Gerry Mulligan/Chet Baker... Gene Ammons/Richard Holmes... Johnny Griffin/Eddie Davis... Juke Boy Bonner... DJ Screw

Today we move to a new house, made slightly easier by the fact that it is in the same street as the old one. But things may well be interrupted for a while as I get internet connections sorted out. Maybe it will go smoothly...


Gerry Mulligan with Chet – the famous quartet. 'I'm beginning to see the light.' Bounced in on bass, then a strangely truncated theme statement – like someone talking through a mouthful of marbles. Mulligan rolls with a fairly foursquare solo – yet consciously it seems – there are acres of space to run over the turnarounds if required. Chet overlaps on his entrance for a brief solo, shadowed by Mulligan's sparse baritone. Bass fleetly takes the bridge – then ensemble back on to the theme – then a two-bar question and answer between bass and sax before an almost dixieland ride out. Muggsy Spanier's Ragtimers were recording only a few years before, a band that bizarrely springs to mind... Although Chet even when whacked was always a better trumpeter than Muggsy, bless him, and playing off a much more complicated rhythmic/harmonic base. Odd – yet charming. One of those tracks that recapitulates the history of the music - which at that time, measured in the years from the first records was – thirty plus a couple? Maybe that accounted for some of the popularity of the Mulligan Quartet, that easy swing? Yet at a distance – one observes the freedoms as well as the homages (intentional or otherwise). It's not all skronk and fire music... Wheew... cryptic...

Let us get down – should that be git down? Rattle the patois from a long cultural distance. Meat and potatoes jazz – 'Jugging Around.' A fast blast of Gene Ammons before essaying the perfunctory riff theme – a jump-off point. Then he goes – blowing hard and fast and bluesy... A live session from the golden days of organ/tenor combos. And no better exponents of the game... (For an experiment – try putting the phrase 'organ and tenor combos' into Google). Richard Holmes (on the organ – mainly backup here as most of the track is taken with Jug soloing then sparring with the drummer – fun and games and rabble-rousing of the highest order. Fade out on that old bop... fade out... dadadadada etc (five da's I think – such musical erudition... well, it's in a flat, if anyone's interested). 'Modern jazz.' With a hard yet joyful bluesy edge. R and B with technique – don't that sound like a jazz critic... Ammons, son of the famous boogie piano player, came up sparring with Dexter Gordon among others... Some heritage... enjoy...

That Google entry – also gives someone called Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis. Who teamed up with Johnny Griffin for a couple of years at the beginning of the sixties in a two tenor partnership that was all about alpha male sax blowing of the wildest and highest orders. Within the tradition, coming off bop's speed and aggression. This is the old Basie tune 'Tickle Toe.' What's interesting is that Davis never seems overawed by the ferocious velocity of Griffin... one of my favourite bands from way back.

We seem to be into the bluesier end of the spectrum... down South one should go, following the conventional critical maps...

Weldon Bonner – and the archetypal blues title for an album: 'Life gave me a dirty deal.' Dreams of leaving: 'I got my passport.' Raw and driving – A Texas poet.

Down a few years – the late DJ Screw. A scratchy, grainy slowed down dopesucking track from the Texas frontiers of sonic exploration. Takes rap back to those blues roots – taking the The Click: 'I'm tired of being stepped on' into a slow dance. (Go here for YouTube original). Ancient and modern... more explicit than the obviously necessary coding of the blues... but channelling the proud defiance of those who went before... Bending sound into strange curves... I'll reel and I'll fall and I'll rise on codine...

And now it's time to go...



In the Videodrome...

Eddie Davis... in Nice, 1977...

His old partner...

Little Giant again – with the young Han Bennink, among others, Europe 1964.

Sam Hopkins sings of old hurricanes and plays the bejasus out of an amplified acoustic guitar...

... and one more – because he's so good... Going down slow...

Mulligan at Newport 1958 - with the sublime Art Farmer...

Gerry Mulligan/Chet Baker
Chet Baker (tp) Gerry Mulligan (bars) Carson Smith (b) Larry Bunker (d)
I'm beginning to see the light
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Gene Ammons/Richard Groove Holmes
Gene Ammons (ts) Richard Holmes (org) Gene Edwards (g) Leroy Henderson (d)
Jugging around
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Johnny Griffin/Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis
Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Johnny Griffin (ts) Junior Mance (p) Larry Gales (b) Ben Riley (d)
Tickle Toe
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Weldon 'Juke Boy' Bonner
I got my passport
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DJ Screw/The Click
I'm tired of being stepped on
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Anthony Braxton... Jimmy Reed - straight and chopped... Lightnin' Hopkins... DJ Screw/2Pac... Ben Webster/Coleman Hawkins...Cecil Taylor...

'This mammoth document of the final year of the famous Braxton Quartet shows exactly why that group finally split: they had reached a creative apex as a group that -- arguably -- could not be furthered.' (Thom Jurek from a very good introduction to these recordings here...).


Track one from the Willisau Quartet recordings – studio and live – 1991.
Commencing in a rather stately way, the cool tones of Braxton's clarinet giving his music even more of a European edge than usual, perhaps... I like this quote on the BBC web site: 'the missing link between Charlie Parker and John Cage.' Mark Dresser takes a solo and shows his mastery - the gamut of scrapes and scratches and bouncing the bow off the strings to rapid-fire arco sawing, ending on swooning figures as piano and clarinet return. Hemingway rejoins the trio, the drum/tom tom figures reminding you of the music's jazz origins - although the implied rhythms of the participants are another grounding that takes the classical ethos and bends it to Braxton's imperious compositional and improvisational will. The title refers, I gather, to three Braxton compositions... this compounding and blending of the notated sources in performance on the fly adds another layer of complexity to his music... what the thirdstream should have sounded like but rarely did in the balance of technique,genres - and emotion...

Back to the blues... Jimmy Reed was very popular in the UK during the r and b boom years. Yes, his music is a bit formulaic – but there was always something appealing about that shuffle beat of his. Not so heavy on the emotional freight, perhaps – without the shattering power of the Wolf or Muddy Waters, for example – maybe that was one reason for his popularity – social blues for dancing and drinking. And I'm going to New York sometime soon...

Some more Lightnin'... 'West Texas Blues.' Mr Hopkins on his own from the 1960's, stinging guitar tracking the voice, the amplification taking the country blues to somewhere different – able to hold its own in a crowded bar or club better than an acoustic performance yet retaining some degree of intimacy as played solo - when he uses a drummer it gives a different, more extroverted feel... it can be easy to forget that this music was played in more rowdy atmospheres and venues than would seem evident from its arrival on the festival and concert stages when it was taken up by a white audience...

Today's hard blues in Houston – chopped and screwed via the late lamented DJ Screw. Here is his version of 2Pac's 'So Many Tears.' The slowed down track gives a weird combination of menace, poignancy and despair: 'Lord, I suffered through the years, and shed so many tears..
Lord, I lost so many peers, and shed so many tears .' A ghostly harmonica(?) wafts in and out – ghost of older bluesmen... Unable to source this as it's from an old mixtape...

One plays one's games: I wondered what would happen if I took the Jimmy Reed track and slowed it down... get the syrup out, boys and girls...

More from the Hawk and Ben: By the time this session was recorded they were venerable tenor statesmen – the soloing is as much about texture, nuance and rhythm than the usual tenor speed lines. A thoughtful piano intro then Webster takes the tune: 'It never entered my mind.' It suddenly came to me listening to the slurs and bends he employs that there is some Johnny Hodges here, translated to the tenor – well, they sat in the same section for some time... although that after-note vibrato swoosh is classic Webster. Hawk comes in and follows the mood, his tone with that slightly harder edge, staying down and dark for much of his solo. Distilled essence of jazz saxophone... Webster returns for more swoosh... the band frame the two front-liners admirably – Peterson especially restrained and sympathetic.

Cecil Taylor, from the album 'Into the Hot' that went out under Gil Evan's name and showcased Johnny Carisi and the pianist, a side each. This is 'Mixed,' introduced by the horns, starting on a repeated 4 note melody – some nice muted trumpet from Curson. A piercing alto entry from Lyons – the breath of the Bird very much in evidence here. Taylor takes a section – almost rhapsodic as Lyons joins him. Then it starts to cook... churning ensemble and fiery piano taking the foreground, supported by Murray (a little drowned in the mix but his accents and rhythmic concepts come through despite the murk). A strange mutated riff sets up which echoes back into the history as well as pointing forward – the evidence for continuity was always there... The harmonic textures evoke the conservatory – the fire and passion and timbres channel the blues... I must put up some of the Carisi as a contrast – interesting music but conceptually a long way from Taylor's vision...

Great news that Ornette Coleman has received a Pulitzer - I'll put up a tribute asap - so glad I bought my tickets for his London concert (and Cecil - and Braxton - July looking good...). Straight No Chaser has a good piece on this and also a track from 'Sound Grammar.'

Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton (as, cl, cbcl, fl, sss), Marilyn Crispell (p), Marc Dresser (b),
Gerry Hemingway (d, mba)
Composition 160(+5) (+40J)
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Jimmy Reed
Going to New York
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Lightnin' Hopkins
West Texas Blues
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DJ Screw/2Pac
So many tears
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Jimmy Reed
Going to New York/Slow
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Coleman Hawkins/Ben Webster
Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster (ts) Oscar Peterson (p) Herb Ellis (g) Ray Brown (b) Alvin Stoller (d)
You'd be so nice to come home to
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Cecil Taylor
(Cecil Taylor (p) Jimmy Lyons (as) Archie Shepp (ts) Ted Curson (t) Roswell Rudd (tr) Henry Grimes (b) Sunny Murray (d)
Mixed
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