Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
Why? Because it’s been too long since you’ve heard it.
What, you’ve never heard it? Good. I envy your coming to it for the first time. Here’s Count Basie from The Complete Decca Recordings. February 4, 1939. Harry Edison wrote the tune. He has the trumpet solo. Jack Washington is the baritone saxophonist. We get Lester Young (pictured) twice. His eight bars following Edison’s solo launched a thousand tenor saxophonists.
Now, you’re bound to have a happy weekend.
Ron Miles: Quiver (enja yellow bird)
Miles’s playing on “There Ain’t No Sweet Man Worth the Salt of My Tears” draws 21st century Denver and 1928 Chicago close. Some of his flurries of wildness on this album are as daring as the work of any modern trumpeter, but the Bix Beiderbecke lyricism in Miles’s soul extends into everything he plays. With just Bill Frisell’s guitar and Brian Blade’s drums, Miles may seem to be operating lean. No, there is richness in their harmonic inventiveness and rhythmic compatibility. The nine pieces are not officially a suite, but unity of conception runs through the performances. This is a satisfying album.
Heather Masse And Dick Hyman: Lock My Heart (Red House)
With The Wailin’ Jennys and the Wayfaring Strangers and appearances on radio’s Prairie Home Companion, Heather Masse has attracted a following among folk and bluegrass fans. This album of duets with master pianist Dick Hyman discloses the jazz foundation that has long been evident in her singing. Their treatments of Strayhorn’s “A Flower is a Lovesome Thing” and Buddy Johnson’s “Since I Fell For You” are ballad perfection. In their delightful “I’m Gonna Lock My Heart and Throw Away the Key,” she manages to combine Billie Holiday and Marilyn Monroe. Hyman’s accompaniments and solos are reminders that this 86-year-old wonder is one of the most interesting pianists alive.
Miles Davis Quintet Live In Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2 (Columbia/Legacy)
This three-CD, one-DVD set finds the trumpeter fomenting even more dramatic change than usual. The first volume in the so-called bootleg series of Davis concert recordings found his primarily acoustic 1967 quintet already tending toward electronic music and rock. Saxophonist Wayne Shorter remains from that band. Here, the transition intensifies. Electric pianist Chick Corea, bassist Dave Holland and drummer Jack DeJohnette accelerate the shift Davis initiated with In A Silent Way. The repertoire is redolent of Davis’s Bitches Brew period. We hear the headiness, excitement and—sometimes—the aimlessness of newfound freedom. The DVD’s superb sound and picture bring the band alive.
Bill Frisell, The Disfarmer Project (La Huit)
Belgian filmmaker Guillame Dero captures the eclectic guitarist Frisell, violinist Carrie Rodriguez, guitarist Greg Leisz and bassist Viktor Krauss in a live performance set to portraits by the 1950s Arkansas photographer Mike Disfarmer. Some of the music was on a 2009 CD mentioned in this Rifftides post. Hearing it in new versions with Disfarmer’s eccentric and vaguely disturbing photos looming over the band is an adventure. Watching interaction and reaction among the quartet increases the fascination. Frisell salts his original compositions with songs by Hank Williams, Arthur Crudup and Cliff Friend.
Paul de Barros, Shall We Play That One Together? The Life and Art of Jazz Piano Legend Marian McPartland (St. Martin’s Press)
The nonagenarian pianist presented de Barros with every biographer’s hope, unrestricted access to his subject’s personal papers and nearly unrestricted access to her private thoughts. He made the most of it, turning exhaustive research and hundreds of hours of interviews into a true story with the sweep of a novel. From the early discovery of McPartland’s musical gift through her wartime service, her ecstatic and stormy marriage to Jimmy McPartland, her growth as a pianist, her deep affair with Joe Morello, and the radio show that made her a national figure, she has had a fascinating life. It makes a splendid read.
Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band, Santa Monica 1960 (Fresh Sound)
Mulligan’s Concert Jazz Band had three fewer musicians than most big jazz outfits. Its size permitted precision, flexibility and subtlety, yet the band had the power of sprung steel. In this concert from a half century ago, the CJB is as fresh as yesterday. Arrangements by Mulligan, Bob Brookmeyer, Al Cohn and Johnny Mandel set standards to which big band writers still aspire. Bassist Buddy Clark and drummer Mel Lewis inspired Mulligan, Brookmeyer, Conte Candoli, Gene Quill and Zoot Sims to some of the best soloing of their careers. This beautifully produced issue of the complete concert is a basic repertoire item.
Thanks, Doug… this is one of my favorites The Prez solos from this period still amaze and delight me. They never sound dated.
I love all those guys, but Pres sounds like he’s from another planet.
I remember getting the Mosaic box set of Basie with Pres, and I kept having this feeling that listening to Lester Young among his contemporaries was like watching a lone gazelle romp among a flock of penguins. I had the same sensation hearing early Louis Armstrong–so limber, so free, so swinging, exuberant, humorous–almost shockingly so, among the comparative stiffness of his bandmates.
No disrespect to the other cats intended (Sweets always sounds wonderful, too)…most of us, naturally, sound like products of our own times and surroundings, rather than like electrifying messengers from the future.
I, too, envy the new listener’s joy of discovery in hearing this for the first time–but also I regret that it becomes more difficult to truly, viscerally appreciate the genius of a musician like Pres or Armstrong–or Bird or Trane, or Stravinsky–because their innovations have been so thoroughly assimilated into the mainstream…
Maybe Herschel Evans and Buddy Tate are there to remind us of the state of the art for their time…we listen to them blow their half-chorus and we settle into their groove and concept…then, here comes Pres, and maybe just for a second, we feel that thrill–we catch a whiff of that new cool breeze that nobody had ever felt before, and up come the goosebumps…
To read Mr. Evans’ thoughts about another of Pres’s inheritors, and to hear him play, go here.
That little phrase that Prez plays at the end of his first half-chorus of “Jive at Five” was used by John Carisi as the basis for his composition “Lestorian Mode.”
David Evans puts it well about the messengers of the future. Al Cohn once said, “People don’t realize that it wasn’t just that Bird was better than everyone else. There was Bird, and then there was everyone else.”
Thanks for reintroducing “Jive At Five”. Another great Lester Young feature—I would call it a major opus—is “Taxi War Dance”.
Lester Young’s “Slow Motion Blues” changed my life, and that of many, many others.
Lee Konitz knows Pres’s most important solos by heart; I guess you could wake him up in the middle of the night, saying only “Lady Be Good” and he could immediately sing the whole solo.
While I agree with all of the comments about Lester being “from another planet” etc., I’d also like to put in a word for Jack Washington who gets an entire eight bars on this. Although a key member of the band (Jo Jones said he was more important than the Count) and a highly respected soloist, Washington only rarely got an entire chorus on Basie’s recordings (“Topsy” being one of the best examples). Buck Clayton called Washington one of the three best baritonists in jazz (the others being Carney and Mulligan.) Those interested in hearing what Washington could do when he got a chance to stretch out should check out a 1958 recording called Basie Reunion issued on Prestige/OJC under Paul Quinichette’s name. Apart from Paul and Nat Pierce sitting in for Prez and the Count, the players were all members of the original classic Basie band: Clayton, Shad Collins, Washington, Freddie Green, Eddie Jones, Jo Jones. A very spirited session with everyone in fine form. (Buck gets in some especially tasty solos.)
To me, it’s the “voice” of Prez (like Louis, Bird, Trane) that still makes it seem as though he’s gliding over history and not subject to its mundane whims. Yes, Prez’s sense of time and more melodic, less arpeggio-based approach were very different from that of Hawkins and seem to presage “modernism.” But the expressiveness of his tone-so direct, so vulnerable-is , for me, why we continue to be so moved by his playing.