Bruford - Borstlap - ’Round Midnight (Bruford - Borstlap - In Concert In Holland, 2004)

Anybody and everybody who can even spell the word ’jazz’ should know this song. It’s totemic, emblematic; an entry card. If you like pop music, you’ll know Yesterday by the Beatles. If you profess to know jazz or to get close to it in any way, you’ll know ‘Round Midnight. It’s a jazz standard that many musicians play as a vehicle to demonstrate stylistically what it is they can bring to the table. For example, it became a signature song for Miles Davis. Allegedly, his performance of it with composer Thelonious Monk at the 1955 Newport Jazz Festival, heard by producer George Avakian, was crucial in securing him a recording contract with Columbia Records. So, in the jazz musician’s way, we don’t have to play it literally. Michiel just dives in with the abstraction, the taking things out, the revoicing of the harmonic terrain. How much can you remove, or alter, of ‘Round Midnight before it is no longer ‘Round Midnight? And do we all agree on that? I remember trying to explain music improvisation t