So on Thursday I did listen to some jazz and some New Age. The jazz was The Essential Oscar Peterson and the New Age was Spirit Wind East by Bill Miller.
The Essential Oscar Peterson was put out in 1992 and is a collection of recordings of Oscar Peterson and his trio between 1957 and 1962. Many of the tracks feature Peterson with Ray Brown on bass, Ed Thigpen on drums with Herb Ellis on guitar on several tracks. Track 9 “On Green Dolphin Street” caught my attention on the first listen because it features Milt Jackson on vibes. Track 2 ” Blues for Big Scotia” features a horn section with about five trumpet including Clark Terry. The Canadian treasure Peterson is fine pianist and throughout this album I love his playing especially on the uptempo pieces. According to the liner notes Peterson was initially influenced by the piano playing of Nat “King” Cole. Later he was influenced by the bop music of pianist Bud Powell and the great sax of Charlie Parker. So if you’re looking a good album to start an appreciation of jazz (are you reading Nick) try this one!!
The Oscar Peterson Trio with Nat “King”Cole and Coleman Hawkins!
The other day I listened to Bill Miller’s album “Ghostdance” and within 
that album and others there are snippets of Bill’s playing Native American flute so when I saw that one of his latest albums Spirit Wind East was an instrumental album I quickly went to Rhapsody and put it on the player and it’s a good one. Miller overall is an award winning artist here are some of his awards:
Three–time Grammy award-winning songwriter and musician: Best Native American Music Album, “Cedar Dream Songs”–2004, “Sacred Ground–A Tribute to Mother Earth”–2005. Winner of seven Native American Music awards: Lifetime Achievement–2007, Song of The Year, and Single of the Year-2006, Best Male Artist, Songwriter of the Year, Folk Artist of the Year, Single of the Year, and Song of The Year for “Ghost Dance”–1999.
I love Native American flute. My favorites are R. Carlos Nakai, Robert Tree Cody, Douglas September Eagle and now I will add Bill Miller to the mix! I often listen at work or when I’m a little stressed, but with Bill he is such a good songwriter that his non-instrumental albums also get a lot of play!
Here is Bill Miller and Joseph Firecrow