What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Serial_Apologist]

Now: Eric Dolphy, Musical Prophet: the expanded 1963 New York Sessions. I know I've said this here before, but every Dolphy solo is a lesson in composition for me (alongside all the other things it might be). If only there'd been an album of unaccompanied solos. I guess that might have happened eventually.

There's a solo bass clarinet version of Billie Holiday's God Bless the Child, in which he self-accompanies, elaborating whole harmonic structures, woven out of condensed arpeggios. One could imagine someone taking those harmonies and arranging them for a group. And by the way, Dolphy's duets with Charles Mingus are sheer wonders in themselves too, if some excerpts played on a programme series about Dolphy, several years ago, are to go by.

[Jazzrook]

There's a solo bass clarinet version of Billie Holiday's God Bless the Child, in which he self-accompanies, elaborating whole harmonic structures, woven out of condensed arpeggios. One could imagine someone taking those harmonies and arranging them for a group. And by the way, Dolphy's duets with Charles Mingus are sheer wonders in themselves too, if some excerpts played on a programme series about Dolphy, several years ago, are to go by.

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=72uw0NgbbJM

JR

[Richard Barrett]

There's a solo bass clarinet version of Billie Holiday's God Bless the Child, in which he self-accompanies, elaborating whole harmonic structures, woven out of condensed arpeggios.

Of course - transcribed, recorded and often played by classical bass clarinettist Harry Sparnaay.

[Ian Thumwood]

NP: "Fat Albert Rotunda" - sure it's got a groove but there's a lot of jazz going on under the hood.

It is a rare chance to hear Hancock with what is effectively a big band. The material is quite simple as is the case with so much funk but I think it is where Herbie takes it that makes the record interesting. There is an earlier record by Stanley Turrentine called "Joyride" where he is backed by a big band playing charts by Oliver Nelson and Herbie is exceptional in that record.

I also wanted to point out the there is a new live record out by pianist Gerald Clayton with a sextet at the Village Vanguard which has been receiving a lot of positive press. I first heard Clayton on a trio record called "Two Shade" which was really in the style of the great 1950s piano trios albeit the drummer adds a more contemporary edge. For me, Clayton has reinvigorated mainstream jazz piano. This latest group includes the two saxes of Logan Richardson and Walter Smith III and jettisons the more straight ahead swing of his earlier work for something far more biting. There are points when the interaction of the saxes recalls Warne Marsh and Lee konitz despite drummer Marcus Gilmore invoking the spirit of his boss, Steve Coleman. The originals are now a bit edgier than the material Clayton used to compose and there is a rip-snorting version of Bud Powell's "Celia" which is right on the money. It is one of those themes so redolent of jazz in the late 40s which somehow retains the potential to sound contemporary at the same time. The other two covers include a reflective "Body & Soul" and a dissonant version of "Take the Coltrane." When reduced to a trio , the music recalls Keith Jarrett as his most focused and unindulgent. Throughout Clayton's piano playing is impressive, the music rejecting any modishness for a pretty full on set. As far as this board is concerned, Gerald Clayton seems totally under the radar despite working with the likes of John Scofield and Charles Lloyd but i point it out because it is a record that will appeal strongly to both Bruce and Bluesnik. I could also imagine this appealing to Jazzrook in the edgier moments. It feels like this is the record which will see Clayton emerge from being his generation's most promising prospect to a fully fledged A -lister.

[Joseph K]

Coltrane's First Meditations again. Though the materials upon which each piece is based are generally quite simple, either just a major or minor mode, it is music that is full of awe; its rhythmic language is oceanic, Elvin's drums just wash right over you like the sound of the shore and, what's more it is oceanic in terms of its expression which conjures for me an ecstatic boundlessness. Also, Trane's tone is something else here, suffused with a mystical blissful quiddity as it is, and naturally the rest of the quartet senses this.

[Jazzrook]

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=72uw0NgbbJM

JR

Raymond Horricks on the extraordinary bass/bass clarinet duet:
"We are now about to be treated to an instrumental equivalent of the Muppet Show. Several minutes of mischief; an absolutely hilarious and spellbinding chit-chat between Dolphy and Mingus."

From Horricks' book 'The Importance of Being Eric Dolphy'(1989).

JR

[Joseph K]

Sonny Rollins Plus 4

[Serial_Apologist]

Raymond Horricks on the extraordinary bass/bass clarinet duet:
"We are now about to be treated to an instrumental equivalent of the Muppet Show. Several minutes of mischief; an absolutely hilarious and spellbinding chit-chat between Dolphy and Mingus."

From Horricks' book 'The Importance of Being Eric Dolphy'(1989).

JR

I'd forgotten to reference that particular duet earlier on when Richard Barrett raised the Dolphy solos, so thanks for reminding us of it.

[Joseph K]

Sonny Rollins - Tenor Madness

[Stanfordian]

‘Clubhouse’ - Dexter Gordon
with Freddie Hubbard, Barry Harris, Bob Cranshaw & Billy Higgins
Blue Note (1965, released 1979)

[Serial_Apologist]

‘Clubhouse’ - Dexter Gordon
with Freddie Hubbard, Barry Harris, Bob Cranshaw & Billy Higgins
Blue Note (1965, released 1979)

Extraordinary, because, coincidentally, my next listening is to Sonny Rollins' Our Man in Jazz, recorded 3 0r 4 years earlier, with Cranshaw and Higgins, and Don Cherry - one of Rollins's most "out there" recordings.

[Jazzrook]

Brotherhood of Breath on 'Jazz in Britain'. Radio 3, October 7, 1974 playing Mongezi Feza's 'You Ain't Gonna Know Me 'Cos You Think You Know Me':

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=F3NKyIIVrw4

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

Brotherhood of Breath on 'Jazz in Britain'. Radio 3, October 7, 1974 playing Mongezi Feza's 'You Ain't Gonna Know Me 'Cos You Think You Know Me':

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=F3NKyIIVrw4

JR

Dig that backbeat!

Mongesi would be gone inside a year.

I wonder if Mingus ever heard that band, or knew of its existence. I think he would have appreciated: they both had that Ellington grounding and drew on miscellaneous sources. I've been listening to all my Mingus recordings - a natural link to the Dolphy stuff previously - including various programme series. I love this story:

"Hey Charles, what you doing employing a white musician in your band?"

"Charlie Mariano? He's not white, he's Italian!"

I've been tempted to tell that story to a neighbour, who's Italian, and whose wife is black. Lovely family - two small children - but, hmmm, neighbours and that, y'know...

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Dig that backbeat!

Mongesi would be gone inside a year.

I wonder if Mingus ever heard that band, or knew of its existence. I think he would have appreciated: they both had that Ellington grounding and drew on miscellaneous sources. I've been listening to all my Mingus recordings - a natural link to the Dolphy stuff previously - including various programme series. I love this story:

"Hey Charles, what you doing employing a white musician in your band?"

"Charlie Mariano? He's not white, he's Italian!"

I've been tempted to tell that story to a neighbour, who's Italian, and whose wife is black. Lovely family - two small children - but, hmmm, neighbours and that, y'know...

I've been looking for a place to put this musician story, so I'll insert it here. (Compliments of the Organissimo site and a Sun Ra biography). Made me laugh.

"As some of the musicians began to get a taste of the opportunities New York offered they began to feel restless and ignored. Rehearsals were not enough. John Gilmore spent hours every day practicing, then going out at night to hear lesser saxophonists making money: "I'd been walking around New York and I wasn't working anywhere, and half the cats were out there playing my ideas," he told DownBeat. "I said, 'What is this? Here I am not working, and they're working, and they're stealing my ideas." When Lee Morgan recommended him to Art Blakey as the Jazz Messengers were leaving for a tour of Japan and Europe, he accepted the offer and left the Arkestra. But his bitterness even carried over into the Blakey band, and annoyed Blakey to the point where he let him go:

(Art Blakey) "I criticized him because he'd be talking the way he was thinking. The way he thought about life and what he believed in and why he would put down other people. I didn't think it was right. He was young and running off the top of his head, don't tell me that Lester Young steals from him, or Coltrane steals from him--that's not true. He's off... I wasn't concerned about his playing, he'd be telling me about his fans on Mars or Jupiter, but I said it's the fans on this planet we're concerned with, not back there."

[Serial_Apologist]

I've been looking for a place to put this musician story, so I'll insert it here. (Compliments of the Organissimo site and a Sun Ra biography). Made me laugh.

"As some of the musicians began to get a taste of the opportunities New York offered they began to feel restless and ignored. Rehearsals were not enough. John Gilmore spent hours every day practicing, then going out at night to hear lesser saxophonists making money: "I'd been walking around New York and I wasn't working anywhere, and half the cats were out there playing my ideas," he told DownBeat. "I said, 'What is this? Here I am not working, and they're working, and they're stealing my ideas." When Lee Morgan recommended him to Art Blakey as the Jazz Messengers were leaving for a tour of Japan and Europe, he accepted the offer and left the Arkestra. But his bitterness even carried over into the Blakey band, and annoyed Blakey to the point where he let him go:

(Art Blakey) "I criticized him because he'd be talking the way he was thinking. The way he thought about life and what he believed in and why he would put down other people. I didn't think it was right. He was young and running off the top of his head, don't tell me that Lester Young steals from him, or Coltrane steals from him--that's not true. He's off... I wasn't concerned about his playing, he'd be telling me about his fans on Mars or Jupiter, but I said it's the fans on this planet we're concerned with, not back there."

I've always imagined Art Blakey as being down to earth!