Showing posts with label blue note. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blue note. Show all posts

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Wayne Shorter Without A Net

Wayne Shorter has a new album, his first for Blue Note in 43 years.  I have a very special place in my heart for Shorter.  When I first began collecting jazz a few years back, his work was one of my areas of concentration.  I still think his Blue Note recordings (Speak No Evil and Juju come to mind) were examples of pure genius. 
Without A Net is more than one could hope for.  Here is the band:
1.       pianist Danilo Pérez,
2.      bassist John Pattitucci, and
3.      drummer Brian Blade
It is no surprise that the recording is getting a lot of laudatory reviews.  Shorter is, if not a jazz god, at least a jazz demi-god.  Shorter will turn 80 this year, if my math is correct.  It is nothing short of astonishing that he plays with so much energy and imagination.  Shorter is playing soprano sax on the album as he did on some of cuts from the 1969 European recordings with Miles Davis.  Here, however, he has a very different sound. 
I think that his playing is eerily reminiscent of Steve Lacy, especially on the first cut.  There is surely nothing here that would be familiar to anyone who knows his work for Blue Note or his history with Art Blakey and Miles, let alone his fusion period.  Shorter is doing something original here.  One could only wish to get more of it.
I am playing ‘Orbits’ and ‘Starry Night’.  I am also playing ‘Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum’ from Speak No Evil, and ‘Mahjong’ from Juju. 

Friday, June 15, 2012

Cliff Jordan & John Gilmore: The Neglected Masterpiece of Blue Note Hard Bop

 


That, at any rate, is how the latest edition of the Penguin Guide (The History of the Music in the 1001 Best Albums) describes Blowin' In From Chicago (1957).  The recording is often listed under the leadership of Clifford Jordan, though the two get equal status on the album cover.  Gilmore is almost solely known for his work with Sun Ra.  Blowin', however, suggests that these were two under utilized talents.

The solos are fierce and uncompromising. The album features 
  1.  John Gilmore on tenor sax
  2. Clifford Jordan on tenor sax
  3. Curley Russel on bass, 
  4. Horace Silver on piano, and 
  5. Art Blakey on drums.   
That makes is a classic item in your hard bop collection.  I am playing 'Status Quo' and 'Billie's Bounce'. 

Friday, January 20, 2012

More Elvin Jones on Blue Note

On July 17, 1970, Elvin Jones recorded a session in the Rudy Gelder Studio that is astonishingly good.  It was released as Coalition.  I am playing a couple of cuts from this session: 'Ural Stradania' and 'Shinjitu'.  The recording features
  • Frank Foster (tenor sax on the first and alto clarinet on the second)
  • George Coleman (tenor sax)
  • Wilbur Little (bass)
  • Candido Camero (congas and tambourine)
  • Elvin Jones (drums)
Everything on the album is good, but Foster's low horn on Shinjitu is way deep down in the bone.   I found all this on the Complete Elvin Jones Blue Note Sessions, a box set that is a really box of treasure. 

In February of the following year, Jones and Foster returned to Gelder's studio for a second session.  Most of this session was released as Genesis. I already have 'For All The Other Times' playing on my L365 station.  I am adding 'Three Card Molly'.  
  • Frank Foster (tenor, alto flute, alto clarinet).  
  • Joe Farrell (tenor sax and soprano sax)
  • David Liebman (tenor sax and soprano sax)
  • Gene Perla (bass).  
  • Elvin Jones (drums)
This is great jazz on the cusp of hard bop and avant garde.  Enjoy.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Bobby Hutcherson on Blue Note pt. 2

Bobby Hutcherson recorded three albums as leader with Herbie Hancock on piano: Components (1965), Happenings (66), and Oblique (67).  As Hutcherson's Dialogue was, I think, deeply colored by the presence of Andrew Hill, so Hancock's presence colors the 66 and 67.  This is so in spite of the fact that Hutcherson composed all but one of the numbers on Happenings (Hancock's 'Maiden Voyage') and three of the six numbers of on Oblique.  The latter also includes a single Hancock composition.  I think that this is a strength of Hutcherson's leadership rather than a weakness and is quite intentional.  Hutcherson's composition 'Subtle Neptune' certainly invokes the oceanic theme that marked Hancock's great Blue Note recordings.  Hutcherson chose to do something very clever: record albums that fit rather neatly with the latter.  
  1. Components.  Freddie Hubbard (tp); James Spaulding (as, fl); Bobby Hutcherson (vib, mar); Herbie Hancock (p, org); Ron Carter (b); Joe Chambers (d).  Four of the cuts are Hutcherson composition, and they are all lyrical, accessible, and delicious.  'Tranquility' is pensive and haunting.  'Little B's Poem' is a classic.  The rest of the compositions are by Chambers, and lean a little more toward the avant garde.  
  2. Happenings.  Bobby Hutcherson (vib, mar, d); Herbie Hancock (p); Bob Cranshaw (b); Joe Chambers (d, mar),  Great album art!  All the compositions are good.  I especially like 'Head Start' with Hutcherson's superb solos going on just inches above Hancock's piano. This is very energetic and compelling hard bop.
  3. Oblique.  Bobby Hutcherson (vib, d); Herbie Hancock (p); Albert Stinson (b); Joe Chambers (d, gong, timp).  What Hutcherson does with Hancock's 'Theme from "Blow Up"' is just marvelous, and you don't get better vibes than are on display in the title cut.  
  4. Stick Up! (66) Joe Henderson (ts); Bobby Hutcherson (vib); McCoy Tyner (p); Herbie Lewis (b); Billy Higgins (d).  This is a nice contrast with the above recordings.  It doesn't sound like a Hancock or a Henderson album, though Joe does not go unnoticed.  Hutcherson's poetry is a conspicuous feature of all these albums, but the best expression of it is in the aptly titled 'Verse'.  Again, Hutcherson composes his solo just above the exquisite Tyner on piano and Lewis on base, followed Henderson doing the same.  I can't imagine listening to this and not being happy.  
I may do another post on Hutcherson, or maybe not.   If you have the four recordings described in these last two posts, you have a fine record of mid-sixties jazz in all of its glory. 

Thursday, September 3, 2009

More Mobley


I picked up an excellent box set this week: Hank Mobley: The Complete Blue Note Fifties Sessions. I can't imagine that very many copies of this have sold, except to libraries. But it is six CDs of very fine jazz, covering one of the most important periods in the history of our music. I haven't had time to really study the box, but it does seem to me that there is a real shift in sophistication from the earlier fifties to the latter in Mobley's work. The first few discs just seem to me to be more light-hearted, more let's have a good time and sing some songs. By disc six, Mobley is trying to ride the wave a bit more. Now that I think about it, I am losing confidence.

Maybe you can tell. Here is piece from the first disc (Hank Mobley (ts) Horace Silver (p) Doug Watkins (b) Art Blakey (d).
Hank Mobley/Love for Sale/The Hank Mobley Quartet
And here is one of my favorite standards, from a 1958 date (Lee Morgan (tp) Hank Mobley (ts) Wynton Kelly (p) Paul Chambers (b) Charlie Persip (d) ):
Hank Mobley/Speak Low/Peckin
I don't know Charlie Persip, but the rest of the band is twenty-four karat. Lee Morgan is gorgeous, and Wynton Kelly does what he does. There is a lot of great jazz still out there! Enjoy, and if you do, drop me a line. I am getting really lonely here.