Little chat - all music...
Johnny Griffin has always been a favourite of mine, for the powerful speedy brilliance of his playing, imagination moving at full throttle alongside formidable technique. He recorded the album 'Change of Pace' in 1961 with an unusual line-up – two basses, drums and french horn – an echo of John Coltrane in that rhythm section, whom he replaced in the Thelonious Monk Quartet a couple of years previously – and had played with on some of those wild hardbopping Prestige blowing sessions. The double strings give a totally different feel to the usual small combo backdrop of the time - the lack of piano makes this track seem quite free while still rooted in the harmonically orthodox. Zeitgeist? Nice mixture of arco and pizzicato bass...
Here is Coltrane with Don Cherry – the Coleman band without Ornette - playing the Monk tune 'Bemsha Swing,' taken at a sprightly bounce here. Cherry solos over bass and drums and demonstrates the new freedoms acquired – but he would be used to playing with Haden and Blackwell.. An odd album overall – 'The Avant Garde' title is a bit of a hostage to fortune - but on this track Coltrane stretches out and seems to enjoy the rolling acres available.
The splendidly-named Grachan Moncur III, from a session recorded in 1969, 'New Africa,' the track 'When.' A track dominated by a haunting, simple vamp from the piano that sounds throughout – and Andrew Cyrille's drumming which dominates and drives the band onwards and upwards. A reticent, almost hesitant solo from Moncur, which is followed by a fascinatingly pithy jigsaw puzzle offered by Mitchell. Shepp is muscular and raw. Red meat. Burrell keeps the vamp going with his left hand while he serves up some almost Basie-ish minimal treble figures. Some more Moncur - wry figures as the saxes sporadically comment. But the drummer's track, I would say. A fascinating (yet sad) interview with the trombonist here...
David Sylvian recorded his album 'Blemish'in 2003, after the break-up of his marriage. Uniquely, he added the late great Derek Bailey for three tracks – here's 'How little we need to be happy.' Soft, pained vocals against a backdrop of Bailey's spiky shards, like some cruel reality breaking in to shred happiness – sadly grasping after consolation.
Continuing in this vein – Frank Sinatra from 1959, the album of saloon songs 'No one cares.' 'I don't stand a ghost of a chance with you.' Tragic stuff, delivered superbly, the ambiance of a guy in a raincoat and hat that only Frank could get away with, sat in a bar somewhere over a bourbon... the despair of someone who will not even get the chance to love and lose...
We have got this far down the track on the doom quotient – here is Jelly Roll Morton's late flowering band from 1938, with the New Orleans mordant comment on mortality, 'Didn't he ramble,' an elegy, perhaps, for the style of music he pioneered but which had been supplanted by the late thirties by swing and a small band style that was about to explode into bop within a short few years.
Fast-forward - Keiji Haino with Greg Cohen and Joey Baron. The Japanese guitarist skitters out some fast strummed chordal figures, sounding like a more conventional Derek Bailey at times. Bass and drums dance round him joyously...
Johnny Griffin
Julius Watkins (frh) Johnny Griffin (ts) Larry Gales, Bill Lee (b) Ben Riley (d)
As we all know
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John Coltrane/Don Cherry
John Coltrane (ts) Don Cherry (t) Charlie Haden (b) Ed Blackwell (d)
Bemsha Swing
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Grachan Moncur III
Grachan Moncur III (tr) Roscoe Mitchell (fl, as) Archie Shepp (ts) Dave Burrell (p) Alan Silva (b)Andrew Cyrille (d)
When
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Jelly Roll Morton
Ferdinand 'Jelly Roll' Morton (p) Sidney De Paris (t) Claude Jones (tr) Albert Nicholas (cl) Sidney Bechet (ss) Happy Cauldwell (ts) Lawrence Lucie (g) Wellman Braud (b) Zutty Singleton (d)
Oh didn't he ramble
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David Sylvian/Derek Bailey
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Frank Sinatra
I don't stand a ghost of a chance with you
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Keiji Haino
Keiji Haino (g) Greg Cohen (b) Joey Baron (d)
Rolling on the time and tide spreading the colour red
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Showing posts with label johnny griffin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label johnny griffin. Show all posts
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
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
Download
Buy
Gene Ammons/Richard Groove Holmes
Gene Ammons (ts) Richard Holmes (org) Gene Edwards (g) Leroy Henderson (d)
Jugging around
Download
Buy
Johnny Griffin/Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis
Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Johnny Griffin (ts) Junior Mance (p) Larry Gales (b) Ben Riley (d)
Tickle Toe
Download
Buy
Weldon 'Juke Boy' Bonner
I got my passport
Download
Buy
DJ Screw/The Click
I'm tired of being stepped on
Download
Buy – No idea – a search would be needed...
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
Download
Buy
Gene Ammons/Richard Groove Holmes
Gene Ammons (ts) Richard Holmes (org) Gene Edwards (g) Leroy Henderson (d)
Jugging around
Download
Buy
Johnny Griffin/Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis
Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Johnny Griffin (ts) Junior Mance (p) Larry Gales (b) Ben Riley (d)
Tickle Toe
Download
Buy
Weldon 'Juke Boy' Bonner
I got my passport
Download
Buy
DJ Screw/The Click
I'm tired of being stepped on
Download
Buy – No idea – a search would be needed...
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