Schlippenbach Trio... Jimmy Giuffre... Paul Bley... Reverend C.L. Franklin - and Aretha... Fats Navarro...

Wish I had been there department, part 45...

Darcy has a very good rundown of the Vision Festival's first day here... (I came across this via Destination Out just to get all the beret tips in order...). I had planned to be in New York to attend but was unable to go – just too bogged down with things here at the hovel. Mucho changes... But I hope to catch whoever is around when I get over in October.

Meanwhile... here's three vaguely interrelated tracks...

First up: the trio led by pianist Alexander Von Schlippenbach accompanied by the redoubtable Evan Parker and Paul Lovens on saxophones and drums respectively. This is 'Analogue: Scaled,' from the album 'Elf Bagatellen.' The trio has been one of the long-standing groups in improvised music/jazz, together now for over thirty years, so they are alive to each other's twists and turns. Opening on exploratory fragments – Parker up high in bird song register until he comes down a registerial notch – scrapings and rattles from Lovens in between the occasional roll across the kit before he sets up a tapping rhythm almost like a backbeat as the piano probes and stabs. Interestingly more asymmetrical, broken-up work from Parker than in his usual long hypnotic solo lines. Using silence and space to breathe as well as finely shaded dynamics, this track builds nicely – the Parker long line coming out at last and locking in with Schlippenbach's accompanying trajectory – then disrupted by Lovens throwing a kitchen sink downstairs to herald a wild section of interplay and wahoo to take it out...

Jimmy Giuffre and trio (the personal link? – it will all be revealed by the next track) from 1957. A conventional jazz outing just before he sailed off into uncharted improvisational seas – and disappeared off the radar for far too long. Conventional in the sense of being within the harmonic, melodic and rhythmic areas of the day – but no drums, the main pulse coming from the bass and the implied subtle rhythmic shadings of Hall and Giuffre. A swift light bounce through 'The song is you.' Four bars in he plays some triplet figures that come direct from 'Train and the river' before going to the main theme. Giuffre's tenor sound is a glancing back-memory of Ben Webster without the shooshy vibrato – if that makes sense - although he springs from the fountainhead of Prez (as an original member of the Four Brothers especially)... More muscle than is immediately apparent... this swings...

The link? Giuffre of course played with Paul Bley in some ground-breaking ensembles – and Evan Parker played with Bley in a trio in recent years, bass player Barre Phillips the other constituent. Here's Bley in the mid-sixties with 'Kid Dynamite,' one of those diagonal Annette Peacock themes with an implication of Ornette's linear conceptions. A rushing beginning that backs off to feature the bass before Bley comes back in with some bluesy figures followed by the bass and sharp asymmetric drumming – Billy Elgart I think, rather than Paul Motian. Drums have a brief solo – fairly abstract stuff as throughout - little attempt at conventional time-keeping – before the piano comes back for a breathless but brief gallop at the theme... (There is a band called 'Kid Dynamite' to confuse things – but they are of later vintage – some info and free downloads here...).

Followed by some gospel...

The Reverend C.L. Franklin (1915-1984) http://museum.msu.edu/museum/tes/gospel/franklin.htm was a well-known and controversial figure long before his daughter, the sublime Aretha, became famous in the sixties. Here's two tracks from the album he made with Aretha. Firstly, C.L. delivering his rich dark preacher-powered voice on 'I've been in the storm too long.' To find out more about a fascinating character, there's a fascinating biography of the Reverend by Nick Salvtores...

Then there was Aretha - giving her rendition of 'When the blood runs warm in my veins.' Voice like a blow-torch, with always a combination of vulnerability and distance. Probably my favourite singer...

To go out - some bop from 1946. A session under Fats Navarro and Gil Fuller's joint leadership with a collection of the great and the good - well, soon to be. Klook, Bud, Stitt et al. And the divine Fats. This is 'Everything's Cool,' parts one and two. It is...


In the Videodrome...

Sonny Stitt and some of bop's finest...

Thomas Chapin at Newport...


Aretha takes it to the Bridge... Paul who?

Horace - Senor Blues...




Schlippenbach Trio
Alexander Von Schlippenbach (p) Evan Parker (ts) Paul Lovens (d)
Analogue: Scaled
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Jimmy Giuffre (ts) Jim Hall(g) Ralph Pena (b)
The song is you
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Paul Bley
Paul Bley (p) Gary Peacock (b) Billy Elgart (d)
Kid Dynamite
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Reverend C L Franklin
I've been in the storm so long
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Aretha Franklin
When the blood runs warm in my veins
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Fats Navarro/Gil Fuller
Kenny Dorham, Fats Navarro (tp) Sonny Stitt (as) Morris Lane (ts) Eddie DeVerteuil (bars) Bud Powell (p) Al Hall (b) Kenny Clarke (d) Gil Fuller (arr)
Everything's Cool
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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
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Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman (as) Dewey Redman (ts) Jimmy Garrison (b) Elvin Jones (d)
The Garden of Souls
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Coleman Hawkins/Ben Webster
Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster (ts) Oscar Peterson (p) Herb Ellis (g) Ray Brwon (b) Alvin Stoller (d)
Blues for Yolanda
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Juke Boy Bonner
Juke Boy Bonner (g, harm) Alvin J. Simon (d)
When the deal goes down
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Lord Buckley
The Nazz
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