install theme
6 months ago     39 notes     Reblog » atane
atane:

I always thought the Lee-Way album cover was one of the best Lee Morgan album covers. So fresh, so minimalist.

A 2001 audio interview with Jackie McLean.

7 months ago     4 notes     Reblog
Jackie McLean - Climax

bainer:

Jackie McLean - Climax (1965)

Certain solos are so ferocious they literally take your breath away. JMac’s solo on this tune is, in my humble opinion, one of his top five moments on record. You can really hear how much drummer Jack DeJohnette and the rhythm section—made up of Larry Willis and Larry Ridley—really drive him upward, outward and into the stratosphere on this cut. Sensational stuff.

7 months ago     22 notes     Reblog » bainer
Jackie McLean - Wrong Handle

bainer:

Jackie McLean - Wrong Handle (1964)

From Nat Hentoff’s original liner notes:

Wrong Handle is also by Tolliver. Originally it was written for a young lady. The relationship, however, didn’t work out, and so Tolliver changed the title from her name to the presently appropriate Wrong Handle. “Listen,” counsels Jackie, “to the very definite style Tolliver is getting as a ballad writer. The way I hear it, for example, there are dark colors in my mind when I listen to one of his ballads—purples, blacks, dark blues. No light greens or yellows.”

Like Moncur’s The Coaster, Green’s Idle Moments, and Hutcherson’s Mirrors, the early 60s “vibes” are employed here to great effect. This sound helped define an era of Blue Note recordings.

7 months ago     25 notes     Reblog » bainer
bainer:

A different look at Jackie McLean’s Action LP cover art, care of London Jazz Collector:

“The [original] cover design is of course a negative photographic image,  very typical of “new thing” graphic design in the Sixties – taking the familiar and standing it on its head. I couldn’t resist inverting it back to a positive to see how it started life. Judge for yourself which you prefer. I prefer the positive as it’s a great atmospheric photo of McLean in action, but the inverted cover image is a more authentic “Sixties” view on the world, a time before the art-cliches of punk that still dominate graphic design today.
1 year ago     39 notes     Reblog » bainer