Among my favorite recordings by trumpet-man and master musician Roy Eldridge is his circa 1956 recording on Savoy with the British pianist Ronnie Ball. Mr. Ball was at one time a house pianist at Savoy - Mr. Hank Jones was the Savoy house pianist; the trio recordings with Jones and Messrs. Wendell Marshall, bass and Kenny Clarke, drums are a delight. Ronnie Ball was way back in the day a student of the pianist Lennie Tristano. Roy Eldridge was very highly regarded by Mr. Tristano. Hang on! It gets thicker. Ronnie Ball is the pianist on the wonderful 1956 Hank Mobley Savoy recordings. Also, on Mr. Mobley's recordings are some of Detroit's finest musicians: Mr. Donald Byrd; trumpet; Mr. Barry Harris, piano; and Mr. Doug Watkins, bass. What a tremendously strong bassist was Doug Watkins - no wonder Mr. Charles Mingus called on him. In addition to being a fine tenor saxophonist, Hank Mobley was a composer of many post-bop/hard-bop standards. His "Funk in Deep Freeze" is one of my favorite Mobley tunes - a very hip title.
Roy Eldridge was from Pittsburg, Pa., as were Art Blakley, Erroll Garner, and Mr. B, Billy Eckstein. Hank Mobley was from Newark, N. J., as were Sarah Vaughan, Wayne Shorter, Woody Shaw, and Walter Davis, Jr.
The poet and much else Amiri Baraka was of Newark. Mr. Baraka passed on, joining all of those mentioned above - except Barry Harris who is still with us. He died on January 9 of this year at the age of 79. I return often to Amiri Baraka's 1996 book Eulogies. As I noted in previous blog-posts, I had the great fortune to have been spellbound by the music and artistry of Miss Sarah Vaughan, Mr. Billy Eckstein, and Mr. Baraka, the music-poet.
This evening as I write this, I'm listening to discs from the Hank Mobley10-CD set Kind of Mobley. The playing and the musicianship on these recordings is so strong. Art Farmer, Lee Morgan, Jackie McLean, Horace Silver, Donald Byrd, Art Blakey, Kenny Clarke, Doug Watkins, and Milt Jackson said what they had to say musically - no tricks and no footnotes required; just like Roy Eldridge and Amiri Baraka. Fetch Baraka's India Navigation recording with David Murray and Steve McCall - if you've hung with me up to this point, you know who these musicians are, what their respective horns were &c.
Those who know and who desire to know suggest that immortality resides in the good that one has contributed and set out during one's lifetime. My bet is that those who I've mentioned herein are immortal because of the work that they've done, because of the music they've created, because of their compositions, poetry, and plays.
Just listen to Messrs. Eldridge, Mobley and Baraka's music-poetry - no footnotes required.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJnSpL2Y-gk
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/uptown/amiri-baraka-honored-posthumously-harlem-article-1.1605063
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