First day of spring yesterday, apparently... Cold as hell round here and I've been at home for two days and not feeling great physically – more of the same old same old. But it's my grandson's third birthday just passed so a big shout to the springtime boy – won't be able to see him this week unfortunately or his mother as I couldn't get across to the wilds of Wales... but never mind...
So today: some more Brit folk guitar with jazz influences from the sixties. First, Bert Jansch and John Renbourne playing Charles Mingus's beautiful elegy for Lester Young – 'Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.' I always remembered Bert as being the more aggressive and bluesy of the pair: on this track, it seems that Renbourne also engages in some percussive string-snapping occasionally There is a loose, improvisatory feel to this track, the figures bluesy and utilising bent and crushed notes – coming more out of the blues before they got translated into jazz (or re-translated given the times: fifties to sixties). Mingus's tune sings well here.
Then some Davy Graham: tackling Monk on 'Blue Monk.' Daring for a folk musician of the time? Well: the tune is almost an abstraction of an older, archaic blues tradition carried into Monk's unique universe. It is also deceptively simple: technically not posing so much of a challenge for a folk guitarist as much of his other material would, either melodically or harmonically. But it's a tune that needs to be got inside of... Graham does a good job. Note that on this track and his other selection here the similar blues figures that occur on the Jansch/Renbourne selection. Common currency among guitar players at the time (I should know...), there are a couple that come from Hard Bop piano playing (via the blues) – probably Bobby Timmons. Graham also plays this at a fair lick – Monk recorded it at various tempos but usually slower. This has elements of a party piece... there is an odd ending which displays, maybe, Graham's sense of humour – the 'Good evening friends' tag which is somewhat incongruous but Monk probably would have approved... This track is from the ground-breaking album he made with Shirley Collins whose unique traditional folk voice was counterpointed by Graham playing everything from jazz to blues to Moroccan inflected backings via his apparently self-invented DADGAD modal tuning. Of which more another time - this tuning was the bridge for many musics to travel across from the sixties onwards... east meets west...
Then another Graham stab at a jazz tune 'Buhaina Chant.' Buhaina of course, was Art Blakey and this track came from his ultra-drum fest album
'Orgy in Rhythm.' Graham's rhythm wobbles a little here and there but he gets through. There's a latin tinge to this, that reminds me of another tune but I can't dredge it up from my aged memory (something by Ray Bryant maybe...). Some nice bluesy rolling bass notes and a ferocious attack that is close to Bert Jansch's. On reflection, Graham is a more aggressive guitar than I remember him...
Mingus Monk Blakey – an interesting progression. At the back of all these jazz treatments is the blues – one of the first ports of call for British guitar players of this era, even if they became jazz buffs later (as Graham for one most definitely was - check out some of his repertoire) . The other thing that strikes is the rhythmic treatments – no double time sixteenth notes that you would hear from a jazz guitar player – slightly more difficult to play on the acoustic finger style although it can be done. Instead, the rhythmic feel is in triplets and that snapping sixteenth note triplet followed by an eighth note that one hears so much in Bop and beyond – it falls as easily under a guitarist's fingers as a horn player and can be overdone. But a small criticism – these tracks stand up pretty well over the years since I first heard them. Essentially, this sort of playing is more textural anyway, more blues than jazz...
Finally – just the way my mind works in coordination with my music collection: folk plus jazz equals – also Joni Mitchell and my favourite album of hers: what else but 'Mingus?' To put alongside the Jansch/Renbourne version, here is her take on 'Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.' More overtly jazz – fusion-ish in fact at the beginning. More complicated charts with a band including Jaco Pastorius and the hip lyrics taking it further away from folk. Joni sings it well, I think – and I know that this album has been slagged off in various quarters. A long way from 'Blue.' Which demonstrates her reach – Mitchell came off the folk side to create works of much depth and stylistic innovations. She seems effortless here, negotiating her lyrics on Mingus's theme from his idiom rather than bending them over to a folky version - which would have sounded ridiculous with this group anyway. Singing jazz is not easy and few can make the transition from folk, pop or rock. Take Norma Waterson, for example, a folkie who has tried to cross over into jazzier material – and should have stuck to what she does best. It's in the rhythm, stupid – and Joni demonstrates that on this forgotten classic: Mingus, ill though he was when this was recorded and in a wheel-chair, was no mug, after all...
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Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
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Blue Monk
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Buhaina Chant
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Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
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