The Modern Jazz Quartet actually released a whole album based on the music of Johann Sebastian. There is one Bach inspired piece I recall which i thought was called The Golden Striker but that is not the one I remember and I cannot find it on YouTube. I would know it the instant I heard it, the melody is still lodged in my brain even after 50+ years. I'm sure I heard it on Steve Race's BBC programme Jazz625 but I may be mistaken. Any way here they are swinging with great style!
"I wouldn't be able to play the drums my way again after four or five years of playing eighteenth-century drawing-room jazz" was drummer Kenny Clarke's reason for leaving the MJQ. I think it was meant as an insult of sorts but it is a good description of the restrained and elegant 'cool jazz' of the Modern Jazz Quartet. They never lost their blues roots and found it easy to adapt those roots to the music of Bach or maybe that should be the other way round; was Bach the first 'blues' musician?
"Bag's Groove"(Milt Jackson),Modern Jazz Quartet in London
Vendôme
Itzhak Perlman with Modern Jazz Quartet - Summertime
Bluesology
"True Blues" (Milt Jackson),Modern Jazz Quartet in London
Concorde - Modern Jazz Quartet
Modern Jazz Quartet - Golden Striker
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