Sunday, April 29, 2012
Don't Be Coy With Roy - Eldridge, Stitt et al.
Listening to the 1957 Verve recording Only the Blues - reissued in the fabulous Real Gone Jazz 4 CD set, Sonny Stitt: Eight Classic Albums - knocks me out, kills me, etc. These recorded performances by Roy Eldridge and Sonny Stitt, supported by the rhythm section of Oscar Peterson (p), Ray Brown (b), Herb Ellis (g), and Stan Levey (d).
Roy Eldridge could play with anyone, in any context, Jimmy Ryan's to Birdland & beyond. He was known as Little Jazz to jazz-loving enthusiasts. But to musicians he was known as Jazz. I think the latter appellation is most apt; as a musician his talent was immense. He was one of Lennie Tristano's very, very favorites. And of course Bean and Prez loved Jazz.
Listen to Jazz with Billie Holiday - Fallin' In Love Again; with Mildred Bailey - I'm Nobody's Baby; with The Chocolate Dandies (Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, John Kirby, Bernard Addison and "Big" Sid Catlett) - I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me and I Surrender Dear; with Teddy Wilson's band (Buster Bailey, Chu Berry, "Big" Sid et al.) and with Anita O'Day & The Three Sounds - Whisper Not. Sublime! Perfection!
Roy Eldridge could play with anyone, in any context, Jimmy Ryan's to Birdland & beyond. He was known as Little Jazz to jazz-loving enthusiasts. But to musicians he was known as Jazz. I think the latter appellation is most apt; as a musician his talent was immense. He was one of Lennie Tristano's very, very favorites. And of course Bean and Prez loved Jazz.
Listen to Jazz with Billie Holiday - Fallin' In Love Again; with Mildred Bailey - I'm Nobody's Baby; with The Chocolate Dandies (Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, John Kirby, Bernard Addison and "Big" Sid Catlett) - I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me and I Surrender Dear; with Teddy Wilson's band (Buster Bailey, Chu Berry, "Big" Sid et al.) and with Anita O'Day & The Three Sounds - Whisper Not. Sublime! Perfection!
"Because they're the best songs"
Andy Hamilton's Sal Mosca interview:
Like Konitz and Tristano, you focus a lot on standards.I had intended to blog on about the above. But I've decided not to do so. See Prof. Hamilton's home page. By the way he's one of the few writers on music aesthetics that I am able to read without coming down with a recurrence of that nauseating virus without a name, but which might bear the description, "academic - why not publish anyway - music aesthetics?".
Yeah, that's it – just standards.
Most of the originals I like are based on standards. I've composed some that are based on
standards, and some that are not.
What is the reason for focussing on that repertoire?
Because they're the best songs. They're better than folk music, better than classical or opera
they speak of the people, and they speak of Broadway, and they speak of love and they're by some of the greatest composers – Gershwin, Kern...it's much more pleasant to be singing a beautiful song inside yourself while you're improvising, than to be singing some senseless ditty.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Mal Waldron - Creativity Without Parentheses
Mal Waldron on composing his "Soul Eyes" as house composer and pianist for Prestige Records:
Richard Cook & Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD (5th Edition), page 311 give The Prestige Recordings of John Coltrane a grade of ***(*)! [See my previous post regarding parenthetical matters.] These are my last words on Messrs. Cook& Morton.
I am spending today with, among other music, the music of the Jackie Gleason recordings featuring Bobby Hackett and others - nota bene one can't say the music of Jackie Gleason; when asked about The Great One's role in the recordings, Hackett commented that Gleason brought the checks. Bobby Hackett's trumpet on these recordings knocks me out. Hidden in the grooves of my Gleason vinyl recordings are solos by Nuncio "Toots" Mondello, Lawrence Brown, Charlie Ventura, and Roy Eldridge - knockouts all.
Next, I spent some time will the militaristic ballads of Carl Loewe (1796 - 1869) performed by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Baritone and Jörg Demus, Piano. Loewe fits in with my recent, renewed, interest in the lieder of Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Wolf, Mahler, and Die Neue Wiener Schule.
Next up were the Clef and Norgran recordings of Stan Getz, with the wonderful Bob Brookmeyer (vt), John Williams (p), Teddy Kotick (b), and Frank Isola (d). I wore out my Interpretations By The Stan Getz Quintet #2 vinyl Norgran disc during my high school stay which ended in 1959. A couple of really important Highland Park High School (Michigan) items are to be noted below.
Jazz & Basketball. My high school stay was consumed by jazz music and basketball. I subscribed both to Down Beat and The Jazz Review. At the time I read Down Beat for the gossip; although even as a young impressionable jazz fan I found the magazine's malevolent reporting of Billie Holiday's arrest at her hospital bed for drugs possession disconcerting. After my high school years I never read Down Beat much - it's racialism and philistinism disagreed with my sensibilities. Compared with The Jazz Review, Down Beat was infantile.
The Jazz Review began with its November 1958 issue and ceased publishing with its January 1961 issue - four volumes in all. All of the issues are now available on the internet through the offices of one of the journal's co-founders, Nat Hentoff. The late, and very much missed, Martin Williams was the other co-founder. So it will be worth one's while to peek at the online Jazz Review and see what grown up music journalism and criticism looks like. To wit:
http://jazzstudiesonline.org/?q=node/923
Highland Park High School in Michigan was a Class A basketball power in the 1950s and 1960s. Among its important luminaries were George "Baby" Duncan, George Lee, John Trapp, Terry Duerod, and (most importantly) Bobby Joe Hill. I direct the readers' attention to the online item that treats Texas Western's and Bobby Joe Hill's 1966 NCAA championship season among other important things . To wit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sesYdBm6j9Q&feature=email
That tune was written for John Coltrane. I knew he was on the date the next day. The way the setup was in those days, they’d tell me who was on the set and then they’d tell me to write six or seven compositions for the date. So I had to stay up all night long and write the changes, and next morning I’d come in to Hackensack, N.J., and make the records, then I’d go home and write some more music for the next date.https://tedpanken.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/two-interviews-with-mal-waldron-on-the-86th-anniversary-of-his-birth/
Richard Cook & Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD (5th Edition), page 311 give The Prestige Recordings of John Coltrane a grade of ***(*)! [See my previous post regarding parenthetical matters.] These are my last words on Messrs. Cook& Morton.
I am spending today with, among other music, the music of the Jackie Gleason recordings featuring Bobby Hackett and others - nota bene one can't say the music of Jackie Gleason; when asked about The Great One's role in the recordings, Hackett commented that Gleason brought the checks. Bobby Hackett's trumpet on these recordings knocks me out. Hidden in the grooves of my Gleason vinyl recordings are solos by Nuncio "Toots" Mondello, Lawrence Brown, Charlie Ventura, and Roy Eldridge - knockouts all.
Next, I spent some time will the militaristic ballads of Carl Loewe (1796 - 1869) performed by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Baritone and Jörg Demus, Piano. Loewe fits in with my recent, renewed, interest in the lieder of Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Wolf, Mahler, and Die Neue Wiener Schule.
Next up were the Clef and Norgran recordings of Stan Getz, with the wonderful Bob Brookmeyer (vt), John Williams (p), Teddy Kotick (b), and Frank Isola (d). I wore out my Interpretations By The Stan Getz Quintet #2 vinyl Norgran disc during my high school stay which ended in 1959. A couple of really important Highland Park High School (Michigan) items are to be noted below.
Jazz & Basketball. My high school stay was consumed by jazz music and basketball. I subscribed both to Down Beat and The Jazz Review. At the time I read Down Beat for the gossip; although even as a young impressionable jazz fan I found the magazine's malevolent reporting of Billie Holiday's arrest at her hospital bed for drugs possession disconcerting. After my high school years I never read Down Beat much - it's racialism and philistinism disagreed with my sensibilities. Compared with The Jazz Review, Down Beat was infantile.
The Jazz Review began with its November 1958 issue and ceased publishing with its January 1961 issue - four volumes in all. All of the issues are now available on the internet through the offices of one of the journal's co-founders, Nat Hentoff. The late, and very much missed, Martin Williams was the other co-founder. So it will be worth one's while to peek at the online Jazz Review and see what grown up music journalism and criticism looks like. To wit:
http://jazzstudiesonline.org/?q=node/923
Highland Park High School in Michigan was a Class A basketball power in the 1950s and 1960s. Among its important luminaries were George "Baby" Duncan, George Lee, John Trapp, Terry Duerod, and (most importantly) Bobby Joe Hill. I direct the readers' attention to the online item that treats Texas Western's and Bobby Joe Hill's 1966 NCAA championship season among other important things . To wit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sesYdBm6j9Q&feature=email
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Jazz - An Asterisk Enclosed in Parentheses
I've attempted to be disciplined in writing (blogging on) about certain definite subjects - George Braith, "Big" John Patton, Grant Green, Harold Vick (musicians all). So, I have a number of unfinished blog-posts concerning Messrs. Braith et al.. The flow of each blogging occasion, of each occasional piece, was jammed back in this blogger's face by parentheses' worries. The philosopher G. E. Moore had a dream wherein he conflated his Moorean-self with that of a proposition! I can certainly reckon myself as an asterisk (a star-shaped symbol used as a mark of reference) even while awake (or believing myself to be awake). Richard Cook & Brian Morton in their Guide To Jazz On CD, Fifth Edition (p. vii), in a section explaining their ideas about aesthetic-evaluation criteria and marks write,
One of the great, practical attributes of Blue Note vinyl recordings was their resistance to wear and tear, to the wear of basement parties and teenage transport to and from parties - even the scratches sounded good! Musically Blue Note recordings have held up very well. Admittedly the first Blue Note CDs sounded awful, but Blue Note and Dr. Rudy van Gelder fixed subsequent reissues (20 and 24 bits).
As Bob Marley says, let me put my cards on the table. Some aestheticians and critics regard recorded music as an art-form - recorded performances involving musicians and sound-engineers. David Murray who has made over 100 recordings told me some time ago that he had never made a request of a record company or record producer to record himself or his music. I've often reckoned recordings to be advertisements for working musicians and/or groups. Back in the days when performance opportunities were more plentiful and when groups such as Miles Davis's quintets where performing on a regular basis, rehearsals took place on the bandstand; not in the recording studio. Today many recordings sound to my ears like they have been over-rehearsed in the recording studio - there's no snap in the recorded performances. This criticism doesn't even take into account recordings that are over-produced - too many microphones and too few creative musicians. Etta James (R.I.P.) made a couple of wonderful recordings of standards in which the music was arranged Cedar Walton and performed by groups of musicians led by him. The third recording of standards by Etta James was an absolute disaster. I couldn't understand how the superb Miss James and her superb musicians could have made such a mess of things after the previous two superb recordings. When I finally got around to reading the liner notes to the third terrible recording, I found out why. Etta James and the supporting cast of musicians were not even in the same neighborhood. She was ill and there was a hell of a lot of overdubbing going on.
Igor Stravinsky remarked when he was asked what he thought of Hi-Fidelity recordings, Isn't fidelity enough? Fidelity to the music, would be my interpretation of Igor's response.
Back to Messrs. Cook & Morton. Sonny Stitt! No ****s or ♛****s out of 21 CDs reviewed! Case closed a la Perry Mason. Kenny Wheeler! Four ****s out of eleven discs reviewed! Four ***(*)s. One ***. This psudo-statistical stuff is really tiresome and unnecessary. Stitt is one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. Stitt burns and takes no prisoners. Wheeler? ECM movie music. Nice, over-thoughtful. Jackie Gleason with Bobby Hackett, Charlie Ventura, Buster Bailey, Lawrence Brown - that's a soundtrack for the soul!
Gotta bounce. Later. There may be more.
***(*) A fine record, with some exceptional music. Only kept out of the front rank by some minor reservations.The "front rank" is denoted by "****"; whilst the ga-ga rank is denoted by "♛****" If I were measuring my efforts in living (life) with asterisks and parentheses in pairs, I'd rather have a grade of *** verses ***(*). "(*)" signals a defect, a manifest deficiency - no matter how minor. One is, no doubt, aware of this title, Jazz: The Imperfect Art. Cook & Morton do confuse imperfect recordings with imperfect recorded performances. Allow me to reveal my own prejudices regarding jazz, jazz journalists, jazz recordings, and the Down Beat, American Bandstand, Guide To Jazz On CD star or asterisk systems of grading recordings.
One of the great, practical attributes of Blue Note vinyl recordings was their resistance to wear and tear, to the wear of basement parties and teenage transport to and from parties - even the scratches sounded good! Musically Blue Note recordings have held up very well. Admittedly the first Blue Note CDs sounded awful, but Blue Note and Dr. Rudy van Gelder fixed subsequent reissues (20 and 24 bits).
As Bob Marley says, let me put my cards on the table. Some aestheticians and critics regard recorded music as an art-form - recorded performances involving musicians and sound-engineers. David Murray who has made over 100 recordings told me some time ago that he had never made a request of a record company or record producer to record himself or his music. I've often reckoned recordings to be advertisements for working musicians and/or groups. Back in the days when performance opportunities were more plentiful and when groups such as Miles Davis's quintets where performing on a regular basis, rehearsals took place on the bandstand; not in the recording studio. Today many recordings sound to my ears like they have been over-rehearsed in the recording studio - there's no snap in the recorded performances. This criticism doesn't even take into account recordings that are over-produced - too many microphones and too few creative musicians. Etta James (R.I.P.) made a couple of wonderful recordings of standards in which the music was arranged Cedar Walton and performed by groups of musicians led by him. The third recording of standards by Etta James was an absolute disaster. I couldn't understand how the superb Miss James and her superb musicians could have made such a mess of things after the previous two superb recordings. When I finally got around to reading the liner notes to the third terrible recording, I found out why. Etta James and the supporting cast of musicians were not even in the same neighborhood. She was ill and there was a hell of a lot of overdubbing going on.
Igor Stravinsky remarked when he was asked what he thought of Hi-Fidelity recordings, Isn't fidelity enough? Fidelity to the music, would be my interpretation of Igor's response.
Back to Messrs. Cook & Morton. Sonny Stitt! No ****s or ♛****s out of 21 CDs reviewed! Case closed a la Perry Mason. Kenny Wheeler! Four ****s out of eleven discs reviewed! Four ***(*)s. One ***. This psudo-statistical stuff is really tiresome and unnecessary. Stitt is one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. Stitt burns and takes no prisoners. Wheeler? ECM movie music. Nice, over-thoughtful. Jackie Gleason with Bobby Hackett, Charlie Ventura, Buster Bailey, Lawrence Brown - that's a soundtrack for the soul!
Gotta bounce. Later. There may be more.
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