Thad Jones & Mel Lewis All My Yesterdays

THE THAD JONES/MEL LEWIS ORCHESTRA
All My Yesterdays: The Debut 1966 Recordings at the Village Vanguard
(2-CD + 87-page booklet; Resonance HCD-2023)

Thad Jones (tp, flh, arr, con); Jimmy Nottingham, Snooky Young*, Jimmy Owens, Bill Berry, Danny Stiles** (tp);
Bob Brookmeyer* (v-tb); Garnett Brown, Jack Rains, Tom McIntosh** (tb); Cliff Heather (b-tb);
Jerome Richardson, Jerry Dodgion (as, cl, f); Joe Farrell (ts, cl, f); Eddie Daniels (ts, cl);
Marv “Doc” Holliday*, Pepper Adams** (bar-s);
Hank Jones (p); Sam Herman (g, perc); Richard Davis (b); Mel Lewis (d).

Recorded on February 7*, and March 21**, 1966. Total time: 48:49/77:13

Like a lonely dinosaur, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra has been appearing at the Village Vanguard for just over 50 years now. Basie, Ellington, Herman, and Kenton still roamed the world when it hatched, on the first Monday of February, 1966.

A good chunk of what was heard in the hallowed room that Monday and the one six weeks later is now available on CD, thanks, twice, to Resonance Records: once, because it's the label which has put it out; twice because its chairman, George Klabin, was the 19-year old who recorded the band then and there.

Goodbye, Charlie Haden

Charlie Haden 1937-2014
(source: his own website)

Charlie Haden was the unlikely bassist. A product of the Grand Ole Opry, of all places, he became the young, fresh, white face of the "new thing" in 1959, when Ornette Coleman opened at the Five Spot in NYC on Tuesday, November 17th. The chronicles tell a tale of "everybody" checking out the new group, from Willem De Kooning to Leonard Bernstein, and Haden himself has told how he played with his eyes closed in front of such an imposing jury of bass players as Charles Mingus, Paul Chambers, Wilbur Ware, and Percy Heath, among others.

Charlie Haden with Ornette Coleman's Quartet in 1960

Since then, during his long and fruitful career, Haden proved to be extremely adaptable: he played and recorded with everybody. There seems to be, in his approach to music, a sort of universal root that enabled him to connect with anyone. At the same time, he wasn't afraid to speak his mind, as he did with his four Liberation Music Orchestra albums, and yet everybody seemed to love him.