Date: February 21,1954
Release: Blue Note #1521
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There are many things that could happen at a nightclub on a particular night. A guy might be drinking his paycheck, while his wife waits at home. A couple might be thinking of other people, or reaching for each other’s legs under the table. Someone might be in the corner resolving to change his ways. Any or all of these things could have been happening on the night of February 21, 1954 at Birdland in New York. I know because A Night at Birdland Volume 1 puts me there, sitting in the dark, listening to the sounds of sweat, smoke, sex and solitude. This was be-bop hardening into hard bop, and it was young lions feeling their influences and letting them fly.
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Date: February 10, 1964
Release: Blue Note # 7841702
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Ever seen the movie, "Bullitt?" The 1968 movie in which Steve McQueen chases the bad guys through San Francisco’s streets in a Ford Mustang at over 110 mph? How about the beneath-the-subway car chase in "The French Connection," the chase sequences in "Ronin," or the final truck chase in "The Road Warrior," in which Mad Max guns an 18-wheel tanker full throttle as hundreds of post-apocalyptic street trash pursue it, bounce off it, and finally bring it spiralling to the ground? If you haven’t seen these movies, it will be impossible to fully comprehend Wayne Shorter‘s tenor sax solo on the title track of the Jazz Messengers Free For All. In fact, the music on Art Blakey‘s seemingly run-of-the-mill 1964 Blue Note reissue will not only knock you out of your seat, but put you up on two wheels, flip you eleven times and drop you off the Golden Gate Bridge.
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