Back to Blakey

I got interested in Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers as result of my infatuation with Wayne Shorter.  I got interested in Wayne because I saw one of his albums in a Zen Mountain Center catalog.  I practice Zen meditation, and Wayne is a Nichiren Buddhist if I am correct.  Such is the strange path of a jazz collector.

I have about twelve Messengers albums with Shorter playing his magnificent sax.  I am always astonished to note that all twelve were recorded between 1960 and 1964, when Shorter served as the Messengers musical director.  That was one very fertile period in the history of jazz. 

Blakey was a unique sort of genius.  He kept the Messengers within a narrow scope of music, but allowed an amazing number of jazz masters to mature under his guidance.  He was also a wizard on the drums.  Wayne Shorter was another kind of genius.  I identify with him more than any other jazz master because of a set of common interests.  Buddhism, science fiction, and the spooky mood, these are the things that attract me to Shorter.  But I can't play the horn and I am no brilliant composer.  Wayne's melodies are haunting and compelling.  I can't imagine life without them. 

Today I got Buhaina's Delight.  It's named after Blakey's Islamic moniker.  I don't know when Shorter found the Buddha way, but there is a lot of American spring mix in this story.  Anyway, here is a sample from the disc. 

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers/Reincarnation Blues/Buhaina's Delight

Just look at the lineup: Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Curtis Fuller on trombone, Cedar Walton on piano, and Jymie Merritt on drums, and of course Blakey and Shorter. 

Here is another sample from a very popular album.  Here, in addition to Blakey and Shorter, Lee Morgan plays trumpet, Bobby Timmons piano, and Merritt again on bass.  I have a deep fondness for Timmons, as he wrote 'Moanin', one of my favorite compositions.  But Lee Morgan is a priceless hard bop treasure.  This one number, I think, documents the greatness of the Messengers.  Morgan's intro, and Timmons' soft solo are wonderful.  But Morgan's solo, followed by Shorter's, lay out two chambers of the human heart in a way that makes every beat worth the blood it pumps.  This, by Zeus, is jazz. 

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers/Yama/A Night in Tunisia

Tom Varner's French Quartet Saints

Tom Varner is one weird dude, man.  Who told him you could play jazz on a french horn?  I scarfed up one Varner album, The Window Up Above: American Songs 1770-1998.  Who told him that jazz album titles could have subtitles?  Anyway, this is one strange trip through American music.  But I am thinkin' that it is a good hour spent.  

I particularly like his rendition of 'When the Saints Come Marching In.'  Anyone has who has heard it in Preservation Hall in the French Quarter will immediately recognize the alcohol buzz in Varner's version.  By the time you have consumed a plate of shrimp and downed more than a beer or two, and stood in line for an hour, well, this is what 'The Saints' sounds like.  

Tom Varner/When the Saints Come Marching In/The Window Up Above: American Songs 1770-1998.

Lee Kontiz with Dave Holland & Jack DeJohnette

One of the pleasures of having an absurdly large collection (=large enough you forget what you have) is that you forget what you have.  While listening to Dave Holland again today, I discovered that I had a recording with Dave Holland playing bass on it.  Lee Konitz, the absurdist poet of the alto sax recorded an album called Satori.  I have always been challenged and fascinated by Konitz's playing.  I first heard him on a Bill Evans album, Crosscurrents.

Satori is not the first Konitz album I would recommend to the uninitiated.  That would be Alone Together with Brad Mehldau and Charlie Haden.  But the former is solid Konitz, and it is a good chance to hear Holland as a side man.  Here is a sample:

Lee Konitz/On Green Dolphin Street/Satori

Herbie Nichols

So while I am on the subject of jazz artists who died in their forties from leukemia, I might as well mention Herbie Nichols.  Nichols was a piano player and composer.  He is more famous than Thomas Chapin, but left a rather more limited set of documents.  Here is something that Jazz.com has to say:

Composer and pianist Herbie Nichols’ inquisitive spirit lives on amongst a growing group of young followers, and in the spirit of every jazz musician who struggles to cultivate an individual sound within the din of the marketplace. An innovator equal in powers to Bud Powell or Thelonious Monk, he spent most of his career working in bands whose music was less adventurous than his own.

Well, an innovator equal to Bud Powell maybe.  But equal to Monk?  That's absurd.  Nichols is generally considered to have been a fine composer, but he didn't record much as leader and his partisans are still trying to bring his work into the mainstream.  I have the box set Herbie Nichols: The Complete Blue Note Recordings.  It's a fine collection, both in terms of composition and in terms of down right compelling piano work.  

One jazzman who has championed Nichols' work is Roswell Rudd.  Unfortunately, Rudd is an acquired taste on his own.  If Nichols is to get his spot in the spotlight, it might not be Rudd who does it for him.  But The Unheard Herbie Nichols is worth a listen.  

Here is a sample of Nichols, playing his most famous composition.  

Herbie Nichols/Lady Sings the Blues/The Complete Blue Note Recordings

And here is a cut from Rudd's tribute:

Roswell Rudd Trio/Prancin' Pretty Woman/The Unheard Herbie Nichols

More Thomas Chapin, Please...

Thomas Chapin, God bless 'em, was born about three months before I was, and died in 1998.  That is a little reminder to me of one of the central truths of Buddhism: that no one can escape death.  Chapin's approach to music is central to my book of jazz: stay rooted in the tradition, but push the envelope.  His output is mostly edgy page four, but he has a loyalty to melody that keeps me rooted in his horn lines. 

I've blogged about Night Bird Song album.  I recently acquired Sky Piece and Haywire.  The former, like NBS, is easy to come by.  I think he recognized NBS and SP as his seminal works.  Haywire presents the Chapin Trio with strings.  Jazz with strings is usually a way for a big name horn to make a lot of money with syrupy music to feed a heroin habit.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  Chapin's jazz with strings is something else altogether. 

Here are some samples to whet your appetite and get your credit card out of your wallet. I posted one version of Night Bird Song, from the album of that name.  Here is another, so good you should keep it in a lock box. 

Thomas Chapin/Night Bird Song/Sky Piece

And here is a delicious piece from Haywire.  

Thomas Chapin Trio + Strings/Diva/Haywire

Charles Gayle Takes No Prisoners

If you are going on a camping trip, don't take the expensive wine.  With all the campfire smoke and trail mix, you won't be able to taste it.  If you are going to listen to Charles Gayle, make sure your pallet is prepared.  Oddly enough, I find this music most compelling in the early morning, when I am just waking up.  You have to get a lot of your brain out of the way to hear what is going on here.  

That, of course, is the problem with page four jazz.  It makes ridiculous demands on the listener, including a lot of experience listening to edgy jazz.  But there is something here.  Or at least I thought there was this morning.  Charles Gayle is an uncompromising avant garde tenor player.  Here are a couple samples of his work.  

Charles Gayle/Justified/Consecration

Charles Gayle,William Parker, Rashied Ali/Part A/Touchin' on Trane 

 The Consecration recording is very challenging.  The Touchin' on Trane disc is one for any major collection.  

J.D. Allen Live @ The Village Vanguard

The Village Vanguard concert series is selling a lot of CDs, to me at least.  I have shelled out for two discs from each of the artists I have posted on, including the J.D. Allen Trio.  The Trio's Vanguard date isn't available as a download, alas.  But I have listened to the whole thing and it is exquisite. 

With bassist Gregg August and drummer Rudy Royston, the trio invites inevitable comparisons to the Sonny Rollins Vanguard recordings.  The sax/bass/drum trio focuses ones attention on the warmth and sparkle of the horn.  I think this might be the single most powerful setting for the saxophone, which is my favorite horn and jazz's favorite horn.   But for some reason I can't quite put my finger on, it wasn't Rollins I thought of as I listened to Allen's tenor, but John Coltrane.  The J.D. Allen Trio has two recent recordings: I Am I Am, and Shine.  Both of them are gems.  

Here is a short sample.

JD Allen Trio/Shine/Shine

Now: get the recording.  And leave a note.