noiseredux wrote:ok, I have to assume you guys have heard this one and we can talk...
hmm, I guess not.
Art Farmer Quintet
Art Farmer Quintet Featuring Gigi Gryce
1955, So here's a record that stumps me a little bit. Not that it's a challenging listen. Quite the contrary. What I'm not sure I get is the level of praise that it seems to receive. Not that I dislike anything here, but mostly the six tracks included are just pretty unassuming to me. Mostly it feels like a decent but unremarkable hybrid of cool jazz and hard bop. The band sounds good, the recording is clean and the compositions work well. But nothing really jumps out at me. Nothing really seems to stay with me after the album comes to a close either. Whereas I often find myself sucked into Philly Joe Jones' drumming, here it just sits well with the music in a sort of indifferent way to me. I think the best I can say is that I like this album, but it's hard for me to come up with any real reason to recommend it to anyone.
Herbie Hancock
Maiden Voyage
1966, It seems almost impossible to talk about this album without discussing Rudy Van Gelder's production techniques as well as the lack of a good master tape. Though critics certainly offer their praise for Maiden Voyage, it often seems a backhanded compliment. Van Gelder's habit of almost ignoring the piano as instrument when recording is almost always brought up. And the word "muddy" is often how the mastering is described, even in subsequent reissues. However what's really funny to me is that these complaints are a big part of what makes this record stand out to me. I can't help but find the questionable mixing and residual tape hiss to be totally endearing and somehow fitting for this album. Maybe it's because Hancock has said that he recorded this outing as a sort of concept album about the ocean - the weird sense of space in these recordings could be confused for jazz underwater. This fluid feeling is there right from the record's start with the title track's gorgeous opening section that flows like calm waves crashing on the shore and lulling you into relaxation. In my opinion this is one of the finest opening tracks of the era and flows nicely into the rest of the mostly chill album. Recorded with almost the same lineup that created Miles Davis' ESP, Maiden Voyage has a cool comfort about it. There's an effortless feeling coming out of these musicians and that liquid atmosphere gets passed on to the listener. It almost feels as if you have to actively follow the piano "The Eye Of The Hurricane," (thanks in part to that aforementioned mixing by RVG) in an effort to not lose it. Meanwhile closing number "Dolphin Dance" is delicate masterpiece that makes you want to start the record over as soon as it ends. There are certainly better sounding albums out there, but this one is a must-hear, warts and all.
