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...
Showing posts with label juke boy bonner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label juke boy bonner. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
Paul Bley... Ornette Coleman... Coleman Hawkins/Ben Webster... Juke Boy Bonner... Lord Buckley
The Paul Bley Trio from 1965 playing 'Crossroads,' an Ornette Coleman tune. Bley is an adventurer whose career has spanned playing with Charlie Parker to intersecting with the avant garde in the fifties – with Ornette – and the sixties. And beyond. Free playing but based on a solid sense of history. There is a cool intelligence on display here – working with the freedoms Ornette built into his music. The emphasis is on melody – mainly right hand linearity on display here from the pianist. Altshul discreet (although the mix is not great so this may not be so deliberate), subtly shifting the patterns as Swallow takes a spiky solo.In his sixties trio work, one could posit him as similar to Bill Evans but overall taking the forms much further out. I hear echoes of Tristano as well...
Here's Ornette with Dewey Redman from 1968... 'The Garden of Souls.' An oddity because of the bass and drums of John Coltrane's band – Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones. The drummer more sympathetic/empathetic to this music, perhaps, than the bassist, who had a chequered relationship with the leader and his music since he replaced Scott La Faro. See John Litweiler's 'Ornette Coleman - A Harmolodic Life, pages 102-3, 128). A stretched-out dirge-like melody. Ornette emerges first over an easy swing from the drummer who then proceeds to play some interesting counter-rhythms before doubling the tempo. Ornette's music always works off this slow/fast dynamic – this track will change tempos throughout from slow walk to fast canter and back. Redman enters with bizarre growling granularities – a strangled bending droning. A technique of singing through the mouthpiece to produce overtones and chords that he perfected. Here, he sounds further out than Coleman, issuing scratchy almost bad-tempered timbres:
'In my world, that's the first thing I reach for is the sound. Technique is Ok, but if you got the technique and I got a good sound, I'll beat you every time. You can play a thousand notes and I can play one note and wipe you out. That's what I reach for is a sound.' (From here...).
Here are two of the fountain-head tenors getting down on 'Blues for Yolande.' Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, the track ushered in by Oscar Peterson's rolling piano. Hawk takes off first, in dirty, slurring gut-bucket mode. Webster has a lighter tone relatively. He comes in for his solo in a more reflective mood, slowly building in intensity and approaching the Hawkins growl. Peterson takes a solo, bass heavy and sparse with his technique held on a tighter rein than usual – in keeping with the mood of the track. This is all about 'sound' not pyrotechnics... riffing tenors edging into r and b territory. Given the macho history of tenor battles, what is interesting on this track - and album - is the way Hawkins and Webster complement - and mirror - each other. Ornette Coleman wrote in the liner notes for his album 'Ornette on Tenor' the following:
'The tenor is a rhythm instrument, and the best statements Negroes have made, of what their soul is, have been on the tenor saxophone... the tenor's got that honk, you can get to peope with it...' (On page 98, Litweiler, ibid).
Ornette Coleman and Dewey Redman were both from Texas and the blues tradition is strong in their music... Here's some more Juke Boy Bonner, the Poet of Houston. 'When the deal goes down.' Strong echoes of Lightnin' Hopkins - but Bonner was an original voice...
In affectionate piss-taking mode: the great Lord Buckley, whose material I have not posted for a while... here is his hip-talking burn-up on the story of Jesus: 'The Nazz.' A carpenter kiddie...
Paul Bley
Paul Bley (p) Steve Swallow (b) Barry Altschul (d)
Crossroads
Download
Buy
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman (as) Dewey Redman (ts) Jimmy Garrison (b) Elvin Jones (d)
The Garden of Souls
Download
Buy
Coleman Hawkins/Ben Webster
Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster (ts) Oscar Peterson (p) Herb Ellis (g) Ray Brwon (b) Alvin Stoller (d)
Blues for Yolanda
Download
Buy
Juke Boy Bonner
Juke Boy Bonner (g, harm) Alvin J. Simon (d)
When the deal goes down
Download
Buy
Lord Buckley
The Nazz
Download
Buy
Here's Ornette with Dewey Redman from 1968... 'The Garden of Souls.' An oddity because of the bass and drums of John Coltrane's band – Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones. The drummer more sympathetic/empathetic to this music, perhaps, than the bassist, who had a chequered relationship with the leader and his music since he replaced Scott La Faro. See John Litweiler's 'Ornette Coleman - A Harmolodic Life, pages 102-3, 128). A stretched-out dirge-like melody. Ornette emerges first over an easy swing from the drummer who then proceeds to play some interesting counter-rhythms before doubling the tempo. Ornette's music always works off this slow/fast dynamic – this track will change tempos throughout from slow walk to fast canter and back. Redman enters with bizarre growling granularities – a strangled bending droning. A technique of singing through the mouthpiece to produce overtones and chords that he perfected. Here, he sounds further out than Coleman, issuing scratchy almost bad-tempered timbres:
'In my world, that's the first thing I reach for is the sound. Technique is Ok, but if you got the technique and I got a good sound, I'll beat you every time. You can play a thousand notes and I can play one note and wipe you out. That's what I reach for is a sound.' (From here...).
Here are two of the fountain-head tenors getting down on 'Blues for Yolande.' Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, the track ushered in by Oscar Peterson's rolling piano. Hawk takes off first, in dirty, slurring gut-bucket mode. Webster has a lighter tone relatively. He comes in for his solo in a more reflective mood, slowly building in intensity and approaching the Hawkins growl. Peterson takes a solo, bass heavy and sparse with his technique held on a tighter rein than usual – in keeping with the mood of the track. This is all about 'sound' not pyrotechnics... riffing tenors edging into r and b territory. Given the macho history of tenor battles, what is interesting on this track - and album - is the way Hawkins and Webster complement - and mirror - each other. Ornette Coleman wrote in the liner notes for his album 'Ornette on Tenor' the following:
'The tenor is a rhythm instrument, and the best statements Negroes have made, of what their soul is, have been on the tenor saxophone... the tenor's got that honk, you can get to peope with it...' (On page 98, Litweiler, ibid).
Ornette Coleman and Dewey Redman were both from Texas and the blues tradition is strong in their music... Here's some more Juke Boy Bonner, the Poet of Houston. 'When the deal goes down.' Strong echoes of Lightnin' Hopkins - but Bonner was an original voice...
In affectionate piss-taking mode: the great Lord Buckley, whose material I have not posted for a while... here is his hip-talking burn-up on the story of Jesus: 'The Nazz.' A carpenter kiddie...
Paul Bley
Paul Bley (p) Steve Swallow (b) Barry Altschul (d)
Crossroads
Download
Buy
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman (as) Dewey Redman (ts) Jimmy Garrison (b) Elvin Jones (d)
The Garden of Souls
Download
Buy
Coleman Hawkins/Ben Webster
Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster (ts) Oscar Peterson (p) Herb Ellis (g) Ray Brwon (b) Alvin Stoller (d)
Blues for Yolanda
Download
Buy
Juke Boy Bonner
Juke Boy Bonner (g, harm) Alvin J. Simon (d)
When the deal goes down
Download
Buy
Lord Buckley
The Nazz
Download
Buy
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