ND - Michel Legrand: Legrand in Rio

[UPDATES: Go to the bottom of the post to see an update on the subject]

Every once in a while I'll publish small pieces of discographical research, or notes on discography (hence, ND). This one is about an old LP by Michel Legrand, who came to prominence in jazz with his Legrand Jazz, recorded in the summer of '58. That was a true all-star affaire (Miles, Coltrane, Bill Evans, Ben Webster...) commanded by a 26-year Frenchman just arrived in New York... Have times changed!


Legrand in Rio itself was recorded and published months before than Legrand Jazz, and musically it's closer to previous efforts such as I Love Paris than to the celebrated jazz album. In Rio is a well-crafted, well-executed collection of instrumentals, not bland and with a few competent jazz solos, but very much an easy-listening pop record. As in I Love Paris, there's some heavy tape-editing, with string sections fading in from (and fading out to) nowhere, as well as plenty of "Latin" percussion. The tunes are Brazilian, Spanish, Cuban, Mexican, and Argentinian classics, but even so the album came out as Legrand in Rio in the US and the UK.

Although by listening to the record it's clear that Legrand in Rio and Legrand Jazz are worlds apart, for some reason In Rio has been lumped together with Legrand Jazz (of which all dates and personnel are known) in discographies, probably as a wild guess. This is what both Lord and Bruyninckx gave the last time I looked:

Sinatra's world tour, 1962

Today Frank Sinatra would have been 97. I've been checking out videos here and there, and have found the one below from his 1962 tour, which he did accompanied by a sextet, based on Red Norvo's, with whom he had toured previously (Norvo was unavailable for this one), which gives a lighter, jazzier feel to the music.

But first, a couple of excerpts from Will Friedwald's indispensable tome The Song is You (Da Capo, New York, 1997).

Musicians' quotes: Maestro Lecaros

"There has to be a piano at home, not a freezer or anything like that, just a piano... not even a telly, but there has to be a piano."

Maestro Roberto Lecaros,
(b. 1944) Chilean musician, in a recent interview.

Sinatra live in 1961

I've just come across some footage of a Frank Sinatra concert in Sydney (Australia) from 1961. That was a time when Sinatra was at the top of his game, the end of his glorious years with Capitol, before his problems with the Kennedys, before the Rat Pack, years before "Strangers in the Night".

Peter Brötzmann and... Lionel Hampton

German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann (b. 1941), one of those guys who could make you a straight soprano sax by blowing on a curved one, is one of the stalwarts of European free improvisation. He came up at the end of the 1960s and, while he might be expected to have drawn inspiration for similarly-minded American players, this is what he says about the his seminal, groundbreaking, even violent Machine Gun (1968) and his unlikely model.

"I wanted to sound like four tenor saxophonists, that's the sound that I wanted... I got the idea from the Lionel Hampton band, the big band he had, with four really heavy saxophonists in the front line and they played unison. That's the sound I've been trying to get, that's what I was attempting with Machine Gun and that's what I'm still chasing"

Peter Brötzmann, interviewed in the November issue of Wire magazine.

Brötzmann will be, with his Chicago Tentet at London's Cafe Oto on November 9-10, as part of the London Jazz Festival.

Lionel Hampton: "Flying Home" (1967)

Peter Brötzmann: "Machine Gun" (1968)

The Blakey-Chambers duets

On Sunday, March 29, 1959, right between the two sessions that gave us Kind of Blue, the bassist on those, Paul Chambers (age: 23) and veteran drummer Art Blakey (age: 39) seemed to have got early to a recording session led by Sonny Clark.

According to Michael Cuscuna, who unearthed these tapes in the 1970s:

[...] another odd early find in the Blue Note vaults. I was systematically going through every reel of every unissued session. When I put on the first reel of an unissued March 29, 1959 Sonny Clark session, which was ultimately released as My Conception, there was not a piano note to be heard. The first two takes were spectacular performances of "I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm" and "What Is This Thing Called Love" by what could be none other than Paul Chambers and Art Blakey. I never did find out why these came about (perhaps the rest of the band was late), but I’m glad they did.

Glad indeed. If Chambers and Blakey always maintained a very high standard in all their recordings, here, with nowhere to hide, they both give a masterclass in what a rhythm section should be. Without horns, Blakey can afford to be more subtle, which only makes him swing more, not less, as you can hear in "What Is This Thing Called Love?". In this less-is-more vein, Blakey's tour de force is actually, at least to my ears, the slower but still brisk Irving Berlin tune. His versatility with the drum set, or even something so simple-sounding like his playing behind Chambers's opening solo, is mesmerizing.

Available on Mosaic Select: Paul Chambers, and on Art Blakey's Drums Around the Corner

Brad Mehldau is 42 today

What is it with succesful jazz musicians that are so appealing for what Americans call "haters"? Whatever it is, Brad Mehldau has enjoyed some success, a lot of it in jazz terms, and some have enjoyed bad-mouthing him (and if the average jazz listener is really a white, middle-aged male, it's time to revise women's presumed superiority at bitching).

Today Mehldau is 42. Although this is sometimes forgotten in the English-speaking world, he recorded his first trio album in Barcelona for Fresh Sound New Talent in 1993, and two years later, at 25, he moved to Warner's (have things changed!) I discovered him in 1997, recommended by veteran producer and writer Ira Gitler, no less, at Jazzaldia, San Sebastián's Jazz Festival. Shortly afterwards I moved to London, and one of the first CDs I bought, in a street market was The Art of the Trio, Vol. 1. That was my last review for the local newspaper I used to write for back in Spain.

Music can be appreciated at several levels. For a music writer, there can be an understanding of the merits of a given piece, she or he can also like it as a fan, and in a few instances, it can reach deep inside of you and help keeping you sane. The piece above, "Elegy for William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg", has been a refuge through the years.

Thank you and happy birthday, Brad Mehldau.