Requisites
The Cats: In the Fifties, Tommy Flanagan was one of the most highly valued pianists in jazz. His appearance on record was primarily as a sideman, well appreciated by his fellow musicians but not recognized for their display of his superior abilities by a wider audience.
This album contains a Flanagan trio track “How Long Has This Been Going On?” surrounded with the choice, empathetic soloists as Coltrane, Burrell and Sulieman. It is still a delight to hear their interaction to this day with Tommy and the all-Detroit rhythm section of Doug Watkins and Louis Hayes. Flanagan penned all of the originals on this album.
Personnel: Tommy Flanagan – piano, John Coltrane – tenor saxophone, Idrees Sulieman – trumpet, Kenny Burrell – guitar, Doug Watkins – bass, Louis Hayes – drums
Record date: Hackensack, New Jersey – April 18, 1957
Supervised by: Bob Weinstock
Songs: Minor Mishap; How Long Has This Been Going On; Eclypso; Solacium; Tommy’s Tune
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Requisites
Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown: When Two Geniuses Met for One Perfect Album
Sometimes magic happens when the right artists meet at exactly the right moment. Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown—originally released simply as Sarah Vaughan in 1954—is one of those rare, lightning-in-a-bottle collaborations that captured two towering talents at their creative peaks.
An Unlikely Pairing That Shouldn’t Have Worked—But Did
On paper, pairing the Grammy Award-winning vocal virtuoso Sarah Vaughan with the brilliant young trumpeter Clifford Brown might have seemed risky. Vaughan’s voice was an instrument unto itself, capable of operatic range, breathtaking improvisation, and emotional depths that could break your heart. Brown, meanwhile, was revolutionizing jazz trumpet with his warm tone, flawless technique, and lyrical approach that suggested both bebop fire and romantic elegance.
Together? Pure alchemy.
A Single Session, An Enduring Legacy
The album was released on the EmArcy label and remains the only collaboration between this extraordinary pair, a tantalizing “what if” for jazz fans who can only imagine what further recordings might have produced. The original release bore only Vaughan’s name, but when reissued, the title was changed to emphasize Brown’s participation, recognizing that this was a true partnership between equals.
Critical Reception and Personal Favorite
The album was well-received upon release, though not without some criticism—as is often the case with ambitious artistic statements that don’t follow predictable formulas. Some critics felt the arrangements were too lush, others wanted more interaction between the two principals. But Vaughan herself had no doubts: this remained her personal favorite among all her recordings through 1980, a remarkable statement from an artist with a discography spanning decades and hundreds of albums.
She knew what she’d captured in that studio—something special, something that transcended the usual vocalist-with-accompaniment formula.
Recognition and Immortality
History has vindicated Vaughan’s judgment. In 1999, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, joining the pantheon of recordings deemed “qualitatively or historically significant” and worthy of permanent preservation.
A Bittersweet Postscript
There’s an inevitable sadness knowing this was the only time these two artists recorded together. Just two years after this session, Clifford Brown died in a car accident at age 25, robbing jazz of one of its most promising voices. This album stands as both a celebration of what Brown achieved in his brief life and a poignant reminder of what was lost.
Why It Still Matters
Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown isn’t just a historical artifact or a completist’s curiosity—it’s a masterclass in musical communication. Listen to how Brown’s trumpet seems to converse with Vaughan’s voice, how they finish each other’s musical thoughts, how the space between their phrases breathes with meaning.
This is what happens when two artists at the top of their game truly listen to each other and respond with honesty, generosity, and brilliance.
For anyone who loves vocal jazz, trumpet playing, or simply the sound of two masters making something beautiful together, this album remains essential—a 1954 gift that keeps giving, seven decades later.
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Requisites
Sketches of Spain: When Miles Davis Went to Andalusia (Without Leaving New York)
What happens when you put Miles Davis‘ trumpet against the backdrop of Spanish classical music and flamenco? You get one of the most daring, gorgeous albums in jazz history.
Sketches of Spain (1960) was the third collaboration between Miles Davis and arranger/conductor Gil Evans, and it remains their most audacious. This isn’t just jazz—it’s a complete reimagining of Spanish music through an American lens, a cultural bridge built in sound. Rolling Stone ranked it #350 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and once you hear it, you’ll understand why.
Recorded between November 1959 and March 1960 at Columbia’s legendary 30th Street Studio in New York City, the sessions brought together Miles’ core rhythm section—Paul Chambers on bass, Jimmy Cobb on drums, plus the great Elvin Jones adding percussion—with an absolutely massive orchestra. We’re talking French horns, oboes, bassoons, tuba, harp, flutes, and more, featuring stellar musicians like Danny Bank, Bill Barber, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow, Ernie Royal, and Janet Putnam among many others.
Gil Evans’ arrangements are nothing short of miraculous—lush, evocative, cinematic. He doesn’t just accompany Miles; he creates entire sonic landscapes for that singular trumpet voice to soar over. The album opens with their interpretation of Joaquín Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez,” and from the first mournful notes, you’re transported.
Across five tracks—”Concierto de Aranjuez,” “Will O’ the Wisp,” “The Pan Piper,” “Saeta,” and “Solea”—Miles and Gil paint with broader strokes than most jazz albums dare. This is music that breathes, broods, and burns with quiet intensity.
Producers Teo Macero and Irving Townsend captured something timeless when they released this on July 18, 1960. It’s been over six decades, and Sketches of Spain still sounds like nothing else, a masterpiece that proved jazz could go anywhere, be anything, as long as the vision was clear and the artists were fearless.
Put this on, close your eyes, and let Miles take you to Spain.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Baikida Carroll: From St. Louis Streets to the Avant-Garde
Some musicians are born into jazz, literally. Baikida Carroll arrived on January 15, 1947, in St. Louis, Missouri, as the son of tenor saxophonist Jimmy Harris. Music wasn’t just in the house; it was the family business, the air he breathed, the language spoken at the dinner table.
A High School Band for the Ages
As a teenager, Carroll played trumpet in his high school band alongside a young pianist named Donny Hathaway (yes, that Donny Hathaway), while studying theory with his mentor Vernon Nashville. Through the All-City Jazz Band, he connected with future innovators Lester Bowie, J.D. Parran, and James Jabbo Ware. These weren’t just bandmates, they were co-conspirators in what would become the future of creative jazz.
Learning the Craft, Breaking the Rules
Carroll sharpened his technical skills at Southern Illinois University and the Armed Forces School of Music, building a foundation solid enough to support the experimental flights to come. Then he dove headfirst into St. Louis’s Black Artists Group (BAG), where he directed their groundbreaking free jazz ensemble. The 1970s found this revolutionary collective recording in Europe, pushing boundaries and redefining what jazz could be communal, spiritual, and liberated from commercial constraints.
Walking Both Sides of the Street
But here’s what makes Carroll fascinating: he never stayed in one lane. During that same decade, while exploring the outer reaches of avant-garde expression, he was also gigging with blues and R&B royalty—Albert King, Little Milton, Fontella Bass, and Tina Turner. Between gigs, he took master classes with legends like Oliver Nelson, Thad Jones, Ron Carter, Mel Lewis, Phil Woods, and Roland Hanna. Talk about range. Talk about refusing to be boxed in.
A Staggering Body of Work
His discography tells the full story: four albums as a leader and over thirty as a sideman, collaborating with an astonishing roster that includes Sam Rivers, Carla Bley, Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton, Oliver Lake, Jack DeJohnette, Muhal Richard Abrams, and Julius Hemphill, among many others. Each collaboration reveals a different facet of his musical personality—from tender balladry to explosive free improvisation.
Beyond the Bandstand
Theater called to him too, with credits spanning productions from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to Having Our Say. Fellowships, awards, board positions, Carroll’s contributions to music and the arts run deep and wide, extending far beyond his trumpet playing into education, advocacy, and community building.
Multiple Lifetimes, One Musician
This is a musician who’s lived multiple lifetimes within jazz, each one worth exploring, each one revealing new dimensions of what’s possible when you refuse to choose between tradition and innovation, between accessibility and experimentation, between commercial viability and artistic integrity.
Baikida Carroll didn’t just play the trumpet. He used it to ask questions, challenge assumptions, and remind us that jazz has always been about freedom, musical, personal, and otherwise.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Billy Butterfield: The Trumpet Player Who Almost Became a Doctor
What if one of jazz’s most lyrical trumpet voices had ended up in a white coat instead of on a bandstand? Billy Butterfield, born January 14, 1917, in Middletown, Ohio, started out on cornet as a kid, then pivoted to pre-med studies before the irresistible pull of music brought him back—and thank goodness it did.
A Warm Tone Finds Its Audience
By the late 1930s, Butterfield’s warm, singing tone was turning heads when he joined Bob Crosby’s swinging orchestra. From there, he became the go-to trumpeter for the era’s biggest bandleaders—Artie Shaw, Les Brown, and Benny Goodman all recognized what they had when Butterfield stepped up to the microphone. His sound wasn’t about flash or fury; it was about beauty, control, and emotion that could break your heart.
War, Then a Perfect Recording
When World War II called, Butterfield served from 1943 to 1947, leading his own Army orchestra and bringing music to troops who desperately needed it. After the war, he signed with Capitol Records and delivered one of those perfect moments that defines an era: “Moonlight in Vermont,” featuring Margaret Whiting’s ethereal vocals floating over his exquisite muted trumpet. It’s the kind of recording that still stops people in their tracks seventy years later.
Leading His Own Way
The 1950s brought fruitful collaborations with arranger Ray Conniff, and by the 1960s, Butterfield was leading his own orchestra for Columbia Records—proof that the sideman had grown into a compelling leader. But perhaps his most enduring partnership came in the late 1960s when he joined the aptly named World’s Greatest Jazz Band alongside fellow trumpeter Yank Lawson and bassist Bob Haggart. It was a dream team of veteran musicians playing classic jazz with authority and joy, and Butterfield remained with them until his final days.
A Life Well Played
Throughout it all, Butterfield stayed busy as a sought-after guest artist, bringing his mastery of trumpet, flugelhorn, and cornet to stages around the globe. Whether in an intimate club or a grand concert hall, that distinctive tone—thoughtful, melodic, perfectly controlled—made every performance memorable.
A Legacy in Every Note
Billy Butterfield left us on March 18, 1988, but that gorgeous sound—warm as a summer evening, clear as a bell, romantic without being sentimental—lives on in every recording. The medical profession’s loss became jazz’s eternal gain.
Sometimes the world needs a great doctor. But sometimes it needs a trumpet player who can make “Moonlight in Vermont” sound like the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard. Billy Butterfield was that player, and we’re all the richer for the choice he made.
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