"Not long ago, I was talking to the pianist Cedar Walton about New York in 1950s, the hey-day of the bebop jam session, and an era where the city offered what he called 'an apprenticeship for young musicians, places where we could play until daybreak.' These days, he lamented, that spirit has all but disappeared. Then his eyes brightened: 'Except for one guy. Roy Hargrove. He wakes up in the middle of the night, grabs his horn, finds some place to play and jams 'til dawn. In 1955 there were dozens of places where those of us in our twenties could play. There aren't hardly any now, but Roy knows them all, and they all know him.'
"Critics have praised Roy Hargrove for his 'neo-classicism', his return to the values of players like Lee Morgan and Kenny Dorham, but among musicians, the talk is of his indefatigable spirit, his urge to play and to compete on the highest possible level. Still only twenty-six years old when this session was recorded in Toronto in June 1996, Roy has established himself as one of the most consistent and sought-after trumpeters on today's scene, and this disc definitively places him at the very peak of his profession.
"Also at the peak of his profession after a career that has flourished for well over fifty of his three score years and ten is Oscar Peterson. Oscar has never lost the competitive jam-session spirit so evident in Roy Hargrove, despite a time in 1950s when with 'Jazz at the Philharmonic' in full flight there was a danger, as bassist Ray Brown put it, that he'd be 'jam-sessioned out'.
"There is little hint in his playing here of debilitating stroke that Oscar suffered in 1993, which curtailed his use of his left hand. As my colleague Clive Davis put it in his London 'Times' review of Peterson's concert there, a mere to weeks after this recording date, 'the prodigious work-rate of his right hand restores a sense of equilibrium. One result is that Peterson's solos have taken on a more emphatic, measured tone.' In fact, it seems that the enfored lay-off stimulated Peterson's creative energy, and his deft solos here, as well as his original compositions like 'Rob Roy' (written for Hargrove) and the deeply-felt 'She Has Gone' (here dedicated to the memory of Ella Fitzgerald), show a more introspective side to his thinking than the dazzling days of his 1970s Pablo recordings and solo tours.
"A perfect example of this aspect of Oscar's work is his solo on 'Just Friends', where his opening break leads into a succession of figures which are all skillfully developed before being cast aside as each new figure emerges. There's a compositional sense of form and intensity here, just as there is in the hand, stabbing chords that explore the following tenor sax solo.
"This is by tenorist Ralph Moore, an old colleague of Hargrove's from the very first session Roy made under his own name ('Diamond in the Rough', cut in 1989). Moore, born in London in 1956, is also, as it happens, a former member of Cedar Walton's Quartet and, after a childhood in England, a musician who learned his craft in the U.S.A. alongside players like Dizzy Gillespie, Horace Silver, Billy Higgins, Ray Brown and J.J. Johnson. His sinuous tenor lines, robust at fast tempos and deceptively simple in the ballads, are a perfect foil for the bright tone of Hargrove's trumpet and the more somber melancholy of his flugelhorn. In recent years, Moore has spent time in the 'Tonight Show' band on U.S. television, and it is good to hear his jazz powers undiminished on this disc. Sample for example, his solo which begins with just bass and drums on Peterson's gently funky 'Truffles'.
"On drums is a musicians from Phoenix, Arizona, a couple of years younger than Moore, and who first came to international attention when he was recommended to Benny Carter, aged only twenty-one. Lewis Nash has worked on several sessions with Peterson, perhaps most notable on 'The More I See You', with Clark Terry and Betty Carter [...]. He is being hailed as one of the best and most all-'round drummers in jazz today, which not only makes him a well-qualified addition to this session, but also proves that it pays to have a musical philosophy and to put it into practice.
"Lewis Nash has often gone on record with his aspiration to make drumming more 'poetic', and to stress the 'melodic and caressing' side of his craft. He once said that 'drums can have the effect of speech', and through the intense concentration with which he both supports and enhances the work of his colleagues, he develops a satisfying conversational rapport with them all, not least the closing measure of 'North York', where his breaks are played with a nod to the classic jazz drum style of players like Max Roach and Art Blakey - demonstrating the same neo-classicism in his work as Hargrove displays.
"Perhaps the most masterly musical conversationalist in the group is Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen on bass. Ever since his own sparkling debut in his native Denmark as a teenage prodigy on records with Bud Powell and Ben Webster, Niels has delighted audiences the world over with his refreshing approach to the bass, and his phenomenal technique that allows him to play solos as mobile and flexible as any other instrument. He was one of the first jazz bassists in history to play solo lines that would transfer effortlessly to saxophone or trumpet, and where his instrument offered no impediment to his freedom of expression and thought.
"This is as true today as it was back in the 1960s, and his long musical relationship with Oscar Peterson has been remarkably fruitful for both men. Their easy rapport is evident from the first notes they play, and on Niels-Henning's masterly solos on pieces like 'Rob Roy' and 'Truffles', where twists and turns of his basslines are expertly shadowed by minimal chords from Oscar.
"Like all the best groups, this band displays several different moods and styles across the course of the album, without ever losing the overall sense of identity shaped by the personalities of Peterson and Hargrove.
"Most moving of all is the tender piano solo, with just the lightest of backing from Pedersen and Nash, on 'She Has Gone'. Yet in the ballads 'My Foolish Heart' and 'Ecstasy', Hargrove picks up this sad introspection in his brooding flugelhorn tone, and together with Moore's plaintive tenor creates performances of great dignity and depth.
"Moving more swiftly is 'Blues for Stephane', a piece written by Oscar for a dear friend, and led off here by a neat riff in the opening chorus. The composition demonstrate the infinite variety possible within the simple blues sequence, in the hands of musicians with this level of experience and talent. 'Cool Walk', also based on one of the perennial chord sequences from early jazz that lent their names to a lot of different tunes over the years, is another medium-paced excursion for the band, while at the other extreme are more uptempo bebop classics like 'Just Friends' and 'Tin Tin Deo'. This last title was recorded in 1951 by Dizzy Gillespie and the young John Coltrane on tenor sax, in what was one of Coltrane's earliest small group record dates. Undaunted by history, Hargrove, Moore, Peterson, and the group treat it like a fresh new composition.
"Right through the history of jazz, when microphones have eavesdropped on a jam session, one of two things has happened. Sometimes nothing goes quite right, and the microphones are an embarrassment. More often, the creativity prompted by the spur of the moment leads to great things, and the performances preserved for prosterity take on a life of their own. The famous Nat King Cole sessions with Buddy Rich and Charlie Shavers are one example; others might Illinois Jacquet's 'Blues Part Two' for 'Jazz at the Philharmonic', or the series of Buck Clayton Jam Sessions cut in the 1950s.
"This disc isn't a live jam session, but because its key players are season in the art of such events, it captures just the right blend of formality and informality. There's no sense of any of the players here being 'jam-sessioned out' - only the strong feeling that as the instruments were packed away and the studio lights dimmed, more than one of the assembled company would have been thinking of moving on to somewhere where they could keep this glorious music-making going and play all night." (Alyn Shipton. From the liner notes.)
Performers: Oscar Peterson (pi), Roy Hargrove (tp), Ralph Moore (t-sx), Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (bs), Lewis Nash (dr)
1. Tin Tin Deo
2. Rob Roy
3. Blues For Stephane
4. My Foolish Heart
5. Cool Walk
6. Ecstasy
7. Just Friends
8. Truffles
9. She Has Gone
10. North York
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