Roscoe Mitchell - Bells for the South Side

“In the midst of the historic events surrounding the 50th anniversary of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), I wanted to highlight my explorations into new artistic territory, as represented by the series of trio project showcased in this recording.

“I began work on these trios when Jeff Gauthier and Alex Cline contacted me to say they wanted to honor me for my 71st birthday and 45th anniversary of AACM by inviting me to be a part of Angel City Festive 2011. Alex Cline wanted to do an arrangement of my composition ‘People in Sorrow’ (‘For People in Sorrow: an Homage’ by Alex Cline for a twelve-piece ensemble with Will Salmon conducting). For the same occasion I decided to write a composition, titled ‘Angel City’, for my first trio. Trio number one consists of two of my colleagues at Mills College, James Fei and William Winant, and myself. ‘Angel City’ was premiered at the REDCAT Theater on Sunday, October 2, 2011, Los Angeles, California.

“The second trio was formed after a friend and local supporter of new music, Harry Bernstein, called me to mention that Tyshawn Sorey was playing a solo concert at his home and asked me if I would and play a piece with Tyshawn at this concert. This was my first time meeting Tyshawn Sorey, and I found him to be an amazing musician. After that performance I had an opportunity to do some more music with Tyshawn Sorey and decided to add Hugh Ragin, a musician I’ve worked with since the mid-1970s, who I met when I was giving a workshop at the Creative Music Foundation in Woodstock, New York. This occasion led to the formation of the second trio.

“The third trio formed when I was scheduled to play at the Café Oto in London. A bold young London drummer named Kikanju Baku wrote me an email saying he wanted to play with me and sent me some of his music to listen to. I was very impressed with the music he sent me, and on the second night of my performance at Café Oto I invited him to sit in with the trio of John Edwards, Tani Tabbal, and myself. I’ve worked with Craig Taborn since the late 1990s. He has been a member of several of my bands and is a musician of the highest caliber. Putting these musicians together resulted in the formation of trio three.

“The fourth trio features two musicians I have had the pleasure of working with since the mid-1970s, Tani Tabbal and Jaribu Shahid. They were members of the Sound Ensemble, the first groups I established outside of the Art Ensemble of Chicago after returning to the United States from Europe in the early 1970s. They are also founding members of the Creative Arts Collective (CAC), the musicians’ collective I founded modeled on the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). To me, it was always a given that Tani and Jaribu would be my fourth trio for the performances at the Museum of Contemporary Art.” (Roscoe Mitchell. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Roscoe Mitchell (si/s/a/bs-sx/fl/pl/b-recorder/pc), Hugh Ragin (tp/p-tp), Tyshawn Sorey (tb/pi/dr/pc), James Fey (si/a-sx/ca-cl/electronics), Craig Taborn (pi/og/electronics), Jaribu Shihad (bs/bs-gt/pc), Kikanju Baku/Tani Tabbal (dr/pc), William Winant (pc/tubular bells/glockenspiel/vb/mb/rototoms/cymbal/bs drum/wood block/timpani)

1. Spatial Aspects Of The Sound

2. Panoply

3. Prelude To A Rose

4. Dancing In The Canyon

5. EP 7849

6. Bells For The South Side

7. Prelude To The Card Game, Cards For Drums, And The Final Hand

8. The Last Chord

9. Six Gongs And Two Woodblocks

10. R509A Twenty B

11. Red Moon In The Sky/Odwalla

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Johnny Griffin - The Man I Love

“Critic Ralph J. Gleason made an oft-quoted remark about Johnny Griffin during the course of a 1958 ‘Down Beat’ record review. To avoid any misunderstandings this is Gleason’s paragraph, in full: ‘Unquestionably Johnny Griffin can play the tenor saxophone faster, literally, than anyone alive. At least he can claim this until it’s demonstrated otherwise. And in the course of playing with this incredible speed, he also manages to blow longer without refueling than you would ordinarily consider possible. With this equipment he is able to play almost all there could possibly be played in any given chorus.’

“As far as it goes Gleeson’s words are probably correct. (In the absence of a jazz section to the Guinness Book of Records we must assume Griffin’s leading position in the field of runners in the Semi-Quaver Race.) But it would be wrong to assume that John Arnold Griffin III was nothing more than a note-producing machine fitted with a control graduated from ‘Finished with Engines’ up to ‘Full Speed Ahead’. He is an amazingly consistent soloist, a man who is never off from by all accounts; undeniably he likes fast tempos but is a complete, rounded jazz musician, capable of tackling any material with the aid (or something otherwise!) of any rhythm section. Since he came to Europe in 1962, at the age of 34, he has been giving free lessons on the gentle arts of relaxation, saxophone technique, deep-seated emotional intensity and a host of other important elements to thousands of listeners in Paris, London, Copenhagen and other centres where jazz is appreciated.

“When John left the United States he seemed already to have achieved more than many jazzmen achieve in a lifetime. He was 16 when he joined Lionel Hampton’s band as an alto saxophonist. (At least Griffin thought he had been booked to play alto in the reed section. On his first date with the band he took out the smaller horn only to be asked the whereabouts of his tenor. He dashed back home to Chicago at the earliest opportunity laid hands on a tenor and rejoined Hamp’s reed section which contained such stalwarts as Arnett Cobb, Bobby Plater and Charlie Fowlkes.) When Joe Morris, one of Hamp’s trumpeters, left to form his own band in 1947 John went with him and stayed with Morris for three years. (Morris’s lively little rhythm-and-blues band had a rhythm section comprising Elmo Hope, Percy Heath and Philly Joe Jones for a time.)

“Apart from a handful of relatively short engagements with other bands (Arnett Cobb’s unit in 1951, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers from March to October 1957 and the Thelonious Monk Quartet during the summer of 1958) Griffin has been a solo artist or band leader since leaving the Joe Morris band. When I spoke to him during one of his bookings at the Ronnie Scott Club during the late sixties he seemed content to be touring the European jazz centres, secure in the knowledge that he would find a suitable rhythm section for his engagements. (He also spoke of the Johnny Morris band with pride, listed the names of the men who had passed through its ranks and gave me the news that Morris had died a few years earlier.) But I suspect that his appearances at the Montmartre Jazzhuis in Copenhagen during 1967 must have given him particular pleasure. The rhythm section contained two other expatriate Americans, friends of Johnny who had worked and recorded with him back home. Pianist Kenny Drew, a direct contemporary of Griffin, came to Europe from New York City in 1962 while Al Heath brother of bass player Percy and saxophonist Jimmy, lived in Europe between 1965 and 1968. The bass player, Nils Henning Ørsted-Pedersen, is of course the world-class Danish jazzman who has worked with every visiting American and was a member of the Oscar Peterson Trio for a time.

“The LP contains music which is wholly typical of a Johnny Griffin set, rich in blues either actual (such as ‘Blues for Harvey’) or as an overlying mood (Duke’s lovely ‘Sophisticated Lady’, painted here in varying shades of azure). Despite the different instruments Griffin’s most obvious influence must be Charlie Parker and if one plays parts of the LP at the incorrect speed of 45rpm the Parker Quality is perhaps more noticeable. (The speed change shifts the tenor up into the alto saxophone register.) Listen to the manner in which Griffin even when those phrases consist a flurry of notes you will observe the Parker-like rhythmic approach. ‘I like to play fast. I get excited. When the rhythm section gets cooking I want to explode,’ Griffin once told an interviewer. He was too modest to even hint that his own playing, in turn, was the cause of many rhythm sections cooking as they have never cooked before. The threesome heard here have proved their worth in other contexts but the presence of Griffin ‘The Infallible’ must have acted as a spur and when Al Heath sets the ball rolling with a crisp drum solo right at the beginning of ‘The Man I Love’ the atmosphere seems to be charged with a special electricity which affects all four men. Back in the early sixties Johnny helped to spark off just such a feeling night after night when he co-led a quintet with that other great tenor saxophone individualist, Eddie Davis.

“But the music is not made up simply of break-neck races over chordal assault courses. On ‘Hush-a-Bye’ the Griffin tenor is positively Hawkins-like in places, full of rich-toned authority but edged with a mellowness which is as welcome here as it is on the beautiful ‘Sophisticated Lady’. Johnny is careful to ensure that his fellow musicians are given solo space and inevitably it is the resourceful Kenny Drew who makes a big impression with his wonderfully swinging two-handed piano playing.

“The set closes with ‘Wee’, the Denzil Best tune which Griffin has been using as a theme for some time. The number started life under the title ‘Allen’s Alley’ when it was a part of a Coleman Hawkins record date on which Allen Eager was featured.” (Alun Morgan. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Johnny Griffin (t-sx), Kenny Drew (pi), Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (bs), Albert Heath (dr)

1. The Man I Love

2. Hush-A-Bye

3. Blues For Harvey

4. The Masquerade Is Over

5. Sophisticated Lady

6. Wee

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Miles Davis - Bitches Brew Live

“‘We played a lot of half-empty clubs in 1969,’ Miles Davis wrote in his autobiography. The jazz market was dwindling, and so even as he was making some of his most revelatory music, Miles Davis was not a major draw. Often, his hot new quintet - keyboardist Chick Corea, bassist Dave Holland, drummer Jack DeJohnette and mainstay saxophonist Wayne Shorter - was playing places like the Blue Coronet in Brooklyn or Shelly’s Manne-Hole in Los Angeles. But what a difference a year can make.

“In a way, Davis and Newport Jazz Festival impresario George Wein were in similar places in 1969. Both were facing declining sales and wanted to move with the time. And both came to the same conclusion: explore the possibilities of rock music. They met with very different results.

“Even at 43, in an era when the mantra was ‘Don’t trust anyone over 30,’ Davis retained a formidable cool. But jazz had not. ‘Rock was happening.’ For a restless artist like Miles Davis, being ‘a happening’ may well have been a larger part of rock’s allure than the music itself.

“In order to resuscitate waning ticket sales, Wein decided to take the blasphemous step of booking rock bands for the 1969 Newport Jazz Festival. Besides iconic jazzers like Buddy Rich, Art Blakey and Dave Brubeck, the bill included Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, and Sly & the Family Stone, among others. In ‘66, Davis had rented a boat and docked it in Newport Harbor so he wouldn’t have to hang out backstage. He just walked off the boat, played his set, then got back aboard and split back to New York. But in ‘69, Davis stayed on site the whole weekend. ‘He watched every group and he watched the response of everyone in the audience, who got the most applause, what music they were playing,’ Wein recalls. ‘He wanted to be part of that world because that’s where it was happening.’

“The Miles Davis Quintet played Saturday afternoon, July 5th, on a bill with Gary Burton, John Mayall, Frank Zappa and the Mothers, Tal Farlow, Red Norvo, the Newport All-Stars and Ruby Braff. It was about three weeks before the release of ‘In a Silent Way’.

“Every Miles Davis show was unique. But some were more unique than others. The Shorter-Corea-Holland-DeJohnette lineup is called ‘The Lost Quintet’ because they never recorded in the studio as a fivesome. But the band that played Newport that day could be called the Really Lost Quartet - Shorter got stuck in traffic and missed the gig.

“Before he even played a note, Davis’ clothes signaled what side of the cultural divide he was on - he’d forsaken his trademark sharp Brooks Brothers suits and was now sporting gigantic bug-eye shades and a blue denim suit that laced up the legs. ‘Miles was very consumed with being outrageous all his life,’ says Wein. ‘He wanted to walk into a room and have everybody look at him.’

“Their set was brief but dense with incident. The cool, elegant sound of Davis’ first electric albums, ‘Miles in the Sky’, ‘Filles de Kilimanjaro’ and ‘In a Silent Way’, so unlike the cataclysmic social climate of the late ‘60s, belied live performances that didn’t just reflect the tenor of the times, but their accelerated pace and din. ‘My group is loud,’ Davis noted. ‘That’s just the times we live in.’

“‘Miles Runs the Voodoo Down’ only found its languid Nawlins strut in the studio; this version burns hotter and faster. You can feel the rush of excitement from the younger players, who had been playing with the maestro for less than a year, but the feeling is clearly mutual. Davis starts with a fairly restrained solo, lays out for maybe ten bars, then plays another solo in a different mood as the band erupts around him - it’s almost as if, lacking Shorter, Davis is simulating the effect of a second soloist.

“The ‘Bitches Brew’ sessions took place six weeks later, so not all the music on the album was totally improvised - the band had been playing ‘Voodoo’, ‘Sanctuary’ and ‘Spanish Key’ before they recorded them, something Davis rarely did after 1963. During ‘Voodoo’, Corea quotes from ‘John McLaughlin’, originally a section of ‘Bitches Brew’ - so it too was kicking around before recording.

“Davis was in top shape - vegetarian, drug-free and on a boxer’s workout regimen; it shows in his float-like-a-butterfly-sting-like-a-bee playing. Corea is on fire, digging into the overtones of the electric keyboard, indelibly personalizing what many had considered an impersonal instrument. DeJohnette is absolutely rolicking and yet rarely ignoring the backbeat, and although Holland is all but drowned out, he was holding down the fort. They bring ‘Voodoo’ to the brink and back, never letting up until Davis steps in, takes it down and builds it up again over febrile riffing. Davis cues them with the tune’s theme and it’s into ‘Sanctuary’.

“‘Sanctuary’ gets a bit deflated - the climactic riff becomes an unadorned melody line rather than the expansive Davis-Shorter fanfare. Davis played a pensive lick that recalls his intro, signaling DeJohnette into a double-time beat that launches ‘It’s About that Time’ from ‘In a Silent Way’. There’s a lull, as if they’re catching their breath, then boom, DeJohnette uncorks a fast snare roll, Davis spews a dizzying flurry of notes, and it’s like the band got shot out of a cannon. Corea eventually calms things down and Davis picks up the mood, Corea occasionally hinting at the tune’s theme, but DeJohnette lights a fire under things very quickly, Davis is playing punchy, rhythmic licks, then tootles out traditional set-ender ‘The Theme’ while things are still airborne.

“A lot of the audience hadn’t yet heard the electric Miles Davis in concert. But note the big applause. People dug it. Of course they did - the set, as Davis would say, was a motherfucker.

“Wein doesn’t recall the show. ‘It was so hectic, I didn’t know what the hell was going on,’ he says. ‘I was concerned with not having a riot.’ He’s serious - on two days, hordes of rock-crazed hippie kids crashed the festival fences and bedlam ensued. Wein had argued that jazz and rock had common ground - the blues and improvisation - but the deeply divided audiences told otherwise. George Wein never again invited so many rock bands to Newport. ‘I definitely sold out that year, no question about it,’ he admits. ‘Because my festival was dying. But after that, I said let it die, we’ll keep struggling.’

“Some people felt Miles Davis had sold out too. But in fact he’d gained a new lease on musical life and was on the brink of attaining one of his greatest triumphs.

“Shorter left in early 1970, eventually replaced by former McCoy Tyner and Max Roach sideman Gary Bartz, who’d recorded some hip late ‘60s albums under his own name. Davis also added Brazilian percussionist Airto and another keyboardist, Keith Jarrett, who’d played with DeJohnette for jazz-rock pioneer Charles Lloyd. The septet played mostly rock venues that summer, opening for the Grateful Dead, Santana and Neil Young. They learned what worked for the rock crowd and they were right.

“Situated on an island off the southern coast of England, Isle of Wight ‘70 was one of the biggest rock festivals ever, attendance estimated as high as 600,00. Headliners included The Who, The Doors and Jimi Hendrix. The atmosphere was often contentious: a hippie with delusions of grandeur interrupted Joni Mitchell’s set and tried to declare a free festival. But no one dared interrupt Miles Davis. ‘He’s a pretty cool cat, Miles,’ note Murray Lerner, director of the Isle of Wight documentary ‘Message to Love’. ‘What was there to attack?’

“They began playing just as the sun began to go down on that hot August day. They followed Tiny Tim, whose silly but wildly well received performance was an ideal set-up: people were ready for something heavy.

“They took the stage, the only jazz band of the festival, all big hair and bell bottoms, and opened with a longtime set-starter ‘Directions’, a Joe Zawinul composition that was an outtake from a November 1968 session. They vamp for several minutes, as if synchronizing their musical watches; once they’re locked in, Davis cues the tune’s angular theme, complete with world-tilting bass line by Holland. His switch to electric bass guitar is key: its sonic gut-punch means you can now hear everything Holland plays - and just as importantly, so could the band. That and the two electric keyboards underscore the notion that, galvanic as it was, the Newport ‘69 band was stranded between two worlds; Isle of Wight ‘70 is full-blown electric Miles.

“Jazz was originally body music - funky, not just cerebral - and Davis wanted to reclaim, as he wrote in his autobiography, ‘that roadhouse, honky-tonk, funky thing that people used to dance to on Friday and Saturday nights.’ By the Isle of Wight, ‘The funkiness and the sort of primal stuff that he wanted,’ said Jarrett in Lerner’s documentary ‘Miles Electric’, ‘was finally coming out.’ This was Miles Davis you could dance to.

“At Newport, it was as few as three people playing at once; now it’s usually six. ‘Bitches Brew’ exemplified the same economy of line as Zen painting, the metaphor used by pianist Bill Evans in his famous ‘Kind of Blue’ liner notes. But Davis wasn’t doing Zen painting anymore; now the canvas was dense with brushstrokes. Wisely, they all throttle back the density and tempo a little. Corea (in the right speaker) plays much less densely than at Newport, spinning out guitar-like chords and motifs, even imitating feedback and wah-wah effect with an effects box he kept on his keyboard. Meanwhile Jarrett (in the left speaker) pounds out hard-grooving bolts of pure energy. Brilliantly, Davis placed Corea and Jarrett on opposite sides of the stage so they couldn’t hear each other. By design, they often clash. But they’re superlative musicians, so they clash gloriously.

“‘Bitches Brew’ opens like some interstellar villain’s theme song but then Holland thrums out a lick, Corea responds and the groove is on. It morphs constantly: there’s a King Crimson-like interlude, and under Bartz’s beguiling solo, it gets so funky, it almost sounds like the Meters, leading to a breakdown that summons up extraterrestrial Dixieland. Sometimes they exult in pure sound, like that wind-blows electronic scree from Corea’s keyboard - a master musician truly at play. Like Corea, Davis had also come to embrace noise - Airto rarely plays time and instead basically plays sound effects, as in the way he use the whimpering sound of the cuica to bounce off Davis, like a hip-hop ‘hype man’ echoing and egging on the frontman.

“Davis’ lyricism, poise and skill in the midst of roiling clamor is what makes him not just cool but inspirational. But the whole band is heroic - part of the music’s incredible excitement stems from the fact that they’re basically jamming out on one chord the entire time, drawing on endless creativity and technique to remain utterly riveting the entire time. The listening, the intense focus, is audible.

“The band reaches a mind-blowing peak near the end of ‘It’s About Time’, Corea and Jarrett locked in a ferocious pas de deux. But Davis almost cruelly kills the momentum. What’s he up to? The music starts building and actually tops the previous peak, absolutely spine-tingling. They cool down with a quick ‘Sanctuary’ then crank it up on last time for ‘Spanish Key’. After a long absence, Bartz takes his final solo, screaming through his mouthpiece and then answering on the sax, Davis solos, the band vamping with almost unbearable tension - until he cues the tune’s theme and everything explodes into daylight. As ever, Davis cuts in with ‘The Theme’ while the party’s still rocking and leaves the stage. Jarrett strikes an ominous yet beautiful chord identical to one he played at the top of ‘Bitches Brew’ as the band’s final crescendo lapses into applause.

“A year before, Miles Davis had been playing small clubs. Now, four months after ‘Bitches Brew’, he’s got what was one of the best-selling albums in jazz history and instead of playing his new electric music before audiences of aging, disapproving jazz traditionalists, he’s blowing the minds of hundreds of thousands of young people. As Murray Lerner says, ‘It was a big, revolutionary moment when a person like that could play in front of such a large rock audience.’ At the Isle of Wight, Miles Davis had gone farther than any jazz musician had ever gone before - or since.” (Michael Azerrad, December 2010. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Miles Davis (tp), Gary Bartz (s/a-sx), Chick Corea (e-pi), Keith Jarrett (og), Dave Holland (bs), Jack DeJohnette (dr), Airto Moreira (pc)

1. Miles Runs The Voodoo Down

2. Sanctuary

3. It's About That Time (Theme)

4. Directions

5. Bitches Brew

6. It's About That Time

7. Sanctuary

8. Spanish Key

9. The Theme

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Johnny Griffin - Live in Tokyo

“There are certain players who, from the very first note of a solo, charge the air with an infectious, crackling energy that is one of the most satisfying experiences in music. Sidney Bechet was one of them, and so - in quite another vein - was Coleman Hawkins. A powerful contemporary illustration of that kind of force is Johnny Griffin. As Brian Case and Stan Britt put it in their ‘Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz’ (Harmony): ‘His solos are a string of great breaks, cliff-hanging climaxes and startling tonal devices, all held together by his colossal drive.’

“For this writer, Johnny Griffin became a formidable present on the scene in the 1950s - through a series of steaming Blue Note albums, and as one member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers who could be just as overwhelming as the volcanic leader. Then there was a Griffin stretch - and he was stretched - with Thelonious Monk, followed by a musically rambunctious period of touring with Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis. It was amply clear by then that Johnny Griffin was going to be one of those long-distance swingers - an improviser who would be holding and riveting audiences for a long time to come, no matter what new styles or turns jazz took.

“The problem for us turn out to be, however, that this mighty shouter chose to do that swinging outside the States. Starting in 1962, Griffin became an expatriate, working in France with the Kenny Clarke-Francy Bolland big band and moving all over Europe as a free-lancer. In the 1970s Griffin moved his base to Holland, where he even acquired his own farm. The traveling and recording continued, and the albums that were released in the States demonstrated two things: 1) Griffin had kept on growing as a player in terms of conception and time-flexibility, while losing none of the sweeping ardor that had characterized his work at the start; and 2) he had been underestimated during his years here. That is, although Griffin was appreciated for his fire back then, it took his long years away for many of us to recognize how consistently and deeply satisfying a player he is.

“There is a lot more to ‘The Little Giant’, as he came to be known, than the first Roman-candle-like impact he always makes. There is substance, a lot of substance, to those long, spiraling solos. And there is a great deal of musical integrity. Now that we have more than two decades of Griffin on records to assess, it is unmistakably evident that he has created - and continues to create - one of the most durably fulfilling bodies of work in the canon of jazz tenor saxophone.

“At last, in September, 1978, Johnny Griffin came home to remind us natives of how much we had lost when he decided to change continents. Starting at the Monterey Jazz Festival and then moving around the country - at other festivals and at clubs - ‘The Little Giant’ was sure to create a greatly broadened audience for his music and a corollary appetite for his recordings.

“Inner City has already released one hotly distinctive Johnny Griffin set, ‘Blue for Harvey’ (IC 2004), a session recorded in Copenhagen. ‘Down Beat’ gave it five stars, noting that ‘with his big sound, flawless technique and perfect sense of swing, Griffin’s energetic ebullience evokes sheer joy.’

“Now, in your hands, is a two-volume celebration of ‘The Little Giant’s’ prowess - a recording of an April 23, 1976 concert in Tokyo with pianist Horace Parlan, bassist Mads Vinding and drummer Art Taylor.

“First of all there is - throughout these persistently compelling performances - Griffin’s total command of the horn. All registers, from the deep bottom to way on high. Part of that command is the clarity of articulation. There is no fuzziness. Griffin’s attack is clean, clear and unfailingly coherent. He doesn’t blur or coast; and indeed, one of the marvels of his work is that as hard and fast as he drives, his ideas do not flag. He think as swiftly as he swings.

“Furthermore, in the midst of his leaping maturity, Griffin plays with more sensitivity to dynamics than in the past. And with more overall care for nuances - as in his long, unaccompanied passage in ‘All the Things You Are’.

“Another element in Griffin’s work is his depth of emotion - soul, as they used to say. There are players who finger fast and furiously but their emotive content is about an inch thick. Griffin is always ‘saying something’, always telling a story. And the tales, moreover, are not safely predictable. These are true improvisations, and in them, ‘The Little Giant’ continually takes risks. Like Roy Eldridge, whatever fitting idea hits him in mid-flight, he’ll try to incorporate in the narrative, however far-flung the chances he has to take.

“There is also, of course, Johnny Griffin’s pulse. He is one of those players who work, in any context, is the very definition of swinging. But the bigness of his spirit - as shown in his ideas and his tone - leads to a largeness and depth of swinging that is one of the delights of jazz. Add to that a remarkable resiliency of time-sense, and you get instant wonders of the way he plays with the beat in his exchanges with Art Tayor.

“With regard to ballads - as in Griffin’s own graceful, hauntingly affecting ‘When We Were One’ - it is there that ‘Little Giant’s’ essential romanticism becomes clear. He has become a most thoughtful, lyrical and tender spinner of ballad lines; but then, being protean of skills, Griffin roars into the sizzling ‘Wee’. Set at a ferocious tempo, it results in one of the more incandescent performances in recent recorded jazz history.

“One of the reasons Griffin can so hold, and even shake, an audience is the way he -builds- throughout his solos. It is this quality of cohesiveness, fired by ceaseless intensity, that leads the listener through climax after climax. And part of experiencing each climax is the anticipation of the next one. It’s like a kinetic mystery drama, and the way it works is shown with particular vividness in ‘The Man I Love’. But on this track too, there are, as I’ve noted, interludes in which the contours of Griffin’s space change. Long, unaccompanied flights during which the intensity takes on softer colors and cadences. And that shift in mood is also part of the building, part of the constantly unexpected, that accounts for Griffin being able to sustain interest over such long performances as are in this set.

“Yet another dimension of ‘The Little Giant’s’ sensibility is his own ‘Soft & Furry’ - with its wary, cat-like beginning and its ruminative probings of the intriguing, slightly mysterious theme. And once again, Griffin’s solo work has an immediacy, a freshness, that is a fusion of highly personal ideas, sound, and a time that breathes along with each change (harmonic as well as melodic).

“It should also be noted that ‘The Little Giant’, strong and expressively wide-ranging as he is, benefits from superior support in this concert. Horace Parlan, an expatriate since 1973, made a durable mark before he left through his work with Charles Mingus, the Johnny Griffin-Lockjaw Davis hurricane, and Roland Kirk. An acutely attentive accompanist, he is also an incisive soloist and on ballads, a romantic one. Mads Vinding (who is on Griffin’s ‘Blues for Harvey’ album on Inner City) is a bassist with depth. Depth of sound and time. And clarity, as in his arrestingly, serenely structured solo in ‘Soft & Furry’.

“The most valuable sideman here is Art Taylor. Yet another expatriate, and the recent author of unprecedentedly candid interviews with jazz musicians, Taylor for a long time was one of the busiest record session drummers in New York. And during much of that time, I reviews most of the current jazz recordings for ‘Down Beat’. At night, in that period, I also covered the clubs, and Taylor was nearly always working in one of them. Despite all that constant exposure to Art Taylor, I was never less than fascinated by his work, ensemble and solo. He is not only an extraordinarily supple technician, possessed of flawless time, but he also plays with a snap, crispness, wit and just plain excitement that continue to make him one of the front-ranking, world-class jazzmen.

“In fact, those qualities also identify Johnny Griffin, and the two - along with Parlan and Vinding - have created an album that will retain its zest as long as you do yours.” (Nat Hentoff. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Johnny Griffin (t-sx), Horace Parlan (pi), Mads Vinding (bs), Art Taylor (dr)

A. All The Things You Are

B1. When We Were One

B2. Wee

C. The Man I Love

D. Soft And Furry

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Miles Davis - Live-Evil

“‘Live-Evil’ is one of Miles Davis’ most confusing and illuminating documents. As a double album, it features very different settings of his band - and indeed two very different bands. The double-LP CD package is an amalgam of a December 19, 1970, gig at the Cellar Door, which featured a band comprised of Miles, bassist Michael Henderson, drummer Jack DeJohnette, guitarist John McLaughlin, saxophonist Gary Bartz, Keith Jarrett on organ, and percussionist Airto. These tunes show a septet that grooved hard and fast, touching on the great funkiness that would come on later. But they are also misleading in that McLaughlin only joined the band for this night of a four-night stand; he wasn't really a member of the band at this time. Therefore, as fine and deeply lyrically grooved-out as these tracks are, they feel just a bit stiff - check any edition of this band without him and hear the difference. The other band on these discs was recorded in Columbia’s Studio B and subbed Ron Carter or Dave Holland on bass, added Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock on electric pianos, dropped the guitar on ‘Selim’ and ‘Nem Um Talvez’, and subbed Steve Grossman over Gary Bartz while adding Hermeto Pascoal on percussion and drums in one place (‘Selim’). In fact, these sessions were recorded earlier than the live dates, the previous June in fact, when the three-keyboard band was beginning to fall apart. Why the discs were not issued separately or as a live disc and a studio disc has more to do with Miles’ mind than anything else. As for the performances, the live material is wonderfully immediate and fiery: ‘Sivad’, ‘Funky Tonk’, and ‘What I Say’ all scream with enthusiasm, even if they are a tad unsure of how to accommodate McLaughlin. Of the studio tracks, only ‘Little Red Church’ comes up to that level of excitement, but the other tracks, particularly ‘Gemini/Double Image’, have a winding, whirring kind of dynamic to them that seems to turn them back in on themselves, as if the band was really pushing in a free direction that Miles was trying to rein in. It’s an awesome record, but it’s because of its flaws rather than in spite of them. This is the sound of transition and complexity, and somehow it still grooves wonderfully.”  (Review by Thom Jurek for AllMusic. See here.)

Performers: Miles Davis (e-tp), Steve Grossman (s-sx), Gary Bartz (s-sx/fl), John McLaughlin (gt), Khalil Balakrishna (e-sitar), Herbie Hancock/Chick Corea/Joe Zawinul (e-pi), Keith Jarrett (e-pi/og), Dave Holland (e-bs), Michael Henderson (e-bs), Jack DeJohnette/Billy Cobham (dr), Airto Moreira (pc), Hermeto Pascoal (dr/whistling/vo/e-pi)

A1. Sivad

A2. Little Church

A3. Medley: Gemini/Double Image

B1. What I Say

B2. Nem Um Talvez

C1. Selim

C2. Funky Tonk

D. Inamorata And Narration

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Ornette Coleman - Town Hall 1962

“Ornette Coleman’s decision to temporarily retire from music (this ESP disc was his only recording from a four-year period) was unfortunate. His alto playing was getting stronger, and on evidence of this CD, he had plenty of original ideas that should have been documented. For this Town Hall concert, Coleman debuts with his new trio (a unit that would return in 1965) featuring the remarkable bassist David Izenson and drummer Charles Moffett. Together they perform ‘Doughnut’, ‘Sadness’, and an extensive 23-and-a-half minute version of ‘The Ark’. In addition, a string quartet performs Colemans’ ‘Dedication to Poets and Writers’. Although Ornette's string writing (which leaves no room for improvising) is pretty well outside of jazz, his playing on the other tracks holds one's interest throughout.” (Review by Scott Yanow for AllMusic. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Ornette Coleman (a-sx), David Izenzon (bs), Charles Moffett (dr)

A1. Doughnut

A2. Sadness

A3. Dedication To Poets And Writers

B. The Ark

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Saverio Mercadante - Il Giuramento

"During his lifetime he was hugely successful, and in his home city of Naples he could even contest the hegemony of Gaetano Donizetti as a popular favourite. Today, conversely, Saverio Mercadante occupies no more than a place in the second eleven of composers who left their mark on 19th century Italian opera. It is a fate that he shares with his contemporary, Giovanni Pacini (1796-1867), with whome he has a number of other points in common. Both were prolific composers: Mercadante wrote no fewer than sixty operas, Pacini as many as eighty-nine. And both were immensely successful, at least for a time. Both tried to lift Italian opera out of the shadow of the all-powerful Rossini, whom they none the less admired, and for this reason both of them took part in the reform movement instigated by Giuseppe Mazzini with 1836 manifesto 'Filosofia della musica'. In a letter that he wrote to his friend Francesco Florimo on 1 January 1838 Mercadante set out his ideas on reform in greater detail: among his essential point were the need to avoid coloratura writing for it own sake and the desirability of an enhanced role of the orchestra, which until then had been limited in Italian operas to the function of a mere accompanist. Finally, composers should adopt a freer approach to the strict patterns of Italian 'bel canto' opera in an attempt to achieve a more credible dramaturgy.

"However progressive these ideas may seem at first sight, many of them had in fact already been overtaken by reality. Bellini, for example, had abandoned the strict division between recitative and aria in his final operas, which include 'La sonnambula', 'Norma' and 'I Puritani'. Instead, he had introduced more fluid transitions and broken down the hitherto inviolable barrier between aria and ensemble by allowing interjections on the part of other characters. More seriously, neither Mercadante nor Pacini went as far as Verdi was later to do - and this is true even of their 'reform operas'. For it was Verdi who was to place Italian opera on a wholly new footing and thus to displace both Mercadante and Pacini in the operatic firmament. In spite of this, the younger composer owed many important ideas to his older colleagues.

"Saverio Mercadante was born at Altamura near Bari in 1795 and studied at the Real Collegio di Musica in Naples, where his teachers included Niccolò Zingarelli, who had also taught Bellini. He first attracted attention in 1818 with his cantata 'L'unione delle belle arti' and a year later enjoyed his first operatic success with 'L'apoteosi d'Ercole' at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. From then on he devoted himself almost exclusively to the stage. Between 1827 and 1830 he was active in Spain and Portugal, returning to Italy in 1830 and ushering in the most successful phase in his career. His works were enthusiastically received, none more so than 'I normanni a Parigi', first performed at the Teatro Regio in Turin in 1832. Three years later he travelled to Paris at the invitation of Rossini. Although his opera 'I briganti', based on Schiller's 'Die Räuber', proved no more than a 'succès d'estime' when unveiled at the Théâtre Italien in 1836, the first performance of Meyerbeer's 'Les Hugeunotes' only three weeks earlier left so powerful an impression on him that he now set out to reform Italian opera, taking the characteristic feature of French grand opera as his guidelines. First performed in Milan in 1837, 'Il giuramento' was the first of his reform operas, the most successful of which was 'La vestale' (1840). By then Mercadante's star was beginning to set. He finally settled in Naples in 1840 and the following year took over from Zingarelli as director of the city's Conservatory, a post he retained until his death. He went blind in 1862 and from then on wrote mainly small-scale instrumental works. His most famous composition remains his Flute Concerto in E minor. He died in Naples in 1870.

"'Il giuramento' was written immediately after Mercadante's return from Paris. It is based on Victor Hugo's stage play 'Angelo, tyran de Padoue', which Arrigo Boito - writing under the pseudonym of Tobia Gorrio - was to use forty years later for Amilcare Ponchielli's 'La Giaconda'. Mercadante's experienced librettist, Gaetano Rossi, reduced the number of Hugo's characters even more drastically than Boito was to do for Ponchielli, and yet, in spite of this, he was not entirely successful in unravelling the somewhat tangled plot of Hugo's original, which owes much to the then popular genre of Gothic melodrama. But Mercadante was evidently not concerned by this. In his eyes it was more important to create a series of atmospherically dense scenes that would fire his musical imagination and allow him to clothe each of these scenes in a distinctive musical garb. Solo writing for individual instruments plays an important role here, notably the flute in Bianca's first-act aria and the cello in the orchestral introduction to the scene by the family tomb in Act Two, which could almost be described as a miniature cello concerto.

"Typical of Mercadante attempts to reform opera is the taut dramaturgical structure of the opening act. There is no overture. Instead, the work begins with a festive chorus for Elaisa's guests. Embdedded within this chorus is a cavatina for Viscardo, telling of his infatuation for an unkown beauty. Shortly afterwards, his antagonist is introduced by means of a second cavatina, and this in turn gives way to an aria for Elaisa that tells of her eponymous vow ('giuramento') to find the young woman who once saved her father's life. This exposition is structure along the most succinct of lines and takes place against the background of a festive gathering that at the same time provides a contrast with the very different moods of the two cavatinas and aria. The third act, too, is brief and to the point, its dramatic impact enhanced by the fact that the action moved with inexorable logic towards its tragic climax. It goes without saying that there is no room her for the virtuoso final aria that was otherwise the rule at this period.

"Mercadante has sometimes been accused of writing tunes that fail to ignite. This reproach cannot be dismissed out of hand, and yet in 'Il giuramento' in particular the composer was able to counter this by means of harmonic writing that is varied and imaginative, while remaining in the service of the work's dramatic expression. 'Il giuramento' received its first performance at La Scala, Miland, on 11 March 1837 and proved an unparalleled success in its creator's career. As he informed his friend Francesco Florimo, even Mercadante himself had doubted that he would repeat the success of 'Elisa e Claudio', which had premièred at the same theatre sixteen years earlier. 'Il giuramento' was quickly taken up by other theatres throughout Italy, passing from there to the rest of Europe. Vienna was the first foreign capital to stage the work in April 1838, followed by Barcelona, London, Brussels, Copenhagen, New York, St. Petersburg, Buenos Aires and Paris, where it was first heard in 1858. By now, however, enthusiasm for the opera had already peaked, and the number of subsequent performances declined dramatically in the second half of the 19th century. By 1900 it had virtually disappeared from international schedules, and it was not until the 1950s that there was a gradual revival of interest in Mercadante's masterpiece. One reason for this increased interest was the powerful championship of the German conductor Gerd Albrecht, who conducted a concert performance of the work in Berlin in 1974, following it up with three further performances at the Vienna State Opera in September 1979. Although his version was by no means complete - about a quarter of the work was cut - the excursions revealed considerable dramaturgical sensitivity, while at the same time removed many of the absurdities contained in the original plot.

"The then director of the Vienna State Opera, Egon Seefehlner, was particularly fond of early 19th-century Italian opera and between 1976 and 1981 mounted new production of 'Norma', 'Lucia di Lammermoor', 'L'elisir d'amore', 'La Cenerentola' and 'I Capuleti e i Montecchi'. To complement these works, he also organized a concert performance of 'Il giuramente' intended to remind Viennese audience of a composer who was a close contemporary of both Bellini and Donizette. It was a successful move, if we may judge from newspaper reviews of the time. 'Die Volkstimme' described the performance as a 'genuine rediscovery', while the 'Salzburger Nachrichten' added that it had 'pushed back our musical horizons'. Writing in the same paper, Ruediger Engerth also praised the evening's guiding light: 'The inspiration behind the evening was the conductor Gerd Albrecht, who has championed the score with self-sacrificial abandon, constantly motivating the more sceptical members of the Vienna Philharmonic and ensuring translucent playing and tactful consideration for the singers.'

"The first of the three performances took place on 9 September 1979 and is lodged in the memory of Viennese audience for two reasons. First, it marked the Vienna State Opera dèbut of the Paduan soprano Mara Zampieri, who sang Elaisa, capturing the hearts of her listeners with the intensity of a performance that never for a moment fought shy of taking vocal risks. A year later she was entrusted with the role of Obadella in a new production of Verdi's 'Attila' under the direction of Giuseppe Sinopoli. But her greatest triumph in Vienna was as Lady Macbeth in Verdi's 'Macbeth', a role that she sang for the first time in 1982, again under Sinopoli, and which she went on to perform no fewer than 39 times in Vienana between then and 2000 - more than any other role at the State Opera. Her Elaisa was also savoured by the critics, albeit with reservations. Writing in the 'Wochenpresse', for example, Walter Gürtelschmied noted that 'for the young soprano Mara Zampieri there was ample opportunity to display a large, metallically coloured voice. It was presumably first night nerves that robbed her performance of the ultimate in perfection, but there was undoubtedly more than a mere talent to discover here.

"The second reason why this performance has a permanent place in the annals of the Vienna State Opera relates to the withdrawal of one of the singers and the circumstances surrounding his replacement. Marcel Prawy, who was then principal dramaturg at the Vienna State Opera, describes what happened in his autobiography: 'The tenor Peter Dvorsky was cast in the main role. The first performance was due to take place on a Sunday. On the Thursday, Peter Dvorsky cancelled on the grounds of ill health. We knew that no one could learn this role in such a short space of time, and so the production seemed doomed. That same day Domingo turned up out of the blue. I had no idea that he was even in Vienna. He came into my office at the State Opera and asked to use my telephone. I discovered in the course of our ensuing conversation that the next three days were taken up with recordings. 'And on Sunday I'm off to Barcelona, then to New York.' I was really only intending to make a stupid joke when I said: 'You can't leave on Sunday, Plácido, you're singing 'Il giuramento' for us.' Domingo: 'Don't be silly. In the first place, what's 'Il giuramento'? And what's all this about my singing for you on Sunday? I'm not.' I may perhaps have talked up Mercadante's qualities a little. Domingo left, but within half an hour he was back and asking for a vocal score. He took it away with him. I thought to myself: Will he really step in? It's out of the question. But I immediately told Director Seefehlner what had happened. 'This is a serious development,' he said and asked to see Domingo. 'Listen, Egon,' Domingo said, 'If my recordings are finished by Saturday according to plan and if I really have to attend only one rehearsal on Saturday afternoon, I'll sing your 'Giuramento' for you on Sunday.' Domingo sang 'Il giuramento'. While all his colleagues had to follow their parts from their music stands, Domingo glanced at his score and sang and acted with a freedom that suggested he had been performing 'Il giuramento' all his life.'

"Not least because of its distinguished cast - in addition to Mara Zampieri and Plácido Domingo, it included Agnes Baltsa as Bianca - the performance was enthusiastically received. Writing in the 'Kurier', Karl Löbl had particular praise for Domingo and Baltsa: 'Domingo showed what a highly musical practitioner he is. No one in the audience would have guessed that he first set eyes on the score only four days before the performance and that he had only a single orchestra rehearsal. He turned the concert platform into a veritable stage with his powerful personal involvement, intensity of expression, flawless phrasing, subtle nuances and well-judged passion. The same was true of Frau Baltsa, who demonstrated that, however skilful is may be, singing must be an expression of something that is felt and that the voice must be a vehicle for emotions. Whenever she sings mezzo coloratura, her singing has light and shade. Whenever she shapes a cantilena, vocal sensuality also makes sense and it not a separate entity, no matter how attractive.'

"We may end by quoting Hilde Spiel, the doyenne of Viennese music critics, who, writing in the 'Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung', described as a 'gratifying experience' this 'encounter with Verdi's predecessor, a composer who brought to the great Italian number operas of Bellini, Donizette and Rossini a new veracity, a new expressive power and a new harmonic richness.'" (Peter Blaha, tr. Stewart Spencer. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Wiener Staatsopernorchester, Wiener Staatsopernchor, Gerd Albrecht, Robert Kerns, Agnes Baltsa, Mara Zampieri, Plácido Domingo, Michele Fiotta, Sylvia Herman

1.1. Atto I: 'In Ogni Intorno'

1.2. Atto I: 'La Dea Di Tutti I Cor... Bella Adorata Incognita'

1.3. Atto I: 'Elaisa! Elaisa Dov'è?'

1.4. Atto I: 'Fier Sospetto Ohimè'

1.5. Atto I: 'Oh Mio German'

1.6. Atto I: 'Voi Ci Spariste... Di Superbo Vincitor'

1.7. Atto I: 'Era Stella Del Mattino'

1.8. Atto I: 'Oh Sì, Mie Care... Or Lа, Sull'onda'

1.9. Atto I: 'Preghiamo! Ah Pregai Tanto... Bianca! Ah, Ti Trovai'

1.10. Atto I: 'Tutto È Tenebre'

1.11. Atto I: 'Fermate... Oh, Istante'

1.12. Atto I: 'Che Vedo - Manfredo! Ah'

1.13. Atto I: 'Questo Fatal Mistero... Manfredo Eccoci A Te'

2.1. Atto II: 'Vittoria! Siracusa!'

2.2. Atto II: 'Compita È Ormai La Giusta E Terribil Vendetta'

2.3. Atto II: Interludio

2.4. Atto II: 'Alla Pace Degli Eletti'

2.5. Atto II: 'Si Compia Al Giuramento'

2.6. Atto II: 'Oh! Qual Nome Prenunziaste'

2.7. Atto II: 'Viscardo! - Il Rivedrete'

2.8. Atto II: 'A Te Il Veleno O Perfida'

2.9. Atto III: 'La Posa. Bella Ancora'

2.10. Atto III: 'Eccola!'/'L'adorava Qual S'adora'

2.11. Atto III: 'Del Suo Tiranno A Piè Cadea'

2.12. Atto III: 'Viscardo'

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Christoph Willibald Gluck - Orpheo ed Euridice

"The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is woven in to the history of opera. Its story of the power of love and music over the inevitability of death inspired the earliest operatic experiments in the late 16th century, and produced the genre's first masterpiece, Monteverid's 'Orfeo' of 1607. It has recurred in further musical versions by Luigi Rossi, Charpentier, Haydn, Krenek, Birtwistle and others. Each operatic version reveals something of the ideals and aesthetics of its composer's period: some culminating in tragedy, others with a happy ending; some focus on one character rather than another; some have only three principal roles, while others feature more than a dozen.

"Gluck's 'Orfeo' came about thanks to a happy meeting of artistic collaborators in Vienna in the early 1760s. Count Giacomo Durazzo, the impresario of the city's Burgtheater, had a mind to modernise 'opera seria': this was the conventional style of operas by composers such as Handel, Vivaldi and Pergolesi, dictated to a great extent by the librettos written by Metastasio, using a formulaic pattern of recitative interspersed the 'da capo' arias. Durazzo's plan involved reconciling the schools of Italian and French music. The heavy French influence on Gluck's 'Orfeo' shows; Gluck is in many ways the successor to Lully and Rameau.

"Durazzo had in 1760 already brought together several artists sympathetic to his reformist ideas: besides the composer Gluck there was the choreographer Gasparo Angiolini, the set designer Giovanni Maria Quaglio and the writer Ranieri de' Calzabigi. Together they created 'Don Juan', a 'balletpantomime' notable for its dramatic coherence and its revival of what was believed to be 'le goût des Anciens'.

"Opera had always sought to revive the art of the ancients - this had been the stimulus behind the earliest experiments in the genre around 1600. But now, after excavations of the ruins of the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum had begun in earnest during the 1730s and 1740s, the resurgence of interest in the classical world had a different slant. The archaeologist Johann Joachim Winckelmann, a contemporary of Gluck, published his 'Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works' in 1755: 'the one way for us to become great, perhaps inimitable, is by imitating the ancients'. Gluck similarly sought to return to ancient, uncorrupted ways, rescuing 'opera seria' from 'abuses [...] which have too long disfigured Italian opera'. In fact, the phrase Winckelmann had used to describe the ideals he deemed worth imitating in Greek art - 'a noble simplicity and a calm grandeur' - became a motto for the age, and was paraphrased by Gluck in his writings on music. It is perhaps our key to understanding a piece such as 'Orfeo ed Euridice'.

"The artistic team behind the new 'Orfeo' was armed in various ways for the task of reforming opera: the librettist Calzabigi was an expert on the works of Metastasio, having produced a complete edition of his libretti during the 1750s, but viewed the older man's work with a critical eye and saw how it could be adapted using knowledge of French operatic style. Gluck's music reflects this: the opera combines arias, duets, dances and numerous chorus numbers in a way that is infinitely more fluid than the strict pattern of alternating 'secco' (unaccompanied) recitatives and arias that prevailed in 'opera seria'. And a significant addition to the team was the castrato singer Gaetano Guadagni - the 'primo uomo' of operas and oratorios by Handel and others. His interpretation of the role of Orfeo was informed by the training he received in London from the celebrated Shakespearean actor David Garrick, who promoted realistic acting, rather than the bombastic style which dominated the stage in the first half of the 18th century. Together with the new, narrative choreography of Angiolini (perhaps influence by his French contemporary Noverre) and the set designs of Quaglio, the creative team was to set new standards for musical drama.

"After a buoyant overture, we are plunged into a scene of lamentation at the death of Euridice; this opening scene is reminiscent of the scene of mourning which opens Rameau's 'Castor et Pollux', one of the most popular operas in France at the time. The sound of the cornett (frequently used in Viennese churches during the 18th century) is a coincidental reminder of the instruments that had accompanied Monteverdi's 'Orfeo' 150 years before.

"Above the chorus, Orfeo can be heard crying out the single word 'Euridice', in an arresting departure from the formal utterances of Italian 'opera seria'. This is followed by a recitative, but this too is surprising: the Italian text is accompanied by the orchestra, not just the customary harpsichord continuo. Orfeo's first aria, 'Chiamo il mio ben così', is not the traditional 'da capo' aria of 'opera seria' but a 'rondeau' - a form, used throughout the opera, that alternates lyrical refrains with section of more direct dramatic expression.

"The aria culminates in a dramatic recitative 'Numi! Barbari Numi!' as Orfeo vows to rescue his bride from the underworld. He is interrupted by a character familiar from almost every French opera of the period: Amore, or Cupid, who offers to help our hero in a coquettish triple-time aria, 'Gli sguardi trattieni'.

"Act II opens with a dance and chorus for furies and spectres in the underworld. Their threatening chanting is juxtaposed magically with the sound of the harp, evoking Orfeo's lyre. Again, Gluck is attempting dramatic and structural devices utterly foreign to 'opera seria'. Just as the opera's opening chorus had been punctuated by Orfeo's dramatic cries of 'Euridice', so here Orfeo's plaintive pleas for leniency are interrupted by violent 'No's' from the chorus as they refuse to cooperate.

"Finally, however, the gentle plucking of the harp makes the furies relent, and by the second scene of Act II, Orfeo has been admitted to the Elysian fields, where he finds himself surrounded by a dancing 'chorus of heroes and heroines'; one can imagine Angiolini's new style of dramatically expressive choreography set in Quaglio's Arcadian stage designs.

"The chorus finally ushers in Euridice, ready to be led back to the world above. In Gluck's characterisation, Euridice reveals a far more feisty personality than in Monteverdi's opera. Indeed, Cupid's injunction that Orfeo may neither look at his wife nor explain to her the reason why he may not, leady to a fully-fledged lover's tiff. During a vigorious duet ('Vieni, appaga il tuo consorte'), Euridice exclaims to Orfeo that she would rather stay dead, than live with her apparently unfeeling husband. Her aria which follows ('Che fiero momento') is one of rage.

"The tension mounts in the succeeding recitative to the story's climax - the moment where Orfeo turns to look at Euridice. Unlike Monteverdi's version, where Orfeo acts on romantic impulse alone, Gluck's protagonist here is responding to something deeper, more empathetic: a desire to assuage his lover's insecurities, even if it means he will lose her once more. Monteverdi's Orfeo had been condemned by the chorus for his weakness. In contrast, Gluck's Ordeo responds to his wife's bewilderment with strength of character and stoic resolution: it is, in fact, an act of noble self-sacrifice typical of Metastasian 'opera seria'.

"Orfeo's famous aria, 'Che farò senza Euridice', is perhaps the epitome of the 'bella semplicità' (beautiful simplicity) advocated by Gluck and Calzabigi. Here, there are no Metastasian similes, no extravagant roulades, and no opportunities for wild cadenzas by the soloist. Instead, Gluck employed the simple 'rondeau' form, and the purity of diatonic C major.

"Orfeo is saved from suicide by Amore, who rewards him for his devotion by reuniting him with Euridice (understandably bewildered to find herself alive for a third time). The shepherds and shepherdesses who had lamented at the very start now return, dancing and singing in praise of Love. This 'deus ex machina' happy ending would have been expected by Gluck's 18th century audience, who would otherwise by disturbed by the moral implications of undeserved suffering: a divergence from classical tragedy, which had no qualms about horrifically tragic endings.

"Ironically enough, the archaeologist Winckelmann's admiration of the white purity of classical sculpture was a fallacy: we now know that the Arthenian Parthenon would have been covered in colourful paint. Similarly, Gluck's and Calzabigi's vision of the antique world was inescapably a product of the beliefs and constraints of their own time.

"The dramatic and musical innovations in 'Orfeo ed Euridice' had powerful repurcussions: before the end of the 18th century, it had been seen all over Europe, from St. Petersburg to Dublin. Gluck capitalised on the work's French features by making a French-language version for Paris in 1774.

"The opera made a first appearnace in London as early as 1770, featuring once more Guadagni in the title role; but this production proved to be the first of numerous bowdlerisations of the piece: extra music by other composers was added; and over the years new characters were introduced, choruses were cut and in 1792 a version was performed at the Theatre Royal, Coven Garden, where virtually the only part of the original score that survived - amid music by Handel, Bach and Sacchini - was Orpheus's famous 'Che farò'.

"This recording is almost completely true to the original 1762 performance. Only one addition has been made: an exquisite evocation of the Elysian Fields taken from Gluck's Paris version, for solo flute and strings." (James Halliday. From the liner notes.)

Performers: La Nuova Musica, David Bates, Iestyn Davies, Sophie Bevan, Rebeca Bottone

1. Ouverture

2. Atto I, Scena I: 'Ah! Se Intorno A Quest'urna Funesta'

3. Atto I, Scena I: 'Basta, Basta, O Compagni'

4. Atto I, Scena I: Ballo. Larghetto

5. Atto I, Scena I: 'Ah! Se Intorno A Quest'urna Funesta'

6. Atto I, Scena I: 'Chiamo Il Mio Ben Così'

7. Atto I, Scena I: 'Euridice! Ombra Cara, Ove Sei?'

8. Atto I, Scena I: 'Cerco Il Mio Ben Così'

9. Atto I, Scena I: 'Euridice! Ah, Questo Nome San Le Spiagge'

10. Atto I, Scena I: 'Piango Il Mio Ben Così'

11. Atto I, Scena I: 'Numi! Barbari Numi!'

12. Atto I, Scena II: 'T'assiste Amore'

13. Atto I, Scena II: 'Gli Sguardi Trattieni'

14. Atto I, Scena II: 'Che Disse! Che Ascoltai!'

15. Atto I, Scena II: Presto

16. Atto II, Scena I: Ballo

17. Atto II, Scena I: 'Chi Mai Dell'Erebo'

18. Atto II, Scena I: Ballo

19. Atto II, Scena I: 'Chi Mai Dell'Erebo'

20. Atto II, Scena I: Ballo

21. Atto II, Scena I: 'Deh! Placatevi Con Me'

22. Atto II, Scena I: 'Misero Giovine!'

23. Atto II, Scena I: 'Mille Pene, Ombre Moleste'

24. Atto II, Scena I: 'Ah, Quale Incognito Affetto Flebile'

25. Atto II, Scena I: 'Men Tiranne, Ah! Voi Sareste'

26. Atto II, Scena I: 'Ah, Quale Incognito Affetto Flebile'

27. Atto II, Scena II: Ballo

28. Atto II, Scena II: Ballo

29. Atto II, Scena II: 'Che Puro Ciel'

30. Atto II, Scena II: 'Vieni A' Regni Del Riposo'

31. Atto II, Scena II: Ballo

32. Atto II, Scena II: 'Anime Avventurose'

33. Atto II, Scena II: 'Viene Euridice'

34. Atto III, Scena I: 'Vieni, Segui I Miei Passi'

35. Atto III, Scena I: 'Ma Vieni E Taci!'

36. Atto III, Scena I: 'Qual Vita È Questa Mai'

37. Atto III, Scena I: 'Che Fiero Momento!'

38. Atto III, Scena I: 'Ecco Un Nuovo Tormento!'

39. Atto III, Scena I: 'Ahimè! Dove Trascorsi!'

40. Atto III, Scena I: 'Che Farò Senza Euridice!'

41. Atto III, Scena I: 'Ma Finisca, E Per Sempre, Co' La Vita Il Dolor!'

42. Atto III, Scena II: 'Orfeo! Che Fai?'

43. Atto III, Scena III: 'Ballo-Trionfi Amore, E Il Mondo Intero Serva All'impero Della Beltà'

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André Grétry - L'amant Jaloux

"Late in the evening of 1 August 1752, a small band of peripatetic Italian musicians under the direction of Eustachio Bambini took to the stage at the Opéra in Paris after a long performance of Lully's 'Acis et Galatée'. They presented one of the works in their large repertoire of Italian 'intermezzi' - these were short comic works designed to be presented between the acts of other operas. Bambini decided that the intermezzo for that autumnal night was to be Pergolesi's 'La serva pardona'.

"It wasn't a hit. The gossipy newspaper the Mercure de France noted that this bizarre Italian work had some tunes that were really only to the taste of 'un petite nombre de connoisseurs'. But that 'small number' soon grew and suddenly, it seemed, everyone was talking about and debating the relative merits of French and Italian music. This was the so-called 'Querelle des Bouffons', as Bambini's troupe was popular known as the 'Bouffons', or buffoons.

"It was mainly a quarrel of letter - although it's true that guards often had to be posted in the 'parterre' (stalls) of the Opéra to control the crowd when things got a bit rough. Gossips, musicians, philosophers and wits all exchanged their views on which style was better: the noble French or the new upstart Italian. As in many culture wars, the debate took on a larger social and political significance. Liking Italian music generally coded to others that you were progressive and liberal, whereas a preference for French music meant that you were a conservative and enjoying the status quo. Hence a younger generation favoured the tunefulness of the Italians, whereas an older generation emphasised a rich and proud French musical heritage in which declamation, poetry and melodic precision were all equally valued.

"Many wondered if a new style of music might be possible which combined the best and most interesting elements of the two. Around 1765 a 'philosophe' remarked: 'We are just beginning to realise that our opera lacks the aria phrased in the Italian manner.' He confirmed that experiments by a 'well-known composer' were already bearing fruit and that 'when we do learn how to use this style intelligently [...] I predict that French opera will be superior to the Italian.'

"This 'well-known composer' was André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry, and it was Grétry who, more than any other operatic composer, really managed to unite Italiante vocality with French wordsmithery. Grétry did it by always going back to his roots which were also the roots of the Querelle itself. 'I analysed Pergolesi's music when I sought to develop my musical faculties', he wrote. 'Many have tried to write music in the Italian taste, but they have had no success because the prosody of the language was incorrect; I believe I have surmounted this point.'

"Grétry was born in Liège in 1741, which makes him a contemporary of Paisiello, Boccherini and Wanhal. He came from a family of musicians. In his early teens, in the years of the Querelle, he had witnessed a touring Italian intermezzo troupe much like Bambini's; their performances made a profound impression on him. Grétry studied in Rome in the 1760s, and in 1767 finally settled in Paris, where, as an ambition 26-year-old, he attempted to forge a career for himself as an opera composer.

"Things weren't easy in the hothouse environment of the Parisian opera scene, but Grétry, impressed with the work of composers active in the new-fangled 'opéra comique', decided that this genre was the perfect vehicle for his art. 'I had never seen 'opéra comique' before', he reminisced, 'I laughed, I cried!'

"After a string of failures, Grétry finally achieved fame and popularity in 1769. His memorably tuneful style and his intuitive gift for theatricality rapidly made him one of Europe's most popular composers. Marie Antoinette was so taken with him that, once she became Queen in 1774, she appointed him her personal director of music. His success was at its height in the mid-1780s and his international reputation was cemented with 'Richard Cœur-de-lion' (1784). He kept up with the style of the times and cannily survived the Revolution. Napoleon made him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1802 and also granted him a generous annual pension. He died rich and lauded in 1813.

"'L'Amant jaloux, ou Les Fausses Apparences' (The Jealous Lover, or False Appearances) was written in 1778, when Grétry was cresting the cusp of greatness. It was given first at Versailles in the presence of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and then opened in Paris at the Comédie-Italienne in December of the same year. It was an immediate success and was considered at the time to be a masterpiece of 'opéra comique'. Grétry himself spoke of it in his 'Mémoires' as one of his favourite works. The newspaper 'Les Mémoires secrets', which was loath to praise any production at the Comédie-Italienne, reported that the first performances enjoyed 'the greatest success for the poem and the music alike. The former is the genuine Spanish character, and it seems that the work is inspired by a comedy from that nation; while the latter is perfectly equal and worthy of the composer's genius.

"The librettist had fooled the correspondent. 'L'Amant jaloux' was actually based on one of the most popular works on the 18th-century English stage: Susanna Cenlivre's 'The Wonder: A Woman Keeps a Secret' (1714). The librettist was an Irishman, Thomas Hales, who went by the Frenchified name of Thomas D'Hèle. After various adventures as a soldier in Jamaica, D'Hèle ended up turning to the profession of author 'by necessity', as Grétry reminisced, for when he arrived in Paris he was penniless. The librettist and composer soon formed a strong and fruitful working relationship, and 'L'Amant jaloux' was their second collaboration. It held the stage from 1779 to 1821 for an astonishing 365 performances.

"The score of 'L'Amant jaloux' is one of Grétry's finest, and demonstrates the composer's extraordinary aptitude, elegance and acuity in effecting the marriage of French words and music. It is one of the first operas to develop what scholars have since called the 'functional recollection' of motifs. These created a web of associations between characters and scenes and contributed to a newly fashionable sense of organic unity and interconnectedness. For example, Lopez 'quotes' Jacinte's Act I aria 'Qu'une fille de quinze ans' back to her in a later scene, memorably painting a remarkably modern sense of irony. The loving duo between Léonore and Alonze at the close of Act II is repeated and transformed into a jealous spat by means of subtle but profound changes in accompaniment and delivery. Grétry uses national topics to paint the characters' backgrounds: he quotes the famous 'Folies d'Espagne' for the Spanish Lopez, and there is a 'temps de minuet' for the French Florival.

"Grétry later recalled that the spectacular aria for Léonore at the start of Act II was inserted purely to allow Marie-Jeanne Trial ('the finest voice ever formed by nature') 'a chance to shine'. In a similar spirit, we have inserted, as was the practice in the 18th century, the ariette 'Du moment qu'on aime' from Grétry's 'Zémire et Azor' for the character of Don Alonze in Act II. Also following 18th-century practice, we perform two contemporaneous instrumental works as entr'actes.

"Grétry was once asked how he went about writing his operas. 'Well, just as one writes poetry or paints a picture. I read, re-read twenty times the words I want to paint in sounds; it takes several days for my head to become heated: in the end I lose my appetite, my eyes get inflamed, the imagination rises, then I write an opera in three weeks or a month.' Apparently he liked his stimulants: he was addicted to snuff, which he took as he one-handedly composed at the harpsichord, and, like Mozart, he found his relaxation in the game of billiards. By all accounts he was a great wit and conversationalist and was a friend of 'philisophes' and musicians alike. As musicologist David Charlton remarks, 'It is hard to imagine the evolution of 'opéra comique', and Romantic opera in general, without the part played by his works.' Not for nothing was Grétry called' the Molière of Music'. (Erin Helyard, 2015. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Orchestra Of The Antipodes, Erin Helyard, Ed Lyon, Celeste Lazarenko, Andrew Goodwin, Alexandra Oomens, Jessica Aszodi, David Greco, Stephen Lalor, Melissa Farrow

1.1. Ouverture

1.2. Acte I: 'Qu'une Fille De Quinze Ans'

1.3. Acte I: 'Plus De Soeur! Plus De Frère!'

1.4. Acte I: 'Victime Infortunée'

1.5. Acte I: 'Plus D'égards, Plus De Prudence'

1.6. Johann Nepomuk Hummel - Mandolin Concerto In G Major, S28: II. Andante Con Variazioni

1.7. Acte II: 'Je Romps La Chaîne Qui M'engage'

1.8. Acte II: 'Le Mariage Est Une Envie'

1.9. Acte II: 'La Gloire Vous Appelle'

1.10. Acte II: 'Du Moment Qu'on Aime'

1.11. Acte II: 'D'abord, Amants Soumis Et Doux'

1.12. Acte II: 'Cruelle! De Ma Douleur Mortelle'

1.13. Acte II: 'Tandis Que Tout Sommeille'

1.14. Acte II: 'Jamais Le Coeur De Léonore'

2.1. Flute Concerto In C Major: I. Allegro

2.2. Flute Concerto In C Major: II. Larghetto

2.3. Flute Concerto In C Major: III. Allegro

2.4. Acte III: 'O Douce Nuit, Sous Ton Ombre Paisible'

2.5. Acte III: 'Je Sens Bien Que Votre Hommage'

2.6. Acte III: 'Seigneur, Sans Trop Être Indiscret'

2.7. Acte III: 'Prenez Pitié De Ma Douleur'

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Aaron Dilloway - Foul

Live material from noise maestro Aaron Dilloway, released in 2007 on Dilloways own Hanson records (recording date is not listed). Raw, swirling, sometimes rhythmic analogue work with great variety in approach. Re-uses the cover to his 2001 live release "Wolf Eyes".

A. Untitled

B. Untitled

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Incapacitants - Ad Nauseam

Early three cassette series by seminal japanoise duo Incapacitants. The three tapes are titled "Edition Mikawa", "Edition Kosakai" and "Edition Live" respectively. The raw materials for the first two tapes were the same and it's on the first cassette we get the denser, more typically Incapacitants sound, whereas on the second we get an interesting mix of drum machine work ("Technodelicatessen"), sparser noise and doom metal (the momentous "Into Another Doom's Pain") that display great musicianship while being firmly outside of the 'pure noise'/non-music manifesto of this group. The live tape is phenomenal, rip-roaring harsh noise that is incomparable: dense and alive with insane energy. Those who saw this duo live on these 1993 dates (and indeed at any time) were very lucky.

A1. Abrasive 1

A2. Abrasive 2

B. Abrasive 3

C1. Technodelicatessen

C2. Grind Goddess

D. Into Another's Doom's Pain

E. Live At Yanemura Tokyo 931031

F. Live At Show Boat Tokyo 940411

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K2 - Cruel Truth

Available to buy digitally for a highly reasonable $1 here (please do), this represents some of the still very active K2's latest work and is a lively contrast to his earliest material posted below. Distinctively high fidelity but also varied, very engaging and a stellar example of the essentially timeless nature of the japanoise style. Released on American weblabel Deathbed Tapes this year and recorded live in 2019. Edition of one hundred physical cassettes alongside a digital release.

A. Outsider/Insider

B. Speculum Drunker

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Buell Neidlinger - Big Drum

Quartet outing by the late, great Buell Neidlinger joined by a trio of relatively unknown but clearly very talented younger musicians. By his own admission Neidlinger opted to use his considerable talents to work in film music and 'go where the money was' rather than lead the life of a poor, starving musician. Ironically, with his strong ideas, prodigious talents and unshakable resolve, jazz as a whole is all the poorer for the fact that he only returned to recording in the late 1980s, and even more so for the fact that he released mainly only poorly distributed CDs on his own record label. As such, this hard-to-find rip skips in places, but is still very much listenable. This is intense, earthy music that while free, never moves so far 'outside' that it becomes self indulgent or derivative. (Seemingly) a live recording, this would have been an enviable evening's entertainment.

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

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Jackie McLean & Dexter Gordon - The Source, Vol. 2

"This keenly-awaited sequel to 'The Meeting' could well have been subtitled 'Back to Bebop'. For bop, the intricate and beautiful music that burst on a surprised world 30 years ago, is indeed 'The Source' that gives the present LP its title.

"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

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Jackie McLean & Dexter Gordon - The Meeting, Vol. 1

"Jackie McLean with Dexter Gordon - what could be more natural? Two of the genuine heavyweights of post-war jazz, whose style stem from the same musical revolution. Men of huge talent with so much in common. Such an obvious partnership that nobody thought of it before - not even when they were both contract artists for Blue Note in the 1960s. Happily, the stars were in the right alignment when Jackie arrived in Copenhagen for an engagement at the Montmartre Jazzhaus during July of 1975. Dexter and Jackie were recorded together at last with a superb rhythm section, a responsive audience and under perfect conditions. 'The Meeting' is that first of two albums that capture the full flavour of those marvellous nights.

"As Jackie indicates in his note on this jacket, Dexter was an early and potent influence on the younger man's conception. When McLean was just a kid of 14 or 15 he used to hang around places where Dex played. At that time 52nd Street was still going full blast and Gordon was the big man on tenor. Sometimes Jackie would even get to sit in with 'Long Tall Dexter', and they jammed side by side at different places through the years.

"McLean's soaring, incisive alto and Gordon's lithe, powerful tenor here combine to give it you straight from the hip. These are players who have never compromised as artists. They play what they feel, what they believe in. They project deep emotions, scorn the superficial. Their stories are about love, hardships, good times, dues, fun, frustration, hope and hurt. There's often a raw edge to their messages but then music be something more than a sugar-coated pill to put you to sleep. 'Sunset' will move you; it isn't meant to be an anaesthetic which is all that so many people (pity them) want from music.

"The fire is lit between Jackie and Dexter from the first ensemble of Gordon's blues All Clean through Sahib Shihab's bright 'Rue de la Harpe', Kenny Drew's pastel shaded 'Sunset' to Ferdie Grufe's 'On the Trail'. The furnace in the rhythmic sense is kept masterfully stoked by Kenny Drew, Niels Henning og Alex Riel (who have worked as a trio, off and on, for eight or nine years).

"For those who may be unfamiliar with these five musicians (is that possible?) here are some brief words of biographical background:

"John Lenwood (Jackie) McLean was born in New York City on May 17, 1932. He started on saxophone at an early age and was greatly helped by pianist Bud Powell. He was first heard on record with Miles Davis in 1951. During the 1950s Jackie worked and recorded with George Wallington, Charles Mingus, Art Blakey and Donald Byrd among others. From 1959-61 he acted and played in Jack Galler's 'The Connection'. Since that time he has led his own groups, frequently toured Europe, played in Japan and taught at the Universy of Hartford. His development as a soloist, composer and leader can be traced on his albums for Prestige and Blue Note among others. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Jackie made no records. His very welcome return was signalled by his first SteepleChase LP, 'Live at Montmartre' (SCS-1001), taped in August 1972. He now makes an annual trip to Denmark to play the Montmartre and record for SteepleChase.

"Dexter Gordon (born Los Angeles, February 27, 1923) worked in the big bands of Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson, Lionel Hampton and Billy Eckstine before branching out as a star small group soloist. Dexter cast a giant shadow over the tenor sax in the 1940s and such diverse musicians as John Coltrane, Stan Getz and Sonny Rollins all owed a stylistic debt to Gordon. His many recordings for Savoy, Dial, Bethlehem, Jazzland, Blue Note and Catfish are essential listening. Since moving to Europe in September 1962 Dexter has played all over the Continent, but he returns regularly to New York for festival dates and recording sessions. Gordon has been resident of Copenhagen, a city he loves, since the mid-1960s.

"Kenny Drew (born New York, August 28, 1928) has lived in Copenhagen since January 1964, having settled in Europe three years earlier. Kenny, on of the best pianists in the Bud Powell tradition, worked with Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Brew Moore and Buddy DeFranco in the early 1950s. Later he was with Art Blakey, Kenny Dorham and a host of other groups. Drew has played extensively with Dexter in Europe, but they have an association that goes back to their days in California around 1955-56 (Drew played on Dexter's Bethlehem LP 'Daddy Plays the Horn' and his Blue Notes 'Dexter Calling...' and 'One Flight Up'). Kenny has known Jackie since they were youngsters, too, and he was the pianist on McLean's Blue Note sides 'Blueswalk' and 'Jackie's Bag'. Drew can be heard as leader on 'Duo' (SteepleChase SCS-1002), 'Everything I Love' (SCS-1007) and the forthcoming 'Duo, Volume 2' (SCS-1010).

"Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (born Osted, Denmark, May 27, 1946) is just about everyone's favourite bassists; he seems to get better and better. Having made his first records at the age of 15 (with Bud Powell), Niels-Henning has since been heard with a staggering array of American start from Albert Ayler to Dizzy Gillespie. In the last year or so he has gained great exposure with Oscar Peterson who features him prominently. With his wonderful sound and incredible technique, Niels-Henning emphasies that the electric bass is a redundant invention.

"Alex Riel (born September 13, 1940) is a considerable exciting drummer who was inspired to become a percussionist at the age of 15 by hearing Zutty Singleton's work on the Fats Waller recording of 'Moppin' and Boppin'. Like Niels-Henning, he has backed numerous Americans - Sahib Shihab, Brew Moore, Archie Shepp, Ben Webster, Paul Gonsalves, Kenny Dorham, Stuff Smith, Roland Kirk, Don Cherry, etc. He has recorded under his own name (with Drew and Niels-Henning) for Fona. He was on Jackie's 'Live at Montemartre' and will be heard on Ken McIntyre's forthcoming SteepleChase collection.

"I do not propose to describe in detail the music on these sides. Its high quality is readily apparent.  The brisk 'All Clean' is 17 minutes of pure unalloyed joy. Dexter is the first soloist and is followed by Jackie, Kenny, Niels-Henning (he gets into a remarkable groove). Then come the chorus exchanges between Jackie (always in the left channel) and Dex.

"Sahib Shihab's 'Rue de la Harpe' is a typical, robust hard bop line, the sort Jackie does so well. According to the composer: 'This is a very small street in the Latin Quarter in Paris.' Jackie really stretches here, Dexter holds sway as only he can, and Kenny creates the sort of nimble solo for which he is renowned.

"In 'Sunset' there are lengthy, feeling-filled, declarative statements by Jackie and Dexter, a mellifluous Drew passage and then back to the haunting theme. For a more intimate version of this melody hear Kenny playing it solo on his 'Everything I Love' record.

"Ferdie Grofe's 'On the Trail' has been a firm favourite with musicians since Jimmy Heath re-discovered the tune which has a definitive 'out West', loping feel to it. Jackie handles the theme, Dexter bursts forth, riding the range at a relentless canter. McLean's solo in this well known movement from Grofe's 'Grand Canyon Suite' bristles with fiery ferocity. Kenny digs into a swinging veing and his lines are positively mercurial.

"That's 'The Meeting' - a summit meeting of two jazz superstars. Are you ready for 'The Source'? Can you bear the suspense of waiting that long? Get set for 'Half Nelson', 'I Can't Get Started', 'Another Hair-do' and 'Dexter Digs In'! (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. Introduction By Jackie Mclean

2. All Clean

3. Rue De La Harpe

4. Callin'

5. Sunset

6. On The Trail

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