Tag: jazz

Rainy Wednesday blues

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It’s the middle of the week—a three-rehearsal week, two down—and it’s been overcast and rainy all day. Nothing but gray. Which is why all the caffeine in the world isn’t enough and I’m staring at gray skies, and listening to Charlie Haden.

Ah, Charlie Haden. I’ve had the privilege of seeing both Haden and his son Josh Haden (with his band Spain) live. My experience with Charlie was in the context of his Liberation Music Orchestra, with Amina Claudine Meyers on piano and Makanda Ken McIntire, among others. I can’t say that I recall much of the show; I was unprepared to understand the complexities of what that band was playing and didn’t know much about Charlie at that time, including the fact that he had been the bassist with Ornette Coleman’s band featured on The Shape of Jazz To Come. But he made an impression on me for the serenity of his playing and the staggering complexity of some of the music.

What I’m listening to this afternoon is something else entirely. Haden’s other group, Quartet West, performed simpler, melodic, and overwhelmingly romantic jazz, and his 1997 album Now Is The Hour features all of that plus a string orchestra section. The ballads are sentimental and enveloping, the fast tunes are bracing and the playing is absolutely impeccable. Highly recommended.

Catch-up post vacation music link post

We were out of town for a week doing family things, during which time I managed to refrain from posting (much) on social media, but still collected a handful of interesting links. Here we go:

Aquarium Drunkard: James Booker, Montreux Jazz Festival, July 1978. Looking forward to checking this out; I’ve heard of Booker but never heard his music.

Doom and Gloom from the Tomb: Funkadelic – Rocky Mountain Shakedown. A farewell to the giant Bernie Worrell (DY16).

Boing Boing: Legendary Betty Davis and Miles Davis funk/fusion/psych session released. The vinyl bundles are all sold out, but the single vinyl LP and CD offerings are still available.

Doom and Gloom from the Tomb: Miles Davis – Paul’s Mall, Boston Massachusetts September 14, 1972. Live On The Corner era Miles.

“Eighty-One”

KGB at the Lilypad in Inman Square, June 1, 2016

KGB at the Lilypad in Inman Square, June 1, 2016

I met some work colleagues at Bukowski’s in Inman Square last night. Generally when I’ve been there in the past it’s been to go to Hell Night, which is a pretty all-consuming experience in itself. Last night I was able to soak in a little more of the ambience.

Like Lilypad, a jazz club that’s only about half a block away from Bukowski’s. As I walked by last night to go to the bar, there was a pretty hot sounding quartet going (Tetraptych, if their calendar is right), but by the time we got back to the club KGB was playing. This trio (Ethan K. on guitars, Patrick Gaulin on drums, Rich Greenblatt on vibes) was sounding pretty good, playing a variety of originals, some standards (a Gershwin tune floated past at one point) and some post-bop stuff.

The last tune was “Eighty-One,” the Ron Carter/Miles Davis standard that he premiered on E.S.P. Here Ethan K. played the melodic line as Greenblatt provided chordal backup, with Gaulin providing elliptical drums underneath. I loved it, but the interpretation was a little different than what I think of as the core of the song, and it got me thinking about what that means.

In the original recording, by the second great Miles quintet on their first album, the essence of the song is the strong central bassline centered on the relationship between F (the tonic) and B-flat and providing rhythmic drive, while the horns play the melody complete with the leap up the octave and into a moment of silence, followed by sustained chords. The same players, with Wallace Roney filling in for Miles on the 1991 A Tribute to Miles, begins with a minute of free playing by Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter before going to the melody, and plays up the pause dramatically, with everyone but Carter and Tony Williams dropping out for a whole measure before the tune continues. I’ve heard some live Herbie recordings that do the same trick, with different players spotlighted in the gap, including his V.S.O.P. quintet live recordings from the 1970s. I’ve come to love this interpretation.

Last night, the gap wasn’t there–each player drove ahead into the space, letting the groove take them. It was a great version, but I missed that pause. It clues you in to listen to what’s happening underneath—the groove, the drive, the breakneck craziness at drums and bass that was Carter and Tony Williams at their best.

Grab bag: Seduction of the innocent edition

Lush Life

There are certain records, certain tracks, that instantly take you back to where you were when you heard them for the very first time. John Coltrane’s “Lush Life” (the first version he recorded, the 1958 version with Red Garland, Donald Byrd, Paul Chambers, and Louis Hayes) is one of those albums, and one of those tracks.

The whole record is unusual in Trane’s discography. The first three tunes are performed by a pianoless trio (Red Garland apparently forgot to show up for the session), and they show a keen sense of rhythm and a searching intelligence while still demonstrating Trane’s mastery of playing over the chords. The fifth track, a quartet session with Garland, Chambers, and Albert Heath on drums, is a straight ahead reading of “I Hear a Rhapsody”–a nice enough performance, but unremarkable by itself.

No, it’s the title track that makes one sit up and pay attention, as I did when I brought it back to my dorm room in the fall of 1990, a story which I’ve told before. All the more if you think of the story (not the words. The words themselves have so little poetry that it’s a miracle that Johnny Hartman brought what he did to the song five years later)–the sad, romantic story of the man who was idly bored until a miracle of love came into his life, and then quietly heartbroken when love departed. So he tries to bolster his spirits, only to confront his own solitude: “Romance is mush/stifling those who thrive/I’ll live a lush life/in some small dive/and there I’ll be/while I rot with the rest/of those whose lives are lonely too.”

Only the artistry of Strayhorn could take us through the gorgeousness of the tune into the depths of that solitude within a single song. One thinks, he must have been a lot of fun at parties.

Review: This Here is Bobby Timmons

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For every jazzman who has a long, illustrious career (think Dexter Gordon), or who blazes bright only to burn out too quickly (Charlie Parker or John Coltrane), there is a Bobby Timmons—an artist with a few frustrating flashes of brilliance followed by a long descent into alcoholism. By the time This Here is Bobby Timmons, Timmons’ first record as a leader, was recorded in 1960, he had already written three seminal original tunes while working with Art Blakey and Cannonball Adderly: “Moanin’,” “This Here,” and “Dat Dere.” 1960 was the peak year in Timmons’ career; he appeared or led on over 20 recordings with Blakey, both Adderly brothers, Lee Morgan, and Buddy Rich, among others. Thereafter his output as a performer and composer diminished until at the end of the decade he was appearing on only one or two sessions a year, and those live rather than studio appearances.

What happened to Timmons? Ironically, his very success may have been his undoing. Some writers have suggested that he was stereotyped as a simple soul player after his originals, which were very much in the “soul jazz” tradition of the early sixties and incorporated simple soul, blues and gospel licks into jazz’s compositional repertoire, became big hits. In fact, some writers go so far as to credit “Moanin’” and “This Here” with making Art Blakey and Cannonball Adderly (respectively) commercial successes.

That Timmons had higher ambitions than the soul-jazz crown can be glimpsed from the set list of this release, which tackles such classics of the repertoire as Ellington’s “Prelude to a Kiss,” “My Funny Valentine,” and Strayhorn’s “Lush Life”—the last as a solo number. The arrangements of all of these numbers are as straightforward jazz covers with little of the stride or gospel influences that Timmons was more famous for. Unfortunately, these numbers occasionally fall flat as a result. It’s on Timmons’ originals that the set really comes alive—though his “Lush Life” hints at the possibility of some deeper artistry, the other cuts either stay resolutely in the same soul-jazz groove or become facile and timid.

This reissue from Fantasy is part of a new line of SACD rereleases of seminal Riverside, Prestige and Contemporary recordings. The sound on the standard CD layer of the hybrid disc is clean and balanced, with the low end gamely holding its own against the cymbal-heavy sound of Jimmy Cobb’s drums—in fact, in a few places the bass seems a little too much in the mix, for instance on the second chorus of “Dat Dere” and on “My Funny Valentine.” A tape wobble partway through “The Party’s Over,” apparently present in the original master, slightly mars the sound, but otherwise the recording is clean and transparent, allowing the listener to hear Timmons’ grunts (like a quieter Keith Jarrett) as well as the music.

Ultimately, This Here is Bobby Timmons is a document from one of the major jazz movements of the fifties and sixties, and should be appreciated in that spirit. This release provides the most transparent glimpse yet into Timmons’ soulful playing and his studio sessions. Also recommended for a fuller vision of Timmons as a performer are his key sessions with Cannonball and with the Jazz Messengers. As a sideman, he was hard to beat; as a composer, he added new sounds and rhythms to the rich griot of jazz; as a leader, his tragically short career denied him the time to grow and mature.

Originally published on BlogCritics.

Holiday songs: Duke Ellington’s Three Suites

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Today’s holiday album that doesn’t suck is…well, not really a holiday album. This 1960 recording of Ellington and his orchestra collects three big band arrangements of well-known suites, classical and otherwise: Edvard Grieg’s “Peer Gynt” suite, Ellington’s own “Suite Thursday,” and the reason for this disc’s inclusion in my holiday “must listen” pile, Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite.”

What Ellington and his band do to this chestnut has to be heard to be believed. Who knew that Piotr Illych could swing this hard? (Well, maybe Piotr Illych did. He was a pretty wacky cat.) The suite takes on new life and color in Duke’s able hands. The orchestration is superb, with melody lines jumping from instrument to instrument and big satisfyingly crunchy chords filling out the corners of the familiar Nutcracker melodies. But the real story is in Duke’s rhythmic innovations around the edges of the melodies. The “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” here recast as “Sugar Rum Cherry,” is played as a slow slinky swinger. The Russian Dance (“Volga Vouty”) is almost funky as a slow burner. And the faster numbers rock out, with the March (“Peanut Butter Brigage”), Entr’act, and Arabesque Dance (“Arabesque Cookie”) swinging so hard that even the most seasoned swing dancer would break a sweat on the ballroom floor.

After years of my sister’s ballet class dancing the Nutcracker, I never thought of the music as a holiday must listen, but this recording changed my mind. Duke and his band turn it into a modern holiday classic.