Hampton Hawes - All Night Session! Vol. 3

"In 'All Night Session' the characteristic sound of the quartet is produced by the interplay between Hawes and Red Mitchell's bass. As with many West Coast combos, Hawes prefers a drummer with a light beat. In selection after selection, the rhythmic pulse is generated by the bass while the drums are heard only in the delicate ching of an afterbeat cymbal.

"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

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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

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Hampton Hawes - All Night Session! Vol. 1

"As a group, the three albums and sixteen selection comprising 'All Night Session' represent a most unusual achievement in the annals of jazz recording. The almost two hours of music were recorded at a single, continuous session, in the order in which you hear the numbers, and without editing of any kind. This seems like an impossible fear. Playing steadily for several hours is a taxing physical experience at best, but improvising continually for that length of time is an exhausting one, mentally and emotionally. Yes the later selections in 'All Night Session' reveal no flagging of vitality, spontaneity, or inventiveness. 'The feeling wasn't like recording,' Hampton Hawes has said in commenting on the session. 'We felt like we went somewhere to play for our own pleasure. After we got started, I didn't even think I was making records. In fact, we didn't even listen to playbacks. We didn't tighten up as musicians often do in recording studios - we just played because we loved to play.' Considering the buoyant beat, skillful pacing, variety of material, spontaneous jazz feeling and the richness of invention, 'All Night Session' is a testimonial of the highest order to the musicianship of jazzman Hampton Hawes and his associates.

"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

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Art Pepper - Living Legend

"Since this is my first album in fifteen years, I was very nervous when I went to the date. Fortunately, I had people behind me who enabled me to just relax and blow, and I had a number of originals I wanted to record.

"'Ophelia' was written in 1963 in San Quentin, and it's about women. It's supposed to be pretty like a woman, really sad like women make you at times, and unpredictable and changeable.

"I got out of San Quentin not long after I wrote 'Ophelia', but it was only a few months before I went back again. And that's when I wrote 'Lost Life'. I called it that because I'd spent over ten years in prison and felt like I was never going to get out for any length of time. I figured I'd blown any chance I might have had to make anything of my life. When I wrote it, I never dreamed I'd ever record 'Lost Life', or anything else for that matter.

"When I got out of San Quentin for the last time at the end of '66, it was hard to get any kind of jazz gig. I'd go out with my tenor to rock clubs and sit in with the bands. The only professional job I had was at Shelly's Manne-Hole. At that time I was playing very outside, and when I started blowing at Shelly's, I could feel the mixed reaction of the audience.

"I knew it was because I was playing tenor. I was an alto player and when they heard my records jazz fans could say, 'That's Art Pepper,' because I had a style and tone all my own on the alto. I had switched to tenor for two reasons. Rock was in vogue, and only tenor players seemed to be working. But the major reason was that after all my years of playing, I had been influenced to the point of imitation by another musician, John Coltrane. I felt what I wanted to say I could only say with the tenor.

"At the breaks people came over to talk to me. Most of them were very upset. Someone said, 'Man, what happened to Art Pepper? Where's the beauty? Have you gone crazy?'

"I was very discouraged when, in 1968, I got a call from Buddy Rich, asking me to play lead alto in his band. I borrowed a horn and, when I started playing alto again in that setting, everything fell into place for me musically. I discovered I was able to say everything I wanted to say and I didn't have to sacrifice my individuality to be accepted or modern.

"When I was with Buddy's band, my spleen ruptured, and I almost died. After two operations, in terrible condition with nowhere to go, I moved into Synanon.

"In Synanon all I had was a tenor saxophone, but I only played occasionally in the evenings when the residents did a dance they called the 'Hoop-La'. The music was a kind of jazz-rock. I like playing for dancing, and I like all kinds of music, including rock, if it's done well. 'What Laurie Likes' might be called 'jazz-rock', but really it's just a down-home thing and a vehicle for me.

"After I left Synanon in 1972, I worked as a bookkeeper because I wasn't sure I wanted to return to music. Then I got a call from the University of Denver to do a clarinet clinic, a seminar-concert for student musicians. I didn't own any instruments, so I borrowed an old clarinet and went to Denver where I met Ken Yohe, who was showcasing instruments for Buffet. He was a fan of mine, and when he saw what I was playing, he lent me a clarinet. Ken encouraged me to get back into music. He said he'd arrange with Buffet for me to get some horns. Within a month I had them, and I've been doing clinics ever since. A year or so ago Ken came to L.A. and dropped into Donte's to hear me play. That night I wrote a little blues line and called it 'Mr. Yohe' in his honor.

"That night no doubt I also played 'Here's That Rainy Day' because it's a ballad I really love. I think I enjoy playing ballads more than anything else. You can pour your soul into them. You can say everything.

"'Samba Mom-Mom' was written right before we recorded. I wanted a Latinish happy ending for the album. It's not really a samba. I asked Shelly to play something that fit the melody, and he did.

"On September first I'll be fifty. The saying goes, 'Life begins at forty.' It looks for me like life begins at fifty, and I never thought I'd live to see fifty, let alone start a new life at this age. I think I'm playing better now than I ever have. Mentally and physically I feel better than I have since I was a kid. I've gone back to alto because that's my horn, the one I dig most of all, and when I play, I just play the way I feel - like I did on this album. If I get outside, it's because I feel outside, and if I feel funky, that the way I'm going to play. The main thing is to swing and be honest." (Art Pepper, August 30, 1975. From the liner notes.)

"I haven't played with Art since 1957... on this album he played what he plays best. It felt wonderful. It felt beautiful. He's a master musician. I've always felt a closeness with Hamp, the way he plays, his time, harmony concept. And Shelly, I've always loved to play with him. It really was a good experience to play with them. I mean that's the whole purpose of playing music - to feel a closeness with the musicians and to achieve that ultimate feeling of closeness with creativity, with music. It's a very rare and precious feeling, and that's the reason we've all dedicated our lives to the language of jazz - to achieve that feeling." (Charlie Haden. From the liner notes.)

"I first played with Art in 1951. We had a quartet at a club in L.A. When we made this album I hadn't played with him for fifteen years but none of the fire has gone out. In fact he even sounded better to me. We both came up at the same time and both of us have been through the trials and tribulations and the rewards of trying to play music for people. And to me Art Pepper is one of the giants. And Charlie and Shelly - they're steady as a rock. They're pros. When you're playing with them, you know, it's no effort at all, just have a good time and play." (Hampton Hawes. From the liner notes.)

"I was excited about doing this album because I hadn't played with Art since some Contemporary sessions in the '50s. I'd heard him several times in clubs, but you have to play with a guy to really feel the difference or the change in him over the years, and the moment we started in the studio I was amazed - I felt a greater strength in him than I ever had felt before. Of course he was always a great melodic and lyrical player, and very sensitive, but on the date his playing was a revelation to me. Maybe it's from all the dues he's had to pay, or however a person grows. I've always enjoyed playing with Hamp. He makes me want to swing - his enthusiasm rubs off on you. Charlie plays -with- you; he listens to what you're doing. His lines are so inventive, and his feeling is so loose and flexible, the door is always open to do your own thing." (Shelly Manne. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Art Pepper (a-sx), Hampton Hawes (pi), Charlie Haden (bs), Shelly Manne (dr)

A1. Ophelia

A2. Here's That Rainy Day

A3. What Laurie Likes

B1. Mr. Yohe

B2. Lost Life

B3. Samba Mom-Mom

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Charlie Haden & Hampton Hawes - As Long as There's Music

"Two or three years before his death in the Spring of 1977, Hampton Hawes was encouraged to take a musical direction that would theoretically attract a wider audience. Executives of his record company (not this one), evidently felt that electronics, popular repertoire, and slick studio arrangements would make this enormously attractive bebop pianist their answer to other labels' jazz-pop-rock crossover successes.

"Hawes, never having achieved popular acclaim in spite of or because of his pure and unwavering musicianship, undoubtedly found the prospect of earning a great deal of money in early middle age intriguing, at least. So he went along with their program. The albums that resulted had neither the burning creativity of his customary music nor the peculiar and unexplainable alchemy that creates pop heroes. The records, like one he had made of movie themes a few years earlier, could have been done by any competent pianist. Indeed, they were so colorless, it would have been difficult in a blindfold test for any but his most ardent followers to identify him.

"That period of attempted commerciality lasted only a short while, but it interrupted Hamp's recorded output during a time when his playing had taken on even greater depth and thoughtfulness than it contained in the 1950s and sixties. Fortunately, he return to recording uncompromising and uncompromised music, and we have evidence of how well he was playing during his final period. This album provides some of that evidence. There is more on the Art Pepper 'Living Legend' LP listed in the accompanying discography.

"Charlie Haden was another of the artists on the Pepper session, the first time he and Hawes had played together in a couple of decades. Their communion was so impressive, it seemingly became inevitable that the two of othem would make their own record.

"Haden has played with jazzmen of all styles and virtually all eras. One of his most impressive performances as a sideman was on a concert recording with Red Allen and Pee Wee Russell, then cursty and eccentric survivors of the rich classic jazz period of the twenties and thirties. This was at a time when Haden had make his reputation as a member of the Ornette Coleman Quartet, the most revolutionary, disturbing and iconoclastic band of the 1960s.

"Since, of course, it has become clear to all but the most reactionary that Coleman and his colleagues were working closer to the center and roots of jazz than most of us realized. Haden, for all his virtuosity and his identification with the avant garde, has always been a player in the central jazz tradition. Pee Wee Russell called him a stompin' bass player. Yet, he is capable of the most delicate filigree. Both aspects of Haden abound in the music at hand.

"Harmonically, Hawes was one of the richest jazz pianists, and among the joys of this album is Haden's ability to interact with him without conflicting with his harmonies. One of the great testimonials to the astounding speed and selectivity of the human mind is the superior jazzman's instant identification and execution of notes suitable to the harmonic choices of his companions. This is particularly impressive in the context of total improvisations like Hawes' and Haden's 'Hello/Goodbye'. With no preconceived melodic or harmonic plan, the musicians create a composition in which all of the parts fit as if they had been annotated.

"Yes, for many listeners, the most accessible music here will be 'Irene', with its deceptively simple-seeming melody and its gutsy blues choruses, and the familiar progressions of 'What Is This Thing Called Love?' That Cole Porter staple was a part of Hawes' first trio album for the Contemporary label in middle 1950s. It is a song that he, like most graduates of the bop era, loved for its qualities of order and contrast. It has served as the basis for Tadd Dameron's classic 'Hot House'. Hawes and Haden give it a varied treatment, from rhapsodic to straight down the middle, but the overall feeling is of contentment. Haden calls his treatment 'This Is Called Love'.

"This entire session, although it produced moments of unalloyed excitement, has the relaxed air only master improvisers can bring to a jazz performance. And the album, like all records of worthwhile music, reveals more with each hearing.

"At this writing, Charlie Haden has withdrawn from music for a period of contemplation and spiritual renewal. It would be unthinkable that he remain away from jazz for long: he is too vital a force in its development and too valuable a stabilizing link to its immediate past.

"Hawes, after a life packed with disastrous personal low points and glorious artistic peaks, is gone. He never made the charts of popular best sellers, and he was probably discouraged to the point of pain that he was not materially rewarded in proportion to what he knew to be the size of his musical contribution. His legacy is in the music that remains so fresh and alive in the best of his recordings, and in the influence his playing has had upon a generation of musicians. As the years go by, it will become increasingly clear that Hampton Hawes was a major contributor to the jazz tradition." (Doug Ramsay. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Charlie Haden (bs), Hampton Hawes (pi)

1. Irene

2. Rain Forest

3. Turnaround

4. As Long As There's Music

5. This Is Called Love

6. Hello/Goodbye

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Hampton Hawes - Jam Session

A Japanese exclusive LP, apparently never released outside of that country despite Columbia reissues in 1976 and 2014. Consider Joe Henderson's "In Japan" (or "Henderson's Habiliment", it's Japanese title): a western musician playing with a Japanese band to great critical success. As Max E. Leash explains in the introduction, Hawes had spent some time in Japan in the early fifties following his time in the military, and had become a regular at jam sessions. These tracks were laid down following his return, this time as a tourist, in 1968. The results are very enjoyable; Hawes is on top form and the native musicians put in an excellent, laid-back performance.

Performers: Hampton Hawes (pi), Hidehiko Matsumoto/Akira Miyazawa (t-sx), Shungo Sawada (gt), Isato Suzuki (bs), George Otsuka (dr)

A1. Introduction By Max E. Lash
A2. All The Things You Are
A3. Buzzy
B1. Uma-San's Blues
B2. There'll Never Be Another You

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Wardell Gray - Live At The Haig 1952

One of the final bright moments of the burdened tenorman. Gray had, by some accounts, become disillusioned with the music business. The overall quality of his output had declined as his heroin use had risen, and recording sessions had become infrequent. Three years later, in May 1955, he would be found dead in a stretch of desert outside of Las Vegas with his neck broken. As such, we hear here man-made-myth; a comet burning out in a diminishing arc away from earth, leaving only its image embedded in our minds. We think, of course, of Clifford Brown, of Fats Navarro, but also of Buddy Bolden, that great twist in the root of all jazz tragedy. The playing here is excellent, relaxed and the lineup is a who's who of phenomenal L.A. musicians in their prime. This disc was initially issued on Xanadu as "Live in Hollywood" in 1977 with seven songs; this 1991 Fresh Sound Records edition has nine, and is probably as close to the complete concert as we will find.

Performers: Wardell Gray (t-sx), Art Farmer (tp), Howard Roberts (gt), Hampton Hawes/Amos Trice (pi), Joe Mondragon (bs), Shelly Manne (dr)

1. Bernie's Tune
2. The Squirrel
3. Pennies From Heaven
4. Donna Lee
5. Taking A Chance On Love
6. Jackie
7. Get Happy
8. Keen And Peachy
9. Lady Bird

mp3/192kbps

Dexter Gordon & Wardell Gray - The Hunt

"From 1941 to 1946, when servicemen began to drift back from the Pacific theatres, their pockets full of money, many of them to remain in Southern California, Central Avenue came to bear a striking resemblance to another street, remembered from another war, Basin Street, the thoroughfare of legendary Storyville, where jazz began." The liner notes wax lyrical on this truly historic recording. Jack Kerouac wrote of it in his seminal book "The Road": "They ate voraciously as Dean, sandwich in hand, stood bowed and jumping before the big phonograph, listening to a wild bop record I had just bought called 'The Hunt', with Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray blowing their tops before a screaming audience that gave the record fantastic frenzied volume. The Southern folk looked at one another and shook their heads in awe." There is a momentous energy to this recording. The always sublime Dexter Gordon pairs with Wardell Gray on tenor to create a never ending be-bop line of staggering stamina (each piece clocks in at around the twenty minute mark): ever-building, simmering till it boils over. There is a natural catharsis in hearing the audience screaming for more ("Go! Go!"); you can feel the musicians move, sense the sweat on their brow as they lose themselves in the music to a truly captivated crowd.

Performers: Dexter Gordon/Wardell Gray (t-sx), Howard McGhee (tp), Trummy Young (tb), Barney Kessel (gt), Hampton Hawes (pi), Harry Babasin/Red Callender (bs), Connie Kay/Ken Kennedy (dr)

A. Disorder At The Border
B. Cherokee
C. Byas-A-Drink
D. The Hunt

mp3/320kbps