Black Nile

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Wayne Shorter. That is all.



Also, check the piano cover this guy made. Truly amazing!

Wes Montgomery

One of the major jazz guitar players, Wes Montgomery contributed a lot to modern music and I'd even dare to go as far as calling him my favorite jazz guitarist. My favorite Wes Montgomery album is Bumpin' and I'll post some songs from that album right here for y'all.

Charles Mingus

I don't know a lot about Charles Mingus himself, except that he is awesome and that his music is great. I figure that should be enough right?
Enjoy 'Goodbye Pork Pie Hat' by The Charles Mingus Band.

The Bird

Charlie Parker (aka Bird or Yardbird) is one of the greatest, most important saxophone players of the 20th century and had a crucial role in the development of bebop and the saxophone as an instrument in jazz. He didn't live to be very old (he was only 35 when he died) but he made a vast amount of recordings and I'm more than happy to share some of my favorite ones with me beloved followers. No seriously, I love you guys.
Rainy Mood in the top right of the page.







EDIT: there's a movie about Charlie Parker called 'Bird'. I really recommend it! Thanks to cool_cicler for reminding me!

My Little Brown Book

Don't have much time today, so I'm just gonna go ahead and post a smooth jazz piece real quick. Enjoy!
(I'll have a post with more text for you guys tomorrow, pinky promise!)

Nat 'King' Cole

I realised that most of the jazz I post is instrumental music, thanks to the shuffle function of my iPod (you better pay me some big bucks for this publicity, Steve). Today's artist is the great Nat 'King' Cole, one of the best known (jazz) singers of the 20th century. And rightfully so. His voice is just so charming that it can lull you to sleep in a matter of minutes. Especially when he sings a lullaby for one of his kids. Let's have a listen!

George Benson

I'll start today's post with a very big THANK YOU to all of you guys who read my blog. Thanks for all the supporting comments, I really appreciate it. I love the fact that I'm introducing new people to jazz. So thanks for all the support and I hope that you guys will continue reading and liking this blog :D

I got a lot of positive feedback on the guitar jazz I posted not too long ago, so I got some more for all y'all (you know I like to spoil you). Today's jazz song is by George Benson, a very great guitar player as you will notice in a couple of minutes. If you know this man, you probably know him from the soul genre, in which he became a star, but the truth is that he started in jazz. And to be honest, I like his jazz work better than his soul work. What about you? Here's his version of the jazz classic 'The Shadow of Your Smile'.




-Wink

The fragrance of dark coffee

As stated on my other blog, I'll keep it short today because the weather is great.
Here's an all time smooth jazz classic (very popular on the internet lately so hopefully not too many of you guys know it already). But whether you already know it or not, if you're on this blog you will most probably enjoy it :D
Rainy Mood is still in the top right of the page.

No update today.

I won't update my blogs today because the weather is incredibly nice.
I will spend my day outside and I suggest you do the same.

-Wink

Kind of Blue

Most people that like jazz know the great Miles Davis. I used to assume that everybody, not just jazz lovers knew or at least had heard about Miles, but I was wrong. When I discovered that almost nobody in college had even heard about Miles Davis I was very disappointed in our society and education. But then I figured it's their loss, really.
So, on with the show. Perhaps the best known jazz album of all time is Davis's album Kind of Blue. It's widely considered one of best best jazz albums ever made and quite frankly, who am I to disagree? It's a real masterpiece and you don't even have to know much about jazz to realise that.

Miles Davis was the coolest man on earth during the first decades of his career (his later work had a sort of 'anything goes' attitude). He never said much, to be precise he rarely spoke more than a couple of words. Why? He let the music speak for him. I once heard a story of a man who ran a jazz club. It was a calm night when all of a sudden Miles Davis entered that club. The owner of the place was thrilled but also knocked down by Miles's extraordinary charisma. Miles asked if he could jam a little with his band on the stage, which of course was more than okay. After a while Miles asked if the club owner was a musician too. The man said yes and was invited up the stage. They played for about 20 minutes and when they were done, Miles said, "Cool." Nothing more. It meant that he could play in Miles's band if he wanted to. He did want to, but he couldn't because his wife just had a baby and well of course he couldn't leave his child behind to go play with Miles.
I'm sure he regretted that decision for the rest of his life, but what's done is done.

Here is a very smooth piece of jazz from the album Kind of Blue. (Really, check it out if you haven't already.) Oh and don't forget the Rainy Mood (top right of the page)!

Music for Lovers

Today we have some really smooth jazz by one of the greatest saxophone players of the last century, John Coltrane. On the piano: the great Duke Ellington, on the vocals: Johhny Hartman. Simply amazing music. As always: Rainy Mood in the top right corner of the page.



From the album Coltrane for Lovers, check it out. (You don't need a lover to appreciate the music though, you can take my word for it :p )

Bohren & der Club of Gore

Yes, I know it's a rather strange name for a band (they're German), but you won't worry about that anymore from the moment you hear their music. The genre of jazz is rather 'new' (in terms of jazz, that is let's say 15-20 years), but it's gaining more and more fans every day. Let's hope you guys like it as well!
The genre I was talking about is called 'dark jazz' and well, that's about it. It's the perfect name for that genre because it is in fact dark jazz.
I'm telling you, and you can take my word for it, this is the perfect background music; I dare you to find anything better. Would also be good for use in movies. Let's check it out!

Guitar jazz

There's some really great guitar jazz out there. When most people think of jazz guitar they think of Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery and other famous players. I'm not going to post a very well known artist today though I'm sure the lot of you will quite enjoy it.
This aforementioned artist goes by the name of Bireli Lagrène and is rather prominent in today's gypsy jazz. Needless to say Django is one of his major influences. There's one of his songs that I've been particularly hooked on, most probably because it's the first Lagrène song I ever heard, thanks to my guitar teacher. (This was about 3 years ago when I was just getting into jazz.)
Warning: this is not as smooth as what I've been posting before, but still a great piece. Enjoy! (As always: Rainy Mood in the top right.)

Chet Baker

Chet Baker is probably my favorite jazz musician, that's why I took his picture as background for my blog.
I hate how some people say that jazz is only for black people. Agreed, most of the jazz musicians I listen to are black, because in fact, most jazz musicians are black. But that doesn't necessarily mean that white people can't make jazz, does it? Of course not.
But that's not what I want to discuss.
Chet Baker played the trumpet, but was also a very talented singer. His voice is as soft as a morning sunrise, I'm sure you'll agree with me when you hear his work.

Great musicians often have big problems and Chet wasn't an exception; when he first started, he was a very good looking young man, who could easily have been a movie star. Unfortunately, like many other musicians, Chet Baker developed a heroin habit, and after some time there was not much left of his good looks. His music, however, was still brilliant.

He died May 13, 1988 (aged 58) in Amsterdam. He fell (jumped?) out of a second floor window of a hotel. The autopsy showed there was heroin and cocaine in his body.
His life may have been affected negatively by the drug habit, his music was always great. Smooth melodies, a very melodic style, ah what the hell, let's just listen!
Once again, goes great with Rainy Mood (top right of the page)!



Almost Blue is one of the most touching pieces of music I have ever heard. Jazz is one of those genres where you can actually feel the emotion though the music. You can really hear the melancholy in Chet's voice by the way he sings the song. In my opinion, the emotions give an extra perspective to the music.





Stick around, because I will post tons more of Chet's music in the future!


-Wink

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends.

Hi everybody.

Some of you may know my other blog, others may not. Either way, thanks a lot for checking this blog out! What to expect? Expect some very cool and smooth stuff that's perfect for listening to after a hard day of work.

Let's start off right away! There's this song I can't stop listening to by a musician I discovered not too long ago (I know, shame on me). His name is Dexter Gordon and he's a brilliant saxophone player. The sound that this man produces is so smooth that it gently strokes your eardrums until you find that split second of inner peace. In my opinion, that's what music is supposed to do to you.
Fun fact about 'Dex', he was 6'6" tall (for the Europeans: that's almost 2 metres!), which is why he got the nickname 'Sophisticated Giant', also the title of one of his albums.
Enough about Dex, let's listen to my favorite tune of his.
PROTIP: this music (and frankly all of the music that will be posted on this blog) goes great with Rainy Mood. Just open the link in a new tab, I promise it's worth it!

EDIT: because I'm such a great guy, I put the Rainy Mood sound in the top right of this page so you don't have to open an extra tab every time you open this blog. I know, I'm awesome.



By the way, let me know in the comments if you have any difficulty reading this page with the picture in the background (and also what you think of the music of course) :D