Some Andrew Hill

I go back from time to time to Andrew Hill.  His marvelous work for Blue Note ought to be part of any jazz collector's treasure chest.  Today I acquired Pax, a fine set with the following lineup:

• Bass – Richard Davis (2)
• Cornet – Freddie Hubbard
• Drums – Joe Chambers
• Piano, Composed By – Andrew Hill
• Tenor Saxophone – Joe Henderson

 Anything with Joe Henderson and Freddie Hubbard on it is worth a listen.  There is a serious intensity to pretty much every note that Hill plays.  He insists on directing your attention to the narrative.  Everything here is good.  I am playing 'Calliope' and 'Eris'. 

I am also playing 'Refuge' from Hill's magnum opus, Point of Departure.  This ranks as one of the most important jazz recordings.  Here is the lineup:

• Alto Saxophone, Flute, Bass Clarinet – Eric Dolphy
• Bass – Richard Davis (2)
• Drums – Tony Williams*
• Piano, Written-By – Andrew Hill
• Tenor Saxophone – Joe Henderson
• Trumpet – Kenny Dorham

 Those are the usual suspects, along with Eric Dolphy and Tony Williams, two heroic geniuses plucked from the board obscenely early by jealous gods. 

Joe Henderson Lush Life

I was in a Joe Henderson mood, so I uploaded a piece from Lush Life (The Music of Billy Strayhorn): 'Blood Count'.  

Lineup:

• Joe Henderson, tenor
• Wynton Marsalis, trumpet
• Stephen Scott, piano
• Christian McBride, bass
• Gregory Hutchinson, drums

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. 

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. 

Recent Live365 Program

My Live365 program has about ten hours of jazz on it now.  I haven't had the time/energy to post a complete play list here, but I will try to list new stuff as I add it.  Here is what went up this week:

1. William Parker/Sunday Morning March/Scrapbook
2. Thelonious Monk/Misterioso/Misterioso
3. Steve Lacy and Eric Watson/Goodbye Pork Pie Hat/Spirit of Mingus
4. Rob Garcia Quartet/Perennial/Perennial
5. Joe Henderson/Y Todavia La Quiero/Relaxin' at Camarillo
6. David Murray/India/Octet Plays Trane
7. Chico Freeman/Infant Eyes/The Unspoken Word

That's a pretty good slice of music.  Most of it is relatively unknown.  The William Parker album is a "violin trio" with Parker on bass, Hamid Drake on drums, and Billy Bang on violin.  It gives the album a classical touch but the arrangements are a range of African American roots music.   The Steve Lacy/Eric Watson album is what you get when you get a Steve Lacy duet.  

I am still rather possessed by the DKV Trio albums I posted about earlier.  This is certainly the most captivating free jazz I have ever heard. 

More Big Band with Joe Henderson

I did a little calculation tonight.  The Penguin Guide to Jazz, may it be praised, claims 14,000 reviews.  Here's the thing: if you listened to each reviewed disc for five minutes, about the average length of a single number, that would add up to 70,000 minutes, or 1167 hours.  At eight hours a day, that would be 146 days.  I trust that the authors of the Guide have nothing else to do.  

I have more than 900 jazz albums, according to my iTunes program.  Of course, that includes every single disc in my three Bill Evans box sets.  No wonder I am behind in my listening.  

But tonight (it's payday!) I added another gem: Joe Henderson's Big Band.  I have a very warm spot in my heart for Joe.  His deep heart dredge has gotten me through more than one funk.  I listed his State of the Tenor as one of the ten best jazz recordings.  Maybe Sonny Rollins is "greater".  I would rather spend my time with Joe.  

As I said in my previous post, jazz big band albums are frequently concertos: a dialogue between an instrumentalist and an orchestra.  It kinda reminds me of baseball.  Joe, with his sax, squares off against a field of horns and mallets.  Anyway, Henderson's Big Band is a marvelous album.  Everything you want in a Henderson album is there, with that lush sound behind him.  I got it from Amazon for a song.  Here's a sample:

Joe Henderson/Inner Urge/Big Band

Larry Young's Magnum Opus

One of the recordings I picked up at the Jazz Record Mart in Chicago was Larry Young's Unity.  It's a Penguin Guide core collection item, and I just hadn't got around to it yet.  Wow.  This is twenty-four karat blues-based bop.  There aren't a lot of organists at the top of the list.  Jimmy McGriff comes to mind, and Joe Zawinul.  Young's playing reverses the old cliche: he doesn't make it look easy, he makes it look hard as Hell. He is obviously a virtuoso, but the instrument seems to be always tripping over itself.  It is as if he makes it do something it doesn't want to do.  That might be its wonderful charm. 

The band includes Joe Henderson on tenor, Woody Shaw on trumpet, and Elvin Jones on drums.  Jones is a busy man.  The organ fills the space that God made for the bass.  All of this is good, and it is soul-lifting music.  If you want to be moody, try Steve Lacy and Mal Waldron (either one or both).  If you want a future you can believe in, try this blast from the past.  

Here is a sample:

Larry Young/Monk's Dreams/Unity

 Check it out quick.  The coppers are on my tail. 

Jim Snidero & Joe Henderson

The "Sixties" was, in most ways, the most disastrous period in the history of Western Culture. Bad art and horrid architecture. Horrific fashion design (bell bottom jeans!). Incredibly stupid popular movies (Love Story). There was so great Rock and Roll, but most other bled and warped. Classical music never recovered. Jazz almost died, but not quite.

Joe Henderson's Power to the People is a period piece. With tunes like 'Afro-Centric,' and 'Black Narcissus,' Joe was mau-mauing the flack catchers. But there is a jeweler's eye in the jazz composer that sees through the temporal mist. Power was recorded in two sessions in May of 1969, about as by-God sixties a year as ever happened. The second session, on May 29th, included Herbie Hancock on electric piano (another Sixties touch), Ron Carter on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums.

'Black Narcissus' is a very sweet and subtle composition. Hancock's electric piano gives it a mystic landscape sort of feel. Acid, maybe. Carter's bass is genuine architecture. Henderson has a soft quality here that comes as something of a surprise if you just listened to State of the Tenor, as I did this afternoon. It is almost as if he were trying to sing you into a dream.

I chanced upon Jim Snidero in the Penguin Guide. Snidero (a year younger than me, damn it) has been all over the place in the music business. His tribute album of Henderson's music is very strong. Joe Magnarelli plays trumpet, Conrad Herwing (tb); David Hazeltine (p), Dennis Irwin (b), and Kenny Washington (d). It's all lively and good, with a very bright sound. Jazz did indeed survive the sixties.

Joe Henderson/Black Narcissus/Power to the People

Jim Henderson/Black Narcissus/The Music of Joe Henderson