Celebrating two seminal recordings with golden updates

The music will be golden, no matter how its sounds, this month when Jazz at Lincoln Center presents the latest installment in its Hall of Fame concert series. The February 12 to 14 event will mark this year’s 50th anniversaries of the recording of two seminal albums: Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and John Coltrane’s Giant Steps.

In part one of the evening, saxophonist Ted Nash will debut newly arranged solos from Giant Steps, in which he will be joined on stage by tenor saxophonist George Garzone and fellow Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra saxophonists Walter Blanding and Sherman Irby. In the second half, pianist Mulgrew Miller’s trio will be joined by the a capella group Take 6 for a new interpretation of Kind of Blue.

Drummer Jimmy Cobb, the only surviving player from the recording sessions, is scheduled to perform in each set of the concerts at the Rose Theater at Frederick P. Rose Hall. Giant Steps was recorded between April 1 and December 2, 1959. Kind of Blue was recorded between March 2 and April 22, 1959. Cobb was on both albums.
< < < Jimmy Cobb, Newport, August 2008