Footage of Hank Mobley and Bobby Timmons

The video below is an excerpt from the ground-breaking documentary Monk (1968) by brothers Christian and Michael Blackwood. You may be familiar with that film, and its companion Monk in Europe (also 1968), given how much of them have appeared in subsequent works by other authors like Straight, No Chaser (1988), again about Monk, and the more recent The Jazz Baroness (2012) about Nica de Koenigswarter.

Both films are unparalleled in terms of vintage footage of jazz greats in action. Just on Monk you can see Wes Montgomery backstage at a festival produced in Atlanta by George Wein, also on screen, or producer Teo Macero and engineer Frank Laico at work with Monk at a Columbia Records studio (December 14 and 21, 1967, possibly studio A, at 799 Seventh Ave in Manhattan). In a scene similar to the one below, Roland Kirk can be seen in the kitchen at the Village Vanguard (around the 51' mark).

Do visit Michael Blackwood's website for more information on Monk and Monk in Europe here and here, respectively. They can we watched on Vimeo, here and here, respectively.

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.