Happy festivities and a musical suggestion

Part of my friends and readers, those in the Southern hemisphere, are about to celebrate the Summer, not Winter, Solstice (you dirty rats!), and the end of the year it's just a convention, but be it because days grow shorter on this side of the world, or because most of us will be on a break from work, or for cultural reasons, this is a time for reflection or celebration. So do reflect, and whatever you celebrate, have a great one.

I wasn't really planning on recommending any music for this time of the year. Best-of-the-year lists abound, and there's all the Christmas-y stuff. It'd feel like choosing more candy on top of all the candy we're all being shoved down our throats. 

But then I came across the video about Bob Brookmeyer (see previous entry), and I suddenly heard Jack Teagarden. With strings. In a record I didn't have a clue about. It has Teagarden's voice and trombone, arrangements by Claus Ogerman, Brookmeyer, and Russ Case, and, surprisingly, the tunes are by Willard Robison, whose name is probably less known than some of his tunes, like "Old Folks" or "Cottage for Sale".

The record is Think Well of Me (Verve V6 8465 in stereo, V-8465 in mono) recorded and released in 1962. It was reissued as a limited edition on CD (Verve 314 557 101-2, from 1998, there are second-hand copies around), and it's also on Spotify. There are several uploads on YouTube, and I have compiled this playlist:

Jack Teagarden - Think Well of Me on YouTube

Have a great one, best wishes for 2014, and "see" you then.

Many more bars of Brookmeyer!

Yesterday I blogged about a favourite solo by a favourite musician, but I admit I gave short shrift to his musical accomplishments in my introduction.

After I posted around that entry, my worthy constituent and jazz-tango wizard Pablo Aslan pointed me towards this wonderful film, a very nice overview of Bob Brookmeyer's musical life.

This are the credits:

Montage created by Maria Schneider and Ryan Truesdell in honor of Bob Brookmeyer, for his memorial service at St. Peters Church, NYC, April 11, 2012.

Video edited by Marie Le Claire

All music composed and/or arranged by Bob Brookmeyer

Photos courtesy of: Michael Stephans, Jan Brookmeyer

This is the film.

Sixteen bars of Brookmeyer...

If you’re a regular reader of these pages, you may know that Bob Brookmeyer is one of my favourite musicians in any style or instrument. I love the way he seems to disguise his intelligence behind a gutsy, swinging style of playing the rather cumbersome valve trombone. As an arranger he has walked many paths and explored many routes, but he never disappoints. Not me, anyway.

A very good example of the diversity of his talents as an arranger and as a soloist is his arrangement of “Body and Soul” for Gerry Mulligan’s Concert Jazz Band, and the contrast provided by his own 16-bar solo.

Although Brookmeyer was the driving force behind this band, here he only takes half a chorus. Where others drew arabesques on this ballad’s harmonic maze, Brookmeyer cuts through it with very little melodic variation and a very determined rhythmic delivery, with plenty of swing (as in syncopation in the first eight bars) and funk (on his second eight bars, ending his four-note motives on the downbeat, against a sort of rhumba background).

Since the solo is readily available to listen to, I won’t say more. Just that in an interview, asked about his influences he says that the first major influence, and almost the final one was Count Basie. Listening to this solo (starting in 2:37), I think it’s not difficult to imagine playing that solo on the piano.

More Brookmeyer here, and here.

Time flies...

Exactly one year ago today  I just got to New York City and rushed to get to a cozy gig in Brooklyn, for Ted Brown's 85th birthday (happy 86th, Mr. Brown!) There, I met Michael Steinman, purveyor of happiness through his Jazz Lives blog, who was recording the proceedings. This took place at The Drawing Room, Michael Kanan's studio on the first floor of a building on a street of Brooklyn; a small room with about thirty people in attendance, a small makeshift bar, and a very warm and welcoming vibe, for lack of a better word, to it.

This all may be a matter of personal perception, but there are times that magic seems to happen. This was one of those times: from the music, completely acoustic, to the unassuming attitude of everyone present, the love and respect for the birthday boy... even the lightning was wonderful.

L to R: Michael Kanan, Brad Linde, Kirk Knuffke, Ted Brown,
Chris Lightcap, Matt Wilson.

November 26, 1945 at Savoy Records

(Image from London Jazz Collector)
"Hen Gates" is Dizzy Gillespie

Monday, November 26, 1945. Just another day at the office for the small independent Savoy Records label from New Jersey, for which they booked WOR Studios in Manhattan. First on, Don Byas and his quintet:

Benny Harris (trumpet) Don Byas (tenor sax) Jimmy Jones (piano) John Levy (bass) Fred Radcliffe (drums)
   S5845    Candy
   S5846    How High The Moon
   S5847    Don By
   S5848    Byas-A-Drink

Next up (note the consecutive matrix numbers), the quintet lead by Charlie Parker, in his first ever session as a leader:

Miles Davis (trumpet) Charlie Parker (alto sax) Argonne Thornton (a/k/a Sadik Hakim, piano) Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet* and piano) Curley Russell (bass) Max Roach (drums)

WOR Studios, Broadway, NYC, November 26, 1945
   S5849-1  Warming Up A Riff
   S5850-1  Billie's Bounce
   S5850-2  Billie's Bounce
   S5850-3  Billie's Bounce
   S5850-4  Billie's Bounce
   S5850-5  Billie's Bounce
   S5851-1  Now's The Time
   S5851-2  Now's The Time
   S5851-3  Now's The Time
   S5851-4  Now's The Time
   S5852-1  Thriving On A Riff
   S5852-2  Thriving On A Riff
   S5852-3  Thriving On A Riff
            Meandering
   S5853-1  Ko Ko * 
   S5853-2  Ko Ko *

Listen to the music on YouTube or Spotify (below).

 

Newly discovered recordings of Charlie Parker, unveiled

UPDATE : One of two unissued tracks unveiled back in 2013 has surfaced on YouTube. However, this had been online for two years already, since Phil Schaap, who else?, aired it on September 20, 2018. The show is here (he plays the clip at 6:40, 9:42, 17:56, and 1:09:44). The clip at the bottom has been pitch-corrected by master guitarist Nick Rossi.

 

Chuck Haddix

This Autumn is being very rich for fans of Charlie Parker. Besides the two newly-published biographies by Chuck Haddix and Stanley Crouch (which I reviewed in Spanish for Cuadernos de Jazz), some months ago two previously unknown recordings by Bird were unveiled. They're actually by the Jay McShann Orchestra, but that's posterity for you.

Haddix's book

These treasures have been dug up by none other than Chuck Haddix, curator of the Marr Sound Archive and author of one of the aforementioned books, where he explains (on p. 48) with no mention to his own role in the story, that it was John Tumino, McShann's manager, who recorded two tracks on February 6, 1941, “Margie” and “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You”, which are today remembered as cornerstones of Tommy Dorsey's repertoire. Parker is featured in both tracks, and he's especially good in the latter, for the length and originality of his solo.

Both recordings were played in public in early September, during the annual convention of the International Association of Jazz Recording Collectors, or IAJRC, which actually took place in Kansas City. The acetates reside in John Tumino Collection at Marr Sound Archive.

The über-expert in jazz cinematography, Mark Cantor, was present and heard the records. This is what he says:

In the first, "Margie", in which the arranger seems to be channeling Sy Oliver and the Jimmie Lunceford recording, Bird has an 8-bar solo during a release late in the performance. What I found absolutely astounding [...] is a performance of "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You", as much a dance performance as jazz, in which Bird takes a 32-bar solo that is amazing in its maturity, complexity, and melodic invention. Let's hope these will be issued someday for all of us to enjoy over and over.

 Amen to that.

PS (September 28, 2020): This is "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You", by the Jay McShann orchestra, with Joe Coleman on vocals, and an astonishing solo by Parker.

nickrossimusic · I'm Getting Sentimental Over You

Frank Wess (1922-2013)

Just a couple years younger than Charlie Parker, and also faring from Kansas City, Frank Wess was one of those excellent musicians poorly served by tags like "mainstream" or "bop". He was a member of the Basie orchestra for a long time. Apparently an unassuming man, it was our loss that he wasn't seen under the spotlight more often. Wess passed away on October 30, aged 91.

Jazz for Playboys (Savoy/Denon SV-0191)

Never mind the official hierarchies of jazz, Wess was one of the first tenor sax players I encountered in jazz (before Coltrane or Coleman Hawkins, for instance). He was also my first flutist, the only one I knew for some time, which may explain why I couldn't understand some of my colleagues' disliking the instrument. Guess I was just lucky.

It was by sheer coincidence that a local shop had bucketloads of Japanese Savoy/Denon CDs at discount price. At a time when I mulled over the purchase of one CD for a very long time, I don't know what made me choose this record without listening to it. Not the cover, obviously. It wasn't the title either (believe me).