Bass is a Hard Life

I am fascinated by bass players.  They play a role in jazz that is somewhat akin to a catcher in baseball: they can see the whole field and so end up directing the play.  For that reason, bass players make very good leaders.  Mingus comes to mind.  It must be a very hard life for a musician, because a lot of the time on a lot of albums, you just can't hear them very well.  It's hard to tell by listening that an album recorded with a bassist as leader isn't really a saxophone album, or whatever instrument is upstaging the big fiddle.

Anyway, this weekend I have been listening to a recent acquisition by William Parker.  Parker is an avant garde master about whom I have blogged previously.  At that link you can find a sample from Parker's recording Painter's Spring.  It is a brilliant cd, and one of those recordings where the title and the cover art are really part of the experience.

Peach Orchard is a two disc recording issued under Parker's name and the band IN ORDER TO SURVIVE in the late 90's.  Cooper-Moore plays piano, Rob Brown alto sax, and Susie Ibarra drums.  The compositions are rather long and musically complex.  It is compelling, high energy jazz.  Here's a sample:

William Parker-IN ORDER TO SURVIVE/Three Clay Pots/Peach Orchard

 Give it a listen and let me know what you think. 

Santa's List

I blogged earlier about Rahsaan Roland Kirk's incomparable album: Rip, Rig, and Panic/Now Please Don't You Cry Dear Edith.  I also included the recording in my best 50 list.  If you don't have this thing, sit on Santa's lap.  Or buy two of them, and give one as a gift to someone very special.

Another very fine Kirk recording is Complements of the Mysterious Phantom.  It is not only a display of Kirk's virtuosity, it is also a very entertaining and enlightening document of live jazz culture.  It includes brief sections of "Rahspeak", little monologues that are not evidence of a weak personality.

I was listenin' to Charlie Parker and Coleman Hawkins when I was in my mother's womb.  She says every time she put Charlie Parker on the record player I was jumping up and down inside her.  My crib was a saxophone case.  Yeah. 

The folks who got to sit in on this one got their money's worth.  But don't let me mislead you: this recording is full of full steam jazz bop. Hilton Ruiz (p) Henry Pearson (b), John Goldsmith (d) Samson Verge (per).  Here is a sample:

Rahsaan Roland Kirk/My One and Only Love/Complements of the Mysterious Phantom

On a very different score, here is another stocking stuffer. Bassist Charlie Haden recorded a number of albums under the title "The Montreal Tapes."  I haven't heard recently from commenter Bass Is Life, but BIL will like this one.  It's a trio, with Al Foster on drums and Joe Henderson on tenor.  It is my view that one simply cannot have too much Joe Henderson.  The recording consists of four lengthy pieces, each of them worth a trip to Canada.  Here is a sample:

Charlie Haden, Joe Henderson, Al Foster/Round Midnight/The Montreal Tapes

These two recordings have nothing other to do with one another than that I have been enjoying them tonight.  You will enjoy them too.  Trust me on this one.  

Update:  I have been a bit behind in listening to my favorite podcast, In the Groove, Jazz and Beyond, by my good friend Ken Laster.  Tonight I was listening to Ken's November 8th show, The Masters Part 2, and what should I hear but the very Rahsaan Roland Kirk album I posted on last night.  I am not sure why, but I feel compelled to explain that this was sheer coincidence.  In fact, I only downloaded the RRK recording yesterday afternoon because it had been in my "saved list" on eMusic for a while.  The power of Kirk! 

Anyway, if you read this blog and like the music I review, and you don't listen to Ken's podcast, you are cheating yourself.  Ken's shows are gold mines of good jazz, and he is a lot of fun to listen to.  Don't miss it. 

The Classical Elegance of MJQ

I was taken to task by commenter Bartek for not including the Modern Jazz Quartet in my best 50 jazz recordings.I can only rely on the mercy of the court on this one.  I have long admired MJQ.  I vaguely recall an album cover from the LP age.  The four, John Lewis (p), Milt Jackson (v), Percy Heath (b), and Connie Kay (d), were all dressed in very elegant suits.  That small thing imparted a dignity to their whole enterprise.    This was a group that thought it could stand next to any string quartet.  Indeed, it could, and that is something in the long adversarial relationship between jazz and "serious music."

Milt Jackson, or Bags if you want to be formal, was the most famous of the four.  I think that John Lewis probably had more influence on the group.  MJQ stood for a kind of professionalism that is often lacking in jazz.  For some odd reasons that I won't mention, my collection is sadly lacking in MJQ recordings.  But this evening I purchased The Complete Last Concert.  It wasn't the last concert, but it is complete.  Listening to it tonight, I wonder how I got along without it.  It is one of the core collection entries in the Penguin Guide (may its name be praised).  I am going to have to squeeze it into the list when next I revise it. 

Here is a sample, a version of one of my favorite standards. 

Modern Jazz Quartet/Softly as in a Morning Sunrise/The Complete Last Concert

Yet More Thomas Chapin

It is just shy of one o'clock in the morning, central time, November the 28th, 2009, as I am listening to Thomas Chapin's Insomnia.  I have never suffered much from sleeplessness, but I like to sit up late scouring the web and doing my blogging. 

Insomnia has the Thomas Chapin Trio backed by a lot of brass.  It wasn't easy to come by, but it's more than worth a listen.  The first number has power behind it.  Here it is.

Thomas Chapin Trio with Brass/Pantheon/Insominia

Best Jazz Albums 26-50

Compiling a list of 50 best jazz albums is, as reader Derick put it, like "walking blindfolded through a mine field."   Proceeding on the principle that rules are made to be broken, I made rules and broke them.  But it has been fun and it has led me to go back and do a lot of listening that I otherwise might have neglected.  I also found myself frequently entering an album only to replace it with another.  Discipline, please!

I wanted to get some multi-disc collections in, if only to cheat on the limit of fifty recordings.  That's a little like being limited to three books on a desert island, and putting the Harvard Classics as number one.  So here is 26-33 on my list:

Coltrane	John	Complete 1961 Village Vanguard  Recordings
Coltrane	John	Complete Africa/Brass Sessions
Davis	Miles	Legendary Prestige Recordings
Davis	Miles	Live at the Plugged Nickel
Davis	Miles	Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall
Dolphy	Eric	At the Five Spot Vols. 1 & 2 /Memorial Album
Manne	Shelly	Shelly Manne and His Men  @ Blackhawk
Rollins	Sonny	A Night at the Village Vanguard

Obviously Miles Davis and John Coltrane are overrepresented.  But that reflects the importance I place on those two giants.  Davis's Prestige Recordings include his incomparable Workin', Relaxin', Cookin', and Steamin' albums.  How could I leave them out, and how else could I fit them in?  I first listed the Blackhawk recordings, but the Plugged Nickel set is a better example of the distance Miles crosses in the period I concentrate on.  Trane's Vanguard recording are, in my mind, his greatest achievement.  Dolphy's Five Spot recordings aren't really a single set (I cheated again), but put 'em in a single bag.  They might be the best display of Dolphy's brilliance.  Manne's Blackhawk recordings are West Coast jazz at its best.  Rollins' Vanguard set needs no defense.

Here is the rest of the list:

Ayler	Albert	Spiritual Unity
Blakey	Art	Moanin'
Dolphy	Eric	Out to Lunch
Ellington	Duke	Ellington at Newport
Ervin	Booker	The Trance
Hawes	Hampton	Hampton Hawes Trio Vol. 2.
Holland	Dave	Conference of the Birds
Jarrett	Keith	The Köln Concert
Kirk	Roland	Rip, Rig, and Panic
Lovano	Joe	From the Soul
Mobley	Hank	Soul Station
Montgomery	Wes	The Incredible Guitar
Morgan	Lee	Search for the New Land
Murray	David	The Hill
Russel	George	Ezz-Thetics
Silver	Horace	Blown' the Blues Away
Sun Ra		Jazz In Silhouette

When in doubt, look at what everyone else is doing.  I consulted several "top 100" lists on the web.  Most of them are pretty much like mine for the first ten or so.  Past 25, there is a lot of divergence.  But most of the items in my list show up somewhere on other lists.  Some exceptions include Booker Ervin's Trance.  I am deeply in love with Booker Ervin.  Trance is not his best known work, but think it is the purest example of his genius.  Lee Morgan's Sidewinder was his best seller, while Search for the New Land rarely shows up on best jazz lists.  But great as the former is, I think the later is the more serious recording.

I got a couple of big band recordings in, by Ellington and Sun Ra.  I don't like big band jazz generally, but I think these are superb albums.  Some of the items are recorded much later than my target period (1950-1970).  Holland, Murray, and Lovano, for example, though Holland Conference of the Birds doesn't miss it by much.  But these recordings fit right into the mold. 

Anyway, I think this top 50 list would be the core of a very good jazz library.  Here are some samples.

David Murray/Santa Barbara and Crenshaw Follie/The Hill

Lee Morgan/Morgan the Pirate/Search for the New Land

Miles Davis/Milestones/Live at the Plugged Nickel

Red Mitchell & Memory

Way back in the 1980's, when I bought my first decent stereo equipment and began seriously collecting jazz, I recorded a PBS show featuring bass player Red Mitchell and piano master Monty Alexander.  I am going from memory here, but I think the show was called "Alone Together".  Listening to was a formative event in my life.  With just bass and piano, the musical expression was vivid and unmistakable.  I recorded it on a 90 nminute cassette tape (remember those?). 

I listened to that damned tape over and over until I eventually lost it.  It's just as well.  I don't have a machine to play it any more.  But I still have a fondness for Mitchell. 

I recently acquired Presenting Red Mitchell.  It is a fine piece of straight ahead jazz.  I found this bit about the lineup from CD Universe:

Bassist Red Mitchell, who had led two fairly obscure sessions for Bethlehem in 1955, came up with a gem on his lone Contemporary set as a leader (which has been reissued as this CD). Based in Los Angeles at the time, Mitchell utilized pianist Lorraine Geller and two up-and-coming players: James Clay (who splits his time between tenor and flute) and, in one of his first recording sessions, drummer Billy Higgins. The quartet performs then-recent tunes by Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and Clifford Brown ("Sandu"), a pair of Mitchell originals, "Scrapple From the Apple" and "Cheek to Cheek."

 Well, here is a sample. 

Red Mitchell/Scrapple from the Apple/Presenting Red Mitchell

Blanchard's Top One, Ten, and Twenty-Five Best Jazz Albums

I had originally intended this blog as a guide to novice jazz collectors.  I have no idea whether it is serving that purpose.  Most of my comments are from folks who have pretty decent collections already.  But I am a classical thinker by training, so making lists is something I do like dogs chew bones.  As Christmas approaches, a top fifty jazz recordings list might do someone some good, and it is fun to think about it.

I have assembled a top twenty five list.  Here is my top ten:

Davis	Miles	Kind of Blue
Coleman	Ornette	The Shape of Jazz to Come
Coltrane	John	Giant Steps
Dolphy	Eric	Far Cry
Evans	Bill	Sunday at the Village Vanguard
Henderson	Joe	The State of the Tenor
Mingus	Charlie	Mingus Ah Um
Monk	Thelonious	Brilliant Corners
Rollins	Sonny	Saxophone Collosus
Shorter	Wayne	Speak No Evil

You may notice that, while KOB is first, the rest of the nine are in alphabetical order.  KOB comes first as I hold that it is the most perfect jazz recording I have ever heard.  I alphabetized the rest of the list to avoid any suggestion that number six is a little better than seven but not quite so good as number five.  It seems silly to me to cut it that fine.  The reader should bear in mind that I am not claiming these are the ten best jazz recordings of all.  My focus is rather narrow: hard bop to avant garde jazz, mostly recorded in the fifties and sixties. 

I am sticking here to single disc recordings that have had a major impact on me and that show up on a lot of similar lists.  I avoided repeating artists.  Someone who had just these ten, and listened attentively and with devotion, would have a pretty good idea what the jazz idea is.  Many Coltrane fans will object that A Love Supreme ought to come before Giant Steps.  That may be so, but ALS is a rather unrepresentative recording, and I think that GS had much more influence on the history of the music.  Likewise my choice of Far Cry to represent Dolphy is somewhat idiosyncratic.  Brilliant Corners might be the most questionable choice, but if you had one Monk recording, that would be it.  All of Monk's genius is in it.  Or maybe Henderson's State of the Tenor looks most out of place.  I admit that it is actually a two disc recording, but I plead that one can fit it on one CD.  I really think that this belongs in the top ten, and I am sure that Joe deserves a place there. 

Here is the rest of the top twenty-five on my list. 

Adderley	Canonball	Something Else
Blakey	Art	Jazz Messengers with Thelonious Monk
Brubeck	Dave	Time Out
Burrell	Kenny	Midnight Blue
Coltrane	John	A Love Supreme
Davis	Miles	ESP
Gordon	Dexter	Our Man in Paris
Hancock	Herbie	Maiden Voyage
Hill	Andrew	Point of Departure
McLean	Jackie	Let Freedom Ring
Nelson	Oliver	Blues and the Abstract Truth
Pepper	Art	Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section
Shepp	Archie	New York Contemporary Five
Taylor	Cecil	Jazz Advance
Tyner	McCoy	The Real McCoy

Here I allowed myself some repeat artists, and so got ALS in.  Miles may be said to have made it in twice, as Adderley's Something Else might really have been a Davis recording.  With Davis, the problem I have is that I think his best documents are the multi-disc live recordings at the Plugged Nickel, the Black Hawk, and the Stockholm recordings.  But I honestly think that ESP is Mile's second best single disc recording.  His second great quintet, and the pervasive influence of Wayne Shorter makes it an immortal recording.

Well, I expect to be returning to this theme in coming days or weeks.  Completing a list of fifty will be a challenge.  I am open to suggestions.