The Modern Jazz Quartet with Laurindo Almeida — Collaboration (1964)

Listen on Youtube.

Listen on Spotify.

This is going to be a difficult choice for me.

I went through a bit of a MJQ period last year but never really got into this one, might have to give it another try. I can't even articulate why I think John Lewis is one of the greatest and underrated pianists of that era.

actually it's quite stupid I never give this one a proper listen cos it sounds ace!

This album is included in the recent Mosaic box of their Atlantic stuff but I haven't checked it out, mostly due to a general lack of interest in Brazilian stuff. Maybe I will.

Must agree cal: John Lewis and MJQ in general are not so much undervalued as they are kind of ignored at this point. They definitely weren't as provocative as the other big jazz names of the late 50s and into the 60s, but the amount of inarguably classic compositions and performances they registered is just impressive on reflection. I'm not sure if it's just my novice search skills, but I wasn't able to find a proper MJQ topic here. If there really isn't one, that's kind of disappointing — I certainly consider them one of the definitive groups in jazz.

Glad to hear you are enjoying it — side two is even better!

another album for MJQ fans is the John Lewis cool jazz classic "Grand Encounter" with Jim Hall/Bill Perkins/Chico Hamilton in the band, bloody great album!

That John Lewis album looks phenomenal... just added it to my wantlist.

I always found this Laurindo Almeida Collaboration confusing because the featured artist doesn't show up on the album until almost the end of side one? And I think my favorite tracks might be the ones that he doesn't appear on. A great little album nonetheless.

I love this Ben Ratliff take on MJQ:

And the Modern Jazz Quartet: What were they up to with their strangely soft dynamic range, with all those brushed drums, their own law of seldom rising above a given volume level even as they played fairly intense music? They seemed to flout obvious logic, obvious laws of taste and expression. The drummer Connie Kay could sustain interest even playing a rhythm nearly unchanged for ten minutes, with scant off-beat accents as weak as raindrops. John Lewis seemed always to be playing less on the piano than he was expected to.

After listening again, I ended up going with the epic closing track.

Also really just have to marvel at John Lewis. After giving this album a few listens yesterday, we went back and sampled through some of our favorite tracks on the early MJQ albums and DUDE — the guy wrote the tune "Django"!!!! How did I forget that??? Also, the No Sun In Venice soundtrack album is just absolutely serene. "One Never Knows" is something I could —and have in the past— listen to on repeat for about three hours.

I may poll The Last Concert pretty soon, as well. Seems like maybe a cheat move, but that's the definitive MJQ recording for me.

I was between "Silver" and "Fugue in A Minor". But then I came across this video of "One Note Samba":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-9OrHd6QdM

(love the host's blistering takedown of rock 'n roll guitar at the top of the video)

Took history of jazz at IU with David Baker and he was friends and a huge proponent of MJQ being one of the greatest jazz groups ever. Got to say, I have not yet gotten around to getting to know their massive history.

On a similar note, I did get to know and love Jim Hall's LP 'Concierto' which has a take on "Concierto De Aranjuez" with a great group including Chet Baker, Paul Desmond, Steve Gadd, Ron Carter & Roland Hanna. Well worth checking out.

Jim Hall's LP 'Concierto

oh, you mean the best album that cti records released?

yeah, that's a good one.

https://cdn.hmv.com/r/w-1280/p-webp/hmv/files/3a/3adbf72f-fd35-4835-8e3a-9bda1adb6f8b.jpg

still haven't decide which one to vote for because I keep getting side-tracked by other MJQ albums like this absolute beauty!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

A whopping 3 votes. Not many chamber jazz fans around here I guess.

but hey, listening to it now! :D

yeah, kind of a disappointing turn out. speaks to the initial sentiment in this thread about mjq being somewhat lost in time.

the one i voted for won, though!

then it's the official ilx selection imo!

Aw, didn't see this poll. Grew up hearing this one, because I remember the jacket lying out a lot, but not as familiar to me as I listen now.

I just saw a cool video somebody posted of this and by another path was led to the Laurindo Almeida Bud Shank collabo.

Guy won five Grammys.