension, I wrote this back in 2023 in response to a book recommendation from a friend. I happened to stumble upon it again recently, and hey, I never turn down grist for this content mill. I know we're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but obeying that trite truism for How to Be Perfect (by Michael Schur , creator of The Good Place )…
Ill winds abound—the tax season begins to rear its ugly head, compounded with the looming spectre of a trade war. In vain protest of both, please accept this modest contribution of CanCon : some RRSP contribution math. Editor's note: yes, I am aware we are well past the tax season at time of publication. But I've had this draft kicking around since February, and frankly there's no chance I'll…
Two weeks ago , we were listening to "Birdland" by Weather Report, and this week we come full circle: that song took its name from a New York jazz club , which was itself named after Charlie "Yardbird" Parker —better known as just "Bird." Parker was one of the most influential saxophonists in the history of jazz, and is the subject of Clint Eastwood's 1988 biographical film Bird , from which we…
Over the past several weeks, we've seen a certain correlation: the more recent an album is, the more it seems to depart from "traditional" jazz, in favour of pushing the boundaries or incorporating other genres . Marsalis Standard Time, Volume 1 bucks that trend: despite being first released in 1987 (a mere 38 years ago…), there's no bells and whistles here, nor is there even a hint of fusion:…
True story: my vacuum cleaner killed my home WiFi network. I mean… kinda. Sorta. Close enough. If you want the full details, you'll need to read inordinate amounts of arcane Unix DNS configuration details. Or don't ; I'm a blog post, not a cop. In true Sysadmin Sunday fashion, I wanted to write down my debugging so that I can refer to it later—see that post to understand my weird notation below.…
You're crushing it: we were impressed by your beautiful LaTeX résumé (that was totally not from a common template), you aced our technical screen, and you charmed our Talent team, but now it's time for your biggest test yet—the live coding interview. Are you ready? I've been interviewing backend engineers at $DAYJOB for over a year now, and in that time I've seen many candidates get tripped up by…
We're back in jazz fusion land, with a fun chain of connections leading to this week's album: we first started getting funky with Herbie Hancock , who was also instrumental in Jaco Pastorius's debut album . Jaco is back again this week as the sole bassist for this Weather Report album—a gig he secured by approaching the band's leader, Joe Zawinul, after a show and proclaiming "I'm John Francis…
I expected to like Jaco Pastorius —both the bassist as well as his self-titled debut album—from the start. It is the official editorial position of the Simpsonian that Rush is the greatest rock group of all time, so I hope there is no doubt when I say that I surely appreciate a proper bass-slapping . Alas, despite all that, my first listen of this album sailed right under my whelms. I had a hard…
Ah, we've arrived at bossa nova : Spanish for "the new boss," because when João Gilberto and Stan Getz popularized the genre with their 1964 album Getz/Gilberto , everyone took notice of the new boss in town. Or something like that. This album, The Best of Two Worlds , is the reunion of Getz (saxophone) and Gilberto (vocals) over a decade later. (Gilberto's then-wife, known professionally as…
What the funk is this‽ Right from the first listen, this has jumped into my personal top five albums from this project, and probably the top three. It's a total mind virus; I've been listening to it every day since. Once you have the opening lick in your eardrums, it's all over. There is simply no escaping it. I don't have any particularly intelligent analysis (as usual); all there is to say is…
Wow, what a contrast with last week . Whereas Tatum astonishes with technical wizardry, Erroll Garner shows that less can be more; Tatum bowls the listener over with an incessant acoustic assault, while Garner makes the silences work just as hard as the notes themselves. By far my favourite feature of Garner's playing is when he really unleashes that booming, thundering bass from his left hand…
Editor's note: we sincerely apologize for the disruption in our usual weekly publication schedule. We recently welcomed a new staff member at the Simpsonian and are very busy training him—we're confident that he'll one day become a valued addition to the team, especially once he can feed, bathe, and clothe himself. If someone says, "you have to listen to this," and the recording begins with a…
Perhaps more than any other artist we've heard thus far, Nina Simone defies categorization. Do we set her against the other female vocalists we've heard? On this album she sings the blues—ought we compare her to Louis ? But of course, she was also a talented pianist, and we've heard a few of those as well; maybe they're a better fit? The answer, of course, is obvious: any attempt to confine such a…
Inside George Benson there are two wolves: the coolest cat you've ever seen, and the softest, most wholesome guy you've ever met. In "Clockwise" he's laying down a lick on his electric guitar in tandem with the baritone sax, and hoo boy is it tasty. By contrast, "A Foggy Day" is a cover of a Gershwin song originally made popular by Fred Astaire—Benson's up-tempo take on it injects some much-needed…
Going into middle school, I needed to pick an instrument for music class. The choice was clear: I could barely get a whimper out of a flute, and my buzzing on the brass was no good, but by God could I wail on the saxophone. My father was only too happy to indulge my affinity for woodwind by purchasing me a… clarinet. Practicality ruled the day: a clarinet, you see, is significantly cheaper than a…
After last week's saxophone detox , this week the jazz gods smiled upon me with a double helping. And after fourteen weeks, dare I say we're… learning? Check this out: this week's album features Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan . We know Desmond from Time Out —in fact, he composed "Take Five." 1 Mulligan, on the other hand, enjoyed inspired collaborations with Chet Baker (though sadly Chet is Back!…
Enough of this American jazz hegemony! Martial Solal , "an Algerian-born Frenchman who plays more like an American than perhaps any other foreigner," 1 is here to show us a European take on jazz. This album comes to us (mostly) live from the storied Newport Jazz Festival —charmingly, the back of the album explains that since the only festival slot available for Solal was too short for a full…
Ah, the saxophone: I'm sure we can all agree, objectively one of the best instruments. And this week we're treated to a sax masterclass: as the back cover helpfully explains, we've got Sonny Rollins ("the 'boss' of modern tenor sax") on the left channel, and Coleman Hawkins ("the father of jazz saxophone") on the right. 1 These are indisputably two masters of the instrument, live in…
Moms didn't dig [jazz], she just didn't go for it Bird , Miles , and Max … she couldn't see it Morning, afternoon, night, or anytime That is, until I played her some Monk one night, late 'Round about Midnight time I played her some Monk! —Thelonious, that is And now Mom spends many of her nights in Tunisia —" A Colloquial Dream (Scenes in the City) " I suppose you can tell that Thelonious Monk is…
Ooh, this sounds pretty different to me than what we've heard so far. I think that's mostly due to the appearance of electric guitar in a few tracks and more prominent bass throughout—it strikes me as more "modern" overall? The song that most captured my attention was "Ballata in forma di blues," written for the album by Amedeo Tommasi (who also plays piano on the album); something about that…
Charles Mingus was another one of those "big names" from the jazz world that I recognized, but had never actually listened to until this week. Tijuana Moods sounds quite different than anything else we've heard so far; I'd describe it as more assertive and even a bit combative at times (though smooth elsewhere; e.g., on "Flamingo"). This certainly isn't "easy listening;" compared to the other…
Eight weeks in, and we've arrived at a dubious honour: this is the first album where the top-billed performer ( Helen Merrill in this case) is still alive—as I write this in February 2025, she's a sprightly 95 years old according to Wikipedia. Perhaps more excitingly, we've also got our first duplicate track: we first heard "You Don't Know What Love Is" in week 4 (I give the edge to Merrill). This…
As previously mentioned , I had listened to a grand total of three jazz albums before setting out on this expedition. We've already encountered Kind of Blue ; one of the other two was Side by Side — Side by Side was mostly a Johnny Hodges album, but they stamped his better-known bandleader Ellington's mug on the cover, presumably to juice the sales. I bring all of this up because this week's album…