Music Monday: Shaw, Jones, and Humphrey

On a weekend, when two monumental new collections dropped — volume 8 in the Miles Davis boot leg series (which is fantastic) and more from Keith Jarrett’s time in 1992 at the Deer Head Inn (which is very fine Keith Jarrett) — it seems reasonable to dig a bit into the ole YouTube vault and listen to some Woody Shaw from 1965 (a scant year after some of the Miles Davis recordings on the new bootleg collection).

In the Beginning (which has also been released as Cassandrite) is apparently a demo tape cut by Shaw with Joe Henderson and Ron Carter. It’s very cool to hear Shaw finding his footing early in his career:

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the passing of Quincy Jones. I have a soft spot for his early 1970s output. These albums often had all-star bands playing Jones’s amazing arrangements.

While Gula Matari (1970) is probably the most famous of these albums…

I vaguely prefer Walking in Space (1969) which like Gula Matari is produced by Creed Taylor.

Finally, for some reason, I found myself listening to Bobbi Humphrey’s Blacks and Blues (1973), maybe because I missed its 50th anniversary last year. It’s wonderful: