Jazz Note 4 Extended

I have removed the previous two shows and extended the current show by another hour.  Here is a list of the additional music.  

1. Warm Velvet/Ivo Perelman/Sad Life
2. Seagulls of Kristiansund/Mal Waldron Quartet/Seagulls of Kristiansund
3. European Echoes/Ornette Coleman Trio/Live at the Golden Circle Vol. 1
4. Memphis/Ran Blake Trio/Sonic Temples
5. Abolish Bad Architecture/Reid Anderson/Abolish Bad Architecture
6. Laredo/ROVA/The Works Vol. 3. 

The Perleman record (1996)  is the sort of thing you will like, if you like that sort of thing.  A saxophone trio can be pretty dry, but this one is superbly recorded and you get all the flavor of the instruments.   The Mal Waldron number is just delicious.  A stretched out romance recorded live at the Village Vanguard in 1986.  Almost as good is The Git Go, which is from the same gig.  Coleman's Live at the Golden Circle is a very strong sample of Coleman's playing.  I think he works very well in the trio format.  This odd bounce is interesting for the way Coleman's adventurous horn is easy to follow.  

Ran Blake is a fine piano player with a touch that can be both abstract and sensuous at the same time.  I highly recommend his album Short Life of Barbara Monk.  On this show I presented a piece from a two CD set: Sonic Temples.  Reid Anderson is the bass player with The Bad Plus, and has three recordings under his name.  All three are splendid.  


Finally, ROVA is an all saxophone group, with Bruce Ackley, Steve Adams, Larry Ochs, and Jon Raskin.  Their two albums The Works Vol. 2 and 3 are quite good and are available very cheaply on Amazon or eMusic.  Available very cheaply (under two bucks at Amazon) is their recording of Coltrane's Ascension.  I never warmed to Trane's version, but at that price I might give it a try. 

Jazz Note 4: Thankgiving

Here's a playlist of the current show, which debuts at 9pm Central tonight, Saturday, November 27th.  Tonight's show is a mixed bag of more accessible music from mostly less accessible albums.  Something to cut the taste of turkey and give your digestion something to work with.  You'll find roaring blues and sad romance, spiritual highs and entertaining shadows.  Give it a listen and let me know what you think. 

1. Thanksgiving Suite/John Lindberg/A Tree Frog Tonality
2. Mikuro's Blues/David S. Ware Quartet/Live In The World
3. Ghosts/Albert Ayler/Spiritual Unity
4. Red Car/David Murray/I Want To Talk About You
5. Odin/David Murray/Body and Soul
6. Crossing the Sudan/Chico Freeman/Destiny's Dance
7. Stratusphunk/George Russell/Stratusphunk
8. O'Neal's Porch/William Parker/O'Neal's Porch
9. Contemplation/Mal Waldron and Marion Brown/Songs of Love and Regret
10. Sonny's Dream/Sonny Criss/Sonny's Dream
11. The Wane/Steve Lacy Trio/The Holy La
12. Both Sides/The Vandermark Five/Airports For Light

Update: Mikuro's Blues played at half speed.  I stopped the show and replaced the track.  I hope it works this time.  Of course, with avant garde jazz you can't always tell. 

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. 

Mal Waldron

Spring break here is almost over.  If you are wondering why I have posted a lot lately, that would be it.  Expect the pace to be back at once or twice a week soon.  This blog is pure hobby.  All play and no work makes Jack a poor boy.  

I have thoroughly enjoyed the recent exchange on avant garde jazz with intrepid reader Dan.  I have taken his suggestion (endorsed by Ken Laster) and changed my masthead to more accurately reflect what is in this blog.  I am very satisfied with my progress as a jazz fan.  I am still firmly devoted to hard bop.  But the avant garde jazz I have learned to appreciate has opened up a lot of new dimensions in my ear.  

One thing that Dan and I certainly agree on is that avant garde experimentation has turned great profits for more straight ahead bop.  Anthony Braxton's Monk album, reviewed in my last post, is a fine example.  

Another is the work of Mal Waldron.  I still remember buying a vinyl record of Waldron's back in the old days.  I think it was Blues for Lady Day.  I had no idea who Waldron was or what his position in jazz history might have been, or what led me to get that album.  A few years after I put that record on my turntable, Waldron recorded a superb session in New York.  It was1989, the year my son was born and I took a job in South Dakota.  

Two records came out of that session: Crowd Scene, and Where Are You?  Both are very fine, and available from eMusic.  I have been listening to both of them over the last two days, along with another two albums from a live session at the Village Vanguard:  The Seagulls of Kristiansund, and The Git Go Live at the Village Vanguard. 

I have posted frequently on Waldron.  His work is a superb catalog of jazz adventure.  I am very fond of his many duet albums.  Waldron's compositions reveal a soul too beautiful to easily imagine in this world.  Crowd Scene consists of just two long pieces.  They are the jazz equivalent of what rock and rollers would call jam sessions.  The substance of the piece is along bluesy line, stitching together the string of solos.  The bluesy line substitutes for melody.  

I was mesmerized by the title piece from Crowd Scene.  I offer it here, but you have to promise to download the whole album and Where Are You? as well.  If you keep this piece and don't pay for the rest, a demon will come after you.  Just sayin'. 

Update: I have replaced the complete file with excerpt that contains a good slice of the song.  It cuts out the intro, and the second half of the number.  Listen to it and you will get a very good idea of the power of this recording. 

Mal Walron Quintet/Crowd Scene/Excerpt

Here's the band, from the Jazz Discography Project (may God reward them): Sonny Fortune (as) Ricky Ford (ts) Mal Waldron (p) Reggie Workman (b) Eddie Moore (d). 

Monk, Solos, Duos, Avant Garde, Hard Bop, and Martinis

It's stream of consciousness time here at Jazz Note.  I am digesting a little new music by Noah Preminger, John Surman, Dave King, and Tom Varner.  But I am not ready to post on any of that.  Instead, I feel like returning to a handful of occasional them and letting them bleed into one another.  

First: jazz solos and duets.  Solo albums are the jazz version of a dry martini joke.  Pour in the gin, whisper "vermouth," over the angled glass and push it across the mahogany.  If a jazz man isn't playing the piano or recording multiple tracks, it's hard to lay down anything for the listener to glide on.  Only the raw ideas are expressed, leaving the listener to supply his or her own blues and swing.  For that reason the solo recording can be as rewarding as it is demanding.  You ain't gonna make it rich that way.  

Here's an example of Steve Lacy playing Monk's 'Evidence'.  Lacy is an avant garde master who was devoted to the soprano sax exclusively and Monk, well, a whole lot.  The recording is from a relatively obscure album, the obscurity being no mystery.  But I think you will dig it if you give it a chance.  You are nowhere but in the horn on this one. 

Steve Lacy/Evidence/5 X Monk 5 X Lacy

The duet can be as laconic as the solo even when a piano is included, especially if the piano player is Mal Waldron.  Lacy and Waldron recorded a lot of records together and everyone of them is a work of dynamic genius.  

Steve Lacy and Mal Waldron/Epistrophy/At the Bimhuis 1982

This is distilled love: Lacy and Waldron for one another and both for Monk.  Waldron plays with a percussive style, just as Monk did; but no one would mistake Waldron for Monk here.  I love how the piano's insistent beating constantly invites the next note from Lacy's horn.  

Another horn/piano duet that probably isn't on your iPod is Chris Potter and Kenny Werner's album.  I don't know Werner, but I don't think of avant garde when I think of Chris Potter.  This treatment of the same song as above is altogether different: faster and fuller in sound.  I like it a lot.  

Chris Potter and Kenny Werner/Epistrophy/Concord Duo Series, Vol. 10

All of that gives you a pretty good idea of what a jazz solo and duo can do with a Monk tune.  But I can't let this one go without a fuller treatment for contrast.  In 1964 Monk recorded a live album at the It Club in San Francisco.  I only picked it up recently, but it is a four star document.  Charlie Rouse plays tenor, Larry Gales bass, and Ben Riley drums.  Wow is this double CD good! 

Thelonious Monk/Evidence/Live at the It Club

And here is a little inside information from yours truly.  Over the course of several decades I have majored in philosophy and minored in jazz.  Both of these courses of study have allowed me to fall in love with other men, with no exchange of bodily fluids.  Infection nonetheless occurred.  I have been in love with Plato for a long time, and with Thelonious Monk for a good ten years.  Listening to the It Club recording meant falling in love all over again. 

Coltrane 57

On the last day of May, 1957, John Coltrane recorded his first session as leader. Six out of the seven takes were released as Coltrane, not to be confused with the 1962 album of the same title.  The last cut, 'I hear a Rhapsody,' would wind up on the hodgepodge Lush Life. Here's the line-up and song list, from the essential Jazz Discography Project. 

Johnny Splawn (tp -1/4) John Coltrane (ts) Sahib Shihab (bars -1,3,4) Mal Waldron (p -1/3) Red Garland (p -4/7) Paul Chambers (b) Albert Heath (d) Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, May 31, 1957

1.	Straight Street
2.	While My Lady Sleeps
3.	Chronic Blues
4.	Bakai
5.	Violets For Your Furs
6.	Time Was
7.	I Hear A Rhapsody

The great Prestige session with the Davis Quintet were behind him, but he probably looked to everyone like a great sideman with a chance to come into his own.  Coltrane was not yet his moment, but it is very solid hard bop and Trane's brilliant sound, all his own, is on fully display here.  There is just no other horn in jazz that ever opened up the same space or achieved the same velvety rich emotional texture.  

Mal Waldron plays on the first three numbers, and Red Garland thereafter.  Waldron would prove to be the genius, but I think that Garland's work on this album is superior.  

The highlight of the album, and what sets is apart from rest of the work in the Fearless Leader Box, is Sahib Shihab on  baritone sax.  Trane would later deploy a lot of low horns, especially on his Africa Brass Sessions.  I wish he had done more of that here, for the effect is electrifying.  This is especially evident on 'Bakai'.  

But here is the best cut from the May 31st session.  It is a straightforward blues, and Shihab lets it rip with his opening solo.  Trane follows, his notes climbing on top of one another in contrast to Shihab's serial blows on the baritone.  Splawn's solo is the least impressive.  He plays as if he thinks he's supposed to be keeping some kind of secret, but that's not so bad for by then the secret is out.  Waldron turns the dial back up by dissecting the melody into chunks, and the chunks into individual notes.  Each little section rings like a sweet bell tone.  I love this cut, if you can't tell. 

Chronic Blues

Coltrane 57 is well worth having your Trane set.  If you don't have it, I highly recommend the Fearless Leader box.  It is the best presentation of Coltrane' s work before he really comes into his own with Giant Steps.  The single recording is also available from eMusic for 6 credits.  

Enjoy.  Purchase.  Drop me a line. 

Big Bands, Small Combos, & Duets

The difference between big band jazz and the small combo (3 to 9 musicians) is analogous to the difference between a novel and a short story. In the former, the larger picture usually subsumes most of the individual elements, with the exception of a central character or two. The main character watches the rise and fall of a Louisiana tyrant who pulls all the other characters into orbit around him. The jazz version has a solo horn play against the theme provided by an orchestra. Here is an example: Art Pepper playing against an orchestra:

Art Pepper/Our Song/Winter Moon

In the latter, a handful of characters come into focus against one another. A lonely furniture salesman negotiates the transfer of an antique table from a wife, only to find out that a mistress wants it. In the jazz version, the main horn establishes himself against the rhythm section, and then encounters the other instruments one at a time. Listen to this cut by the Jimmy Giuffre 3:

The Jimmy Giuffre 3/Two Kinds of Blues/Hollywood and Newport Live

If my analogy is any good, let me propose that the jazz duet and solo album is analogous to poetry. Everything is cut down to the bare skeleton of story. Each word, or note, has to stand for a vast realm of things. Here is a cut from Mal Waldron's last album, a duet with Avant Guard sax man Archie Shepp. This is jazz distilled into its essence. Be amazed.

Archie Shepp & Mel Waldron/Everything Happens to Me/Left Alone Revisited

This was Waldron's final tribute to Billy Holiday. Sadness and beauty inscribed with brilliant economy.