Three times three... Evan Parker... Jimmy Giuffre... Ornette Coleman... plus Gene Ammons and Richard 'Groove' Holmes...

A belated happy new year to everyone... and three trios plus an organ and tenor combo to greet 2010...

Evan Parker Trio and 'Geometry.' Starts off busy, fragments of saxophone and bass running round each other as the drums lay out a broad sweep underneath to carry them. Dropping back to solo drums, intricate use of space and silence, a sparseness that builds back into more layered and complicated rhythms then eases again into pointillist dabs of sound at the high end of the range, spliced with sudden runs into the lower sax register. Parker coming from small pieces of sound to build a knottier line, disrupted by sudden register leaps, his trademark illusion of playing several lines at once. Fast clattering from Lytton, cymbals occasionally lashing through like sabres, who falls out to leave Parker strafed by Guy's prodding and speedy pattering. Sometimes hard to distinguish who is playing what in an area where rhythm, melody and sound disrupt conventional boundaries. Going to the end on some throaty blowing and quick-walking bass, Lytton sure-footedly booting it along. Three as one, post-Euclidean definitely...

Another trio... Jimmy Giuffre with Bob Brookmeyer and Jim Hall, their version of 'Blue Monk, from 1958 and the album 'Western Suite.' Jumping across time and genres, shadowing the 'archetypal' nature of the original, they come in on an easy swing propelled by Hall's guitar in a chugging straight four that echoes the likes of Freddy Green. This timeless feel reinforced by Guiffre on clarinet, blending with the trombone as a two thirds approximation of the classic New Orleans front line. Giuffre solos first, chalameau register with the odd piping move into higher registers, occasional trombone shadowing. Brookmeyer solos after the leader, in turn swathed in Giuffre's woody obbligatos. Hall chordally thunks out a couple of choruses with ghostly support from trombone and clarinet before spreading out melodically but staying within basic bluesy parameters. A masterly minimal and original look at one of Monk's greatest tunes that takes it back to its roots without being preciously retro. This trio manage to create a large airy space to move through – while generating a full sound that belies the numbers. Hall is the backbone for this strategy – his deep moving notes offer the illusion of a bass while his chord work fills out the middle. Giuffre dropped the drums in his ground-breaking trios of the fifties, probably because his own visions of freedom in jazz would have been shackled by most conventional modern jazz drummers of the time... I always see a link between him and Ornette Coleman, not least their Texan connection...

... which leads to: Ornette and his 1965 trio on tour in Europe, recorded at the Tivolis Koncertsal, Copenhagen, Denmark, November 30, 1965. One of my favourite lineups, Izenzon on bass and Charles Moffett on drums to support the leader, on fine form that year. This is 'Clergyman's Dream,' one of those odd yet memorable Coleman tunes, combining a brief slow slurred section with a sprightly answering. Ornette takes an exhilarating solo, bluesy combined with unfettered freedoms - themselves grounded in the logics of the blues? Izenzon plays fairly solid four throughout then moves outwards in his own solo – fast runs and pauses that indicate his thought processes, subtly backed by faintly hissing cymbals. Moffett up next for a swinging section that combines those old jazz virtues with a new linearity and melodic sense, new in the sense that although his antecedents – Max Roach and Kenny Clarke to name two who explored the extended rhythmic melodic possibilities given by bop but one could go further back to Warren 'Baby' Dodds for the sake of inclusion – had done similar, they were still playing in the main across set chorus structures. Moffett has the wide open spaces in front of him to explore... and does. Ornette returns and the track goes into some intriguing stretching and contracting as the rhythm breaks up. Back into the theme for the last minute of so ending on a rapid run through. Cue applause and rightly so...

Going out on some Gene Ammons and Richard 'Groove' Holmes from a live recording at the Black Orchid Lounge in Chicago in 1961... I've mentioned before when putting up a couple of tracks from the album that I bought this when I was a teenager and have that obsessive fondness for it still, remembering how it was when young, with little money and no great range of stuff to buy anyway in the jazz racks of the local shops, so that each album became a small treasure. This is a joyful bounce through 'Exactly like you,' 'meat and potatoes' jazz I called it before, the classic organ and tenor combo. Swinging, soulful, social music – yet with some bite to it, due to the skills involved. Ammons solo combines big-hearted r and b rawness with some hurtling bebop flurries later in, Holmes ice cool organ, like the joys of a menthol cigarette in more innocent days. Some trading between the constituents at the end to keep the crowd happy – the applause sounds as if they succeeded. The whimsical thought just occurred to me that Groove Holmes sounds like a hip building company specialising in real estate for bohemians...

Evan Parker
Evan Parker (ts) Barry Guy (b) Paul Lytton (d)
Geometry
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Jimmy Giuffre
Jimmy Guiffre (cl) Bob Brookmeyer (v-tr) Jim Hall (g)
Blue Monk
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Ornette Coleman (as, tp, vln) David Izenzon (b) Charles Moffett (d)
Clergyman's Dream
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Ammons/Holmes
Gene Ammons (ts) Richard Holmes (org) Gene Edwards (g) Leroy Henderson (d)
Exactly like you
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Soul Exorcism Redux etc... returns and re-ups... John Coltrane... Richard 'Groove' Holmes/Gene Ammons... James Chance...

Back from the wet west! A damp summer so far... Anyhow – the more perceptive will have noticed that I haven't been posting any mp3s for ummm – some time. Got caught up in other activities, I'm afraid and have been only blogging reviews. But I have had several requests for re-ups so here is the first batch – who knows, it might kick-start the old mp3 fandango...

I had a few problems finding a couple of tracks because I still have stuff buried in boxes from the last house move, but here we go. (All quotes taken from the original posts). First, up, John Coltrane:

'John Coltrane was starting to come into his own by 1958... listen to his long, questing solo on 'The Believer' to hear the tectonic plates of jazz moving. Modern jazz was already separating (some would say shattering) into different performative spaces by then. More so than had happened with the advent of bop. Maybe the trick is to realise how they were and are all related. Donald Byrd on fine form here, by the way... '

Then on to Gene Ammons:

'Let's spin back... to the solid raw heart of the tradition... here's some Jug – I bought this album when I was about 14-15 and the version of 'Willow weep for me,' recorded at the Black Orchid Lounge, Chicago in 1961, still stands out in my memory. (The name of the venue gives off a wonderful smoky jazz/nightclub ambiance...). Ammons gave a blues edge to everything (the son of Albert Ammons, the two fisted boogie piano stomper from the thirties, it must have been embedded in his DNA): he turns 'Willow' into an impassioned and testifyingly vulnerable lament. Holmes comes in like an icy stream trickling past the bending trees – whatever organ stops he is using rhyme perfectly with the theme and mood. Gene Edwards' guitar is bluesy and boppily fluent. Ammons restates the theme and plays an unaccompanied coda that teases out the tune to audience laughter. This live recording gives a timeless reminder of what jazz can be, beyond genre and idiomatic borders, when it cuts through straight to the heart... '

James Chance:

'... playing the wild Michael Jackson cover: 'Don't stop till you get enough.' Frenetic punk nihilism, fed by the energies of the rock scene sourced in the heady days of CBGB's etc colliding with Siegried/Chance/Black's freejazz aspirations.' Yowser.




John Coltrane
Donald Byrd (tp) John Coltrane (ts) Red Garland (p) Paul Chambers (b) Louis Hayes (d)
The Believer
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Richard 'Groove' Holmes/Gene Ammons
Gene Ammons (ts) Richard Holmes (org) Gene Edwards (g) Leroy Henderson (d)
Willow weep for me
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James Chance and the Contortions
Don't stop till you get enough
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We get requests...

Apologies to the requestee who wanted the Gene Ammons re-up - I will get round to it tomorrow hopefully - if I can find the trax! Lot of my stuff still buried in boxes... but I'll see what I can do...

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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Buy – No idea – a search would be needed...