Current New York Review..."Sundays at Slugs" ...the 60s Bar & Loft Scene

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"Following Coleman’s death, Charles Simic spoke to his brother Milan Simich, who has produced concerts and recordings for more than twenty-five years, about the avant-garde jazz scene in New York’s East Village that gave rise to that music. Simich’s book A Night At
Birdland And Other Places: The Golden Age Of Modern Jazz In New York 1949-1959 will be available from The Jazz Record Center soon."

Fascinating article for anyone interested in the "being there" of the early 60s New York jazz scene...

"So here I am at this loft four years later
and who’s sitting opposite me but
Ornette Coleman with a good-looking
lady. Between Archie and Pharaoh’s sets
somebody put on the Eric Dolphy-Booker
Little Quintet At the Five Spot record.
There’s a Booker tune aptly titled
“Aggression” where twice he does this
smeared notes thing and at that moment
our eyes met across the room and we
both broke out laughing. Me and
Ornette. Two guys diggin’ jazz on the
Bowery in 1964! After the gig he gave me
his address and invited me to visit...."


"Charles: What about Jackie McLean?
Milan: What I liked about McLean’s
music that it was all in your face. He was
off the scene cause he didn’t have a
cabaret card, drugs or something. He
could work concerts or Sunday afternoon
sessions when a cabaret license wasn’t
required. It was the One Step Beyond
record band with Grachan Moncur,
Bobby Hutcherson, Eddie Khan, and
Clifford Jarvis. Shortly after, he did a
series of Sunday afternoons at a
restaurant on Waverly Place in one of
the NYU buildings, Harout’s. Hutch was
on vibes again and it was the first time I
heard Charles Tolliver, Cecil McBee, and
Jack DeJohnette.

But later that year Jackie finally got the
cabaret card and was booked into…
Slugs’. When Jackie started playing there
he and his wife Dolly also opened this
soda fountain/candy store a couple of
storefronts up. The whole family worked
there. Jackie was brusque. He had, like
many others who were street wise, a
wariness toward people. He was
opinionated, but not like Mingus, who
believed in every conspiracy theory that
had been handed down through the ages.
And he was not hesitant to tell you the
latest one in the middle of a set at the
Five Spot."


New York Review of Books - Blog.


BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

I'll always be glad I taped those interviews Jackie Mac did for R3 on his recording sessions with Miles and on Blue Note, as well as the interview he and Grachan did with Branford Marsalis, talking about "one Step Beyond". Sounded pretty laid back by that time.

I must re-read his chapter in "Four Lives in the Bebop Business" again sometime.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Alyn's various programs on and with Jackie, the Prestige era, Bluenote, etc. are exemplary. There's also a good one with Geoff Smith at the 97 Cheltenham festival.

I guess that Jackie may have been a bit abrupt in the sixties, as with prison, the loss of the ability to work regularly because of the cabaret card etc, certainly didn't make for easy living. I think in one interview he said that it was only Dolly's earnings that got them through some periods before the university career blossomed.

He always seemed very open in the later interviews and the Jackie McLean on Mars film is moving and marvelous.

BN.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

More...

Charles: What made the gigs at Slugs’
stand out in those years? What was so
different from other jazz clubs?

Milan: Slugs’ was “different” because it
was on the Lower East Side and was
the latest embodiment of the avant-
garde culture that that area was
producing. By the mid-1960s, the Beat
vibe had gone out of the Village.
Bleecker Street, the coffee houses were
just tourist destinations. The East
Village as it became known was where
the arts were happening; all the
painters, writers, poets, musicians,
Ellen Stewart’s La Mama, The Living
Theater. The Saxophonist Jackie
McLean was in Jack Gelber’s Living
Theater production of The Connection
as an actor and also playing on stage.
Actually, if you see Shirley Clarke’s
filmed version of the play with Jackie,
you can see the scene back then. The
cold, dirty lofts, roaches, general
bleakness. But you could live cheaply. I
paid my rent, food, working as an office
boy and had money left over to go to
clubs or the opera. Just Google St. Mark’s
Place and see who lived there through
the years. Leon Trotsky lived at 80 St.
Marks Place, where the Jazz Gallery was
and where Sonny Rollins made his
comeback, John Coltrane started his own
group, and Ornette played with Dizzy.
Years later, when Slugs’ had become a
bodega, I went in and was stunned how
small the place was and just how much
great and important music went down
there. Slugs’ kept acoustic jazz going in
those dark days of Beatles, The Twist,
and Fillmore."

"Trotsky meets Sonny" - Bluenote RVG.


BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

I managed to find my copy of "New and old gospel" by Jackie Mclean and gave this a spin in my car today. When I first heard the record it was the unknown pianist Lamont Johnson who struck me as the stand out discovery. I haven'tplayed this record for while but dug it out following the quotes and comments made on this thread.

At the time I bought the record, it seemed like this was easily Ornette Coleman's most coherent outing on trumpet. It seemed an unlikely foil for McLean at the time but maybe indicative of what the leader had initially proposed whereby the piano chair was supposed to have been taken by Cecil Taylor. I think Taylor objected to Coleman's trumpet playing and Johnson was drafted in instead. Listening again, the suite which makes up the first "side" has Coleman's best playing but I was wondering this evening if McLean had recruited Bill Dixon instead, how much better this record could have been. That said, the "New Gospel" track that stretches for 10 minutes must be Ornette Coleman's most "orthodox" composition and setting for his work. I love this track and, in my opinion, the shear joy of it makes the record worth acquiring. Not quite sure Cecil Taylor would have joined in on this soulful and funky track.

Ornette Coleman;s appearances on Blue Note are rightly celebrated on the "Golden circle" record but, to my knowledge, this almost unique sideman appearance is never discussed. I've never heard "The Empty Foxhole" but an avant garde loving friend of mine had the record in the 1960s and reckoned it was rubbish - this seems to be the general consensus, not small thanks to a very young Dennardo.

The biggest elephant in the room , however, if the fact that is sees Ornette working with a piano and in an almost "post-bop" context. I'm not convinced by McLean as an avant gardist but I am convinced by his ability to push the boundaries in the post-bop tradition. It is a strange album which almost transcends the free jazz scene of it's time and looks forward to more contemporary styles of jazz. The music has nothing to do with the "October Revolution" of Free jazz / "Coltrane's angry brood" yet it certainly presages a lot of "Free bop." In many ways, I think the "Free Bop" stuff was more radical than players like Sanders/ Shepp / Ayler. McLean was really on to something with this record but I can't help thinking that the lack of care and attention capturing Billy Higgin's drums and the sometimes out of tune piano maybe suggests that Alfred Lions didn't quite buy in to it.

Listening to more contemporary players like Oliver Lake of late, I feel that this was what McLean was heading towards. I had no idea that he was involved in the loft scene but it is interesting to read these comments in the context of this record.

[charles t]

Odd that no one is reflecting upon the lurid tale of Lee Morgan's murder - during the break between sets - while performing at (notorious) Slug's.

http://bedfordandbowery.com/2014/09/it-was-a-joint-jazz-musicians-remember-slugs-in-the-far-east/

[Serial_Apologist]

Wonderfully evocative article, that, Charles. And informative in many ways too. It's great to have met one or two of those greats, however briefly. Cecil McBee, the morning after one of the last Bracknells, in the hotel just up the road where we used to stay, coming into the restaurant - this incredibly smart black man in a 3-piece brown mohair suit, on his own. "I'm Cecil McBee" - strong handshake. I'd been sitting over some cornflakes sadly contemplating the impending prospect of returning to work the next day, having just said goodby to John Stevens, who'd been at the next table. The all-in hotel deal was a good arrangement for festival attenders on a reasonable income hoping to meet visiting artists. "Ceeecil", as he introduced himself; and pondering our different way of pronouncing the name I was thinking, "there's more than one great American that's called Cecil"!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Odd that no one is reflecting upon the lurid tale of Lee Morgan's murder - during the break between sets - while performing at (notorious) Slug's.


http://bedfordandbowery.com/2014/09/...-the-far-east/

A few years ago Billy Hart had a interview on his web site outlining what really happened re Lee's death and his "lifestyle" before it. He wasn't playing with Lee that night but he knew/talked to all who were. Fairly graphic. I think he took it down because people felt it too revealing or something. I still have a copy.


BN

[charles t]

Thank you, Serialist. Your reminiscing back to encounters with jazz musicians brought to mind my remembrance of a Chet Baker
appearance at The Plugged Nickel in Chicago.

Had an up-front table for Chet with a standard quartet - piano, bass, drums.

At the end of the first set, a guy came up to the corner of the bandstand and exchanged a few words with Chet. They then strode to the mens'.

Shortly later, (still early into the intermission), Chet, hugging his trumpet close, sat down on the center artist-performing stool, with the overhead spotlight directly on him...and fell into a deep (probable) narcotic funk.

For a fictive look-back at another lurid tale of a jazzr's final demise (Chet's in Amsterdam), pickup a copy of (musician/author) Bill Moody's - Looking For Chet Baker.

[Ian Thumwood]

Cecil McBee was at Vienne this year playing with "The Cookers" - just the kind of line up that you might have anticipated seeing at a club like Slugs. Listening to this type of Hard Bop now is a strange experience. The second set was performed by the Messenger's Legacy Band and included Benny Golson as guest. It was hugely nostalgic whilst never seeming antiquated and I loved it especially because the repertoire came from the "Moanin'" CD - even if this wasn't it's exact title. These days this music sounded remarkably mainstream, as good as the group was. (Ralph Peterson made a nice change from Blakey's sometimes flagging drums.) However, The Cookers seemed to offer a Hard Bop alternative that was pretty "outside" and included a strong roster in Billy Harper, Chico Freeman, George Cables, David Wiess, etc, etc.

It is disappointing that many younger players have rejected this kind of approach to jazz and "New Neo" has become a dirty phrase. In my opinion, The Cookers seemed to demonstrate that this style of jazz not only sounded viable but also made many "younger" groups sound anaemic in comparison. Looking through the line up of The Cookers is a bit like a jazz equivalent of Southampton whereby there are few star individuals but the whole unit has some extremely classy and polished musicians who know exactly what to do on the bandstand. The Cookers, for all intents and purposes, were almost a manifesto of how to perform jazz. What was intriguing was that many of these musicians were actually quite "outside" and certainly never looked like coasting or producing a "plastic and artificial" alternative.

[Tenor Freak]

Cecil McBee was at Vienne this year playing with "The Cookers" - just the kind of line up that you might have anticipated seeing at a club like Slugs. Listening to this type of Hard Bop now is a strange experience. The second set was performed by the Messenger's Legacy Band and included Benny Golson as guest. It was hugely nostalgic whilst never seeming antiquated and I loved it especially because the repertoire came from the "Moanin'" CD - even if this wasn't it's exact title. These days this music sounded remarkably mainstream, as good as the group was. (Ralph Peterson made a nice change from Blakey's sometimes flagging drums.) However, The Cookers seemed to offer a Hard Bop alternative that was pretty "outside" and included a strong roster in Billy Harper, Chico Freeman, George Cables, David Wiess, etc, etc.

To be fair, Billy Harper and Chico Freeman always were a bit "outside". Sounds like a fascinating gig. Like The Leaders - are they still going? Had the likes of Lester Bowie and Arthur Blythe, again not quite mainstream. Ah, wait: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudfoot Now that's a line-up I'd love to have seen play.

[Tenor Freak]

Odd that no one is reflecting upon the lurid tale of Lee Morgan's murder - during the break between sets - while performing at (notorious) Slug's.


http://bedfordandbowery.com/2014/09/...-the-far-east/

Absolutely fascinating. I've never visited NYC but one day I hope to go, probably to do a little tour of the famous old clubs in 52nd Street, the Village etc. Even though they are probably all branches of Starbucks now.

[charles t]

Well, Bruce...when I was 17, got into Birdland.

Believe me - when you are 17, you are not prepared, whatsoever, to gaze into the eyes of Bud Powell.

As I told this to a cruise-ship musician - he speculated that I haven't been the same since!