Kenny Dorham Comes To Mind

A little bit of exquisite hard bop from the golden period of exquisite hard bop: Kenny Dorham: 'Round Midnight at the Cafe Bohemia (1956).  I noticed a review of this recording in the latest incarnation of the Penguin Jazz Guide and realized with a shock that, although I bought a copy of Vol. 1 decades ago, it somehow wasn't in my iTunes library.  Well, I fixed that. 

Cafe Bohemia is one of the great Blue Note live recordings.  It has distinctly Jazz Messengers sound, what with Dorham and Bobby Timmons on piano.  I have the title cut playing on my L365 station.  It will make your day.  

Here is the lineup:

• Bass – Sam Jones
• Drums – Arthur Edgehill
• Guitar – Kenny Burrell
• Piano – Bobby Timmons
• Tenor Saxophone – J.R. Monterose
• Trumpet – Kenny Dorham

Being in a Dorham mood, I also posted the title cut from Una Mas (1963).  It's a very nice, slightly Latin bop.  Here is the lineup:

• Bass – Butch Warren
• Drums – Anthony Williams
• Piano – Herbie Hancock
• Tenor Saxophone – Joe Henderson
• Trumpet – Kenny Dorham

You can't beat that group.  Anything with Tony Williams on it is a treasure.  Dorham's playing is superb all the way through. 

Finally, I added a cut from one of those Sonny Rollins recordings that might be easily overlooked: Rollins Plays for Bird (1956), which has the subtitle: Sonny Rollins Quintet with Kenny Dorham and Max Roach.  The cut is 'Kids Know'. 

• Bass – George Morrow
• Drums – Max Roach
• Piano – Wade Legge
• Tenor Saxophone – Sonny Rollins
• Trumpet – Kenny Dorham

Roach is Roach and Rollins is Rollins.  Dorham is luminous. 

Freedom Day

Happy Fourth of July.  I have posted Max Roach's 'Speak, Brother, Speak,' my Live365 station, in honor of these United States.  For entirely obvious reasons, there is a not a lot of explicitly patriotic music in jazz.  However, the civil rights stuff is more than genuinely patriotic in its fashion.  I think you will enjoy the long Roach piece. 

Maximum Max Roach 4 Pennies

My eMusic subscription renewed yesterday.  As I noticed the renewed credits, I was thumbing through the Penguin Guide and came upon the Max Roach recordings.  I have the core collection entries, the Clifford Brown collaborations (Alone Together) and the civil rights hymn We Insist!  There is a lot of jazz history and heart in those two issues.  I have also commented on Roach's collaboration with Anthony Braxton.  

As I was contemplating all this, I noticed that a four and a half star PG recommendation was on eMusic for two credits.  That adds up, doing some math on the subscription price I pay, to about 80 cents.  There are some reasons it's so cheap.  The subtitle, Max Roach Quartet at the Jazz Workshop, makes it sound like an essay. The recording consists of two long numbers.  Probably not album of the month.  

In fact, this is brilliant jazz.  The two segments are what rock fans would call jams.  With Roach as leader, Clifford Jordan on tenor, Mal Waldron on piano, and Eddie Khan on bass, they take a simple blues line and milk it for all the passion it is worth.  It's worth a lot.  

Here is a sample.  It is about half of the first number.  Don't listen if you ain't got the dough to purchase the whole thing.  

Max Roach Quartet/Speak, Oh Brother, Speak/Speak! excerpt

Voodoo Drums & Ghostly Horns

Not exactly a Fourth of July theme, but then I am writing at 40 minutes into the new day.  After a wonderful day of cooking ribs and cleaning house, followed by eating ribs and drinking beer with friends, I am in the mood for something less wholesome and a lot less fattening.  

Here it surely is.  I've been listening to Birth and Rebirth, a duet album by drummer Max Roach and horn player and "philosopher" Anthony Braxton.  Wow, does Braxton have spooky eyes.  It is an odd meeting between the mainstream and the jet stream.  It is pretty dry, overall, but good in the way that a dry martini is good.  You can hear and appreciate everything these two jazz genies conjure up.  Here is a sample:

Max Roach and Anthony Braxton/Spirit Possession/Birth and Rebirth

If that is not enough to cut the fat in your bloodstream, try this one from one of my beloved Mal Waldron/Steve Lacy duets.  It's sad romance, but pairs the emotion down to something not much more complicated than a beating heart and a sigh.  

Steve Lacy and Mal Waldron/A Flower is a Lovesome Thing/Sempre Amore

Sempre Amore is one of those albums that nobody but me seems to listen to.  Well, suddenly I am in the mood for something a little richer, with the same mood.  So here is a cut from my latest Sonny Criss acquisition.  Would you ever have expected a brilliant jazz interpretation of this song?  Criss, whose flag I have long been flying, managed to wield all his hard bop magic without ever losing the original sad mood of the Beatles' hit.  God, but I love Sonny Criss. 

Sonny Criss/Eleanor Rigby/Rockin' in Rhythm

Well, that's all for tonight.  Pick up these recordings.  That's an order. 

Max Roach and Barack Obama

From the very beginning of the American Republic, the position of African Americans has been central both to our peril and our promise. Jefferson and Madison knew it. Abraham Lincoln realized it and it brought him back into politics in 1858 when Stephen Douglas urged us to adopt a pro-choice attitude toward slavery, thus abandoning our most sacred principle. Martin Luther King brought us back to it in his transcendent "I have a dream" speech. Whether you voted for Barack Obama or not, you might acknowledge that today represents the final movement of the great American symphony.

Jazz was intimately connected to the Civil Rights Movement if only because so many of its founding geniuses were African Americans. In honor of Barack Obama's inauguration, I present a bit of Max Roach. Here's a brief review of We Insist! Freedom Now Suite.

A jazz landmark, and one of the enduring artistic statements of the Civil Rights Movement. From the opening "Driva'man" — with Coleman Hawkins' tenor maintaining dignity in the face of the whip-cracks drummer Max Roach emulates with his rim-shots — to the closing "Tears for Johannesburg" — a wordless cry for the victims of apartheid — Roach alternately condemns and celebrates the African-American experience. There's inspired soloing by trumpeter Booker Little and trombonist Julian Priester, a stirring percussion jam with Olatunji and others, and hair-raising vocals, both verbal (lyrics by Oscar Brown Jr.) and nonverbal, from Abbey Lincoln. This provides the template for countless subsequent musical suites and dramatic presentations on the subject, but Roach was firstest with the mostest.

I have long loved this Max Roach album, as a rare example of narrative jazz. Here's one sample:

Max Roach/Freedom Day/We Insist! Freedom Now Suite