Trio 3 is killer jazz

I am a big fan of jazz drummer Andrew Cyrille, bass player Reggie Workman, and horn master Oliver Lake, so I can’t help buying up the recordings of the Trio 3.  This week I got Open Ideas.  It’s a pretty good example of avant garde on the more accessible end.  I am playing ‘Casino,’ which features some vocal chants.  I don’t know who is chanting, but I love the slow blues.  I am also playing ‘Hooray for Herbie’. 

So I might as well add more.  I am playing ‘Crooked Blues’, a splendid number that will appeal to hard bop fans.  It is from the album Encounter.  Lake’s horn is lavish and seductive.  Workman rides over Cyrille’s beat like he knows more than you know about the heart.  Finally, I added a number from At This Time, by The Trio 3 Plus Geri Allen. 

All three albums are superb.  Nail ‘em down.  

Mangelic

After years of mining the Penguin Guide to Jazz (may it be praised!), the lode is still not exhausted.  I chanced upon the entry for Albert Mangelsdorff just the day as I was trying to figure out where to invest my remaining monthly eMusic bucks. 

What a find!  Mangelsdorff (1928-2005) was a trombonist.  As I am fond of the lower horns, I gave him a listen.  In short order I bought a couple of his recordings.  The live set Triplicity (1979) features Arild Andersen on double bass and Pierre Favre on drums.  Believe you me, these guys had the fire.  This unusual trio of instruments allows the trombone and the bass to fully vocalize and grab at your bones.  Anderson in particular is magnificent.  There is a bird theme here that I don’t quite get, but let’s give it some time. 

I am playing the title cut and ‘Green Shades Into Blue’. 

The other disc is Now Jazz Ramwong (1964).  This is an unbelievable gem by the Albert Mangelsdorff Quintet.  There are a lot of eastern themes here.  The overall dimension is a hard bop/avant garde stretch, with a large ensemble feel.  The energy keeps you rolling all the way to the end.  If you like the guttural feel of every bass thump and horn snort, you will like this one. 

• Alto Saxophone – Günter Kronberg
• Bass – Günter Lenz
• Drums – Ralf Hübner
• Tenor Saxophone – Heinz Sauer
• Trombone – Albert Mangelsdorff

I am playing the title cut (also heard in the clip above) and ‘Three Jazz Moods’.  I’m telling you, if you miss this one you have missed something.  

ps. I should note that Mangelsdorff plays on two John Lindberg albums I have been playing.

Bill Mays & Red Mitchell

A while back I posted some video clips from a PBS special that I saw and recorded back in the 1980’s.  At least, I think they are clips from that video.  Anyway, I watched and recorded a duet with Bill Mays on piano and Red Mitchell on bass.  I seem to recall that it was the first time I was able to record audio from television onto my cassette deck.  I listened to that recording over and over.  It was one of those formative moments in my life as a jazz listener.  The simple duet, with Mitchell’s gorgeous thump and Mays’ bright keys, presented the basic jazz idea to me in a way that I couldn’t miss it. 

Around that same time I noticed an album by Mays and Mitchell in a record store, but just couldn’t afford it.  I have looked for it ever since and today I found it on eMusic.  It’s Two of a Mind, and it brings the hair up on the back of my neck.  It is very well recorded.  Mitchel could make a bass talk the talk while he walks the walk.  I love bass sound and Mitchel can make one note extend like layered biscuit while another vibrates like a tightrope under the feet of someone desperately trying to reach the post. 

Mays combines a pensive mood reminiscent of Bill Evans with a staccato brightness that is all his own.  He surrounds the drama of the bass with the lights, tables, and cocktails.  Then they get to dialogue.  The exchange is exquisite and compelling. 

This is a superb duet.  You can get it for less than three flippin’ dollars from eMusic.  I also bought a Mays Trio recording, Summer Sketches.  I’ll probably be playing something from that soon.  Meanwhile, from Two of a Mind I am playing ‘Well You Needn’t,’ and ‘All Blues’. 

The Used Jazz Record Bin

It's not quite dead, yet.  There is no point in complaining about the steady disappearance of jazz sections in record stores when record stores are all but extinct.  It was a little disconcerting when I discovered that the modern jazz section of the Music Factory in New Orleans was all but gone.  It is pretty clear that jazz artists aren't going to sell their recordings at those venues.  However, this is not really anything new.  How many record stores have ever carried good jazz sections or even good alternative rock sections for that matter?  No record store in my hometown ever carried Patti Smith's great recordings.  What is new is that you can get almost anything you want online. 

What I am really sad to see go are the bins where you could find good second hand jazz CDs.  I did manage to find a couple of gems this weekend at Cheapo Records in the Twin Cities.  I have a respectable collection of Elvin Jones recordings, but I didn't have the double album Illumination/Dear John C. until now.  Well, I did have Illumination.  I was glad to get the second half for a very good price. 

Dear John C., as you might have guessed, is a tribute to Trane.  The lineup is Elvin Jones on drums, Charlie Mariano on alto sax, Roland Hanna and Hank Jones on piano, and Richard Davis on bass.  It's worth a listen.  I am playing the title cut and 'Love Bird'. 

I picked up Natural Illusions by Bobby Hutcherson.  It is a 1972 recording that seems to be rather lack luster, but it does fill out my Hutcherson collection. 

I was pleased to find Revue, by the World Saxophone Quartet.  This all star, all sax group is something you want to check out if you think, as I do, that the saxophone is the main register of modern jazz.  The quartet features Hamiet Bluiett on baritone sax and also clarinet; Julius Hemphill on alto, soprano, and flute; Oliver Lake on the same; and David Murray on tenor sax and bass clarinet.  There is enough texture here that you could float on it. 

I am playing the title cut and 'David's Tune'. 

Bassdrumbone

I hesitated over downloading this album.  What pushed me over the edge was the shear beauty of the trio's name.  Bassdrumbone.  That's jazz methodology applied to word play!  Another thing that led me to this album was an interest in Gerry Hemingway. 

Drummers and bass players have a position in a combo that is analogous to that of a catcher in baseball.  Either can sit (or stand) at the point from which the entire field is visible.  Paul Motian ranks as perhaps the most influential percussionist in modern jazz precisely because he played that position so well.  Maybe Hemingway is another such drummer. 

Anyway, The Other Parade (2011) is a splendid trio album, richly inventive and gorgeously recorded.  Here is the trio:

• Double Bass – Mark Helias
• Drums – Gerry Hemingway
• Trombone – Ray Anderson

The consonance achieved by the three is hardly surprising, since they have been recording together since 1977.  I am guessing that one can hear a lot more in this recording than was possible back then.  Every guttural thump of the bass, every snort of the trombone and scrape of the drums is audible and tangible.  I wonder how much if at all it affects their playing to know that so much is going onto the signal.   

Here is one to spend a few eMusic dollars on.  I am playing 'Show Truck' and 'The Blue Light Down the Line'. 

The Gerry Hemingway Quartet

From time to time as I explore the Penguin Guide to Jazz (may it be praised) I find an artist who reminds me of what all this jazz is about.  Tonight it was the Gerry Hemingway Quartet.  Hemingway is a drummer largely devoted to avant garde.  He has played with Anthony Braxton and appears, I believe, on one of the Reggie Workman albums that I frequently feature. 

I am playing 'Back Again Some Time' from Devil's Paradise.  This album blends the avant garde sensibility to solid, bluesy melodies in a way that will move you way past the red line.  Here is the lineup:

• Double Bass – Mark Dresser
• Drums – Gerry Hemingway
• Saxophone – Ellery Eskelin
• Trombone – Ray Anderson

You might think that Mark Dresser is a warning sign.  Don't worry.  This is no space music experience.  It is a digging down to the mother lode of jazz flavor.

I am also playing 'Waitin', from The Whimbler.  

• Acoustic Bass, Electric Bass – Mark Helias
• Drums, Producer [Recording], Composed By – Gerry Hemingway
• Tenor Saxophone – Ellery Eskelin
• Trumpet – Herb Robertson

 The horn work on both albums is glowing.  I especially liked Anderson's trombone. 

A little Trane

I have added some Coltrane to my L365 station.  I finally got around to purchasing Interstellar Space (1974).  I believe it was Trane's last studio album.  It's a duet with  Rashied Ali on drums.  It is very avant garde in spirit, but any Coltrane fan will appreciate it.  I am playing 'Venus'.

I also added 'The Believer' from the box set Fearless Leader.   This is from an album released ten years earlier but was recorded in 1958.  That was the title cut.  I am adding another cut from the same sparse album 'Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful'.  The Believer featured the great rhythm section of Garland, Chambers, and Taylor.   This was the heroic period in jazz. 

• Bass – Paul Chambers (3)
• Drums – Arthur Taylor* (tracks: B2), Louis Hayes
• Piano – Red Garland
• Tenor Saxophone – John Coltrane
• Trumpet – Donald Byrd, Freddie Hubbard (tracks: B2)