Modern Jazz Quartet history lesson?
Does anybody* have anything interesting to tell me about the Modern Jazz Quartet?
I was given a box of old records from my Pops a while back. Recently I picked up the Best of the Modern Jazz Quartet and put it on the player. I don't know much about jazz at all, so I hardly even know what I'm listening too. Overall, it doesn't really do a whole lot for me one way or the other. But one song, Sketch, is really disquieting. In a good way. It's a collaboration with a string quartet, who play a series of aggressive phrases that get all mellowed out by the MJQ's vibes. But the rhythm (or tempo, damned if I know), is pleasantly off kilter.
So - can anyone fill me in a little on what this group is all about? Or where they fit in the genre(s) overall?
A cursory internet search didn't help me out very much.
* I'm looking at a couple of you more pointedly... rootlesscosmo, bklyndispatch
I was given a box of old records from my Pops a while back. Recently I picked up the Best of the Modern Jazz Quartet and put it on the player. I don't know much about jazz at all, so I hardly even know what I'm listening too. Overall, it doesn't really do a whole lot for me one way or the other. But one song, Sketch, is really disquieting. In a good way. It's a collaboration with a string quartet, who play a series of aggressive phrases that get all mellowed out by the MJQ's vibes. But the rhythm (or tempo, damned if I know), is pleasantly off kilter.
So - can anyone fill me in a little on what this group is all about? Or where they fit in the genre(s) overall?
A cursory internet search didn't help me out very much.
* I'm looking at a couple of you more pointedly... rootlesscosmo, bklyndispatch