Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
…because everyone should listen to it now and then.
The first tenor saxophone solo is by Lester Young. The trumpet is Harry Edison. The second tenor solo is by Herchel Evans. Prez has the tag.
Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion to Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.
The Complete Stanley Dance Felsted “Mainstream Jazz” Recordings 1958-1959 (Fresh Sound)
This nine-CD treasure chest contains dozens of the finest mainstream artists from a golden era. Stanley Dance, who applied the term mainstream to jazz, supervised the sessions for the British Felsted label. Johnny Hodges, Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins, Rex Stewart, Buster Bailey, Jo Jones, Budd Johnson, Dicky Wells, Billy Strayhorn; they’re all here, along with superb half-forgotten musicians like saxophonist George Kelly, guitarist Dickie Thompson and drummer Earl Watkins. Among the supporting players are young lions of the fifties Ray Bryant, Kenny Burrell and Ray Brown. The package includes Hodges in Strayhorn’s brilliant album Cue For Saxophone. The booklet has all of Dance’s notes, updated.
Brad Mehldau Trio, Ode (Nonesuch)
Mehldau has recorded lately as solo pianist, in duets with classical mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie Van Otter and with a large orchestra. Bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard join him in a stimulating return to trio playing. They are attuned to the pianist as if by ESP. He describes the title tune as “an ode to odes” and dedicates other pieces to figures in his personal and musical lives. Among those who inspired them are Michael Brecker, Kurt Rosenwinkel, the Jack Nicholson character George Hanson and Aquaman, but you needn’t know that to be moved by the virtuosity and joy of this music.
Mike Longo, To My Surprise: Trio + 2 (CAP
The trio is pianist Longo, bassist Bob Cranshaw and drummer Lewis Nash— a formidable New York rhythm section. With the addition on half the tracks of trumpeter Jimmy Owens and tenor saxophonist Lance Bryant, Longo takes the quintet through classic bop territory and beyond into modal country. If there were Oscars for Wilde titles, “A Picture of Dorian Mode,” would win. The adventurous playing on the track awards the listener. With trio or quartet, in standards or new Longo compositions, hard-charging or pensive, this is an album full of satisfactions, not least the lovely take on “In the Wee Small Hours” that ends it.
Thelonious Monk Live in France 1969 (Jazz Icons)
The video of Monk alone at the piano in a Paris studio is the jewel of the fifth Jazz Icons box set that many feared would not come. Taped with visual simplicity and excellent sound, he plays 12 pieces, all of them his compositions but “Don’t Blame Me” and a rollicking “Nice Work if You Can Get It.” Except for that exultant conclusion, the concert has an air of reflective, almost Brahmsian, gravity. His harmonies can be breathtaking. The bonuses—unedited documentary footage and an attempt to interview Monk—are curiosities. The music is essential.
Timme Rosenkrantz, Fradley Hamilton Garner, Harlem Jazz Adventures: A European Baron’s Memoir, 1934-1969
Timme Rosenkrantz (1911–1969) had royal Danish blood, but no royal pretensions, and when he came to the US in 1934, his garrulous charm made him fit right in. What attracted him here was jazz. He became a chronicler and friend of musicians from Louis Armstrong to Art Tatum to Lennie Tristano and dozens of others. He was a rounder and a storyteller, and he could write. His memoir, artfully edited by Fradley Gardner, is a chronicle of three decades when New York was the center of the jazz universe and Rosenkrantz was swinging through it.
Toots Thielemans, Yesterday & Today (Out Of The Blue)
Two CDs with thirty-eight tracks, most previously unreleased, follow Thielemans from 1946, when he was a 23-year-old guitarist with a Belgian swing band, to a 2001 harmonica performance of “What A Wonderful World” with pianist Kenny Werner. In the late 1940s and early ‘50s, when many European musicians were struggling with the style, Thielemans had a firm grasp of bebop. Playing through the decades with George Shearing, Hank Jones, J.J. Johnson, Elis Regina, Mulgrew Miller, Shirley Horn and a few dozen others, Thielemans is astonishing on both instruments, but it’s his harmonica that brings grins of joy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Doug!
This is the pure joy of swing, happy music, it’s a classic. Beside all what’s ingenious at this particular recording, how solos and arrangement go hand in hand, almost as there would have been just this way how it was working out best … besides all that, is there a very, very short moment, a funny one which always strikes me when I’m listening to this track:
Just a glimpse before minute 3:24 there is this trombone sound, almost like a human voice which seems to burst out for joy, and exaltation. It may have been a “wrong” cue, but to me it sounds like “hoo!”, like: “Yeah! We made it! We are the happiest band in the land!”
A happy orchestra, with one of the most tragic figures in jazz: Lester Young, who had clearly one of the most creative moments here, and in the recorded history of jazz at all.
Alone the introduction to the piece, and the following solo includes all ingredients which made Pres the father of the modern tenor sax:
Relaxed, bouncy phrasing, his false fingering technique (what my late teacher, and mentor Hans Jesse called the “honk-sound”), and the unique lines (not ‘cool’ at all, by the way!) have impressed and influenced so many other tenorists during the 1940′s that Lester rubbed his eyes in bewilderment, saying he felt like walking around, surrounded by mirrors.
Also “Sweets” Edison’s trumpet solo: This is early modern style. There are some phrases you would find in Lee Morgan’s solos 20 years later. Especially the short fill-in of the trumpet (3:00) sounds like Lee at “Sidewinder”.
And then comes the undeservedly neglected one, always the 2nd mentioned after the President; and that is Herschel Evans, the ever jumping counterpoint to Lester Young, like it was German decathlete Juergen Hingsen to the Briton Daley Thompson: One couldn’t exist without the other.
Alas, Herschel died too early, which must have been quite a shock to Lester who certainly missed the beloved tenor battles, and the little, funny arguments between the two: “Hey, Pres, why don’t you play the alto sax? You have an alto sound.” And Lester called him (as he called anybody) ‘Lady’ Herschel.
And the Count? He directed that bunch of creative individuals with his right little finger: Ping, but with what a swing!
I forgot to mention “The All-American Rhythm Section”:
Freddie Green, Walter Page and ‘Papa’ Jo Jones.
What a tremendous job the three men did here, and on all these Kansas
City jump tunes. They made most others sound like amateurs. Often copied,
seldom achieved, as is a famous German saying.
Glenn Miller, one of the most desperate band leaders regarding his
rhythm boys, often nodded his head in amazement, and asked his
friends and colleagues: “Why can’t WE swing like that?!” (Some tried
to tell him … but alas, he didn’t listen.)
What a tune. Plus, there’s the bonus of an evocative title/phrase: every tub-that brings us insight into the hard life on the road travelled by these early jazz heroes.
I wanted to mention, if people aren’t familiar with it, the fantastic version of this tune done by Lambert, Hendricks and Ross in their 1957 “Sing A Song Of Basie” album.
Always good to stick close to the classics.
Grazie
That’s mighty nice. Somehow I managed to never hear this one before. Great comments from Bruno. Thanks.
I have this on an old Ed Beach ‘Just Jazz’ aircheck featuring Mr. Young, and thought he was saying ‘every tongue.’ Mr. Provizors’ explanation of ‘tub,’ assuming it’s correct, clears up a couple of matters in one post. Bueno!