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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Jaki Byard And Musique du bois

August 26, 2015 by Doug Ramsey

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A Rifftides reader, composer Michael Robinson, responded to the Monday recommendation of the Jaki Byard Project’s Inch by Inch (see the July 24 post) with a reflection on a Jaki Byard 2 1:17:74Byard performance in a classic Phil Woods album. Mr. Robinson wrote:

One of the greatest jazz albums of all time is Musique du bois by Phil Woods, due in no small part to the appearance of Jaki Byard on piano, in addition to Alan Dawson on drums and Richard Davis on bass. Byard’s intrinsic contribution pertains both to his soloing and accompanying. Check out his performance on this phenomenal rendering of “Willow Weep For Me”:

I was privileged to be in the studio for the recording of Musique du bois, invited by producer Don Schlitten to write notes for the album. The notes were comprehensive, but when 32 Records reissued the music on a CD in 1997, the notes were gutted. Among the many sections left on the cutting room floor was the one that described the making of “Willow Weep For Me.” Therefore, as a public service in memory of a great day in RCA’s Studio B in Manhattan, here is that part of the story.

Woods’ head arrangement of “Willow Weep For Me” begins with the rhythm sectionPhil Woods 1:17:74 playing the introductory pattern used by Miles Davis for “All Blues.” The plan is to continue the figure through the alto solo, but Woods finds it too monotonous. Take one is cut short. There are superior solos on take two from Woods, Byard and Davis, but the leader is interested in supplemental harmonic ideas and goes to the piano to suggest some chords. The third take opens faster, with Davis adding vibrato and Dawson slapping the brushes on his snare drum just enough to impart a happy dance feeling. Woods responds with a sunny solo that is in sharp contrast to the rather brooding statement of the previous take. He introduces a Richard Davis 1:17:74phrase from “Drum Boogie,” chromaticizing it outrageously. Davis solos with an abandon that causes a sharp collective intake of breath in the control room. Byard has a brilliant solo full of Tatum fragments, and the piano sweeps under Woods as he re-enters for a final chorus packed with modulations, piping high notes and gut-rumbling low tones.

“Okay,” Woods tells the control room, “we’ll bring in a brass section to put a chord on the end.”

While the others are listening to “Willow,” Dawson is on the phone to the Aladdin Delicatessen:Alan Dawson 1:17:74“Cheese on rye…no sesame seeds in the rye.”

“Perhaps you’d prefer avacado seeds,” suggests an eavesdropper.

“Yes, with hot sauce,” Dawson grins, and he goes into a monologue full of such gustatory Slim Gaillardisms as mosquito knees, hippopotamus lips and reety pooties.

“Slim who?” some of you may be asking. Well, continuing in the spirit of public service, tomorrow’s Rifftides post will bring you up to date or—more accurately—back to date on Slim Gaillard.

As for Musique du bois, the 32 Records CD with truncated liner notes is still available. So too, it turns out, are copies of the LP with the full notes. Go here for information.

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Comments

  1. Michael Robinson says

    August 26, 2015 at 5:44 pm

    This is amazing. How fortunate you were to be there, and no doubt your presence was part of the mix that made everything so magical. I recall your original liner notes now, and how terrific they were, even though I lent that LP and lost track of it. (I’ve always been unhappy with the CD release because the sound quality is inferior compared to the original.) If only this quartet made in heaven had recorded 25 or more albums! I would go so far to say that Musique du Bois is close to being the ultimate example of entirely equal interplay between members of a jazz quartet, all truly improvising and playing at a high level of inspiration. And what can you say about Phil Woods on Musique du Bois, except that he plays like a god in the throes of creation, including taking the alto saxophone to places it’s never been before. All the tracks are immortal, and the ballad performance, “The Summer Knows,” belongs up there with the slow movement of the Moonlight Sonata.

  2. Roy Lukas says

    August 27, 2015 at 5:00 am

    Completely agree. Back when this great album was first released I was just beginning to learn about jazz. I knew who Woods and Davis were and bought this album upon seeing it in a record store in downtown Brooklyn. As soon as I played it I knew I’d found a treasure. And those liner notes; was this the same Doug Ramsey I’d seen do the news on WPIX-TV?* Well, all these years later I still have that album and I’m still reading Doug Ramsey. Thanks to you all for enriching my life.

    • Doug Ramsey says

      August 27, 2015 at 11:26 am

      *Same guy.

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

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A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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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.

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