Today for Jazz Friday I want to share a contemporary saxophone player that I enjoy, Ben Wendell. Ben plays the sax and bassoon. He’s been a sideman for many artists in many genres (including Snoop Dogg!), but some of my favorite music from Ben are shorts he does with other talented musicians on YouTube. He does collections of these videos that all eventually turn into albums. Lately, I’ve been listing to the Seasons collection and enjoying it. You can get the album on Apple Music and below is one of my favorite videos in the collection.

I’ve really enjoyed a new website, The 1959 Project, that chronicles the jazz scene in 1959. During that single year some of the great jazz albums, like Kind of Blue and Time Out were recorded. It also was the beginning of the end for jazz as a mainstream popular music. Each day there is a new post about something amazing happening. It’s a great jazz education if that’s your thing. Also, here’s an interesting article on the back story of the website (and related documentary film).

I think I’ve featured Joey Alexander, the now fourteen-year-old jazz piano prodigy, too often but this week I discovered he’s now released an album, Eclipse (Apple Music) (iTunes) featuring Joshua Redman, one of my favorite saxophonists. Want some great jazz this weekend? Download this album.

I recently received an email from a reader thanking me for these jazz Friday posts. He explained that he loved learning about some of these older musicians that he had never heard of before but then he very politely ended the email, “Do you listen to anyone that’s not dead?” After I got done laughing I wrote him back and said that yes I indeed do and will even share a few of my favorite non-dead jazz artists.

Chris Potter (Wikipedia) is one of them. He’s one of the finest saxophonists ever to pick up the instrument. For whatever reason, his name has never really entered the public awareness like Wynton Marsalis or (God have mercy on my soul) Kenny G. Nevertheless, he’s an amazing saxophonist. He came to prominence in the late 90s but has continued to release solo albums and work as a sideman with a variety of groups. The guy is a monster. You really can’t go wrong with any Chris Potter album but my favorite is Follow the Red Line: Live at the Village Vanguard (iTunes). Live jazz is always the best, even recorded live jazz. The lead track on that album, Train (iTunes) always makes me smile and on Togo (iTunes), Chris puts down his tenor sax and plays the bass clarinet at the beginning and then comes back in later to play one of my favorite Chris Potter solos on his tenor sax. Be warned … Chris goes way out there on the Togo solo. Another good starting place for Chris Potter is the Apple Music playlist, Chris Potter Essentials. And best of all, Chris Potter is not dead.

Merry Christmas everybody. I hope you and your family are enjoying a great holiday. This year I shared my Yule jazz playlist, and its got lots of subscribers. I’ve heard from listeners that are using it for everything from cooking Christmas dinner to playing in the background while they perform surgery (that’s true!).

Anyway, if you’d like to listen to my favorite jazz Christmas music, check it out for Apple Music. Also, thanks to listener Alex for converting the list to Spotify and posting it on the Mac Power Users Facebook group.

This week for Jazz Friday, I’m featuring the Bill Evans’ cover of Santa Claus is Coming to Town from 1964. This is a weird track. It’s the only Christmas tune buried on Evans’ Trio 64 album released in January 1964. I’m guessing it is a live recording from the holiday season of 1963. They probably played it for giggles and then decided to put it on the album because what musician isn’t at least a little interested in holiday music residuals?

Anyway, to continue the weirdness, the song starts with this odd, loping, off meter melody. Go ahead and tap your foot to the beginning of this song. I dare you. Then it gets a more straight ahead feel, including a most excellent bass solo by Gary Peacock. The whole thing is quintessential Bill Evans. It’s so easy to cover traditional holiday music. I like it when musicians decide to mix it up a bit and this track does that.

I’m going to cover some more holiday jazz through December but if you’d like to cut to the end, here’s my Jazz Yule Apple Music playlist. Enjoy

This year I’m going to feature some of my favorite holiday-themed jazz music every Friday. One of my favorites Wynton Marsalis’s Christmas Jazz Jam (iTunes) (Apple Music). Wynton, who I’ll cover another day in greater detail, is very much a traditionalist but as he’s got older, he’s also added more of a sense of joy and humor to his trumpet (in my opinion). This album fits in nicely. It’s jazz music that you could just play in the background while eating or, you could carefully listen to and have moments of delight. This album works both ways. 

Some of my favorite parts are Wycliffe Gordon’s wild, reindeer-inspired trombone Solo on Santa Clause is Coming to Town and the Dixieland feel in Jingle Bells. You are going to either love or hate what they did with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer but it makes me laugh out loud every time it comes on. Finally, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is classic, straight ahead jazz, and excellent. If you like Wynton, you’ll also want to check out his 1989 album, Crescent City Christmas Card (iTunes) (Apple Music), which is also pretty an excellent jazz holiday album.

If you’re interested in jazz, John Coltrane is a very big part of the story and this week PBS is running a documentary on his life, Chasing Trane. I haven’t seen it yet but it looks real good. The clip below is about A Love Supreme, which I wrote about in 2014.

This month we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Thelonious Monk’s birth. While I’ve featured some of Monk’s music in the past, I’ve never featured the man himself. It’s time to fix that.

Thelonious Monk was one of the founding fathers of bebop and is a jazz giant. Both his compositions and playing style changed the course of jazz music. Some of his compositions are legendary like, like Round Midnight. Monk was one of the best composers of his time. One song that stands out for me is Crepuscule with Nellie (iTunes)(Apple Music), which is a rare jazz song that does not provide for improvisation. It was a composition written, start to finish, as a love song to his wife. One of my absolute favorite songs is his Pannonica, which I butcher on the Piano with this downloadable track.

Monk also played piano like no one before. I distinctly remember hearing Monk for the first time in the 70’s. I was about ten years old and it floored me. I immediately went to my piano teacher and begged to play Monk music. She preferred Bach but I eventually figured it out on my own.

There are so many great Monk albums that it really is hard to recommend just one. One of my favorites is a two album set of him playing the piano without his band, Thelonious Alone in San Francisco (iTunes)(Apple Music). I also really enjoy his collaboration with John Coltrane (iTunes)(Apple Music).

If you’d like to learn more about Monk, I recommend the documentary, Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser (iTunes)(YouTube).

Anyway … Happy Birthday, Monk.