Music Monday: Five Birthday Albums

I’ve somehow gotten in the habit of posting music around artists’ birthdays. This no only reflects my weekly listening habits, but I suppose is also a nice gesture.

This week, there were a lot of birthdays and my play list doesn’t reflect all of them, but I have enjoyed a couple albums that I hadn’t heard before. I’ve been bantering with my Philadelphia buddy Kostis Kourelis about the Philadelphia jazz scene in the 1950s and 1960s especially in West Philadelphia’s “The Strip.”  Pep’s Lounge was not on The Strip, but it was at the corner of Broad and South Streets in South Philly. And my chats with Kostis and Yusef Lateef’s birthday inspired me to feature Lateef’s brilliant pair of live albums at Pep’s where the backing band does its thing and Lateef is the start of the show:

It was also Art Blakey birthday this past week. I never have any idea where to start to listen to his enormous hard bop discography. His Night in Tunisia (1964) is so well known that it hardly feels necessary to post it here, but since Lee Morgan is in such fine form, it seems hard to resist. It’s also 60 years old this year:

I’ve also been listening to Caravan (1962) as well, in part because it was remastered this past year and in part because I’m slowly acquiring a taste for Freddie Hubbard (and I love Cedar Walton!):

Finally, I’d be remiss not to include something to recognize Lester Bowie’s birthday. First something from the Art Ensemble of Chicago that fits with my growing interest in pseudoarchaeology as well as my appreciation for Bowie’s horn playing. Behold the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s Tutankhamun (1969) which remains as brilliant as it is baffling some 55 years after its release:

Finally, just for fun, appreciate Bowie at his playful, charismatic, and entertaining finest on this cover of Bob Marley’s “One Love”: