One problem I have with music is that I simply don’t have enough time for all of it. Of course that doesn’t keep me from exploring, finding, and adding new music to my collection. One thing I do to make sure I am consistently listening to a wide variety of my iTunes library is to create large playlists and then listen to them on the shuffle function.
In doing so, I recently came across successive pieces featuring Wynton Kelly on piano with a dual horn section. And these two pieces happen to be my Kelly favorites. Ironically, they were both recorded in the same year and come from albums of the same name. I have made each into very simply videos.
The first is song is “Wrinkles” from Wynton Kelly’s 1961 trio album Someday My Prince Will Come. This song is the album’s only exception to the trio format and features trumpeter Lee Morgan and saxophonist Wayne Shorter.
The second song is “Someday My Prince Will Come” from Miles Davis’ album of the same name, recorded months earlier in 1961. Wynton Kelly first appeared with Miles on his groundbreaking Kind of Blue, but only played on one piece — “Freddie Freeloader” — the rest of the album featured Bill Evans. Kind of Blue also marked the end of John Coltrane’s association with Miles, with the sole exception of Coltrane’s cameo on “Oleo” and the title tack of Someday My Prince Will Come. The song also features Jimmy Cobb (drums) and Paul Chambers (bass) with whom Kelly would later record “Wrinkles”. So with this song, you have great examples of Mile’s lyrical trumpet, Coltrane’s explorations, and Kelly’s swinging blues.