Jazz and funk blogs

I’ve updated (and re-dated) this post with more and more blogs shutting down, or rather, getting shut down. Blogger.com are clamping down big-time and some work-of-art blogs are now no longer available.

However, all the sites not struck-through below were live at the time of writing (04/06/2010)

OK, so it’s not a transcription, but I wanted to share with you three of my favourite music blogs that offer a treasure trove of rare and top quality jazz and jazz-funk grooves for your listening pleasure.

• The CTI never sleeps contains TONS of albums produced by Creed Taylor and his CTI-related labels.
• Jazz Disposition is fantastic.  Lovely design too…
• Into the Rhythm – masses of jazz on here.
• Never enough rhodes is a site aimed at the rhodes enthusiast (hence why I love it!) but any fan of funk-groove-soul music will love this.
• FunkyFullofWatt has over 2000 funk tracks and links to some other great blogs.
• Ile Oxuare has some rare jazz cuts, god knows what the title means, but who cares – go visit!
• MyJazzWorld a great variety of stuff on here and a huge amount of content that is clearly a completely labour of love.
• Funk My Soul blog has some of the best OoP vinyl rips of funk/soul/groove
• Where did all this steam come from is another jazz related blog with a massive variety of content.
• http://jazzheads.blogspot.com/ and http://jazz-the-two-of-us.blogspot.com/
• And http://musicadesdelasantipodas.blogspot.com/
• MPS goodness here…
• Live jazz goodies here… stuff you can’t, nor will ever be able, to buy
• The incredible zona de jazz, a mammoth amount of stuff on here
• http://jazzallthat.blogspot.com
• http://musicacion.blogspot.com
• Fusion Jazz and Something Else for those that swing both ways
• And the great MyFavouriteSound
• Projeto Esporte Fino has some terrific funk/soul/fusion
• I’ve recently found Bentleyfunk, and its a corker
• So is All Soul and Funk
• etnikcafe.blogspot.com has a vast amount of all kinds of stuff, for those time when you fancy something different.
• Inconstant Sol is huge and has some great rare and live cuts available
• Anything Goes has a really eclectic selection of stuff on, but alot of jazz.
• ‘Taringa’ appears be some sort of Spanish knowledge sharing platform, but this post has incredible rapidshare links, plus links (at the bottom) to similar posts by other users.
• 7Oregons and 2Tomoatoes is another great/huge jazz blog.
• Oufar Khan’s blog has some of the grooviest cuts of funk jazz gems.
• Buns O’Plenty is top drawer too.
• The Universal Mind Of contains only Bill Evan’s material
• 17 Green Buicks, another great jazz blog
• And Culture & Pleasure has perfect stuff for those quiet nights, and freealbumsgalore has some fine ambient too.
• Chezmateo specialises in stuff that completely OoP so you needn’t feel so guilty for checking out this one
• While the QueenBee blog is absurdly huge….
• And so is Musica Y Musicos
• And so is this one
• Kelly’s Sound Lounge has a lovely choice of stuff on.
• A Lion’s Love is truly that
• And a chap called Budd had posted some top compilations of lesser well known tracks on his blog.
• Then there’s the great nodata.tv
• LongPlay has some great fusion/funk/smooth jazz on, if that’s your bag
• YorUbaJazz has amazing has a fantastic collection of albums and artists
• La Musica De Pere has a mountain of nuJazz on
• DestinationFunk3 doesn’t need any explaining
• Holyf**kingShit4000 is a huge one covering various jazzy genres.

Enjoy – lemme know of other blogs that you might know of …. And remember to buy the albums if you download anything you love that is still in print.

A couple of Eric Alexanders

I saw Dave O’Higgins and Eric Alexander live on Friday night at Wakefield jazz, so I thought it only right to post a couple of transcriptions. Both Dave and Eric were fantastic – and major CHOPS were on show!

They had a superb rhythm section – including up-and-coming Andrew McCormack on piano – and they swung REALLY hard!

These transcriptions are courtesy of Charles McNeal.

• Eric’s solo on ‘Four‘
• Eric’s solo on ‘You’ll See
• Eric solo on ‘Giants‘ (Coltrane changes)

Trane Transcriptions

Whole ebook of John Coltrane transcription, includes versions of Naima, Blue Train, Syeeda’s Song Flute and others taken from top recordings.

• John Coltrane Artist Transcriptions (65MB, PDF)

Kind of Blue transcriptions (ebook)

Really nice little book containing the entire performances from that 1958 date, great way of studying the different styles of four (actually, five if you count Wynton Kelly on Freddie Freeloader) great soloists.

• Kind of Blue transcriptions ebook (PDF, 6MB)

Michael Brecker – ebook

Obviously these are for tenor sax, but all instrumentalists can learn lots from his great lines…

• Michael Brecker solos (180KB, PDF)

Scooby Sax anyone?

For the two people that read this blog regularly , I must apologise for my lack of posting recently. Nothing bad has happened, I simply haven’t got off my bum to source any new transcriptions.

As other jazzers can probably relate to, my enthusiasm for playing/studying tends to come in waves and every so often I don’t seem to have much inspiration to do either in any great depth.

Anyway, I was listening to Hank Mobley’s Dippin’ Time just yesterday it reminded me how good he really was. Jeff Rzepiela’s site has several Hank Mobley transcriptions, along with those of other top hooters.

Sonny Rollins ebook thing found…

I’ve just found this impressive 72 page ebook:  which has several transcriptions of Sonny Rollins and – even better – has an analysis of the great man’s playing. There is a link to download the pdf at the bottom of the page if you wish. Grab it while its there is my advice….

Bob Keller’s video collection…

…Is a wonderful collection of video’s of great jazz musicians doing their thang. Bob must have collected these over years and he’s presenting them on his site in all their WMV goodness. Bills Evans fans (like me) are particularly well catered for, although Coltrane and Getz are there too. What you waitin’ for: get tuned in.

Bob Berg Transcriptions

What a little treasure this is: http://pubcs.free.fr/BB/bob_berg_transcriptions.htm. A whole trove of transcriptions from Bob’s work either as leader, or sidemen on other’s albums (eg. Cedar Walton and Sam Jones).