Music Monday: Bley, Trane, and Bang

This weekend was all about recovery and some “deep work” that will help me complete some writing this week. That means I listened to music while 

I started with Carla Bley’s stimulating and addictive 1981 album Social Studies. I’m not sure how to describe this album except equal parts beautiful and inspiring. It’s exactly what I needed to get me through a long grading session. 

I then decided to recognize John Coltrane’s 99th birthday with one of my favorite Coltrane recordings: The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings. Most people know these famous recordings if for no other reason than they paired Coltrane with Eric Dolphy and McCoy Tyner as well as a rotating cast of members who performed in this early 1960s band. I’m not a Coltrane scholar nor an expert on these sessions, so I had somehow missed that Ahmed Abdul-Malik performed on one of them. 

Anyway, the album is brilliant, timeless, provocative, and exciting. It feels like an axis mundi around which all jazz music before and after revolved. I love it. 

Since my listening started in the ‘80s, I decided to complete the circle in the 1980s by listening to Billy Bang’s sextet’s Fire from Within (1984). I’ve long loved Billy Bang as much because he played his violin with such passion as because he was a pivotal figure in the 1970s loft jazz scene. Taking time this week to listen to Fire from Within was absolutely rejuvenating and energizing for me. The Penguin Guide to Jazz called Billy Bang’s playing “grainy” and that made me think of photography.