Thelonious Monk... Mal Waldron/Marion Brown... Evan Parker/Eddie Prévost... Donald Byrd...

'Monk plays Ellington' was never rated as one of Thelonious's great albums. Yet I have always had a fancy for it, if only for the fascination of hearing one great pianist/composer take on another's work. This is 'I got it bad and that ain't good.' Monk leads in solo, stretching phrases to their breaking point, using almost unbearable periods of silence with the placement of a master. Suddenly bouncing off in a jaunty ride, joined by bass and the subtle tick of Kenny Clarke's drums. Pettiford solos, showing his class. Monk again, staying close to the melody – then suddenly dropping off into another space with an oblique turn, a rush of notes, a crunching chord. Thelonious in his heyday, sounding as if he was enjoying himself.

Mal Waldron is of the line of Monk – a minimalist vision at times, using space to great effect. Here, he is joined by Marion Brown for a slow, elegaic version of 'My Funny Valentine.' Piano starts off, allowing the air to blow through both melody and chords, holding back the beat, using repeated figures for emphasis. Late night feel, perhaps, but thoughtful rather than brooding, Just over three minutes in, Brown enters, holding the mood with keening long notes, harking back to an older tradition, saxophonic pyrotechnics stripped right back. At the end, Waldron rips out chords for the alto to pirouette through in an elegant coda.

Evan Parker and Eddie Prévost duet on 'Knowledge is power,' from a 1997 session. A long track that uncurls at its own speed, lazily snake-like with the occasional lash of the tail to snap the dynamics up a few notches. Opening on mysterious sonorities and scrapings, a fluttery sax like an early morning bird call. Prevost moves into more conventional percussive territory with some hammered toms. Parker worries a phrase across the registers. Moving from busy back into freer space, utilising a wide range of sounds between them, Parker getting so much out of his saxophone in between the usual long lines of circular breathing, at one point approximating a muted trumpet. They go into a more jazzy feel as the track progresses – at its back I hear Coltrane's sax/drums workouts, but Parker always acknowledged the influence – and proceeded over the years to fully work out his unique strategies rather than remain a copyist. This goes long because it has to...


Donald Byrd and band play 'Beale Street,' not the W.C. Handy piece but a choppy funky composition of its time – out of 'Sidewinder' etc. Hank Mobley blows a couple of choruses then Sonny Red takes some – playing with texture and sonorities, sounding bluesy. Byrd next, high up the range, spurred on by front line riffs. Cedar Walton comes in for a brief piano interlude. An odd mix of funk and bop, nothing particularly earth-moving, perhaps, but a snapshot of the trumpeter's working band from 1967, under the stamp of Blue Note...


Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk (p) Oscar Pettiford (b) Kenny Clarke (d)
I got it bad and that ain't good
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Mal Waldron (p) Marion Brown (as)
My Funny Valentine
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Evan Parker (ss) Eddie Prévost (d, perc)
Knowledge is power
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Donald Byrd (tp) Sonny Red (as) Hank Mobley (ts) Cedar Walton (p) Walter Booker (b) Billy Higgins (d)
Beale Street
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William Parker... Mal Waldron/Marion Brown... Joe Albany/Warne Marsh... The Number: Keith Tippett/Gary Curson/John Edwards/Mark Sanders

With that Charles Gayle gig pending (I'm off to Liverpool tomorrow) – here's something from the mighty William Parker who will be appearing with the saxophonist (plus our own Marc Sanders). From the 2005 album, 'Sound Unity,' this is 'Wood flute song.' A booting track – Hamid Drake flashes throughout and Parker anchors down deep – to let the two horns flow. Rob Brown is becoming a favourite of mine, a fluent and exciting alto player. I don't know the trumpeter Lewis Barnes but he's damn good. Drake takes a busy solo, yet has plenty of space to explore – a clear recording, live from the Vancouver International jazz festival in 2004. There is something delightfully infectious and warming about Parker's music, as is his contribution to the myriad of bands he leads/plays in. 'This album is of the God-Head; enough said.'

Mal Waldron covered a lot of ground... here he is in a duo with Marion Brown on the old ballad 'I can't get started' run together with 'Now's the Time.' Brown leads in on solo alto – a heartfelt purity here, one of those performances where you feel as if you are listening over someone's shoulder. Then a bounce into the old riff blues, joined by Waldron in a dance across time – in several senses.

Another duo, sax and piano, from some time back. Joe Albany and Warne Marsh recorded together in 1957, an informal session at the home of recording engineer Ralf Garretson. I upped a track from this album a few months ago and mentioned Albany's daughter, Amy - who has written a fascinating book about her father. This is the Clifford Brown line 'Daahoud,' given an elegant and sprightly reading that has plenty of sinew underneath... Masterful...

Mark Sanders is the third member of the trio, with Charles Gayle and William Parker, who are imminently touring in the U.K. Here he is with The Number – Keith Tippett, Gary Curson and John Edwards. 'Collective 2' is the first,long track from their album 'The making of quiet things.' Curson blows some wide-ranging alto as the group wrap round each other - Tippett is a fiery battering pianist with a large sonic range but he leaves plenty of space here when the flow demands. Edwards is an amazing player -I've seen him several times over the last couple of years in varying situations and he is always breathtaking. Sanders displays his range throughout - I'm looking forward to seeing him up close with the two guv'nors from New York tomorrow night...


Note: there is a replay of selections from this year's Vision Festival on BBC Radio 3/Jazz on Three here... Available for a week - and a great program - cured my hangover yesterday morning...

And a brief mention of the passing of Joe Zawinul and the English writer/critic Richard Cook. Darcy has a very good post here....
Etnobofin has some further thoughts and good links here...

Richard Cook was one of our best music journalists – here's the Independent obit - as well as co-editor of the jazz recordings bible with Brian Morton - always at my side when writing this blog...

In the Videodrome...


Warne Marsh with Tristano et al New York 1964

Joe Morris in Toronto

Roy Campbell does the Fire Waltz

Keith and Julie Tippett a couple of months ago...

Fascinating video of Keith Rowe...

Mark Wastell et al at the Termite...

William Parker
William Parker (b) Rob Brown (as) Lewis Barnes (t) Hamid Drake (d)
Wood flute song
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Mal Waldron (p) Marion Brown (as)
I can't get started
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Joe Albany/Warne Marsh
Joe Albany (p) Warne Marsh (ts) Bob Whitlock (b)
Daahoud
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The Number
Keith Tippett (p) Gary Curson (as) John Edwards (b) Mark Sanders (d)
Collective 2
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Thomas Chapin... Art Tatum... Mal Waldron/Marion Brown... Hampton Hawes... Billy Bang...

The music called 'jazz' has moved at an incredible speed of development since its murky beginnings, sometime in the early years of the last century. I use the brackets intentionally, as I often do, because so many strands have split off from the origins that it can be difficult sometimes to define what is and what isn't 'jazz.' Many famous musicians have been unhappy with the word, seeing it as either a form of defamation, intentional or otherwise, that links their artistic endeavours to the whorehouses of New Orleans via one of the etymological meanings of the word and some of the social uses of the early music – or, in an expanded point from this argument, as a limiting term that binds into formal constrictions and punishes innovation. Further, there is probably a resentment by often (but not exclusively) African-Americans at the trivialising and misunderstanding of their art by critics, however well-intentioned – or just plain hostile. Leaving this debate aside, what I find fascinating is the variety achieved in what can be very loosely grouped within the common understood parameters – in the contemporary world where New Orleans/Dixieland styles co-exist with retro swing bands, where the mainstream has shifted to bebop, where the neocons of the Lincoln Center bunker glower across at the antics of those who continue their explorations in the 'free jazz' lineage. And vice versa, no doubt... A world where the benefit of some hindsight and temporal distance now enables the listener to track the continuities that were not always so evident in earlier days – especially from bop onwards, perhaps the first great perceived rupture. With some generosity of spirit, one could (should?) widen the field (in an Olsonian sense) to include rather than exclude...

To start – the traditional count – 'One two three four' – and a bouncing vamp on tuba buttressed by the brass section introduces 'Golgotham' by the Thomas Chapin Trio, playing with an expanded line up (that calls to mind Coltrane's 'Africa Brass,' perhaps). The bright, searing sonorities of the trumpets blended into the trombones giving more than a hint of past big band glories. The tuba – a link back to the twenties... but here taking a ride through the expanded timbral palette of splutter, spit and odd phonics, in an interlude that bridges the opening and Chapin coming in to solo over the heavy backbeat – he sails effortlessly over the ensemble, a squalling, bluesy smeary honking performance from his wide range of stylistic devices. A track that collides many years of the music into a glorious live performance that you could dance to. Continuing with growling and unmuted brass call and response and simultaneous lines, emphasizing the timbres acquired early on in the 'jazz' sound world. Stop time breaks as bass and brass duel... drum solo that flows over the implicitness of the rock vamp rhythm that underpins the track – followed by chants from the band. Ensemble through-composed for a section that then falls into a free for all as the track drops out of the rhythm and the band are name-checked by the leader (?)to the audience, picking up the beat again to suddenly end. Inside and outside... a sprawling riffingly joyous track big-hearted as the city it was conceived in, almost at odds with the punning title – 'Place of skulls?' Sardonic...

Marion Brown in a duo with Mal Waldron – a pianist who moved easily across the piano styles. Slow resonating chords, the overtones ringing in the spaces between the phrases, going subtly into a rocking rhythm as Brown enters on ruminative alto – a touch of Johnny Hodges in his tone, the swooping bend round the long-held notes. Sweet and sour... A track that uses space intriguingly, unhurried in its movement. Waldron takes a solo, a sparse melody twisting in interesting directions. Brown rejoins, playing off a repeated note. Two musicians moving through the tradition – this could have been recorded anytime within quite a large abitrarily agreed timeframe...

Art Tatum made a slew of recordings before his untimely death that document his supreme virtuosity and stature in the canon. This selection is a trio playing 'Hallelujah' - Lionel Hampton and Buddy Rich – the latter having the sense to pull back from his usual 'Traps the boy wonder' pyrotechnics by switching to brushes. Bubbling virtuosity from two timeless players as Hampton matches the pianist's speed of thought. Tatum steps up for a solo, stride piano figures disrupted by those tumbling moves up and down the keyboard. Hampton back for some stunning interplay – Rich comes through strongly here. Anyway you slice it, collective improvisation of the highest order. Hot jazz...

Hampton Hawes, playing 'What is this thing called love.' Arpeggiated chords and a ripple of Tatum almost in the introduction (I also hear a distant echo of Erroll Garner) before it picks up tempo and the bass and drums enter. Hawes was self-taught, but acquired the technique necessary to play bop – as evidenced here. Fleet and powerfully swinging, well-supported by Red Callender on bass and Chuck Thompson on drums. He acknowledged a great debt to Charlie Parker who "influenced me more than anybody, even more than piano players." (quoted from here – a very good review of Hawe's autobiography that gives an extensive overview of his career).

Billy Bang would usually be associated with the more radical end of contemporary jazz. Here he is leading a quartet through a swaying swinging version of 'Willow weep for me.' Cutting violin, an instrument that can veer into the lachrymose (I've never liked Grappelli for that reason, undoubtedly fine musician that he was). Swarming bluesy piano- two handed testifying... Bang takes a solo – fire and soul, trenchant bowing... pretty mainstream, if you ask me...

In the Videodrome...

Art Tatum on T.V....

Thomas Chapin at Newport...

Late Billy Holiday swinging out – with Mal Waldron on piano...

The Duke...

... can't leave out the Count – here with a late incarnation of the Kansas City Five...

John Kirby plays for dancers...

... more dancing and playing from a great movie (Slim Gaillard in there somewhere)... a sadly missed old friend of mine was in the English stage show of Hellzappopin'...

... Billy Bang et al in Antwerp


Thomas Chapin
Thomas Chapin (as, f) Mario Pavone (b) Michael Sarin (d) Al Bryant, Frank London (t)
Curtis Fowlkes, Peter McEachern (tr)Marcus Rojas (tuba)
Golgotham
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Art Tatum
Art Tatum (p) Lionel Hampton (vi) Buddy Rich (d)
Hallelujah
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Mal Waldron/Marion Brown
Mal Waldron (p) Marion Brown (as)
Soul Mates
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Hampton Hawes
Hampton Hawes (p) Red Callender (b) Chuck Thompson (d)
What is this thing called love
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Billy Bang
Billy Bang (v) D.D. Jackson (p) Akira Ando (b) Ronnie Burrage (d)
Willow weep for me
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