It’s the start of the wedding season up here in the frozen north country, so I listened to “Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue”.

Something old was a tough decision because I am old and a good chunk of my listening falls into this category, so I picked Desire by Bob Dylan. This album is my favourite from his stupendous discography, and it is also one of my desert island picks. Desire followed the release of the double album “Basement Tapes”, which featured Dylan playing, literally in a basement, with “The Band.” That album will have to be listened to again, something for a future blog perhaps. Disire is a solid album from start to finish. From the opening track Hurricane to the closing track, Sara. Hurricane tells the story of Rubin Carter, a boxer who went by the nickname “The Hurricane.” A powerful song with great lyrics and extensive use of violin, which I greatly admire. Desire has a wonderful collective of contributions from other musicians that I won’t list in detail here to keep this blog from becoming a rambling essay about the album “Desire”, instead of a commentary on what music I have been listening to.

Something new is the album “Honora” by Flea, the bassist from the band Red Hot Chili Peppers. I have noticed a few other artists playing music outside of the genre they had been defined by in their early to mid-career, and moving to something significantly different. Sturgill Simpson and The Arctic Monkeys are two good examples of this transition. Simpson has flipped his musical style several times, from classic country to alt-country to bluegrass to jazz-influenced funk/rock. The Arctic Monkeys went from alt-rock to a lounge band, radical, but it worked and “Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino” is a great album. Honora takes a hard turn from the RHCPs’ alt-rock to an album heavily influenced by jazz. It features bass, and Flea plays it with passion. The album was inspired by Flea’s love for jazz, and features six original songs along with covers of songs originally written by Eddie Hazel and George Clinton, Jimmy Webb, Frank Ocean and Shea Taylor, and Ann Ronell. I have had this album on repeat since it came out, and I am listening to it as I write this. Good stuff.

Something borrowed is a tough one because I don’t borrow records or lend mine out to be borrowed. The closest I could get was the album “Laughing Cavalier” by Wallace Collection. I asked Joel if I could buy this album from him, and he said “No”, but he did give it to me. Not really borrowing, but the closest I could get. Wallace Collection are best known for their 1969 international hit “Daydream,” which appeared in the movie Mr. Nobody. I rewatch the movie and replay the album semi-regularly.

For something blue, I went with Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. Often cited as one of the greatest albums of all time, and not just in the jazz genre. It is the best-selling album by Miles Davis, certified platinum five times, and it continues to sell. Between 1991 and 2016, the album sold 3.6 million copies in the US alone.

Everyone and their dog has heaped laurels upon this album. Kind of Blue has appeared on professional listings of the greatest albums. In 1994, it was ranked number one in Colin Larkin’s Top 100 Jazz Albums. Larkin described it as “the greatest jazz album in the world”. In 2002, it was one of 50 recordings selected for the inaugural year of induction into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry. In selecting the album as number 12 on its 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list, Rolling Stone magazine stated: “This painterly masterpiece is one of the most important, influential and popular albums in jazz.” The rating fell to 31 on Rolling Stone’s revised list in 2020. On December 16, 2009, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution honouring the 50th anniversary of Kind of Blue and “reaffirming jazz as a national treasure”. It is included in the 2005 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, described by reviewer Seth Jacobson as “a genre-defining moment in twentieth-century music, period.” It was voted number 14 in Colin Larkin’s All Time Top 1000 Albums 3rd Edition (2000). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings lists the album as part of its suggested “core collection”, and also awards it a crown, indicating a recording of particular merit. – This paragraph is an edited version of a Wikipedia entry.

I listened to a basketful of other albums; suffice to say, they were all good in their own way.