I also like to go back to some ‘original’ versions, and it helps me to understand more about the creative process used by great jazz musicians.

This week, I start with Christian McBride and New Jawn transforming a very strange Thelonious Monk composition, and found that I was able to appreciate it more by also hearing the original Monk version.

Then I move onto “All The Things You Are” by Brad Meldhau and Larry Grenadier, comparing it to the way Jerome Kern probably envisioned it, and the well-known Charlie Parker transformation.

You’ll hear some Tommy Flanagan doing It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing, a beautiful Miles Davis rendition of Stella by Starlight, and finishing with a young Toronto drummer who just put out an album with a large band—which included trumpeter Lina Allemano.

Thanks to Craig for sharing these.