A biography of Oscar Alemán (in Spanish)

Sergio Pujol
Oscar Alemán: La guitarra embrujada
Planeta; Buenos Aires, 2015
Paperback; 312 pp.

The life of Oscar Alemán (1909-1980) is one of those narratives which tend to end up ditched on the kerbs of history. But how do you fit in the jazz canon a black Argentinian guitar player, who got to be hugely popular in pre-WWII France without ever setting foot in the US?

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.

Steve Brown & Guillermo Bazzola

STEVE BROWN & GUILLERMO BAZZOLA
Una Pequeña Alegría
Brown Cats Productions (BC9508)

Guillermo Bazzola, Steve Brown (g).

Recorded on April 8, 2013. TT: 58:36

This record, "A Little Joy", is the latest by Steve Brown and Guillermo Bazzola, an unlikely duo of pares inter pares (the notes don't state who plays what) for its great gaps in age — rare but irrelevant — and geography: Brown is based in Ithaca, NY, whereas Bazzola lives in Madrid, Spain. Perhaps for this reason this was recorded as in olden times, in one day.

The guitar duo has a long tradition in jazz, but it's a tricky format. There's the sameness in sound, even with imaginative arrangements, and the unavoidable technical pyrotechnics. In this instance, the first notes here are not really promising: both guitars are close in timbre, a rather conventional clean jazz sound, and the tune is a bossa nova, a trap that can be either beautiful or terribly inconsequential.

Although pretty and with a certain weight, like many first tunes at live gigs, the opening "Caminhos Cruzados" (a Jobim song) works well but it's not representative of this record; the other bossa, "Esencia" (by Spanish pianist Alberto Conde) is played with more verve. It is with the second track, "Los Mareados" ("The Dizzy Ones"), where Brown and Bazzola do get down to business. This is an old tango brought to the session by Argentinian Bazzola, and its theme is performed with sensitivity and elegance. This a highlight of the record together with the other tango of the session, "Nada" ("Nothing"), whose beautiful melody is framed by the minute rhythmic nuances, the way the comping guitar falls ever so slightly behind the beat.

Daniel Cano / Julian Lage

DANIEL CANO QUINTET
Don't Touch the Blue
(Blue Asteroid DCQ-012154)

Cano (tp, fh, comp), Pedro Cortejosa (ss, ts), Wilfried Wilde (g), Paco Charlín (b), Jesús Pazos (d).

Recorded on February 15-16, 2014. Total time 50:15

With the blessings of fellow trumpeters Chris Kase and Paolo Fresu, UK-based Spaniard Daniel Cano brings about his own take on 21st century hard-bop. As a composer — 8 originals, 1 standard — he's comfortable in Monk's shadow (as in "Don't Touch the Blue" and "Buenordías", where he also sneaks in a quote of the "West End Blues" cadenza). The rhythm team provides an unobtrusive pulse — even in a busy tune like "Plutón", especially bright when Charlín sticks to the vamp — which is, helped by the absence of a piano, the perfect fold for the unhurried and thought-through work of the soloists. Minor cavil, perhaps: a few more sprinkles of the fire shown on the closing "Canción carpiana" might have enhanced the end result. Worth catching live (they're in Seville, Spain, tomorrow 24).

Available on Spotify

~ ~ ~

JULIAN LAGE

World's Fair
(Modern Lore Records)

Lage (acoustic guitar)

Recorded March and June, 2014. Total time 38:02

Julian Lage. He may be the sweetest interviewee ever, a true unassuming laid-back Californian; his playing may sound effortless, as if there were no merit to what he does. But don't let all that mislead you. If you listen to this recording, you may well be hooked by second #4 (0:04), and that doesn't happen with lightweights. Lage, in fact, is a monster guitarist, one of the most extraordinary musicians we have today. The fact that he's been playing since he was a child and that he loves the instrument puts him in a different category way past instrumental virtuosity rendering it invisible. You can also forget about styles and genres, although annotator and fellow guitarist Matt Munisteri's "post-Internet folk" sounds like an apt definition: even if it has a certain local flavour, despite the acoustic instrument and current trends this is not an "Americana" album (phew!). With tunes like "Peru" and "Japan", this is rather Lage's own worldview. His tale is, at times, very evocative, pensive but not sombre, energetic and joyful, with moments of ridiculous guitar-playing (his sonic palette with the acoustic guitar is astonishing). Lage's only apparent limitation is his own imagination, and at the moment, it seems far from drying up.

Available on BandCamp, YouTube and Spotify
Website: www.julianlage.com

Books: Pepper Adams (& Gigi Gryce)

Listen to the opening notes of this tune:

That is one of the most widely heard jazz sounds ever, even though many wouldn't know that they're actually listening to Pepper Adams, a giant of the baritone sax who blasts through the whole piece playing that vamp almost constantly. Now we also know how grinding this session was for him, because the musicians in this Mingus band had never played together until that day in the studio, and there was a lot of repetition and many false starts involved in the recording.

That is the kind of detailed, first-hand information you can read on Gary Carner's Pepper Adams' Joy Road - An Annotated Discography (Scarecrow Press, 2012), a true labour of love by the author, who's been justly awarded with the 2013 award to the best jazz discography by the Association of Recorded Sound Collections, ARSC.

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.

Piazzolla in New York (I): Brooklyn 2011

Astor Piazzolla (source)

Astor Piazzolla is one of the outstanding musicians of the 20th century, one of those figures like the late Ravi Shankar or Paco de Lucía who have transcended borders, cultures, and labels by taking on the music of their own backyards, giving it a personal twist, and making it appealing to audiences throughout the world.

The bandoneonist and composer – his music education included stints with Alberto Ginastera in Buenos Aires and Nadia Boulanger in Paris – had a long career and a good selection of his records wouldn't be out of place in the collection of any music lover. As with any artist, it would be hard to say which is the best of his albums, and that quite pointless question would probably provoke some heated and pointless debates.

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.