vintage

FIXED! I don’t care if it’s Thursday, this post is hitting the internet. SO THERE.

Anyway, it’s high time we featured some jazz around here, and so that is exactly what I’m going to do.

The David Braid Sextet is a marvelous collection of Toronto-area musicians led by David Braid (piano), Mike Murley (sax), John MacLeod (trumpet), Gene Smith (trombone), Steve Wallace (bass), and Terry Clarke (drums). They’ve released a few records together, and all the musicians are involved in countless other projects, as is the way of music. Murley teaches at York University, and Braid can often be found collaborating with another York prof, Matt Brubeck.

This is from their first record, conveniently titled The David Braid Sextet. I first heard it in about 2003/04, when I took a jazz studies course in Grade 10 in high school (knowing a decent amount about jazz for a fifteen-year-old, but still, not that much). We were promptly directed to lift the solos from this record, something that I had never really done in the jazz idiom before — and this Murley solo was not the friendliest place to start. I never did get the whole thing done, but I finished significantly more than I had expected, so I guess that’s something.

Anyway, it’s one of Braid’s originals and is among my favourites — great groove, great solos, totally singable. His writing is terrific. As far as I know the song has nothing to do with the anime, but I’ve never asked.

Tunesday 16: Cowboy Bebop