The man who was there

John Coltrane and Rudy Van Gelder, early 1960s

Phonography is one of the motors of jazz. Without recorded sound, the fast evolution of the music would not have happened. A recording allows however many repetitions necessary to assimilate the music. Without recordings, the contact with remote sonic cultures would be much, much harder.

Besides conveniency, phonography has given jazz an aesthetic. And counter to intuition, given the hundreds of thousands of jazz recordings produced and still available, a large of that urbane, sophisticated, aesthetic is due to a single person: Rudy Van Gelder, RVG, who passed away yesterday morning, aged 91.

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.

Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall: new reissue, still incomplete

Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall 1938 is an iconic record. It has been in print since 1950, and it offers a great snapshot of Swing at his height, not only musically but socially. However, to this day we don't have a complete issue of the music, as I explained in this previous post.

There's a new reissue just out—Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall 1938, Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc., Blu-spec CD2 SICP 30223-4. This has been released in the new Blu-spec CD2 format, but it's based on the previous official CD master (C2K 65143, from 1999), and therefore it's still missing half a minute of music, although the sound seems to have gained definition.

BG at CH: 75 years and a complete recording still to come... soon

(L to R: Gene Krupa, Babe Russin, Allan Reuss, George Koenig, 
Red Ballard, BG, Vernon Bown, and Art Rollini
Carnegie Hall, January 16, 1938)

Next Wednesday, January 16th, will mark the 75th anniversary of Benny Goodman's famous concert at Carnegie Hall. It was a very cold Sunday evening in New York, Carnegie Hall sold out (they even had part of the audience on stage), the Hall's surroundings were crowded, supporters of Franco (this was during the Spanish Civil War) were protesting against Goodman, who had played a benefit for Spanish loyalists in December... It was a momentous occasion for many reasons and the actual music lived up to it.

CBS 450983

I've been a fan of this concert for over twenty years, since I bought the first CD reissue done by Columbia in my first visit to London. In those days I didn't own so many records, so this is one of those I spinned endless times. I didn't mind the not-so-good sound quality: this was history in the making (a "swing" band at Carnegie Hall!), and some of the music is excellent, like the surprisingly reflective piano solo by Jess Stacy on "Sing, Sing, Sing", Krupa's galvanizing break on "Don't Be That Way", Lester Young's tenor on "Honeysuckle Rose", Lionel Hampton's wild arpeggios at the end of "I Got Rhythm", or Ziggy Elman blasting trumpet at the end of "Swingtime in the Rockies".

Review: Charlie Christian Genius boxed set

(This is a translation of my review for Cuadernos de Jazz)

Charlie Christian: The Genius of the Electric Guitar
(4-CD set, Sony/Legacy 88697930352; released in 2012)

Charlie Christian (el-g) with, among others, Benny Goodman (cl), Lionel Hampton (vib), Cootie Williams (tp), George Auld, Lester Young (ts); Johnny Guarnieri, Count Basie (p); Artie Bernstein (b), Nick Fatool, Dave Tough, Jo Jones (d).

Recorded in New York and Hollywood, between 1939 and 1941.

When it comes to jazz, the recording industry, whatever's left of it, lives on reissues. These are cheap to produce, whether for the legal owners of the masters, or whoever chooses to shield themselves behind EU law. Poor little us are left, in the meantime, with a mess of sets to be checked for price, sound quality and track titles to avoid duplication or just hoarding more stuff. A true nightmare.

2011 ends in a box (some gift ideas)

That time of the year is almost upon us, and in the spirit of public service that guides the staff of this blog, we are going to comment on that piece of hardware that is so very dear to jazz fans: the boxed set.

A few days ago Elvis Costello made the news in a salient way (there goes another David Miles album...) In his blog, he criticized very openly the record label releasing a boxed set of his for an asking price he deemed a "misprint or a satire... an elaborate hoax". This boxed set comprises a CD, a DVD, and a 10" vinyl disc, and the truth is that we haven't been able to find it listed for under $200.

Mr. MacManus recommended instead to buy a nice Louis Armstrong set called Ambassador of Jazz. As it happens, this set was already OOP (a most-dreaded acronym for "out of print") in the US, and it was only available from the good people of the Louis Armstrong Museum in Queens, which has made my worthy constituent Ricky Riccardi and his colleagues very happy. And deservedly so. Funny how publicity works: as Ricky explains in his blog, they ran out of sets on Friday 9th.

It should be pointed out that both sets, Costello's and Armstrong's, have been released under Universal's umbrella. The Costello comes from imprint Hip-O Select, a label that has done some good deeds so far, and in jazz too. Their sets are lavishly presented, and the one we were really surprised by and looked forward too was their Stan Getz Quintets: Clef & Norgran Studio Albums.

The reason is simple: this set is first ever edition of the complete recordings of Stan Getz's first quintet with Bob Brookmeyer, and really the first one with a decent sound quality. The music in it has some great early-fifties Getz, plenty of swing, nice surprises like a quartet with Max Roach on drums and Jimmy Rowles on piano and, especially, Brookmeyer's presence as a soloist (the beginning of his solo on "Varsity Drag"), composer ("Rustic Hop"), and general musical mind. The only disappointment, especially at the regular prices these sets go for, was a small mistake: the version of "Flamingo" was the one from At the Shrine the live album by the SG-BB Quintet and, therefore, not the studio take. Hip-O's solution should have been to offer a replacement CD (like Mosaic does in the rare occasions when it's necessary), but they have not gone beyond supplying their customers with an mp3 of said track.

Regarding prices, in our experience, a combination of patience and regular browsing usually yields fruits. But prices being what they are, any solutions for the urge to make a gift — to oneself, to others — of a nice jazz boxed-set are welcome. No need to look further than France for this.

Universal France has just released a series of five boxes devoted to the master takes of recordings by Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Charlie Parker. These boxes include between 13 and 15 CDs, a 70-page booklet with liner notes in French and English, complete discography, and some nice photos. As for their price, look around for yourself and do the math.



So far we have only tried the Ella and the Bechet. The former is interesting because it reunites all her masters prior to her signing with Verve, first with big band leader Chick Webb, then fronting that band, as a singer with assorted musicians, her duets with pianist Ellis Larkins, and other riches. The Bechet is a very complete collection of his American masters (he recorded quite a bit in France, including some of his most popular hits, like "Petite Fleur"), plus a selection of his earliest work (1923-1932), and some live recordings (1939-1940 and 1953).

The other sets are equally or even more interesting. The Louis Armstrong covers the 1925-1945 period, that is, from his Hot Fives and Sevens to his very popular work fronting a big band, plus a selection of his earliest work with King Oliver and others. The Charlie Parker has every master from his first studio recordings with the Jay McShann orchestra up to his work for Norman Granz plus two discs filled with assorted broadcasts and other live recordings. Two CDs out of the staggering volume of live Bird recordings available may not seem much, but who's complaining?

Like the Parker set, the Billie Holiday also covers the whole of her recording career, from 1933 to 1959. Her complete output has already been out on CD in different boxes, but having all her masters together is indeed appealing. At the end of the day, while alternate takes can be fascinating, the masters are the versions that were known at the time and which influenced listeners and musicians. It's a pity in this case that one session — four tracks — seems to be missing, the one from January 9, 1957. Given the volume of music included and asking price, we'd call this a minor flaw.

This series can be seen as part of a long tradition of jazz reissues in France (EPM, Média7, Classics, Frémeaux...). Under the aegis of Universal, most of the team working in this Complete Masters series is the same behind the Saga Jazz label, which means a good presentation, both graphic and sonic. When it comes to historical recordings, given their age and wide availability thanks to European public domain law, sound quality is a major issue. We contacted the team, and they told us that they have used whatever sources were available to them under European copyright law, whatever sounded best, which have been remastered in order to produce the most homogeneous content. This is definitely a series worth keeping an eye on.

Being a music fan today sometimes feels like standing on a beach, watching the industry trying to weather the storm and waiting for the remains of any wrecks to get ashore. If anything good comes out of this, is the occasional resurfacing of hard-to-find music. Second largest major Sony is offering good deals in the boxed format too. They have produced quite an array of sets (Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon, Wayne Shorter, Mahavishnu, Paul Desmond, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Weather Report, Billie Holiday and others you can see here), but the jewel of the crown may well be the one devoted to trumpet player Woody Shaw, for the quality of the music, its patchy availability in recent times, and the extra disk of unissued music from the Stepping Stone - Live at Village Vanguard sessions.

Finally, like it or not, Brad Mehldau's The Art of the Trio series was one of the most relevant phenomenons in jazz in the late 1990s. Nonesuch has reunited the series in a box, adding a bonus CD with extra materials, and, in a master stroke from whoever thought of it, liner notes by one of the most accomplished of jazz writers, pianist Ethan Iverson, an appealing bait for all those who already have all the music.

If you're thinking of using any of the above for gifts, remember that good music is forever.

Have a good end of year, whatever you celebrate, and good luck.

PS: If you are of the avant-gardist persuasion, or are in the least interested in this kind of music, a good look to the sale at Leo Records is mandatory.

50 going on 70

“Volver” (“Coming back”) a very famous tango says that “twenty years is nothing”, but poetry is just a very polarized reflection of reality. Twenty years is actually what the Council of the EU has decided to expand the copyright on phonographic records. In other words, and in principle, this is the end of the countless cheap reissues of music published, as of today, before 1961. All classic rock'n'roll, including early Elvis, will require the permission from the owners of the original masters to be reissued. Same goes for classic Sinatra and a big load of jazz and pop classics recorded after 1941. As an example, Charlie Parker's whole output as a leader, in the public domain for a few years now, will go back in its entirety to its lawful owners.

That's the theory. In actual fact, anyone with a connection to the internet has almost immediate and free access to almost any music they may want. And sound quality doesn't seem to be an issue: we're in an age where arguably, for the first time ever, the widest spread standard of sound quality (mp3) is actually lower than the previous one (CD). If we take together Spotify, MySpace, YouTube, audio file exchange, blogs offering downloads, etc., the problem today is not getting access to the music, but having the time to listen to it.

João Gilberto at 80

Tomorrow João Gilberto celebrates his 80th birthday. It would be hard to overstate his importance in popular music of the 20th century. As a singer and as guitarist he's the owner of a very distinctive touch, one of those rare virtuosos whose abilities pass as simple and efortless, concealing hours of almost obsessive work in his quest for perfection. Even if this is a matter of personal taste, anyone is likely to appreciate the pure magic that his music emanates. I really wish he has a good birthday and that he is in peace, above all the tired press reports about his "reclusive personality" and other frankly strange issues (like the FaceBook profile that may or may not have been really his).

Regarding FaceBook, I still keep buggering on with my little campaign:

The rest of us will have to keep waiting for an official reissue of his first three LPs. As I have explained before, Gilberto and EMI – owners of the masters – have been horn-locked in the Brazilian courts for the best part of 15 years, which has prevented the world from enjoying the artist's first three albums. Right before The Legendary... / O Mito was removed from the market it was printed as two separate CDs by Time Life in Spain, as part of a collection of classic EMI-owned jazz albums. That reissue comes up every once in a while in bargain bins and discount shops in London and even in the US.

For impatient listeners, él!/Cherry Records, a British label, has published two interesting reissues of the first two albums, which is completely legal in the EU, something that some on the other side of the pond fail to grasp. There's still plenty to argue about this, but in the EU the mechanical rights for those two LPs, and soon for the third, are public domain.

Meanwhile, in the courts things don't seem to be moving much. I found a few reports at Terra Magazine, a Brazilian on-line mag. This is the summary:

• The lawsuit is expected to be solved in 2011, by the High Court in Brazilia, but obviously not in time for Gilberto's 80th birthday.
• Despite rumours stating otherwise, EMI says the original masters are in Brazil.
• Gilberto has listened to the masters but he's not recognized them as the originals. He'd be ready to work on a new remaster.
• According to Ricardo Garcia (technician appointed by EMI) reverb (echo) was added for a false stereo effect on the original mono recordings from the album Chega de Saudade, and high frequencies were forced up by equalization.
• According to Paulo Jobim, Antonio Carlos's son, who's involved in the case (on Gilberto's side), in the CD master strings and drums were favoured over guitar and vocals, and too much equalization has changed the timbre of the singer.
• Paulo Jobim was present at the original sessions. Apparently, Gilberto made, and was granted, the unprecendeted request of having two microphones, one for the guitar, one for the voice. He was a stinking perfectionist, even though the recordings were made live, with no overdubbing.
• Apparently, when they were going to do The Legendary... / O Mito, EMI/Odeon tried to obtain Gilberto's authorization to reissue the LPs on CD through composer Nelson Motta, but never got a reply.
• Caetano Veloso, and advisor to Gilberto's lawyers, argues that a single CD detracts value from the product and, eventually, the artist.
• Gilberto also has denounced the use of one of his songs for a commercial without his permission

By the look of it, if money is not an issue – a big "if", given EMI's situation – there shouldn't be much problem to get to a solution. I do think that Veloso's argument for a reissue in 3 separate CDs is not realistic. For starters all the music fits in a single CD, and the original LPs, all under the 30-minute mark hardly justify the format he suggests. In this day an age, a CD really has to be special to merit some attention from the potential buyers. Some heavy marketing will be needed too – and whoever has to do it will long for the missed anniversaries, the 50th of bossa in 2008/9 and now his 80th birthday.

Here's hoping that it happens soon.

And happy birthday!

João Gilberto, EMI, and us

(El texto en español está aquí)

One of many singular aspects of the 20th century, is what happened to popular music. It could be said that, from a traditional or folk form of expression, it got more and more sophisticated artistically while still keeping some of its folk qualities. While that tension was kept – until sometime in the second half of last century – a great treasure trove of jazz and pop was created and, some of it, preserved. Personally, I think what we know as "bossa nova" fits that picture perfectly.

A couple of years ago, I wrote about the 50th anniversary of João Gilberto's first recording of "Chega de Saudade", and commented on the deadlock between the singer/guitarist and EMI, the owner of the master tapes of Gilberto's first three albums. The result is us not having a proper, readily available, way to enjoy a masterpiece.

In 1990 EMI did a reissue with all three albums crammed in one CD. Apparently Gilberto was not consulted and was subsequently unhappy for the sound quality and other liberties taken, such as combining "O Nosso Amor" and "A Felicidade" into a medley (which is debatable, although it does make sense: those two tracks were not in the original LPs, both are versions of tunes from the film Black Orpheus, and both are the only ones to feature a batucada). That CD (O mito in Brazil, The Legendary... in the rest of the world) was removed by a court order in 1997 and since then Gilberto and EMI have not reached an agreement.

This year not only marks the singer's 80th birthday (June 10th), but also all this music's becoming public domain in Europe. From EMI's point of view, this can be quite discouraging, but I truly think that a reissue, carefully done, can beat whatever whoever does with other sources. So far, UK label él records have released the first two albums, on individual CDs, and the results are pretty good, to be fair. The sound is not perfect, possibly taken from clean LPs, but still better than the 1990 EMI; the liner notes are informative and they have added relevant extra tracks, versions of Gilberto's songs by other artists.

One of the good things about those extra tracks, is that they provide a neat picture of Gilberto's impact when his “Chega de saudade” came out. Judging from Elizete Cardoso's earlier version of “Chega...”, which was the original and had already part of Jobim's classic arrangement, Gilberto's singing and playing must have been a real shocker! From our point of view, we may think that all the criticisms of being out of tune or just plain weird were made by extremely narrow-minded people. I think they can only be accused of not knowing how to react to something really new (and we owe them the inspiration for “Desafinado”, after all).

The music in those three LPs is pure magic. It's one of the best examples of music as a moving force, and one of the summits of 20th century popular music, bar none. The tragedy is that there are many people in the world today who have NEVER heard it.

That's why I think that Mr. Gilberto and EMI should try to reach an agreement and do this properly. If the three albums don't fit in a CD (I think they actually do, even with “... Nosso Amor” and “... Felicidade” as single tracks) they should do a 2-CD set, with pristine remastering, a big fat booklet explaining who are these guys (Gilberto, Jobim, de Moraes, etc.)

A friend, also a music lover, asked me the other day: “But would it sell?”

It will. It has to.

In the meantime, and if you're on Facebook, you're welcome to "like" this page. It'll cost you nothing, and you may be contributing to a worthy cause.

***



"Brigas, nunca mais"
(Jobim, de Moraes)

João Gilberto, vocals and guitar
Edmundo Maciel, trombone
Antonio Carlos Jobim, piano and arrangements
Milton Banana, drums
Rubens Bassini, percussion
plus strings

January 23, 1959