What Jazz are you listening to now?

[elmo]

Yes, many thanks. I've heard that story of Elmo and Albert before but not in that first hand manner. Fascinating. As an aside I wish the BBC would make more use of Val Wilmer, it could be that she's disinclined, but she met and knew so many of these people at the right time.

She was at the recent BBC Georgie Fame Flamingo remembrance program so is still "on the scene".

BN.

You are quite right regarding Val Wilmer, she has real insight into both the music and particularly the musicians. Always enjoyed her interviews and her book "Serious as your life" was a fine overview of the then Avant Garde.

I wrote to her years ago to ask her about Elmo Hope and she recalled Walter Davis jr telling her that he and Elmo one time were so destitute they were panhandling passers by in Harlem so they could eat.

Been playing some of the recorded music by an obscure but very good tenor player called Frank Haynes who died young in 1965. He didn't record much but was highly rated by his fellow musicians. All his recorded work was as a sideman, he recorded with Dave Bailey, Randy Weston and Kenny Dorham but his best record is a quartet session recorded at the "Half Note" with Walter Bishop jr. Not an innovator but a great tone/sound and very inventive - the album is called "Bish Bash" and is on the Xanadu label.

elmo

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Monk, Rollins, Coltrane etc attended his
funeral?

From the little I've heard a fine player.
Maybe, as Jimmy Heath said, there were
so many fine players around at that time.
Easy to get lost in the shuffle.

BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

Elmo / Bluesnik

I snapped up a copy of the Eric Friedlander disc and, having given it an initial spin, would have to say that it is terrific. Friedlander is usually associated with the New York Downtown scene which I sometimes find to be a bit flippant but this quartet with Michael Blake on tenor, Trevor Dunn on bass and Michael Sarin on drums approach the music with genuine respect. In some ways it is an odd record. The recording has the warm sound of a lot of LPs from the 1950s and the band are obviously informed by more contemporary approaches yet still manage to make the disc sound like something from the 1950's. Bluesnik's comment about the compositions is borne out by the selection. Friedlander's pizzicato playing is precise and has a rounded sound and his work with the bow is probably closer to Classical music than Tomeka Reid's approach which takes it's cues from Billy Bang. Friedlander's cello playing dominates the group sound and works well on the boppish numbers like "Pendulum at Falcon's Lair." "Tricotism" even features a section with the cello being strummed in a Freddie Greene fashion with Blake almost coming across like Lester Young soloing on top.

Pettiford's music is so redolent of that era that a revisionist approach might not work so successful. Instead, the drumming is straight down the line in a traditional swinging sense albeit there is a snap and fizz about Sarin's drums which keeps the music right on it's toes. I really like Blake's simultaneous playing of two saxes on "Oscalypso" and the combination with the cello has the impression of making the group sound larger than four pieces. Sarin's playing on tenor and soprano is brilliant, his tone owing a lot to the prevalent "cool" approach that was popular in the 1950's. The slower compositions are especially strong ("Two little pearls" and "Sunrise sunset" ) and I think that there won't be many more records released this year which will be quite as enjoyable at this one. I would really recommend this disc if you are a fan of Pettiford's work and want to hear his compositions recast in a respectful and intelligent contemporary fashion. (It doesn't sound too different from the sound Chico Hamilton's group used to make ) I would imagine that this could be one of the best albums in 2016.

Definitely one for Elmo and also over-flowing with the kind of musicality that would drop this into the Jazzrook oeuvre too. I would suggest that this is also a record that Bluesnik will find immensely pleasing.

[elmo]

Elmo / Bluesnik

I snapped up a copy of the Eric Friedlander disc and, having given it an initial spin, would have to say that it is terrific. Friedlander is usually associated with the New York Downtown scene which I sometimes find to be a bit flippant but this quartet with Michael Blake on tenor, Trevor Dunn on bass and Michael Sarin on drums approach the music with genuine respect. In some ways it is an odd record. The recording has the warm sound of a lot of LPs from the 1950s and the band are obviously informed by more contemporary approaches yet still manage to make the disc sound like something from the 1950's. Bluesnik's comment about the compositions is borne out by the selection. Friedlander's pizzicato playing is precise and has a rounded sound and his work with the bow is probably closer to Classical music than Tomeka Reid's approach which takes it's cues from Billy Bang. Friedlander's cello playing dominates the group sound and works well on the boppish numbers like "Pendulum at Falcon's Lair." "Tricotism" even features a section with the cello being strummed in a Freddie Greene fashion with Blake almost coming across like Lester Young soloing on top.

Pettiford's music is so redolent of that era that a revisionist approach might not work so successful. Instead, the drumming is straight down the line in a traditional swinging sense albeit there is a snap and fizz about Sarin's drums which keeps the music right on it's toes. I really like Blake's simultaneous playing of two saxes on "Oscalypso" and the combination with the cello has the impression of making the group sound larger than four pieces. Sarin's playing on tenor and soprano is brilliant, his tone owing a lot to the prevalent "cool" approach that was popular in the 1950's. The slower compositions are especially strong ("Two little pearls" and "Sunrise sunset" ) and I think that there won't be many more records released this year which will be quite as enjoyable at this one. I would really recommend this disc if you are a fan of Pettiford's work and want to hear his compositions recast in a respectful and intelligent contemporary fashion. (It doesn't sound too different from the sound Chico Hamilton's group used to make ) I would imagine that this could be one of the best albums in 2016.

Definitely one for Elmo and also over-flowing with the kind of musicality that would drop this into the Jazzrook oeuvre too. I would suggest that this is also a record that Bluesnik will find immensely pleasing.

Ian

Thank you for that excellent review of the Eric Friedlander disc, I shall be ordering up a copy tonight - it certainly sounds a very interesting session. I shall reply to you soon as I have played it.

elmo

[elmo]

You are quite right regarding Val Wilmer, she has real insight into both the music and particularly the musicians. Always enjoyed her interviews and her book "Serious as your life" was a fine overview of the then Avant Garde.

I wrote to her years ago to ask her about Elmo Hope and she recalled Walter Davis jr telling her that he and Elmo one time were so destitute they were panhandling passers by in Harlem so they could eat.

Been playing some of the recorded music by an obscure but very good tenor player called Frank Haynes who died young in 1965. He didn't record much but was highly rated by his fellow musicians. All his recorded work was as a sideman, he recorded with Dave Bailey, Randy Weston and Kenny Dorham but his best record is a quartet session recorded at the "Half Note" with Walter Bishop jr. Not an innovator but a great tone/sound and very inventive - the album is called "Bish Bash" and is on the Xanadu label.

elmo

Re Frank Haynes - nice Kenny Dorham track " An Oscar for Oscar" featuring Frank Haynes, Curtis Fuller and Tommy Flanagan (1961).

His studio sessions like this are good but the live session with Walter Bishop really demonstrate how good he was - unfortunately not available on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDlcSfaFFw0&feature=player_embedded

elmo

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Re Frank Haynes - nice Kenny Dorham track " An Oscar for Oscar" featuring Frank Haynes, Curtis Fuller and Tommy Flanagan (1961).

His studio sessions like this are good but the live session with Walter Bishop really demonstrate how good he was - unfortunately not available on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDlcSfaFFw0&feature=player_embedded

elmo

You introduce Frank Haynes, I raise you the even less known Daniel Jackson ("Eastern Lights" - Lenny Mcbrowne Quintet)...

"What's special about "Eastern Lights" is that the music sounds like a West Coast group's interpretation of hard bop. There's a sunny optimism here without an over-saturation of drums or extended solos. At the same time, there isn't a West Coast cliche to be found. All of the horn lines are smartly framed and the soloists retain a tight grip on intensity.

Interestingly, four of the five musicians were from the West Coast (Jimmy Bond was from Philadelphia), and all but one of the compositions were by tenor saxophonist Daniel Jackson, a brilliant composer whose name is little-known today. Jackson's harmonic touch was perhaps closest to Elmo Hope's." (Elmo arranged a lot of the material for Mcbrowne etc.).

Lovely player, tutored by Harold Land and with a similar sound and approach. Think Curtis Counce band with Carl Perkins or Elmo


I think both the Lenny Mcbrowne albums are on You tube, at least in part.

BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

The McBrowne tracks on Youtube seem pretty impressive and struck me as a meatier version of the Harold Land quintet that recorded "The Fox." It you extrapolated what Land's group was producing by a few years and the McBrowne group seem to represent where they were might be. McBrowne sounds a lot more fiery than Frank Butler and contrast a snappier approach to Butler's more casual style of drumming. This period always strike me as fascinating at you start to appreciate which musicians were starting to think more progressively as opposed to those whose style had already been entrenched. Listen to Butler with Miles on "Seven steps", for example, and you can begin to understand Davis' frustration with his playing. on this evidence, McBrowne does seem more in line with Max Roach's style in the 60's. I have never heard of him but it is interesting to see his early associations with Paul Bley, Ornette Coleman and Charlie Haden.

Daniel Jackson reminds me of an mixture of Harold Land and Booker Ervin - the harder edge of jazz at the time before Coltrane became a dominant influence. He sounds a really good player but I feel that the cliché of "neglected jazz musicians" is still one that is being played out today. Luckily the preponderance of independent labels makes in easier to get the music "out there" but there are plenty of players today who I have heard seem like major talent but remain unknown. The violinist James Sanders was a name I had never heard of and I bought a Harrison Bankhead record with him on and was staggered at how good he was. Ditto the tenor man Ari Brown whose "Groove Awakening" is totally without pretentions and features a band of whom Avreeayl Ra is the only musician with a familiar name. This is one of the most enjoyable albums I have bought in the last five years and there is probably a Ari Brown in every American city. If you go back in to the 1920's and 30's the number of musicians with "legendary" reputations increases markedly and to the extent that you realise just how much jazz recording in this era skewed the historical record. If you run through the big bands , it became obligatory for each band to have a star tenor player but the likes of Julian Dash and Dick Wilson are totally forgotten these days. For my money, Dick Wilson seemed to bridge the gap between Hawkins and Young and would have undoubtedly gone on to better things in the late 40's being one of the more progressive players of the late 30's.

The only downside of the McBrowne track is that the piano is out of tune. I have a real problem with this as it does mar my enthusiasm for a lot of music. It is a shame that they never invested in a piano tuner at the recordings sessions but, aside from this, it is staggering that something as good as the McBrowne record remains in obscurity. It is another example of suffering from not being released on a major record label or a cultish label like Blue Note. The tracks sound more interesting than the standard West Coast fare from that era which has generally not stood the test of time so well.

[Jazzrook]

Have been listening to my precious LP 'Rules of Freedom' by Nathan Davis's impressive quartet recorded in Paris in 1967 with Hampton Hawes(piano); Jimmy Garrison(bass) & Art Taylor(drums).

Here's 'Love is Freedom':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m8S0N4lVeA

[elmo]

Jazzrook

The album is called Spiritual Unity the 50th anniversary expanded edition. I got my copy from a jazz specialist called A W Jazz in Haverfordwest Pembs, I have checked and it is available on Amazon and the like but seemed to be more expensive.

Give Andrew of A W Jazz a buzz on 01437 769 618 and mention that its the same copy that Lyn bought. Andrew does do mail order

Bluesnik - if you have not seen this video that jazzrook has included in his post... YOU MUST WATCH IT

elmo

JR

I was in A W Jazz this morning and Andrew said he had heard from you but he is not really computer savvy. He does not have your address or tel number - if you still need the album ring him on the above number - he has a copy of the album in stock.
elmo

[elmo]

You introduce Frank Haynes, I raise you the even less known Daniel Jackson ("Eastern Lights" - Lenny Mcbrowne Quintet)...

"What's special about "Eastern Lights" is that the music sounds like a West Coast group's interpretation of hard bop. There's a sunny optimism here without an over-saturation of drums or extended solos. At the same time, there isn't a West Coast cliche to be found. All of the horn lines are smartly framed and the soloists retain a tight grip on intensity.

Interestingly, four of the five musicians were from the West Coast (Jimmy Bond was from Philadelphia), and all but one of the compositions were by tenor saxophonist Daniel Jackson, a brilliant composer whose name is little-known today. Jackson's harmonic touch was perhaps closest to Elmo Hope's." (Elmo arranged a lot of the material for Mcbrowne etc.).

Lovely player, tutored by Harold Land and with a similar sound and approach. Think Curtis Counce band with Carl Perkins or Elmo


I think both the Lenny Mcbrowne albums are on You tube, at least in part.

BN.

I dug these out of the collection this morning I had forgotten how good they were. The west coast hard boppers had their own sound and approach, you are right about the quality of Jackson's tenor playing and excellent compositions - Lenny McBrowne was a great admirer of Elmo and the band benefitted from Hope's involvement.
Don Sleet was a very good trumpet player - don't know what happened to him? I have the only album he recorded under his own name "All members" which had Jimmy Heath on tenor in fine form.

James Clay - another classy west coaster -did a nice album with Sonny Clark and led a band with a young Don Cherry

elmo

[Ian Thumwood]

Elmo

The only record I have heard with James Clay on is Don Cherry's "Art Deco" which can still be picked up very cheaply. For my money, this was one of the best albums of the 1980's and also features Billy Higgins and Charlie Haden. I quite like groups that don't feature a harmony instrument and although the line up suggests something very much in line with Ornette Coleman's classic quartet, I think it is probably the most mainstream record Cherry was ever involved in with the final track being by far the most outside. Clay doesn't sound out of place in this context and the whole disc is a delight. I am a bit of a sucker for the title track and was pleased a colleague managed to acquire a copy of the lead sheet so that we can play it ourselves from time to time. It is an "essential" recording irrespective of whether you are trying to nail something by an obscure musician like James Clay. Blackwell's playing alone makes this a compelling record.

It is strange how this kind of playing now seems to be totally out of fashion. Getting in to the then contemporary jazz scene in the mid 1980s this music was still relatively fresh enough to warrant Cherry getting a CMN tour at the same time. Cherry is a player I find a bit erratic and he lacks the kind of drama that someone like Lester Bowie could evoke. "Art Deco" manages to capture him in good form , with a stellar band and playing a sufficiently interesting repertoire.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I dug these out of the collection this morning I had forgotten how good they were. The west coast hard boppers had their own sound and approach, you are right about the quality of Jackson's tenor playing and excellent compositions - Lenny McBrowne was a great admirer of Elmo and the band benefitted from Hope's involvement.
Don Sleet was a very good trumpet player - don't know what happened to him? I have the only album he recorded under his own name "All members" which had Jimmy Heath on tenor in fine form.

James Clay - another classy west coaster -did a nice album with Sonny Clark and led a band with a young Don Cherry

elmo

Don Sleet was a very promising white trumpet player (with matching good looks ) who was lined up by Riverside to be the next Chet Baker, after Riverside's falling out with Chet over his increasing habit and personality. Unfortunately Sleet had acquired the exact same problem and overdosed. Cest la jazz life at that time. Jimmy Heath 's remark about there being so many good players competing for attention around then referred to Sleet.

Re James Clay, I saw him in March 1963 in London with Ray Charles - he took all the tenor and flute solos after David Newman was temporary busted by our finest. Very fine player if sometimes a tad "erratic" according to those who played with him in later years. I think he played a lot around Dallas with Red Garland etc up to his death. The earlier "Tenorman" album is a very nice slice of harder West Coast with Red Mitchell. He was also on a Riverside Wes Montgomery date playing flute, and his own albums. It was Cannonball who first praised him to Keepnews.

BN.

[Jazzrook]

The underrated trumpeter Jon Eardley is probably best known for his work with the Gerry Mulligan Sextet but he led a fascinating quintet session with tenorist J.R Monterose in 1955. He does a wonderful version of Tadd Dameron's 'If You Could See Me Now' which he dedicated to his hero Freddie Webster. Unfortunately, this track seems to have been blocked on YouTube but it can be found, along with quartet & septet sessions, on FRESH SOUND FSR-CD 863.

Here's 'Indian Spring' by his quartet from 1954:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpHyk0DxreU

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

The underrated trumpeter Jon Eardley is probably best known for his work with the Gerry Mulligan Sextet but he led a fascinating quintet session with tenorist J.R Monterose in 1955. He does a wonderful version of Tadd Dameron's 'If You Could See Me Now' which he dedicated to his hero Freddie Webster. Unfortunately, this track seems to have been blocked on YouTube but it can be found, along with quartet & septet sessions, on FRESH SOUND FSR-CD 863.

The Gerry Mulligan/Eardley Qrt concert recording of "Blues going up", an inpromtu blues that Gerry played " while you people get seated" must have been the very first jazz record I bought - on a French Vogue EP? (displacing Fats Domino, Gene Vincent etc.) Always loved that record. Eardley was a good player. He recorded in the UK much later?

BN.

[Jazzrook]

The Gerry Mulligan/Eardley Qrt concert recording of "Blues going up", an inpromtu blues that Gerry played " while you people get seated" must have been the very first jazz record I bought - on a French Vogue EP? (displacing Fats Domino, Gene Vincent etc.) Always loved that record. Eardley was a good player. He recorded in the UK much later?

BN.

Strange, Bluesnik - I've recently ordered that Mulligan/Eardley California concert, 'High School'! I think Eardley recorded for SPOTLITE in the late 1970s.

JR