Into the new... Gus Cannon... Steve Lacy... Von Schlippenbach quartet... Pharoah Sanders...

One has returned from the wilds... and the new year's eve festivities beckon... so: a brief holding action - four tracks that hopefully reflect the diversity this blog strives for... which I intend to try and broaden further in the New Year...

Gus Cannon recorded 'Minglewood Blues' in 1928 with his Jug Stompers. A raw yet curiously delicate track...

Steve Lacy and Don Cherry playing 'Let's Cool One' from the Monk canon - something very fresh about this track- Lacy in particular seems calm and unhurried...

Alexander Von Schlippenbach's quartet (with Evan Parker) - a long clattering extravaganza from one of the best and most consistent European combos... 'Wenn Wir Kehlkopfspieler,' recorded for a live radio broadcast in 1975, yet only released in 2000, I think...

This track - 'Venus - Upper and Lower Egypt' - is under Pharoah Sanders' name but was unissued as far as I know until it came out on the monster Albert Ayler Revenant 9 cd set (link below) - a long free jazz blowout from the sixties with Albert and Pharoah on tenors alongside an unknown alto and third tenor player... an interesting obscurity...

And... a happy new year to all... back soon...



In the Videodrome...

Eric Dolphy in Europe...

... and with Trane...

... the Coltrane Quartet – doing Afro Blue...

and a vid from Ecstatic Peace of a live performance from Paul Flaherty, Joe Lovano and Chris Corsano...

...and the future beckons... The Good Anna...

Gus Cannon
(Gus Cannon (j, ban); Ashley Thompson (g); Noah Lewis (h) ).
Minglewood Blues
Download

Buy


Steve Lacy/Don Cherry
(Steve Lacy (ss); Don Cherry (cnt); Carl Brown (b); Billy Higgins (d) ).
Let's Cool One
Download

Buy

Alexander Von Schlippenbach Quartet
(Alexander Von Schlippenbach (p); Evan Parker (ts); Peter Kowald (b); Paul Lovens (d)).
Wenn Wir Kehlkopfspieler
Download

Buy



Pharoah Sanders
(Pharoah Sanders (ts); Chris Capers (tp); unknown (as); Albert Ayler (ts); unknown (ts); Dave Burrell (p); Sirone (b); Roger Blank (d) ).
Venus-Upper and Lower Egypt
Download

Buy

Almost Xmas... Monk, Pete Johnson, Paul Bley, George Russell, Louis Armstrong, Pepper Adams, Brotherhood of Breath, Evan Parker, MJQ... phew!

A bit delayed on the posting front - an exhausting (but rewarding) recording session with the boys - followed by my usual health nose dive coupled with a tooth infection. What larks... All sorted now - hopefully. So: probably the last one before xmas... 'tis the season to be jolly...

Thelonious Monk recorded his first album for Columbia in 1962 (released in 1963). His composition 'Bright Mississippi,' based on 'Sweet Georgia Brown,' shows the harmonic bones underneath in the theme and in constant references throughout both Charlie Rouse's solo and Monk's - one of his best, I think – yet somehow remains a quintessential Thelonious theme. Moving on two levels interestingly...

Another pianist... the boogie woogie stomper, Pete Johnson, one of the Big Three, along with Meade Lux Lewis (what a great name...) and Gene Ammons' old man, Albert, here employing that mighty left hand on his solo tour de force – 'Roll 'Em Pete.' Interesting to speculate on the influence of boogie piano – surely the most rhythmic and 'drum like' of styles. Conlon Noncarrow, for one, acknowledged his debt to the genre... Cecil Taylor – via Monk – perhaps? Always something grounded and down about Cecil, no matter how abstract. (Jaki Byard, of course - but he could play the whole history from ragtime upwards...)

Paul Bley from the sixties and 'Closer.' Spare and dissonant, probing, against a suitably enigmatic bass and drums. Going into an emotional space some way from the previous two offerings – oddly the Monk nearer to Johnson, I feel, despite his own crashing dissonances that make the bridge back to Bley. Yet all jazz...

George Russell 1956 – the avant garde of the day in a dense and complex composition featuring Bill Evans 'Concerto for Billy the Kid' – shades of Copland in the title – the pianist launching strings of piercing single note lines that unpeel from the harmonic structure, displaying the inherent linearity of Russell's approach, Evans sounding as if the figure of Lennie Tristano is hovering at times. Hard hitting piano. Art Farmer taking a nice solo – an often underrated thinker who ventured down some interesting paths... A piece that ambitiously tries to bring composition and improvisation into balance... My own thought about these attempts to break the fifties perimeter fence is that the key was rhythm - when the drummers took it away from straight or even implied four four the space was opened... Elvin Jones, Tony Williams but ultimately Sunny Murray and the others were needed... after that everything drops into place...

Louis Armstrong recorded 'Wild Man Blues' in 1927 with his Hot Seven. Some debate as to whether this is a Jelly Roll Morton composition or one of Louis'... what is not in dispute is the majestically assured trumpet – taking the breaks in doubled time and hinting at rhythmic complexities way beyond the backing musicians. Louis is all over this – although Johnny Dodds runs him close...

Pepper Adams was a mighty baritone player who could ride the unwieldy horn dashingly through the bop landscape and beyond. This is 'Bloos Booze' – a twelve bar that starts with Elvin Jone's cymbals, an odd, lurching tramp of a bass figure and Hank Jones trinkly treble figures before the odd yet matched front line of baritone and euphonium take the theme. Adams solos, leisurely spinning a satisfyingly melodic improvisation – he regarded Wardell Gray as an influence which is telling. Bernard McKinney has a warm, rubbery sound on the euphonium, plenty of space here for his relaxed solo. Hank Jones tips in some classy single note bebop – mainly up the keyboard. Duvivier weighs in for a couple of choruses, eloquent across the bass range. Melody central and swinging all the way through. A gem...

The first of the two long tracks is a kind of homage to my South African roots that demonstrates both the best of that country's artistic endeavours and the shadow that apartheid threw over so many of its citizens. Chris McGregor and the Blue Notes – white pianist amid black band members – came to Europe in the sixties to escape the hassles back home that an interracial group had to undergo. They were an invigorating breath of sweet and fiery fresh air – mutating into the Brotherhood of Breath indeed, incorporating like-minded European musicians such Skidmore, Surman, Osborne (who had a wild trio called SOS as I remember...) and the others on tap here. 'Night Poem' offers so much as it unfolds – beginning with flutes and African slanted rhythms that offer a hint of what 'world music' was to become – or rather what it could be – as the piece slowly builds into a sprawling, surging triumph of the spirit...

Evan Parker played with the Brotherhood of Breath on some notable sessions. Here he is, the quiet revolutionary, unpacking his ground-breaking long line solo saxophone playing on a track from 'The Snake Decides,' 'Leipzig' Folly.' There is a rigour to his playing, an iron integrity that makes his technical innovations the more satisfying... Is this jazz? To quote one of the current catch-phrases doing the rounds, 'Am I bothered?'

Finally – as promised/threatened last week... but it has to be done... the MJQ playing 'First variation on God rest you merry gentlemen.' My only overtly Xmas track. The Modern Jazz Quartet always have a special place in my heart because they were the first live group I ever saw as a wide-eyed young jazz fanatic way back when at the De Montfort Hall in Leicester, in the days when the stupid Brit MU embargo made visiting Americans so much rarer an entity. I still love this track...

So: Merry Xmas to all... I'm off to the wilds of Cumbria in a couple of days... to return invigorated with another batch of musics and a New Year's Eve mix - next year we may start to stretch out more...

In the Videodrome...

A Xmas feast...

A rare 1954 glimpse of the cool school in action... complete with mellophone... sans Tristano... add Billy Taylor...

... MJQ strike gold...

...Oliver Nelson, Art Farmer and Lee Konitz (again) are 'Just Friends'...

... an oblique link via the cool school to Brit altoist Bruce Turner...

... back to FREE JAZZ... compendium clip... some cool hats and Bill Dixon in a scarf...

... and wheeling back to 1962... finale of the American Folk Blues Festival...

... Stan Getz and Mary Lou Williams doing 'Lush Life'...

... this time of the year we all need Spiritual Unity don't we? A nice reminder of a great gig that I never got round to reviewing... thanks Chris...



Thelonious Monk
(Thelonious Monk (p); Charlie Rouse (ts); John Ore (b); Frankie Dunlop (d) ).
Bright Mississippi
Download

Buy

Pete Johnson
(Pete Johnson (p) ).
Roll 'em Pete
Download

Buy

Paul Bley
(Paul Bley (p) Steve Swallow (b) Barry Altschul (d) ).
Closer
Download

Buy

George Russell
( Art Farmer (tp) Hal McKusick (fl, as) Bill Evans (p) Barry Galbraith (g) Milt Hinton (b) Paul Motian (d) ).
Concerto for Billy The Kid
Download

Buy

Louis Armstrong
(Louis Armstrong (cnt); John Thomas (tb); Johnny Dodds (cl); Lil Armstrong (p); Johnny St. Cyr ( bjo); Pete Briggs (tu); Baby Dodds (d) ).
Wild Man Blues
Download

Buy

Pepper Adams
(Pepper Adams (bs); Bernard McKinney (euph); Hank Jones (p); George Duvivier (b); Elvin Jones (d) ).
Bloos Booz
Download

Buy

Brotherhood of Breath
(Chris McGregor: piano; Dudu Pukwana, Alan Skidmore, Mike Osborne, John Surman, Ronnie Beer (saxes/flutes etc); (Mongezi Feza, Nich Charig, Harry Beckett (t); Malcolm Griffiths, Nick Evans (tr); Harrie Miller (b); Louis Moholo (d) ).
Night Poem
Download

Buy


Evan Parker
(Evan Parker (ss).
Download
Leipzig's Folly

Buy


Modern Jazz Quartet
(John Lewis (p); Milt Jackson (vb); Percy Heath (b) Connie Kay (d) ).
Variation on God rest ye merry gentlemen
Download

Buy

Cecil Taylor... Bill Evans/Warne Marsh/Lee Konitz...Eddie Condon... Roland Kirk... Miles Davis...

I am always fascinated by the variety that 'jazz' has offered throughout its relatively short history... and I am not being coy by inserting the word between inverted commas... the area that the word tries to map has always been fought over...

Cecil Taylor recorded 'Bulbs' in 1961 as one of the tracks on one side of an album released under Gil Evans' name: 'Into the Hot.' (The other side was taken up with compositions by Johnny Carisi,the composer of 'Israel'). Transitional stuff... Lyons solos – bebop stretched to fluidly accommodate the new freedoms - and Archie Shepp does a manful job – but the track is made by the thumping piano of the leader over the dream rhythm section of Henry Grimes and Sunny Murray. 'Bulbs' is a fascinating composition – abstract lines rubbing against riffs – like the leader's solo which starts with a fairly conventional phrase and then hops skips and jumps into other dimensions. A mirror of the transitional state...

Bill Evans recorded with Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh in 1977. (There was a previous encounter in 1959). 'Night and Day' opens with the two horns weaving round each other in an airy dance. Marsh frequently plays high up the tenor so the timbres are closely matched – then Evans springs in with bass and drums – some almost Tatumesque flourishes and variations on the tune. Marsh takes a stop time break then solos in that unpredictable line of his. This is linearity supreme, Tristano school – unravelling the changes horizontally. Marsh was one of the unsung greats. As is Konitz – whom I missed a few weeks back at the London Jazz Festival. He solos next – with more muscle than one would usually expect – Evans getting quite animated behind him, sounding like he was having fun. Some breaks and everyone briefly all in – Marsh finally dropping deep for the final tenor note. Stirring stuff...

'Can one of you guys start the blues in C?' Eddie Condon commences this live track from 1971 – late Chicago Dixieland, his hybrid style carried through from the twenties and developed by the force of his will as much as anything. Condon, a banjo player and later guitarist was never a featured intrumentalist, preferring to strum in the rhythm section - and perhaps more to the point, make his mark as a bandleader and fixer of sessions – including some of the first integrated ones with Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller. And a nightclub proprietor – and character... a pre-modern Ronnie Scott... (His book, 'We Called it Music' is worth a read...). I've always liked his music, something about the anarchic boozy spirit of it... Condon famously dissed bebop – 'They flat their fifths, we drink ours...' But plenty of beboppers dissed the coming avant garde... and so it goes... Hi Wynton... Here, we have consummate trad/mainstream jazz – Wellstood and Davern could, I reckon, fit into most jazz paradigms. Krupa sounds the most unsure, his drums a bit clumping. A slow, drawling blues – led by Wild Bill's trumpet and Davern's homage-y but not blatantly servile out-of-Bechet soprano. In their own way, an irreverent and joyful keeping to the trad virtues – sort of Marsalis with humour...

Getting near to Xmas – better dust off that MJQ track for the looming carol season. For now, Roland Kirk blasting his way through 'We Free Kings.' Ho ho ho – the man for whom the adjective 'inimitable' always suggests itself inexorably... Powering in on all his horns, mutant and otherwise – including some funky flute.

To finish with – a big beast of a track – reverse the name and what do you get – Davis = Sivad. Miles turned the jazz world on its head with 'Bitches Brew' – this is a live (mainly – Teo Macero chopped and mixed in the studio later) set recorded at the Cellar Door in 1970. Starting off on a declaratory drum roll and going into a fast-paced bass-heavy vamp as Miles whah whahs over the rock (in both senses) solid Michael Henderson and Jack De Johnette lay down, the track mutates into a slow, ominous bluesy groove. McLoughlin plays a nifty solo – his guitar tone sounding almost synth-like. The English guitar player always participated in The Prince of Darkness's musics as if to the manner borne... Followed by Keith Jarrett in the days before he renounced the electric piano as the keyboard of the devil or something similar (Get thee behind me, fusion). Miles returns with an open horn stab and a couple of skewed phrases before building up some longer lines – and the track dies abruptly. In the longer and slower section, interesting to note how much space there is in the rhythm – which gives the drummer room to state the beat and also play across it – jazz-rock-fusion unfortunately, in the main, never successfully managed this combination – of jazz and rock....


In the Videodrome...

Eddie Condon on YouTube...

Sidney Bechet over in France in the 1950's playing the St Louis Blues...

Roland Kirk in Europe playing 'Bag's Groove'...



Cecil Taylor
Cecil Taylor (p) Jimmy Lyons (as) Archie Shepp (ts) Ted Curson (t) Roswell Rudd (tb) Henry Grimes (b) Sunny Murray (d)
Bulbs
Download

Buy


Bill Evans/Lee Konitz/Warner Marsh
Lee Konitz (as) Warne Marsh (ts) Bill Evans (p) Eddie Gomez (b) Eliot Zigmund (d)
Download

Buy


Eddie Condon
Kenny Davern (ss); Wild Bill Davison (cnt); Dick Wellstood (p); Eddie Condon (g); Gene Krupa (d).
Blues in C
Download

Buy

Roland Kirk
Roland Kirk (ts, mzo, str, fl, siren); Hank Jones (p); Wendell Marshall (b); Charlie Persip (d)
We Free Kings
Download

Buy


Miles Davis
Miles Davis (t); Gary Bartz (ts); John McLoughlin (eg); Keith Jarrett (ep); Michael Henderson (b); Airto Moreira (perc); Jack De Johnette (d)
Sivad
Download

Buy

A small tribute to Jay McShann 1916-2006... with Maria Muldaur, Charlie Parker, Big Joe Turner... and Dave Brubeck...

A few tracks to note the passing of Jay McShann. Leading off with 'Backwater Blues,' the old Bessie Smith number, here interpreted by Maria Muldaur whose mature voice makes the stretch from classic twenties blues to the almost present. A rocking rolling blues with some pithy guitar work by Duke Robichaux, backing horns and plunger muted trumpet that move between r and b and jazz inflections/riffs – and the bouncing piano of Mr McShann – who leads the track in with a spoken intro...

McShann ran probably the last great swing band out of Kansas City at the tail end of the thirties. He also employed the young Charlie Parker whose first recorded solo was on 'Hootie Blues' - which you can find on the There Stands The Glass blog's tribute to McShann, along with some other tracks... Here's 'Sepian Bounce,' from the same period - on the cusp of bebop... stomping McShann piano, some nice tenor and a fascinating glimpse of young Charlie P – and a roaring ensemble...

Big Joe Turner was a Kansas City musical giant (literally) and another whose career crossed many a boundary (for example, he was arguably one of the founders of rock and roll via some of his early fifties hits). Here he is in tandem with McShann on 'Piney Brown Blues.' The pianist essays some powerful choruses, driven on by the exhortations of Big Joe. Recorded in 1974...

Lastly – an oddity. A piano duo with Dave Brubeck on another twelve bar – 'Mission Ranch Blues.'
Recorded in 2002 as part of the Clint Eastwood movie 'Piano Blues.'

“I think he served as a bridge between swing and bebop,” said saxophonist Bobby Watson. “He was open to young people coming with new ideas that weren’t traditionally thought of as swing. He was really a man with an open mind to all styles of music.” (Quoted from the Kansas City Star obituary here... some nice links to video footage as well).

A long and epic journey that has sadly just ended...




In the Videodrome...

I couldn't find any YouTube footage – surprisingly – so here's some other KC related music...

Big Joe Turner at the Apollo, 1955...

Another KC man – the Count from 1943...

And the inimitable Jimmy Rushing alongside Basie singing the 'Kansas City Blues'...


Jay McShann/Maria Muldaur/Duke Robichaux
Backwater Blues
Download

Buy

Jay McShann
Sepian Bounce
Download

Buy

Jay McShann/Big Joe Turner
Piney Brown Blues
Download

Buy

Jay McShann/Dave Brubeck
Mission Ranch Blues
Download

Buy

Jay McShann January 12, 1916 - December 7, 2006...RIP...

I've received a comment to an older post which says that Jay McShann has died - I just checked his web site and apparently he passed away on December 7. A truly great man,whose life spanned the breadth of the music and who was still recording recently - condolences to family and friends. I'll see if I can dig out some music in tribute later on...

and some Miles Davis... Bitches Brew...

Infuriating - having taken the Miles Davis link off the previous post - Savefile now apparently operational again... So here goes...

Addendum...

Miles – a truly vanguard piece: the title track of 'Bitches Brew.' Shared honours between Teo Macero's skills - a landmark of studio production techniques:

'Bitches Brew also pioneered the application of the studio as a musical instrument, featuring stacks of edits and studio effects that were an integral part of the music. Even though it sounded like an old-style studio registration of a bunch of guys playing some amazing stuff, large sections of it relied heavily on studio technology to create a fantasy that never was...' (from here... scroll down)

and the revolutionary dark swirling electric jazz into rock – and back - that flowed from the leader's imagination...


Miles Davis
(Miles Davis – trumpet;Wayne Shorter - soprano sax; Bennie Maupin - bass clarinet; Chick Corea - electric piano; John McLaughlin - electric guitar; Harvey Brooks - Fender bass; Dave Holland - bass
Lenny White, Jack DeJohnette – drums; Jim Riley – percussion).
Bitches Brew
Download

Buy

Stan Getz, Wardell Gray, Serge Chaloff... Clifford Brown/Max Roach... George Russell... John Zorn/Derek Bailey/William Parker...

Let's start with some forties bebop: Stan Getz in 1949 playing 'Crazy Chords.' A tour de force for Stan, changing key every chorus in a bravura display, ushered in by the speedy elegance of Haig. Gatz extends the school of Lester into his own technically flamboyant space – dexterity - melodic and harmonic - and gorgeous tone to match...

Wardell Gray – another from the jazz Legion of the Lost, dying under mysterious circumstances in 1955. Here he is playing 'Twisted,' (also later made famous in the Annie Ross version). An odd latin-y intro – then straight into the blues. Gray also came out of Lester (via Bird) but by 1949 when these tracks were recorded he was firmly his own man, tone slightly darker than Prez, a tough yet supple quality to his lines. Backed by Charlie Parker's rhythm section – Al Haig delivers classic, rippling bebop piano. Tommy Potter – a nice bass solo, going beyond the usual steady four to the bar before Wardell returns – Haynes dropping obligatory but apposite bombs.

Serge Chaloff was one of the top bop baritone players (the best according to many), heading up against Gerry Mulligan. Another tragic character – after giving up the addiction that blighted his life, he died from cancer in 1957. This live recording from 1949 of the Denzil Best tune 'Move' (more famous, perhaps, in its rendition by the Miles Davis Birth of the Cool band a year before) is taken at a fast run. The fiery trumpet is apparently – Miles himself... which made me check the discography. Some critics would have it that he couldn't play as well as this and at this tempo... Chaloff solos and puts the big horn smoothly through its bebop paces. Sonny Stitt powers in for some fast Bird-type blowing yet – you can hear his tone is slightly different to Parker's, despite the lurking presence – Stitt always under the shadow of the master – unfairly... Combative... Trombone - Benny Green, having no problems keeping up... Bud Powell positively clambers in for his solo – dazzling, stomping stuff. Max takes a quick spot before a brief exchange between the horns and back into the theme...

Into the fifties... one can never have too much Clifford Brown... He was a trumpeter who possessed in abundance: ideas, tone, fire, driven by the (joy) spring of youth... sadly dying in a car crash... for those in peril on the road should be the hymn for musicians... here he is, in 1956, a few months before his fatal accident, with Max Roach and their co-led quintet, Rollins newly added to the tenor seat and Richie Powell, Bud's brother (who died with Brownie in the crash) on piano, plus George Borrow on bass... An alternate take of 'What is this thing called love?' Starting on an odd trumpet flutter (shades of later Bill Dixon!) then drums as the bass and piano hold a pedal point under trumpet and tenor, building the groove before Brown goes fleetly into the theme, answered by Rollins in the middle eight, trumpet returns for last eight then: Brownie out of the trap and going strong – joyous playing, he never seems content to run changes, always a strong melodic thread. Rollins seems almost diffident in comparison initially before building his own strong solo... Powell – swift and clean single note lines with a bluesy edge. Borrow, solid throughout, takes a four to the bar solo. Max back in the mix but making his presence felt. Brief ensemble, bass, drums and return of ensemble – then Max, a pithily complex solo, return of horns, playing tag. Definitive of where small band bop was at the time... stretching out more because of new recording techniques, some of the frenetic compressed fury of the older records removed in place of new spaces to breath...

George Russell was in the shadows for many years before he was finally and belatedly recognised for his compositional and arranging abilities – but also for his behind-the-scenes influence on the direction of jazz as bebop moved towards the linearities of modality. He reminds me of another august survivor, Andrew Hill, in that they both constructed strategies that enable their musicians to move outside while keeping the roots inside. This is the title track from his 1961 album 'Ezz-thetics.' Hearing it again makes me think of many of those soon to come Blue Note sessions that incorporated new ideas within a solid rhythmic framework. The theme – like a complex bebop line stretched out into another dimension, based on the chords of 'Love for Sale.' Baker solos, fast and firm – giving a few quotes in time-honoured bop fashion – 'I love Paris' and 'Bebop.' The trumpet of Don Ellis, bright and sharp... another whose star sank into obscurity after his untimely death. Then Eric Dolphy, who really seems to grasp what this is about – fast, urgent and skittering against the harmonic boundaries in long, flowing lines. A round of fours between horns and drums and piano... fragment of theme into a collapsing ending of seemingly free blowing... almost a harbinger...

Moving swifly on, as they say... jumpcut to 1995. John Zorn, Derek Bailey on electric guitar and William Parker, from a live set at the Knitting Factory. Free improvisation... interestingly, Parker's bass gives more of an overt 'jazz' feel than is usual for Bailey, coupled to the sax lines of Zorn. Bailey is fairly restrained at first, then as they collectively hot up, he starts dropping flinty shards of guitar and those inimitably crabby fast strummed runs as Parker goes deep and Zorn flies across the top with corrugated buzzing and textural noise– horn and guitar timbrally matched sporadically. This is one of the places the music went to... the wilder side of free improv...

I was intending to put up 'Bitches Brew,' but Savefile seems to have problems - I will try to repost it later...

Stan Getz
(Stan Getz: tenor saxophone; Al Haig: piano; Gene Ramey: bass; Stan Levey: drums).
Crazy Chords
Download

Buy

Wardell Gray
(Wardell Gray: tenor saxophone; Al Haig: piano; Tommy Potter: bass; Roy Haynes: drums).
Twisted
Download

Buy

(Miles Davis: trumpet; Bennie Green: trombone; Sonny Stitt: alto saxophone; Serge Chaloff: baritone saxophone; Bud Powell: piano; Curly Russell: bass; Max Roach: Max Roach: drums).
Move
Download

Buy

Clifford Brown/Max Roach
(Clifford Brown: trumpet; Sonny Rollins: tenor saxophone; Richie Powell: piano: George Morrow: bass: Max Roach: drums).
What is this thing called love? (Alternate take)
Download

Buy


George Russell
(George Russell: piano; Eric Dolphy: alto saxophone; Dave Baker: trombone; Don Ellis: trumpet; Steve Swallow: bass; Joe Hunt: drums).
Download
Ezz-thetic

Buy


John Zorn/Derek Bailey/William Parker
(John Zorn: alto saxophone; Derek Bailey: electric guitar; William Parker: bass).
Morning Harras
Download

Buy

Stan Getz/J. J. Johnson... Hampton Hawes... Sonny Rollins... John Coltrane... Ornette Coleman...

Stan Getz was always labelled as the epitome of the 'cool school.' Yet there is a funkier edge to his playing – here with the king of bebop trombone, J.J. Johnson, in a live recording of 'My Funny Valentine,' (another one of the Norman Granz concerts from the fifties that the Gillespie/Stitt posts came from) he gives out some archetypal smearing bluesy phrases when he digs in. And also some prime fast blowing - Getz was a master of his instrument. Here, I can track the Lester influence – and also, oddly, I get the ghost of Gerry Mulligan if I imagine the tenor transposed down to baritone range... maybe it's the tune, associated with Mulligan and Chet Baker's classic version. Although – in the early sixties sometime, Mulligan recorded with Getz on tenor as well as his usual horn, he played tenor in the forties before concentrating on baritone - and Getz also swapped to baritone on that session... but maybe Lester is at the back of it all, anyway, for both men... J.J sounds effortlessly fluent, bouncing of the rhythms and rising to the live competitive edge of the occasion. Peterson and the guitar player are fairly inaudible – the backing dominated by the thudding bass and Stan Levy's crisp drums. The front line top it off with some contrapuntal improvising – very west-coasting... On a minor discographical note – a little confusion over the drummer – I've gone for Connie Kay rather than Louis Bellson...

Hampton Hawes was born with six fingers on each hand, apparently – surgically corrected soon afterwards. Hawes was also unusual among modern jazz pianists in that he could not read music... not so unusual: he had a fucked-up life due to various factors but mainly perhaps because of the blight of addiction that put him in jail and disrupted his career. Taken from his album 'The Sermon,' this reading of the old spiritual 'Go Down Moses' has much poignancy... Supported by Vinnegar's solid bass and Stan Levey's understated swing, he lays out a boppish display, spiced with the blues that always lurks not too far away in his playing... the sacred and the profane...

'Blue Seven' is taken from Sonny Rollin's magisterial and correctly named album 'Saxophone Collossus,' recorded in 1956. Doug Watkins strolls in on bass, an easy lope, before Rollins enters and states the theme – an abrupt and enigmatic playing off the old bop tritone substitution, apparently impovised/composed on the spot. His special use of thematic improvisation, spotlighted in the famous Gunther Schuller
article (scroll down ) in Jazz Review, 1958, (which allegedly caused Rollins to take one of his famous sabbaticals), is well displayed here – something he shared with Monk – from where it may have came? Speculations, ah, speculations... But from simple material, Rollins spins complex and coherent music. Flanagan is an elegant player, taking a couple of bluesy choruses, Max heavy on the cymbal back beat. A brief tenor interlude then the drummer solos – playing across that steady cymbal two and four, melodic and disruptively syncopated. Max always solos musically as well as rhythmically – you can hear his melodic flow clearly...

...the other tenor saxophone collossus was, of course (you dispute it?) John Coltrane. Who overshadowed Rollins up to his untimely death in 1967 – and probably for many years after although Rollins longevity and good health have kept him in the game – and still playing as one of jazz's elder statemen with plenty left to say... This is JC with Rashied Ali, playing 'Saturn,' from his late-on album 'Interstellar Space.' Ushered in on drums, a winding spiral when Coltrane comes in and uses the multi-spatial elements of Ali's rhythms to perform an exhasting and relentless journey across the parameters of the tenor – and beyond... per saxophonus ad astra...

So many years to wait for an Ornette Coleman recording – what's going on out there? This is 'Sleep Talking' from 'Sound Grammar,' recorded in Germany by the same band that I saw last year at the Barbican on the same tour. Tony Falanga bows the slow, sad melody over Cohen's pizzicato – bass roles they stick to throughout – then Denardo's bass drum thumps and Ornette comes to state the melody again, shadowed by the basses. A slow unfolding... Cohen solos over Falanga's backing counterpoint – fragments of the theme peeping through - and some rattling percussion from Denardo, in places suggesting a slow, lurching bluesy backbeat. Ornette returns and plays pithily, that inimitably human tone still strongly in place – the epitome of 'vocalised' tone – as he improvises – well, thematically, you would have to call it, as above with Sonny Rollins. As he always did, but in a freer way... The plucked bass speeds things along – on one plane - Ornette's music has always seemed to move on simultaneously different levels at times, leaving him free to float across or lock onto the beat. The audience dug it mightily...



In the Videodrome...

Miles at the Isle of Wight Festival...

...and in Karlsruhe, 1967...

... and playing 'So What' on the Steve Allen show...


Stan Getz/J J Johnson
(Stan Getz: tenor saxophone; J.J. Johnson: trombone; Herb Ellis: guitar; Oscar Peterson: piano; Ray Brown: bass; Conny Kay: drums).
My Funny Valentine
Download

Buy


Hampton Hawes
(Hampton Hawes: piano; Leroy Vinnegar: bass; Stan Levey: drums).
Go Down Moses
Download

Buy

Sonny Rollins
(Sonny Rollins, ts - Tommy Flanagan, p - Doug Watkins, b - Max Roach, ds )
Blue Seven
Download

Buy

John Coltrane
(John Coltrane: tenor saxophone; Rashied Ali: drums).
Saturn
Download

Buy


Ornette Coleman
(Ornette Coleman: alto saxophone; Greg Cohen, Tony Falanga: basses; Denardo Coleman: drums).
Sleep Talking
Download

Buy

Dizzie Gillespie/Sonny Stitt/Sonny Rollins... Joe Henderson... Ornette Coleman... Albert Ayler... Cecil Taylor...

Back to business...

Dizzie Gillespie made a few of these summit-type albums where the masters gather – here he is in 1957, again with Sonny Stitt and adding Sonny Rollins, playing 'After Hours.'. Ray Bryant down and dirty opens it up... harking back to beyond the dawn of bop with a fragmentary left hand that hints at boogie and laying the blues firmly down before the horns come in – a quick sax sax smear - then muted Gillespie. Essaying in restrained fashion (for Diz, sans the usual pyrotechnics). Rollins gives some throaty choruses. Stitt follows him and wins on points (He was a competive jammer...). Bryant's raw rolling piano holds it all together. One reviewer on Amazon hated it and thought it all rambled aimlessly – to each their own...

Joe Henderson recorded 'State of the Tenor' in 1985, live at the Village Vanguard . That title – a bold statement... Ron Carter leads it in with a frisky intro, then Henderson states the theme, takes it up an octave, decorating it with frilly, almost joky trills. Monk's tune can seem intractable to improvisation as the chords ominously circle over and over... a two bar section of four descending sevenths, G7, F7, Eflat7, D7, repeated to form a sixteen bar theme... a test of will and imagination. With just bass and drums in support, Henderson gives the tune a lighter treatment than the dark humour of the composer's versions and creates room for manoeuvre, spinning off and finding a freedom not obviously embedded in the theme's structure. Aided greatly by Carter who varies his accompaniments away from overstating the relentless repeating chords. Foster subtle in the background, emerging with some splashes of colour and prodding interjections late in. Foster was, of course, a close confidant of Miles Davis and held down the drum chair in his bands for a long stretch from the seventies onwards... Free space here discovered inside the tradition...

Two live ones from Ornette... one with Joachim Kuhn from 1996... the other from The Golden Circle in 1965. The duo track is 'Night Plans,' slowly ushered in by Kuhn's thoughtfully astringent piano. In this unusual environment for Ornette (although he had recorded with pianists, these were fairly rare occurences), he enters and sings out the theme, sparse and achingly bluesy and beautiful. His alto sounds fractionally out to the piano which gives the track a slightly unsettling feel – there can be no true resolution or homecoming. Kuhn returns in more rhapsodic mode, filling in the spaces with rolling, progressively scampering lines in searching interrogation. Ornette returns, spartan over Kuhn's fulsome backing, stretching out eventually into some bouncing interplay with the piano. Ending on a smeared note bent slightly upwards – Ornette going in-between the orthodoxies of harmony to find his own space? Sublime...

'Doughnuts' is from the mighty Golden Circle sessions – bouncing in at a fast lick, this is Ornette with one of his great bands, Izenson and Moffett. So much room here... Moffette holding up a fairly orthodox cymbal beat as the bass grounds it deep. The interplay between these three was revelatory. Ornette spinning out melodies and variations to glory... Compare this trio to Joe Henderson's, twenty years later...

Denmark was a fruitful place for the sixties avant-garde – Albert Ayler recorded this session for radio with the teenage prodigy bass player Niels-Henning Orsted Pederson, Ronnie Gardner on drums and Niels Bronsted on piano, a couple of months after his first album.
The best track – because the piano drops out, who had problems hearing what Ayler was attempting – as did many, then and since, to be fair – is a tribute to Cecil Taylor, whom he had played prior to the recording. 'C.T.' With just bass and drums, less confusion... as they try to follow the American sax visionary. And do a reasonable job. Pederson takes a brief solo and utters a spanish-tinged phrase that Ayler picks up and runs with. Another succesful occurrence of this melodic ball-tossing occurs about eight minutes in... displaying that Ayler is listening closely to his bass player as well as vice versa. Gardner engages in a similar game towards the end, tossing out rhythms that Ayler catches. What sounds like a spurt of 'The Marseillaise' pops up just before the end... A fascinating document of a music in flux, not always successful as the bass and drums struggle at times to figure out the directions. But overall, a brave venture into the new as Ayler proceeds to find his voice and follow his star...

More transitional work... Here is C.T. in 1960, with Buell Neidlinger, Dennis Charles and Archie Shepp playing 'Lazy Afternoon.' Shepp doesn't always sound too comfortable on this album but plays a brave solo here, Cecil almost straight comping at times behind him as they settle into a lurching beat, the bass playing long sections of straight quarter notes, sometimes on one and three. Cecil playing over a standard sequence in the early days is always fascinating – seeing where and how he will smack it out of shape and bend it to his own imperious will.

Dizzie Gillespie/Sonny Stitt/Sonny Rollins
(Dizzie Gillespie: trumpet; Sonny Stitt: alto saxophone; Sonny Rollins: tenor saxophone; Ray Bryant: piano; bass: Tommy Bryant; Charlie Persip: drums).
After Hours
Download

Buy

Joe Henderson
(Joe Henderson: tenor saxophone; Ron Carter: bass; Al Foster: drums.)
Friday the Thirteenth
Download

Buy


Ornette Coleman
(Ornette Coleman: alto saxophone; Joachim Kuhn: piano).
Night Plans
Download

Buy

Ornette Coleman
(Ornette Coleman: alto saxophone; David Izenson: bass; Charles Moffett: drums).
Doughnut
Download

Buy

Albert Ayler
(Albert Ayler: tenor saxophone; Niels-Henning Orsted Pederson: bass; Ronnie Gardiner: drums).
C.T.
Download

Buy


Cecil Taylor
(Cecil Taylor: piano; Archie Shepp: tenor; Buell Neidlinger: bass; Dennis Charles: drums).
Lazy Afternoon
Download

Buy

Tommy Gun Angels hit town... review of Bardo Pond at the Maze, Nottingham, Thursday 30th November...

A crowded room,buzzing with anticipation. The Maze, on Mansfield Road in Nottingham is one of the better venues in the area, friendly bar staff and enough space to get a reasonable crowd in to cook up an atmosphere without being cavernous or cramped. (Although the envelope was pushed tonight...). Another coup by Damn You to get Bardo Pond here, whose inspired bookings along with other local organisers like Knees Knees have really put this town on the map with regard to the best in contemporary cutting edge musics. Fortified in advance and armed with two Budweisers (no way I was going to battle back to the bar during the set) I had managed to squeeze downfront and to the side (impossible to get front of stage – I arrived too late, just catching the last few minutes of the second support band – Souvaris (?) -they sounded good). I watched with interest the equipment being set-up – a lot of FX pedals for the guitars. Stompbox heaven impending... Then the band took the stage and without much preamble launched into their set. Bardo Pond are – what? A rock band? Sort of – the rhythms start out from rock and their drummer Ed Farnsworth wacks heavily smack dab on the beat when needed to. But he also has the flexibility to mix it up into trickier syncopations that closely track the drift as their long songs mutate and unravel outwards. Again - they work off fairly simple 'rocky' structures – but extend these into improvisations that take you on long and loudly beautiful journeys into the psychedelic sublime - and prove that it's still a viable space to inhabit... So: something more than just a rock band, in iron tune with the strong improvisational ethic that has been running through the musics for some time now, that came from jazz. Maybe something like, to risk an analogy, a customised vehicle with a disguised engine – a rock car with a mighty free jazz engine under the hood... but enough speculations – just to mention that this uncategorisable nature is reflected in the following quote from their bass player:

'Yeah, for the outside we're too inside, and for the inside we're too outside. [But] I just like rock bands, you know what I mean?' (Clint Tekeda, from here...).
















Maybe 'rock' has become as problematic a word as 'jazz?'















For all the womped-up electricity and volume, there is also a close attention to light and shade – Isabel Sollenberger's vocals and flute offering timbral variety. I have wondered about this down the years, ever since I first heard the Velvets way back in the sixties. A specifically American music strategy that takes in wild experiments and noise, but oddly rooted even if diagonally/obliquely in popular forms and usually with strong melody coming through at some point out of the electronic/noise stormwaves... maybe (ahem) call it post-modernism? In the interesting rather than banal sense... out of Olson - 'the first literary figure to use the term “post-modern” (preceded only by the historian Arnold Toynbee)' (from here... ) - and other liberators as opposed to the dull thudders of academe... For all the space in the music and the improvisations, they remain a very tight unit, as befits a group who have been living and playing together for so many years. Maybe it's something in the water of Philadelphia where they are based – the home of Sun Ra and John Coltrane, that epic quester who blew out of the walls of jazz in a reverse Jericho manoeuvre to venture wildly beyond. From that Wire interview again:

Clint Takeda: 'But there is a strong history and reverberation in Philly. Like Coltrane, Sun Ra, Lynch, Duchamp.'
Michael Gibbons: 'It's the heart of the enlightenment, you know? It's the heart of democracy.'


The Sun Ra connection – sometime back, Michael Gibbons had been involved in a collaboration with Marshall Allen, the keeper of the Ra flame. Bardo P travel the spaceways too... Yet, despite the exotic sound spaces they inhabit, there's a refreshingly no-messing, no-frills approach to their performance, typified, maybe, by Sollenberger having monitor problems throughout the set (and she seemed a bit low in the mix at times) but not falling into tantrums about it as some would but offering a resigned and graceful acceptance that fuckups unfortunately happen.

Like all great bands, their bottom ground is the platform from which they launch their epic sound adventures – the bass and drums of Clint Takeda and Ed Farnsworth, mightily holding it all together tonight. With Isabel's mysterious vocals and flute at the top, the middle ground is criss-crossed by the two guitars with their masses of FX pedals blasting sonic cloudbursts, whipped across by subtly unobtrusive textural synth/keyboard interjections. Little in the way of audience addressed rock babble – just 'Thankyous' and moving on the the next song. They proved that old (and prescient) Albert Ayler quote, about music now being more about feeling and emotions than notes. And they operate as a democracy, albeit Isobel's frontperson presence (which is admittedly downplayed), the music swelling and breathing as one mighty unit, each individual locking into the broader collective endeavour. The audience went with them all the way, song to song, on a long, strange but defiantly beautiful trip – if you had 'em and smoked 'em it must have been a cosmic blast. I made the journey on Budweiser – and still flew the distance... because The Tommy Gun Angels were in town and firing from the hip - and soaring mightily into the dark provincial night...

As a taster, here they are on MySpace – playing, what else? - 'Tommy Gun Angel.' My favourite song title of the last two years...

And the Wire has an alternative mix of 'Lost Word' from their latest album, 'Ticket Crystals,' here... (Scroll down the side frame...)