SOUND INSIGHTS

Frank Foster R.I.P.

2011-07-26T22:53:00.001-04:00

The great composer, band leader, educator, humanitarian and reed player Frank Foster, died today of complications from kidney failure at his home in Chesapeake, Virginia. He was 82. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on September 23, 1928, Frank Benjamin Foster took up the clarinet at age 11, switching to alto saxophone two years later. He became so proficient on the alto sax that he was playing professionally at age 14 and leading his own 12-piece band while still a senior in high school.

After attending Wilberforce University, Foster moved to Detroit with trumpeter Snooky Young where he joined the local scene, playing with such musicians as Wardell Gray. After being drafted and serving in Korea, Foster returned to the music scene by joining the big band of Count Basie (1904-84), where he stayed through 1964.

During this time Foster was a featured soloist in the Basie band on tenor saxophone and contributed many compositions and arrangements to the Basie book, including the now standard “Shiny Stockings” as well as “Down for the Count,” “Blues Backstage,” “Back to the Apple” (featured in the 1986 Woody Allen film Hannah and Her Sisters), “Discommotion,” and the terrific “Blues in Hoss’ Flat” (from the 1959 album Chairman of the Board and brilliantly used by Jerry Lewis in his 1961 film The Errand Boy), as well as arrangements for the entire 1961 album Easin’ It (featuring “Discommotion” and available on the now out-of-print CD box set The Complete Roulette Studio Recordings of Count Basie and his Orchestra).

While still with Count Basie, Frank Foster recorded several solo albums for the Blue Note, Savoy and Argo labels, but began his own solo career in the mid ‘60s with several albums of soul jazz on the Prestige label, including his first, Fearless Frank Foster (1966), featuring another near standard in “Raunchy Rita.” It was around this time that Foster also arranged Sarah Vaughan’s Viva Vaughan (Mercury, 1965), performed with his own 18-piece ensemble and toured and performed with Woody Herman, Lionel Hampton and Duke Pearson.

Foster recorded several albums for the Blue Note label (one of which was never released) and joined drummer Elvin Jones’s group in 1968. Foster recorded and toured with Jones through 1974, while holding several teaching positions and a featured spot in the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Big Band from 1972 to 1975.

In 1974, Foster formed his famed Loud Minority band (first heard on the 1974 Mainstream LP The Loud Minority) as well as Living Color, a quartet co-fronted with drummer Charli Persip. In 1983, Foster co-led a quintet with Frank Wess, recording Two For The Blues (Pablo, 1984) and Frankly Speaking (Concord, 1985).

In June 1986, Foster succeeded Thad Jones as leader of the Count Basie Orchestra. While leading the Basie Orchestra, Foster earned two Grammy Awards, one for his arrangement of the Diane Schuur composition "Deedles’ Blues" (1987) and the other for his arrangement of the renowned guitarist/vocalist George Benson’s composition "Basie’s Bag" (1988 – Foster had earlier played with Benson on the guitarist’s 1973 CTI album Body Talk).

Foster left the Count Basie Orchestra in 1995 to assume leadership of his own groups The Non-Electric Company (a jazz quartet/quintet), Swing Plus (a 12-piece band), and The Loud Minority Big Band (an 18-piece concert jazz orchestra).

In 2001, Frank Foster suffered a stroke that impaired his left side, preventing him from playing the saxophone. He turned the reins of his Loud Minority over to trumpeter and group member Cecil Bridgewater, and continued composing and arranging at his home in Chesapeake, Virginia. He had recently contributed to Jamie Cullum’s The Pursuit.

The zest of wondrous musicality in Frank Foster’s sax playing and the zing of spontaneous joy in his writing will be sorely missed in jazz. Very few sounds could match the utter joie de vivre of Frank Foster’s music.

Few players and even fewer composers can match or even copy the lovely examples of music Frank Foster left for us. Fortunately, there is much of Foster documented on disc and plenty of other worthy talents who appreciated what Frank Foster contributed to music in his six-decade career.

Foster’s glorious “Blues in Hoss’ Flat” – as interpreted by Jerry Lewis in The Errand Boy (search YouTube for the brilliant copycat version made but not used for Family Guy):

The immortal “Shiny Stockings” by Count Basie and his Orchestra:

“Raunchy Rita” from the great 1968 Elvin Jones/Richard Davis album Heavy Sounds, with Foster reeling out on tenor sax and the little-known and possibly pseudonymous Billy Greene on piano:

The Impulse 2-on-1 Series - Celebrating 50 Years of Impulse Records

2011-07-26T11:50:00.002-04:00

Out today in the U.S. are the first 15 volumes of the Impulse 2-on-1 series, celebrating the musical legacy of one of jazz's most important labels.

Impulse Records was more than just a label. It was an identity. It was a statement. Impulse Records was a musical brand of artistry that provided some of jazz’s greatest creators with a platform for making some of their very best music. The new wave of jazz was indeed on Impulse!

With its distinctive logo and unique packaging, Impulse stood out in the crowd. But it was the music that made Impulse impressive. Impulse captured not only such traditionalists as Duke Ellington and Art Blakey but also cataloged many of the fiery voices of the emerging free-jazz movement, notably led and inspired by John Coltrane, who made his most memorable music for Impulse.

The label also caught everything in between, from traditional jazz combos with a special affinity for jazz’s best drummers to psychedelic jazz-rock and orchestral outings, while later specializing in spiritual jazz and musical fusions.

I am proud to have produced these sets with Matthias Künnecke, celebrating not only one of the finest labels jazz has ever known but some of the most diverse and innovative music the art has generated. If "The New Wave of Jazz" was on Impulse, the tide has come in with the new Impulse 2-on-1 series.

Now available at Dusty Groove and most online retailers.

Ahmad Jamal: Even though the great pianist Ahmad Jamal had “retired” from performing in the late 1960s, he waxed a number of recordings for the Impulse label, including these two live sets from 1969 and 1971, that proved he was not only at the top of his game but at the height of his musical prowess.

Albert Ayler: The searing and searching saxophone of Albert Ayler (1936-70) explored the roots of jazz as much as its outer reaches. John Coltrane brought Ayler to the Impulse label, where he recorded a dizzying display of his iconoclastic lore, including these two scorchers, Love Cry and The Last Album.

Alice Coltrane: Pianist, harpist, organist and composer Alice Coltrane (1937-2007) turned her attention toward orchestral endeavors on these great Impulse albums from the early 1970s, producing a rich musical palette without ever sacrificing the spiritual jazz she had long championed.

Archie Shepp: Swept up in the “new thing” of the 1960s, Archie Shepp quickly began to discover how more traditional forms of music, like African polyrhythms and R&B, could appropriately inform the jazz he was delivering, as evidenced on these two terrific albums recorded between 1968 and 1969.

Art Blakey: The revered leader of the Jazz Messengers, one of jazz’s greatest musical proving grounds, drummer Art Blakey (1919-90) recorded only these two dates for Impulse, 1961’s Jazz Messengers!!!! (with the superb “Alamode”) and 1963’s unconventional, yet sterling, quartet outing A Jazz Message.

Coleman Hawkins: Coleman Hawkins (1904-69) was not only one of jazz’s greatest tenor players, but probably its loveliest ballads performer. The Hawk recorded several Impulse records, including these two from 1962: Today and Now (with “Love Theme from ‘Apache’”) and the unusual Bossa Nova.

Curtis Fuller: Bebop trombone great Curtis Fuller had already led dates for Prestige, Blue Note, Savoy and Epic and joined the Jazz Messengers when he waxed his only two leader dates for Impulse in the early 1960s, Soul Trombone (with fellow Messengers) and Cabin in the Sky (arranged by Manny Albam).

Duke Ellington: It was producer Bob Thiele’s idea to feature legendary orchestra leader Duke Ellington (1899-1974) in small-group settings with former Ellingtonian Coleman Hawkins (1905-69) and the fiery saxophonist John Coltrane (1926-67). Both 1962 sets are inspired, historic and featured here.

Elvin Jones: At the time propulsive drummer Elvin Jones (1997-2004) manned the beat in John Coltrane’s 1960-1965 quartet, he also found time to lead these great Impulse gems, Illumination (co-led with Coltrane bassist Jimmy Garrison and featuring Coltrane pianist McCoy Tyner) and Dear John C.

Gabor Szabo: While the late, great guitarist Gabor Szabo (1936-82) recorded many studio albums during his brief career, he was always best served by his few live recordings. These two live Impulse albums brilliantly catch Szabo’s working group, featuring the stunning guitarist Jimmy Stewart, in 1967.

McCoy Tyner: Legendary pianist McCoy Tyner launched his mercurial solo career with these two exciting trio sides, a mix of well-known standards and effective originals (including the now standard “Effendi”) recorded in 1962 while he was still part of John Coltrane’s historic quartet.

Milt Jackson: Vibraphonist Milt Jackson (1923-99) led a double life, co-fronting the Modern Jazz Quartet, while also charting a significant course of his own on records such as 1962’s bracing Statements and 1964’s light-hearted Jazz ‘n’ Samba – two of his earliest and best Impulse endeavors.

Pharoah Sanders: Saxophonist Pharoah Sanders was initially part of John Coltrane’s group before scoring his own hit with 1969’s “The Creator Has a Master Plan.” The saxophonist went on to become a world-class leader, waxing the East-meets-West-meets-Africa of these two great albums from 1973.

Shirley Scott: Hammond B-3 great Shirley Scott (1934-2002) often played with John Coltrane in the 1950s but rose to fame as part of Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis’s group. Her long string of Impulse albums included these two, among her best, alternating her trio with a big band arranged by Oliver Nelson.

Sonny Rollins: Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins was already one of jazz’s greatest players and composers when he recorded 1965’s On Impulse. Thirteen years later that album’s template, There Will Never Be Another You, caught live several weeks earlier, finally appeared. Here, they’re together at last.

Gerry Mulligan “Watching & Waiting”

2011-07-21T23:55:00.003-04:00
Dave Grusin, like fellow Silver Age film composer Lalo Schifrin, has steadily slowed the pace of his movie scoring down over the last few years. Like Schifrin, Grusin – also a jazz pianist – has devoted more of his attention to other facets of his remarkable musicality. But even as Dave Grusin seems to have moved away from film, he thankfully remains an active force in music.

Grusin, who turned 77 last month and has been quietly turning up in the most unexpected places of late, has also seen some fervor on CD as his latest, An Evening With Dave Grusin, has seen the light of day, along with recent reissues of the maestro’s glorious soundtrack to Mulholland Falls (1995) and the upcoming Divorce American Style (1967), Grusin’s first feature film score, both on Kritzerland.

So why discuss Dave Grusin in an article about Gerry Mulligan?

Well, Dave Grusin contributes significantly to this particularly obscure recording that very few even know anything about. It all started when actress/producer Denise Petitdidier contacted the great jazz leader and baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan (1927-96) in the spring of 1977. Petitdidier had told the jazz legend that director Alain Corneau (1943-2010) had specifically requested that Gerry Mulligan score his thriller, La Menace, starring Yves Montand.

Mulligan had previously scored Clive Donner’s little-known film Luv (1967) and had several of his songs featured in films, particularly by French filmmakers. Much of his own music was perfectly well suited to film, offering a moody sense of romance and longing and a painterly sense of mystery and adventure.

No better examples exist than Mulligan’s subtle and sublime Night Lights (1965) – one of his most perfect recordings – and his too-much derided masterpiece The Age of Steam (1971), an ode to his youthful love of trains. There are many other great Mulligan masterpieces and many more famous and significant jazz mileposts. But these two albums in particular are the ones that appeal most to this listener and, no doubt, drew filmmakers of substantial merit to Gerry Mulligan and the quality of musical mood and perfect resonance he offered in a visual medium – particularly a French thriller.

Mulligan accepted the job of scoring La Menace, but found it difficult to complete his assignment in the 15 days allotted to him. During this period, Dave Grusin happened to be visiting the composer at his home in Connecticut and graciously agreed to help Gerry Mulligan organize the finished tracks into a filmic semblance, as well as play behind the saxophonist for support.

That support is significant as the music to La Menace is energized more by its piano and keyboard backings than Mulligan’s still quite appealing melodic lines – driven, for the most part on baritone sax, but also on other saxophones, clarinets, keyboards and synthesizers.

At this point Grusin was well-known for his scores to such films as The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (1968), The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), The Yakuza (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975) and Murder by Death (1976) as well as his TV themes and/or scores for The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., It Takes A Thief, The Name of the Game, Baretta, Maude andGood Times.

In 1977 alone, Grusin waxed four film scores including Sydney Pollack’s Bobby Deerfield and Herbert Ross’s hit The Goodbye Girl as well as his first jazz album in his newly-formed “Grusin Rosen Productions,” the start of the famed GRP Records, One of a Kind.

Mulligan’s soundtrack to La Menace yielded 13 tunes, with Grusin on piano and keyboards and a group including Derek Smith on piano, Tom Fay on piano and Fender Rhodes, Pete Levin on Moog synthesizer, Ed Walsh on Oberheim synthesizer, Jack Six (who worked with Mulligan in Dave Brubeck’s brilliant late 1960s group) or Jay Leonhart (who would go on to work with Mulligan on other recordings) on bass and Bobby Rosengarden or Michael Di Pasqua on drums.

The French arm of CBS issued a soundtrack to La Menace in 1977 (pictured above). Since the film, known in English-speaking climes as The Threat, never had a proper US release, the music had also never had a proper American release until this 1999 CD release, stupidly titled Watching & Waiting.

The disc inexplicably takes its title from one of the seemingly randomly-chosen songs included on the 13-track set. It’s a great little tune, with Mulligan in his prime. But why they would call this anything but La Menace is anyone’s guess. Still, hardly anyone knows that the American DRG CD of Watching & Waiting totally equals the French CBS LP of La Menace.
It seems like a bootleg, looks like a bootleg (even though Mulligan recorded Walk on the Water for DRG in 1980, arranged by Tom Fay) and presents itself as any other Gerry Mulligan album, with no musician credits on the outside and a very small note on the back panel that the music is the original motion picture soundtrack of La Menace. As an aside, many write-ups on this disc, and the music, inexplicably indicate that music was made and/or released in 1982 – but it wasn’t…it was 1977.

While it’s often derided as a lesser Gerry Mulligan set (keyboards and real jazz apparently don’t go together for real jazz critics), it is easily celebrated as a wonderful addition to any Dave Grusin soundtrack discography. Keep in mind, too, that the prolific Dave Grusin, in addition to all of his own jazz and film work, has done plenty of session work on other artists’ records and many other composers’ film scores (Patrick Williams, Quincy Jones, etc.). Grusin also later recorded with Gerry Mulligan on the baritone saxophonist’s Little Big Horn (1984) and the sensationally beautiful Dragonfly (1995).

Were it not for Mulligan’s terrific compositions, one could easily consider La Menace / Watching & Waiting a Dave Grusin soundtrack, with special guest soloist Gerry Mulligan. Grusin’s sensitively aesthetic touch is much in evidence here. The brief opener, “Dance of the Truck,” trumpets its Grusin origins as does the soundtrack’s single strongest piece, “Introspect” (which doesn’t even introduce Mulligan until his solo two minutes in). Grusin’s influence is also evident on the lengthy “The Trap,” a keyboard-driven piece that will remind some of Grusin’s Condor conspiracies, and the attractive bossa, “The House They’ll Never Live In.”

Mulligan fares well throughout; perhaps less as an improviser and more as a mood setter. But the wonderful clarification he brings to his horn parts sings with the overall goal of the piece. Like any composer, he isn’t aiming to be the star soloist. He is suggesting the right setting for the film he is accompanying. But his beautifully signature-sounding baritone is bountiful on such pieces as “Introspect” (both versions), “Watching and Waiting,” and the lovely “Vines of Bordeaux” (heard here in two versions and one which probably deserved to transcend this score).

La Menace / Watching & Waiting makes for some wonderful listening, whether you are a Gerry Mulligan fan of the Night Lights or Dragonfly order or whether you are a Dave Grusin aficionado who revels in the moody jazz of his GRP releases or the bountiful scores he has on offer, many of which are now quite fortunately easy to acquire.

Return to Forever – The Complete Columbia Albums Collection

2011-07-14T01:59:00.003-04:00
After a prodigious session career in the 1960s, several solo albums that toyed with both the traditional and freer forms of jazz and a mercurial period of experimentation with Miles Davis between 1968 and 1972, pianist and composer Chick Corea crystalized the notion of his first “group” endeavor, to be known as Return to Forever.

Corea recorded his blueprint for the concept with his tremendous Return to Forever album for ECM Records in February 1972. The album collected the talents of reed player Joe Farrell (1937-86), who featured on the pianist’s 1967 Tones For Joan’s Bones (Corea is also heard on Farrell’s first two CTI records, Joe Farrell Quartet and, brilliantly, on Outback), young up and coming electric bassist Stanley Clarke, percussionist and former Miles mate Airto Moreira and Airto’s wife, Flora Purim, on vocals and percussion. and yielded three near standards in Corea’s “Crystal Silence,” “What Game Shall We Play Today” and “La Fiesta.”

The following month, Corea, Clarke and Moreira backed Stan Getz for the saxophonist’s terrific album Captain Marvel, which wasn’t issued until 1975, and then all five of the Return to Forever musicians collected (with others) to wax Airto’s CTI classic Free. Corea, Clarke, Farrell, Moreira and Purim finally reconvened in October 1972 to record Return to Forever’s Polydor debut, Light as a Feather, which includes Corea’s now standard “Spain.”

Airto and Flora left shortly thereafter to form their own group, Fingers, as did Joe Farrell, who formed his own quartet. Guitarist Bill Connors, drummer Steve Gadd and percussionist Mingo Lewis were added to the group, but Gadd’s studio duties prevented him from staying. By the time of the group’s second album, Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy (featuring Corea’s well-known “Señor Mouse”), Corea, Connors and Clarke were joined by drummer and percussionist Lenny White.

Tired of touring and the required adherence to his electric instrument, Bill Connors left the group and was replaced by recent Berklee School of Music alum Al Di Meola. The Corea/Di Meola/Clarke/White configuration then recorded 1974’s Where Have I Known You Before and 1975’s No Mystery for Polydor.

In 1976, Chick Corea took Return to Forever to the mighty Columbia Records label, where the group waxed only three releases in an 18-month period. One of these recordings is the group’s most significant recording and yet another represents one of the group’s best recorded performances. One is an under-appreciated gem that deserves more appreciation.

Under the direction of reissue producer Richard Seidel, Sony has done a masterful job collecting Return to Forever’s three Columbia recordings on this lush six-CD box set called Return to Forever – The Complete Columbia Albums Collection.

The set is packaged in a handsome, sturdy box that fits easily on most CD shelves with each individual album packaged in replica mini LP sleeves, reproducing the original record’s exact graphics, and a 27-page booklet with complete discographical information, photos and new liner notes by Chick Corea and musician/historian/producer Bob Belden. It’s a treasure trove of music, immaculately packaged and beautifully presented, well worth reconsidering for the surprisingly timeless surplus of artistry it contains.

Romantic Warrior (1976): After four albums on Polydor, Chick Corea’s Return to Forever moved to Columbia Records, even though Corea the solo artist remained with Polydor for the better part of the decade. Columbia was home to other fusion leaders of the day like Miles Davis, Weather Report, John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra and Herbie Hancock. Note here that all, including Corea, were connected to the trumpeter’s electric phase. Little wonder that Columbia should have named their reissue line “Legacy.” And this is just the jazz fusion portion of Columbia’s holdings.

In February 1976, Corea and company headed to Chicago producer James Guercio’s popular and isolated Caribou Ranch in a remote part of Colorado to wax what was to become the group’s definitive musical statement, Romantic Warrior. Without a doubt, the album is the pinnacle of the group’s creative and artistic vision. It’s a fusion classic and, coming out of 1976, surely one of the music’s final highlights. Placing their musical topography somewhere in the middle ages, RTF rethinks its strategy to be more large scale and consciously more musical; an electrically-charged Ellingtonian statement that is like a soundtrack for a non-existent film or an electronic symphony for a post-jazz age.

With Chick Corea (piano, electric piano, clavinet, synthesizers, marimba and percussion), Al Di Meola (electric guitar, guitar, soprano guitar, hand-bells and slide-whistle), Stanley Clarke (electric bass, piccolo bass, bass, bell-tree and hand-bells) and Lenny White (drums, timpani, congas, timbales, hand bells, snare drum, suspended cymbals, alarm clock) in a formation that has since become known as “RTF 2” – the same group waxed the group’s previous Where Have I Known You Before and No Mystery - Romantic Warrior features strong originals from all principals, including Lenny White’s “Sorceress” (my vote for the album’s best track), Al Di Meola’s “Majestic Dance,” Stanley Clarke’s “The Magician” and Chick Corea’s “Medieval Overture,” “The Romantic Warrior” and “Duel of the Jester and the Tyrant.”

Romantic Warrior has been rightly available in one form or another almost consistently since its original 1976 release and, in addition to its inclusion on Return to Forever – The Complete Columbia Albums Collection, can also be heard in its entirety on the 2008 Concord set Return to Forever – The Anthology. No matter where it appears, it’s important music well worth hearing.

Musicmagic (1977): This surprising turnabout must have surprised many Return to Forever fans in 1977, even those Chick Corea fans willing to follow the bandleader down just about any long and unyieldingly winding path. Long derided and dismissed altogether by even the most devoted Return to Forever fan, Musicmagic really has much musical magic to offer, even if it isn’t served up like previous RTF albums.

The sound is remarkably more orchestral than anything the group had previously done, with a heavy dose of vocal leads and vamps that veer dangerously close to pop territories and, most surprisingly, solos on primarily acoustic instruments. It’s as vexing as it is bewitching and probably the intention all along.

Only Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke remain from the previous edition of RTF, gathering a larger-than-usual group that became known as “RTF 3” including Corea (piano, Fender Rhodes, Minimoog, Hohner clavinet, Moog 15, Polymoog, ARP Odyssey and vocals), Clarke (electric bass, piccolo bass, bass, vocals), Gerry Brown (drums), original RTF reed player Joe Farrell (tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, flutes, piccolo), Chick Corea’s wife Gayle Moran (Hammond B-3 organ, Polymoog, piano, vocals), John Thomas (trumpet, flugelhorn), James Tinsley (trumpet, piccolo trumpet), Jim Pugh (tenor trombone) and Harold Garrett (tenor and bass trombone, baritone horn).

Again recorded at the Caribou Ranch in Colorado in January and February 1977, Musicmagic seems to celebrate the pure joy of music with contributions from Corea (“The Musician”), Moran (the existential jazz ballad “Do You Ever”), Corea and Moran together (“Musicmagic,” and the most typically RTF-sounding piece here, “The Endless Night”) and Clarke (“Hello Again” and the album’s single greatest moment, “So Long Mickey Mouse,” offering particularly great spots for Farrell’s flute and soprano, Corea’s keyboard kaleidoscope and Clarke’s entrancing bass-ics).

Adventurous and enjoyable as it is, Musicmagic seemed to suggest that the Return to Forever concept had effectively run its course. The ever restless Corea was probably bored with the whole thing at this point, either not coming properly to terms with his new RTF experiment or looking forward to other challenges altogether. This particular musical model was fascinating and new in 1972, when RTF waxed its first album, Light as a Feather, but after 1976’s masterful Romantic Warrior, there was only one direction left for the group.

A monumental, but little-known, live album followed and shortly thereafter, Corea disbanded the group. Not too long after this, Chick Corea abandoned electric keyboards altogether. Corea reunited with Clarke, White and guitarist Al Di Meola for one song (“Compadres”) on Corea’s 1983 album Touchstone.

Then, many years later in 2008, Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White came back together for a RTF reunion tour and in June 2011 issued a double-disc set of acoustic studio tracks and electric live tracks (with guests, including former RTF members) on Concord called Forever under the suspiciously non-RTF moniker of “Corea, Clarke & White.”

Originally issued in March 1977, Musicmagic quickly disappeared before finding its way onto a limited-run, long out-of-print CD in 1990. Its inclusion in Return to Forever – The Complete Columbia Albums Collection is the album’s first domestic CD release in over two decades and a most welcome “return” it is.

Return to Forever Live – The Complete Concert (1978): This is effectively the final Return to Forever album released and, perhaps, one of its most significant. It was recorded live at the Palladium in New York City on May 20 and 21, 1977, as part of the Musicmagic tour, which led the group to meet President Jimmy Carter the following month.

The performers here more or less match those heard on Musicmagic and include Chick Corea (Minimoog, Fender Rhodes, Moog 15, Oberheim 3 Voice, Hohner Clvinet, ARP Odyssey, MXR Digital Delay, Steinway piano), Stanley Clarke (Alembic basses, piccolo bass, bass, vocals), Joe Farrell (tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute, piccolo), Gayle Moran (vocals, Hammond B-3 organ, Yamaha electric piano, Mellotron, Minimoog), Gerry Brown (drums), John Thomas (trumpet, flugelhorn, piccolo trumpet), James Tinsley (trumpet, piccolo trumpet, flugelhorn), Jim Pugh (tenor trombone, baritone horn), Corea’s manager at the time and later president of Corea’s Stretch Records, Ron Moss (tenor trombone) and Harold Garrett (bass trombone, baritone horn, tuba).

Needless to say, there is a plethora of fantastic playing to be heard here that RTF’s studio albums probably prohibited, with inventive interjections from almost all concerned, waxing eloquently over some very long passages that are sufficiently more worthwhile than their studio counterparts.

Return to Forever Live has an unusually peculiar history, though. It was originally issued as single LP release (Columbia JC 35281) in late summer 1978, with a cover featuring Picasso's “Three Musicians” and the following line up:

Side 1
1. "So Long Mickey Mouse" (Stanley Clarke) – 6:53
2. "The Musician" (Chick Corea) – 7:03
3. "Chick's Piano" (Corea) – 4:35
4. "Musicmagic" (Corea, Gayle Moran) – 6:29

Side 2
1. "The Moorish Warrior and Spanish Princess" (Clarke) – 6:39
2. "Come Rain or Come Shine" (Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer) – 3:19
3. "The Endless Night (Part I)" (Corea, Moran) – 8:00
4. "The Endless Night (Part II)" (Corea, Moran) – 7:14

For some strange reason, a greatly expanded version of the album was released in October 1978 on four full LPs in a generic-looking box set as Return to Forever Live - The Complete Concert (Columbia C4X 35350), showcasing two and a half hours of music recorded over two nights. The four-disc version of the concerts contains the entirety of pieces that had been edited down for the original single LP release, many additional pieces and lengthy spoken introductions.

A two-CD version of Return to Forever Live was issued by Columbia’s reissue imprint, Legacy, in 1990 with several strange edits to be found. Missing are four of the spoken introductions, while “Chick’s Piano Solo” (featured on the single LP) and “Spanish Fantasy” are rolled into one long marathon performance and, strangely, “The Musician” and “So Long Mickey Mouse” get their original single LP edits rather than a full airing – probably to fit the program on to two CDs. A Japanese release over three CDs in 2000 changed the color of the cover from red to blue and restored all the music heard on the original four-LP box set. This is the version of the recording included within The Complete Columbia Albums Collection.

While there’s little argument for including the rather lengthy spoken introductions, it is fair to say that Return to Forever Live – The Complete Concert makes The Complete Columbia Albums Collection box set an indispensible part of any Chick Corea or Stanley Clarke collection (I would count Joe Farrell in there too) and worth every penny for the magisterial music and its gloriously loving presentation here.

George Benson "Benson Burner"

2011-07-10T00:15:00.000-04:00
When guitarist George Benson’s Warner Bros. debut Breezin’ was issued in March 1976, it immediately became a hit; indeed one of the largest hits jazz has ever known. Guided by the successful hit single “This Masquerade” (Leon Russell’s 1972 original, previously covered by Helen Reddy and The Carpenters), Breezin’ went on to win three Grammy awards and become a triple platinum success, an unprecedented feat in jazz and one that was bettered by very few in the pop-music world at the time.

Any label that ever had anything whatsoever to do with Benson prior to Breezin’ scrambled to get out something with the guitarist’s name on it in order to capitalize on the newfound and rather unbelievable fame George Benson immediately acquired in 1976.

One of these releases was Columbia’s double-album compilation, cleverly titled Benson Burner, released in December 1976, with an asking price of $4.98 (a bargain in those days, especially for a double album) and featuring over 100 minutes of little-known music and, in a lot of cases, previously unissued music.

The guitarist had launched his solo career – under the guidance of legendary impresario John Hammond – at Columbia Records in 1966, often recording with his own group at the time, which included Lonnie Smith on organ and Ronnie Cuber on baritone sax. Even though Benson had long been a practicing jazz pro, and had even recorded his own solo album in 1964 under the auspices of then boss Jack McDuff, the Columbia sides represent the guitarist’s first forays into his own thing.

At the time, The George Benson Quartet issued two albums, It’s Uptown (1966) and The George Benson Cookbook (1967), both of which have seen repeated issues on CD. Benson’s organist, Lonnie Smith, now known as Dr. Lonnie Smith, also had his debut album released by the label, Finger-Lickin’ Good Soul organ (1967, not yet issued on CD) with pretty much the same line-up that featured on Benson’s Columbia records.

Surprisingly, Benson Burner has found its way onto CD by the always reliable reissue Gods at Wounded Bird in a two-disc set that is more remarkable than an initial glance might suggest. While Wounded Bird has previously reissued LP compilations like this that may make you wonder why they’d bother, it’s usually because they know something about the compilation that is particularly special.

Such is the case with Benson Burner. There is not much detail included on the original Benson Burner - nor do many discographies accurately reflect the treasure trove of music that’s included here. But while there are a few retreads of music available on other George Benson albums, there is much here that is only available here.

This disc requires a discography, which I will attempt to provide here. I owe many thanks to Didier Deutsch, who helped me collect all this information many years ago for my Lonnie Smith discography.

But it’s worth noting all the valuable music you can hear on Benson Burner that is either known under a different name or can’t be got elsewhere. Indications of “sessions” below mean the song was not previously issued. Check it out:

New York City: August 1, 1966
Bennie Green, All Hall (tb); Ronnie Cuber (bs); George Benson (g); Lonnie Smith (org); Albert Winston (el-b); Billy Kaye (d); Lenny Sced (cga).

1. Bayou (aka Ready And Able) (from THE GEORGE BENSON COOKBOOK)

New York City: February 9, 1966
Ronnie Cuber (bs); Lonnie Smith (org); George Benson (g); Jimmy Lovelace (d).

2. Hammond's Bossa Nova (aka J.H. Bossa Nova) (from the IT'S UPTOWN sessions)
3. Willow Weep For Me (from IT'S UPTOWN)

New York City: May 23, 1967
King Curtis (ts); Ronnie Cuber (bs); Lonnie Smith (p); George Benson (g); Jimmy Lovelace (d).

4. Clabber Biscuits (from THE GEORGE BENSON COOKBOOK sessions)
5. Chicken Giblets (from THE GEORGE BENSON COOKBOOK sessions)

New York City: November 22, 1966
Blue Mitchell (tp); King Curtis (el-ts); Ronnie Cuber (bs); Lonnie Smith (org); George Benson, Melvin Sparks (g); Charlie Persip (d).

6. Mama Wailer (from the FINGER-LICKIN GOOD SOUL ORGAN sessions)

New York City: November 22, 1966
Blue Mitchell (tp); King Curtis (el-ts); Ronnie Cuber (bs); Lonnie Smith (org); George Benson (g); Marion Booker (d).

7. Goodnight (from THE GEORGE BENSON COOKBOOK sessions)
8. The Man From Toledo (from THE GEORGE BENSON COOKBOOK sessions)

New York City: November 22, 1966
Blue Mitchell (tp); King Curtis (el-ts); Ronnie Cuber (bs); Lonnie Smith (org); George Benson, Melvin Sparks (g); Charlie Persip (d).

9. My Babe (from FINGER-LICKIN GOOD SOUL ORGAN)

New York City: May 27, 1966
Richard "Blue" Mitchell (tp); Harold Ousley (ts); Howard Johnson (bs); Lonnie Smith (org); Al Michelle (g); Charlie Persip (d).

10. Minor Truth (from the FINGER-LICKIN GOOD SOUL ORGAN sessions)

New York City: September 6, 1966
Ronnie Cuber (bs); George Benson (g); Lonnie Smith (org); Jimmy Lovelace (d).

11. Slow Scene (from THE GEORGE BENSON COOKBOOK sessions)
12. Flamingo (from THE GEORGE BENSON COOKBOOK sessions)

New York City: January 10, 1966
Ronnie Cuber (bs); Lonnie Smith (org); George Benson (g); Ray Lucas (d).

13. Redwood City (from the IT'S UPTOWN sessions)

New York City: October 19, 1966
Ronnie Cuber (bs); George Benson (g); Lonnie Smith (org); Albert Winston (el-b); Marion Booker (d).

14. The Cooker (from THE GEORGE BENSON COOKBOOK)

Same, add King Curtis (ts).

15. The Return Of The Prodigal Son (from THE GEORGE BENSON COOKBOOK)

New York City: August 1, 1966
Bennie Green, All Hall (tb); Ronnie Cuber (bs); George Benson (g); Lonnie Smith (org); Albert Winston (el-b); Billy Kaye (d); Lenny Sced (cga).

16. Push Push (from THE GEORGE BENSON COOKBOOK sessions)

New York City: October 19, 1966
Ronnie Cuber (bs); George Benson (g); Lonnie Smith (org); Albert Winston (el-b); Marion Booker (d).

17. Benson's Rider (from THE GEORGE BENSON COOKBOOK)

New York City: May 23, 1967
King Curtis (ts); Ronnie Cuber (bs); unknown (hca); Lonnie Smith (org); George Benson (g); Jimmy Lovelace (d).

18. Doin' The Thing (from THE GEORGE BENSON COOKBOOK sessions)

New York City: May 27, 1966
Richard "Blue" Mitchell (tp); Harold Ousley (ts); Howard Johnson (bs); Lonnie Smith (org); Al Michelle (g); Charlie Persip (d).

19. Bright Eyes (from the FINGER-LICKIN GOOD SOUL ORGAN sessions)

New York City: February 9, 1966
Ronnie Cuber (bs); Lonnie Smith (org); George Benson (g); Jimmy Lovelace (d).

20. Myna Bird Blues (from IT'S UPTOWN)

New York City: May 27, 1966
Richard "Blue" Mitchell (tp); Harold Ousley (ts); Howard Johnson (bs); Lonnie Smith (org); Al Michelle (g); Charlie Persip (d).

21. What Do You Think? (from the FINGER-LICKIN GOOD SOUL ORGAN sessions)
22. Keep Talkin' (from FINGER-LICKIN GOOD SOUL ORGAN)

New York City: January 10, 1966
Ronnie Cuber (bs); Lonnie Smith (org); George Benson (g); Ray Lucas (d).

23. Peg-Leg Jack (from the IT'S UPTOWN sessions)
24. Jaguar (from IT'S UPTOWN)

New York City: March 15, 1966
Ronnie Cuber (bs); Lonnie Smith (org); George Benson (g, vcl); Jimmy Lovelace (d).

25. Hello Birdie (from IT'S UPTOWN)

Ronnie Cuber (bs); Lonnie Smith (org); George Benson (g, vcl); Ray Lucas (d).

26. Ain't That Peculiar (from IT'S UPTOWN)
27. Forevermore (aka Eternally) (from IT'S UPTOWN)

In my humble opinion, much of the music of Benson Burner bests the otherwise officially issued Benson sets from the 1960s. It’s worth every penny – until a complete set of all these sessions comes out in some fashion or form.

Stan Getz - The Complete Columbia Albums Collection

2011-07-09T00:55:00.001-04:00
Know what’s really cool to a music lover? When record labels that own a big chunk of an important artist’s output release it as thoroughly, as nicely and as affordably as Sony is doing in its “The Complete” reissue series available on the newly-launched online retailer Pop Market.

Pop Market at popmarket.com is a resource for some of Sony’s most commanding releases – mostly box sets and special packages – and offers outstanding music that is not only available exclusively at this location but also “daily deals” that can save subscribers up to 50 percent off of regular retail prices. All it takes to subscribe is an email address and all you get are “daily deal” announcements, no spam.

One of Pop Market’s best offerings is “The Complete” series. These beautifully produced box sets collect the entirety of an artist’s output for Sony-owned labels and some are absolutely exclusive to Pop Market. So far the series features sets by The Byrds, Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, Miles Davis, Return to Forever and this one, dedicated to Stan Getz.

Tenor saxophonist Stan Getz (1927-91) is one of jazz’s best and best-known sax players. His warm, lyrical sound transcended many fads and fashions in jazz and was remarkably consistent throughout his long and varied career. Although he played everything from bebop to cool jazz, he is best remembered for popularizing the warm wave of the Brazilian Bossa Nova in America during the early 1960s, scoring huge, timeless hits with such songs as “The Girl from Ipanema.”

After a long tenure and much success at Verve Records (1952-72), Getz spent most the 1970s at Columbia, where he waxed several more classics and created a diverse body of work that holds up especially well some four decades later. The saxophonist’s work in the ‘70s mirrors much of the work he did in the ‘60s – in small group, sax and strings, even Bossa Nova settings – but adds the era’s added amplification (electric basses, keyboards, etc) and some especially improved recording techniques to give Getz an up-to-date sound that doesn’t compromise any of his dynamic lyricism or his patented delivery.

Stan Getz – The Complete Columbia Albums Collection gathers all seven of the saxophonist’s Columbia albums plus a bonus disc of Getz concert material featured on other albums during the period in a handsome, sturdy box that fits easily on most CD shelves with each individual album packaged in replica mini LP sleeves reproducing the original record’s exact graphics, and a 15-page booklet with complete discographical information, photos and liner notes by the set’s producer, Richard Seidel (who oversaw the majority of Getz’s Verve reissues in the 1990s when he was president of Verve).

This stunning package is a tremendous addition to any jazz collection and catalogs the fine, timeless and nearly forgotten work Stan Getz contributed to jazz in the 1970s. Nearly all the music here was produced by the saxophonist, indicating that the artist alone had much control in the way his music was prepared and presented. This explains why his performance throughout sounds so impassioned. It’s clear that he loved the music he recorded during this time. This box set is well worth celebrating.

Captain Marvel: Recorded in 1972, but surprisingly not issued until 1975, this excellent recording features Getz fronting what was then the nucleus of Return to Forever, the group fronted by keyboardist/composer Chick Corea (who was first heard with Getz on the saxophonist’s 1967 classic Sweet Rain). With Chick Corea (electric piano), Stanley Clarke (bass), Tony Williams (drums) and Airto Moreira (percussion), the group waxes a mostly Chick Corea program with Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” thrown in for good measure and includes the two alternate-take bonus tracks of “Captain Marvel” and “Five Hundred Miles High” included on the 2003 CD reissue of the album.

The Best Of Two Worlds featuring Joao Gilberto: Recorded in 1975 and issued in 1976, The Best of Two Worlds was Stan Getz’s first Bossa Nova record in more than a decade and reunited him with composer, guitarist and vocalist Joao Gilberto, who had waxed two successful Verve albums with the saxophonist in 1964 and 1965, among Getz’s last Bossa Nova adventures. With Albert Dailey (piano), Joao Gilberto (guitar, percussion, vocals), Oscar Castro-Neves (guitar), Clint Houston or Steve Swallow (bass), Billy Hart or Grady Tate (drums), Airto Moreira, Rubens Bassini, Ray Armando and Sonny Carr (percussion) and Heloisa Buarque de Hollanda (vocals, also pictured on the album’s front cover), the leaders take listeners on a journey through a new set of samba classics that sound perfectly at home in the previous generation of Bossa Nova greats and as genuinely timeless as the older, better-known songs. Alternate takes of three titles not available on the 1990 single-issue CD are included here too.

The Master: Although recorded in 1975, this splendid outing wasn’t issued until late 1982, long after Stan Getz had left the label. This straight-ahead jazz outing probably wasn’t what the suits at Black Rock wanted at the height of jazz fusion and the introduction of disco into the vocabulary of all popular music. Oddly, in 1982, it probably sounded better when Wynton Marsalis and other “young lions” were reclaiming the pre-electric sound of jazz as the authentic voice of the music. Regardless, it’s a terrific performance offering Getz’s working group of the time, featuring Albert Dailey (piano), Clint Houston (bass) and Billy Hart (drums), reflecting on three long standards and (surprisingly) Ralph Towner’s “Raven’s Wood.” This is the first appearance of The Master on CD outside of an obscure and now extremely rare and out-of-print CD issued in Europe in the mid 1990s.

Stan Getz Presents Jimmie Rowles: The Peacocks: Stan Getz came up with pianist Jimmie (also Jimmy) Rowles (1918-96) in Woody Herman’s 1940s big band and the two were also paired on a 1954 Getz session. They hadn’t worked together since those fabled days of yore and while Getz found fame as a soloist, Rowles was only acknowledged as an accompanist for great singers like Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald. Getz put Rowles’s name on the cover of this 1975 recording (issued in 1977) to give the pianist his shot at recognition and ended up scoring a jazz standard out of Rowles’s title track, which like “Moonlight in Vermont” several decades before became famous for someone because of Stan Getz’s perfectly melodic carriage. The album is a feature for Rowles on solo piano (“Body and Soul,” “Mosaic/Would You Like To Take A Walk”), duets with Rowles and Getz (including “The Peacocks”), five group performances adding Getz, bassist Buster Williams and drummer Elvin Jones and one of which (Wayne Shorter’s “The Chess Players”) adds a vocal section including Jon Hendricks, Judy Hendricks, Michelle Hendricks and Beverly Getz. Jimmie Rowles himself sings on four tracks as well. The Peacocks was issued domestically on CD in 1994 and has been out of print for a few years now. Gotta dig the Yellow Submarine-esque cover!

Another World: This little-known gem was recorded in 1977 and issued in late 1978 and highlights a dazzling program that mixes things up a little bit for the saxophonist without getting too far afield from his naturally swinging thing. It’s easily considered a jazz fusion outing, but occasional electronics aside, it really cooks with a great deal of the fire and passion Getz displayed in his youth. Featuring Andy Laverne (keyboards), Mike Richmond (bass), Billy Hart (drums) and Efrain Toro (percussion) in a remarkably pristine recording caught live at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1977, Another World is Stan Getz doing what he does best: cool when it’s called for and hot when the groove goes south. All the audience noise is filtered out and it’s possible that a number of synthesized effects were added after the fact. But nearly everything here is worth savoring and the playing from all concerned – notably Getz and Andy Laverne – is worth hearing and appreciating. Andy Laverne’s funky “Keep Dreaming,” Mike Richmond’s jaunty “Sum Sum” and Mercer Ellington’s pensive “Blue Serge” are as much the album’s highlights as Another World is a highlight of this box. Another World was issued on European CD in 1994 and has long been out of print.

Children Of The World: The third of Stan Getz’s Columbia “world” albums, Children of the World reunites the saxophonist with composer Lalo Schifrin, who had previously worked with the saxophonist on part of the 1964 Verve album Reflections. First issued in 1979, this forgotten album features a bevy of pleasant, lightweight tunes from the pen of composer Schifrin, played with slick prettiness by Mr. Getz. Getz and Schifrin pull off a nice set of easy-listening Schifrin originals, accompanied by a large group of LA studio musicians. Most memorable are "Street Tattoo" (from the film Boulevard Nights - George Benson performed the original), "Around the Day in Eighty Worlds" (which Jon Faddis re-interprets quite nicely on Schifrin's own Firebird) and "The Dreamer." The album also includes “On Rainy Afternoons,” based on a theme from Schifrin’s score to The Eagle Has Landed and one the composer arranged for Barbra Streisand’s Wet album, as well as a cover of the horrifically awful “Don’t Cry For Me Argentine,” which supposedly does not include Schifrin’s participation. All in all, it makes for exceptionally good light jazz but it shies a bit away from being entirely memorable – even though it is probably my favorite album in the whole box (although an unissued song from the sessions called “November Landscape” is not included here and remains unissued). The album was issued on a European CD in 1995 and has long been out of print and otherwise unavailable until now. Love the Charles M. Schulz cover.

Forest Eyes - Music Composed, Arranged & Conducted by Jurre Haanstra: Perhaps the nicest surprise in the entirety of the Stan Getz - The Complete Columbia Albums Collection is the inclusion of Forest Eyes, a “strings” album the tenor saxophonist recorded in Holland in late 1979 with Dutch composer Jurre Haanstra. The little-known album has never appeared before in the United States and recalls such previous Getz triumphs waxed years earlier with Eddie Sauter, namely Focus (Verve, 1962) and the soundtrack album Mickey One (Verve, 1965). Haanstra (b. 1952), best known as a composer of film and TV scores, notably for his father, director Bert Haanstra (1916-97), and for the popular Dutch detective series Baantjer, featuring harmonica player Jean 'Toots' Thielemans as guest soloist, got his start as a jazz drummer and percussionist (he plays drums on this album’s “Tails Part 2” and “Little Lady”). He has since gone on to become a world-class conductor and composer and arranger for a diverse range of artists including Petula Clark, Michael Franks, Johnny Griffin, Julian Joseph, Michel Petrucciani and Clark Terry. Haanstra crafts a lovely canvas for Getz to splash his lyrical watercolors upon here, mixing traditional orchestral jazz with some late 70s fusion grooves, among which stand out as the album’s best moments (the Bob James-like “Tails Part 1 & 2” and “Little Lady” especially). Though often considered a soundtrack album, Forest Eyes only features several of Jurre Haanstra’s songs from his father Bert’s 1979 film Een Pak Slaag (the main theme, “Shades of Blue,” “Silva” and “Eye of The Storm”). Getz is typically lovely from start to finish. But brief as it is, Forest Eyes sadly never offers that one compositional moment that makes you feel this is anywhere near as significant as something like Focus. Forest Eyes was issued on CD in Europe in the mid ‘90s and has long been out of print until now.

Bonus Disc: An amazing 66 minutes that includes “Four Brothers,” “Early Autumn,” “Cousins,” “Blue Serge,” “Blue Getz Eyes” and “Caldonia” from the 1976 Woody Herman/The New Thundering Herd album The 40th Anniversary Carnegie Hall Concert Recorded Live…November 20, 1976 (RCA, 1977), a gorgeous quartet version of Wayne Shorter’s “Infant Eyes” (with Bob James on piano) from Montreux Summit (Columbia, 1977) and “Tin Tin Deo” and “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” (with Dexter Gordon, Cedar Walton, Percy Heath, Tony Williams and others) from Havana Jam 2 (Columbia, 1979).

Son Of A Preacher Man

2011-07-08T22:28:00.002-04:00
In the late 1960s British singing sensation Dusty Springfield (1939-99) signed to Atlantic Records, home of one of her soul idols, Aretha Franklin, in the hopes of reinvigorating her career and boosting her artistic credibility. She wanted to make a true soul album with some of the folks who made some of the finest American soul music at the time.

So Dusty went across the pond to Memphis, where the Memphis Cats, the studio group that backed many records by Wilson Pickett, Elvis Presley, King Curtis and others, and vocalists the Sweet Inspirations , led by Cissy Houston (Whitney’s mother), set about making it happen. Oddly enough, though, Dusty’s vocals were actually recorded in New York.

Dusty in Memphis was released in early 1969 and its first single, “Son of a Preacher Man,” became a worldwide top-ten hit. It is considered one of the best singles in pop history. Written by John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins (musicians who were apparently lovers at the time), writers of “Land of Milk and Honey” (The Vogues), “Love of the Common People” (The Four Preps) and “Bring Us A Better Day” (Friends of Distinction), the song was first offered to Aretha Franklin, who turned it down.

The song found renewed popularity when it was used in a pivotal scene in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film Pulp Fiction, helping the soundtrack album to sell more than two million copies, Indeed, the song was so important to Tarantino that he said he would not have included the scene in the film if he could not get the song to accompany it.

The song was also used in the film Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room as ex-Enron CEO Kenneth Lay is the son of a Baptist minister as well as in several hip-hop samples and Dusty in Memphis was reissued in a 30th anniversary CD package in 1999 with a bevy of extra tunes.

A year after Dusty Springfield hit with the tune, Aretha Franklin released her own version of the tremendously infectious song, with a slightly different, more Gospel-inflected treatment. It didn’t get the attention Dusty’s did, but the British singer claimed to like Aretha’s version better, adapting some of Ms. Franklin’s phrasings in her own performances of the tune hereafter.

Many others covered the song over the years, notably Peggy Little (who had a country hit with her version of the tune), Bobbie (“Ode to Billie Joe”) Gentry (in an absolutely terrifically arranged variation), Nancy Wilson, Tina Turner and the always exceptional Dolly Parton.

In recent years, Joan Osborne and Sarah Connor have also covered the tune rather nicely. But one of the best versions I’ve heard of late is Joss Stone’s 2006 performance in a tribute to Dusty Springfield at a British awards show. Despite the nightie and no shoes, she really gives the powerfully addictive tune the fire and passion it deserves – though I don’t think this one’s on record:

Jazz has also given “Son of a Preacher Man” (aka “Son-Of-A Preacher Man”) its due in soulfully instrumental performances by Swedish guitarist Rune Gustafsson (Rune At The Top - also on Atlantic), blues guitarist Mel Brown (Blues For We), Pat(rick) Williams (Heavy Vibrations), Gene Ammons (Brother Jug), Mongo Santamaria (Stone Soul) and, in my favorite version, Steve Allen – of all people! – in an Oliver Nelson arrangement on Soulful Brass #2 (Flying Dutchman, 1970), also featuring Mel Brown – but sadly there’s no sample of the Allen/Nelson variation on YouTube.

Lyrics:

Billy-Ray was a Preacher's son,
And when his daddy would visit he'd come along,
When they gathered round and started talking,
That's when Billy would take me walking,
Through the back yard we'd go walking,
Then he'd look into my eyes,
Lord knows to my surprise:

The only one who could ever reach me,
Was the son of a preacher man,
The only boy who could ever teach me,
Was the son of a preacher man,
Yes he was, he was, oh yes he was.

Being good isn't always easy,
No matter how hard I tried,
When he started sweet talking to me,
he'd come tell me everything is alright,
he'd kiss and tell me everything is alright,
Can I get away again tonight?.

The only one who could ever reach me,
Was the son of a preacher man,
The only boy who could ever teach me,
Was the son of a preacher man,
Yes he was, he was, oh yes he was.

How well I remember,
The look that was in his eyes,
Stealing kisses from me on the sly,
Taking time to make time,
Telling me that he's all mine,
Learning from each other’s knowing,
Looking to see how much we'd grown.

The only one who could ever reach me,
Was the son of a preacher man,
The only boy who could ever teach me,
Was the son of a preacher man,
Yes he was, he was, oh yes he was.

Bernard Herrmann at 100

2011-06-29T00:12:00.015-04:00
Composer Bernard Herrmann emerged from the Golden Age of cinema and contributed a signature sound to some of history’s most significant films. While his name may not be known to most of today’s filmgoers – he died, after all, a full generation or two ago in 1975 – Bernard Herrmann’s music is undoubtedly some of the best and best known the cinema has ever produced.

Chances are, if you care about film or film music, you know who Bernard Herrmann is and you either know or appreciate his importance. If, on the other hand, you just like movies or certain kinds of movies, then you may not know Herrmann’s name but you will undoubtedly know his mighty influence.

Born in New York City on June 29, 1911, Bernard Herrmann scored only 49 films from his first, Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941), to his last, Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976). But those two films alone should register the validity of the composer’s enduring significance.

Even deeming Herrmann’s filmic output to “only 49” features is like saying Beethoven wrote “only nine” symphonies. Herrmann’s output was so spectacular and dazzling from one score to the next – romance to thriller and fantasy to drama (very few comedies, to the composer’s own chagrin, but all in the realm of human irrationality that Herrmann himself experienced so mightily) – and each score so densely textured that it’s hardly considered background music or film music. It’s music of the highest order written for film.

Almost everything Herrmann touched or reflected upon was new and unique, with scarcely a lazy regurgitation of repeated themes, recycled riffs or pop-ified cover to be heard. Herrmann created visual symphonies with all the drama and action of a concert work for the pure benefit of not only aiding but enhancing a purely visual medium. Herrmann’s music greatly contributed to making film an aural medium as well.

Despite his training and musical pedigree (he founded the New Chamber Orchestra of New York when he was only 20), Bernard Herrmann brought something very different to the film medium than many of his peers at the time. While so many other composers working in film at the time were frustrated writers who took on lowly film work to earn a living and, resultantly, imprinted their own ideas on top of the story on the screen, however inappropriate that might have been (or writers who overstated emotion with overly emotional statements), Bernard Herrmann wrote music for film and only sought to enhance the action or the psychology of what was happening on screen.

Herrmann contributed a great body of work to radio and later to television during his long career. The composer’s radio career was launched in 1934 when he was appointed staff conductor of the Columbia Broadcasting System. He contributed music to many radio programs during these years, notably composing scores for many of Orson Welles’s Mercury Theatre on the Air productions, including the historic “War of the Worlds” (1938 – which recycled older music) and the riveting Campbell Playhouse production of “The Hitch-Hiker” (1941 – a radio play written by Lucille Fletcher, Herrmann’s wife at the time and librettist for his opera Wuthering Heights and writer of the great Sorry Wrong Number).

Welles took Herrmann to Hollywood in 1940 to score his first film, Citizen Kane, the same year Herrmann was appointed chief conductor of the CBS Symphony Orchestra, where the conductor helped reversed the fortunes of many little-known works and little-known composers. Herrmann scored Welles’s second film The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), but the studio cut as much of Herrmann’s score from the final film as they cut much of Welles’s original story.

Between those two movies, Herrmann wrote the score for William Dieterle's The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), for which he won his only Oscar. In 1947, Herrmann scored the atmospheric and highly celebrated music for The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.

Herrmann is best known for his work on Alfred Hitchcock films made between 1955 and 1964 and five of Ray Harryhusen’s fantasy films made between 1958 and 1963 – all of which he was perfectly suited to score.

While I haven’t heard or had the opportunity to appreciate everything Bernard Herrmann has ever done, I am especially thankful for the following works, which I continue to enjoy over and over and over again. My point is not to make a completist’s guide to Bernard Herrmann, nor a definitive guide to the composer’s allegedly “greatest hits.”

These are the Bernard Herrmann pieces that I have discovered and those that continue to give me the greatest joy. I’m sure there are others. Feel free to share yours if I haven’t covered them here. I would love to hear more Bernard Herrmann and I hope to help others continue to hear the composer’s fantastic and ageless work.

Citizen Kane: For all the sound and fury of Orson Welles’s first film, undoubtedly one of the greatest films ever made, it is amazing how little composer Bernard Herrmann’s contribution (in his first film score) is acknowledged or even considered as part of the film’s success. That is perhaps the point. Nothing about Citizen Kane was ordinary and Bernard Herrrmann knew that going into it. His music is far more suggestive than persuasive (as it might later be). Today, filmmakers are routinely celebrated for constructing fictional documentaries that owe a huge debt to Citizen Kane. This was never intended to be a film, as so many were in 1941, to knock you over the head with overstated drama or emotion. Orson Welles wanted you to believe that Charles Foster Kane was a real man. Phony movie music would never have accomplished this mission. That leaves viewers with scarcely little enough music to recall outside the film except the song Welles’s Kane sings with a chorus line of showgirls at his paper’s party and the horrific aria from the fictitious opera Salammbo. Herrmann’s underscore is so understated as to be practically silent, like the lonely winds whispering through the spacious eaves of a large, empty house like Xanadu. These are the cues that I like best, especially notable during the dramatic opening sequence (“Prelude/Xanadu/Snow Picture”) and the captivating closing (“Rosebud and Finale”). Herrmann later strung a few of the Citizen Kane themes into a medley called “Welles Raises Kane,” mostly fitted out with the more pronounced music Herrmann provided to Welles’s next film, The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). The medley contains only a minimal amount of music from Citizen Kane. A 1970 Phase 4 album titled Music From Great Film Classics (and subsequent reissues on various labels over the years) credits this music solely to Citizen Kane, which is unfair. Quite a number of variations of the Citizen Kane music have been made available over the years, but I would suggest the 14 minutes of the score Charles Gerhardt recorded, under Bernard Herrmann’s supervision, in 1974 and reissued several times since. I don’t think Herrmann’s score was intended to be enjoyed away from the film. But the most important pieces from the score are included in Gerhardt’s recording and offer enough of a glimpse into Herrmann’s method to satisfy most listeners (and Kiri Te Kanawa’s handling of the aria here suggests how nicely Herrmann’s impossible piece could have sounded).

Hangover Square: John Brahm’s tremendously atmospheric thriller starred Laird Cregar in a stunning performance (his last) as a talented composer who suffers bouts of murderous amnesia. Throughout the film, Cregar’s character, George Harvey Bone, is developing his concert-hall concerto, called here Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, while a scheming chanteuse provokes him to write melodies for her to sing in her nightclub act. His personality splits even further as he wrestles with being a composer and a tunesmith for his beloved. These anomalies present themselves in the final concerto, a remarkable piece by Bernard Herrmann, combining grandiloquent statements of Lisztian fury with slightly off sweet bites of melodic tunefulness (gleaned from Bone’s songs for the singer). Herrmann’s “Concerto Macabre” is indeed macabre and an achievement of longing and anger as much is revelation of sensitivity and despair. Its unrelenting and nearly unendurable crescendo leads to a (literally) fiery outcome, something for which Herrmann’s superb sense of drama and signature musical vocabulary is absolutely perfect. Herrmann personally selected this concerto for inclusion on a 1974 recording by Charles Gerhardt and the National Philharmonic Orchestra. Herrmann was also present when the recording, titled Citizen Kane – The Classic Film Scores of Bernard Herrmann was made. Pianist Joaquin Achucarro delivers a truly fine performance, but it lacks some of the voltage of the original performance (which has been available, notably on an out-of-print Japanese CD).Gerhardt’s orchestra makes the effort worthwhile though.

The Man Who Knew Too Much: One of Bernard Herrmann’s most notable turns in film is, remarkably as himself, conducting – even more remarkably – another composer’s work. Herrmann can be seen conducting Arthur Benjamin’s (1893-1960) astonishingly Herrmann-esque “Storm Cloud Cantata” in the classic 1955 Alfred Hitchcock film The Man Who Knew Too Much, best known probably for the corny Ray Evans/Jay Livingston song “Que Sera Sera,” a huge hit in its day for the film’s star, Doris Day (not the only time the film’s composer was forced to work around a tune derived for the popular market). The conductor surprisingly declined the opportunity to record a composition of his own for the climatic sequence, favoring the idea of re-orchestrating Australian composer Arthur Benjamin’s concert piece from Hitchcock’s 1934 original – a piece Hitchcock especially commissioned (it derived its title later on). Herrmann felt the piece was ideal to the 12-minute dénouement and favored the idea of conducting the London Symphony Orchestra with a huge choir and a single pair of cymbals at the Royal Albert Hall. Such an inspired filmic climax so heavily dependent on the presentation of music inspired other directors to allow composers such as John Barry (Deadfall, License to Kill) and Lalo Schifrin (Red Dragon) to take turns in front of the camera at the podium doing what they did so often behind the scenes. Herrmann’s fierce seriousness with the baton shows that he knew and understood each and every sound of an orchestra, no matter how large, and how important each sound and silence was to the overall drama. Little wonder how he and Hitchcock were so perfectly paired and, miraculously, how they could accomplish all they did together. The Man Who Knew Too Much is a perfect display of mutual admiration between one of cinema’s few strong director-composer alliances. All this said, Herrmann’s main theme for the film is sumptuous and, remarkably, not nearly as celebrated as it ought to be.

A Hatful of Rain: Movies about drug usage weren’t only disdained and more or less prohibited in the 1950s by social watchdogs that sought (or claimed) to protect American interests, but it was believed that respectable audiences would never want to see such things. Don Murray’s excellent performance in Fred Zinnemann’s terrific film proved otherwise. Contributing to the film’s success was Bernard Herrmann’s mercurial music, which pulses with emotional highs and lows to a thoroughly riveting climax that suggests the physiological and emotional sturm and drang of drugs’ effects long before loud hippie-rock clichés were ever even considered. A 16-minute suite of the film’s original themes is included in the 1999 Varese Sarabande CD Bernard Herrmann at Fox Vol. 1. The Varese Sarabande CD also includes the scores for The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit (1956) and Tender is the Night (1962), both of which are worth a listen or two. The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, in particular, supports Nunnally Johnson’s popular and topical (for the time) film. But for a talky two and a half hour film that resonates with a generation at least three times removed from today’s current viewership, it offers very little music and certainly not enough of Bernard Herrmann’s signature flair. A notable exception, though, is the absolutely stunning “Maria,” named for Marisa Pavan’s character, a war-time lover of Gregory Peck’s Tom Rath.

Vertigo: As film soundtracks go, perhaps none are finer than Bernard Herrmann’s sublime Vertigo, a haunting reverie on love and a romantic reflection on loss. Anyone who has ever known the intersectional subterfuge of these paralyzing handicaps of emotion will certainly understand, appreciate and celebrate Bernard Herrmann’s supreme musical achievement here. The film, like the music that accompanies it, is a timeless masterpiece of odd, though hardly inhuman, emotion that will resonate long after box-office receipts are counted and critical diatribes are debated. The film is perfect. So is the music. Like so much in Bernard Herrmann’s repertoire, one could scarcely improve in any way on what is presented. This is a magnificent achievement that resounds with the timelessness of any great classic. Only the Orson Welles-directed Citizen Kane, also scored by Bernard Herrmann, could be said to best Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo as an American cinematic triumph. But Herrmann’s music here is so much stronger and more persistent than that which he presented in Citizen Kane - mostly to accompany long passages of exposition without any dialogue at all – that the music can be said to contribute significantly to the success of the final piece of art (an argument against the contrived “auteur” theory of filmmaking). Like so many of the best Bernard Herrmann scores, nothing in Vertigo should be isolated apart from the rest of the score. Vertigo is intended, like a symphony or concerto, as an entire performance; not a string of themes where something cute and clever or pulpy or popular can be pulled to “say it all” or say anything that can make a radio audience immediately happy (although the main title theme, “Prelude” was sampled beautifully in a perfectly sci-fi way for Lady Gaga’s recent “Born This Way” and “The Nightmare” can still freak out just about anyone still to this day). Varese Sarabande producer Robert Townson indicated in his notes to the 1996 CD release of the Vertigo soundtrack (the most complete version of the original soundtrack available) that “Bernard Herrmann’s score for Vertigo, like the film, continually reveals new aspects of itself on each hearing.” This is absolutely true and appropriate to point out. Vertigo remains impressive, revealing and new some half century after its initial release. Its themes are used to this day in many contemporary film and TV scores, most recently in Tom Ford’s beautiful A Single Man (2009), to reflect on the tragic poetry of love and loss.

North by Northwest: Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 film is one of cinema’s most enduringly entertaining pleasures. From the beautifully-worded script, the pitch-perfect acting, the glorious cinematography and the elegant production design, to say nothing about Hitchcock’s assured delivery of it all, this is a film that weaves action, adventure, comedy and romance together with unerring precision and clever fortitude. It is, as Hitchcock always said, “pure cinema.” Almost everything about this bravura film is perfect and it continues to entertain over half a century later. Add to this Bernard Herrmann’s sensationally varied score and the film is hard to better in any way. Just like Vertigo, Bernard Herrmann’s music is probably the sine qua non of Alfred Hitchcock’s film and certainly among both masters’ highest achievements. The music is as much of a rollercoaster ride (sans clichés) as the film (clichés turned somehow to coinage), which wrests Madison Avenue man Roger Thornhill out of his comfortable if not meaningless existence and throws him into a Josef K. like morass where he finds himself a suspected spy/double agent/murderer. From Herrmann’s striking all-over-the-map (get it?) main theme, “Overture,” scored brilliantly to Saul Bass’s dazzling titles sequence, to the very last note, this score – like the film itself – excites attention and lures listeners with its dazzlingly differences. Action and chase themes abound (“Overture,” “Cheers,” “The Station,” “The House,” “The Knife,” “The Stone Faces,” “The Cliff”), peppered by those that suggest the mystery of Thornhill’s conundrum (the great “Kidnapped,” “The Return,” “The Airport,” the brilliant “The Cafeteria”) and relieved by the blossoming love themes (“Interlude,” “The Forest,” “Finale,” which of course hints at what triumphs?) that hint at Roger Thornhill’s emerging humanity. Unlike many other Herrmann scores, several cues here are repeated in slightly altered form, including the main titles theme (loveliest with added harp glissandos in “On the Rocks”) and the obligatory love theme that unites Cary Grant’s Roger Thornhill with Eva Marie Saint’s Eve Kendall. There’s also more a fair bit more source music here than usual for a Bernard Herrmann score too (“It’s A Most Unusual Day,” “Rosalie,” “In The Still of the Night,” “Fashion Show”) but it works perfectly well in the film as well as on the soundtrack, which was issued in full on CD on the occasion of the film’s 40th anniversary in 1999.

The Twilight Zone: In the 1950s, composer Bernard Herrmann was no stranger to the increasingly popular medium of television. He had scored several TV shows during the ‘50s and wrote a popular and memorable theme for the Richard Boone starrer Have Gun – Will Travel (1957-1963). Herrmann also scored seven episodes of Rod Serling’s influential and still much loved TV show, The Twilight Zone, between 1959 and 1963. His most notable achievement here, though, was for the exceedingly memorably pilot episode, “Where Is Everybody?” (1959), where the composer provided over 11 minutes of highly distinctive music that beautifully underscored the panic and dread of total isolation and the pervasive horror of “being watched.” Herrmann’s original 11-minute score is included on the 1985 Varese Sarabande disc The Best of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone along with Marius Constant’s immortal theme, several of the series’ more memorable scores (by Jerry Goldsmith and Nathan Van Cleave) as well as Herrmann’s 12 and half minute score to “Walking Distance,” the show’s fifth episode and Herrmann’s second TZ offering, a beautiful reflection on the haunting visions of Vertigo and a first consideration of the poetic unreality of Marnie.

Pyscho: Without a doubt, Psycho is Bernard Herrmann’s best known score, even if the only piece that is widely known is “The Murder,” which accompanies the film’s notorious and justifiably celebrated shower scene. This one piece of music alone is instantly recognizable to generations of film goers, even those that don’t pay attention to film music, and says as much economically as do such themes from “The Twilight Zone,” “Mission: Impossible” or “Jaws.” But each and every note of this remarkable symphony set to filmic images is magnificent, noteworthy and memorable. Even without one clear melody or tuneful piece, Herrmann’s music more than succeeds in aiding the film’s influence and continued popularity. The psychologically colorful score is as much a high point in composer Bernard Herrmann’s career as the provocative black-and-white film was for director Alfred Hitchcock. From the startling main title sequence (“Prelude”) – which shocks viewers into submission as dramatically as Herrmann’s main title sequence for On Dangerous Ground (1951) – and the hauntingly soothing “The City” (and other such gently foreboding cues heard early on) to the adrenaline rush of “Temptation” and the mysterious strain of “The Search” and other later cues such as the strikingly disturbing “Finale” – this is music that evokes fear and provokes tension better than just about anything that ever came before or since, with the possible exception of the darker cues from Ennio Morricone’s giallo scores. Psycho is nothing less than the ideal symphony of terror and dread and the single most perfect musical statement in the thriller/horror film genre. That’s why it’s been lifted (as in Gus Van Sant’s 1998 shot-for-shot remake of the film) or copied countless times for other such productions and the reason such young up-and-comers of the ‘70s like Brian De Palma and Larry Cohen wanted Herrmann’s music to ramp up their own significantly slighter horror-film projects. While Herrmann’s originally recorded score for Psycho has yet to appear on record or disc in an official capacity, the composer recorded a suite of the Psycho themes (“A Narrative For Orchestra”) for a Phase 4 LP that has been reissued under quite a few different titles, including the misleading appellation Psycho: Great Hitchcock Movie Thrillers (Decca, 1992). The composer was finally afforded the opportunity to record his score to Psycho on October 2, 1975, for the British Unicorn label, right before leaving London to work on Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. Fronting the National Philharmonic Orchestra, Bernard Herrmann presents his Psycho music in all its glory. It is a magnificent recording and as close to an original soundtrack as we’re likely to get.

Cape Fear: The breathtaking music Bernard Herrmann composed for the 1962 J. Lee Thompson film of Cape Fear never found its way onto a soundtrack album during Herrmann’s lifetime, which certainly must have convinced the composer that Hollywood didn’t take him seriously. Trouble was the tawdry thriller probably wasn’t the equal of Herrmann’s masterly music. Indeed, following this film Thompson continued to attract top-shelf composers to his increasingly trashy thrillers while Herrmann’s scores at this point start outclassing the films they accompany. When Martin Scorsese was slated to direct a remake of Cape Fear some three decades later, the great film composer Elmer Bernstein wanted the job; not to insert his own Herrmann-influenced score, but to re-score Herrmann’s original work for the new film. Bernstein found in Herrmann, whose final score was for Scorsese’s 1976 film Taxi Driver, both an inspiration and a friend. But he also strived to ensure that Herrmann’s musical statements stayed with this film and, more importantly, were better suited to Scorsese’s dynamic presentation than Thompson’s original.

As Scorsese’s film was denser, more layered and considerably longer than the original, Bernstein sought to insert some of Herrmann’s music from Herrmann’s previously unused score to Alfred Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain (1966). Bernstein was a champion of Herrmann’s Torn Curtain score, having recorded it in 1977 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for his Film Music Club label in 1977 (the album was reissued with greater distribution in 1978 on the Warner Bros. label and in 2006 on the FSM CD box set Elmer Bernstein’s Filmmusic Collection). Of course, the pairing makes perfect sense. Bernstein’s flawlessly realized score, presented on a still readily available CD, does his mentor proud. He derives a symphony of menace the composer himself would have done and, despite Bernstein’s claim to the contrary, would have been very proud of. A lot of this music, especially the second part of the main theme “Max,” was used in The Simpsons spoof episode “Cape Feare” (1993) as well as later episodes of the popular animated show where the Sideshow Bob character recurs. Highlights from Torn Curtain are many and include the lovely source cue “Valse Lente,” the stirring “The Farmhouse“ and “The Killing” (a scene that is scored without music in the original film). The Torn Curtain score has since been recorded – apparently more fully than under Bernstein’s direction (even though the score was never fully completed) – under the supervision of Joel McNeely.

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour Composer Bernard Herrmann scored a whopping 17 episodes of the hour-long The Alfred Hitchcock Hour shows between 1963 and 1965 (his music for the series was tracked in other episodes too). Surprisingly, none of these episodes was directed by Hitchcock himself and, even more remarkably, Herrmann never worked on any of the better-known Alfred Hitchcock Presents shows that aired between 1955 and 1962, many of the best of which were directed by Hitchcock. But the music Herrmann provided to The Alfred Hitchcock Hour really ranks among some of the greatest work the composer ever did in the televisual medium and certainly stands mightily alongside his best film work. The shows themselves are strong enough to warrant Herrmann’s magnificent musical counterpoint. Perhaps it was due to the show’s hour-long length, affording the composer, as Varese Sarabande producer Robert Townson puts it, the opportunity to create “mini-film scores unto themselves.” During Herrmann’s centennial year, Varese Sarabande issued – for the first time ever – eight of the 17 scores Bernard Herrmann composed for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour series. Apparently the music from only 14 of these episodes survives and the excellent 2011 Varese set - the only Herrmann release thus far in this centennial celebration - is said to be the first in a series of what can only be two volumes. The best music here also corresponds to the series’ best shows (from its second and third seasons), including “A Home Away From Home” (starring Ray Milland), the excellent “Behind The Lock Door” (starring James MacArthur and Gloria Swanson), the riveting “Body in the Barn” (starring Lillian Gish) and the terrific “Change of Address” (starring Arthur Kennedy). No worthy collection of Bernard Herrmann’s music should be without this tremendous disc, filled with “action, romance, macabre humor and lots of classic, chilling Herrmann suspense.”

Marnie: Although this 1964 Alfred Hitchcock film has never received the respect or appreciation it deserves, many consider Bernard Herrmann’s score for the film, his last for Hitchcock, to be among his very best. It truly is. From the powerful, attention-grabbing opening, this elegant orchestral music courses through a variety of jagged emotions in a way that tells a compelling story without any need of visual accompaniment at all. I’ve seen this film so many times, I know exactly where every note of this score belongs. Herrmann’s Marnie is a masterpiece of form and content, with such a strong signatory flair as to rank among one of the three or four greatest film scores Herrmann ever did (my vote for the others would be from Hitchcock films too). The music tells of substantial psychological trauma and the subsequent delusional mindset that results with such strength and conviction that Hitchcock could have presented a real half-assed story (as many believe he did) and Herrmann’s music would tell you all you need to know. A 45 of the theme was issued in 1964 and then the score was issued on vinyl in 1975. The Japanese Tsunami label issued a CD of the 48 and a half minute score in 1994 (pictured above). Herrmann recorded a suite of the film’s themes for his 1969 album Music from the Great Movie Thrillers (aka The Great Hitchcock Movie Thrillers). Several other conductors have recorded suites from Herrmann’s “Marnie,” including Lalo Schifrin, Paul Bateman, Nic Raine and Esa-Pekka Salonen, but Joel McNeely conducted the full score for a 2000 Varese Sarabande CD. For a less doomed spin on Marnie’s more romantic passages, consider Herrmann’s Joy in the Morning, the composer’s next film assignment and last American studio film, issued on CD in 2002 by Film Score Monthly.

Endless Night: In 1966, Bernard Herrmann left the United States and relocated to London, where he lived until the end of his life. Divorced from his second wife and disenchanted with Hollywood, Herrmann was occasionally sought out by European directors like Francois Truffaut for Fahrenheit 451 (1967) and The Bride Wore Black (1968) until his American rediscovery came in 1972 with Brian De Palma’s Sisters. Unlike the big-budget Hollywood dramas and fantasies of yore and those starry Truffaut efforts, Herrmann was often contracted (at his regular “elder statesman” working rate) to work on low-budget films that often never even played in the United States. For his thriller/horror films of this period, he would introduce an unusual solo instrument into his orchestrations that had significance to the story at hand: a whistler in Twisted Nerve (1968 – a theme later used as is by Quentin Tarantino in Kill Bill Vol. 1) and a harmonica in The Night Digger (1971). For 1972’s Endless Night, Herrmann used a Moog synthesizer to underscore the perplexingly haunted nature of the lead character. Although based on a terrific Agatha Christie whodunit – a genre Alfred Hitchcock despised and repudiated throughout his career – the film of Endless Night was directed by former Hitchcock associate Sidney Gilliat (Jamaica Inn, The Lady Vanishes) in a Hitchcockian style that recalls Suspicion and Dial M For Murder, peppered with a bit too much psychology and further seasoned with too much suspicious sexuality. Herrmann’s music here is masterful, despite a regrettable song bizarrely voiced by Shirley Jones - known at the time as Mrs. Partridge on The Partridge Family and whose voice doesn’t come close to suggesting the film’s pictured singer, Hayley Mills - with lyrics from a poem by William Blake (also used in a song by The Doors). The film’s terrible reviews and utter lack of success prevented it from ever opening properly in the United States or attaining a soundtrack release in any form. Still, it is a grand piece of work from Bernard Herrmann that deserves better than it ever got – not unlike the film, which is a jolly good mystery of pleasurably rousing though campy delights. Herrmann’s music helps you take it seriously. But just about everybody could have probably done a little better here. Curiously, while the film offers up former Hitchcock actor George Sanders (who killed himself a few months before the film’s release), the film’s two lead actors, Hywel Bennet and Hayley Mills, had previously appeared together in Twisted Nerve, also scored by Bernard Herrmann.

Sisters: Composer Bernard Herrmann hadn’t scored an American motion picture since 1965’s little-known film Joy in the Morning (a nice score issued on CD recently by FSM) when director Brian De Palma convinced the composer to score his 1973 horror/thriller Sisters, starring Margot Kidder. Indeed, De Palma laid in previously-recorded cues by Herrmann from films like Vertigo and Marnie as “temp tracks” to the movie to indicate what he wanted the score to be like. The director has said that some composers appreciate this musical guidance a director provides while also indicating that composers such as Ennio Morricone are deeply opposed to such suggestion. One guesses that Bernard Herrmann, too, was opposed to De Palma’s use of temp tracks, stating – as IMDb suggests – that while De Palma was showing the film to Herrmann, the composer stopped him with, "Young man, I cannot watch your film while I'm listening to Marnie ." Ironically, Herrmann was probably more influenced by the past accomplishments De Palma reminded him of than he thought as Sisters is much more of a reflection on Herrmann’s achievements than he might have liked to admit. Still, Bernard Herrmann recycling his past glories (and truthfully, few composers aren’t susceptible to such temptation) still makes for a first-rate soundtrack of classic proportions. Without any doubt, Bernard Herrmann’s classy score for Sisters far outranks and outflanks the cheap, nearly sleazy quality of Brian De Palma’s concept thriller, a bit of ‘70s psychological mumbo jumbo mixed with the pure grind-house horror churned out then for the drive-in crowd. “Main Title,” “Phillip’s Murder” (the equivalent of Pyscho’s shower scene), “Siamese Twins” and “Separation Nightmare” mostly recall Cape Fear mixed with the Moog-y overtones of Endless Night. “The Dressing Room” and “The Ferry, The Apartment, Breton” all reflect upon Vertigo with a touch of Marnie thrown in for good measure. And so on and so on. As Bernard Herrmann had undoubtedly developed a truly signature musical vocabulary by this point in his storied career, it was inevitable that his previous work in the thriller genre would influence his work here. But this is not to undermine the validity or originality of this truly great music, filled with as much that is new and interesting (in cues such as “Apartment House: The Windows” “The Couch,” “The Solution, The Clinic, Hypnotic Trance,” “The Syringe” as well as instrumentation, which always allows Herrmann to differentiate ideas for specific films) as that which hints at earlier glories. Sisters is another of Herrmann’s exciting and enticing macabre dances, perfectly complementing the emotion and action on screen and one that stands frighteningly well on its own. The soundtrack, presumably recorded in London in 1973, was issued on an Entr’acte LP in 1975 and has been reissued on CD in Japan in 1996 and by the Australian Southern Cross label in 2001.

Taxi Driver: While Bernard Herrmann’s final film score is among his greatest achievements, it is neither the prototypical Herrmann soundscape nor is it the most obviously Herrmannesque in what it accomplishes. But Bernard Herrmann as much as ever creates the perfect musical equivalent for the story a film is telling. The presence of a steamy saxophone (played by Ronny Lang, for the most part) causes many to consider this a “jazz” score when it really is anything but. The saxophone suggests a jazzy respite from the composer’s orchestral flourishes, which provides a perfect counterpoint to the teeming underbelly of an urban nightmare right out of Dante. But the little jazz that is present here (usually the painful wail of the saxophone) is only suggestive in the way that Jerry Goldsmith’s use of a mournful trumpet suggests a stilted romanticism of a corrupt L.A. in Chinatown. Herrmann’s use of a saxophone here isn’t unlike the use of the predominant solo instruments in his later scores (whistle, harmonica, synthesizer, etc.) to carry a certain thematic mood across his otherwise dominating themes. Like the expressive considerations of jazz, the saxophone here represents a soul crying for release. Even Herrmann’s atypically melodic main theme hints at jazz. But I don’t think jazz was ever on Bernard Herrmann’s mind, either before or during the writing of this score. I liken the sound of the saxophone to a romantic ideal of something that doesn’t really exist. It is the inner world of Travis Bickle – a sad, lonely place that’s even dirtier than the world he feels at home in. Bernard Herrmann died the night he finished this score for Martin Scorsese’s brilliantly conceived film. One senses that the great composer said all he had to say and accomplished all he wanted (my favorites are the most Herrmann-like: “Main Title,” “Phone Call,” “Sport and Iris,” “God’s Lonely Man”). Written by Paul Schrader in a poetic language all his own and starring Robert De Niro in an unforgettable performance (not to mention beautiful turns from Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Albert Brooks and Harvey Keitel), Taxi Driver represents an apogee for all concerned, even though some of its participants went on to other great work. It certainly was one of Bernard Herrmann’s greatest of many great achievements.

A very special thanks here to Jon Burlingame and Paul Conway, for the information, affection and insight that allowed me to write whatever I did here. I can never claim to have their knowledge or understanding of Bernard Herrmann’s music. But I hope my appreciation is evident. Any inaccuracies or offences are my own fault and I apologize to anyone who might be offended by any comment I’ve provided. I especially thank the erudite Christopher Palmer and Royal S. Brown for their glorious writings and incredible scholarship and the expressions of deep and abiding appreciation they have dedicated so lovingly to Bernard Herrmann.

Impulse! 2-on-1 - Celebrating 50 Years of Impulse Records!

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Impulse! 2-on-1: More Than Just A Label. An Identity. A Statement.

Impulse Records was more than just a label. It was an identity. It was a statement. Impulse Records was a musical brand of artistry that provided some of jazz’s greatest creators with a platform for making some of their very best music. The new wave of jazz was indeed on Impulse!

With its distinctive logo and unique packaging, Impulse stood out in the crowd. But it was the music that made Impulse impressive. Impulse captured not only such traditionalists as Duke Ellington and Art Blakey but also cataloged many of the fiery voices of the emerging free-jazz movement, notably led and inspired by John Coltrane, who made his most memorable music for Impulse.

The label also caught everything in between, from traditional jazz combos with a special affinity for jazz’s best drummers to psychedelic jazz-rock and orchestral outings, while later specializing in spiritual jazz and musical fusions.

Series Production - MATTHIAS KÜNNECKE & DOUGLAS PAYNE

Ahmad Jamal: Even though the great pianist Ahmad Jamal had “retired” from performing in the late 1960s, he waxed a number of recordings for the Impulse label, including these two live sets from 1969 and 1971, that proved he was not only at the top of his game but at the height of his musical prowess.

Albert Ayler: The searing and searching saxophone of Albert Ayler (1936-70) explored the roots of jazz as much as its outer reaches. John Coltrane brought Ayler to the Impulse label, where he recorded a dizzying display of his iconoclastic lore, including these two scorchers, Love Cry and The Last Album.

Alice Coltrane: Pianist, harpist, organist and composer Alice Coltrane (1937-2007) turned her attention toward orchestral endeavors on these great Impulse albums from the early 1970s, producing a rich musical palette without ever sacrificing the spiritual jazz she had long championed.

Archie Shepp: Swept up in the “new thing” of the 1960s, Archie Shepp quickly began to discover how more traditional forms of music, like African polyrhythms and R&B, could appropriately inform the jazz he was delivering, as evidenced on these two terrific albums recorded between 1968 and 1969.

Art Blakey: The revered leader of the Jazz Messengers, one of jazz’s greatest musical proving grounds, drummer Art Blakey (1919-90) recorded only these two dates for Impulse, 1961’s Jazz Messengers!!!! (with the superb “Alamode”) and 1963’s unconventional, yet sterling, quartet outing A Jazz Message.

Coleman Hawkins: Coleman Hawkins (1904-69) was not only one of jazz’s greatest tenor players, but probably its loveliest ballads performer. The Hawk recorded several Impulse records, including these two from 1962: Today and Now (with “Love Theme from ‘Apache’”) and the unusual Bossa Nova.

Curtis Fuller: Bebop trombone great Curtis Fuller had already led dates for Prestige, Blue Note, Savoy and Epic and joined the Jazz Messengers when he waxed his only two leader dates for Impulse in the early 1960s, Soul Trombone (with fellow Messengers) and Cabin in the Sky (arranged by Manny Albam).

Duke Ellington: It was producer Bob Thiele’s idea to feature legendary orchestra leader Duke Ellington (1899-1974) in small-group settings with former Ellingtonian Coleman Hawkins (1905-69) and the fiery saxophonist John Coltrane (1926-67). Both 1962 sets are inspired, historic and featured here.

Elvin Jones: At the time propulsive drummer Elvin Jones (1997-2004) manned the beat in John Coltrane’s 1960-1965 quartet, he also found time to lead these great Impulse gems, Illumination (co-led with Coltrane bassist Jimmy Garrison and featuring Coltrane pianist McCoy Tyner) and Dear John C.

Gabor Szabo: While the late, great guitarist Gabor Szabo (1936-82) recorded many studio albums during his brief career, he was always best served by his few live recordings. These two live Impulse albums brilliantly catch Szabo’s working group, featuring the stunning guitarist Jimmy Stewart, in 1967.

McCoy Tyner: Legendary pianist McCoy Tyner launched his mercurial solo career with these two exciting trio sides, a mix of well-known standards and effective originals (including the now standard “Effendi”) recorded in 1962 while he was still part of John Coltrane’s historic quartet.

Milt Jackson: Vibraphonist Milt Jackson (1923-99) led a double life, co-fronting the Modern Jazz Quartet, while also charting a significant course of his own on records such as 1962’s bracing Statements and 1964’s light-hearted Jazz ‘n’ Samba – two of his earliest and best Impulse endeavors.

Pharoah Sanders: Saxophonist Pharoah Sanders was initially part of John Coltrane’s group before scoring his own hit with 1969’s “The Creator Has a Master Plan.” The saxophonist went on to become a world-class leader, waxing the East-meets-West-meets-Africa of these two great albums from 1973.

Shirley Scott: Hammond B-3 great Shirley Scott (1934-2002) often played with John Coltrane in the 1950s but rose to fame as part of Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis’s group. Her long string of Impulse albums included these two, among her best, alternating her trio with a big band arranged by Oliver Nelson.

Sonny Rollins: Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins was already one of jazz’s greatest players and composers when he recorded 1965’s On Impulse. Thirteen years later that album’s template, There Will Never Be Another You, caught live several weeks earlier, finally appeared. Here, they’re together at last.

Madonna

2011-06-23T01:20:00.003-04:00
Say what you will about her music - and Lord knows I have said some unpleasant things in my time about the Material Girl (except for my long-standing defense of Who’s That Girl) - Madonna’s influence is unparalleled.

Over the years I have occasionally fallen under Madonna’s spell, though I don’t often care to admit it. I am usually much happier watching her videos than listening to her music – though Ray of Light stands as something on its own and somewhat meaningful for the ages.

Still, watching her videos makes for something that’s intoxicating. Here’s why watching Madonna is often better than just listening to Madonna. Maybe I like to watch. This is why.

“Open Your Heart” (1986) - The video was originally set to be directed by Madonna's then-husband Sean Penn, but in the end the final honors went to Jean-Baptiste Mondino, who went on to work with Madonna on other videos including the Visconti-inspired "Justify My Love" (1990). Shot in Echo Park, California, the video features a beautiful boy named Felix Howard.

“Like A Prayer” (1989) – I know this better from the notorious and briefly aired Pepsi commercial (a big deal in its day), directed by Pittsburgh born Joe Pytka, who also directed several Michael Jackson videos. This wonderfully conceived video, though, is directed by Mary Lambert, who initially made a name for herself directing Madonna videos (“”Like A Virgin,” “La Ilsa Bonita” etc.), and is probably best known as the director of the Pet Semetary films (the second of which features Edward Furlong). The song features the Andraé Crouch Choir and Madonna's longtime backing vocalist Niki Haris and the video spotlights actor Leon Robinson as the Jesus character.

“Express Yourself” (1989) – Despite accolades to the contrary, this song (which is hardly revolutionary) certainly inspired Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” The incredible video was directed by David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac, The Social Network and the forthcoming The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and obviously inspired by Fritz Lang’s magnificent Metropolis. Madonna herself claims to have had a hand in every part of the creation of this video and mentioned jokingly in a 1990 BBC interview that the main theme of the video and the cat metaphor represents that "Pussy rules the world."

“Ray of Light” (1998) – No words need apply, except maybe “beautiful.” The Koyaanisqatsi-like video is directed by videographer Jonas Åkerlund (Spun, Horsemen).

Lalo Schifrin

2011-06-21T00:19:00.000-04:00
A very happy 79th birthday to Lalo Schifrin, one of the greatest composers jazz and film has ever known, a damned fine pianist and truly one of the nicest people you could ever want to meet.

Born June 21, 1932, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Lalo Schifrin’s resume would be impossible to list here (check out my discography for that). But there are so many high points, including Dizzy Gillespie’s historic Gillespiana, Jimmy Smith’s award-winning The Cat and Paul Horn’s award-winning Jazz Suite on the Mass TextsCool Hand Luke, Bullitt, Dirty Harry and Enter the Dragon and iconic themes to TV’s “Mission: Impossible” and “Mannix.”

Lalo Schifrin continues a tireless pace of composing, recording, touring and conducting, having recently released Invocations , the seventh in his remarkable series of “Jazz Meets the Symphony” recordings and the 45th release on his own Aleph label, scoring the hit Rush Hour films, video games such as Splinter Cell and composing the score for the upcoming James Caan film Sweetwater (interestingly, one of Schifrin’s earliest assignments was scoring the 1964 “Memo From Purgatory” episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour starring Caan in one of his first roles).

By way of a tribute, here are some of my favorite Lalo Schifrin moments, gleaned from what I could find on YouTube (YT). Happy birthday, Lalo Schifrin!

“Theme From Joy House” – Jimmy Smith from The Cat (Verve, 1964):

“Egg Eating Contest” from Cool Hand Luke (Dot, 1967):

“Jim on the Move” from Mission: Impossible (1968):

Bullitt (1968) main titles sequence:

“Look Up” from The President’s Analyst (1968):

“La Columna” from Che! (1969):

“Dirty Harry” from Dirty Harry (Aleph, 1971) – I would have preferred to find the main titles sequence on YT, but this gets most of the good stuff:

“Latin Slide” from La Clave (Verve, 1972) – also featured in a different recording as a source cue from the 1971 film Pretty Maids All In A Row:

“Sampans” from Enter the Dragon (Warner Bros., 1973):

“Black Widow” from Black Widow (CTI, 1976):

Nicola Conte "Love & Revolution"

2011-06-20T15:52:00.001-04:00
For more than a decade now Nicola Conte has scored brilliantly as a DJ, promoter, producer, compiler and recording artist. From his earliest recording, 2000’s still remarkable Jet Sounds (also issued in the US as Bossa Per Due), Conte has also displayed a retro appreciation for the lounge appeal of bossa nova combined with a soulful groove informed by his love of all things jazz. He even waxed a record for the vaunted Blue Note label in between regular forays on the Italian Schema imprint where he made his name.

That love has deepened over the years to prominently spotlight things in the spiritual realm of what some folks call improvised creative music. Indeed, the Japanese branch of Universal Music commissioned Conte to compile Spiritual Swingers (EmArcy, 2010 – also issued in Europe), focusing on the “deep, afrocentric, modal jazz from Universal Music Archives.” That set is a terrific mix of diverse features from Abbey Lincoln, Ahmad Jamal, Dorothy Ashby, Yusef Lateef, Roy Haynes, Mark Murphy, Klaus Weiss and others that lives up to its grandstanding title and Conte’s abiding love for this sort of thing.

Conte’s Rituals (Schema, 2008) unveiled this nearly heavenly sound kaleidoscope in shades that were a little too primary and sounds that were frankly just a bit too obvious and ultimately annoying. So expectations for Nicola Conte’s Impulse (!) debut were on the low side.

But while Universal Music seemed to repay Conte for Spiritual Swingers, the result, Love & Revolution, returns the favor by giving the label – celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and releasing an average of one new record a year these days – with an album that lives up to Impulse’s storied heritage.

With Love & Revolution, it’s fair to say that Conte, a guitarist who almost never dominates and a musician that often doesn’t even participate, comes into his own as a composer and conceptualist. It’s a mature work that is more cohesive, satisfying and unique than just about anything Conte has attempted before. A hippy dippy vibe prevails here, as suggested by the retro cover graphics, recalling some of the Impulse work of Dave Mackay and Vicky Hamilton, whose “Here” is heard here. But that’s more a superficial catch-all than what this music is all about.

As before, the tendency toward songs with singers prevails here and, as usual, Conte surrounds himself with a variety of young singers who give his music just the right touch of silky soul including José James (“Love From The Sun,” “Here,” Mal Waldron’s “Temple of Far East” set to Conte’s words), Gregory Porter (“Do You Feel Like I Do,” Jackie McLean’s “Ghana” set to Conte’s words), Melanie Charles (“Mystery of Love,” “Love and Revolution,” Cal Massey’s “Quiet Dawn,”) and Hungarian vocalist Veronika Harcsa (“I’m the Air”).

The vocalists soak up the ambient nightclub-y vibe of the rhythm section – driven with loving perfection by drummer Teppo Makynen throughout – and several prominent soloists enhance the jazzy groove of the whole thing like tenor saxist Tim Warfield (“Love From The Sun”), trumpeter Till Brönner (gorgeous on “Here,” “Temple of Far East”) and even Conte himself (briefly on “Mystery of You,” “Shiva”).

Swedish reed player/arranger Magnus Lindgren, who solos nicely on “Do You Feel Like I Do,” “Scarborough Fair” and “Love and Revolution,” provides the subtle sketches that punctuate each track with a warm glow of northern soul and a white heat of those orchestras of yore.

Conte doesn’t play on every track. But when he does, his guitar compatibly fuels the fluidity of the rhythm section and provides an appropriate undertone to propel the other players to some notable work as evidenced particularly on “Scarborough Fair,” “Quiet Dawn” and “I’m the Air.” Like Quincy Jones, Nicola Conte is particularly adept at attracting and assembling a worldly group of musicians from a variety of different backgrounds to pontificate perfectly in their own manner in the leader’s given medium.

Of especial note here are Conte’s “Black Spirits,” with Nailah Porter on vocals and Logan Richardson on alto sax; “Shiva,” with Melanie Charles on vocals and Logan Richardson on alto sax; the dancefloor-ready instrumental “Bantu,” featuring Magnus Lindgren on flute; the sadly too-short “All Praises to Allah,” featuring on Magnus Lindgren on reeds and Logan Richardson on alto sax; and “Ra In Egypt,” with Gaetano Partifilo on alto sax and Flavio Boltro on trumpet.

Apparently, while Love & Revolution has not had an official US release (and one doesn’t appear to be scheduled), several versions of the disc are available. There is the single-disc European version with the white-sky cover featuring 15 tracks. The Japanese version of the CD adds two bonus tracks, Max Roach and Oscar Brown Jr.’s “Freedom Day,” featuring Tim Warfield, Fabrizio Bosso and Pietro Lussu, and Horace Tapscott’s excellent “The Black Apostles,” featuring Logan Richardson, Nicholas Folmer and Pietro Lussu.

There is also a European version of Love & Revolution with the pink-sky cover (pictured above) that features a second disc with the Japanese bonus tracks plus Dave Brubeck’s “Autumn in our Town,” with Veronika Harcsa and Fabrizio Bosso; “Here (alt. version),” with Alice Ricciardi on vocals in place of José James; “The Happiness Tree,” with Veronika Harcsa on vocals and Pietro Lussu lustrous on piano; and Charles Lloyd’s semi-standard “Forest Flower,” with Tim Warfield on tenor sax and Flavio Boltro, a song first heard on a 1964 Chico Hamilton album released on Impulse.

Needless to say, this is the one to get. The added tracks only enhance what is already a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

A vinyl copy of Love & Revolution is supposedly forthcoming too.

Celebrating CTI Records 40th Anniversary – Part 4

2011-06-19T22:16:00.006-04:00
Masterworks Jazz continues the 40th anniversary celebration of the great CTI Records with another four newly re-mastered discs including George Benson’s Body Talk, Hubert Laws’s In the Beginning, Freddie Hubbard’s Straight Life, and Stanley Turrentine’s Don’t Mess with Mister T.

Originally produced by Creed Taylor and in most cases recorded by the legendary Rudy Van Gelder, the Masterworks Jazz series is supervised beautifully by Richard Seidel and masterfully re-engineered by Mark Wilder and Maria Triana.

As before, the reissues are packaged in thin flat matte gatefold sleeves that replicate the original LP gatefolds CTI is known for. Unfortunately, though, the flat finish of the covers doesn’t do justice to Pete Turner’s phenomenal cover photos and the sleeves will got lost on many CD shelves and hold up poorly to repeated usage.

Still, it’s the music that matters and CTI represents some of the best jazz recorded during the early half of the 1970s.

Straight Life - Freddie Hubbard: Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard’s second CTI album is one of his very best. Coming on the heels of the classic Red Clay, a tough act to follow, no doubt, Straight Life more than compensates with two long blowing tunes and a sublime ballad performance that ranks as one of the best in the trumpeter’s entire discography. It is a landmark of 70’s jazz and one that Billboard aptly enthused perfectly “bridges the gap of modern and traditional styles,” adding that “Hubbard’s trumpet is exquisite and all of the other musicians complement each other to great extremes.”

Few better – or more – words can explain what makes a great jazz album great.

Originally released in January 1971, Straight Life confirms not only that CTI was on the right track (Hubbard’s record was the label’s 12th LP release) but, more importantly, that Creed Taylor was a force to be reckoned with in shaping the ideal of what jazz could achieve during the 1970s. But good as the music and the musicianship might be, the record was hard to program into bite-size radio formats and, in the end, it probably didn’t perform as well for Hubbard or the label as it ought to have.

Straight Life reunites much of the team responsible for the solid music of Red Clay, including saxophonist Joe Henderson (first heard with Hubbard on the trumpeter’s 1965 album Blue Spirits), keyboard player Herbie Hancock (who featured Hubbard on many of his early solo records, including his 1963 debut Takin’ Off) and ubiquitous bassist extraordinaire Ron Carter, adding guitarist George Benson and percussionist Richard “Pablo” (Richie) Landrum to the mix. Jack DeJohnette replaces Red Clay’s Lenny White.

It’s a dream-team of heavy-hitting modern players to be sure. But it’s interesting to note that Hubbard, Henderson, Hancock, Carter and DeJohnette had earlier contributed to Hancock’s 1966 Blow Up soundtrack and Hubbard would later re-group with Henderson, Benson, Carter, DeJohnette and fellow CTI alum Hubert Laws for the trumpeter’s lovely “To Her Ladyship” from 1978’s Super Blue.

Up first is Freddie Hubbard’s 17-minute jam tune “Straight Life,” with Hancock comping gloriously on Fender Rhodes and Jack DeJohnette firing rapidly on all pistons, more like a rock drummer than a jazz drummer, but definitely a part of the song’s frenetic action. Landrum must have had to work overtime to keep up. The song is almost like a funked-up bossa. Henderson solos magnificently in a trademark style that mixes the power and fury with the passion and fire of his unappreciated and undervalued Milestone albums of the period. Henderson’s solo nearly decimates Hubbard’s own solo – nothing shabby, but hardly matching the intensity of the song’s other performers. Hancock then solos in the funky melodic style he established on Fat Albert’s Rotunda (no spacey interludes here), followed by Benson providing an almost intellectual interjection that still has the warm soulful passion that seems to suggest the composer wanted to alternate Henderson and Hancock’s jazzier interludes with Hubbard’s and Benson’s soulful passages. A percussion workout ensues to bring it all back home.

Weldon Irvine (1943-2002) joins the cast on tambourine (!) and contributes the memorable “Mr. Clean,” a perfect vehicle for Hubbard’s fiery horn antics – which are at their very best here – and the band, which crafts a singularly sample-worthy and Hubbard-esque groove, rock this thing out. Hubbard, Henderson, Hancock and Benson all solo beautifully. Irvine would wax the tune again several months later with Richard “Groove” Holmes on the B-3 great’s Comin’ On Home and later on his own 1972 solo debut Liberated Brother. Each version of the tune sounds considerably different than Hubbard’s take, suggesting that Creed Taylor knew precisely how to keep everybody on target and in line. It’s worth noting that one of Irvine’s earliest recordings outside of his stint as Nina Simone’s musical director, is “Can’t Let Her Go” from Freddie Hubbard’s 1968 album High Blues Pressure.

(Given the strength of Weldon Irvine’s additional contributions to the CTI legacy, namely “Sister Sanctified” – later renamed “Funkfathers” without proper credit – and “Introspective,” both from Stanley Turrentine’s 1972 CTI classic, Cherry, it’s surprising the pianist/composer/arranger was never provided an opportunity to work more extensively with CTI, a label that even recorded Nina Simone in the years after Irvine left her employ.)

Straight Life closes out with an extraordinarily lovely performance of “Here’s That Rainy Day,” the 1953 song by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen from the forgotten Broadway musical Carnival in Flanders. Even by 1970, when this version was recorded, the song had become a jazz standard and a favorite among pop singers, particularly Frank Sinatra, who first recorded the song in 1959 and performed it often in concert on his many TV specials. Producer Creed Taylor had also recorded the song on productions for Stan Getz, Kai Winding, Wes Montgomery, Astrud Gilberto and Walter Wanderley, so it’s fair to assume that he too liked the song just as much. In this reading, Hubbard, on flugelhorn, is paired with only guitarist George Benson and bassist Ron Carter for a truly inspired take that warrants classic status. While it’s probably no surprise that “Here’s That Rainy Day” was issued as the album’s single, it’s probably less surprising that this lovely jazz instrumental didn’t turn into a hit when Elton John’s “Your Song” and Santana’s “Black Magic Woman” ruled the airwaves.

For whatever reason, Straight Life is graced by not one but two Pete Turner photographs, a rarity in the CTI discography, as was the trumpeter’s follow-up album First Light. The photographer has no idea why designer Bob Ciano juxtaposed these two photographs. But he clearly approves. The front cover is called “Liberty” (1962), a double exposure. “I went to the Battery and shot [the Statue of Liberty] with a long lens for the small image,” explains Turner. “Then I took the boat to Liberty Island and kept shooting as we got closer and closer. The airplane flying by was just luck.” The back cover, “Parthenon” (1964), was from a series the photographer produced cataloging various wonders of the world, but “not picture-postcard style, more interpretative.” The abstract take on monuments honoring the Roman goddess of freedom (Libertas) and the Greek goddess of wisdom (Athena) has a curiously perfect relationship to the music of Straight Life.

Body Talk - George Benson: This is one of the more unusual and subsequently less predictable albums in guitarist George Benson’s entire catalog, maybe even in the whole of the CTI discography as well. Like the guitarist’s earlier Tell It Like It Is, a one-off coupling of Benson with Mongo Santamaria’s arranger, Marty Sheller, this staged studio presentation pairs the guitarist with the J.B.’s Pee Wee Ellis, one of the more significant architects of the James Brown sound.

Released in September 1973, Body Talk was not only Benson’s third CTI album but also, more interestingly, the first album the guitarist waxed for the label after signing a notoriously “exclusive agreement” with CTI in June of 1973. While the album never allows Benson to sing, as he wanted to do all along (suggesting that he still wasn’t in control of his own career), it is clearly designed to be different, pointing Benson down the instrumental R&B road that the J.B.’s helped forge - though never with the hit success of so many of the era’s one-hit wonders in the pop instrumental field. It’s sort of like Creed Taylor was only willing to let George Benson go so far down the road he wanted to travel.

Pee Wee Ellis is a little-known part of the CTI legacy, having contributed to such Kudu albums by Hank Crawford (Help Me Make It through the Night), Esther Phillips (From A Whisper To A Scream, Alone Again, Naturally, Black-Eyed Blues, Performance, Capricorn Princess) and Johnny Hammond (The Prophet).

Body Talk proved to be Ellis’ only appearance on CTI proper. And while it’s hard to gauge just how much he contributes to Body Talk, it is apparent that there is a headier quotient of soul present here that was nearly absent on so many previous Benson albums. Ellis may have been more inspiring than inspired, but Benson delivers a true jazz guitar classic with Body Talk.

Regardless of how you feel about this album or its material or its significance in the CTI legacy, it really is chock full of Benson’s terrific guitar playing. There is absolutely no adherence to standards-based formulae or overblown arrangements. Benson plays his ass off. The mood is mostly funky. But it swings like crazy from the very beginning.

From the opening “Dance” and Donny Hathaway’s “When Love Has Grown” (originally heard on the 1972 album Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway, an album that also featured CTI covers in Grover Washington, Jr.’s “Where Is The Love” and Hubert Laws’ “Come Ye Disconsolate”) to “Top of the World,” Benson’s fantastic original that closes out the original LP, Body Talk is a superb showcase for Benson’s beautiful guitarisms.

A recent addition to the band is second guitarist Earl Klugh, who had a brief appearance as a teenager on Benson’s previous White Rabbit and gets a solo here on “When Love Has Grown.” Klugh left Benson’s band shortly hereafter to start his own solo career and was replaced by Phil Upchurch. Benson and Klugh’s next recording together didn’t come until their 1987 duo disc Collaboration.

Bassist Ron Carter returns, of course, alternating duties with the truly underrated electric bassist Gary King (1947-2003) – in one of his earliest recorded outings – while Benson and Carter’s fellow CTI all-star Jack DeJohnette again mans the drums for the last time on a CTI date with the guitarist (the two would reunite for the last time together on Freddie Hubbard’s 1978 album Super Blue).

A horn section featuring Jon Faddis, (former J.B.’s) Waymon Reed, Dick Griffin and Frank Foster (all rather surprising for a CTI session and most of whom were drawn from the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band of the time) is sporadically added for the Benson originals “Plum,” “Body Talk” (a faster and funkier take on “Tequila” – a song producer Creed Taylor scored a hit with in Wes Montgomery’s 1966 cover, also featuring bassist Ron Carter) and the superb “Top of The World,” without a doubt this album’s finest moment and surely one of CTI’s hidden jewels.

Pianist Harold Mabern makes his second of two CTI appearances on Body Talk (his only other appearance is on Stanley Turrentine’s Don’t Mess With Mister T., recorded the month before) to almost no fanfare whatsoever. Surprisingly, it’s also the only time Benson and Mabern have been recorded together. Surely there must be a story there.

Mabern, who now mans the chair in tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander’s elegant quartet, deserved better than he got here. He’s never afforded any solos and on Fender Rhodes, he sounds nearly anonymous in the background, lacking any of the bluesy ambition he displays otherwise with signature force on the acoustic piano. My guess is he was probably chosen here for his presence in Wes Montgomery’s mid-sixties band that went scandalously unrecorded by Creed Taylor when the late guitarist was recording his hit albums for Verve.

Body Talk isn’t one of CTI’s most memorable outings. But it offers some of guitarist George Benson’s best “guitar magic” and most inspired playing on record and a chance to hear him strut his stuff on the especially inspired “Top of the World.”

Pete Turner’s striking cover photo led Billboard to proclaim that “(t)he cover in red and black will stop customers. If you like windows and walls, this jacket is for you.” It is a marvelously presented image, a photograph Turner calls “Barn Door,” originally taken in 1966. “It was shot in Scandinavia and it was just as red as this. The hook on the back cover is actually right near the door, but Bob Ciano decided to extend the wall forever and the hook ended up left of the fold.”

Don’t Mess With Mister T. – Stanley Turrentine: Don’t Mess With Mister T. is the last of the studio albums tenor sax great Stanley Turrentine recorded for CTI Records between 1970 and 1973 and unquestionably one of the saxophonist’s - and the label’s - most satisfying outings. Indeed this album and Turrentine’s first CTI album, Sugar, rank not only among Stanley Turrentine’s best recordings in his multi-faceted career, but also among his most popular and the two that lent him the nicknames that stuck with him throughout the remainder of his career (“The Sugar Man” and “Mister T”).

Helmed with beautiful fortitude by arranger/pianist Bob James, Don’t Mess With Mister T. is a joy from start to finish, offering Stanley Turrentine’s sensual horn playing on some bluesy, after-hours grooves that showcase his sound and style to, ah, a “T.”

Originally released in September 1973, Don’t Mess With Mister T. was a success from the very start. This may have been the label’s greatest crossover success, gaining black audiences that Miles Davis was trying (but not succeeding) to court at the time.

No doubt it had something to do with Alen MacWeeney’s memorable mack daddy cover shot of Turrentine in Black Godfather mode peering over his shoulder in what appears to be a Cadillac Eldorado (the pimpmobile of choice back in the day) and the saxophonist’s flawless performance of the title tune, best known from its appearance in a popular Blaxploitation film of the time.

Marvin Gaye’s tremendous “Don’t Mess With Mister T.” comes, of course, from the first-rate soundtrack to the now forgotten film Trouble Man, which yielded another superb CTI cover (also arranged by Bob James) by Grover Washington, Jr. on Soul Box. Turrentine takes charge of the song, playing it with the heart and soul that suggests it was written just for him.

Bob James gives the song a relaxed feel that is perfect for Turrentine’s easy-going but unquestionable command of things. Buffered by James on piano and electric piano, Richard Tee on organ, Ron Carter on bass, Idris Muhammad (who replaced Billy Cobham) on drums and an absolutely perfectly deployed horn and string section, Turrentine offers up a sumptuous celebration of jazz and soul, melding it together with a heated precision that could melt butter or warm honey to overflowing. James takes a terrific solo on piano here that ranks among his best on record to this point, but everybody coalesces into a terrific climax of musical ecstasy that made it the signature theme it ultimately became (Turrentine recorded the song again for his 1995 album T Time).

Turrentine offers up two of his own originals, the spunky “Two For T,” adding Harold Mabern on electric piano and Eric Gale on guitar, and “Too Blue,” with Mabern, Gale and percussionist Rubens Bassini. In addition to showcasing Turrentine in his element, “Two For T” features spots for Mabern, Carter and Muhammad while “Too Blue” offers solos for Gale and James, again on piano. James wisely does away with the horn and string accoutrements on these numbers (though “Too Blue” finds the horns making a quick appearance) and just lets Turrentine and company take care of business.

“I Could Never Repay Your Love” offers up one of the saxophonist’s signature gospel performances, something too few of his records ever did (check out “I Told Jesus” for Turrentine’s previous bow to the church). The song was originally one of the few from the Spinners’ eponymous 1973 album that didn’t turn into a hit. That album yielded hits out of “I’ll Be Around,” “Could It Be I’m Falling In Love,” “One of a Kind (Love Affair)” and “Ghetto Child.” Turrentine is impassioned and beautiful here, set alight by James’ lovely strings and horns, and touching, yet fiery solos from Eric Gale and Richard Tee.

The original program totals only about 30 minutes. But even though more music from these sessions was left off the record, it’s worth pointing out that while vinyl in those days could accommodate considerably more music, Creed Taylor consciously kept CTI albums around a half hour long, or fifteen minutes a side, to maintain the big, clear sound he developed in the studio with engineer Rudy Van Gelder. Like digital files of today, the more you compressed music on vinyl, the less aural clarity it had. That’s why CTI records sounded better than so many jazz records of the day.

The first time that Don’t Mess With Mister T. was issued domestically on CD in 1988, it included Stanley Turrentine’s first recording of the Michel Legrand song “Pieces of Dreams” from these sessions as a bonus track. The memorable song from the not-so-memorable 1971 film had already been covered by such singers as Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan and Rita Reys, but this was one of the first jazz recordings of the tune. It was obviously a song that the saxophonist felt strongly about. But producer Creed Taylor didn’t quite agree, so the song was left off the original album. This decision probably prompted Turrentine to seek more autonomy (and considerably more money) at Fantasy Records when his CTI contract expired.

Stanley Turrentine recorded the song anew in a silkier, smoother (and ultimately less satisfying) arrangement by Barry White’s arranger, Gene Page, as the title track to his Fantasy debut album, issued in October 1974.

The song became a radio hit and Creed Taylor hurriedly released the 1973 recording of the tune on The Sugar Man, a hodge-podge compilation of outtakes and unreleased tunes, in February 1975. Even though the Bob James arrangement of the song is the stronger of the two performances, the Fantasy version had already become a hit and it was that version that most people listened to and, more importantly, bought. The CTI version was pretty much ignored.

The song found its way onto CD as part of the first domestic digital issue of Don’t Mess With Mister T. in 1988 (as well as several compilations and the 2003 European edition of the CD, which matches the 2011 CD’s programming), but in an altered mix that differed from The Sugar Man version by adding Richard Tee’s organ pronouncements throughout. Producer Richard Seidel was not aware of The Sugar Man mix of “Pieces of Dreams” until it was too late – so the “other” mix of the song is heard here again.

Still, back on Don’t Mess With Mister T., where it belongs, “Pieces of Dreams” reveals one of the few misjudgments Creed Taylor made in his lengthy career and, in hindsight, one of the first cracks in the mighty wall that CTI had built in only a few short years.

While Taylor’s instincts may have evaded him for “Pieces of Dreams,” it was clear that his instincts had been right on for the recording of Don’t Mess With Mister T.. That’s because, as it turns out, the album we’ve known for nearly four decades was not the first recording Turrentine made of the album.

Several months earlier, Turrentine got together with Bob James, Eric Gale, Ron Carter, (the strangely uncredited) Johnny Hammond on organ, who miraculously orchestrates from his particular position, and Billy Cobham (drummer on Turrentine’s previous Salt Song and Cherry) to lay down tracks for the album. Even though this group more or less made up the CTI All Stars of the time, producer Creed Taylor felt the recording just wasn’t working.

Despite the expense involved, Taylor opted to do nothing with the recordings until a more suitable recording situation presented itself. Three of the tracks recorded at these sessions finally showed up on the 2003 European CD release of Don’t Mess With Mister T., including a completely inferior take of the title song (thoroughly justifying Taylor’s initial decision), Billy Cobham’s “Mississippi City Strut” and Bob James’ “Harlem Dawn.”

Each track in itself is spectacular, especially given the fact that its leader is no longer with us and every note he blew is worth savoring. But given the terrific nature of the final album that was Don’t Mess With Mister T., it’s audibly obvious why the producer thought the music, while perfectly serviceable and exceeding the qualities of most jazz fusion being made elsewhere at the time, was certainly not up to the CTI standard, a bar that was raised with each successive album at this point in the label’s history.

Indeed, Don’t Mess With Mister T. raised the bar for Stanley Turrentine, and provided a measure that the saxophonist probably didn’t equal or better at any point after this in his career. It’s a classic that sits high among the classics Stanley Turrentine waxed and one of the great CTI titles of all time.

In The Beginning –Hubert Laws: The title to flautist Hubert Laws’s 1974 CTI album, In The Beginning references one of the very few overtly biblical titles in the CTI canon (the title of Joe Farrell’s Upon This Rock, recorded shortly hereafter, references Matthew 16:18). This particular title derives from Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Indeed, Genesis is the Hebrew word for “in the beginning.”

As Genesis 1:1 goes, “(i)n the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Curiously, several years later – after the flautist left CTI for the more prosperous climes of Columbia – CTI reissued this double album as two individual sets, both bearing the title Then There Was Light, a title alluding to another chapter of Genesis, ( 1:3): “(a)nd God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And then there was light.”

On the other hand, all this bible talk is little more than speculative and may just be nothing more than a case of wrong-headed thinking. After all, the album’s title derives from the little-known Clare Fischer composition that kicks off what was originally one of CTI’s very few double albums. It’s unlikely that Fischer came to the session with an unnamed tune or any religious intentions, therefore allowing the producer to fit it into some unlikely biblical schema he may have had.

The West Coast-based Fischer had never before – or since – had anything to do with CTI, which makes his appearance on two tracks here unusual, to say the least. Producer Creed Taylor had worked with Fischer on some of Cal Tjader’s earliest Verve recordings from the early 1960s, when Fischer was part of Tjader’s working group, and Hubert Laws had only ever worked with the keyboardist / composer / arranger as part of the flautist’s childhood chums, The Jazz Crusaders’ great 1965 album Chile Con Soul.

But, in all fairness, In the Beginning is a slightly odd album all the way around. It’s the flautist’s sixth of eight albums as a leader for CTI and while it continues Morning Star’s near perfect blend of jazz, classics and gospel – with an emphasis more on the swinging side of jazz than previously heard on Laws’s earlier CTI efforts - something substantial is amiss here.

Surely, the musicianship is of the highest caliber.

But is it the double-album length which provides more of the leader than we want to hear? The double album format was certainly extravagant at the time, and probably more than the label should have attempted. But Creed Taylor probably wanted to reward the flautist, one of the original CTI all-stars, for staying with the label when other stars like Freddie Hubbard and Stanley Turrentine had left and at a time when another CTI all-star, guitarist George Benson – who earned Taylor’s wrath with the left-handed nickname of George “Bad” Benson – was striving to do things more his own way.

Is it the audibly weird sound design, particularly notable on the muffled drums and stifled acoustic piano heard throughout, that engineer Rudy Van Gelder came up with for the CTI label during this time? Despite some magnificent playing over a questionably aesthetic program of tunes, In The Beginning audibly reveals its studio origins and sounds as if it was concocted in separate rooms at separate times.

The sound is simply incompatible with the performances, featuring CTI regulars Bob James on keyboards, Gene Bertoncini on guitar, Ron Carter (who fares best of all) on bass, Steve Gadd (in one of his earliest CTI appearances) on drums, Airto on percussion, Dave Friedman on vibes and a minimal use of only a few strings and horn players.

Is it the fact that Hubert Laws took over arranging duties from Don Sebesky on the majority of proceedings heard here (Bob James arranges “Gymnopedie #1” and Clare Fischer arranges his own “In the Beginning”) and the overall effect becomes far less noteworthy than before?

Is it Hubert Laws plying his considerable talent on an occasionally electrified flute overtop some otherwise straight jazz numbers that make it sound more forced or phony? He still plays magnificently. It’s just that an electric flute just doesn’t sound that good when you’re trying to play jazz straight.

Is it the awkward programming? Hubert Laws has previously shown how easily he can adapt his playing style to jazz, souped-up classics, composed works, R&B, even funk – without any disparity in his delivery. Not so here.

Who knows. It may be a little bit of all of the above. My guess is that as ambitious as it is, In the Beginning is neither any listener’s first, second or third favorite choice of Hubert Laws on CTI nor would many consider this album to rank among the top five or ten of the flautist’s all-time best recordings.

In the Beginning is probably best appreciated in small doses.

Things get off to a rousing enough start with Clare Fischer’s interesting, though not interesting enough title track. As presented, it sort of reminds me of the sort of synthesized jazz-fusion composer/keyboardist Kendall Schmidt dialed in over top of the 1970 AIP horror film Scream and Scream Again in the 1980s for the video market.

That’s a compliment, actually. But even though neither Laws nor Fischer had much more use for the tune (Fischer recorded the tune again in 1980 for Bill Perkins’s Many Ways To Go) there are quite a few nicely-hued moments present here, even if it sounds as if it does not belong on a CTI record.

Composer and pianist Harold Blanchard (1930-2010) contributes the album’s lovely “Restoration,” a perfectly complimentary mix of jazz ideas with vaguely classical structures. It is one of the album’s highlights and a gem that features strikingly superb solos from Bob James on piano, Gene Bertoncini on guitar and an especially inspired (electrified) flute solo by Laws himself.

Dave Friedman, Ron Carter and Steve Gadd add their special individuality here too, making the song something of a treasure. A deeply religious man, Blanchard later provided Laws with his neo-classical composition “New Earth Sonata,” recorded in 1983 with Quincy Jones for the CBS Masterworks label, though it’s probably worth pointing out that this “Restoration” is not the same “Restoration” Bob James composed later for his own 1990 album Grand Piano Canyon.

“Come Ye Disconsolate” is a traditional gospel hymn that finds the leader overdubbing flute parts to make an especially nice performance, aided by Richard Tee’s rather backgrounded organ embellishments. The song probably derives from the version heard on Robert Flack and Donny Hathaway’s 1972 eponymous album, an album Laws himself appears on (not this song though). It’s another one of the album’s better moments.

Another of the album’s highlights is Rodgers Grant’s “Reconciliation,” an effective feature for the flautist, the composer (on electric piano) and bassist Ron Carter. Grant and Laws met while both were part of Mongo Santamaria’s band. The two worked often together throughout the ‘60s, even working together on guitarist George Benson’s CTI album Tell It Like It Is, arranged by Mongo Santamaria’s musical director, Marty Sheller. Grant also provided Laws with the title track to the flautist’s previous CTI studio album, Morning Star.

This listener can do without the album’s better-known tunes, including the unbelievably over-considered Satie number, “Gymnopedie #1,” Sonny Rollins’s “Airegin” (originally from a 1954 Miles Davis recording featuring the composer), delivered here as a duet here for drums and piccolo, and the surprisingly perfect progression into John Coltrane’s 1957 classic “Moment’s Notice,” featuring brother Ronnie Laws’s brief tenor solo and James’s electric piano statement.

The album’s closer, Laws’s own Latinate “Mean Lene” (first heard on the flautist’s second album Flute By-Laws from 1966), features Laws, brother Ronnie and Bob James, with a feature for the bassist, drummer and Airto on percussion. But, again, it sounds out of place in this context and another victim of unusually poor programming for a CTI release.

Even when the albums were separated into two individual discs, this music didn’t work particularly well. While all of it sounds good on its own, the songs deserved more of a unified style or theme and less of the K-Tel jazz approach. Maybe producer Creed Taylor was too busy at this point with his other duties at CTI.

But In the Beginning, despite the preponderance of good, nee very good, music present here – and I hope my text makes it plain there is quite a bit of nice music to be heard – is one of the most laxly programmed CTI sets in the label’s entire history. It may not hold up as one of CTI’s best. But it is a worthy display of Hubert Laws’s many prodigious talents.

Pete Turner’s stunning cover photograph is called “Twins,” a photo shot in 1967 for Look magazine during the annual agricultural fair in Mount Hagen in New Guinea. Lit by daylight against a dark background, the photo was shot so that only the remarkable colors on the faces stand out and appear to float. “Twins” is also used as the cover image on Pete Turner’s 1987 book Photographs.

Lee Jones "Songs From The 13th Hour"

2011-06-15T22:51:00.003-04:00
This enjoyable and engaging album, guitarist Lee Jones’s second as a leader, aims to throw some much-needed wrinkles in to the smoothness of so much contemporary jazz. That’s not really newsworthy, of course. But hardly anyone thus far has succeeded in doing it as successfully as this.
While so many of today’s new breed of jazz guitarists are either trying to forge their uniqueness into some been-there-done-that formula or regurgitate the sound or style of a guitar hero of the past (sigh), Lee Jones strives to take jazz guitar back to a place of creativity and invention it held before its mellifluous tones landed it square in the quiet storm.
What makes this work especially well is that Lee Jones has a real knack for writing a good tune. Surprisingly, and refreshingly, his program is made up of mostly originals. It’s a risky gambit, but Jones pulls it off nicely without plying the same old worn-out standards or overplayed jazz classics.
The set kicks off nicely with “The Spin,” recalling the good old days when jazz could be funky and riff based yet still have something interesting to say. “Iconic” furthers Jones’ feel for a funk tune, balancing some exceptional guitarisms over some unnecessarily programmed percussion, while the soulful “Feelin’ the Same Way” recalls the high-stepping “stuff” of Eric Gale and Cornell Dupree.
Jones invites several guests to the proceedings, including former Jazz Messenger {{Jean Toussaint}} for the metronomic, medium-tempo title track (the presence of a former Jazz Messenger raises the specter of Jones’s almost Bobby Timmons-like compositional ability). “Game On” welcomes guitar legend {{Larry Coryell}}, another guitarist who can play anything well and with distinction, for a battle royale of dueling guitars. Coryell and Jones are firing on all pistons here, crossing lines of creative fission and Wes-like jazz and pop fusions and suffice it to say, Jones holds his own here.
As a guitarist, Lee Jones more than holds his own throughout. He never overplays his hand or overwhelms a tune, but often inspires noteworthy commentary that elicits the sort of attention that wows, really wows. He struts his stuff admirably on the lovely and Metheny-esque “Western Escape,” one of the album’s real highlights, “Guess Who” and the album’s overdubbed solo stunner “Silhouette.” It’s a joy just listening to him play and these three numbers, which close the disc out, are the best showcases for Lee Jones’s attractive and noteworthy playing.
Even though its title suggests that its later than too late, Songs From the 13th Hour is a beautifully well-crafted set that seems timed perfectly to introduce this young British guitarist to the rest of the world.

Bob James & Howard Paul “Just Friends: The Hamilton Hall Sessions 2011”

2011-06-14T23:27:00.002-04:00
This surprising stroll through the Great American Songbook comes courtesy of pianist and two-time Grammy award winner Bob James and seven-string guitarist Howard Paul. Recorded in early 2011 at Hamilton Hall, overlooking the Savannah River, in Savannah, Georgia, this acoustic pairing of two kindred spirits revels in its warm and engaging format and reveals a mutual love for great melodies and beneficially interactive creativity.

What will surprise many is that the pianist, an avatar of ‘70s fusion and one of the long-reigning lords of smooth jazz (as co-leader of Fourplay), contributes no originals to the program and sticks to acoustic piano throughout. Additionally, it’s likely that he hasn’t played many of the songs heard here since the very beginning of his career, when he was discovered by Quincy Jones and given his first break in the music accompanying Sarah Vaughan (where he spent much of the 1960s).

Savannah native Howard Paul has maintained something of a double life. After years in the military and in business, he has played clubs, campuses and festivals around the world with such guitar greats as Bucky Pizzarelli, Howard Alden (both seven-string players themselves), Joe Beck, Jimmy Bruno and has recorded with such jazzers as flautist Ali Ryerson. He also partnered with renowned guitar maker Bob Benedetto to form Benedetto Guitars, Inc., a jazz guitar manufacturing company based in Savannah, Georgia. In addition, he holds down a Monday Night gig at the Jazz Corner club in Hilton Head, South Carolina, where he has performed regularly since 2003.

The obvious model here are the two piano-guitar duo albums recorded by Bill Evans and Jim Hall some half century ago, Undercurrent (United Artists, 1962) and Intermodulation (Verve, 1966). But, together, Bob James and Howard Paul evince little similarity to the earlier duo aside from the pairing of a pianist and a guitarist.

Despite the fact that both Bill Evans and Jim Hall recorded or performed most every song here except “I Only Have Eyes For You” and “Moon River” (in both cases) as leaders or session players, Just Friends doesn’t replicate any of the Evans/Hall programs. And although the pianist has repeatedly paid loving tribute to Bill Evans, Bob James sounds nothing like Bill Evans. Howard Paul certainly sounds nothing like Jim Hall.

They do, however, sound utterly lovely together.

James has rarely sounded this reflective and enthused. Despite the war-horse status of much of these tunes, the pianist doesn’t sound like he’s beating a dead horse so much as he’s looking to ride them the way that mutually suits the horse and the rider. Here is a musician who in the past has been accused of crafting pretty statements that say nothing, proving that he not only knows his way around a melody but is confident of getting his piano to celebrate a good tune with honor and distinction.

Perhaps that is due to simplifying his inspiration to what has always been his musical muse: a good guitar. This is the first full disc featuring Bob James with only one other instrumentalist and, of course, the instrumentalist had to be a guitarist. As far back as the fusion days, James’s piano was best balanced by a strong guitarist. In those days it was Eric Gale. James later found inspiration – and several albums - in the more acoustic travails of Earl Klugh. Later still, Lee Ritenour, a fellow co-founder of Fourplay, propelled the pianist into interesting territories. This was recently confirmed again on Botero, James’s recent disc with the commanding Asian guitarist Jack Lee.

Guitarist Howard Paul seems to call up a host of influences, mixing a style that recalls the not-too-distant past of Jim Hall and Kenny Burrell (and sometimes Wes Montgomery) marked up with a refreshing twist of contemporary modernity that merely suggests Pat Metheny. If rock and R&B or any of its storied guitarists have ever influenced Howard Paul, he surely doesn’t reveal it in his playing. But that’s not to say he’s old fashioned. Paul is driven by the melody and he’s as much a catalyst for James as he is someone who knows how to charm with guile when it’s his turn in the spotlight - a glow that would be set on the moodiest setting available.

Together, Bob James and Howard Paul make for a superb match. They have crafted their alternating leads perfectly (except on “Moon River,” taken as a particularly gorgeous solo for piano). Neither gets in the other’s way and even the behind-the-solo comping is light and airy. Neither shout their proclamations and both sound genuinely excited to hear what the other will come up with next.

There’s not a dud or a dull moment on the program, though the pair reaches a certain apex toward the middle of the program with the especially enchanting “Out of Nowhere.” It’s interesting to also consider previous recordings Bob James has made of some of these songs, including “Alone Together,” heard on the pianist’s 2001 album Dancing on the Water, “Autumn Leaves,” featuring the pianist on Fender Rhodes for Chet Baker’s 1964 CTI album She Was Too Good To Me, “Georgia on my Mind,” arranged by James for Grover Washington, Jr.’s 1971 Kudu album Inner City Blues, and “Moon River” (which, shockingly, doesn’t even give Henry Mancini credit here), which James performed with Sarah Vaughan on her 1965 album Sarah Vaughan Sings The Mancini Songbook.

Johnny Mandel’s “Emily” and the appropriately included ‘30s era standard “Just Friends” are additional highlights to the bewitching program Bob James and Howard Paul have put together here, one apparently fueled by fine wine and one that nearly demands a good wine to properly enjoy. Just Friends is just like fine wine, smooth yet substantial and full bodied yet flavorful. CD available at cdbaby.

Dave Grusin "Mulholland Falls"

2011-06-05T01:27:00.002-04:00
While Dave Grusin has crafted many a musically memorable soundtrack, highlights of which probably include The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (1968), The Yakuza (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), On Golden Pond (1981) and Tootsie (1982), he is probably a more remarkable and more remarkably unheralded sound colorist, expertly matching music so seamlessly to an image as to be ambient sound.

It’s like a breeze blowing through a room, or the aural aura of unspoken emotion wafting through the celluloid spaces.

The composer, a superb jazz pianist who’s led many a stimulating record outside the world of film, sculpts sounds for film that are so attuned to what’s happening on screen that you barely register it as music. It’s a sort of “musique concrete” with actual musical instruments – often Grusin’s own piano and one or two other carefully chosen sounds – a myriad of motifs, lacking a fully-developed melody which would make something of a tune. But oh how melodic Grusin’s motifs are.

Mr. Grusin’s triumphs in this area are many in his half century of scoring motion pictures, TV films and serials. But those that come most readily to mind are those that are not often celebrated for being Grusin masterworks, if appreciated for any reason at all. These might include Reds (1981), The Goonies (1985), A Dry White Season (1989), The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), Hope Floats (1998), the terrific cable TV film Recount (2008) and 1995’s Mulholland Falls.

Mulholland Falls is a neo-noir film, based on a true story, of a police team known as the “Hat Squad” that was prepared to take the law into its own hands to subvert the rise of gangsters and the criminal element in 1940s-era Los Angeles.

Directed in a percussive style by the riveting director Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors, Die Another Day) with an exceptional cast including Nick Nolte, Melanie Griffith, Chazz Palminteri, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Treat Williams, Jennifer Connelly, John Malkovich and Andrew McCarthy (not to mention cameos by former neo-noir icons Bruce Dern, Rob Lowe, William Petersen and Virginia Madsen), Mulholland Falls probably promised more than it could deliver – whatever that was.

Or, maybe people weren’t ready for a James Ellroy-like take on 40s-era L.A. in 1996. Apparently, they were ready when L.A. Confidential, based on James Ellroy’s novel of the same name, showed up on screens the following year.

In any event, Mulholland Falls proved to be something of a disappointment, at least at the box office. Critics, though, were kinder to the film than audiences. Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times “This is the kind of movie where every note is put in lovingly.” But the talky movie wasn’t filled with the snappy (though often loopy) dialogue of noirs past as much as it was seen through the more psychoanalytical lens of too much contemporary drama. It was probably more reflective than people like their noirs to be. But lots of cool cigarette smoke careens through each scene.

The film’s title derives from the hills high atop L.A.’s famed Mulholland Drive, where criminals and the like were rolled who the “Hat Squad” attempts to warn off. Apparently this sort of intimidation worked – at least until Miranda warnings came into practice in 1966. Then a woman gets murdered who has liaisons with powerful men, one of whom is a married man of the Hat Squad. She even had secret films made of her trysts. Thus signals the beginning of the end of the “Hat Squad.”

The story shares the same sort of exciting combination of L.A. in the ‘40s reality and pulpy Raymond Chandler-esque thriller stuff that made Roman Polanski’s 1974 film Chinatown the classic neo-noir it was. Curiously, Grusin finds inspiration (not imitation) in composer Jerry Goldsmith’s Chinatown score as much as Goldsmith himself repays the compliment to Grusin with L.A. Confidential’s lovely yet understated score (the two composers have crossed paths before, notably on The Man From U.N.C.L.E.).

A soundtrack for Mulholland Falls was issued by the Edel label at the same time as the film, containing 13 tracks, including Aaron Neville’s performance of “Harbor Lights.” Here, Kritzerland – in a release limited to only 1,000 copies – has issued Grusin’s entire score containing 16 suites (often using different titles than found on the Edel release) plus the Aaron Neville track and an alternate version of the “Main Title,” producing a program that totals nearly 52 minutes.

Dave Grusin does not go for the obvious in Mulholland Falls. He provides a positively appropriate musical counterpoint to Tamahori’s percussive direction; one that relies on mood and feeling more than rhythm and action.

There’s no mournful saxophone or wailing trumpet, like the night owl howling at the midnight moon of so many clichéd takes on noirish gestures. Despite utilizing the brazen force of an entire symphony orchestra, Grusin often designs his motifs for several instruments, centering around his piano, a few strings and almost any horn except, for the most part, a trumpet or a sax.

The themes aren’t as immediately accessible as so many of Grusin’s melodic pieces – and more popular scores - are. But wow. Do they have a power that works up a special intensity after repeated listens. I was surprised to read in this CD’s notes that producer Bruce Kimmel considers this to be his favorite Grusin score. “Not only does his music do everything that film music is supposed to do,” writes Kimmel, “but apart from the film it is a great listening experience.”

I agree. Especially now. Although I probably wouldn’t name Mulholland Falls as my favorite Grusin score, I am surprised at how much this wonderful music has enraptured me since acquiring this disc.

The mournful “Main Title” is strikingly sad and foretells the doom that is to come. But it’s not at all sentimental or even mournful. It’s repeated often in various instrumentations, alternated by the slightly more rhythmic secondary theme, first heard as “Drive To Perinos” (then again immediately thereafter in “Drive To Falls” and heard in its best gestation as “End Credits”) and also repeated often.

Grusin displays his absolutely lovely piano prowess on “Max Home Drunk” and in such brief spots as “Max Meets Timms,” “After Phone Call” and the extraordinarily wonderful “End Credits.” The Herrmann-esque approach to “FBI Search/What Happened?” seems spot on too.

Mulholland Falls is a glorious score and kudos to Kritzerland for issuing Grusin’s shimmering achievement in its entirety (and remastered particularly nicely to boot) and for providing the beautiful cover graphic, which more closely resembles the film’s poster than the original Edel soundtrack.

Ray Bryant - R.I.P.

2011-06-04T00:51:00.002-04:00
While the news today has been full of the deaths of Jack "Dr. Death" Kevorkian, 83 (a curiously interesting musician in his own right), and actor James "Matt Dillon" Arness, 88, the great pianist Ray Bryant has also died.

His sound - a mix of joyous jazz and grandstanding gospel - was like no other and is evident on many recordings by Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Golson, Oliver Nelson, Aretha Franklin, Sonny Rollins, Yusef Lateef and others.

Ray Bryant began recording as a leader in 1955, featuring on the popular Meet Betty Carter and Ray Bryant for Epic, scoring a hit with "Little Susie" in 1960, recording a series of successful albums for the Cadet label in the '60s and waxing the monumental solo album, Alone at Montreux, for Atlantic in 1972.

He waxed many great albums for the Sue label (reissued on CD by Collectables) in the '60s and quite a number of notable albums for Atlantic and Black & Blue in the '70s.

Here is the New York Times obituary:

Ray Bryant, Jazz Pianist, Dies at 79
By NATE CHINEN

Ray Bryant, a jazz pianist whose sensitivity and easy authority made him a busy accompanist and a successful solo artist, beginning in the mid-1950s, died on Thursday. He was 79.

His wife of 20 years, Claude Bryant, said he died at New York Hospital Queens after a long illness. He lived in Jackson Heights, Queens.

Mr. Bryant had a firm touch and an unshakable sense of time, notably in his left hand, which he often used to build a bedrock vamp. Even in a bebop setting, he favored the ringing tonalities of the gospel church. And he was sumptuously at home with the blues, as a style and a sensibility but never as an affectation.

All of this contributed to his accomplishment as a solo pianist. His first solo piano album was “Alone With the Blues,” in 1958, and he went on to make a handful of others, including “Alone at Montreux,” “Solo Flight” and “Montreux ’77.” His most recent release, “In the Back Room,” was yet another solo album, recorded live at Rutgers University and released on the Evening Star label in 2008.

Raphael Homer Bryant was born on Dec. 24, 1931, in Philadelphia, and made his name in that city during its considerable postwar jazz boom. Along with his brother, Tommy, a bassist, he played in the house band at the Blue Note Club in Philadelphia, which had a steady flow of major talent dropping in from New York. (Charlie Parker and Miles Davis were among the musicians they played with there.) In short order Mr. Bryant had plenty of prominent sideman work, both with and without his brother.

One early measure of his ascent was the album “Meet Betty Carter and Ray Bryant,” released on Columbia in 1955. It was a splashy introduction for him as well as for Ms. Carter, the imposingly gifted jazz singer. It was soon followed by “The Ray Bryant Trio” (Prestige), an accomplished album that introduced Mr. Bryant’s composition “Blues Changes,” with its distinctive chord progression.

That song would become a staple of the jazz literature, if less of a proven standard than “Cubano Chant,” the sprightly Afro-Cuban fanfare that Mr. Bryant recorded under his own name and in bands led by the drummers Art Blakey, Art Taylor and Jo Jones.

Mr. Bryant had several hit songs early in his solo career, beginning with “Little Susie,” an original blues that he recorded both for the Signature label and for Columbia. In 1960 he reached No. 30 on the Billboard chart with a novelty song called “The Madison Time,” rushed into production to capitalize on a dance craze. (The song has had a durable afterlife, appearing on the soundtrack to the 1988 movie “Hairspray,” and in the recent Broadway musical production.) He later broke into the Top 100 with a cover of Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe,” released just a few months after the original, in 1967.

But Mr. Bryant’s legacy never rested on his chart success or his nimble response to popular trends. It can be discerned throughout his own discography and in some of his work as a sideman, notably with the singers Carmen McRae and Jimmy Rushing, and on albums like Dizzy Gillespie’s “Sonny Side Up,” on Verve. “After Hours,” a track on that album, begins with Mr. Bryant and his brother playing a textbook slow-drag blues.

Along with his wife, Mr. Bryant is survived by a son, Raphael Bryant Jr.; a daughter, Gina; three grandchildren; and two brothers, Leonard and Lynwood. Mr. Bryant’s sister, Vera Eubanks, is the mother of several prominent jazz musicians: Robin Eubanks, a trombonist; Kevin Eubanks, the guitarist and former bandleader on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno”; and Duane Eubanks, a trumpeter.

Album Art: Suburban Abstract

2011-06-01T23:16:00.023-04:00
Somehow abstract art became popular among the American suburban culture of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. For proof, watch any episode of Mad Men, one of the best ways to see – not really know – what the world might have been like for East Coast Americans of a certain age at certain point in history. (Left: Olga Albizu’s “Red”)

While that show is little more than a tiresome soap opera that only occasionally shows how American culture was evolving through the fascinating specter of the advertising industry, its set designs are often spectacular show pieces of period architecture and design that make the show well worth watching for viewers who can stomach pure style over an anemic lack of substance.

And the accents (posters, framed works, art on the walls) are often beautifully abstract, just as I remember it as a kid growing up in the middle-class suburbs of the East Coast during the 1960s.

But this wasn’t the stuff of the post-war abstractionists like Duchamp, Mondrian, Pollock or Rothko. Probably few suburbanites could afford this sort of thing (even then) if they even knew or cared about such art. Instead, there was a blurring of many of these famed styles to create a certain homogenized blend of colors that abstractly suggested generalized feelings and moods. It was easy listening music for your walls.

You didn’t go to galleries to find this stuff. It was available in furniture stores. Or your interior decorator suggested that a certain piece would go divinely with the divan. You also didn’t buy art like this for the artist. In fact, you probably didn’t even know who the artist was. You probably didn’t care. Did this splash of color on the wall make things look better once you and your friends have a few martinis? Perfect.

Despite my mocking ridicule, I have always loved this sort of art. Unfortunately it’s devolved into a lot of the crap you see today in doctor’s offices (silver washes and pink swishes) and the even less likable stuff you can pick up at any Bed, Bath and Beyond.

But like a lot of the easy-listening music I love from this period of time, roughly from 1960 to 1967, I miss this suburban abstract art and the mood it gave to any sort of room. Such artistry also adorned some of the most popular jazz album covers of the day.

Used as a means to attract the suburban shopper (who probably didn’t give two hoots about most music and cared even less for “jazz”), these covers were designed to “look” as good in your living room as they would sound.

Inspired, no doubt, by the success of the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s 1959-63 Time series, which mostly featured abstract covers by some of the art’s biggest names (S. Neil Fujita on Time Out, Joan Miró on Time Further Out, Franz Kline on Countdown - Time in Outer Space and Sam Francis on Time Changes), the covers appeared sophisticated and arty, yet still accessible and became de rigueur for jazz that tried to position itself as, well, sophisticated and arty, yet still accessible.

The music, like the covers, is undeniably pretty. But remarkably, the bulk of this music is superbly timeless; having stood the test of time with a notable strength that most faddish music has not. It’s as strong and meaningful today as it was when it first appeared.

The same is true of the covers too.

Three artists in particular produced some of the strongest work in this field: Mel Cheren, Olga Albizu and William Shuler. Their work appeared during a brief span of time in jazz between when album covers were either one-color artist photos or four-color cheesecake shots and when jazz went all “hippie relevant” with psychedelic design and flowery typography.

A sampling of this work is seen below. Curiously, though, only one of these artists was a painter by trade. It won’t be difficult to determine which one made painting – and this particular style – their life’s work.

But it’s disappointing and a wee bit surprising that this form of art isn’t more widely known, more popularly received or more enduringly attractive to more people. While there have been a few (a very few) CD covers that parody or honor this sort of artistic presentation, there is very little regard – even among some of the hipper and more knowledgeable designers working today – for what I lovingly refer to as the suburban abstract album cover.

Mel Cheren

Considered the Godfather of Disco, Mel Cheren (1932-2007) started as a production executive at ABC Paramount, where he helmed popular productions by many including the Mamas and the Papas. He also painted a few beautiful covers for the Impulse label in the mid ‘60s. Cheren went on to invent the 12-inch single, mastermind dance remixes and pioneer instrumental b-sides while at Scepter Records, before launching the highly successful disco label West End Records, notable for Karen Young’s “Hot Shot” and some of the most sampled disco in musical history. He also launched Greenwich Village’s famed club, the Paradise Garage, featuring famed DJ Larry Levan, before becoming a gay-rights advocate, activist, philanthropist and hotelier. Cheren continued painting up until he died, adorning the walls of his Chelsea bed and breakfast with his evocative work.

Fire Music - Archie Shepp (Impulse, 1965)

Latin Shadows - Shirley Scott (Impulse, 1965) - This has long been one of my favorite album covers. I even carried a small picture of it in my wallet for many years. It contains the perfect passion for the album it adorns.

East Broadway Run Down - Sonny Rollins (Impulse, 1967)

Urban Blues - John Lee Hooker (Bluesway, 1967)

Olga Albizu

The art of Puerto Rican born Olga Albizu (1925-2005) is heavily influenced by other abstractionists but is absolutely unique in its truly dynamic ability to “take the surrounding reality and translate it into chromatic energy and rhythms.” This made her the ideal portraitist for many of Verve’s inspired, influential and successful fusions of jazz and the Brazilian-born bossa nova. She studied in Puerto Rico, New York City, California, Paris and Florence, but settled in New York in 1953, where she contributed to quite a number of notable records during the 1960s. Her work is attractively lively and thoroughly distinctive and, despite many showings and awards during her lifetime, deserves to be far better known among the general public than it is today. (As an aside, I think Ms. Albizu designed many more classical album covers I’d like to know more about.)

Blackwood: Symphony No. 1/Haieff: Symphony No. 2 - Boston Symphony/Munch (RCA, 1959)

Jazz Samba - Stan Getz/Charlie Byrd (Verve, 1962): This album is credited with starting the historic bossa nova movement in American popular music. It also bears one of the most evocative and elegant covers to grace such a debut: warm and passionate, stylish and sophisticated.

Gloomy Sunday and Other Bright Moments - The Bob Brookmeyer Orchestra (Verve, 1962)

Big Band Bossa Nova - Stan Getz – Arranged and Conducted by Gary McFarland (Verve, 1962): Another long-time favorite, again highlighting the orchestrations of Gary McFarland.

Jazz Samba Encore! - Stan Getz & Luiz Bonfa (Verve, 1963): Another beauty.

Trio 64 - Bill Evans (Verve, 1964)

Getz/Gilberto - Stan Getz/Joao Gilberto featuring Antonio Carlos Jobim (Verve, 1964): Grammy-award winning jazz album, with a beautiful Grammy-nominated cover.

Getz/Gilberto #2 - Stan Getz/Joao Gilberto featuring Antonio Carlos Jobim (Verve, 1965)

Insight - The Rod Levitt Orchestra (RCA, 1965)

William Shuler

According to a 1959 Billboard article, Bill Shuler was comptroller at the Audio Fidelity label when one of his paintings won first prize at an exhibition at the Burr Galleries in New York. The Audio Fidelity label was founded in 1954 by Sidney Frey (1920-68) and became famed for producing the first American stereophonic long-playing (“LP”) record in 1957. Frey was also responsible for bringing many Brazil’s greatest musicians to New York for a historic concert at Carnegie Hall in 1962, the first time Americans heard this new sound live, creating a worldwide musical sensation. The label went on to catalog not only many of the bossa nova greats but also many of jazz’s greatest players and surprising hitmakers The Dukes of Dixieland. Bill Shuler, whose cover paintings are often credited to only “Shuler” probably stayed with the label until Frey sold it in 1966. Unfortunately, much of the music Audio Fidelity produced has gone into the black hole of “public domain” and is issued without much regard to its original packaging, presentation or many of its proper credits, including Mr. Shuler’s. As far as Shuler’s paintings, I know only of the two abstractly conceived covers presented here. Please let me know if you have information about any other such album cover – or more about Mr. Shuler.

Just Jazz! - Bill Evans/Wayne Shorter/Freddy (sic) Hubbard/Curtis Fuller/Ron Carter – Arranged and Conducted by Benny Golson (Audio Fidelity, 1965): Read more about this here.

Jazz Tempo – Latin Accents - Sonny Simmons/Prince Lasha/Clifford Jordan/The Bossa Tres (Audio Fidelity, 1965): Long a secret pleasure in my record collection, I initially picked this album because of the names and the glorious cover. It was also a dollar. I have loved listening to this album over the years (the parts without the well-known American horn players are available on the great Ubiquity CD Bossa Três). And I love looking at it just as much.

Jamie Ruben "Groove-O-Ly-O-Scene"

2011-06-01T13:07:00.002-04:00
The musical path of Canadian guitarist Jamie Ruben is surely the story of the road less traveled. Rather than gigging regularly in some urban jazz hotbed, the Toronto-based guitarist made his living for seven years performing jazz full time in the Far East in such places as Katmandu, Bangkok, Shanghai and the even more remote regions of Siem Reap and Koh Samui, among others.

Taking the musical sounds of the West over to the Far East ensured that much of the music of those cultures surely entered into the guitarist’s way of thinking. He undoubtedly refined his technique and returned to Canada a much different player than when he left.

Subsequently, Jamie Ruben’s solo debut, Groove-O-Ly-O-Scene, is a unique and attractive presentation of guitar artistry in a jazz context. The title’s a bit deceptive, though, as it’s really not the funk fest that the word “groove” suggests. It’s not the esoteric new-age pabulum or smooth-jazz hokum the disc’s “Holistic Jazz Tonic” epigram describes either.

This is methodical, contemplative music driven by an affecting, often hypnotic beat. The best of Ruben’s originals (“Albino Bison,” “Bangkok 504,” the radio friendly “Pai Crowd” and “Monsieur Slidey”) are structured like elegantly simple sketchpads designed for reflection. The guitarist rises to the occasion, reflecting similarly to the more spiritual players of the 1970s. Imagine what Carlos Santana might sound like had he ever made an ECM album.

Ruben is a patient practitioner whose poetic tones caress the canvas. Rarely does his guitar shout out what he wants to say. The guitarist evinces traces of Steely Dan-era Larry Carlton, John Abercrombie and other players who made their mark in multiple genres in those years before the guitarist was even born. But he isn’t locked into one setting, or even what could be called his own sound. His signature comes from the way he articulates his ideas, which alternates between the urban after-hours feel of “AQ Giraffe” or the slightly ironic Americana of “Monsieur Slidey.”

The groove, such as it, isn’t as funky as it is impressionistic, like the country-flavored music Bill Frisell has favored in recent years. It’s the guitar equivalent to the moody and melodic melancholy of Manu Katché’s recent discs. Ruben’s music has a cinematic folk quality to it. It’s simple, understated and freed from any easy definition of jazz: songs for wide open spaces. Refreshingly, no one here fills up the spaces with too many notes in florid displays of virtuosity.

Rubin is accompanied throughout by trumpeter William Sperandei (except “AQ Giraffe”), recalling a front-line not entirely dissimilar to the one Ron Miles made with Bill Frisell a few years back, and a rhythm section consisting of the occasional keyboards of Dafyyd Hughes, bassist Steve Zsirai and drummer Ryan Granville-Martin, all of whom sound as if their backgrounds are outside of traditional jazz circles, a rather welcome state of affairs.

Groove-O-Ly-O-Scene is a welcome fusion of sounds that suggests guitarist Jamie Ruben has much to say that’s worth hearing.

Wilbert Longmire

2011-05-30T23:44:00.011-04:00
Cincinnati based guitarist Wilbert Longmire has long had a curious career as a legend throughout northern Ohio and as an occasional headliner on national albums, paired with some of jazz’s greatest names.

Born in Mobile, Alabama, Wilbert moved with his parents to Cincinnati when he was only three. He started off as a violinist in his school’s orchestra, studying and performing classical music until he discovered the guitar. He played a little while, learning the songs he wanted, and put the guitar aside.

Longmire picked up the guitar again when he was invited to join a musical group called The Students, which was featured at the Motown Revue. By this point, the entirely self-taught guitarist was hooked. He joined organist Hank Marr’s band in 1963, recording several albums and singles with this combo that also featured the nationally-renowned saxophone of Rusty Bryant (1929-91), who like Marr, was a Columbus native.

The guitarist came to more widespread attention as part of Trudy Pitts’s band, notably on the Philadelphia-based organist’s earliest Prestige albums A Bucketful of Soul and The Excitement of Trudy Pitts. Jetting off to the West Coast, Longmire then contributed to Jean-Luc Ponty’s first American recording, Electric Connection (arranged and conducted by Gerald Wilson) and “Scorpio Rising,” probably from the same session, on Wilson’s own Eternal Equinox.

It was during this period that Wilbert Longmire waxed his first recording as a leader, Revolution (World Pacific, 1969), arranged and conducted by The Jazz Crusaders’s Joe Sample and featuring a host of L.A.’s first-call session players (and Houston native Leon Spencer Jr.) giving a soul-jazz spin to pop classics of the day by Simon & Garfunkel, The Beatles and James Brown.

The record garnered a little radio play at the time, but sadly little attention. In the intervening years, it has since become something of a crate-digger’s wet dream, containing enough funk to qualify as an acid jazz classic and enough feeling to land smartly in that land now known as classic Northern Soul.

Defeated, Longmire went back to Ohio, and wasn’t heard again until he appeared on fellow Ohio resident and former Hank Marr bandmate Rusty Bryant’s best Prestige album, Fire Eater (1971), which also saw the Hammond B-3 seat alternated between Leon Spencer, who had appeared on Revolution, and Bill Mason. Longmire also features on Mason’s 1972 Eastbound album, Gettin’ Off, delivering an especially excellent solo on “Mister Jay.”

Several years later, Wilbert Longmire recorded his second solo album, This Side of Heaven (J&M, 1976), featuring the guitarist in a quartet minimally highlighted by a few string instruments. Leon Spencer again features on keyboards. But Longmire excels on this little-known and barely-distributed album. If anything, This Side of Heaven displays the tremendous influence George Benson has over Longmire as not only a guitarist and composer, but also as a singer and a performer.

Indeed, Benson had long been friends with Longmire and it is the fellow guitarist who is responsible for the national attention Wilbert Longmire finally received in 1978. George Benson, who had already found worldwide fame with the hit “This Masquerade” and jazz’s first million-selling album, Breezin’, was recording a solo for Maynard Ferguson's 1977 album Conquistador, when the album’s producer and arranger, Bob James, had discussed setting up his own label, Tappan Zee Records. Benson suggested that James consider Wilbert Longmire for the label.

“Wilbert Longmire was recommended to us by George Benson,” said Bob James at the time. “And we’re very glad we took George’s advice and signed him. Because when we went into the studio for the first time we discovered that not only is he a great guitarist, he also has a fantastic voice.”

Wilbert Longmire waxed three records for the Tappan Zee label, Sunny Side Up (1978), Champagne (1979) and With All My Love (1980). Each of the three albums features the greatest players from the New York studio scene of the ‘70s including the Brecker Brothers, David Sanborn, Eric Gale, Steve Khan, Richard Tee and others, in settings conceived by Tappan Zee’s artistic brain-trust, Bob James and Jay Chattaway.

Bob James is involved in all three albums as a composer (specifically “Diane’s Dilemma” and “Ragtown” from Champagne and "Take Your Time (From Taxi)” from With All My Love), performer/soloist, producer and arranger. So it’s a sure bet that if you like the pianist’s Tappan Zee albums from this period (Touchdown, Lucky Seven, etc.), you will surely want to complete your Bobography with these Wilbert Longmire albums.

While Sunny Side Up has been issued on CD several times in the UK and Japan, neither Champagne nor With All My Love has ever appeared anywhere on CD – before now. The British Expansion label, purveyors of lost soul from the ‘70s and ‘80s, has finally issued Wilbert Longmire’s entire Tappan Zee output on two separate CDs, one disc combining Champagne with With All My Love and another disc solely featuring Sunny Side Up.

Sunny Side Up has never been one of my favorites. But it’s sort of become an acid-jazz classic, especially favored by DJs. Billboard didn’t know what to make of the album either, correctly concluding that the guitarist – best served in small-group formats – was buried under horn sections, electric keyboards and vocal choirs. Still, there are good moments that revel more in the “Tappan Zee” sound at the expense of Wilbert Longmire’s especial artistry. Such highlights include the sensational “Black Is The Color” (arranged and adapted by Bob James, also featuring David Sanborn) and Wilbert Longmire’s own “Starflight.”

Champagne is one of the best non-Bob James albums ever issued on Tappan Zee. The material here feels more compatible to Longmire than either the previous Sunny Side Up (1978) or the overtly commercial With All My Love (1980). That is probably due to, first, the consistent presence of a first-tier fusion rhythm section consisting of James on keyboards, Richard Tee on piano (on three tracks), Eric Gale on guitar, Gary King on bass, Harvey Mason or Idris Muhammad on drums and Jimmy Maelen on percussion and, second, a preponderance of Longmire's beautiful guitar playing, even on the vocal piece, "Love's Holiday," and the Benson-like smoothness of "Pleasure Island." Longmire's guitar is the star here and he sounds particularly inspired and utterly unique on his own "Funshine" (recalling those heavy jams he recorded with Rusty Bryant in the early 1970s) and engaged and engaging on "Diane's Dilemma." Champagne, Longmire's fourth album as a leader, is hands down his finest effort and should have made him at least a jazz guitar star. Highlights: Bob James' lightly funky "Diane's Dilemma" and oddly jazzy "Ragtown" (both featuring Michael Brecker), Jay Chattaway's very smooth "Pleasure Island" and Longmire's own funky "Funshine" (featuring a playful horn arrangement by Randy Brecker).

With All My Love goes back and forth for me. Sometimes I appreciate what was developing into a slick smooth-jazz formula. And sometimes it’s infuriatingly trite and cloyingly catchy. Still, there’s a high level of musicianship from all concerned here, even if things start to slip into clockwork anonymity in the process. “Hawkeye,” which surprising recalls some of Gabor Szabo’s music of the period, Jay Chattaway’s pretty “Crystal Clear” (reminiscent of The Brothers Johnson’s “Tomorrow”) and the very Jamesian “Take Your Time (From ‘Taxi’)” are exceedingly worthy. Even Longmire’s spritely melodic “Strawberry Sunset,” which obviously riffs off George Benson’s “Affirmation,” is well worth hearing. The rest is radio fodder, notably “Music Speaks Louder than Words,” which became a minor radio hit back in the day. Interestingly the poppy “Music Speaks Louder Than Words” prefigures The Clarke/Duke Project’s like-minded hit “Sweet Baby” by a full year.

Wilbert Longmire would then pretty much disappear from the national recording scene. Tappan Zee very shortly thereafter stopped recording artists other than Bob James, probably the label’s only money maker. A “best of” compilation album was issued under the guitarist’s name featuring “Black Is The Color” and “Love Why Don’t You Find Us” from Sunny Side Up, “Ragtown,” “Pleasure Island” and “Love’s Holiday” from Chamagne and, of course, “Music Speaks L:ouder Than Words” from With All My Love. To my knowledge, Wilbert Longmire has not recorded another album as a leader since his Tappan Zee records.

Never having left Cincinnati, Wilbert Longmire has remained an active player, gigging at clubs throughout Northern Ohio and occasionally touring outside of the Buckeye state. He reunited with Hank Marr in the mid ’90s, recording several albums with the organist, who passed away in 2004.

But it is the three albums Wilbert Longmire recorded for Tappan Zee in the late ‘70s and finally available on CD some three decades later that remain his most appreciable and enjoyable contribution to music thus far.

Favorite Bond

2011-05-24T21:38:00.014-04:00
I spend a lot of time watching and listening to James Bond, always returning to certain favorites. Despite a series overflowing with interesting music – some of the best of its kind - these are a few of the songs that have always rocked my world.

I have neither a special favorite among all these I’ve identified here, a sort of top ten, if you will, nor did I include everything worth noting. First of all, I don’t have every Bond soundtrack. These are just a few of the titles which I like to hear over and over again, though I confess I generally avoid the film’s main themes as I tend to dislike songs with vocals and the pop-oriented pretensions these songs are usually forced to take on.

That said, a few of the main themes not among those on this list are worthy of making me sit through the often tedious but cool-looking main-titles sequences. These include Nancy Sinatra’s “You Only Live Twice,” Lulu’s “The Man With The Golden Gun,” Duran Duran’s “A View To A Kill” (mostly because it’s my favorite Maurice Binder opening), Tina Turner’s “Goldeneye” and Garbage’s exceptionally good “The World Is Not Enough.”

Just about all of the composers who have contributed scores to the Bond film franchise (the official Bond film franchise that is) have done a good, if not great, job adding to the legacy. The late, great John Barry established a certain tradition for others to uphold and a pinnacle to achieve. But George Martin, Marvin Hamlisch, Bill Conti, Eric Serra and, most notably, David Arnold have given some great music to the series.

Goldfinger - John Barry (1964): Perhaps the James Bond soundtrack, this one includes one of my very favorite Bond themes, the brilliant and all-too brief Kenton-like “Into Miami.” Aside from the exceedingly memorable main theme, Barry contributes any number of imaginative, inventive and exciting cues to this score including “Alpine Drive” (which Barry revived later as the instrumental version of the “Goldfinger” theme), “Auric’s Factory” and “Bond Back In Action” from the original soundtrack LP and “Golden Girl” and “The Laser Beam” from the 2003 expanded CD release.

The only thing missing here that I would have liked to have heard more of (aside from an extended take of “Into Miami”) is the Mexican cantina band’s performance at the El Scorpio Café at the very beginning of the film, where Bond says “at least they won’t be using heroin-flavored bananas to finance revolutions.” Barry’s devilishly delicious soundtrack to Goldfinger was one of the most interesting and innovative scores of its day, nearly single-handedly ushering in the Silver Age of film scoring and raising the bar for every James Bond score that followed.

Thunderball - John Barry (1965): Thunderball may very well be the most elegant and eloquent of all the James Bond scores before or since. Energized from his success with Goldfinger, John Barry gave this score his thunder-all.

Thunderball evinces John Barry’s evolving compositional signature, his natural ability for crafting dramatically compelling long-form statements and, most notably, an individualistic orchestral palette that not only underscores effectively, but perfectly punctuates the action on the screen in ways that few other film composers have ever successfully managed.

Almost everything here is magnificent, and presented in typical suite form: “The Spa,” “Switching the Body,” “The Bomb,” “Café Martinique” (the first half of which is a slow-dance variation of “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”), the gorgeously-scored instrumental “Thunderball,” “Death of Fiona” (another “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” variation, aided ably by King Errisson’s over-the-top percussion) and “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” (the film’s original title and first main theme). From the extended 2003 CD: “Bond Meets Domino/Shark Tank/Lights Out For Paula/For King and Country.”

Diamonds Are Forever - John Barry (1971): The score that ended John Barry’s run as the singular composer for the James Bond franchise and, probably his last great Bond score in the whole series. Barry’s terrific main theme, which he clearly favored himself and had voiced again by Goldsinger Shirley Bassey (who would later sing his Moonraker theme), is a highlight.

Other highlights include “Diamonds are Forever” (Instrumental), the equally lounge-y “Tiffany Case” (also seemingly inspired by fellow British ex-pat George Shearing), the suite “Moon Buggy Ride” and “Bond Smells a Rat.” The extended CD also features a number of goodies including “Peter Franks” (another suite), “Airport Suite/On the Road” and a wonderful suite called “Additional and Alternate Cues.”

Live And Let Die - George Martin (1973): My very first James Bond film. At 10, I was freaked out by the multiple reptiles throughout, American highways filled with nothing but 1973 Chevy Bel Air/Impala/Caprices (all cars with the exact same body style!) and Cadillac pimpmobiles, and the creepy-assed coffins (one that sucked you up and one filled with snakes). But the film has a number of great – near comic – performances and utterly memorable lines (“Names is for tombstones, baby!”) that make it a winner in my book. And there’s some great music too.

The music ranks up there among my very favorite Bond scores, a stylish one that’s not quite the Blaxploitation thing they were aiming for – if that’s the case, why hire George Martin? – and surely funkier than the lovely lounge-core outing that Diamonds Are Forever proved to be. George Martin, better known as producer of The Beatles (who Connery said required earmuffs in Goldfinger) and the first non-John Barry composer to score a Bond film, scored a real winner here.

The highlights: one of the series’ best-ever themes, by Paul McCartney and Wings, “Whisper Who Dares,” “San Monique,” “Fillet of Soul – New Orleans/Live And Let Die (sung by B.J. Arnau)/Fillet of Soul – Harlem,” “Bond Drops In” and “Trespassers Will Be Eaten.” Martin also provides an appropriately provocative “Soul Makossa” take on the “James Bond Theme” theme too.

My favorite theme from the film, though, never made it on the original film soundtrack album. The cue plays when Bond follows a lead to the voodoo shop in Harlem. On the expanded CD of the soundtrack, issued in 2003, the song appears as the third of four cues in the suite titled “Bond To New York” (starting at 1:18 – heard in a brief reprise, starting about a minute into the suite called “New Orleans”). The 2003 CD includes a number of excellent cues from the soundtrack left off the original LP, making it absolutely worth acquiring.

The Spy Who Loved Me - Marvin Hamlisch (1977): “Bond 77,” an excellent disco-fied arrangement of the James Bond theme, “Ride to Atlantis,” the exotic jazz of “Mojave Club” and the Deodato-like “Eastern Lights,” with a great guitar solo that I would have guessed was the work of John Tropea (as the score was recorded in London, it’s probably someone else).

For Your Eyes Only - Bill Conti (1981): Unquestionably my favorite Bond film and undoubtedly my favorite Bond score. For reasons best left unsaid, I ended up seeing this film eight times in the theatre back in the day. The whole experience gave me great comfort at a very lonely time in my life. I still recall that time when I watch this film again and again. But I always enjoy returning to For Your Eyes Only and it is one of my greatest guilty pleasures of all time.

Nearly every track on this soundtrack ranks among my favorites in the Bond Series (Conti’s The Thomas Crown Affair is another favorite) and always takes me pleasantly back to the film, no matter how incorrectly most critics of this score claim the whole thing is disco. It isn’t. The hit theme is quite good too.

My favorites: “A Drive in the Country,” “Take Me Home” (with a beautiful flugelhorn solo by Eddie Blair), “Melina’s Revenge,” “Gonzales Takes A Drive” (both parts, oddly titled, covering Bond’s approach to Gonzales’ villa and his departure/escape), “St. Cyril’s Monastery,” the great chase theme “Runaway,” the instrumental version of “For Your Eyes Only”(featuring a gorgeous flugelhorn solo by Derek Watkins) and “Cortina.”

In 2000, Ryko issued a CD of the soundtrack with seven bonus tracks not previously issued on the LP including the great “Ski…Shoot…Jump.” In 2003, the exact same version of the soundtrack was issued again, along with most of the other Bond soundtracks.

The Living Daylights - John Barry (1987): This is probably one of my least favorite Bond films. The other Timothy Dalton Bond is worse, though. But it showed John Barry, in the very last of his 12 Bond scores, showing an oddly renewed interest in Bond 4.0, with some of his most contemporary effects (in any of his scores) and his stately melodic craft blooming for this newly-recharged series in the full regalia of many years before.

Highlights are few but include “Ice Chase” (a sort of techno update of the Bond theme) and “Hercules Takes Off” (an interesting instrumental version of a-ha’s main theme). Unlike others, I can do without then-trend setters a-ha and the especially regrettable Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders), who’s mugging here on two songs far beyond acceptability; both reasons that make this whole thing nearly unlistenable.

Curious that the film includes a number of classical pieces (always a bad sign, like A View To A Kill) – and Barry himself at the helm of one such performance, as he was for Deadfall (1968) – but the soundtrack includes none of these, all of which, sadly, far out rank anything in passion or significance on the soundtrack recording.

Tomorrow Never Dies - David Arnold (1997): “Hamburg Break In,” “Hamburg Break Out,” “Back Seat Driver” (much of the best of which isn’t even included in the film) and “the Party,” a down-tempo electronica lounge tune that accompanies Bond as he enters the Carver Media Group building in Hamburg for its global satellite launch party (a tune that doesn’t appear on my copy of the soundtrack - the second version issued, pictured above - for some reason).

Casino Royale - David Arnold (2006): Probably David Arnold’s best and most original and fully-developed score for the entire James Bond series thus far, Casino Royale includes the terrifically energized and exciting “African Rundown” (notably the brief part, about five minutes in, where the chase leads Bond to the embassy, scored by Arnold with some particularly nice acoustic bass accoutrements) and any number of terrific themes that do much to propel the film (one of the best in the entire series) along, including "Blunt Instrument," “Solange” and the lengthy “Miami International.”

Oddly, the Casino Royale soundtrack represents one of the most complete Bond soundtracks ever released and it doesn’t even include Chris Cornell’s hit theme song, “You Know My Name,” which ranks among one of the best of the Bond themes – as does the opening-credits sequence, fortunately lacking in sexy girls (which got the titles designer fired from future Bond assignments!).

Quantum of Solace - David Arnold (2008): Like the film, this score improves the more you take it in. Highlights: “The Inside Man,” “Bond in Haiti,” “Somebody Wants to Kill You” and “Night at the Opera.” Arnold also appropriately revisits some of his Casino Royale themes in the brief “Talamone,” “What’s Keeping You Awake” and “Forgive Yourself” (all scenes with Giancarlo Giannini’s Mathis, who also appeared in the earlier film). The stupid main theme by Jack White and Alicia Keys has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the film or the rest of the score. Makes you wonder why. Then again…

“Love Song” by Elton John

2011-05-21T01:50:00.006-04:00
Bet you’d never guess that the first musician I ever obsessed over – really obsessed over - was Elton John. My earliest memories of Elton include “Crocodile Rock,” “Tiny Dancer,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” and “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” all of which were blasted endlessly over the AM radio channel I listened to back in the day (13-Q, for the record, which I think is now an oldies/easy-listening station still operating in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania).

My first Elton John album was 1974’s Caribou - a gift from Santa - with “The Bitch is Back” and the still brilliant ballad “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.” It set me off on a myriad of Elton John classics - through about 1982, I think - that I thought the world of. Most of them still sound pretty good to me today.

Elton John always featured his marvelous piano on his songs, with a flair for songwriting that quite obviously outranked and outlived many of his rock ‘n’ roll peers. Best of all, Bernie Taupin gave the singer/songwriter some of the most beautiful lyrics I’d ever heard. I even started writing (lame) songs and poetry at the time, inspired by Taupin’s often oblique and wonderful prose.

In 1976, at the height of Elton John’s fame and glamour, the hugely popular artist, riding high on hit after hit (I seem to recall the stupid “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” was his big number at the time), issued a live album called Here And There. The title derives from one side of the record capturing a London show while the flip side caught a New York City show.

One of the best songs on the album was a song that Elton John didn’t even compose, Lesley Duncan’s provocatively beautiful “Love Song.” The song was first recorded by Elton John on his great 1970 album Tumbleweed Connection. It was one of the few covers Elton John ever manned at this point in his career.

Lesley Duncan (1943-2010) had issued quite a number of records (mostly singles) throughout the 1960s and got a lot of airplay on BBC radio, but, sadly, never a great amount of worldwide popularity. Her own version of “Love Song” was issued in 1970 by Columbia records (after she performed the song as part of David Bowie’s group in the late sixties), obviously catching Elton John’s attention.

His Tumbleweed Connection version gives the song a simple (and odd, for Elton John) acoustic guitar backing which is fine and not unlike the composer’s original conception. But in 1974, Elton John invited Lesley Duncan – who went on to sing background vocals on Pink Floyd’s epic Dark Side of the Moon and the Alan Parsons Project’s Eve - to sing background vocals during his 1974 performance at the Royal Festival Hall.

Duncan sings behind Elton on John’s tremendously timeless “Skyline Pigeon” (truly one of my all-time favorite Elton John songs), “Take Me to the Pilot,” several others and her own beautiful “Love Song.” This performance of the song was even issued as a single at the time, which is where it first caught my attention. Unfortunately, it really never got the popular attention it deserved.

This performance is absolutely magnificent – and immeasurably superior to the Tumbleweed Connection version as it is backed by Elton John’s magical Keith Jarrett-like piano and the original composer’s own extraordinarily beautiful background vocals. Elton John’s voice had also matured quite a bit since the 1970 recording to present something here that is far more sincere and remarkably moving.

“Love Song” - which Barry White loved so much he did a stunning cover of his own in 1983 - is a great piece of pop heaven. And this version is one of the best there is. Listen for yourself.

First Impulse: The Creed Taylor Collection 50th Anniversary

2011-05-19T14:13:00.012-04:00
It was 50 years ago this year that ABC Records, having recent success with such pop acts as Paul Anka, Buddy Holly and others, decided to create a specialty label specifically designed for jazz music. One of the company’s most successful producers, Creed Taylor, who had already brought the company a significant modicum of success creating some fairly profitable novelty records and jazz discs – notably Lambert, Hendricks and Ross’s Sing A Song Of Basie, Quincy Jones’s This Is How I Feel About Jazz and Billy Taylor’s My Fair Lady - lobbied hard to take charge of the endeavor.

Taylor was given the green light and ended up forming one of America’s most iconic-ever jazz labels, Impulse Records. He already had strong connections in the jazz world, allowing him to immediately start working with jazz’s greatest artists and some of the art’s emerging talent.

He became intimately involved in formulating the label’s name and identity, resulting in one of the strongest brands that jazz has ever known, before or since. Oddly, Taylor’s first idea was to name the label “Pulse,” to capture the intense rhythmic feel of jazz. But the name was already taken. He then came up with “Impulse,” which reflects the essence of jazz even better.

He and his secretary at the time, Margo Guryan, who later became a songwriter and artist in her own right, conceived the bold orange and black colors as well as the brilliantly conceived logo utilizing a lower-case “i” (the first letter of the label’s name) and inverting the letter to become an exclamation mark (“!”).

Taylor insisted on high-gloss, heavy cardboard, gatefold covers with exceptional four-color photography (coordinated by frequent associate, photographer Pete Turner) – a philosophy he would insist upon again when starting his own CTI Records label in 1970 - and something that no other jazz label was doing at the time. This sort of lavishness was given only to classical records of the period. And this was the sort of importance Creed Taylor insisted was necessary for and not hitherto given to good jazz.

Impulse snagged both Ray Charles and John Coltrane away from Atlantic Records, ensuring a huge amount of credibility for the label and permitting Taylor to pursue pet projects like Kai Winding (he’d had great success with Winding and J.J. Johnson at Bethlehem a few years before) and give relative unknowns like Oliver Nelson a shot.

Charles went onto record for ABC Paramount, heading up his unbelievably popular country and western albums, without returning to Impulse. But Coltrane, of course, went on to wax some of his greatest, most searing and highly searching, music for the Impulse label through his 1967 death. He also acted as a catalyst to bring other jazz leaders like McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane to the label.

After only six productions, Creed Taylor was lured by MGM to head up Verve Records, which had recently been sold to the film and music company by label founder Norman Granz - who curiously went on to produce Coltrane’s European concerts in 1962 with Eric Dolphy that resulted after Creed Taylor waxed Africa/Brass for Impulse.

Taylor left Impulse and his dream of running his own jazz label in order to helm an established jazz legacy that included such greats as Johnny Hodges and Stan Getz, with whom he coordinated the popular introduction of Bossa Nova into the world’s musical vocabulary.

Taylor would achieve huge hits at Verve with Bossa Nova leaders Antonio Carlos Jobim, Luiz Bonfá, João Gilberto, Astrud Gilberto, Walter Wanderley and others as well as jazz hits for Jimmy Smith, Kai Winding, Bill Evans, Gary McFarland and many others before leaving for A&M in 1967 and starting his own CTI label in 1970.

Five months after Taylor’s departure from Impulse, ABC brought in producer Bob Thiele to run things. Thiele (1922-86), a closet jazz fanatic who had earlier recorded jazz greats for his own Signature label, had also produced hits for ABC by Buddy Holly and wife-to-be Theresa Brewer.

It is Bob Thiele who gave Impulse the great diversity and impressive reputation it has to this day, prolifically capturing Coltrane, giving “free jazz” an outlet and one of its only airings on a major label at the time, recording jazz traditionalists like Duke Ellington (and a number of Ellingtonians), Coleman Hawkins, Lionel Hampton, Earl Hines and Pee Wee Russell, organ combos, psychedelic pop-jazz fusions and cutting-edge upstarts that other labels of the day were unwilling to record.

Thiele started several Impulse subsidiary labels (notably BluesWay) but departed in 1969 to run his own Flying Dutchman label and related subsidiaries. The Impulse label drafted several more high profile producers to take over, including Ed Michel and Esmond Edwards. But things pretty much ground to a halt in 1979.

Attempts to revive the label happened in the mid ‘80s by the label’s owners at the time, MCA), then again in the ‘90s by GRP. But Impulse is not what it used to be. There really isn’t an Impulse anymore. Impulse is now merely one of the Verve Music Group’s “imprints” and the occasional CD pops up bearing the Impulse logo, including Alice Coltrane’s swan song, Translinear Light (2004), and José James and Jef Neve’s For All We Know (2010).

Still, the label that crafted so many jazz classics deserves to be celebrated. Fifty years after its initial formation, Impulse should be recognized and appreciated for what it achieved.

This particularly handsome set is a fair introduction to the label, beautifully and thoroughly exploring its origins, but sadly disregarding the entirety of Impulse’s post-Creed Taylor legacy.

First Impulse: The Creed Taylor Collection 50th Anniversary captures the first of the label’s six recordings, namely J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding’s The Great Kai & J.J., Ray Charles’s Genius + Soul = Jazz, Kai Winding’s The Incredible Kai Winding Trombones (never before on US CD), The Gil Evans Orchestra’s Out of the Cool, Oliver Nelson’s Blues And The Abstract Truth (a title mistakenly preceded with “The” in its earliest form and carried through on multiple reissues), The John Coltrane Quartet’s Africa/Brass, the monaural 45 version of Ray Charles’s “One Mint Julep,” previously issued bonus tracks from Gil Evans and John Coltrane and several unessential Coltrane rehearsal takes never before released.

Beautifully packaged, this celebratory set includes four tremendously warm sounding discs (re-mastered from Rudy Van Gelder’s original recordings in 2010 by original producer Creed Taylor, in his first work-for-hire stint in over four decades, with Universal Music’s Kevin Reeves) presented as part of a hardcover book, measuring 10 inches by 10 inches (why not 12 by 12, like an LP?), with 80 pages of text, full-color pictures, reproductions of each album cover and inside gatefold sleeve. The design is gorgeous and the paper stock is just as classy as you would expect a tribute to Impulse Records to be.

Ashley Kahn, author of the less-than-stellar book on the Impulse label, The House That Trane Built (2007) and producer/annotator of the corresponding four-disc label overview The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records (also 2007), provides a particularly well written and worthy label history (and introduction), transcribes commentary and remembrances from Creed Taylor and includes interesting background to the origin of each one of the six albums featured here.

And the music is, simply, to die for. It should surprise no one that at least four of these recordings rank not only as some of the Impulse label’s most historic outings, but flourish as some of the most essential recordings in the entirety of jazz. It’s no coincidence that Creed Taylor, who has produced more than his fair share of immortal jazz classics, helmed all six albums, the only music he made at Impulse. And even though some of the music here might not reach the timeless status of, say, a desert island disc, all of it is lovingly conceived and immaculately delivered.

The First Impulse package matches this distinction, offering a stunning and enduring presentation of audible and packaging artistry.

All tracks were supervised by Creed Taylor and recorded by Rudy Van Gelder, with the exception of John Coltrane’s three never-before released “rehearsal” tunes at the end of Disc 4.

Disc 1 features The Great Kai & J.J. (Impulse A(S)-1) by J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding with the tracks “This Could Be The Start Of Something,” “Georgia On My Mind,” “Blue Monk,” “Judy,” “Alone Together,” “Side By Side,” “I Concentrate On You,” “Moonglow/Theme From ‘Picnic’,” “Trixie,” “Going, Going, Gong!” and The Incredible Kai Winding Trombones (Impulse A(S)-3) by Kai Winding with tracks “Just For A Thrill,” “Speak Low,” “Lil Darlin’,” “Doodlin’,” “Love Walked In,” “Mangos,” “Impulse,” “Black Coffee,” “Bye, Bye, Blackbird,” “Michie (Slow)” and “Michie (Fast).”

[Interestingly, The Incredible Kai Winding Trombones is the only one of the six albums included in the First Impulse set that has never been issued on CD in the US. Guess not everything here is as “legendary” as we’re made to believe. Despite its appearance on a long out-of-print Japanese CD, First Impulse marks the remarkably rare Kai Winding album’s long-awaited and worthy American CD debut.]

Disc 2 features Genius + Soul = Jazz (Impulse A(S)-2) by Ray Charles (with the Count Basie band, arranged by Quincy Jones) with tracks “From The Heart,” “I’ve Got News For You,” “Moanin’,” “Let’s Go,” “One Mint Julep” (Impulse’s first and nearly only hit single), “I’m Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town,” “Stompin’ Room Only,” “Mister C,” “Strike Up The Band,” and “Birth Of The Blues” and Out of the Cool (Impulse (A(S)-4) by The Gil Evans Orchestra with (the great) “La Nevada,” “Where Flamingos Fly,” “Bilbao Song,” “Stratusphunk” and “Sunken Treasure.“

[Curiously, Concord Jazz now owns the rights to Ray Charles’s Genius + Soul = Jazz and has reissued the set several times, pairing this landmark Impulse set (Charles’s only appearance on the label) with instrumentally-oriented sets Charles did later in his career for his own Tangerine label bearing the moniker My Own Kind of Jazz.]

Disc 3 features Blues And The Abstract Truth (Impulse A(S)-5) by the Oliver Nelson Sextet (featuring such stellar talent as Freddie Hubbard, Eric Dolphy, Bill Evans, George Barrow, Paul Chambers and Roy Haynes) with (the immortal) “Stolen Moments,” “Hoe-Down,” “Cascades,” “Yearnin’,” “Butch and Butch” and “Teenie’s Blues” and Africa /Brass (Impulse A(S)-6) by The John Coltrane Quartet (with orchestra arranged by John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner and conducted by Eric Dolphy) with “Africa,” “Greensleeves” and “Blues Minor.”

Disc 4 contains the “extras,” such as they are, including Ray Charles’s “One Mint Julep (mono single version)” – added at producer Creed Taylor’s insistence – Gil Evans’s “Sister Sadie” (which first saw the light of day on a 1978 compilation LP and was included on an American CD version of Out of the Cool issued by GRP in the 1990s), the extra Coltrane tracks from Africa/Brass, which made up a second volume LP in the ‘70s and was included on a double disc Africa/Brass CD issued in the ‘90s (the great “Song Of The Underground Railroad,” “Greensleeves (alternate take),” “The Damned Don’t Cry,” “Africa (first version)” and the Coltrane rehearsal tracks of “Laura,” “Nakatine” and “The Damned Don’t Cry.”

For more detail and to purchase, visit Hip-o Select.com.

Lalo Schifrin “Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You”

2011-05-17T22:52:00.007-04:00
First, a little history. In 1965, Woody Allen’s comedy What’s New Pussycat? became a surprise hit, boasting an all-star cast including Peter Sellers, Peter O’Toole, Romy Schneider, Capuchine, Paula Prentiss and Ursula Andress. Tom Jones’ performance of Burt Bacharach’s title song also became a hit, goofy as it is, becoming even more memorable and enduringly campy than the film itself.

Five years later, for whatever reason, a sequel/remake was released called Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You - a title derived from Hal David’s lyric to “What’s New Pussycat?" - with a decidedly less-than-stellar cast featuring Ian McShane, John Gavin, Severn Darden and Joyce Van Patten and, subsequently, stirring little interest from any of the folks who enjoyed the earlier film, or the audience the film’s producers apparently no longer understood.

With Burt Bacharach otherwise engaged, disinterested or unaffordable, composer Lalo Schifrin was contracted to craft the new Pussycat score. Fresh from his film successes for The Fox (1967), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Bullitt (1968) and well-known TV themes to Mission: Impossible, Mannix and Medical Center, Schifrin must have seemed like a sure thing.

Indeed, Schifrin crafted a terrifically delightful score that offered what producer Lukas Kendall called “a broad palette for musical pastiches—from Italian opera to a comic German march to a Morricone-style spaghetti western anthem.” Schifrin’s score is crafted much like a road movie, taking in musical forms from all over the globe, featuring clever (and comical) reconsiderations of Bacharach’s wacky “What’s New Pussycat?” and even offering a musical punch-line that references the composer’s own famed “Mission: Impossible.”

The mood is light and light-heartedly comic and not terribly dissimilar to what Henry Mancini crafted for Blake Edwards’ The Party (1968). But Schifrin’s score offers a number of delightful pieces that rank among some of his best. Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You rounds out Schifrin’s earliest period of film scoring, which dates roughly from 1964 to 1970, where his deft touch and melodic jazz skills still informed his very best work – regardless of musical or filmic genre.

Nobody reading this now needs to be reminded that Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You was a box-office flop that disappeared quickly and was immediately forgotten. A 16-track album was prepared and at least one single (“Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You” b/w “What’s New Pussycat”) was issued. It’s possible that Henry Shed’s performance of “Groove Into It” was also issued as 45-rpm single, but maybe only as a promotional single - and in very limited quantities (I've never seen a copy of this anywhere). But the film’s lack of success prevented United Artists from issuing an album at the time.

It wasn’t until 2008 that Film Score Monthly included Lalo Schifrin’s entire 59-minute score for Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You - including the 16 tracks scheduled for the LP from the film’s original soundtrack – on its magnificent 12-disc box set The MGM Soundtrack Treasury, a CD set that featured full score soundtracks for 20 MGM films. Unfortunately the expensive set was limited to 1200 copies and very quickly sold out.

Now in 2011, the Spanish Quartet label has properly paired Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You on a two-disc set with the full film score to the earlier What’s New, Pussycat?. But, like the MGM box, this set is limited to only 1000 copies. So if this is something you want, you’d better hurry up and get it while you can.

The less said about What’s New Pussycat?, which also features performances by Dionne Warwick and Manfred Mann, the better. The Quartet set is worth owning for Lalo Schifrin’s terrifically interesting score to the otherwise (best) forgotten film Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You.

Schifrin crafts any number of memorable themes here, including go-go/beat/shake tunes like “The Guru,” “Fred’s Theme” (the instrumental version of “Groove Into It” and the great bossa/Tijuana Brass variation, “Top Down”) and “Flashing Lights;” “Hydro-Therapy” (which recalls the Mannix soundtrack’s “The Edge of Night”); the Asiatic “Oh Perfidy” and “Holes” (also “You Think of Everything” - suggesting what the composer did with Cal Tjader’s “Hot Sake” and his own “A Taste of Bamboo” from Gone With The Wave); the lovely and lounge-y “Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You” (aka “Millie,” “Ornella,” “Sauna Bath,” “Duplication”), the after-hours “Pussycat Source” (which sounds as if it was scored in a manner matching a cue from Krysztof Komeda’s score to Rosemary’s Baby) and the charming “False Fronts.”

The Quartet set presents pretty much the exact same program as the MGM box did, but in a slightly different order. The MGM box presented the music in film order. The Quartet set, helmed by the great Claudio Fuiano, begins by presenting the 16 tracks intended for the LP release, following these tracks with the remainder of the score in mostly filmic order.

However, the Quartet set incorrectly attributes "Holes" as "Hales" (track 34) but does not use the music from this track here. The actual track credited as "Hales" is "What's New Pussycat/Indian Camp" (track 19 from the MGM box, which is also presented as two separate tracks on the Quartet set, tracks 8 and 27).

Also, the track credited as "Avanti/Have Chickens Will Travel/Dirt Road a la Italiana" is "Holes" (track 35). Indeed, "Avanti/Have Chickens Will Travel/Dirt Road a la Italiana" is not heard on the Quartet set. Also "Coffee Break" appears here as "Coffe Break."

It’s worth noting that Lalo Schifrin recorded a version of “Groove Into It” (with lyrics by famed jazz writer and lyricist Gene Lees) in Hollywood a full month before the November 1969 London sessions that resulted in the soundtrack recording of Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You. Musicians featured on this version included Don Randi and Joanne Grauer on keyboards, David Cohen and Dennis Budimer on guitars, Buddy Clark on bass, John Guerin on drums and Alan Estes on percussion. It’s unknown whether this version included a vocalist.

But to my knowledge, this version has never been issued anywhere in any form and is not included on either the MGM box or the new Quartet set.

Still, What’s New Pussycat? is perfectly paired with Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You here and is worth getting for Lalo Schifrin’s score alone. There’s enough here to please fans of Lalo Schifrin’s early film scores, good film music and for film music that’s more memorable than the film it accompanies.

Eric Alexander "Don't Follow The Crowd"

2011-05-13T14:18:00.001-04:00
If jazz today has a brand, then saxophonist Eric Alexander is its standards bearer. He upholds the tradition and champions the cause like no other instrumentalist from the contemporary jazz realm. Two decades and dozens of recordings into his career, Alexander has flourished while the power of many of his peers has faded, disappeared or proved to be nothing more than just imitative exuberance.

Think about it. How many others in the current pool of so-called jazz players can claim to have the distinct sound Eric Alexander possesses—a trait of long-dead jazz pioneers—without dressing the music up in some sort of contrived artifice? Ain't but a few of 'em. And it's especially true among the ranks of Eric Alexander's generation.

Eric Alexander is nothing if not beautifully consistent. He never waves flags or lobs claims about achieving something no one else has like so many others do and he never goes off-topic to prove some sort of benign individualism. He honors the tradition and, more importantly, pays repeated homage to his forbearers, who it seems he's very thankful for and for whom he is audibly appreciative. Still, he comes across as his own man.

He is always surrounded by the usual suspects—in one of his working quartets or as part of One For All—all of whom number among jazz's busiest and most stimulating accompanists.

His programs nearly always feature fairly well-known and tuneful covers—tastefully reconsidered in nearly all cases to sound personalized and timeless, no matter what era the music's from—and hardly ever opens the worn-out fake book of jazz standards and done-to-death Tin Pan Alley trash (the Gentle Ballads series excepted). And his originals all have that solid melodic invention that those old Prestige and Blue Note albums possess.

Part of the reason for that is that the same man who captured many of those jazz classics often records Eric Alexander. The great Rudy Van Gelder provides Eric Alexander with a platform that superbly captures his uniqueness and Eric Alexander repays his legendary recording engineer with music that is thoughtfully considered and passionately delivered.

All of this is to say that Eric Alexander's latest, Don't Follow The Crowd (HighNote, 2011), is more of the same from the tenor saxophonist and, more than most jazz discs that come out these days, is a typically pleasurable experience from start to finish.

Don't Follow The Crowd catches Eric Alexander in his long-running quartet featuring the great Memphis-born pianist Harold Mabern, bassist Nat Reeves (who alternates in this quartet with John Webber) and the ubiquitous drummer Joe Farnsworth. It's this group's follow-up to last year's Revival of the Fittest, and truly a sound to behold. Each member of the quartet is a significant contributor to the overall agenda and each audibly relies on the other to achieve what they do together.

The program is comprised of the usual collection of originals and unpredictable covers. The saxophonist contributes “Nomor Senterbress" and “Remix Blues," considers three film themes ("Charade," “Don't Misunderstand" from Shaft's Big Score and “Cavatina from 'The Deer Hunter'"), covers Michael Jackson's pop classic “She's Out of My Life" and investigates such little-known jazz gems as smooth jazz guitarist Steve Briody's “Footsteps" (originally from his 2006 album Keep on Talkin') and bassist Bill Lee's “Don't Follow the Crowd" (originally from an obscure 1962 Frank Strozier album that featured both the composer and Harold Mabern).

It's yet another well-conceived program that never alludes to the wild disparity of the music's origins. This quartet delivers these tunes as if they (the musicians and the music) are all of a mind and that good music is always good music, regardless of genre or generation.

Unfortunately, pianist Harold Mabern contributes no originals to the program—always a highlight of any Eric Alexander Quartet album. But his keen ear for a good tune, matched only by a keen hand to take a tune somewhere different and exciting, resulted in the inclusion of “Footsteps," “Charade" and “Don't Follow the Crowd" to the program. There's little doubt that Mabern is a significant catalyst in this group's continued success.

It's hard to say that any one Eric Alexander Quartet recording is any better than any other or that this particular one ranks at the top, if it's even possible to construct such a hierarchy. But Don't Follow the Crowd is not only a terrific place to start enjoying jazz giant Eric Alexander but also a tremendous addition to the worthy two-decade long discography this group has contributed to the jazz lexicon.

Cornell Dupree – R.I.P.

2011-05-09T17:56:00.006-04:00
The legendary guitarist Cornell Dupree died on Sunday, May 8, 2011. He was 68 years old. Dupree had earlier been diagnosed with emphysema and was to have had a lung transplant. A benefit concert was held at BB King’s New York City club on March 11 to help raise funds for Dupree’s medical expenses.

Born on December 19, 1942, in Fort Worth, Texas, Dupree was discovered by King Curtis, who brought the young guitarist to New York City, where his meteoric rise began. The guitarist can be heard on King Curtis’s 1963 hit “Soul Serenade.” While still part of the Curtis band, Dupree played alongside Jimi Hendrix and initiated a career as a studio musician, becoming part of Atlantic Records’ house band. This earned Dupree a ten-year tenure with Aretha Franklin, who was one of the label’s superstars at the time. Dupree can be heard on Aretha Franklin’s biggest and best records, notably "Rock Steady."

Dupree contributed to many pop, rock, soul, R&B and jazz sessions during these years, crafting a signature sound along the way that was based on the deep Texas blues he heard growing up. Dupree loved the sounds of T-Bone Walker and Lightning Hopkins, but the syncopated twang in his sound came from an eclectiv assortment of artists from the Lone Star state. “I was inspired by Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson and Wayne Bennett, who I was fortunate enough to hear with Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland,” recalled Dupree. “There are country and western artists I enjoyed, too, like Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb.”

Cornell Dupree’s favorites of his own work reflect this diversity of influence and included “Rainy Night in Georgia” by Brook Benton, Aretha Franklin’s Live at the Fillmore West, King Curtis’s Live at the Fillmore West (featuring Billy Preston, Jerry Jemmott and Bernard Purdie), Donny Hathway’s Live and Esther Phillips’s Kudu hit “From A Whisper To A Scream.”

Around this time, Dupree earned the nickname “Uncle Funky” – which is probably derived from Hank Crawford’s bluesy tribute to the guitarist on the saxophonist’s 1972 Kudu album Help Me Make It Through The Night.

Cornell Dupree launched his solo career in 1974, appropriately on Atlantic Records, with the album Teasin’ (reissued on CD in 2008 by Wounded Bird). But the guitarist was only sporadically captured on record as a soloist, featuring on such albums as Saturday Night Fever (1977), Shadow Dancing (1978), the terrific Coast to Coast (1988), Can’t Get Through (1991), Child’s Play (1993), Bop ‘n’ Blues (1995) and several vinyl sets of guitar riffs designed for sampling. Oddly, much of this music is often repackaged under different titles, making it appear that Dupree’s solo discography is much larger than it really is.

As part of Saturday Night Live’s original house band, Cornell Dupree then became one of the founding members of Stuff in 1975. Fellow members of Stuff included keyboardist Richard Tee (1943-93), guitarist Eric Gale (1938-94), bassist Gordon Edwards and drummers Steve Gadd and Christopher Parker. The group’s first album, Stuff was released in 1976 and became something of a hit, leading the group to play festivals and tour Japan, where the Stuff sound was extremely popular. Stuff waxed three studio albums and several live albums until it more or less disbanded in the early 1980s.

Later in the decade, Cornell Dupree reunited with Richard Tee and Steve Gadd for the drummer’s group The Gadd Gang, recording two studio albums that gave an ‘80s spin to a lot of ‘60s tunes. When the acid jazz craze hit in the early 1990s, Dupree revved up the funk his music hadn’t really had for years and launched into a more committed solo recording career.

By the turn of the century the guitarist formed Cornell Dupree and his Bayou Buddies featuring kindred spirits from the New Orleans scene including bassist George Porter, Jr., drummer Jeffrey “Jellybean” Alexander, keyboardist Marc Adams and saxophonist Brian “Breeze” Cayolle. Then starting in 2006, he formed Cornell Dupree and the Soul Survivors, a ‘supergroup’ highlighting the renowned artistry of pianist Les McCann, baritone saxophonist and fellow Gadd Gang member Ronnie Cuber, bass great Jerry Jemott (who featured with Dupree on many of those Atlantic sides of yore) and drummer Buddy Williams.

I am partial to Cornell Dupree’s work on a wide variety of great records in my collection including Gabor Szabo and Lena Horne’s Lena & Gabor (1969), Eddie Harris’ great Come on Down (1970), Hank Crawford’s It’s A Funky Thing To Do (1971), Les McCann’s brilliant Invitation to Openness (1971), Herbie Mann’s Push, Push (1971, alongside Duanne Allman), Archie Shepp’s Attica Blues (1972), Miles Davis's tremendous but oddly loathed "Red China Blues" (from Get Up With It and later The Complete On The Corner Sessions), Stanley Turrentine’s CTI classic Cherry (1972), The Man With The Sad Face (1976), West Side Highway (1977) and Nightwings (1978), David Newman’s Lonely Avenue and The Weapon (both 1972) and Return To The Wide Open Space (1990), Jimmy McGriff’s The Mean Machine (1976) and Carla Bley’s Dinner Music (1977).

There are thousands more. Indeed Dupree himself estimated he participated in over 2,500 recordings. The soulful touch and the loving groove that Cornell Dupree brought to so much music will be sorely missed.

Here's a nice feature from the guitarist on Bernard Purdie's cover of The Dramatics' "Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get" -

And this doosey needs no words:

Gil Evans/Laurent Cugny Big Band Lumiere

2011-05-08T21:00:00.010-04:00
Shortly after graduating college in 1987, I ventured to New York City with the naïve hope of finding a job. It was a miserable time and a memorably awful experience. My hope was to land a job in advertising.

I ended up with a film pass for a great foreign film from a prestigious film distributor based in NYC that couldn’t hire me and an interview for a position selling ad space for some TV or radio station, knowing full well that’s not what I had in mind. I went back home to Pittsburgh and ended up getting a job later in the Washington, DC, area, where I’ve been ever since.

While I was in New York that fall – my third time there, actually – I had one hope outside of scoring a job: to see Gil Evans perform live. It was well known that Evans held court on Monday nights at Australian émigré Horst Liepolt’s Greenwich Village eatery Sweet Basil, and I wanted to witness the aging Evans, who was 75 years old at the time, before he could no longer perform.

I had recently discovered the Gil Evans classic Out of the Cool (through MCA’s then-recent 25th anniversary reissue program, worth noting now that Impulse is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year), delighting time and again in the magnificent “La Nevada,” and, of course, knew the great Miles Davis/Gil Evans classics Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain.

I didn’t really know how different Gil Evans’ music had become all those years later. But I didn’t care. Whatever he was doing, I wanted to hear it.

Sweet Basil was located pretty close to where I was staying, so I walked there one Monday afternoon to find out where the place was located. I found it. But I also saw a handwritten sign in the window saying that Gil Evans was not performing his regular Monday night stints as he was currently “on tour in Europe.” Oh well. Maybe next time.

There was no next time – at least not for me. Gil Evans died on March 20, 1988, only several months later (his 99th birthday falls on May 13).

Shortly thereafter, a CD called Rhythm A Ning, credited to Gil Evans/Laurent Cugny and Big Band Lumiere, was issued on the EmArcy label. As it was a new release by Gil Evans, I immediately picked up on it, having been especially disappointed by the soundtrack albums issued for then recent Gil Evans scores Absolute Beginners and The Color of Money (both of which were little better than pop song collections).

Apparently, this is some of what Evans was up to while in Europe when I wanted to see him in New York. It’s also one of a series of later Gil Evans recordings, including duet discs with singer Helen Merrill and saxophonist Steve Lacy, and surely one of the best. In my view, it’s among the best music that Evans ever recorded under his own name.

Laurent Cugny, a new name to me at the time and one that hasn’t traveled across the ocean much since then, was born in La Garenne-Colombes, France, on April 14, 1955, and studied piano from the age of 10, eventually earning degrees in economics and cinematography. He became famed in French jazz circles for his 1979 creation of the Lumiere big band, but helmed a number of film shorts and wrote much (mostly about jazz) during this time too. Eventually Cugny went on to write biographies of Gil Evans (Las Vegas Tango, 1989) and Miles Davis (Electrique, 1993).

Cugny had long tried to persuade Gil Evans to come to Paris and record with his Lumiere Big Band, but Evans always declined. Citing Cugny’s piano-playing leadership of the orchestra, Evans simply said “you don’t need me.” After a number of changes of heart and unknown misunderstandings, Evans finally called Cugny to say he was ready to commit to the project.

Recorded in Paris on November 2, 3 and 26, 1987, the inspired program features Monk’s “Rhythm-A-Ning” (a frequent part of Evans’s performances since the 1970s) and Cugny’s “Charlie Mingus’s Sound of Love” (modeled after Charles Mingus’s own “Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love”) as well as the magisterially extended takes of Jimi Hendrix’s “Stone Free” (long a feature of Evans’s live performances) and Evans’s own “London” (derived from his “Copenhagen Sight” from the 1980 Public Theatre performances, issued on record with the first recorded example of Evans’s take on “Stone Free” too) and “La Nevada” (originally recorded by Evans on his brilliant 1961 album Out of the Cool and a song which Evans had – surprisingly – not performed in over two decades).

Aside from many nice features for Gil Evans on both acoustic and electric piano, this band has a togetherness that isn’t often heard on the plethora of Evans’ live recordings of the period.

There are so many wonderful solos throughout that it’s worth identifying those who contribute so spectacularly to the agenda: François Chassagnite (“Rhythm-A-Ning,” “Charlie Mingus’s Sound of Love”) and Stéphane Belmondo (“La Nevada”) on trumpet, Andy Sheppard (“Rhythm-A-Ning,” “La Nevada”) and Charles Schneider (“Stone Free”) on tenor sax, Pierre Olivier Govin (“London”) on alto sax, Denis Barbier (“Stone Free”) on flute, Manuel Rocheman (“Charlie Mingus’s Sound of Love”) on piano, Lionel Benhamou (“London”) on guitar, Jean Bardy (“Charlie Mingus’s Sound of Love”) on acoustic bass and Dominque di Piazza (“La Nevada”) on electric bass.

The arrangements on all but “Charlie Mingus’s Sound of Love” are by Evans, though it’s fair to assume that Laurent Cugny probably had a hand in much of the way the performances are shaped, having lovingly transcribed the arrangement for “La Nevada” by listening to Evan’s Impulse recording of the tune. I recall a bunch of critical backlash for this record at the time that I could never understand. Listening to it again all these years later reconfirms my long-held belief in the beautiful originality and creative joy in this music.

Rhythm A Ning is outstanding and while it’s not necessarily the Gil Evans original that Out of the Cool, The Individualism of Gil Evans or even Porgy and Bess or Sketches of Spain could be said to be, it’s a perfectly beautiful celebration of the Gil Evans aesthetic, ranking well above any number of the many live sets that were so much a part of Gil Evans discography in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

And then for no reason lovers of Rhythm A Ning like myself were rewarded in 1989 with Golden Hair, an additional set of performances from the Paris sessions, recorded on November 3 and 26, 1987, and eliciting even more wondrous performances from Evans, Cugny and the Big Band Lumiere.

Golden Hair is not a profiteering set of outtakes and half-baked music passing itself off as a real album. It is an essential companion to Rhythm A Ning, filled with even more of Evans’ trademark jazz ideas and Cugny’s expert oversight.

The program covers Cugny’s “Golden Hair” (a conscious tribute to Miles Davis’s 1970 performance of David Crosby’s beautiful “Gunnivere,”a rendition later given the title “Lady, Like Yours”), Mingus’s “Orange Was The Color Of Her Dress, Then Silk Blues” (sic – a feature of Evans’s performances since the ‘70s), Evans’s “Zee Zee” (first recorded by the composer in 1971 on Where Flamingos Fly, an album that was not issued until 1982, making the 1973 album Svengali, an anagram of Evans’s name, its first recorded appearance), “C Blues” (a “collage of three blues in C by Charlie Parker”), Alan Shorter’s near-brilliant “Parabola” and Mingus’s “Goodbye Porkpie Hat,” which – surprisingly – had only recently entered Evans’s book.

Soloists here include François Chassagnite (“Golden Hair”) and Stéphane Belmondo (“Zee Zee,” “C Blues”) on trumpet, Gilles Salommez (“Orange Was The Color Of Her Dress”) on trombone, Andy Sheppard (“Orange Was The Color Of Her Dress”) on tenor sax, Philippe Sellam (“C Blues”) and the very David Sanborn sounding Bobby Rangell (“Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”) on alto sax, Lionel Benhamou (“Golden Hair,” “C Blues”) on guitar and Dominque di Piazza (“C Blues”) on electric bass.

Admittedly, Golden Hair isn’t the compelling collection that Rhythm A Ning is. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Indeed, the opposite is true. The band is exceedingly strong on Cugny’s “Golden Hair,” the Evans staple “Zee Zee” and the paradoxical “Parabola,” which Evans pulled out of his case moments before the recording of the tune began, resulting in a stunning performance that Cugny indicates is performed somewhat in the style of music inaugurated by Miles Davis’ quintet with Nefertiti.

Of note is that the song’s composer, Alan Shorter (1923-87), is Wayne Shorter’s older brother and while Alan debuted “Parabola” around the same time Nefertiti was recorded, Wayne Shorter was one of the principal players and composers on Nefertiti, an album by frequent Gil Evans associate Miles Davis.

This is superb latter day big-band music, led by one of jazz’s greatest arrangers and peopled by some remarkably good talent with a great love for the music. This is not pleasant rehashes of orchestral hits of yore or the easy-listening fluff that passes for big band jazz today. It is a stirring collection that shows exactly why Gil Evans mattered outside of his more famed – and arguably more composed – recordings, and was among the last of the great composer/arranger/pianist's very last (and by then rare) studio recordings.

The Gil Evans/Laurent Cugny Big Band Lumiere discs make for essential listening.

Sweat Band

2011-05-07T22:00:00.007-04:00
Recently reissued on CD for the first time since 1994 by reissue greats Get On Down, this little-known and barely-remembered album is a 1980 Bootsy Collins/P-Funk joint that deserves far better than it ever got.

Between 1976 and 1979, Bootsy’s Rubber Band was a hugely successful offshoot of the P-Funk mothership, distinguished by equal parts funk (emphasizing Bootsy’s “Space Bass”) and silky soulful balladry.

Despite Collins’ cartoon-y antics and somewhat goofy lyrics, the Rubber Band was often more “musical” than the rest of P-Funk, probably due to the high musicianship Collins himself brought to the endeavor. Very little that could be considered jazz or jazzy came out of it all but the music was tight and much more disciplined than the other P-Funk units, something Mr. Collins no doubt gleaned from his time with James Brown.

The Horny Horns were featured heavily throughout, with Fred Wesley covering the charts and sidekick/emcee Maceo Parker getting a high dose of solo spots. The best stuff out of the Rubber Band showed how well it all worked. Sample “Stretchin’ Out,” “Psychoticbumpschool” and “Another Point of View” from Stretchin’ Out In Bootsy’s Rubber Band; “Ahh…The Name Is Bootsy Baby,” “The Pinocchio Theory,” and “Rubber Duckie” from Ahh…The Name Is Bootsy Baby; “What’s The Name Of This Town,” “Bootzilla” and “Roto-Rooter” from Bootsy? Player of The Year; and “Bootsy Get Live” and “Jam Fan” from This Boot Is Made For Fonk-n.

By 1980, Bootsy spread his wings a bit and launched the Sweat Band, a more instrumental version of the Rubber Band, on George Clinton’s newly-devised CBS subsidiary, Uncle Jam Records. The album opens with the bracing electro-instrumental, “Hyper Space,” nearly disclaiming any similarity to anything in the P-Funk cannon and nothing at all like the Rubber Band. Driven by synth-man and co-writer Joel “Razor Sharp” Johnson and peppered nicely by guitarist Mike Hampton, it almost suggests a European action film theme of the time – a great dance piece, which could work well to highlight action on the silver screen – or just as effectively on the mirror-balled dance floor. This is the kind of thing everyone was hoping Prince would come up with at the time, prefiguring his Madhouse records by more than a few years.

Next follows the dance hit “Freak To Freak,” a good groove that suggests what the next phase of Bootsy’s Rubber Band could have been but never was - groovy guitar, funky bass, electric drums and programmed handclaps. “Freak To Freak”also appears on 6 Degrees of P-Funk: The Best of George Clinton and his Funky Family, a CD compilation of Clinton’s Columbia projects made during the 1980s.

“Love Munch” is a poppy piece of jazz fusion that sits easily alongside anything Spyro Gyra was doing at the time, were it not for Maceo Parker’s gripping and hiccupping sax taking it somewhere stratospheric that’s well worth following. With Bootsy’s aggressive “Space Bass” and all-over-the-map percussion, “Jamaica” is the closest Bootsy and Maceo ever came to successfully melding the J.B’s sound with the P-Funk groove.

The chant “Jamaica – take me to your jungle” paves the way for Bootsy’s Rubber Band’s next stop, a decade later, on the funky career overview, “Jungle Bass” (4th & B’way, 1990). “Body Shop” and “We Do It All Day Long” (heard in brief on what was originally the LP’s first side – now track 4 – as an oddly placed “reprise” before the full version is heard at the end of the LP’s side two, now track 7 on the CD) sound like above average P-Funk grooves left off of other P-Funk albums because they are straight party tunes and not sci-fi concepts or some off-the-wall comical piece. Both are Bootsy conceptions co-written with P-Funk guitarist and vocalist Gary Shider, with the Brides of Funkenstein and Parlet chanting throughout in a typical David Bowie-meets-Fred Flinstone sort of wackiness. Bootsy’s Space Bass drives both pieces along with enormous propulsion, highlighted by some tasty keyboard work that is, sadly, not by Bernie Worrell, who is listed as a contributor here.

Sweat Band ranks high among P-Funk’s 1980 output, which also included Parliament’s regrettable Trombipulation and Bootsy’s inconsequential Ultra Wave, easily making this one of the essential P-Funk albums to own, despite the presence of one of the worst and least P-Funk looking album covers in the entire P-Funk discography (other than the 1983 P-Funk All Stars album Urban Dancefloor Guerrillas).

I get the sweatbands. But, really. The music deserved better than freaky sweatbands - which are more dated than the music. Regardless, the album's rather surprising lack of success ensured that no follow-up has yet been waxed.

“Barabajagal” by Donovan

2011-05-04T22:57:00.005-04:00
The music of Donovan (b. 1946, Glasgow, Scotland) has long remained a perverse and pervasive fascination for me. Like most “flower power” hits of the sixties, “Mellow Yellow” and “Sunshine Superman” are emblazoned upon my musical transom. But whether it’s the dated oddities of either song or the mere fact that we’ve all heard them a zillion times, I never took Donovan too seriously.

Then I heard Gabor Szabo’s frightfully moving cover of Donovan’s “Ferris Wheel” (from the guitarist’s 1968 album Dreams) in the ‘80s and discovered Brian Auger, Julie Driscoll (now Julie Tippets) and The Trinity’s stirringly hypnotic cover of “Season of the Witch” from their 1967 album Open in the ‘90s.

Both tunes originally appeared on Donovan’s 1966 breakout album Sunshine Superman. Szabo also covered this record’s “Sunshine Superman” (as did Les McCann, Lionel Hampton, Lonnie Smith and Eric Kloss) and “Three King Fishers,” both on the guitarist’s 1968 album Bacchanal while plenty of jazzers covered “Mellow Yellow” too, including Young-Holt Unlimited, Odell Brown and the Organ-izers, Tom Scott, Steve Marcus, Herbie Mann and Gary Bartz.

A couple of years and several hits later, Donovan released his utterly original Barabajagal, an album which yielded the hit “Atlantis.” The album’s title track was the first of the album’s hits and first appeared as “Goo Goo Barabajagal (Love is Hot),” a terrific slice of psych-rock, jazz-funk, psych-jazz, funk-rock, whatever you want to call it.

Donovan’s producer Mickie Most (1938-2003), who had huge hits at the time for The Animals, Herman’s Hermits, The Yardbirds, Brenda Lee, Lulu and Nancy Sinatra, heard Donovan’s song and suggested that the Jeff Beck Group (who Most was also producing at the time) back the singer/songwriter on the track, to give it that rock/jazz feel he felt the song needed.

The original single credited the song to both Donovan and Jeff Beck Group and the line-up probably includes Donovan on vocals and guitar, Jeff Beck on electric guitar, (future Rolling Stones bassist) Ron Wood on bass, Nicky Hopkins on keyboards, Tony Newman on drums and Lesley Duncan, Madeline Bell and Suzi Quatro on background vocals (although Rod Stewart was part of the Jeff Beck Group at the time, he is apparently not singing on this track). The song reached number 12 on the UK chars and number 36 on the US charts.

It’s a highly intoxicating groove that hasn’t gotten nearly the attention in jazz that Donovan’s other pop hits received at the time. Japanese drummer Sadakazu Tabata covered it on a 1970 Polydor album (featuring pianist Masahiko Satoh) issued only in Japan. And British bandleader Vic Lewis’s album-length Donovan tribute, Donovan My Way, was actually recorded a year before “Barabajagal” was issued.

While Donovan’s songs are also often tapped for film and TV (“Jennifer Juniper” was heard recently in the hilarious The Simpsons episode “Flaming Moe”), “Barabajagal” is only known to have featured in the 2009 episode of Nip/Tuck called “Ronnie Chase.”

The lyrics are beyond my comprehension, but are worth following along with. Somehow they help bring out the joy in the musical enjoyment of the song:

She came, she came to meet a man, she found an angel.
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was his name now,
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was his name now,
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was his name now.

He very wise in the herbal lores, got your cure now.
She came, she came to free the pain with his wild flower.

Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was his name now,
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was his name now.
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was his name now,
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was his name now.

Fine fine, fine fine Acelandine be prepared for her.
Tea tea, tea tea to make her free while incense burned.

In love pool eyes float feathers after the struggle.
The hopes burst and shot joy all through the mind
Sorrow more distant than a star.
Multi colour run down over your body,
Then the liquid passing all into all
Love is hot truth is molten.

True true, true true the song he sang her while the leaves cooked
Ting ting, ting little bell he rang her, sleepily she looked.
He filled, he filled a leather cup, holding her gaze
She took, she took a little sip while this song he sang:

Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was my name now,
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was my name now.
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was my name now,
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was his name now.

Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was my name now,
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was his name now.
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was my name now,
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was my name now.

Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was his name now,
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was my name now.
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was my name,
Was my name, was my name,
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was my name now.

Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was my name now,
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was my name now.
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was my name now,
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was my name now.

Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal was my name now.
Goo goo, goo goo Barabajagal

Wax Poetics – Issue 46

2011-05-03T23:07:00.003-04:00
The great Wax Poetics has come out with one of its best ever issues with its marvelous 46th.

This issue’s theme is “Jazz’s Mad Men” – presumably tied to guys who came out of the ‘60s when TV’s Mad Men takes place – and has any number of features of interest that nearly all of today’s jazz press avoids completely including features or interviews with the cover’s Georges (Benson and Duke) as well as Billy Cobham, Norman Connors, Tom Browne, Bernard Wright, Don Blackman, Lenny White, Marcus Miller, Weldon Irvine and Phil Cohran. There are even more great articles inside, as there always are with this magazine, on Mainstream Records, Nostalgia 77, Korean funk (with the staggering DJ Soulscape) and remixed Verve for gamers too.

Aside from an unusually increased number of typos and inaccuracies (Creed Taylor signed John Coltrane to Impulse, not Verve as suggested in Seth Cosimini’s fab article “The Big Heat”) and a lack of credit for some of guitarist Andrew Scott’s facts included in the otherwise tremendous profile of guitarist George Benson, this is a superbly informative and thoroughly entertaining issue that opens with editor in chief Andre Torres’ always beautifully-worded foreword.

I would like to quote a part of Andre’s profound introduction here, as it mirrors what a lot of music lovers like myself have thought for some time. Here, he discusses that “renegade period of hip hop” of yore he favors so much turning into something else completely where “many older heads lament the rise of the ‘shiny-suit era’ and accuse Puff of killing ‘real’ hip-hop,” suggesting that folks didn’t want the music to become jazz.

Meaning what exactly?

Well, Torres explains that jazz is “(a) great music that once captivated a generation of listeners in their youth, only to become an antiquated form of art music taught in universities, sanctioned by and made for an elite group – a music that lost touch with the people.”

Torres continues, “In his interview for this issue, Phil Cohran pinpoints just that moment when it happened. What was recreational dance music for even the entire family to enjoy became a spectacle when cats like Bird, Miles, and Dizzy were onstage soloing for fifteen minutes. Which is great – these cats were geniuses – but not everyone can get down like that. But they’ve set a standard that generations of jazz musicians have been forced to live up to, boring countless listeners to death in the process. Yet whenever jazz musicians try to bring the groove back, the institution tells them that it’s not real jazz. And so the music stays stuck in an artistic limbo, plying for the attention of those in the ivory tower who tell them what they can and can’t do.”

Any number of Twitter rants or blog articles could be written in response to this accusation. But Torres’ point is justified. Sadly, too little of jazz merit has been waxed in the last three decades or so. Anyone willing to contest that can only point out personal favorites, almost nothing for the masses or for the ages.

This issue of Wax Poetics tries to show some of those who tried to make a difference in jazz – for better or for worse – no matter what one or two avatars of influence (or fans) think.

An Evening with Dave Grusin

2011-05-01T23:20:00.003-04:00
The music of the great composer, pianist, conductor and arranger Dave Grusin has graced many a jazz album and film/TV soundtrack. And along the way Grusin has scored some particularly notable and memorable music that matter to both genres.

Indeed it’s difficult to delight in either jazz or film this day in age without appreciating a fraction of the great work Dave Grusin has contributed to both factions, if one considers them separately – though I tend to subscribe to Duke Ellington’s comment that there are only two kinds of music, “good music and the other kind.”

All the colors of Dave Grusin are available in myriad rainbows of soundtrack offerings, jazz outings and arranged sessions easily available in one form or another. A number of Grusin tributes to such composers as Gershwin, Ellington and Mancini are as equally easy to track down as are the career retrospectives and “greatest hits” sets that have appeared over the years.

So do we need another Dave Grusin tribute set? Yes. Emphatically, yes. Is An Evening with Dave Grusin the right set? No. Probably not.

“This recording,” says Grusin in the promotional material, “was a great opportunity to revisit some of my previous film work as well as performing music by George Gershwin, and some material from West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein, two giants among American composers. And I’m especially fond of the Henry Mancini songs. Hank was a friend of mind, and a mentor who helped so many of us get into the business of film scoring.”

This performance, recorded live in Miami, Florida, in December 2009, features an exceptionally personalized selection of Grusin’s film music coupled with Grusin’s own selection of film and TV music from Gershwin, Bernstein and Mancini (previously covered in some of Grusin’s studio albums). Surprisingly, none of Grusin’s jazz is even referenced or remotely featured here.

While that’s fine, it’s neither the most obvious nor the most successful menu of tunes out there.

Grusin seasons the occasion with notable guest stars, including the great Patti Austin (who is topically entertaining on “Makin’ Whoopee,” which Grusin first featured in a performance by Michelle Pfeiffer in his Academy Award nominated score to the 1989 film The Fabulous Baker Boys, as well as on a duet with Jon Secada of “Somewhere”), singer Jon Secada (“Maria”), vibraphonist Gary Burton (“Cool,” “Peter Gunn” – the legendary vibes player who recorded many records for Grusin’s GRP label and featured on the pianist’s Gershwin record as well as a couple of GRP All-Star Big Band records), flautist Nester Torres (“I Feel Pretty”), Arturo Sandoval (who, surprisingly, gets no solo feature on the CD) and Monica Mancini (on her father’s famed “Moon River”).

Unfortunately, none of these greats are necessary to prove any of Grusin’s musical points and all serve to show that, well, it’s just an evening and not an event.

Things get off to a perfectly rousing start with the terrifically memorable “Fratelli Chase” from Grusin’s score to the 1985 film The Goonies (a soundtrack which found life briefly on CD last year courtesy of the Varese Sarabande label, but quickly sold out) before getting into the beautifully immortal “On Golden Pond,” coupled with the other predominant theme from Grusin’s 1981 score to the film On Golden Pond, “New Hampshire Hornpipe.”

Here we get a taste of Grusin’s always lovely piano work, which has always had something of a signature stamp on these particular themes. But just for the record, I’m surprised Grusin has never revived his gorgeous “Lake Song” from this soundtrack.

Grusin also delivers a lovely suite of themes from his Academy Award winning score to the 1988 film The Milagro Beanfield War - a suite originally featured on the composer’s great 1989 disc Migration and including the riveting “Milagro” theme (heard from 06:26 to 08:51 in the suite) – as well as the stirring solo-piano blues of “Memphis Stomp” from Grusin’s Oscar-nominated score to the 1993 film The Firm. It’s sort of surprising that Grusin didn’t take the opportunity to orchestrate this particular piece, choosing to deliver it solo as he did on the original soundtrack. But it’s a monster even so.

From here on in, An Evening With Dave Grusin seems to become an evening with almost everybody else as Grusin’s heady personality nearly disappears behind other composers he obviously admires or guest stars that take the spotlight away from him.

The songs showcasing Patti Austin – who sounds wonderful nonetheless - become far too dominated by her commanding presence and “Somewhere,” with Jon Secada is regrettable at best.

Monica Mancini’s appearance on her father’s “Moon River” is a much better feature, as the singer’s lovely voice never detracts as much from father Hank’s original and extraordinarily lush arrangement and Grusin’s particularly nicely-hued piano solo. This is one of the few instances where Grusin’s honorarium is as much a tribute as a reflection of his own signatory flair.

The “Porgy & Bess Medley” – which delves into Gershwin themes outside of “Porgy & Bess” – “Peter Gunn” and “Cool” are beautifully arranged for orchestra (“Cool” was co-arranged by Tom Scott) but almost a little too pretty and, subsequently a bit too anonymous.

Grusin injects a little Sinatra-flavored Gershwin into “Maria,” which works about as well as Jon Secada’s off-beat/off-kilter vocal. In other words, it kind of doesn’t. And Grusin turns Nestor Torres’ feature on “I Feel Pretty” into a pleasing Latinate similar to some of the work Grusin did early in flautist Dave Valentin’s career and while it’s interesting, it just seems out of place here.

Despite the audience’s audible appreciation (the concert is also available on Blu-ray Disc - with additional tracks - and, oddly, as an iPad app) and several appreciable musical turns, An Evening with Dave Grusin just doesn’t add up to the satisfying event a legend such as Dave Grusin deserves or the musical statement it was meant to be.

“Children’s Song” by Roberta Flack

2011-04-27T00:39:00.001-04:00
This song has always been one of my very favorites. “Children’s Song” is a little-known tune from Roberta Flack’s little-known soundtrack to the little-known Richard Pryor/Cicely Tyson film Bustin’ Loose (1981).

This touching film, suggested by a story from Richard Pryor himself, finds ex-con and parole violator Joe Braxton (Pryor) hired by a school teacher, Vivian Perry (Tyson), to drive a group of special-needs kids from the Philadelphia shelter they’re housed in and due to be shut down to Ms. Perry’s Washington farm. Of course, Braxton hates the job and Ms. Perry’s lover tries his best to get Braxton back to prison – and get the kids back to Philadelphia. But Joe and Vivian learn to work together to provide the kids with some sort of hope and a future filled with people who care about them.

It doesn’t sound feasible at all. But the pairing of Richard Pryor and Cicely Tyson is inspired. The two have a remarkable chemistry as polar opposites.

And Roberta Flack provides a particularly dynamic set of songs (composer Mark Davis is credited with providing the film’s score), which found an album release on MCA Records in 1981, the year before Flack scored her huge – and great – movie hit “Making Love” (which was actually written by Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager and Bruce Roberts).

“Children’s Song” is a beautiful piece of the funky Gospel-like ephemera that Roberta Flack is so adept at. The tune is as catchy and simple as are the lyrics:

Open your eyes to your feelings
Show me that you care
Just like the stars in the heavens
God is everywhere

Open your eyes to your feelings
Your heart will let you see
And let me say that I love you
God bless you and me

Participating musicians are unknown, but it’s a good guess that co-writer Barry Miles helms the predominant synthesizer and the great Dom Um Romão mans much of the exciting percussion fills that make this song so fun. Also Tisha Campbell, Judson Dean, Michelle Lewis and Jamie Murphy are on vocals.

Otherwise, the LP credits the following: Roberta Flack (keyboards), Barry Miles (keyboards, synthesizer, marimba, strings), Clark Spangler, Ed Walsh (synthesizer), Marcus Miller (synthesizer, electric bass), Allen Wenta (lyricon), Jeff Mironov, George Wadenius (guitar), Gary King, Dwight Watkins (electric bass), Buddy Williams (drums, percussion), Dom Um Romão, Carol Steele (percussion) and Jay Hoggard (marimba).

There’s plenty of good music on this soundtrack including the poppy “Just When I Needed You,” Luther Vandross’ “You Stopped Loving Me,” Robert Flack’s instrumentals “Qual e Malindrinho” and the funky Prince-like “Rollin’ On” and Marcus Miller’s should-have-been-a-hit “Lovin’ You (Is Such an Easy Thing to Do.)”

But my favorite is and always will be “Children’s Song” (anybody else hear where Prince might have copped "Sign 'o the Times"?).

Peter Herbolzheimer "Soul Puppets"

2011-04-26T16:39:00.004-04:00
The great composer, arranger and trombonist Peter Herbolzheimer (1935-2010) probably ranks as one of Germany’s best-known bandleaders, having helmed not only his popular Rhythm Combination & Brass (RC&B) but leading many big band orchestras on stage, TV and radio.

The RC&B made for a unique sound in the seventies, mixing jazz with fresh rock, funk, Gospel and Latin elements and coming up with a sound that made typical big bands of the day sound old and tired by comparison.

Herbholzheimer staffed the RC&B most uniquely with a brass front line, only one saxophone, electric keyboards, electric bass and lots of percussion and peopled it with an international panoply of jazz greats including Art Farmer, Dusko Goykovich, Ack van Rooyen and Palle Mikkelborg (trumpets), Herb Geller (reeds), Dieter Reith (piano, organ, electric piano), Siegfried Schwab and Philip Catherine (guitar), Peter Trunk and Günter Lenz (bass), Jiggs Whigham, Rudi Fuesers and Otto Bredl (trombones), Tony Inzalaco (drums & percussion) and Horst Mühlbradt (piano & percussion).

The result was an electrifying sound that swung and got down more than most jazz ever has.

While the RC&B is probably Herbolzheimer’s best-known work outside of Germany, the composer/arranger also led many other groups including Certain Lions and Tigers and The Galactic Light Orchestra, the Jazz Gala Big Band Orchestra( featuring such jazz luminaries as Stan Getz, Mark Murphy, Nat Adderley, Gerry Mulligan, Clark Terry, Johnny Griffin, Toots Thielemans and Gary Burton), the traditional big-band sound of the Peter Herbolzheimer Orchestra, Bundesjazzorchester (BuJazzO) and the National Youth Jazz Orchestra as well as leading the WDR, HR and P.O.L.D.I. big bands.

During his prolific RC&B days in the early 1970s, Herbolzheimer and company recorded a number of titles for the German sound library publishers Altaxon and Edition Panther. This music was primarily intended for use as background music in films, television and advertising and was not usually made available to the general public.

Library music thrived in Europe during the 1960s and 1970s (American unions have generally prohibited these sorts of recordings) and some of music’s greatest composers and performers have made much of the music heard in so many backgrounds – usually without any credit of any kind.

Nowadays, “sound library” recordings are plentiful on CD, revealing the authors to be some of music’s heaviest heavyweights, including some from the world of jazz. These musicians probably supplemented their jazz expeditions both financially and artistically by providing this anonymous library music to publishers.

Turns out Peter Herbolzheimer is one of those guys and his RC&B provided the musicianship to many a library track.

Soul Puppets collects 14 of these, previously unknown and never-before officially released library tracks recorded by Peter Herbolzheimer between 1970 and 1975 in Cologne and Munich with the legendary musicians of his exciting Rhythm Combination & Brass.

Library music does not typically identify individual players, but the explosive RC&B signature is much in evidence throughout this disc, surely suggesting the participation of such artists of the magnitude of Herbolzheimer himself as well as Art Farmer, Dieter Reith, Herb Geller, Dusko Goykovich, Ack van Rooyen, Palle Mikkelborg, Siegfried Schwab, Tony Inzalaco, Philip Catherine, Peter Trunk and others.

By definition, library music is designed to either establish/enhance a mood or suggest something by hinting at something more familiar. The familiar is fertile here in the “Mas Que Nada”-like opener “Latin Groove,” the “Spooky”-like “Count Down,” “The ‘In’ Crowd”-like “Botafogo,” (Lee Morgan’s) “The Sidewinder”-like “Groovy Spider” and “The Girl From Ipanema” meets “The Gentle Rain” bossa “Windy Corner” – all groovy riffs that are new enough to merely hint at their well-known cousins.

The predominant mood of Soul Puppets - like so many library-music compilations - is funk and no one injected funk into a big band as expertly as Peter Herbolzheimer did – unless it was another jazz composer who also dabbled in the form, like those jazz players who also wrote film music.

Here, Herbolzheimer seems to pay tribute to some of these idols with musical ideas that derive from the work of Quincy Jones (Horst Mühlbradt’s “Knock Rock”), Dave Grusin (Ingfried Hoffmann’s “Walking Tiger”), Herbie Hancock (Herbolzheimer’s fantastic “Orange Faces”) and Lalo Schifrin (“Smiling Lips” with a beautiful sax solo, presumably from Herb Geller).

The jazz of the day gets a fair hearing too with the classy CTI spin of “Orange Faces,” the Prestige organ groove of “Count Down,” the elegant “Why Is The Sun Never Crying,” which hints at Gil Evans’ 1973 classic Svengali (with a dash of Diamonds Are Forever-era John Barry thrown in for good measure) and the Mainstream-era Blue Mitchell-like funky blues “Hot Spot.”

This particularly well-programmed set is good from start to finish, but several highlights stand out, including “Why Is The Sun Never Crying,” “Walking Tiger,” “Orange Faces” and “Smiling Lips.” These titles alone, while intentionally derivative, merit attention as superb originals and ably withstand scrutiny on their own terms, due mostly to the powerful performance provided by the predictably tight and swinging RC&B. Herbolzheimer’s group injects a solid and creative jazz quotient to keep the music from ever getting as backgrounded or boring as so much of this kind of music often is.

Soul Puppets is an excellent and essential addition to the discography of Peter Herbolzheimer’s Rhythm Combination & Brass discography.

George Shearing “Bossa Nova”

2011-04-25T22:30:00.002-04:00
The Japanese branch of EMI Toshiba has just issued 50 budget-priced CDs as part of its “Jazz 999 Best & More” series, including the tremendous George Shearing Bossa Nova, the late pianist’s lovely 1963 album, his first such experiment in the Brazilian fad that swept the Western world in the early half of the 1960s.

Caught up in the Bossa Nova craze that swept through jazz and popular music in the early 1960s, pianist George Shearing makes – perhaps – the first of his 1960s records that marks itself of its time.

Released in May 1963, George Shearing Bossa Nova finds Shearing’s piano set off rather remarkably by sensitively deployed woodwinds and “Brazilian rhythm,” all arranged to immaculate perfection by the great Clare Fischer, who had already arranged quite a number of Cal Tjader albums as well as several Bossa Nova albums on Pacific Jazz for the great saxophonist Bud Shank, who is surely one of the unnamed reed players heard here.

The well-tempered program mixes such cleverly considered Bossa Nova standards as “One Note Samba,” “Desafinado” and “Manha de Carnaval (Morning of the Carnival)” with jazz standards “On Green Dolphin Street,” “Come Rain or Come Shine” and “Blue Prelude,” done up in a refreshingly Bossa Nova style that sounds entirely compatible with the Latin styles Shearing popularized in the past.

Also included here is Ralph Melendez’s pretty “Nevermore,” bassist on the session Ralph Peña’s “Algo Novo,” Shearing’s “Black Satin” (the title track to his 1957 album), guitarist Laurindo Almeida’s “Amazona’s Legend,” Clare Fischer’s “Samba da Borboleta (Butterfly Samba)” and the now standard “Pensativa,” here in its second recorded performance following its first appearance on a Bud Shank record.

Shearing sounds absolutely at home here, which prompts one to ask why he didn’t further explore either more Bossa Nova music or albums coated in Brazilian rhythms? Perhaps it just wasn’t his bag. Or maybe Capitol didn’t want him to veer too far from the lucratively lush loveliness of the orchestrated Quintet sound.

Guitarist Laurindo Almeida is no doubt another of the unnamed musicians featured here – prominently on “Desafinado,” “Nevermore,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “Algo Novo,” “Black Satin” and his own “Amazona’s Legend” (which has not been recorded elsewhere) – as he is distinctively featured (though mysteriously unnamed) and considered one of the first musicians who introduced Bossa Nova to the United States.

Additionally, Almeida was under contract to Capitol at the time and the company was all about pairing Shearing with Capitol recording artists like Nat King Cole and Nancy Wilson. Almeida had waxed Viva Bossa Nova! for Capitol a few months earlier, an album that also featured “One Note Samba” and “Desafinado” covered on George Shearing Bossa Nova, as well as the April 1963 release of Ole! Bossa Nova! that precedes George Shearing Bossa Nova by one catalog number.

It’s a shame – and a shock! – that the company didn’t see fit to name Laurindo Almeida on the record. This would have made a notable duo record for both the pianist and the guitarist.

The George Shearing Bossa Nova album has been newly re-mastered as part of the limited-edition “Jazz 999 Best & More” series (and sounds spectacularly lovely) from EMI Toshiba, exclusively available in Japan from the Capital, Jubilee, Colpix, United Artists, Pacific Jazz, World Pacific, Roost, Roulette and even Sue (!) archives – most of which is available for the first time on CD and all of which will probably go very fast. Here is what else is available in the series:

●TOCJ 50101 THE CANNONBALL ADDERLEY QUINTET WITH STRINGS / Great Love Themes (1966)
●TOCJ 50102 LAURINDO ALMEIDA / A Man And A Woman (1967)
●TOCJ 50103 LAURINDO ALMEIDA / The Look Of Love (1968)
●TOCJ 50104 KEN HANNA AND HIS ORCHESTRA / Jazz For Dancers (1955)
●TOCJ 50105 THE JONAH JONES QUARTET / Swingin’ on Broadway (1957)
●TOCJ 50106 STAN KENTON / Kenton’s West Side Story (1961)
●TOCJ 50107 JUNIOR MANCE / Straight Ahead! (1964)
●TOCJ 50108 MANHATTAN TRANSFER / Jukin' (1971)
●TOCJ 50109 HOWARD ROBERTS QUARTET / Something’s Cookin’ (1964)
●TOCJ 50110 FRANK ROSOLINO / Kenton Presents Jazz (1954)
●TOCJ 50111 GEORGE SHEARING / Bossa Nova (1962)
●TOCJ 50112 PAUL SMITH / Delicate Jazz (1957)
●TOCJ 50113 SUPERSAX / Supersax Plays Bird With Strings (1973)
●TOCJ 50114 Clark Terry / Coleman Hawkins / Sonny Clark / Eddie Costa Memorial Concert (1962)
●TOCJ 50115 RANDY WESTON / Highlife (1963)
●TOCJ 50116 JOE MORELLO / Collections (1957)
●TOCJ 50117 EDDIE COSTA / VINNIE BURKE / Trio (1956)
●TOCJ 50118 JOE PUMA / Jazz (1957 – with Bill Evans, Eddie Costa, Oscar Pettiford and Paul Motian)
●TOCJ 50119 ETHEL AZAMA / Cool Heat (1960 – with Marty Paich’s Orchestra featuring Art Pepper)
●TOCJ 50120 HOWARD RUMSEY’S LIGHTHOUSE ALL STARS / Double of Nothin’ (1957)
●TOCJ 50121 ROY AYERS / West Coast Vibes (1963 – his debut with Jack Wilson, Curtis Amy and Bill Plummer)
●TOCJ 50122 COUNT BASIE / Basie Meets Bond (1965)
●TOCJ 50123 ART BLAKEY/JAZZ MESSENGERS / 3 Blind Mice (1962)
●TOCJ 50124 DIAHANN CARROLL AND THE ANDRE PREVIN TRIO / Porgy and Bess (1959)
●TOCJ 50125 BENNY GOLSON / Benny Golson & the Philadelphians (1958)
●TOCJ 50126 BILLIE HOLIDAY / Lady Love (1954)
●TOCJ 50127 BOOKER LITTLE / Booker Little 4 & Max Roach (1958)
●TOCJ 50128 PAUL QUINICHETTE / Like Basie! (1959)
●TOCJ 50129 JEROME RICHARDSON / Going to the Movies (1962)
●TOCJ 50130 RANDY WESTON / Live at the Five Spot (1959)
●TOCJ 50131 BOOKER ERVIN / Structurally Sound (1966)
●TOCJ 50132 BOOKER ERVIN / Booker ‘n’ Brass (1967)
●TOCJ 50133 GIL EVANS / New Bottle, Old Wine (1958)
●TOCJ 50134 CLARE FISCHER / First Time Out (1962)
●TOCJ 50135 CLARE FISCHER / Surging Ahead (1963)
●TOCJ 50136 RICHARD “GROOVE” HOLMES / Groove (1961 – his debut, with Ben Webster)
●TOCJ 50137 THE MASTERSOUNDS / The Mastersounds Play Horace Silver (c. 1960)
●TOCJ 50138 LES McCANN & THE JAZZ CRUSADERS / Jazz Waltz (1963)
●TOCJ 50139 THE MODEST JAZZ TRIO / Good Friday Blues (1960 – with Red Mitchell, Jim Hall and Red Kelly)
●TOCJ 50140 THE BUDDY RICH BIG BAND / Mercy, Mercy (1968)
●TOCJ 50141 BUD SHANK / Barefoot Adventure (1961 Soundtrack)
●TOCJ 50142 BUD SHANK/MICHEL LEGRAND / Windmills of Your Mind (1969)
●TOCJ 50143 RAVI SHANKAR / Improvisations (1961)
●TOCJ 50144 TONI ALESS / Long Island Suite (1955)
●TOCJ 50145 SELDON POWELL / Seldon Powell Sextet (1956)
●TOCJ 50146 SPECS POWELL & CO. / Movin’ In (1957)
●TOCJ 50147 SONNY STITT / The Saxophones of Sonny Stitt (1958)
●TOCJ 50148 ART BLAKEY/CHARLIE PERSIP/ELVIN JONES/”PHILLY” JOE JONES / Gretsch Drum Night at Birdland (1960)
●TOCJ 50149 JOHN HANDY / No Coast Jazz (1960)
●TOCJ 50150 RAY BRYANT / Cold Turkey (1964)

Manu DiBango “Africadelic”

2011-04-21T21:33:00.002-04:00
It’s hard to believe there is a musician anywhere on this earth that could mix great jazz chops with a soulful outlook and a worldly attitude and still make it so fun and funky that it doesn’t matter what allegiance you address. This stuff rocks. And, amazingly, it’s just as timely now as it was back then.

The following tunes come from Manu Dibango’s Africadelic album, the tremendous 1973 French-only follow-up of sorts to the worldwide smash that was “Soul Makossa.” Copies of this LP, which was briefly issued on CD about a decade ago, can still be found (and, surprisingly, the LP is actually easier and cheaper to get a hold of than the CD).

Several folks have posted samples of the music from this album on YouTube, which I am only too pleased to share here.

I’ve been a big fan of Cameroon’s greatest living musician since Manu Dibango’s classic “Soul Makossa” in 1972 – which surely everybody in the free world knows by now (it’s influenced much music, including, most notably, Michael Jackson’s 1983 hit “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’”).

But I was convinced by Electric Africa (1985) and fully converted by Wakafrika (1994). Africadelic is just one of the hidden gems in Manu DiBango’s capacious catalog. Here are examples of why it’s so good:

The terrific “The Panther”:

“Soul Fiesta”:

The great “African Battle”:

“African Carnival”:

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Impulse Records

2011-04-20T21:09:00.008-04:00
Legendary producer Creed Taylor launched the legendary Impulse label 50 years ago, wrapping his roster in a definitive look and an instantly iconic logo. First Impulse: The Creed Taylor Collection, an exciting 4-disc collection from Verve Select, includes all six albums produced by Taylor for the label that proudly wore its signature colors of orange and black on its spines – plus rare tracks including unreleased John Coltrane rehearsals. The included 84-page hardbound book features essays by Mr. Taylor and associate producer Ashley Kahn, author of the best-selling book on Impulse, The House That Trane Built, as well as session photos and reproductions of the original LP artwork.

The six Taylor-produced albums in the set: Ray Charles’s Genius + Soul = Jazz, inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011; John Coltrane’s Africa/Brass, the label debut of the great artist, who would have been 85 in September this year; Gil Evans’ Out Of The Cool; Oliver Nelson’s Blues and The Abstract Truth; along with two albums by trombonist Kai Winding, The Great Kai & J.J. (with J.J. Johnson) and The Incredible Kai Winding Trombones, both on U.S. CD for the first time [sic]. The set includes such radio hits and jazz anthems as Charles’ “One Mint Julep” – the rare mono single version is also included at Mr. Taylor’s request – Coltrane’s “Africa,” Evans’ “La Nevada” and Nelson’s “Stolen Moments,” plus rare alternate takes and unused performances, that offer a comprehensive look at the diverse range of music recorded during the label’s first six months.

First Impulse: The Creed Taylor Collection also features a remarkable discovery: never before available performances by John Coltrane, originally recorded in a demo session 50 years ago for Africa/Brass. The three performances include the standard “Laura” and two original compositions by Cal Massey, who arranged the session: “The Damned Don’t Cry” (later recorded at the Africa/Brass sessions) and “Nakatini Serenade” – a slower version than the one Coltrane recorded for Prestige in 1958.

From 1961 through ’76, Impulse was an important part of a pivotal, fertile period in jazz history. Through the exciting and rapid changes of the ’60s and ’70s, Impulse Records was arguably the most effective label bringing the exciting world of jazz to a new generation of listeners.

Check out the official Impulse Records 50th Anniversary site - here! - with release news, updates and special concert events!

Marcin Wasilewski Trio “Faithful”

2011-04-19T00:21:00.002-04:00
Polish pianist Marcin Wasilewski and his trio, featuring bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal Miskiewicz, continue to impress and astound, but never more so than on the group’s newest ECM disc Faithful, a most remarkable feat of collective creativity and improvised music.

After waxing some of Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko’s more memorable recent outings (2002’s notable Soul of Things, 2004’s Suspended Night and 2006’s splendid Lontano), the trio – minus drummer Miskiewicz – made drummer/percussionist Manu Katché’s ECM discs (2005’s Neighbourhood and 2007’s Playground) the strikingly lovely outings they turned out to be.

The Marcin Wasilewski Trio began life back in the early 1990s as the Simple Acoustic Trio (S.A.T.), when all three were still in high school. Wasilewski (b. 1975), Kurkiewicz (b. 1975) and Miskiewicz (b. 1977) made their performing debut in 1991. The group started winning all sorts of awards and issued its first recording, Komeda (later retitled Lullaby for Rosemary’s), in 1995, inspired by a successful live performance dedicated to the great Polish composer Krzysztof Komeda, best known now for his soundtracks to early Roman Polanski films.

S.A.T. issued several more recordings in Poland, including When Will The Blues Leave (Polonia, 1995), Live in Getxo (Hillargi, 1996), Habanera (Not Two, 1999) and Lyrics (2001), with Polish saxophonist Henryk Miskiewicz, S.A.T. drummer Michal’s father.

After the trio’s internationally renowned success recording and touring with Tomasz Stanko, the German ECM label issued Trio in 2005. By the time the trio issued its second ECM disc, January in 2008, it had officially become known as the Marcin Wasilewski Trio, deferring to the traditional leadership role placed by so many on the pianist in a jazz piano trio.

For its latest endeavor, the Wasilewski Trio has made one of its most significant statements thus far. It’s a tribute to this band’s longevity and familial fortitude. Each knows where the other is going and each leads and follows in equal measure. It is one of the more musical piano trios currently operating, serving up a bevy of interesting originals and unusual covers, in a style that is all its own.

Quite simply Faithful is one of the loveliest and most stirring piano-trio recordings I’ve heard in some time. Things often get as dazzling as all the hype suggests, but never more so than on the rhythmically-charged and dynamically intoxicating “Night Train to You,” suggesting not only the crossroads of the Oscar Peterson and Keith Jarrett trios but also the emotive motivation and the moody sensibilities that is something of a calling card for this trio.

Indeed, I’ve never heard this group spring to life the way they do on the pianist’s terrific original while still maintaining the reflective undercurrent of hope and melancholy they blend together so well. The mix of time signatures and musical styles is made with such ease as to be effortless, proving this band is a communicative force to be reckoned with.

The trio accord commendably to their accommodations, in something that sounds very much like a signature style, on other such Wasilewski originals as the long and lovely “Mosaic” (a terrific showcase for all three trio members, especially Kurkiewicz), the elegantly ruminative “Song for Świrek” (another of the disc’s highlights), the lusciously contemplative “Woke Up in the Desert” and the soulfully picturesque “Lugano Lake,” undoubtedly a reflection of the area where Faithful was recorded.

The group also covers the beautiful and fascinating “Faithful,” a surprisingly little-known ballad from Ornette Coleman’s 1967 Blue Note album The Empty Foxhole. It’s a sumptuous performance that one of Paul Bley’s trios might have thought of at some point but didn’t.

Wasilewski does, however, cover Bley’s own “Big Foot,” a tune the composer included on his first ECM record (the third disc in the company’s history) and has recorded on several other ECM discs for some reason as “Fig Foot.” Here Wasilewski only hints at Bley’s melody, allowing the jagged-edge funk of the melody to be an inventive springboard for the trio’s creative compatibility and energizing fusion of melodic ideas.

The Wasilewski trio also reflects upon “The Ballad of the Sad Young Men,” which has been surprisingly avoided by most piano trios (although the Jarrett trio is heard performing the song on its 1990 ECM disc Tribute), Brazilian composer/percussionist Hermeto Pascoal’s “Oz Guizos (The Bells)” (brought to the session by bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz, a fan of Brazilian music, and originally heard on the composer’s 1971 American album Hermeto), and the uber-theatrical “An den kleinen Radioapparat,” turning it into something warm and romantic that would make any Bill Evans fan coo with joy.

Faithful is, by definition, being true to one’s word. Nothing could describe this trio’s musical mission better. Faithful certainly restores my faith in the jazz piano trio.

Marcin Wasilewski, Slawomir Kurkiewicz and Michal Miskiewicz have a synergy that is fresh and contagious, occasionally brushing past touch points of the familiar on the way to something new. The Marcin Wasilewski Trio represents a breathtaking fusion that Faithful makes worth hearing and exploring time and again.

Colin Vallon Trio "Rruga"

2011-04-17T22:44:00.005-04:00
French jazz pianist Colin Vallon’s ECM debut is the third disc under his own name, following Les Ombres in 2004 and a disc on the Hatology label, Ailleurs in 2007. Needless to say, an appearance on ECM gives this trio a certain credibility – or cache (more on that later) – and an international presence the previous discs have not offered.

The album’s ECM-ish title is Albanian for ‘path,’ ‘road’ or ‘journey,’ an absolutely apt description of the trek this trio takes, despite however many other ECM titles have used or deserved this particular appellation in English or other languages. The trio, comprised of the pianist, bassist Patrice Moret and drummer Samuel Rohrer, certainly embarks upon some sort of a journey here. But it’s hard to say whether the program or the trio goes anywhere.

This is exactly the sort of highly personalized and seductively contemplative musicianship so amply evident elsewhere in hundreds of records in the ECM catalog. But while it has points of interest along the way, too much of it all seems so stridently serious.

The cover photograph, another one of ECM’s lovely photos taken from a moving vehicle, shows a bicyclist in the rain, while jacket photos show children at play (predictably in black and white). This sort of uninhibited joy and enjoyment – even the cover’s necessity of getting somewhere despite the means and the prevailing conditions, perfectly illustrating the album’s “rruga” – isn’t really felt in the music.

The young and handsome Vallon and his trio are a wee bit too earnest throughout, “challenging conventions of the modern jazz piano trio,” as the ECM publicity proclaims. Commendably, theirs is not the exploration of the song form or melodic convention of the cliché-ridden jazz piano trio plying Tin Pan Alley tunes and meaningless originals so much in evidence in countless recordings and any hotel lounge.

Theirs is more of the organic cycle of introspective moods and unexpected colorations that yield to music that is more emotive, expressive and as personalized as so much ECM music often is. Just because they’re operating in a piano trio doesn’t make them jazz.

And while it’s certainly creative, it hardly ever conforms to standard jazz strictures. Like jazz, you either get it or you don’t. Unlike so much jazz, though, it will baffle you if you expect it to act as background music. It forces you to pay attention – or ignore it.

This is not to say this particular cache is without interest. Moret’s opening “Telepathy” perfectly encapsulates the synergy this trio has together, despite the fact that it was inspired by the phrasing of Radiohead singer Thom Yorke.

Rruga annotator Steve Lake (yes, an ECM album with notes!) likens this particular track to a cross between Scott La Faro’s “Jade Warrior” and Annette Peacock’s “Mr. Joy” (best known in its interpretation by Paul Bley). But my guess is that Brad Mehldau and The Bad Plus are much more relevant points of inspiration and motivation for the Vallon trio than the old-schoolers – many of whom have made their mark on ECM – that made this sort of trioism possible today.

The album’s best moments come when all three musicians seem most engaged, especially on drummer Rohrer’s dynamically ambiguous “Polygonia,” Vallon’s fascinating “Meral,” the strikingly melodic “Noreira” and “Rruga, var.,” a much livelier take of the disc’s title song. At moments like these, the group almost tends toward the soulful, something they either shun for the most part for whatever reason or avoid altogether because they think they’re supposed to.

For better or worse, Rruga is the prototypical ECM recording: eloquently crafted and elegantly performed by iconoclastic musicians doing exactly what they want. But sadly, it's not as memorable as it could or should be.

Live, on the other hand, the Colin Vallon Trio is a different story altogether. Where is this warmth and passion on Rruga?

Rediscovery: Brick

2011-04-15T00:54:00.009-04:00
I was 13 years old when I first heard “Dazz” and I knew from the very first moment I heard this song on the radio that this was one of the very best songs I’d ever heard in my life.

I seem to remember my wonderful grandmother (babysitting us at the time) taking me and the rest of my siblings to Northway Mall in Pittsburgh’s North Hills one day. Our first stop in the mall allowed me to get this 45 and, if I recall correctly, K.C. and the Sunshine Band’s Part III. Then we went to Mamma Lucia’s for a delicious pizza dinner. I still remember eating pizza with my brother and sisters, thinking how happy I was to have “Dazz” in my possession. The flute solo is pure manna to me.

“Dazz,” whose title, like the song itself, is meant to merge the styles of disco and jazz, has always stayed with me. I still think it’s one of the best songs I’ve ever heard. I ended up getting the group’s follow-up singles “Dusic” (1977 – again merging “disco” with “music”) and the totally righteous “Raise Your Hands” (1979). I think I was the only one I knew in my small world who ever knew these songs existed and, unfortunately, Brick disappeared very shortly thereafter.

A listing on Wikipedia has this to say: Brick was formed in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1972 from members of two bands - one disco and the other jazz. They coined their own term for disco-jazz, "dazz". They released their first single "Music Matic" on Main Street Records in 1976, before signing to the independently-distributed Bang Records. Their next single, "Dazz", (#3 Pop, #1 R&B) was released in 1976. The band continued to record for Bang records until 1982. Other hits followed: "That's What It's All About" (R&B #48) and "Dusic" (#18 Pop, #2 R&B) in 1977, and "Ain't Gonna Hurt Nobody" (#92 Pop, #7 R&B) in 1978. Their last Top Ten R&B hit was "Sweat (Til You Get Wet)" in 1981.

Bang Records was eventually acquired by Columbia Records in 1979, around the time Brick issued its Stoneheart record (which included “Raise Your Hands”), assuring wide distribution and increased radio play. But, unfortunately Brick (which possessed many of the same qualities of the era’s other chart-toppers, B.T. Express and the Ohio Players) never found this sort of success.

Brick more or less disintegrated after their final Bang album After 5 in 1982 (although an album called Too Tuff was issued several years later). Columbia, now Sony, which owns the bulk of Brick’s recorded output of six albums, has issued two Brick compilations – but neither, inexplicably, features the full five minute and 15 second version of “Dazz.” How anybody thinks that the edited version of “Dazz” qualifies as a disco classic isn’t getting the point of the song or the reason why it’s become the dance great it is.

The major label has also not bothered to issue Brick’s original albums, especially the excellent 1976 debut album Good High, which features “Music Matic” and the full-length version of “Dazz” as well as other such greats as “Here We Come,” “Southern Sunset,” “Good High,” “Brick City” and “Sister Twister.” The group’s musicianship is most apparent here – a mix of R&B and soul melding into disco and jazz. The amazing Jimmy “Lord” Brown” features prominently throughout on vocals, saxophone, flute, trombone and trumpet. Brown alone makes the album as appealing for jazzers as those looking for something a bit more funky.

Fortunately, the always great Wounded Bird label has rescued not only the great Good High for CD but other Brick albums such as Brick (1977) and Stoneheart (1979). (The group’s fourth album, Waiting on You (1980), was recently issued on CD by Funky Town Grooves, leaving the group’s nearly unknown last two Bang albums, Summer Heat and After 5 (1982) to remain in perpetual obscurity.)

The long-awaited Good High CD adds a single edit of “Dazz” (called “Dazz Disco Mix”) and “That’s What It’s All About (Single Version).” Brick adds to its program “Ain’t Gonna Hurt Nobody (Single Version)” and “Dusic (Short Version)” – which trims about two minutes off the album version. StoneHeart adds “Raise Your Hands (Single Version),” a four-minute edit of the five-minute LP version.

The point is that we’ve finally got Brick back in the musical foundation, where they belong. I’ve already ordered my CDs. And if you like great R&B funk and jazz, you’ll be all over these too. “Dazz” rules!

Billy Bang – R.I.P.

2011-04-14T01:16:00.003-04:00
The great jazz violinist and composer Billy Bang, born William Vincent Walker on September 20, 1947, in Mobile, Alabama, died at his home in Harlem on April 11. The cause of death was complications due to lung cancer.

Billy Bang moved with his family to Harlem, New York while still an infant. He studied violin in school and took up drums and flute independently. He briefly attended the exclusive Stockbridge prep school in Massachusetts with no music curriculum, then dropped out, moved to the Bronx and was drafted into the Army and sent to Vietnam.

After struggling with alcohol and drugs on his return to America in the late 1960s, Bang drifted from schools, meaningless jobs and political action groups before taking up the violin again. He studied with the prominent avant-garde jazz violinist Leroy Jenkins and became immersed in the 1970s downtown loft-jazz scene – the celebrated locus of avant garde jazz that all the major record labels avoided at the time due to the proliferation of jazz fusion – and even briefly joined Sun Ra’s Arkestra.

In 1977, Bang founded the String Trio of New York, a group that wedded chamber-music intimacy and rigor to free-jazz gusto in a manner few other bands had achieved. Over time he honed a signature sound: grainy and penetrating, but more lyrical than strident. Even at his most exploratory, Mr. Bang pledged allegiance to swing-era violin forebears like Stuff Smith and Ray Nance.

Billy Bang’s first album was 1978’s New York Collage, a concert recording of poetry and percussion featuring free-jazz bassist William Parker. Bang then featured on several notable albums that set the foundation for the “downtown” sound of the 1980s such as Kip Hanrahan’s Coup de Tete and Material’s Memory Serves before jettisoning off onto a slew of recordings for mostly small European labels.

Bang reunited with Sun Ra late in the decade, recording the bracing quartet album Tribute to Stuff Smith with the pianist, shortly before his death, in 1992.

In 2001, Billy Bang was asked by Jean-Pierre Leduc of Justin Time Records, the violinist’s Montreal-based label, if he’d consider doing an album about his experience in Vietnam. “My entire body and mind came to an immediate halt,” Bang related. “My inability to bravely confront my personal demons, my experience in Vietnam, has been a continuous struggle. For decades, I’ve lived constantly with my unwillingness to deliberately conjure up the pain of these experiences.”

Eventually he found himself able to express himself and in collaboration with fellow vets Frank Lowe (tenor sax), Ted Daniel (trumpet) and Michael Carvin (drums) as well as creative greats like Sonny Fortune (flute), the late John Hicks (piano), Curtis Lundy (bass), Ron Brown (percussion) and Butch Morris (conductor), Billy Bang conceived the brilliant and beautiful Vietnam: The Aftermath, a stunning collection of impassioned jazz coalescing with (note, not combatting against) traditional Vietnamese musical forms.

So much of this music, which comes out of great pain and suffering, is so joyful, moving, rewarding and enriching all at once. The pieces I love and can never get enough of include “Yo! Ho Chi Minh is in the House,” “Tunnel Rat (Flashlight and a 45),” ”Bien Hoa Blues,” “Fire in the Hole” and the unbelievably intoxicating “Saigon Phunk.”

Billy Bang continued his reflections on this period of his life in the equally tremendous Vietnam: Reflections from 2005, with Daniel, Hicks, Lundy, Carvin, Brown and Morris returning and the addition of James Spaulding (alto sax, flute), Henry Threadgill (flute), Co Boi Nguyen (vocals) and Nhan Thanh Ngo (dan tranh) to the program (Frank Lowe had died in the interim and Bang dedicates this album to him).

Another remarkable performance that stands the test of time, Vietnam: Aftermath is a moving piece of emotional artistry that features truly great performances in “Reflections,” “Lock & Load,” “Doi Moi,” “Reconciliation,” “Waltz of the Water Puppets” and “Reconciliation 2.”

The loss of Billy Bang at the comparably young age of 63 is sad enough for his family, friends, musical associates and loved ones. But the fact that he left a legacy of remarkably beautiful music that came out of great sadness and suffering is painful to consider too.

Celebrating CTI Records’ 40th Anniversary – Part Three

2011-04-11T23:27:00.008-04:00
Masterworks Jazz continues the 40th anniversary celebration of the legendary CTI Records legacy that began last October with an additional four titles issued this week: George Benson’s Beyond the Blue Horizon, Freddie Hubbard’s First Light, Don Sebesky’s all-star Giant Box and Stanley Turrentine’s Salt Song.

While each of the releases have had previous American CD issues, most have been out of print for a number of years and each are important – and significant – milestones in the CTI tradition.

The celebration of CTI’s 40th anniversary began last October with remastered CD reissues of Freddie Hubbard’s Red Clay, Stanley Turrentine’s Sugar, Chet Baker’s She Was Too Good To Me, Kenny Burrell’s God Bless The Child, Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Stone Flower, the first-ever CD release of Hubert Laws’ terrific Morning Star and the classic issue of the nearly complete CTI All-Stars’ California Concert – The Hollywood Palladium.

The series continued with January’s release of Deodato’s Prelude, George Benson’s White Rabbit, Milt Jackson’s Sunflower, Jim Hall’s Concierto, Paul Desmond’s Pure Desmond and Ron Carter’s All Blues. And I’ve been assured more CTI titles are on the way – including some very rare titles that have not been readily available on CD before.

Each of these discs, supervised by producer Richard Seidel and beautifully mastered by Mark Wilder and Maria Triana, is packaged to look like the original LP, even getting the gatefold treatment the original LPs were given and, in most cases, maintaining the original logo and catalog number placement of the original LP for the CD cover.

Unfortunately, Masterworks Jazz continues to issue these CTI titles in flat matte, thin card stock and allegedly “eco-friendly” packages which denude the zip and zing of the original covers’ colorful and exciting photographs and deny the weighty significance the LP packages once provided.

This particular batch of releases even messes with the cover art more than usual. For example, a large black border is added to the cover of First Light, significantly reducing the size of the cover photo. The black border of Giant Box, which was less a border than the color of the box set the cover art was affixed to, is replaced altogether with an all-white perimeter (it’s worth noting that this package commendably contains the entire text of the Don Sebesky interview included in the original LP, but only two of the photos from the album’s specially-enclosed booklet). Also, both Beyond the Blue Horizon and Salt Song seem more to replicate the look of their 1997 CD releases, with a yellow CTI logo that was not part of the original LP covers (the George Benson CD also matches its 1997 CD release by not providing the oversized “B” of the title).

Still, it’s the music that matters. So that’s what we’ll focus on from hereon in.

Beyond the Blue Horizon - George Benson: Guitarist George Benson had already waxed three records for Creed Taylor, including the iconic The Other Side of Abbey Road, a jazz take on the famed album by The Beatles’, and made significant contributions to such early CTI classics as Stanley Turrentine’s Sugar and Freddie Hubbard’s Straight Life when he recorded Beyond the Blue Horizon, the guitarist’s first CTI album, in February 1971.

It is not only one of the guitarist’s most full-bodied jazz records – before or since – it is also probably the single best document of Benson’s technically fluid facility and his musically inventive lyricism at any tempo.

Supporting the guitarist in this endeavor are fellow CTI all-stars Ron Carter on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums, all of whom were in the rhythm section for Straight Life, recorded only ten weeks earlier. Of curious note here, however, is the addition of Clarence Palmer, on organ. Palmer, who was then in guitarist Grant Green’s band and featured, with Green, on Jimmy McGriff saxophonist Fats Theus’ little-known CTI album Black Out, adds a backwards-glance nod to Benson’s organ-combo past. Benson had, in fact, not recorded in an organ-combo format under his own name since his very first group recorded for Columbia some half decade before.

But any thought that Beyond the Blue Horizon - which surprisingly does not include the popular song of the same title that Lou Christie performed on his 1973 CTI album – is some organ combo grinding out some forgettable soul jazz is quickly allayed by the fantastically vibrant take on Miles Davis’ “So What,” which opens the album. It’s so audibly logical and rhythmically sensible that it’s hard to believe the song wasn’t written this way in the first place.

The special affinity Benson, Carter and DeJohnette display on this showpiece performance is due to the fact that all were veterans of various Miles Davis aggregates (DeJohnette was still Davis’ drummer when this was made, but the trumpeter no longer featured this tune in his repertoire). While Palmer accompanies and solos with an exotic yet subtle flair, Carter and DeJohnette engage in an exciting dialogue throughout, getting a feature all to themselves in the middle of the song. Benson provides not one but two energetic guitar work-outs that put this particular performance at the forefront as one of CTI’s essential performances.

Luiz Bonfá’s lovely “The Gentle Rain” follows in a heavily percussive timbre that elicits one of Benson’s more angular and metallic commentaries, suggesting something more of a gathering storm. Benson seems to be providing an electric counterpoint here to Bonfá’s acoustic original. The song, from the 1966 film of the same name, was previously recorded by producer Creed Taylor for Astrud Gilberto’s album The Shadow of Your Smile with the composer/guitarist in attendance. But Benson’s take, which was edited to three minutes for a 45 single release, must have reached the composer’s ears for Luiz Bonfá re-cast the song in a very CTI-like manner on his 1973 album Jacarandá.

The remainder of the album is taken up by the presence of three (!) strong Benson originals, “All Clear,” “Ode to a Kudu” and “Somewhere in the East.” All three offer some of Benson’s most beautiful playing and Carter and DeJohnette’s deftly sensitive support.

Benson’s guitar on “All Clear” sounds like a cross between Gabor Szabo (who would begin recording for CTI the following year) and Wes Montgomery while the deliberately rough-edged “Somewhere in the East” crosses Szabo with the sound James Blood Ulmer would make his own several years later. The lyrical ballad “Ode to a Kudu” remained in Benson’s repertoire throughout the 1970s and can be heard in a live version on the guitarist’s well-known hit album Weekend in L.A. (1978).

The three Benson originals are also presented in alternative versions, which have been added to the CD release (and were also included in the previous two CD issues of Beyond the Blue Horizon). If possible, these are even better than the originals, especially since the distracting string work of the original “All Clear” is cleared away for some truly magnificent swinging by Benson, Carter and DeJohnette.

Beyond the Blue Horizon’s cover features Pete Turner’s dramatic “Flames,” shot in 1964 in Libya as part of a series the photographer produced for Standard Oil (the same series yielded the cover for Walter Wanderley’s Moondreams). The photo’s iconography perfectly captures Benson’s fiery and hypnotically transfixing performance throughout the record.

First Light -Freddie Hubbard: Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard’s third CTI album was issued in January 1972 to sparse critical fanfare. The little critical attention the album did receive was mostly negative, particularly from the jazz cognoscenti, who saw Hubbard’s step onto this slippery slope of pop super-stardom start with his previous CTI albums. First Light was the last straw. Freddie Hubbard’s reputation with jazz critics never really recovered.

Despite the presence of some of jazz’s best – and most influential – artists, including guitarist George Benson, pianist Richard Wyands, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Jack DeJohnette, First Light was slammed for Don Sebesky’s always critically-attacked sweetening and the presence of a huge pop-hit cover of the day (the million-selling number 1 hit “Uncle Albert Admiral Halsey” by Paul and Linda McCartney).

Even Hubbard’s superb title song was derided as a riff-based jam tune that didn’t require the chops or the talent of a soloist who factored on some of the era’s most important jazz recordings by otherwise-celebrated jazz heroes Oliver Nelson, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman and Herbie Hancock.

Still, First Light proved not only to be one of CTI’s very best sellers at the time, it also won the trumpeter his first and only Grammy Award in 1972 for Best Jazz Performance over and above other such CTI competition as George Benson’s White Rabbit (also arranged by Don Sebesky) and Joe Farrell’s Outback. The trumpeter himself was often heard to claim First Light as his personal favorite of his own records.

Hubbard’s title track is a truly inspired composition that seemingly yields more than its 11 minutes suggests. Freddie Hubbard wails with impassioned desire. George Benson plays one of his most deliciously intricate, yet achingly lyrical solos. Carter comps (if that doesn’t sound too derogatory) in a way that suggests melody and counter-melody all at once. Sebesky lays back quite a bit, only adding spare commentary from properly placed strings, vibes (playing accentuating whole tones, a Sebesky trait) and a flute section led by Hubert Laws, who solos occasionally.

“First Light” became something of a hit (it was issued as the album’s single) and a signature song for the trumpeter. Freddie Hubbard often played the song live and it was captured as part of the same 1973 concert that yielded the two In Concert albums CTI released several years later. That performance of “First Light,” which was not issued on the In Concert records, was included on this and the previous CD of First Light, featuring (a strangely uncredited) Herbie Hancock on electric piano, Eric Gale on guitar as well as Carter and DeJohnette (a 1972 performance of the tune was issued on the 1977 album CTI Summer Jazz at the Hollywood Bowl – Live One).

Like so many of Don Sebesky’s previous Beatles arrangements, “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” is a lot better than it sounds like it would be. It’s more imaginative than listeners of the McCartneys’ song would expect, matching a Stravinsky-styled arrangement with a funk rhythm which makes for creative jazz and provides sparklingly terrific solos from Hubbard, Benson, Carter and Laws.

“Moment to Moment,” Henry Mancini’s surprisingly little-known theme from the 1965 film of the same name, and Leonard Bernstein’s “Lonely Town” (from On the Town) both get terrifically orchestral readings here that focus purely on Freddie’s melodicism and Sebesky’s impressionistic backdrop.

Sebesky’s absolutely ravishing “Yesterday’s Dreams” started life as “Yesterday’s Dream” on Dizzy Gillespie’s Sebesky-arranged album Cornucopia (1969). Sebesky adds more strings to this variation and Hubbard mutes his horn here (Dizzy’s was open). But while Sebesky’s arrangement of the tune is much more subtle and preferable in the Gillespie version, it’s hard to deny the improved beauty that Hubbard, Carter and the chameleonic Jack DeJohnette bring to this particularly lovely variation of “Yesterday’s Dreams.”

Also recorded at these sessions is Cedar Walton’s “Fantasy in D” (first heard under that title on the 1973 Art Blakey album Anthenagin). Composer and pianist Cedar Walton was a longtime friend and associate of Hubbard’s, dating back to their time together in the Jazz Messengers and surely provided Hubbard with this song, even before recording it with Art Blakey, though the LP’s limited playing restrictions at the time prevented Walton’s song from being included on the First Light LP. Several years after Freddie Hubbard departed CTI for Columbia Records, producer Creed Taylor dug out the song (complete with a finished Sebesky string arrangement and lovely solos from both Freddie Hubbard and Hubert Laws) and called it, for whatever reason, “Polar AC.” It became the title track to that 1975 LP, which was recently issued on CD by Wounded Bird Records. The song is also featured here, under the title that Cedar Walton gave it on the album where it really belongs.

Like Hubbard’s previous album, Straight Life, First Light benefits by not one but two Pete Turner photographs, one on the front cover and a different one on the back cover. The front cover, one of the few CTI releases of the period that actually showed the artist, was especially shot for the album to show Hubbard and his horns. The back cover photo, “Hong Kong Rolls” (1963), was juxtaposed by the photographer himself to reflect the front cover’s golden horns, presumably both reflecting the golden glow of “first light.”

Giant Box - Don Sebesky: Don Sebesky had been arranging albums for producer Creed Taylor since the composer/arranger got a call from the producer out of the clear blue sky in 1965 to arrange guitarist Wes Montgomery’s Verve classic Bumpin’. Sebesky arranged four more of Wes Montgomery’s albums as well as Verve records for Astrud Gilberto and Kai Winding and A&M records for Kai Winding & J.J. Johnson, Soul Flutes, George Benson, Paul Desmond and Walter Wanderley – all produced by Creed Taylor.

It’s little wonder that Creed Taylor invited Don Sebesky to CTI in 1970 to become the in-house arranger for some of the label’s premier recording artists, almost single-handedly setting the musical direction for the label on such albums by Hubert Laws, George Benson, Freddie Hubbard, Hank Crawford, Esther Phillips, Jackie & Roy, Milt Jackson and Airto.

Indeed, Sebesky’s role helped secure Grammy nominations for George Benson’s CTI album White Rabbit, Esther Phillips’ “From A Whisper To A Scream” and a Grammy Award for Freddie Hubbard’s First Light (all 1972) as well as 1973 Grammy nominations for Freddie Hubbard’s “In A Mist” (from Sky Dive), Esther Phillips’ Alone Again, Naturally and Hubert Laws’ Morning Star.

Creed Taylor had shortly thereafter offered Sebesky the opportunity to record his own album for the label (the arranger had already recorded two jazz-rock albums for Verve in the late 1960s), utilizing the incredible star power of the CTI All Stars, many of whose newfound success was directly attributable to both Creed Taylor and Don Sebesky.

Following CTI’s success of Deodato’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001),” the producer offered Sebesky the opportunity to do a double album – the very first (and only one of three) in CTI’s history – and the arranger quickly took up the challenge.

Giant Box, originally issued in real box packaging, like so many classical records of the day, not only felt significant, it contained a heavy roster of the day’s biggest and best jazz players, all part of the CTI family and all reflecting on a program of Sebesky charts that make for some of the label’s most potent listening.

First and foremost is the extraordinarily inspired pairing of Stravinsky’s “Firebird” with the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s “Birds of Fire,” remarkably balancing horns and strings and features for Hubert Laws, Freddie Hubbard, Don Sebesky and Billy Cobham. Joni Mitchell’s lovely “Song to a Seagull,” originally from her 1968 debut, is a soaring feature here for Paul Desmond, Don Sebesky and Ron Carter.

Sebesky’s dynamic “Free as a Bird” (catching all the bird references here?) is one of the album’s highlights and is a feature for Freddie Hubbard’s jaunty flugelhorn, Bob James’ fantastically sparkling piano, Sebesky’s scintillating electric-piano commentary, Grover Washington, Jr.’s meaty soprano sax and the rhythmic interactions of Ron Carter and, of course, Jack DeJohnette.

Jimmy Webb’s “Psalm 150,” previously waxed by Sebesky with Doc Severinsen on the trumpeter’s 1971 album Brass Roots, marvelously highlights the vocal talents of Jackie & Roy (and Sebesky himself) in a sumptuously funked-out arrangement that features Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter and Bob James (on organ!). Rachmaninoff’s 1912 piece “Vocalise” gets a melodic treatment here – but surprisingly no vocals - with leads provided by alto saxist Paul Desmond and vibist Milt Jackson, who’d previously been paired together for the first time at a December 1971 Modern Jazz Quartet concert.

Sebesky’s own “Fly” leads off with a vocal by the composer himself, performing very much like Chet Baker (who he would go onto work with very shortly hereafter), and lifted bodily by echoplexed flourishes from Hubert Laws, Joe Farrell, Ron Carter and Jack DeJohnette that lead into the lovely jazz of “Circles,” another of the album’s greatest moments, featuring Joe Farrell on soprano sax, Bob James (beautiful again) on piano, Ron Carter (again – the bassist single-handedly guides much of the album into beautiful territories much of the time) and Hubert Laws on flute.

The obligatory funk tune, “Semi-Tough,” which was surprisingly never exploited for its radio potential, is aided by Sebesky’s Gospel piano and clavinet, Carter’s ultra-funky electric bass and Billy Cobham’s grooviest groove, and closes out the album with George Benson’s fun but surprisingly undistinguished modified electric guitar solo, Grover Washington, Jr.’s tough tenor and Bob James providing some funky organ. It’s at this point that the absence of Esther Phillips becomes notably apparent. But she’s not missed.

According to Didier Deutsch’s interview with Don Sebesky, the recording took six months and about 150 hours in the studio, though only several days of recording in April 1973 are listed in the credits as being the recording time. Sebesky’s recollection is probably more accurate. There was obviously a lot of work that went into this record. And it’s truly surprising that it’s not a better known part of CTI’s legacy than it is. This beautifully remastered CD release should finally change all that, giving Giant Box the place it deserves in CTI’s legacy.

Don Sebesky went onto work with CTI for another couple years (Paul Desmond, Jackie & Roy, George Benson, Esther Phillips, Chet Baker, Joe Beck, Jim Hall), recording another album under his own name for the label (The Rape of El Morro) and returning for several albums late in CTI’s legacy (Roland Hanna, the perfect Studio Trieste and Larry Coryell). But this magnum opus, Creed Taylor’s “thank you note” to the composer/arranger, recorded during CTI’s halcyon days, has not been bettered anywhere in Don Sebesky’s solo discography.

Pete Turner’s garish cover photo, “USA Car,” is part of an Americana series the photographer conceived that includes photos found on the covers of Ron Carter’s Blues Farm (CTI 6027) and the all-star In Concert Volume Two (CTI 6049). “USA Car,” photographed in Nevada in 1970, oddly seems to contradict the gravity of the project and the classy music found within but designer Bob Ciano probably picked up on the car’s stars for this “all-star” album.

Salt Song -Stanley Turrentine: This 1971 recording is the second of four CTI albums issued under tenor sax great Stanley Turrentine’s name. There are also two Stanley Turrentine LP compilations on CTI (with previously unissued tracks), one paired with singer Astrud Gilberto, two live sets with Freddie Hubbard and several discs issued under the CTI All Stars banner prominently featuring the saxophonist.

Billboard aptly summarized this album in its original, albeit brief review of November 1971 when it said “Stanley Turrentine, one of the most exciting tenor saxophonists to emerge in the 1960s comes up with what will prove to be his biggest albums (sic) to date. The title song and ‘I Told Jesus’ offer good programming potential. Great production job.” Absolutely.

Stanley Turrentine had already made a name for himself on a series of fairly successful recordings issued on the Blue Note label between 1960 and 1969, as well as recordings with organists Jimmy Smith (on Blue Note) and Shirley Scott (his wife, until 1971, on Prestige, Impulse and Atlantic). When he waxed Sugar for CTI in 1970, Stanley Turrentine created not only one of his most memorable recordings - and a theme song that gave the saxist one of his two beloved nicknames – but one of the label’s best-known and most loved recordings.

Sugar was surely a tough act to follow. But Salt Song more than compensates. Opening with Freddie Hubbard’s bracing “Gibraltar,” Salt Song makes a case for one of Stanley Turrentine’s strongest jazz efforts of the 1970s. The opening song was originally composed by Hubbard for Turrentine’s album Sugar several months earlier. For whatever reason, the song – recorded with Hubbard and often performed by the saxophonist with the trumpeter during this period - was left off of Turrentine’s CTI debut, although this recording appeared on both the 1987 and 2010 CD releases of Sugar.

The Salt Song version of “Gibraltar,” the first to be heard back in the day but one of five Turrentine waxed for the CTI label, is with little doubt one of the very best. This is due in no small part to the presence and influence of guitarist Eric Gale, who seems to act as the saxophonist’s foil here and takes Turrentine and this song to a whole new level: soul rock at its best.

The Deodato-arranged “I Told Jesus” is one of CTI’s classic gospel blues, offering up especially inspired solos by Turrentine and Gale as well as remarkably simpatico support from bassist Ron Carter, organist Richard Tee and a briefly heard Gospel choir. Producer Creed Taylor clearly favored this performance as the song appeared on the label’s first commercially-available LP compilation, Fire Into Music (1975), as well as a 1982 Gospel compilation of CTI music called The Power and the Glory and the Music.

The album’s lovely and lilting title song, also known as “Cançao Do Sol,” comes from a performance featured on Milton Nascimento’s Creed Taylor-produced debut Courage (1969). Nascimento’s original also featured percussionists Airto Moreira and João Palma as well as arranger Eumir Deodato – all heard on Stanley Turrentine’s extremely delightful cover.

The album’s bonus track, Nascimento’s well-known “Vera Cruz,” was also originally part of the composer’s original 1969 album and comes from a performance that was originally recorded for Astrud Gilberto’s 1971 Gilberto with Turrentine but issued, in the slight variation heard here, on the 1975 Stanley Turrentine compilation LP The Sugar Man.

“I Haven’t Got Anything Better To Do” comes from the little-known 1967 Sandra Dee film Doctor, You’ve Got To Be Kidding!. Its first notable jazz performance came from Carmen McRae on Atlantic in 1967. Astrud Gilberto covered the tune in 1969 (before coming to CTI) and pianist Harold Mabern recorded it in 1970, with flautist Hubert Laws, who appears elsewhere on Salt Song (the pianist later recorded the song with tenor great Eric Alexander). Here, Turrentine provides a sumptuous performance of the charming ballad, aided by Carter’s emotive bass work and Deodato’s pitch-perfect string accompaniment. Creed Taylor would again record the song in a David Matthews arrangement under the auspices of Esther Phillips on the singer’s 1976 Kudu album Capricorn Princess and Stanley Turrentine would record the song again for his 1995 album T Time.

Turrentine’s own samba “Storm” wraps up the original album with a cleverness that is as sensual as it is soulful and as dedicated as it is delicious. Guided by Gale’s guitar, which is heard in a typically marvelous solo, Turrentine glides over Carter’s bass and Billy Cobham’s terrifically rhythmic interchange (by the way, this “Storm” has nothing to do with Cobham’s own “Storm” of a few years later), “Storm” is one of Turrentine’s patented gems, little known but much loved from beginning to end.

It should be mentioned that fellow Pittsburgher Horace Parlan makes a brief yet inexact appearance on these sessions (and none of the other CTI sessions for that matter) for the first – and last! – time with Stanley Turrentine since their earlier appearances together on Turrentine’s Look Out! (1960), Jubilee Shouts! (1961), the great Up at Minton’s (1961), Parlan’s Speakin’ My Piece (1960) and On The Spur of the Moment (1961) and the absolutely terrific album Tommy Turrentine (1960). Parlan left the United States very shortly after this recording and has not yet, as of this writing, returned.

It’s also interesting to note that producer Creed Taylor found Turrentine’s previous two recordings of “Gibraltar” – both of which were later issued - “too monotonous” to issue before settling on the dynamic version heard here. This may explain why the producer found the initial sessions for Don’t Mess With Mister T., recorded nearly two years after the Salt Song sessions, inadequate as well. Reuniting the Salt Song rhythm section of Eric Gale, Ron Carter and Billy Cobham to back Stanley Turrentine may just have sounded like more of the same thing to a producer that was always looking for a new, more inspired sound. He certainly achieved the inspiration on Don’t Mess With Mister T., as different as it is from the beautiful statement that remains Salt Song.

This album also features one of my favorite Pete Turner photos, “The Old Man and The Sea,” taken just before a storm (another title the album references) in Portugal in 1966.

Philipp van Endert Trio "Rosebud"

2011-04-06T22:29:00.004-04:00
Cinema has long since rendered the word “rosebud” as something elusive and enigmatic that cannot possibly sum up what others want it to. From the moment that Orson Welles whispers the word in the film Citizen Kane, we embark on a mysterious journey of the purely unknowable. But what a journey.
Titling his latest recording Rosebud, the remarkably inspired German guitarist Philipp van Endert properly gives light to the inability of properly discussing creative music. Much in the same way that writer Whitney Ballliett once poetically called jazz “the sound of surprise,” truly creative music really can’t be labeled or defined, formulaic or repeatable.
This melodic guitarist, overflowing with inventive lyricism, is a Kane-like player in the sense that he forges his own direction, regardless of convention. As the leader of his own successful label, van Endert is also like Welles’ Kane in the sense that he gets to dictate the terms of his own creativity: the only terms one knows, to paraphrase Kane himself. It’s certainly a direction worth following.
Rosebud reunites the guitarist’s trio consisting of bassist Andre Nendza and drummer Kurt Billker with such special guests as American saxist Rick Margitza and percussionist Christoph Hillmann. Each was part of the guitarist’s 2006 album Khilebor and the chemistry is intoxicating enough to warrant the additional exploration Rosebud presents.
The soundscape and interchange sometimes recalls saxophonist Joe Henderson’s superb 1993 So Near, So Far (Musings for Miles) with guitarist John Scofield, bassist Dave Holland and drummer Al Foster (all, like Margitza, associated with Miles during his electric years).
Miles isn’t on the program here, though. Philipp van Endert and company expound startlingly well upon Elvis’ “Can’t Help Falling In Love,” the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” and formidably on Michel Legrand’s “You Must Believe in Spring,” best known through its interpretation by former Miles sideman Bill Evans (all without Margitza) as well as a fascinating program of the guitarist’s sinewy originals including “Phily Ray and the Notfinders” and the title track (with the leader on acoustic guitar).
There’s something remarkably sage about Philipp van Endert’s musicianship and leadership throughout. It suggests a more seasoned, well-travelled player who has fashioned all the fads and a career’s worth of ups and downs. Only active since the mid-nineties, the guitarist has gone the distance to arrive at a place that’s all his own. His playing has a strong personality that not only escapes comparison to better-known jazz guitar heroes but fires up his associates to perform with complimentary magnificence.
Even Margitza sounds more intimately personal here than he has on other recordings, even those under his own name. He shines particularly well on the cool funk of “Landing Grounds” and Nendza’s terrific “Overheated.” Margitza and the guitarist make for an especially heady brew, notably on the set’s opening “Reguengo” and closing “Savina.”
Joy that it is, Rosebud, like its probable namesake, is summed up better in appreciation than understanding. It’s meant to be experienced and enjoyed and it succeeds.