I'm going to highlight Satchmo's concert, from opening night of the first festival in 1958, if for no other reason than it being a reminder of what a supreme entertainer he was. His gregariously warm personality, humor, brash trumpet and one-of-a-kind gravelly voice. No matter how far jazz had come since he made it a major art form back in the twenties, many decades later he was still able to flawlessly demonstrate why it became viable and vital in the first place. And unlike many who followed him, he saw no difference between jazz music and pop music; after all, jazz was popular music up until his final hit with "What A Wonderful World" in 1964. He took Fats Domino's then-recent hit "Blueberry Hill" and gave it his personal, tender touch. Other crowd pleasers like "St. Louis Blues" and "When The Saints Go Marching In" are covered as well.
The other big names in the Monterey Festival series has, like this one, good recording quality and presents legends at or near their peaks. But nobody could put on a show like Armstrong. Here's more proof of that.
Groundtruther Altitude
I was really looking forward to Charlie Hunter's recent release Mistico
and aside from of couple of tracks it let me down some. He just didn't seem to be quite as adventurous as he was before, especially in the nineties. But one listen of Groundtruther's Altitude makes it apparent that Hunter was saving up all his wigginess for his occasional side project Groundtruther with drummer/sampler Bobby Previte.
Truth be told, Hunter has probably never been wiggier than on this record. With Previte providing a warped audial wash of electronics and sampling, Hunter is left free to run around with scissors. And they brought along Medeski, Martin and Wood organ mutant John Medeski along to play in the sandbox with him. Medeski, needless to say, is born to play Groundtruther's brand of freakish blend of acid jazz, rock and experimental electronica. The sound they make is, as Mark Saleksi put it, "extra-terrestrial music." Even the acoustic CD "Below Sea Level" sounds alien ("Above Sea Level" is the electric side of this double CD set), if somewhat more abstract.
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