Bill Kirchner sent a link to a video. He accompanied it with a succinct message:
Play this when you’re having a bad day.
I wasn’t having a bad day, but the Thad-Jones Mel Lewis band made it better. This is from a European tour probably in the fall of 1969—not ’68, as YouTube says.
The reed section: Joe Henderson, Jerry Dodgion, Jerome Richardson, Eddie Daniels, Pepper Adams.
Trumpets: Snooky Young, Danny Moore, Al Porcino, Richard Williams.
Trombones: Eddie Bert, Astley Fennell, Jimmy Knepper, Cliff Heather.
Rhythm: Mel Lewis, drums; Roland Hanna, piano; Richard Davis, bass.
Conductor: Thad Jones.
Be alert for the shot of Snooky at 2:35, enjoying Hanna’s three-minute piano introduction. Who wouldn’t?
While I’m wrestling the deadline monster (So far, I’ve got him two falls out of three), the least I can do is attempt to keep you entertained. If this doesn’t do it, see your psychiatrist.
Oh, my!!!
Their recorded version of “Groove Merchant” is not so crisp and commanding as this one, because the reeds were still woodshedding when they had to record it. It’s so exciting to watch not only Snooky but all of them rejoicing at what they were creating. In earlier years out west, Mel (then nicknamed The Tailor) was a meticulous, almost decorous journeyman. Then he came East and blossomed into the premier big band drummer of the age—his big band work thereafter only with this miraculous Thad-Mel crew Monday nights at the Vanguard, and around the world.
In the early 70s I was teaching at Columbia and working in fits and starts on a doctorate, never finished. Why? Because I was living at the Vanguard with Thad & Mel or at Barron’s in Harlem with the Clark Terry Big Bad Band, or at the Half Note with Al & Zoot or whoever was booked (Ross Tompkins, Victor Sproles and Mousey Alexander the house rhythm section). And wherever else the good sounds were.
Thirty years before, while in college just before being drafted, I lived every Saturday night for weeks at the Three Deuces (Bird, Birks, Al Haig, Curly Russell, Max Roach; the other group concurrently booked was Prez with Lady Day). Or catching the First Herman Herd’s radio show for Wildroot. (I knew a girl who knew another girl who knew Bill Harris.)
Like the guy in the Frishberg song, when it was hip to be hep I was hep, or thought I was. Kind of like Woody Allen’s Zelig—always making the scene.
How about that trombone section ? Jimmy Knepper. I think I recognize Eddie Bert in there too ?
Beautiful.
(Right on both counts. Above, in the introduction to the video, there’s a list of the complete personnel.—DR)
Now I won’t need to go and see a psychiatrist! The piano introduction was very enjoyable to say the least and you could hear some gospel influence in the piano playing. Overall great video.
And how nice to see a bandleader who actually CONDUCTS his orchestra! In my decades of seeing big bands live, I’ve only seen three leaders who knew how, or cared enough, to do it: Thad, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Herb Pomeroy. I understand Maria Schneider conducts too, but I haven’t seen her live yet. It’s no accident their bands sounded so good; it takes more than great players.
Thanks to Joe Segal and the booker of another jazz club where I was taking care of the sound, I was lucky enough to hear various incarnations of this band play three sets a night for at least a dozen nights over a period of ten years or so. This was a marvelous band, THE great band in the years after Duke, Basie, Kenton, Woody, and Maynard, and Thad was the great successor to Duke and Strayhorn as leader and arranger. As good as it is, what you hear on this video is just an ordinary performance for this great band!
I really agree that Thad’s conducting was an important part of that band’s great energy — as great as Mel was, the band never sounded as good after Thad split for Sweden.
This is also a nice recording — you can hear everyone in that sax section.
Just wanted to let you know about this other version of Groove Merchant on DailyMotion
it’s at this url
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1562e_the-groove-merchant-thad-jones_music