Album For Today

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

the lady can knock you out with her cool and precise playing and Leroy!

[Jazzrook]

Eric Dolphy's astonishing solo bass clarinet performance of 'God Bless The Child' from his overlooked 1963 live album 'The Illinois Concert'(BLUE NOTE):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQZ1c3ixoa4

[Jazzrook]

A recent discovery for me was 'The Young Lions', an exhilarating hard bop sextet album from 1960 featuring Wayne Shorter, Frank Strozier, Lee Morgan et al.
This little-known album is currently available at a bargain price from Amazon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHRgnCPzq6E

[Ian Thumwood]

Jazzrook

The youtube clip sounds good. I'm not usually too fussed by Wayne shorter's earlier stuff such s the Vee-jay recording which is pretty conservative in comparison with the work he produced later on Blue Note or as a member of Miles' quintet. It's records like this that are forgotten that remind you just how potent the jazz scene was then.

Incidentally I've been listening almost continually to another record from 1960s this week and that has been Freddie Redd's "Shades of Redd." I have always liked the tunes on this record having encountered them on John Zorn's 1980's classic recording "New for Lulu" which enjoys as much cult status as so many of the Blue Note albums it plundered for repertoire. The Freddie Redd album is incredible and it is the unfamiliar compositions such as the ballads which score for me although the opening "The Thespian" is , in my opinion, a Hard Bop masterpiece. The theme is initially played at a slow tempo underscored by Paul Chamber's arco bass but then gets a reprise at a much faster pace. This treatment is a lot more sophisticated than a good proportion of writing on Blue Note at the time and the front line combination of Tina Brooks and Jackie McLean is a masterstroke. The latter's solo on the opener is staggering with the opening phrases sounding just like Steve Lacy's soprano saxophone. "Melanie" must also be one of the catchiest tunes records on the label.

I feel that Blue Note is often an oeuvre on it's own and some recordings such as this one or Brook's "True Blue" or Fred Jackson's "Hootin' & toot'n" leap out at you because they are so definitive of how the label produced a house style that almost seem divorced from the wider range of jazz around at the time. "Shades of Redd" might not have taken the music in to new realms yet the writing is played with such panache and character that it's appeal is irresistible. It is a shame that he didn't produce more work for Blue Note and had been more eager to rehearse before the next recording session which was shelved by Alfred Lions. Still, I think this is a classic album and as good as anything produced by either Sonny Clark or Horace Silver who ploughed a similar furrow.

[Jazzrook]

Jazzrook

The youtube clip sounds good. I'm not usually too fussed by Wayne shorter's earlier stuff such s the Vee-jay recording which is pretty conservative in comparison with the work he produced later on Blue Note or as a member of Miles' quintet. It's records like this that are forgotten that remind you just how potent the jazz scene was then.

Incidentally I've been listening almost continually to another record from 1960s this week and that has been Freddie Redd's "Shades of Redd." I have always liked the tunes on this record having encountered them on John Zorn's 1980's classic recording "New for Lulu" which enjoys as much cult status as so many of the Blue Note albums it plundered for repertoire. The Freddie Redd album is incredible and it is the unfamiliar compositions such as the ballads which score for me although the opening "The Thespian" is , in my opinion, a Hard Bop masterpiece. The theme is initially played at a slow tempo underscored by Paul Chamber's arco bass but then gets a reprise at a much faster pace. This treatment is a lot more sophisticated than a good proportion of writing on Blue Note at the time and the front line combination of Tina Brooks and Jackie McLean is a masterstroke. The latter's solo on the opener is staggering with the opening phrases sounding just like Steve Lacy's soprano saxophone. "Melanie" must also be one of the catchiest tunes records on the label.

I feel that Blue Note is often an oeuvre on it's own and some recordings such as this one or Brook's "True Blue" or Fred Jackson's "Hootin' & toot'n" leap out at you because they are so definitive of how the label produced a house style that almost seem divorced from the wider range of jazz around at the time. "Shades of Redd" might not have taken the music in to new realms yet the writing is played with such panache and character that it's appeal is irresistible. It is a shame that he didn't produce more work for Blue Note and had been more eager to rehearse before the next recording session which was shelved by Alfred Lions. Still, I think this is a classic album and as good as anything produced by either Sonny Clark or Horace Silver who ploughed a similar furrow.

Thanks, Ian. 'Shades of Redd' is one of my favourite albums and a neglected BLUE NOTE classic.
Definitely a suitable subject for JRR!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njh7QIKNOPg

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I have raved about that album on here for years, some of Tina Brooks best playing and the blend and contrast with Jackie is stunning, Great little band.

"In the (Mosaic box) liner notes, Mr. Redd professes not to be too worried about his relationship to the
limited star-making machinery of jazz,
concentrating instead on preserving his
integrity - though fame and quality aren't as
antithetical as they are often claimed to be.

Each of his albums for Blue Note showed
progress, a genuinely distinct melodic sense
and a real mastery of small-group
arrangements. Had he and record
companies come to better terms, he might
have produced more and better work. In the
liner notes, Jackie McLean says, ''You never
know what town you'll see [ Freddie ] in.
He's always been itinerant. Freddie just
appears from time to time, like some
wonderful spirit.'' That he avoids attention,
and that there isn't more room in the club,
concert and record company system for
him, is our loss." - New York Times.

BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

I would have to say that Tina Brooks impresses me on everything I've heard him appear on. I was put off when I was a teenager exploring Blue Note as I couldn't understand why he had a girl's name but catching "True Blue" for the first time was a salutary lesson. This a great album too and , to my ears, the partnership with Freddie Hubbard is one of the best trumpet / tenor front lines that the label conjured up. I've got in on my MP3 for when #I go to the gym but having returned to listen to it again last year it was striking at how much writing there is on the album in relation to the solos. Some of the tunes have such a long structure that only the horns solo from recollection.

Blue Note is almost in need of a complete re-evaluation. There are many real gems of the beaten track of the more celebrated musicians and whilst I would have to say that the label's greatest efforts tend to be by Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Jackie McLean (for whom my appreciation grows continually due to the "heads up" by Bluesnik), there are so-called lesser players like Sonny Clark, Tina Brooks, Freddie Redd and Freddie Jackson who produced albums that may have been modest in scope but which have a perfection about them than transcends any notion of being central to the development of the music. "Shades of Redd" is fabulous but albums like "True Blue", "Hootin' and tootin'" , "Cool struttin'", etc are just wonderfully conceived records that transcend their era and oeuvre.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

found myself completely captured by the man's way with another's tune .... a master

[Ian Thumwood]

I've been listening to Lee Morgan's "Sidewinder" all day in my car. This was the first Blue Note LP I bought when I was a teenager and was ordered from Orpheus Records in Southsea after initially hearing the record on Humphey Lyttelton's "Best of jazz." I can still remember walking up the hill to catch the bus for college one morning after playing the record continually the night beforehand and thinking how great the record was and that Lee Morgan must have been one of the greatest trumpet players of all time. Every track seemed to crackle with excitement and offer the possibility of exploration in to further styles of jazz that remained unfamiliar at the time. It seemed to be a staggeringly brilliant and ebullient piece of music.

What is strange is that I never replaced by LP with a CD and quickly by-passed Blue Note for more contemporary styles before going through a period of Blue Note obsession in the early 2000's. Even then, I never returned to this disc but I decided to pick another copy up as it went for sale for about £3 on line. For some reason I always felt that returning to this record might be a bit of a disappointment but it is quite intriguing to find that whilst my perception has changed totally, it is a far more nuanced record than I recollected. In effect, this is a quintet of 5 musicians who have really different philosophies but combine to make something really quite special. Morgan seems more influenced by Gillespie than I recollected, his lines being full of dynamics and rhythmic phrasing as opposed to the more "round the block" kind of be-bop of Clifford Brown. I hadn't expected that. I now see Joe Henderson as a more adventurous player but here is seems to thrive over the funky drive of the rhythm section and the combination with Morgan reminds me of the other "perfect trumpet and tenor blend" of Tina Brooks and Freddie Hubbard. In fact a tune like "Totem Pole" sounds like it has migrated from Brooks' "True Blue."
I would also have to say that Barry Harris plays this session without putting a foot wrong. His gospel inspired solo on the title track teasingly plays over the groove in a fashion that is fascinating. he is not what I would call a sophisticated player yet here he is a masterful conjuror taking simple phrases and working upon them until the effect become mesmerising. On paper Harris seems too much of a "soul" player to find it with a hip front line of Morgan and Henderson but his presence acts as the perfect contrast . Bob Cranshaw is a model of strength on bass and crucial to why this record sounds so good. However, the very best thing about this record is Billy Higgin's sensational drumming which rattles it's way throughout the recording in a loose-limbered fashion which is the icing on the cake. There is a moment in the last chorus by Morgan on "Sidewinder" where the trumpet plays a couple of phrases based on two notes where Higgin's has some kind of telepathic hold on the former. You almost want to jump out of your seat and punch the air this is so exciting! That said, the free-wheeling joie de vivre of "Boy, What a night" is the album's highlight and such a fantastically snaky and confident theme that it is difficult to understand that this isn't more widely known.

Stereotypically, this album is seen as the disc which prompted Blue Note to pursue a more commercial policy as it chased the potential to repeat the hit that was the title track. This is demonstrably too simple. The title track was apparently initially intended as a filler and the other tracks could all have served as opening tracks on any other Morgan disc - especially the aforementioned "Boy, what a night." As a 17 year old, this record struck as an incredibly infectious and exciting piece of jazz and I believed that it typified what a Blue Note record should sound like . Thirty years later and the record now seems like the coming together of five musicians from disparate styles of jazz to produce a disc that is perfectly realised. It isn't at all typical and perhaps as "odd" in it's way as other "Hard Bop classics" such as "Shades of Redd, " or "True Blue" - both of which include a large degree of writing and not the head + blowing sessions that form a large body of the label output in this idiom. The whole effect is like a recipe that uses an unusual mix of ingredients to produce the perfect fruitcake. I think that this record deserves it's reputation - for all the unorthodoxy, this is perfect the apogee of "Hard Bop."

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Sidewinder is agreat album Ian not just the title track

i am liking the sounds of this new Dylan Howe effort

gigs to come listed beneath the clip

[Ian Thumwood]

Prompted by the request for "Joshua" on JRR the other week, I managed to get hold of Miles Davis' record "Seven steps to heaven" and have been playing this in my car today. I had always perceived this to being an average Miles record, cobbled together from a couple of sessions and featuring a flexible line up including Victor Feldman. Whilst the title track is celebrated and "Joshua" something of a jazz standard, the rest of the disc is a revelation in my opinion. I think the ballads are sensational and the opening "Basin Street Blues", largely un-noted by critics, is one of the strongest trumpet performances by Davis he produced. The more up-tempo "So near, so far" is also a brilliant composition that deserves to be more celebrated. This is a cracking album, with the only disappointment being the lack of the under-rated George Coleman. It's funny how history has ear-marked this as a transitional record and a kind of primer for the debut record "ESP" for the seminal, second quintet. I think this record should be seen as Miles' most startling statements as a soloist and I feel his trumpet dominates this record in a fashion only matched by the collaborations with Gil Evans, Palle Mikkelborg and Marcus Miller. This is a very under-rated record.

[Serial_Apologist]

Prompted by the request for "Joshua" on JRR the other week, I managed to get hold of Miles Davis' record "Seven steps to heaven" and have been playing this in my car today. I had always perceived this to being an average Miles record, cobbled together from a couple of sessions and featuring a flexible line up including Victor Feldman. Whilst the title track is celebrated and "Joshua" something of a jazz standard, the rest of the disc is a revelation in my opinion. I think the ballads are sensational and the opening "Basin Street Blues", largely un-noted by critics, is one of the strongest trumpet performances by Davis he produced. The more up-tempo "So near, so far" is also a brilliant composition that deserves to be more celebrated. This is a cracking album, with the only disappointment being the lack of the under-rated George Coleman. It's funny how history has ear-marked this as a transitional record and a kind of primer for the debut record "ESP" for the seminal, second quintet. I think this record should be seen as Miles' most startling statements as a soloist and I feel his trumpet dominates this record in a fashion only matched by the collaborations with Gil Evans, Palle Mikkelborg and Marcus Miller. This is a very under-rated record.

And of course there's that title track - possibly Miles's last ever outing in bebop with a unit of his own! I often wonder if it was designed to see if and what his young accomplices could make of that area of the music.

[Ian Thumwood]

I'm struggling to read the repro liner notes as they are so small but the album consists of two sessions. The first, recorded on the West Coast, was with a group more in keeping with his late 50's / early 1960's and was originally intended for an album to be called "So near, so far." The liner notes advise that the pressings were shelved when the results of an East coast session were recorded and the new material then made up the bulk of the record. Essentially the new group with Williams, Hancock and Carter offered a way forward so perhaps the earlier repertoire was a hangover from the initial session in California.

More significantly, this is the last studio recording session where I believe he played standards. This is very under-rated music and probably a more satisfying album than the follow-up "ESP," my least favourite of the classic quintet as it sounds a bit tentative. Of the smaller group records, this sounds as good as the other four second quintet recordings with the exception of "Miles Smiles" - for me, the best thing Miles produced in the studio .

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

my first Miles album

[second hand from the Gate Bookshop natch ...]

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

playing this in the car this afternoon driving through the vales of the middle kingdom in light from paradise, just delightful: