Performers: Buell Neidlinger (bs), Hugh Schick (tp), Marty Krystall (t-sx), Vinnie Colaiuta (dr)
1. Big Drum
2. Ming's Visit
3. Buejerk
4. O.P.
5. Tienanmen Bop
6. Brilliant Corners
7. El A
8. Sam's Blues
With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the Lord, the King. Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. (Psalm 98:6-7, KJV)
Monday 23 November 2020
Buell Neidlinger - Big Drum
Buell Neidlinger - Locomotive
Performers: Buell Neidlinger (bs), Marty Krystall (t-sx), Brenton Banks (vi), John Kurnick (mandolin), Billy Osbourne (dr)
1. Rockin' In Rhythm
2. Raise Four
3. Locomotive
4. Jumpin' Punkins
5. Skippy
6. Jackie-ing
7. I Mean You
8. Subtle Slough
9. Brake's Sake
10. Boo Boo's Birthday
11. Mainstem
Frank Morgan & McCoy Tyner - Major Changes
"Those of us who began listening to jazz after 1960 (and we are now a majority) owe our knowledge of the likes of Bix Beiderbecke, Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, and Clifford Brown to the phonograph and its linear descendants. Even now, for many listeners outside New York City, records, tapes, and compact discs are the only means of keeping up with current developments. Yet since the thrill of jazz is existential as well as aesthetic, we are justifiably suspicious of a medium that deliver the music so long after the fact. Records put us at a physical as well as a temporal distance from a music that was meant to be experienced up close. But who can honestly say that he relishes going to clubs and concerts any more, now that poorly rehearsed pick-up bands are the rules and amplification is in the hands of technicians insensitive to the natural dynamics of acoustic instruments?
"It's unfortunate that few listeners will ever have the opportunity to attend a recording session, for despite the unavoidable breakdowns and false starts that vex even those dates later remembered as having been absolutely carefree, the studio control room might now be the only setting in which it is possible to forget that the music is reaching your ears through microphones. The studio is where musicians play for prosterity, but it can also be where they delight in one another's artistry, without temptation to pander applause.
"At least that's the impression I took away from the final session for Frank Morgan's album with McCoy Tyner's trio, featuring bassist Avery Sharpe and drummer Louis Hayes. (Granted, few sessions are as pure in intention or yield such memorable results.) I arrived at Clinton Studios just in time for the final number. Although the tempo was relatively up, the cadence sanctified, and the beat modified bossa nova (with Hayes deftly imitating hand-drum patterns on his snares), Morgan's melody statement was ballad-like in its rueful elegance and haunted resemblance to 'Here's That Rainy Day'. Following Tyner's leading choruses, Morgan took a solo rife with piercing declamations that ended on notes that sounded like checked sobs - a solo so nakedly personal that I assumed this must be his own composition, although it sounded vaguely familiar. It wasn't until the outro that I realised, with some chagrin, that this was 'Theme from Love Story' a maudlin, turn-that-dial hit for Andy Williams, Henry Mancini, and composer Francis Lai in 1971.
"This performance (like the earlier one on 'Double Image' [Contemporary C-14035], Morgan's album of duets with pianist George Cables) is a remarkable demonstration of the power of ardor to rehabilitate treacle - testimony to an impassioned improviser's ability to change your mind about a song, if only for the duration of one performance. Morgan doesn't share my estimate of 'Theme from Love Story' (which he first heard during a screening of the film at San Quentin in the 1970s) as a lowly vehicle. 'It's a beautiful song,' he says, 'and I always wanted to play it for my [paternal] grandmother, who raised me from the time I was six years old until I was sixteen, when she put me on a train for California to be with my father [guitarist Stanley Morgan, once a member of Harlan Leonard's Rockets, no with the Ink Spots] because she felt I was beginning to need a man's guidance. It's the song I played at her grave during a family reunion in Milwaukee last year.' But Morgan invests as much of himself in 'Emily' and 'How Deep Is the Ocean', the set's other near-ballads, and in Tyner's 'Changes' and 'Frank's Back' two brand-new pieces without possible sentimental attachment. He seems incapable of playing a note he doesn't feel deep in his being.
"Beyond noting that Morgan conveys the urgency of a man making up for lost time, it's unnecessary to bring up the three decades he squandered to heroin - that story has been told and retold in the liner notes to his previous Contemporary releases, articles in 'People', 'Newsweek', and 'The Atlantic'; and on stange in 'Prison-Made Tuxedos', a collaborative effort between Morgan and playwright George W.S. Trow. Morgan is understandably anxious to be perceived as more than a redeemed junkie, and this album should also help in winning him recognition as more than Charlie Parker's ghost. At this point, there is no better saxophonist in the bebop idiom (the proof is on 'All the Things You Are'), but the modes and scales that underpin Tyner's 'Search for Peace' edge Morgan out of his comfort zone, to startling effect. Morgan says her was 'intimidated' to find himself playing with the most influential pianist since Bud Powell, but he certainly doesn't sound intimidated. Confronted with a saxophonist he can't overwhelm for the first time since his Milestone Jazzstars tour with Sonny Rollins, Tyner reaps benefits from this association as well. His solo here, while as tempestuous as always, are admirably lean and pungent, with just a trace of Red Garland.
"'Trane introduced me to McCoy in the 1960s, when he was just a kid,' Morgan remembers, 'and recording with him was the fulfillment of a dream.' Maybe you had to be there, as I was lucky enough to be, to gauge the full impact of Morgan and Tyner's second collaboration (they also played together on a 1985 video), but unless they've joined forces in concert by the time you read this, be grateful that the tapes were rolling the last time they met. Be grateful even if they have. (Francis Davis, January 1988. From the liner notes.)
Performers: Frank Morgan (a-sx), McCoy Tyner (pi), Avery Sharpe (bs), Louis Hayes (dr)
1. Changes
2. How Deep Is The Ocean
3. Emily
4. Search For Peace
5. Frank's Back
6. All The Things You Are
7. Theme From Love Story
8. So What
Frank Morgan & George Cables - Double Image
"That two artists as gifted and as compatible as Frank Morgan and George Cables could be brought together for a basic two-on-two confrontation is remarkable in itself. Still more noteworthy is the degree to which they adapted to this demanding situation.
"Their background skills differ sharply. Cables, born in Brooklyn in 1944, has ahd a relatively stable career throughout his adult life, moving from one challenging group to another: Blakey, Roach, Rollins, Hubbard, Pepper, Dexter Gordon - he has worked with them all and recorded countless albums as sideman or leader.
"Morgan, though 11 years older, born in Minneapolis, has had far fewer opportunities: the reasons, involving his traumatized life, have been gone into often enough and will not be detailed here. Suffice it that after a single album in 1955 (for GNP Crescendo) he was absent from the studios for almost a quarter century; then, after two guest sessions with L. Subramaniam, he was finally able in 1985, with the enthusiastic support of producer Richard Bock, to launch his own career as a recording and gigging leader.
"What struck me immediately on listening to the tapes of this collaboration was the intelligence with which the pair avoided any display of one-upmanship. On the contrary, Cables keeps his very considerable chops under control, whether soloing, accompanying, or interacting with Morgan. As for Frank, the figure of speech about drawing in one's horns applies almost literally here; though his bebop roots are subliminally in evidence, some of his finest moments are those in which his romantic sense is uppermost.
"'This session was like a dream come true for me,' Morgan told me. 'George and I had worked as a duo in 1980 during a summer concert series in Santa Monica, and I always carried the memory of that experience with me and hoped we could relive it on a record.'
"'That was the first time I'd ever duetted with anybody,' Cables recalls, 'and we hit it off. What Frank plays really lends itself to this intimate setting.'
"There is not more charming example of this than 'Helen's Song', which Cables named for the lady in his life. Alto and piano virtually dance their way through the simple and beguiling three-not main phrase.
"'All the Things You Are' is not close to half a century old, yet its changes are as ideal for improvisation today as they were in 1939 - or more particularly in 1945, when Dizzy Gillespie added the two figures (D-flat minor and C minor) that have become standard as an intro and coda, and are included in the present version. Cables's solo here is notable for the subtlety with which he implies rather than states the beat.
"Wayne Shorter's 'Virgo' had a special meaning for Morgan, who points out that the Rosalinda for whom he composed the following track is herself a Virgo. Here again the two men find common ground in an innately attractive theme.
"'Blues for Rosalinda' is an emotional high point for Frank, who takes the first three choruses - preaching, beseeching but never screeching the blues. A point of interest is the exchange of fours - very unusual at such a slow tempo.
"'After You've Gone' is a relic of Dixieland days; written in 1918, it has survived every era and, Frank reminded me, was played by Charlie Parker with Jazz at the Philharmonic. Cables's solo here reflects some of the bop values without any hint of overindulgence.
"'I Told You So' is a tune Cables wrote and played while working with Dexter Gordon. 'George taught it to me at the date,' says Frank. Like 'Helen's Song', this illustrates Cables's creative melodic mind and, in fact, could lend itself well to lyrics.
"The suggestion to do Ivan Lins's 'Love Dance' came from Dick Bock; this is a special showcase for Morgan's slightly blues-tinged approach to a ballad. His intense, yearning mood is again in evidence in 'Love Story', of which Frank comments: 'I remember hearing this in prison. It's a gorgeous thing, and I always wanted to play it when I was on the outside. I just recorded another version with McCoy Tyner.'
"Since this album was recorded, Cables and Morgan have been reunited; they played at the Concord Jazz Festival, along with John Heard and Donald Bailey. But both men agreed, in separate interviews, that their duo encounter call for a replay as soon as it can be arranged. Three or four may or may not be a crowd, but these nonpareil performances leave no doubt that two is company. (Leonard Feather, August 1987. From the liner notes.)
Performers: Frank Morgan (a-sx), George Cables (pi)
1. All The Things You Are
2. Virgo
3. Blues For Rosalinda
4. After You've Gone
5. Helen's Song
6. Love Dance
7. (Where Do I Begin) Love Story
8. I Told You So
9. Blue In Green
Hampton Hawes - All Night Session! Vol. 3
"Bassist Red Mitchell, a native New Yorker (born September 20, 1927) is, like many West Coasters, a Californian by migration. He has been steadily associated on records with Hampton Hawes from the first Hawes Trio album made in June, 1955. Mitchell has also recorded with combos led by Barney Kessel, Tal Farlow, Red Norvo, Jack Montrose, and Gerry Mulligan. He has also made two LP's with combos of his own, the most recent 'Presenting Red Mitchell' for Contemporary (C3538).
"Although Red played piano with Chubby Jackson (at the Royal Roost in 1949), alto sax in an Army band, and the vibories on a recent record album, he had a new love the moment he traded 15 cartons of cigarettes for a string bass while in Germany. Up until then he had been studying the piano on his own. He cultivated the bass in the same way, acquiring bass methods by Bob Haggarr and others and industriously plowing his way through them. Mitchell also learned by listening to every bass player who came his way, on records or alive, acquiring in the process an unusual knowledge of the entire range of bassists.
"'I guess the first bass player that really thrilled me,' Red recently stated, 'was Page.' This was on a Count Basie record even before Mitchell had settled on the bass as his instrument. Ray Brown, who played with Dizzy Gillespie, 'just turned me inside out. I heard the new music, the new phrasing.' At Minton's, Red heard Charlie Mingus, who 'frightened me... because I remember the way he went up to the top of the fiddle.' But the greatest of all bass players to Red was the late Jimmy Blanton, who is generally credited with inaugurating the revolution that took the bass out of the rhythm section in the late 30's and made a melody instrument of it.
"Despite his talking intimacy with the top bassmen of our time, Red feels that he has been more influenced by horn men and pianists than by bassists. He mentions among the jazzmen he has admired and studied: saxists Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims and Jimmy Giuffre; trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis; and pianists John Lewis and Hampton Hawes.
"As an improviser, Red is to be heard to advantage particularly in 'Broadway' and 'Groovin' High', both of which reveal not only a prodigious command of technique but fast, jazz solos of the very highest order. Red has a fat tone when occasion demands and there are slow, stinging solos to be heard in 'Hampton's Pulpit' and 'The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea'. Insofar as giving the Hawes piano the rhythmic support is needs, Red's pulsating beat is masterful.
"In the fall of 1956 Jim Hall, then a member of Chico Hamilton's group, used to sit in for kicks when Hawes' Trio worked at the Tiffany in Los Angeles. The discovered kinship of feeling between the two led to the invitation that made Hall part of 'All Night Session'. Born in Buffalo, New York on December 4, 1930, Hall was raised in the Buckeye State. Although he attended the well-known Cleveland Institute of Music, receiving a Bachelor's degree in music, Jim studied guitar privately with Brenton Banks. His style was also formed by constant listening to records of the abortive American genius Charlie Christian and the French gypsy giant of the guitar, Django Rheinhardt. Other formative influences include the tenor sax playing of Bill Perkins and Zoot Sims, whose modern improvisational lines are to be heard in Hall's solos.
"At the precocious age of 13, Jim Hall began working with local Ohio bands. For short or long periods, he was associated with the Bob Hardaway Quartet, Ken Hanna's band, with whom he made a Capitol album, and later, with the Dave Pell Octet. In the early months of 1955, Hall came to Los Angeles and began studying with the classical guitarist Vincente Gomez. At about the same time, drummer Chico Hamilton hired Jim for his newly formed Quintet.
"It was the Hamilton Quintet that brought Hall's name into the national jazz arena. During the latter part of '55 and early '56, Jim toured with Chico's Quintet, recorded three albums for Pacific Jazz with a trio of his own that included the late Carl Perkins on piano and Red Mitchell on bass. Since making 'All Night Session' with Hawes, Hall has been steadily associated with the trio of Jimmy Giuffre. He also is to be heard with John Lewis in a new album just made by Lewis without the Modern Jazz Quartet.
"Of the roles of the drums in his Quartet, Hampton Hawes has said: 'I don't like a drummer that plays a heavy foot pedal because it has the dull sound of somebody trudging down the street. I like the drums to sound like a heartbeat - just like a heartbeat pumping blood into the tune, nice and smooth... I don't like a heavy-footed drummer.'
"In drummer Buzz Freeman, born in Chicago on August 11, 1921 and a West Coaster since 1954, Hawes found an ideal man for his quartet. Buzz became interested in music through his two brothers, tenorman Von and guitarist George. At 9 he was playing violin. At 13 he shifted to the piano. Then came the drums. After a stint in the Air Force, during which he flew with Percy Heath of the Modern Jazz Quartet (Percy as a fighter and Buzz as a bomber pilot), he returned to Chicago to gig with a group known as the Freeman Brothers Band. Later he played at Chicago's Beehive, sitting in with men like Sonny Stitt, Bird, J.J. Johnson. Before he settled in California, he played for singers Ella Fitzgerald and Lurlean Hunter and went on the road with Anita O'Day and Sarah Vaughan. 'On drums,' he says, 'Max is my man. On other instruments: Miles Davis, J.J. and Bird.'
"Of the 'All Night Sessions', Hawes recently said reflectively: 'It's hard to put into words how good it feels to play jazz when it's really swinging. That's the greatest feeling I've ever had in my life. I've reached a point where the music fills you up so much emotionally that you feel like shouting hallelujah - like people do in church when they're converted to God. That's the way I was feeling the night we recorded 'All Night Session'. (Arnold Shadow, March 26, 1958. From the liner notes.)
Performers: Hampton Hawes (pi), Jim Hall (gt), Red Mitchell (bs), Buzz Freeman (dr)
1. Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me
2. Blues #3
3. Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea
4. Blues #4
5. Blues Of A Sort
Hampton Hawes - All Night Session! Vol. 2
"Comparatively little has been written on the art of jazz improvisation. How the jazzman plays notes, devises figures, invents rhythm, concocts chords which were not in his mind a moment before he plays them; how he succeeds in spontaneously altering the notes, chords, figures and rhythm patterns so as to achieve the freshness and a jazz feeling - these are the enigmas of the creative process. Of his approach to improvisation, here is what Hawes has revealingly said: 'You know the tune you're going to play and after you play the melody through, it comes time for you to blow. You build your solo on the chords as they go by and you use the chord changes to tell your story... Just like, maybe a painter painting a picture, he has his brushes. Well, his brushes are the chord changes. What he paints is what he's thinking about, so what kind of solo you play is what comes out of your mind, or the soul that you have for that song you're playing. I believe that the way a person thinks usually comes out in his playing. You've got to really feel what you're doing. Even the way my hands feel on the keys, that has a lot to do with what I play. I like my hands to feel good when they're playing. Like between the black notes and the white notes on the piano, when I'm phrasing I like to have my hands fall off right so I can feel like I'm getting into it. If I know my hands are feeling good, then I know that I'm phrasing right. If something feels awkward - well, I'm doing something wrong. I don't try to play too much at first. I like to start out just playing a few things and then keep building, chorus by chorus, until you reach a big climax, when you're playing to your fullest capabilities, in other words, where you're really doing everything you can do - then after than you cool it and give yourself a little rest and you're playing just a few things while you're thinking about something else to play... Sometimes I think about the melody. But before I think about the melody, I think about the 'underneath notes' of the melody - the harmony notes that move under the top notes and show where the chord goes...'
"Three concepts stand out in Hawes' statement. While they involve technical matters, their import may be grasped by the layman without resorting to technical exposition. The three concepts pivot on the words: climax, chord changes, and 'underneath notes'. Climax in improvisation is not different from climax in a story so that it is not too difficult to discern. Hawes' procedure in adding notes, chords and figures, chorus after chorus, may be studied in 'Do Nothin' Till You Hear from Me' or 'Will You Still Be Mine' where the third choruses are like the full, complex, colorful flowers that have sprouted from the small, simple buds of the original melody. The building process involves a variation of chord changes and, in turn, of the 'underneath notes', which significantly determine the sequence of chords.
"Imitation is an important device for developing a piece of music and, of course, as an improvisational technique. It involved the repetition of a line or riff in another key, a different register, or on another instrument. As an instance of imitation, listen to the way guitarist Hall picks up and echoes Hawes' melodic line in 'Will You Still Be Mine' or 'Hampton's Pulpit'. In the latter, consider also the question and answer interplay between piano and bass, another device for variation. More important than either of these improvisational procedures is the shifting of accents and the variation of rhythm figures, which are wonderfully displayed in Hawes' improvised solos on 'April in Paris', 'Woody'n You' and 'Blue 'n Boogie'. Used imaginatively and with feeling, and not just manipulated mentally, these devices produce constantly fresh variants of well-known melodies.
"How an improviser handles these devices depends on a number of factors: specifically, on whether he is interested in a) motion or placidity, b) dissonance or prettiness, c) a thick sound or a delicate texture, d) static or shifting rhythm patterns, e) short or long melodic lines. To understand Hawes' handling of these factors, it will be helpful to see him in relation to other contemporary jazz pianists.
"At the moment, there are three axes in jazz piano. I prefer the word 'axis' to school or style because within any one so-called school, there are sufficient tension to make for a direction rather than a pat definition. For example, Brubeck and Tristano have more in common as representatives of a modern-classical-intellectual-far-out approach than Brubeck and Garner. Yet there also obvious contrast and conflicts. Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell as practitioners of bop piano share more characteristics than do Powell and Oscar Peterson. Yet there is an undeniable gulf between Monk's emphasis on an economy of notes as against Powell's tendency toward flooding and constant motion. Here then are the three major current axes in contemporary jazz piano: 1) a Garner-Tatum axis, stressing rich harmonies and the fullness and pumping beat of stride piano; 2) a Brubeck-Tristano axis, combining modern classical polyrhythms and polyharmonies with jazz improvisation; and 3) a Bud Powell-Thelonious Monk axis, stressing a single note, horizontal style, using the left hand for punctuation, and playing off the beat.
"Clearly, Hampton Hawes is closest to the bop axis of Powell and Monk. He strives for constant motion rather than placidity, tart rather than pretty harmonies, a delicate rather than a thick density, shifting rhythm pattersn, and longer rather than shorter lines.
"Within the bop axis, the main influence on Hawes' improvising comes from an alto sax player rather than any pianist. In 1947 when Hawes was just turning nineteen, one of the founders of bop, the late, great Charlie Parker came out to Hampton's native Los Angeles. Hawes not only met and listened to Bird, which proved a turning point in many a contemporary musician's career, but he played with him for almost two months in Howard McGhee's band. Not too long ago, Hawes described Parker's influence as having to do 'with Bird's conception of time.' Working with Parker, Hawes began taking liberties with time, 'playing double time or letting a couple of beats go by to make the beat stand out - not just playing on top of it all the time.' Hawes emphasizes: 'I think Parker has influenced me more than anybody, even piano players.'
"The Parker bop influence is apparent in 'All Night Session' in many ways, not the least significant being Hawes' choice of material. Included among the sixteen selections are four Gillespie compositions that have become bop classics - 'Groovin' High', 'Woody'n You', 'Two Bass Hit' and 'Blue 'n Boogie'. Comparison of Hawes' version of 'Woody'n You' with the Modern Jazz Quartet's chamber music treatment of the same reveals a style in which there is greater dissonance, more pronounced changes and a feeling of intensity that reminds one of Parker. Characteristic of these selections, and particularly of an original composition 'Takin' Care', is Parker's device of altering melodic passages containing few notes with figures full of gusts of fast-moving ones. (Arnold Shaw, March 26, 1958. From the liner notes.)
Performers: Hampton Hawes (pi), Jim Hall (gt), Red Mitchell (bs), Buzz Freeman (dr)
A1. I'll Remember April
A2. I Should Care
A3. Woody'n You
A4. Two Bass Hit
B1. Will You Still Be Mine
B2. April In Paris
B3. Blue 'N' Boogie
Hampton Hawes - All Night Session! Vol. 1
"As a pianist, Hawes possesses a remarkably robust and vigorous style. The sixteen selections in 'All Night Session' teem with a pulsating energy and are marked by a seemingly inexhaustible stream of ideas. Although he can create chord patterns of great beauty as in 'I'll Remember April' and 'April in Paris', and he he can command a singing, lyrical tone, he is more attracted at this stage of his career to expressions of a dynamic character. His touch is firm and authoritative and he possesses a split second sense of timing. His technical mastery is so great that there is not a single blurred run, tangled triplet or ragged arpeggio, no matter how fast the tempo.
"Included among the sixteen selections are four original compositions by Hawes. They are of interest for two reasons. In the first instance, it is to be noted that they were composed at the record date itself and not written down beforehand. This gives them a spontaneous, ebullient quality, which is in a sense, their strongest characteristic. I was interested to learn that virtually all of Hawes' originals have been composed in this way. Instead of being written down, they are transcribed from his live performance, emphasizing the fact that his creative activity is the result of his role of an improviser. The second fact to be noted is that all four selections are blues - fast, vigorous blues, but blues nonetheless.
"Born in the center of West Coast jazz on November 13, 1928, Hampton Hawes became a member of the musicians' union when he was sixteen. The following year, while he still attended L.A.'s Polytechnic High School, from which he was graduated in 1946, he played with Big Jay McNeely's band. Before he was drafted into the army in 1953 for the usual two year stint, he gigged around L.A. with various modern combos, among them, Wardell Gray's, Red Norvo's, Dexter Gordon's, Teddy Edwards', and Howard Rumsey's All-Stars at the Hermosa Beach Lighthouse. The latter assignment came through a meeting with trumpeter Shorty Rogers, who after hearing him at a Gene Norman concert, immediately invited him to play the recording date which produced the first 'Giants' album on Capitol (1952).
"On his release from the army in 1955, Hawes took his own trio into L.A.'s Haig. He also recorded his first trio album for Contemporary Records (C3505), employing Chuck Thompson on drums and Red Mitchell on bass. This was followed in short order by two other trio albums (C3515 and C3523), both with the same personnel. Hailed as the 'Arrival of the Year' by 'Metronome' in the 1955 yearbook, Hawes was voted in 1956 'New Star' on piano by the annual 'Down Beat' poll of leading jazz critics. In the same year (1956), after completing a highly succesful engagement at The Tiffany in L.A., he left for an extended cross country tour, he met many Eastern jazzmen and was most impressed by Thelonious Monk as a musician and personality. In 1957 he made another tour back East, and enjoyed playing with Oscar Pettiford and Paul Chambers.
"Although his first three album for Contemporary were with his own trio, Hawes enjoys working with a quartet. 'You can do more rhythmic things and you can have more beats going. The full rhythm of drums, bass and guitar gives you two instruments to play rhythm (drums and bass) and keep the beat going. Then you can switch around. I like to hear other people play solos because it's inspiring, and gives you ideas other than your own to conjure with." (Arnold Shaw, March 26, 1958. From the liner notes.)
Performers: Hampton Hawes (pi), Jim Hall (gt), Red Mitchell (bs), Buzz Freeman (dr)
A1. Jordu
A2. Groovin' High
A3. Takin' Care
B1. Broadway
B2. Hampton's Pulpit
Frank Morgan - Lament
Performers: Frank Morgan (a-sx), Cedar Walton (pi), Buster Williams (bs), Billy Higgins (dr)
1. Ceora
2. Until It's Time For You To Go
3. Perdido
4. Ana Maria
5. Lament
6. Half Nelson
7. Thank You Blues
Frank Morgan - Easy Living
Performers: Frank Morgan (a-sx), Cedar Walton (pi), Tony Dumas (bs), Billy Higgins (dr)
A1. Manha De Carnaval
A2. Yes And No
A3. Easy Living
A4. The Rubber Man
B1. Third Street Blues
B2. Three Flowers
B3. Embraceable You
B4. Now's The Time
Gene Norman Presents Frank Morgan
Performers: Frank Morgan (a-sx), Conte Candoli (tp), Wardell Gray (t-sx), Howard Roberts (gt), Wild Bill Davis (og), Carl Perkins (pi), Bobby Rodriguez/Leroy Vinnegar (bs), Lawrence Marable (dr), Ubaldo Nieto (timbales)
A1. Bernie's Tune
A2. My Old Flame
A3. I'll Remember April
A4. Neil's Blues
A5. The Champ
B1. Chooch
B2. The Nearness Of You
B3. Whippet
B4. Milt's Tune
B5. Get Happy
Jackie McLean & Dexter Gordon - The Source, Vol. 2
"Jackie McLean and Dexter Gordon were closely identified with those sensational sounds that ushered in a whole new musical lifestyle. As a very young man Jackie was casually but significantly tutored by the late Bud Powell. A few years on and he was running around with Charlie Parker, digging the master, listening, learning, getting it together. Bird saw the promise in him, so did Miles Davis. He was on his way.
"Dexter Gordon, meanwhile, had to be regarded as Mr. Saxophone by all the hip tenor cats (not to mention contemporaries on alto, even baritone). Dexter's huge influence on musicians of that era has been well and truly put in perspective by Ira Gitler in 'Jazz Masters of the Forties'. Gordon was the man who was able to synthesize the truth preached by Lester Young, Charlie Parker and the Texas tenors into a cohesive and personal whole.
"Small wonder that Jackie writes on the jacket of 'The Meeting' (SteepleChase SCS-1005): 'He [Dexter] made me want to be a musician - I heard Bird after Dex.' Well, during two evenings at the Montmartre Jazzhus, Copenhagen, in July 1973, Jackie and Dexter, making their first records together, took a retrospective look at bebop and some of the compositions from those days that still inspired them. And in doing so they reaffirmed the validity and durability of that particular jazz style.
"Warning: This is not tired nostalgia, a friendly stroll down memory lane for the benefit of middle-aged dudes who are striving to recapture their youth. Jackie and Dexter have moved forward and onward. In the 1970s they are playing differently, with greater fire and invention than 20 years ago. That is as it should be. But the old lines from their youth continue to merit re-investigation.
"If you think about it, there is no earthly reason why 'Half Nelson' should be any less exciting as a blowing vehicle in 1973 than it was in 1942 when composer Miles Davis first recorded it (with Bird on tenor). 'Half Nelson' was based on Tadd Dameron's 'Ladybird'. McLean and Gordon follow what has become accepted tradition by going into the original theme after starting 'Half Nelson'. Dex og Jackie alternating on the breaks. Dexter obviously enjoys these good changes, from bottom to top, even finding time to give us a glimpse of the 'Mona Lisa'. They are to Jackie's liking, too, and Kenny Drew delineates a typically supple solo. Dig Niels-Henning - superb.
"Though 'I Can't Get Started' is a show tune from the 1930s, it became jazz property after Billy and Bunny had individually immortalised the song, and this melody continues to be a favourite with the boppers. Bird did it up a couple of time as only he could. Jackie and Dexter infuse the tune with that bittersweet flavour that spells e-m-o-t-i-o-n. Who said 'I Can't Get Started' was a trumpeters' property? He was wrong. Dexter's 'If You Could See Me Now' coda is a nice touch.
"We go back to 1947 again for a second Charlie Parker/Miles Davis collaboration, 'Another Hair-do' which the Bird supposedly recorded in Detroit on Christmas Day of that year. It's a blues, of course, and in this territory McLean and Gordon have few peers. Jackie makes several references to the little tag that Bird used to preface his set-closing 'Theme'. It's a long and highly-charged solo. When it comes to the quotation game Dexter is tops and in the course of his solo you will find snatches of 'Oop-bap-Sh'bam', his favourite 'And the Angels Sing', 'Santa Claus Is Coming to Town', 'Frankie and Johnny', etc.
"When Dexter first recorded 'Dexter Digs In', Niels-Henning was four months old. That was in 1946 and more than a quarter of a century later Mr. Gordon still sounds as fresh as a spring dawn. This extended 're-write' of the tenor saxophonist's original (which, incidentally, had Bud Powell and Max Roach in the supporting cast!) finds Jackie and Kenny, besides Dexter, digging in. There is some kinetic conversation between the saxes before the rideout. This riffy opus, by the way, inspired singer Eddie Jefferson to write a memorable set of lyrics which he recorded in 1969.
"Jackie's closing tribute says it all. Dexter was his source and their collective source was bebop. What Jackie doesn't mention is his own part in these proceedings. There can be no doubt tha on those nights at the Montmartre, Mr. McLean acted as a catalyst to the man who was his own original inspiration. It could only happen in jazz and to have the occasion preserved on two great albums makes it a treat we can savour over and over again." (Mark Gardner. From the liner notes.)
Performers: Jackie McLean (a-sx), Dexter Gordon (t-sx), Kenny Drew (pi), Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (bs), Alex Riel (dr)
1. Half Nelson
2. I Can't Get Started
3. On The Trail
4. Closing
5. Another Hair-Do
6. Dexter Digs In
7. Closing
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)