Keith Jarrett strides along...

Keith Jarrett (source)

Keith Jarrett is a jazz piano player who has crossed over to a level of fandom exclusive to a very few musicians in the world, regardless of their styles. If you're reading this, you've probably heard him, as a soloist, with his trio, maybe even in his early days with Miles Davis or Charles Lloyd.

However, it may also be that you've never heard him playing a Gershwin tune in a stride-piano vein (the first two and a half minutes in the following video).

In the comments on the YouTube page, some seem not to believe that this is indeed Jarrett. However, Norwegian musician Per Husby says this about the video:

I can confirm that the clip is actually Jarrett. The original tape now resides in the Norwegian Jazz Archives as part of the Randi Hultin collection, donated to the archives after her passing away.

However, the info regarding the actual recording is incorrect. The quartet part (the track is cross-faded into a concert version of Forest Flower by the quartet) may well have been recorded at the Oslo concert on May 7, 1966, but Jarrett played no solo performance, Tatum-style then (I know, I was in the audience). However, the day after, the quartet was invited to Randi Hultin's house to celebrate Jarrett's birthday, and on that occasion Jarrett sat down at Randi's piano and played several solo pieces, some of which was recorded by Randi on her home tape machine. (If you listen closely, I think you might hear Randi and Lloyd chuckling in the background a couple of places while he is playing). The whole recording is about 10 minutes long - so the YouTube thing is just a small excerpt. God knows where they got this clip from, though - they most certainly did not get it from Norwegian Jazz Archives.

• More about Randi Hultin, here.
• More about Per Husby, here (Wiki).
• More about the Norwegian Jazz Archives, here.

Musicians' quotes: on Chet Baker

Chet Baker's arrival on the scene and his commercial success has always been a controversial matter. These are two opposite opinions about his singing from fellow musicians.

Pianist Russ Freeman, Baker's accompanist and musical director on his first recordings as a singer:

To be honest, I was never much a fan of his singing... I didn't like the idea of Chet singing at all. It only distracted from what was going on instrumentally. But of course, I did my job.

Jeroen de Valk: Chet Baker - His Life and Music

(Berkeley Hills, USA, 2000)

Trumpetist Art Farmer, upon hearing an improptu duet by Baker and June Christy, before he ever sang on record:

Yeah, yeah! That was beautiful! You know, Chet, you should sing on your next album.

To which June Christy also agreed, according to photographer William Claxton's story about the one time he'd heard Chet Baker before he recorded his first vocal album, in William Claxton: Young Chet (te Neues Publishing Company, USA, 1999).

The best of early Chet Baker's singing, on Spotify.

Go here for an article on Baker by Ted Gioia, with more praise for Baker from Mr. Farmer.

Listen without prejudice: Chet Baker with Paul Bley on Spotify.

RIP Federico García-Herraiz

For those of us who got into jazz from a small village in a remote corner of Europe, before the internet, cheap flights, and other luxuries we now take for granted, the bi-monthly arrival of Cuadernos de Jazz to the local public library was something we awaited anxiously. Reading it, like listening to the few records we could afford, was a process as fast as the disappearing of water in dry land.

In those years when learning about new music was not only a musical but also a sentimental education, Federico García-Herraiz's was one of the bylines I mulled over in great detail. Although we would, in time, be colleagues in the same magazine, I never met him. I did see him several times, always with his  walking stick despite his apparent youth, but that was before I joined Cuadernos and I was too shy to walk up to him, say hello and thank you.

Federico left us just about a week after Raúl Mao. I don't have any pictures of the latter, but I've found this one with Raúl, taken at Jazzaldia in 1999. In many ways, those were happier days.

With Max Roach and Raúl Mao in San Sebastián, July 1999

RIP Raúl Mao (1944-2013)

Raúl Mao died on February 8th. He had been ill for some time. He was the heart of Spanish magazine Cuadernos de Jazz, the main reason for its record-breaking 20 years in print, plus three as a web-only publication.

We first met back in 1998, after a concert by Brad Mehldau in Madrid.

He's already missed.

Musicians' quotes: Marc Ribot on technique

I don’t want to impose some agenda on a song. I respect the ability to read the song, to figure out the song’s intentions. Chops need to be in the service of meaning. People who don’t get that are… dumb.

Marc Ribot in a double interview with Nels Cline

by Jim Macnie for the July 2011 issue of DownBeat magazine

Marc Ribot - guitar
Henry Grimes - bass
Chad Taylor - drums

Django!

On January 23 I marked Django's birthday with an impromptu, off-the-cuff selection of his recordings, and I posted it on Twitter. His guitar was one my early hooks in jazz, and his recordings remain special.

So, without further ado, I give you my Django!. Recordings date from the mid-30s to 1953; if you hear a violin, it's Stéphane Grappelli. If there's a clarinet that'll probably be Hubert Rostaing, same goes for Alix Combelle and his tenor sax (on "Finesse" Rex Stewart is on cornet and Barney Bigard on clarinet). Depending on the date, Django's instrument maybe an acoustic guitar, an electrified acoustic, or a electric guitar proper.

Enjoy the music on YouTube or Qobuz!

* LES YEUX NOIRS

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".