Dick Hyman/Mary Mayo "Moon Gas"

This strange and little-known record is one of a series of many strange and little-known records from pianist/organist/harpsichordist/Moogist Dick Hyman (b. 1927) yet probably ranks among the prodigious and imaginative keyboardist’s best – which insufficiently presumes anybody has heard all of the Dick Hyman recordings there are to hear under his name and various pseudonyms.

Moon Gas is just that – an otherworldly gas.

Like so many of his records, it is rather too gimmicky, taking fairly straight-ahead, even old-fashioned material and changing it up with strange keyboards – in this case, the Lowrey organ, the AOC (Automatic Orchestra Control) device and piano – peculiar sound effects and unusual instrumentation, all probably meant to set Hyman apart from the crowd by playing to the hype of aural fanaticism in the record industry at the time. The shame of this is that Dick Hyman is a tremendously gifted pianist and musical thinker who has an uncanny knack for engaging rapt attention no matter what or how he is playing.

Hyman had already begun his long string of probably better-known recordings for the Command/Project 3 labels with his 1960 trio-with-orchestra album Provocative Piano, so Moon Gas must have been some sort of contractual obligation. This 1963 album appears to be the last of some dozen and a half records Hyman made for MGM and the only one, I think, that the pianist ever did under the probable aegis of producer Creed Taylor.

Hyman is partnered here with the ethereal Mary Mayo (1924-1985), a singer of jingles including Coca-Cola’s famous “I’d like to Teach the World to Sing” and many uncredited backgrounds, who easily compares to the Italian film singer Edda Dell’orso for range and curiously transfixing vocal qualities, especially in her wordless work (“Moon Gas,” “Stella By Starlight”).

Accompanying Hyman and Mayo on Moon Gas are Nick Tagg on Lowrey organ, Hammond organ, AOC and piano, Vinnie Bell on “prepared” electric guitar, Joe Benjamin or Milt Hinton on bass and Osie Johnson on drums and Bob Rosengarden on percussion, the theremin-like martinot, oscillator, door buzzer, “etc.”

The originals are, ah, out of this world. The all-too brief title track, like Hyman’s later “The Minotaur,” is something of a cult classic. It’s a darkly funky vamp reveling in the oddity of the group’s outlandish electronics that prefigures what Hyman would do a few years later with a Moog synthesizer for James Brown’s “Give Up Or Turn It Loose.” Moon Gas is worth it for “Moon Gas” alone but there’s more. “Space Reflex” is a groovy update of the Dick Hyman-Leonard Feather composition “Bass Reflex” from the 1956 MGM LP Hi Fi Suite. It’s a basic blues, but Hyman works it well enough to make you consider that space is the place. This is his shining moment as a keyboard strategist on the album.

The bulk of the record finds the keyboard whiz inevitably covering a set of moony and starry standards, mostly in the tradition, but accented with Mayo’s haunting vocals and Hyman’s space age twists. These include “Stella by Starlight,” “Imagination,” “Bye Bye Blues,” “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” “For All We Know,” “I’m Glad There Is You,” “Star Eyes” and the then-recent hit and soon-to-be standard “Desafinado,” which Mayo sings most beautifully in the original’s Portuguese language.

The standards are particularly rewarding – especially “Stella by Starlight” and “Desafinado” – in revealing Hyman as a remarkable scenarist. It’s no coincidence that he has backed countless singers and scored a number of commercials and films, most notably for Woody Allen. He knows how to set a mood. Mayo, too, works herself into the atmosphere nicely. She blends in so seamlessly that sometimes it’s hard to tell her voice from one of the keyboards. But she is so immediately attractive and striking as a vocalist that it’s really quite surprising she did not become better known during her lifetime.

While the electronic effects here can sometimes come off sounding silly, distracting or just plain out of place, Hyman is on firm footing directing the surprisingly minimalist rhythm section to just stick to good old-fashioned swing. Even the occasional bursts of electronic sound heard throughout remind you that these were the future sounds of yesterday and took musicians, not programmers or editors (Hyman talks with pride in the album’s notes about recording the sounds live rather than splicing them together to achieve the final outcome), to come up with these then unusual sounds.

Moon Gas, issued on Japanese CD by Vroom Sound in 2003 and now as difficult to find as the MGM LP, isn’t necessarily the best place to hear Dick Hyman play – there are zillions of records for that – but it is a terrific way to enjoy how well the multi-keyboardist and musical thinker absolutely masters unusual musical concepts. Aside from that, it’s just plain fun. Too much jazz takes itself too seriously, especially these days, making it a distinct pleasure to go back and enjoy Moon Gas every once in a while.

Plus: Read the incisive JazzWax interview with Dick Hyman here. And be sure to check out Dick Hyman's profile at the great Space Age Pop Music resource and Mary Mayo's daughter, Lorri Hafer, who was part of The Hillside Singers, who sung the huge hit "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing."

George Winston "Love Will Come: The Music of Vince Guaraldi Volume 2"

Pianist George Winston has long professed deep and abiding admiration for composer and pianist Vince Guaraldi (1928-76), best remembered today for his scores to sixteen Peanuts animated television features made between 1965 and 1976. Indeed, George Winston is now pretty much considered the foremost Vince Guaraldi authority, a designation which has done much to enhance his jazz credibility – something which this self-described folk pianist (who also claims The Doors as an influence and recorded a solo piano tribute to the rock group in 2002) probably doesn’t care one jot for. Winston surely has a seminal understanding of Guaraldi that goes deeper than the initial appeal of such great work as “Cast Your Fate To The Wind,” “Linus and Lucy” and “Skating,” which are among Guaraldi’s best and best-known tunes.

The evidence of Guaraldi’s influence has long been in Winston’s work, particularly in the remarkably timeless and essential December (Windham Hill, 1982) and in his own Peanuts score for 1988’s This is America, Charlie Brown – The Birth of the Constitution. But Winston put his money where is mouth is with Linus & Lucy – The Music of Vince Guaraldi (Dancing Cat, 1996), which stands as one of the first tributes to the magical music of Vince Guaraldi. To be fair, there have been a few musical Peanuts tributes, most notably from David Benoit, another Guaraldi acolyte, but Winston’s tribute puts the composer and his work out in front and goes outside of the obligatory Peanuts music, which surely dominates the small compositional galaxy of Vince Guaraldi.

Back for round two with Love Will Come: The Music of Vince Guaraldi Volume 2, George Winston comes up with a surprising 16 additional Guaraldi tunes to consider and expound upon. Here, he digs deep into Guaraldi’s lesser known work, particularly some of the best and instantly recognizable Peanuts music from the specials Guaraldi scored in the 70s. As the disc’s title suggests, it’s overwhelming in its romanticism for the music, the images the music often accompanies, the composer and, even for Guaraldi’s hometown of San Francisco, lovingly pictured on the disc’s front cover.

George Winston provides the music with a gravity Vince Guaraldi’s work certainly deserves and has never really received. It is most apparent on the disc’s highlights. First and foremost, there is the great “Nobody Else.” The original, which balances a moody melancholy with a Latin lilt and was first heard on the 1966 album Vince Guaraldi & Bola Sete Live at El Matador, has a very Peanuts-like feel to it and could as easily have been titled “Charlie Brown” for all the “born loser” moods it conjures. Here, Winston slows it down dramatically, revealing it to be a rather achingly beautiful and remarkably poetic love song. It is surely Winston's finest moment.

Elsewhere, Winston splendidly reconvenes “It Was A Short Summer, Charlie Brown,” the New Orleans swagger of “Air Music” and the awkwardly paced but curiously appealing bayou consideration of “You’re Elected, Charlie Brown.” Perhaps Winston’s wittiest moment of the disc comes on the Professor Longhorn-like take on the familiar “Little Birdie,” which suggests anything but “little” here.

Winston also makes a strong and worthy case here for Vince Guaraldi’s expressive and impressionistic balladry, overshadowed to a large degree at the time by Bill Evans (and the fact that Guaraldi disappeared from records in the late sixties), with lovely performances of “Time For Love” (aka “There’s No Time For Love, Charlie Brown”), “Room At The Bottom” (aka “Like A Mighty Rose”), “Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown,” “Rain, Rain Go Away” and the disc’s title track, which is extended with the interesting “Slow Dance,” a Winston original in the same vein.

While it is truly a labor of love – and a document of some considerable erudition (the disc is particularly worthwhile for the extraordinarily detailed liner notes providing more Guaraldi discographical information and corrections than has been available elsewhere) - Love Will Come is initially difficult to reconcile with Vince Guaraldi’s originals.

One might reasonably expect a more lively representation of the composer’s work, which as clever and complicated as much of his music may be in construction, reveal a childlike playfulness as well as a hopefulness and happiness under his direction. In Winston’s hands, Guaraldi’s music is more ruminative and wistful than light and airy. While Winston’s touch is also a little heavier, sometimes clunkier and distinctly more chordal than Guaraldi’s lightening lilt, the solo pianist is nevertheless respectful, even loving, of Guaraldi’s often engaging compositions without bowing to reverential reproduction.

But, in all fairness, this is George Winston interpreting Vince Guaraldi not replicating Vince Guaraldi and love will come for Love Will Come when it’s heard in just that way.

Note: Barnes & Noble is currently offering an "exclusive" version of Love Will Come that adds the bonus track "Charlie Brown's Baseball Theme" to the disc's 16-song lineup.

Jamie Cullum "Wheels"

Wow. All I can say is, wow.



Wow, moreso.

Agatha Christie’s Poirot - Series 1

Agatha Christie's Poirot - An Introduction

1. The Adventure of the Clapham Cook (first broadcast January 8, 1989): In an affront to his dignity, Poirot agrees to help locate a missing domestic. Hoping at first to relieve his boredom, the detective discovers a far more insidious plot afoot involving deception, robbery and murder. First published in the UK in 1924 and as part of the US collection The Under Dog and Other Stories, this short story was an odd-choice place to begin David Suchet’s brilliantly definitive turn as the great Belgian detective in 1989. As a viewer, we enter Poirot’s world knowing he’s already solved many a crime and will now only accept commissions of great import, even though this is our first glimpse of the great sleuth. It turns out that starting off in a career already in progress was more of a blessing for the series than one could guess. There was no need to define Poirot to his audience. Director Edward Bennett (who also contributed to this series’ Murder in the Mews, The Third Floor Flat, The Incredible Theft, The Dream, The Veiled Lady, The Lost Mine, The Cornish Mystery and both the extraordinarily well-done feature-length films Hercule Poirot’s Christmas and Dumb Witness) and David Suchet brilliantly worked out many of the series’ signature bits in visual motifs, period clothing, art-deco décor, stock phrases and, of course, the famous moustache. The Clive Exton (1930-2007) script features a ripping yarn, with much of Christie’s warm-witted humor left in tact. Exton went on to contribute an additional 25 scripts to the series, and oversaw an additional six episodes as script consultant. Japp, who is mentioned in the story, and Miss Lemon make perfectly logical appearances in the film despite neither having any presence in the book. Poirot is also a little more forthright with Eliza Dunn, the domestic, in the book than Suchet is in the film. It’s hard to say which way of handling the pitiable situation is more heartbreaking. The film just ignores it. This episode, like any shop’s first dollar bill, is a perfectly good reminder for the never-wrong detective to keep his humility throughout the rest of his career and a great way to start a near-perfect series of murder mysteries. It also shows how often disguise in the commission of a crime is a part of the Poirot heritage (Four And Twenty Blackbirds, The Dream, The Mystery of Hunter’s Lodge, The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman, Lord Edgware Dies, After The Funeral, etc.) whereas Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes often resorted to disguise more as a method to catch criminals.

2. Murder In The Mews (first broadcast January 15, 1989): Following the loud fireworks display in celebration of Guy Fawkes Night (Bonfire Night) attended by Poirot in the Bardsley Gardens Mews, a woman residing in the Mews is later discovered as the victim of an apparently self-inflicted gun shot wound. Several unanswered questions and a number of clues point to the woman’s death possibly being a murder. The woman’s questionable associates taunt Poirot to consider the possibilities of either suicide or murder. Originally published in the UK in 1937 and as part of the US collection Dead Man’s Mirror, Murder in the Mews is one of Agatha Christie’s many classic deconstructions of the mystery form. This is the first sign of the Poirot TV series’ artiness, with great sets, indelible character actors and sumptuous photography. The visualization of this story also brings out Miss Plenderleith’s apparent lesbian affinities for the dead Mrs. Allen a bit more, perhaps, than Christie’s telling of it and Juliette Mole (Miss Plenderleith), who at the end of the film appears at Poirot’s office saying she was late due to attending Barbara’s funeral (another sign of love not in the book), performs tremendously well in a most impassioned manner. Ms. Mole also appeared several years earlier in the great Miss Marple presentation of 4:50 From Paddington. David Yelland, who plays the upwardly mobile Charles Laverton-West, the detached M.P. who was engaged to the deceased woman, began to appear regularly in the Poirot series as George, Poirot’s butler/valet, beginning with Taken at the Flood (2006) (George is mentioned once in this story, but has no place in the film). The film’s Nicholas Delve as the young boy, Freddie, is priceless. He’s a marvelous actor who did not appear to do much acting after this. While Hastings figures rather largely in the film, he is not at all present in the book. Japp functions as Poirot’s Dr. Watson in the book, as several references to Sherlock Holmes are made during the course of the story. Hastings takes on the inevitable Dr. Watson role in the film, a surprisingly colorful and very good entry in the Poirot series.

3. The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly (first broadcast January 22, 1989): The Waverlys receive several notes indicating that their three-year-old son, Johnny, will be kidnapped unless a sizable ransom is paid. As the notes proceed, the demand for money increases as well. Poirot is asked to investigate. First published in 1924 in the UK and as part of the US collection Three Blind Mice and Other Stories, The Adventure of Johnny Waverly is not Johnny’s adventure at all but rather that of his parents, who share a relationship taxed by certain financial problems. Geoffrey Bateman, as Marcus Waverley, Esq., does a masterful job playing up his character’s snooty “country squire” shtick, while rocking uneasily on a rickety foundation of significant financial loss. The film differs from the book in several ways. In the book, Johnnie’s kidnapping takes place before Poirot is consulted. The film shows Mr. Waverly consulting Poirot before the kidnapping, which is also at odds with the book as it more sensibly reveals the Waverlys jointly consulting Poirot. Inspector Japp, who replaces the book’s Inspector McNeil, also watches a different car go by in the film as Johnnie’s kidnapping takes place. The film’s dénouement is altered a bit, but the complicity is far better resolved by the telecast than Christie’s surprisingly complex conspiracy. Poirot’s moralistic exchange with Marcus Waverly at the end of the book is preserved almost verbatim in the film.

4. Four And Twenty Blackbirds (first broadcast January 29, 1989): One evening while at a restaurant with a friend, Poirot becomes curious about another patron of the restaurant, an old man who is said to have recently altered some very distinct habits. Upon discovering soon thereafter that the man has died an accidental death, Poirot suspects that something is amiss. First published in the UK in 1940 and as part of The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and in the US as part of Three Blind Mice and Other Stories, this is another Agatha Christie story that comes from the nursery rhyme, “Sing A Song of Sixpence” (the eponymous title of a 1929 Agatha Christie short story and the subject of which is also used for the wonderful 1953 Miss Marple novel A Pocket Full of Rye). Here, the title is a bit more of an oblique reference that Poirot ties to a clue which breaks the case for him: the eating of blackberry pie. The US publishers, probably sensing the confusion, re-titled the story much less fancifully as Poirot and the Regular Customer (similar to the titles used for Monk episodes). The film, written by Russell Murray (who also did The Adventure of the Cheap Flat) and directed by Renny Rye, who directed the previous The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly and the following Triangle at Rhodes, Problem at Sea, The King of Clubs, Peril at End House, The Tragedy at Marsden Manor, The Affair at the Victory Ball and The Mystery of Hunter’s Lodge, does a fine job of visualizing this especially intellectual case. The book has no sign of Hastings, Japp or Miss Lemon and features nephew George Lorrimer as a doctor, rather than the film’s more sensible theatrical producer. A romantic sub plot that happens years before the actual story takes place is built, most admirably, into the film as well. The indelible Hilary Mason (1917-2006), who was so memorable in any number of parts, including Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973) and the terrific Miss Marple adaptation of The Moving Finger (1985), is, as ever, fantastic here as Mrs. Amelia Hill, cook and housekeeper to Anthony Gascoigne. Still, a slight story, done up quite well for the telling of it on film.

5. The Third-Floor Flat (first broadcast February 5, 1989): Two young couples, upon being locked out one evening of one of the girl’s fourth-story flat, determine that the two men of the double pair can use the apartment’s coal lift to gain access to the flat. Upon entering the flat, the two young men discover not only that they have entered the wrong flat on the third floor – neither apparently able to count four floors up from the basement – but that there’s a dead woman who looks to be murdered in the apartment. First published in the UK in 1929 and in the US as part of Three Blind Mice and Other Stories, The Third-Floor Flat is a strange little tale that isn’t nearly as successful as so many other of Agatha Christie’s Poirot stories are. In Christie’s short story, the action takes place at Friars Mansions, where Poirot has inexplicably taken a fifth-floor flat under an assumed name. Writer Michael Baker, who also scripted the series’ episodes The King of Clubs and The Lost Mine, sets the filmed action more properly at Whitehaven Mansions, placing Poirot under his own name in the fifth-floor flat above the girl, Pat’s flat. The filmed version replaces the book’s unnamed inspector with Philip Jackson’s Chief Inspector Japp and includes a well-done sub-plot featuring Hugh Fraser’s Captain Hastings, who bets Poirot he can’t figure out the guilty party of a ridiculous – yet significantly ironic – whodunit play that the story’s characters attend (Poirot and Hastings attend such a play in the 28th chapter of the 1937 novel Dumb Witness). The film does much to enhance Christie’s thin and rather unbelievable story, and only strays with the weird scenes of Pat and Mildred dancing together far too much one afternoon in Pat’s apartment. Poirot’s introduction to the filmed version of this story is also much more plausible than the weird “here I am” presence he presents in the book.

6. Triangle at Rhodes (first broadcast February 12, 1989): During an off-season holiday on the Greek island of Rhodes, Poirot encounters a small group of people where a potential love triangle seems to be forming among the married Douglas Gold and the beautiful and rich Valentine Chantry, who is also married. Poirot senses danger and urges Mrs. Gold to leave the island at once if she values her life. When Valentine Chantry is poisoned to death, Poirot’s worst fears are confirmed. But who really killed Mrs. Chantry – and why? First published in the UK in 1934 and as part of the US book Dead Man’s Mirror and Other Stories, Triangle at Rhodes serves as a blueprint for the remarkably similar Poirot novel, Evil under the Sun (1941). It’s a good story, laced with intrigue and exotic settings and the first in the Granada series to highlight mystery and murder abroad. The film takes full advantage of the exotic location with sumptuous photography of stoned thoroughfares, crowded markets, historic sites and breathtaking vistas. Writer Stephen Wakelam, in his only Poirot script, deletes a useless character (Susan Blake), places Poirot at the end of his holiday (as if he’s about to leave Rhodes) and in one of several nods to the terrific 1982 film version of Evil Under The Sun, introduces something of a spy angle that is not present in the book. Wakelam’s script also significantly changes how Poirot identifies the solution to the crime. In the book, he witnesses a certain event that he is not present for in the film. Again, the filmed story improves substantially upon the written story by making Poirot and his Watson-like sidekick in the film, Pamela Lyall – played by Frances Low, who had appeared in the 1985 Miss Marple film A Pocket Full of Rye and who provides the suggestion of the triangle of the story’s title here that Poirot suggests in the book – detect the nature of the true crime and the origin of the real criminal(s). This episode’s use of the solo Eastern European hammer dulcimer instrument called the cimbalom on the soundtrack adds substantially to the exotic atmosphere throughout and suggests such spy thrillers of yore as The Ipcress File (John Barry) and The Eagle Has Landed. (Lalo Schifrin).

7. Problem At Sea (first broadcast February 19, 1989): While holidaying on a cruise ship sailing the rocky Mediterranean, Poirot encounters a small group of passengers including Miss Ellie Henderson, General Forbes, Colonel and Mrs. Clapperton, Kitty Mooney and Pamela Cregan. During a stopover in Alexandria, Egypt, Mrs. Clapperton is discovered to have been murdered. Was it a stranger who boarded the ship during the layover or one of the ship’s passengers who killed Mrs. Clapperton? First published in the UK in 1935 as Poirot and the Crime in Cabin 66 and originally as part of the US collection called The Regatta Mystery, Problem at Sea is another one of Agatha Christie’s many travel adventures. The film plays down Poirot’s mal de mer, but suggests sea sickness in a number of discomforting scenes. Whether or not it was intentional, the viewer certainly senses that this was indeed a bumpy ride. The filmed story, which is a preface to the far more substantial Poirot novel Death on the Nile (1945), greatly enhances the rather pedestrian and slightly obvious mystery by adding quite a few characters - including a little girl who could be said to have possessed the doll which reveals the story’s dénouement - having Poirot leave the boat, as most passengers did, for an afternoon in Alexandria (which he did not do in the book) and adding a little humor to the story by including Captain Hastings, who is not present in the book, preparing for a clay-pigeon shoot. Even so, the film is resolved pretty much the same way as the book and the filmmakers wisely retained Poirot’s signature statement from the story: “I do not approve of murder.” This is certainly another occasion where the film improves markedly over the original story. But, still, it’s not much of a story. The film’s odd character, Skinner, is played by the quirky Colin Higgins, who also featured in the 1984 Miss Marple film The Body in the Library.

8. The Incredible Theft (first broadcast February 26, 1989): Plans for a top-secret war plane disappear on the evening that a dinner party is held at the plane engineer’s house. In the right hands, the missing plans could fetch the thief an enormous fortune and ruin the man behind the plane. Suspicion falls on one of the dinner guests, who is suspected of working on behalf of the wartime enemy. Poirot investigates. Originally published in 1924 as The Submarine Plans, the story was expanded into the longer-than-usual short story The Incredible Theft in 1937. It was published as part of Dead Man’s Mirror and Other Stories in the US. Taking obvious inspiration from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1893 Sherlock Holmes tale The Naval Treaty, The Incredible Theft is neither incredible nor much of a theft. Like the Conan Doyle tale, it’s not a murder mystery either. Still, it’s a ripping yarn of war-time espionage that has much merit. Many of the changes that were made to the film were done in accord with England’s position during World War II (i.e., mentions of Germany and Japan – neither of which is specifically named or inferred in the book). The film’s script also sheds many of the book’s characters, some odd background and involves Poirot much earlier than Christie’s story. Usually, Agatha Christie’s spy yarns are kind of, well, terribly boring (The Big Four, The Seven Dials Mystery, etc.). This is years, even decades, before Ian Fleming/James Bond’s shaken-not-stirred cocktail clotheshorse and lady’s man became the spy norm for so many and while Miss Christie tapped into the undeniably intriguing elements of interest in espionage, she rarely crafted a compelling spy thriller. This one, like so many others, layers on complexity so confusingly – and, sadly, so unrealistically – that the rather bizarre ending hardly matters. Given the restraints of the author’s original material, which the filmmakers accede to as best as possible, it’s still a fun journey with some great actors coursing along for the ride. John Carson, as Sir George Carrington, would later appear in the 2006 Poirot film After the Funeral (as Richard Abernethie). Phyllida Law, as Lady Carrington, also appeared in the later Poirot film Hallowe’en Party (2010). Ciaran Madden, as Lady Mayfield, had appeared memorably in the 1984 Miss Marple film The Body in the Library, while John Stride, as Tommy Mayfield, had appeared in the 1985 TV film Thirteen at Dinner (with Peter Ustinov as Poirot and David Suchet as Inspector Japp). The delightful Carmen du Sautoy (The Man with the Golden Gun, Absolutely Fabulous, Midsomer Murders) is outstanding as the villainous Mrs. Vanderlyn – who is the right age and, even as a Brit, gets Christie’s oddly refracted take on American dialect right (though she’s a blonde in the book). Hastings, Japp and Miss Lemon make perfectly valid appearances in the film – Hastings’s turn here is particularly light-hearted and humorous – despite none having any presence in the book (Sir George calls Poirot in on the case in the book, but calls Japp in to the film). This episode features Poirot’s tremendously funny retort to one character’s expression that “Froggy thinks she didn’t do it”: “Froggy knows she didn’t do it.”

9. The King of Clubs (first broadcast March 12, 1989): Miss Saintclair discovers Henry Reedburn dead at his villa and rushes to a neighboring house owned by the Oglanders for sanctuary. Miss Saintclair, engaged to be married shortly to a Prince, had gone to Reedburn’s house originally to discuss blackmail. The Prince, wary of any hint of scandal, asks Poirot to look into the affair and a deck of playing cards helps convince the investigator what really happened. First published in 1923 as The Adventure of the King of Clubs, this story was published in the US as part of The Under Dog and Other Stories. Similar in some ways to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes short story, A Scandal in Bohemia (1891), The King of Clubs actually takes some of the gusto out of the machinations and characterizations of Conan Doyle’s tale and drops in elements of certain other Holmes adventures to spice up this rather unbelievable adventure. Like A Scandal in Bohemia, the perpetrators of The King of Clubs also get away with their questionable activities due to the wealth of power they’re supposed to wield in the world. The extraordinarily flimsy and implausible story gets an injection of weird reality in the film by taking place in the world of film. Like one of those episodes of Columbo that takes place on the Hollywood backlot, it’s especially engaging (who doesn’t want to see famous people acting badly?) and an easy way to film an otherwise trashy story (“Hey, it’s a real backlot!”). The film realistically changes “impresario” Harry Reedburn into a 30s-era studio head and famed “dancer” Miss Saintclair into a leading film actress who makes the studio all its money. The fact that Reedburn’s house is next door to the eventually significant Oglander household is unbelievable in the extreme and Miss Saintclair’s fallout and later complicity with the Oglanders is never made clear, either in the book or, more especially, in the film. The film fortunately dispenses with the story-teller’s symbolic device of a fortune teller and adds several other characters (film folk, gypsies, etc.) that have good reason to do away with Harry Reedburn. Most oddly, the “murder,” while unaccountably dismissed by Poirot in the book, is inexplicably called an accident in the film. Captain Hastings is also involved more in the film’s action than in the book and Inspector Japp, who gets to deliver the script’s best line - “Little gray cells are all very nice, Poirot, but it’s dogged as does it” - gets some goofy Lestrade-like appearances in the film, despite his having no presence at all in the book. Amazingly, the police do not factor at all in the book. The film features several outstanding Art Deco sets and some brief and beautiful outdoor scenes that dilute any consternation one could have of the story’s ridiculous nature. And, the acting is – as ever – superb. Avril Elgar, as Mrs. Olgander, also appeared in the 1985 TV film Thirteen at Dinner (with Peter Ustinov as Poirot and David Suchet as Inspector Japp). Sean Pertwee, as Ronnie Oglander (John Jr. in the book), also appeared in the 2006 Marple movie The Moving Finger while Niamb Cusak, as the pretty much awful Valerie Saintclair, appeared in the 2004 Marple film 4:50 From Paddington.

10. The Dream (first broadcast March 19, 1989): Eccentric millionaire Benedict Farley asks Hercule Poirot by letter to meet with him under rather unusual circumstances about a recurring dream he has. In the dream, Farley commits suicide by killing himself with a revolver at a very specific time of the day. Stating he has no good reason to kill himself, the millionaire fears he has been hypnotized by this delusion, that the delusion has infiltrated his dreams and that someone is actually intent upon murdering him. Poirot is baffled. But Farley dismisses his incredulousness, and then Benedict Farley is shortly thereafter discovered to have killed himself exactly as he predicted in his dream. But authorities find out about Farley’s letter to Poirot and think it might be murder after all. First published in 1937 in the UK and included in book The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and, in the US, as part of The Regatta Mystery, The Dream is a neat little story that appears to take then-topical Freudian dream logic to Agatha Christie’s own delectable ends. While Miss Christie uses “the dream” as an excuse for her own murderous means, it is a shame that more of the theatrical imagery that Freud inserted into his theories – and the same literate heavy-handedness that Miss Christie inserted into so many of her own books, particularly the non-Poirot stories (Sleeping Murder, By The Pricking Of My Thumbs, etc.) – is not explored in a little more depth here. Still, it is a short story after all and “the dream,” any dream, is an absolutely perfect set-up for a murderous crime. Clive Exton’s beautifully conceived script embellishes the book most magnificently by setting the action in a bizarrely successful pie manufacturer’s factory/home. Even Edward Bennett’s direction, replete with introductory newsreel footage (which would later be repeated in several other Poirot episodes, including The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb, Murder on the Links – in a very Citizen Kane-styled way - and Murder in Mesopotamia), is especially good, taking in some remarkably beautiful deco décor and a good deal of fine acting. Inspector Japp is inserted into the film in place of the book’s Inspector Barnett and both Captain Hastings and Miss Lemon earn amusingly worthy places in the film, though neither has a place in the book. One of the most interesting points of casting here is Alan Howard, who portrays both Benedict Farley and his secretary, Hugo Cornworthy – a curious fact which proves to be significant in the story. Neville Phillips, as Holmes (the curiously unnamed butler), also appeared in the excellent 1987 Miss Marple film At Bertram’s Hotel.

Agatha Christie’s Poirot – Series 2
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 3
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 4
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 5
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 6
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 7
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 8
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 9
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 10
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 11
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 12

Agatha Christie’s Poirot - An Introduction

I first discovered this great Granada television mystery series some 10 years ago by channel surfing past PBS’s Mystery! and catching a broadcast of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. I was immediately struck by the stylish settings, the impeccable acting, the good writing and the engrossing story. I was hooked.

Discovering that Agatha Christie’s Poirot, aka Agatha Christie: Poirot and henceforth referred to here simply as Poirot, was a series, I hoped to catch further episodes on TV and only rarely ever did. Finally, after many a year of waiting for TV runs or re-runs, I was able to acquire the American-issued DVDs of this superb series. But while I was glad to finally be able to repeatedly enjoy and appreciate Poirot at my own pleasure, the American DVDs have turned out to be confusingly assembled and shoddily presented.

The basic releases include Acorn Media’s The Classic Collection (2005 - the 36 45-minute presentations) and The Classic Collection 2 (2007- the first 12 of the feature-length presentations) and A&E’s rather poor and poorly-titled packages, The Complete Collection (2002), The New Mysteries Collection (2004) and the Classic Crimes Collection (2006), each containing four feature-length Poirot films.

The Acorn Media sets have always looked terrible, as if they were taped onto VHS directly from TV. They’re also presented in no particular order – certainly not running order or historical order. And the A&E sets, while the quality is somewhat more substantial than the Acorn sets, are edited for no other reason than to allow more commercials during TV runs. And, no, the A&E DVDs do not restore any of the deleted footage – usually about three to five minutes worth of worthy material. Several naughty words appear to be silenced out of the mix too. But why not include any of this on the DVD?

Adding insult to injury, many of these packages have been reissued – as is – with different and stupid names and in different and stupidly conceived configurations.

The Acorn Media sets are now ALSO available in 4 different sets that feature nine of the shorter episodes and eight of the feature-length films. The fourth of these volumes, called The Movie Collection - Set 4, features only two of the four feature-length episodes from 2008 at a ridiculously ostentatious $50 retail price. The other two 2008 episodes are still – at this writing – not even available on DVD in the US. And the three A&E packages are now combined and available as something called The Definitive Collection (2009), which lists for a ridiculous $100.

Confused? That doesn’t even sum up all the differing variations of Poirot DVD titles available at the current time in the US. Acorn has 12 other varying and over-priced sets of Poirot shows with three titles each per disc (the whole of the shorter episodes). And then there are the strange Agatha Christie compilation sets forcing some of these Poirot films, with no logic whatsoever, into sets containing some other non-Poirot related Agatha Christie films/television productions. It’s ridiculous.

Then, ITV released the realistically-titled The Compete Collection in the UK (Region 2) in 2009, answering many prayers from Poirot completists such as myself. All 61 episodes of the 11 series produced up until that time are presented here on 28 discs in running order, with great clarity, in the proper film scope in a beautiful package with a “collector’s guide” booklet detailing the series’ entire history. It is a remarkable package and worth every penny for any fan of the series – and anyone with a multi-region DVD player. It amounts to about 70 amazing hours worth of tremendous television.

While the ITV booklet does a good job of briefly describing each and every episode, there is probably much more that should be known about each of the episodes and how they compare to Agatha Christie’s originals.

Aside from David Suchet’s remarkable and definitive performance as the Belgian sleuth, the magnificent Suchet himself has been steadfast about remaining true to the character as Agatha Christie wrote him and staying close to Christie’s basic plots – a sanctity that the recent Marple series has violated repeatedly (changing killers, motivations – and even injecting Miss Marple into Agatha Christie stories the character was never a part of).

Hastings is also treated with far more humanity and dignity by Poirot in the films rather than the books – a small change that probably comes from Suchet’s significant input.

Plot changes in Poirot either happen to fill out a full episode of a thinly-plotted escapade or to help make more sense of the human machinations Christie only had to sketch out for a story. Cards on the Table, for example, makes some of the most noticeable – and, more significantly, plausible – changes in its journey from book to film. Usually, Christie’s crime and its criminal(s) remain purely in tact throughout the entirety of the Poirot series.

Early on, the Granada series finds the great detective consistently aided – or, more properly, abetted – by erstwhile associate Captain Arthur Hastings, as portrayed by the excellent Hugh Fraser (who can be heard expertly reading many of the currently available Agatha Christie audio books), Chief Inspector James Harold Japp, as portrayed by the gallant Philip Jackson, and Miss Felicity Lemon, as portrayed by the regal Pauline Moran.

David Suchet, brilliant and definitive as the great Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, delivers a deep and abiding respect to these actors, which translates to their characters and is, of course, reciprocated in kind by these fine performers, offering a sort of grand sense of repertory theatre that also made Granada’s outstanding Sherlock Holmes series with Jeremy Brett (1984-94), David Burke and Edward Hardwicke such a definitive artistic success.

Later episodes of Poirot mostly did away with Hastings, Japp and Miss Lemon, although Hastings figures rather largely in Christie’s Poirot finale, Curtain, yet to be filmed. Stories featuring the redoubtable Ariadne Oliver (a jokey pastiche of Agatha Christie from the author herself), portrayed majestically by the fabulous Zoë Wannamaker, began to appear appropriately in the 2005 film Cards on the Table and Poirot’s occasionally-mentioned manservant, George (also as Georges), was finally introduced in the 2006 film Taken at the Flood in the person of British character actor David Yelland.

Here, I will endeavor – over time in some small way – to capture some of my thoughts on each of the individual shows and the corresponding stories. Many great actors, writers and directors have passed through this long-running series and it is significant to state their contribution to Agatha Christie’s remarkable invention of Hercule Poirot.

Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 1
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 2
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 3
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 4
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 5
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 6
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 7
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 8
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 9
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 10
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 11
Agatha Christie's Poirot - Series 12

Black Dynamite

I recently caught the brilliantly hilarious film Black Dynamite, truly one of the baddest and best comedies in many, many a year and, possibly, one of the best films I’ve seen in a long, long time. Michael Jai White is pitch-perfect – on a number of levels – and freakin’ sensational as the 1970s superhero Black Dynamite in this amazing send up of blaxploitation films.

The film gets a bunch of stuff amazingly right: the cars, the pimpmobiles, the hair, the clothes, the shoes, the wallpaper, the furniture, the things we liked and the hair. Oh yes, and the hair. Director Scott Sanders and cinematographer Shawn Maurer don’t shy away from the low, nearly amateurish production values of the genre and its time (and the fact that the major studios hardly gave these films anywhere near the kind of money it takes to make a film) and gives it all those yucky period browns and oranges.

Indeed, many are often surprised to find that Black Dynamite was introduced to the world in 2009 and not sometime in the early seventies with fellow heroes Shaft or Superfly. The filmmakers do a tremendous “send up” that feels so real because there’s a lot of love and admiration in the knowingness, which makes the rapid-fire humor much, much funnier than a presentation of mere pastiche or parody.

Another thing the film gets right is the music. Adrian Younge, who provides the original score (and is, most oddly, the film’s editor too), and David Hollander, who scours a vast archive of library music to assemble a wall-to-wall soundtrack of fantastic sounds, are both spot on. The great folks at waxpoetics have issued two worthy Black Dynamite soundtracks on their own label – and “it’s not a comedy” for those of us who dig the funk and other seventies sounds.

Black Dynamite (Original Motion Picture Score) – Adrian Younge: Multi-instrumentalist Adrian Younge makes his debut on Wax Poetics Records with his original score to the Michael Jai White comedy Black Dynamite. Inspired by the great blaxploitation soundtracks of the 1970s, Younge commands the Rhodes electric piano, Hammond organ, Hohner Clavinet, harpsichord, synthesizer, vibraphone, guitar, bass, flute, sax, cello, and drums, crafting with a singular vision. Whether it’s the witty vocal of “Jimmy’s Apartment” or the lowdown bass line of “Rafelli Chase,” the entire album is deeply authentic.

Black Dynamite (Motion Picture Soundtrack): Music supervisor David Hollander handpicked each track and cue from the vast reservoir of 1970s British library music, originally created for film and television. Maestros Alan Hawkshaw, Brian Bennett, and Johnny Pearson lay down exquisite and precise funk, but the bulk of the material comes from Alan Tew’s celebrated Drama Suite series (as heard on The Hanged Man and The People’s Court). Wax Poetics Records presents an authentic package with original artwork by Maceo Leatherwood.

What follows here is a brief clip that was not featured in the film and is ridiculously hilarious. Black Dynamite guests stars on the Sesame Street-like show “Ding Dong Roar” singing “Drugs Are Fun” (hahaha irony) with hip cat Funky Feline:

Finally, here’s another spot where Black Dynamite changes the course of history when he meets a young boy named Barry:

Eric Alexander on Delmark

Cries of “jazz is dead” are so easy to join nowadays that it’s hardly worth making the argument anymore. Sure, many continue to debate the pointless issue. Down Beat devoted a whole issue to the topic recently. Even the venerable Newsweek made some sort of weird case refuting it a month or two ago.

It’s such a moot point. As Duke Ellington once said long ago, “there is good music and the other kind.” Restricting music to genre definitions seems almost meaningless these days, especially as hardly any notable jazz has been issued in the last, well, three decades.

Good copy-cat jazz? Oh, there’s been plenty of that. Who needs another Miles Davis tribute? Or another Miles Davis-sounding player? It’s easy enough to buy a Miles Davis CD and enjoy something that was new and different when new and different didn’t mean doing something someone else did before.

Say what you will. Cite what you will cite. There aren’t more than a handful of people that would agree on any landmark “jazz” recording or noteworthy jazz-related event in the last 30 or so years.

The tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander (b. 1968) is one of jazz’s exceptions and, happily, one of its brightest lights. While, unfortunately, stuck in a meaningless jazz time warp, Eric Alexander has produced countless examples of fine musicality and much worthy “product” and plays and records with a productivity that not too many others can match.

In a phrase, it is pure pleasure to listen to Eric Alexander. Alexander possesses a universe of influences (George Coleman, Dexter Gordon, John Coltrane, Hank Mobley, etc.), but he is a galaxy of sound all his own. His phrasing and intonation, his style and sonority and his collaborative consistency are all unique and could only come from him. It’s something worth appreciating over and over again.

The following recordings, some of the first under Alexander’s own name, which date back nearly two decades ago now, are definitive. These discs represent the formative nature of Eric Alexander’s thinking and document some of the great passion he has for the tradition and his refusal to merely replicate what has been done before.

After many, many discs on jazz’s most vaunted – and few surviving – labels such as Milestone, Alfa, Sharp Nine, HighNote/Savant and Venus, Eric Alexander is proving to be unstoppable in his intuition, integrity and imagination. He’s never had to go looking for a recording opportunity either. In one of jazz’s few success stories, the record companies come looking for him – a lot and repeatedly.

He’s also been paired with any number of great contemporaries (Jim Rotundi, John Webber, Joe Farnsworth) and musical legends, particularly in the keyboard domain. Keyboardists of note that Eric Alexander can be heard with quite often include the great Harold Mabern (one of Alexander’s teachers and a mentor), David Hazeltine and Mike LeDonne as well as Kenny Barron, Cedar Walton and John Hicks. There are also all the organists: Charles Earland, Melvin Rhyne, Joey DeFrancesco and Larry Goldings, among others, too.

Upon reflection, these Delmark discs stand out, particularly when one considers all that came after these initial recordings. These few discs mark the very first chapter in the Eric Alexander story and a most exciting place to start an ongoing jazz adventure.

Straight Up (Delmark, 1992): Although Eric Alexander’s solo debut suggests, in both spirit and configuration, one of the old Hank Mobley-Lee Morgan Blue Note dates of the 1960s, this is an assured and, quite frankly, original beginning to the tenor player’s remarkable trajectory that has nothing to do with something that’s been done before. Neither Mobley nor Morgan ever touched any of this material – nor had they ever sounded as free and easy or, dare we suggest, as happy as Eric Alexander does here. In 1993, this disc may have seemed traditionally trivial, too then-in old school or too, pardon the awful colloquialism, “been there, done that.” But in light of not only surviving but exceeding the drudgery of two decades worth of mostly worthless “jazz,” Eric Alexander has proven that he has great insights, great fortitude, great taste, healthy appetites and an eminently appealing stance in the music (he believes in good melodies, wherever they come from, and constructing song-like solos like John Coltrane once did, without needing to quote John Coltrane to make his point). All the signs were there and they appear in abundance on Straight Up. Partnered here with the great Memphis piano legend Harold Mabern and fellow young lions Jim Rotundi, inspired and interesting on trumpet, John Webber on bass and Chicago-based George Fludas on drums, Alexander fronts the group exceptionally well, as if he’s leading a team that he knows will only work if all contribute effectively. Mabern is the glue that holds it all together and, no doubt, lends the sage’s air of timelessness that this set most assuredly achieves. He is in his rakin’ and scrapin’ groove throughout. The program bristles with choices that are either immaculately chosen (“Be My Love,” “Blues Waltz,” “An Oscar For Treadwell”) or startlingly executed (“What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life,” “Laura,” and most surprisingly, the bossa nova take of “Love Is A Many Splendored Thing”). The date’s only original, Alexander’s “Straight Up,” is especially appealing, eliciting grand playing from all involved. This is jazz the way it was meant to be heard: enjoyable without being obvious and challenging without being unlistenable.

Up, Over & Out (Delmark, 1993): After recording an album for the Dutch Criss Cross label and co-leading a standards-oriented Delmark disc with fellow tenor player Lin Halliday, Eric Alexander laid down his second “Up” disc, this 1993 quartet session – not issued until 1995 – featuring the great pianist Harold Mabern, bassist John Ore and the drummer Joe Farnsworth, who has since recorded frequently with both Alexander and Mabern. The rhythm section was paired with Alexander a few months earlier on baritone sax legend Cecil Payne’s Delmark album Cerupa and reconvenes here, providing the tenor player with his first-ever recorded sole horn spot. The shoes are big, if they are to be filled and Alexander knows it, responding in kind to the responsibility that is his charge. Throughout, Alexander displays his fondness for George Coleman (a Memphis native like pianist Harold Mabern, the two have worked together throughout both of their careers) and his soulful conceptions, but finds a way to engage even more fervently and with more zeal than even the great George Coleman has hitherto displayed. On the whole, the disc is structured like one of the great Dexter Gordon quartet records, mixing war-horse standards with challenging jazz compositions and a couple of surprises. Indeed it is the surprises that impress most and include the title track, a little-known cover of Hank Mobley’s “Up, Over & Out,” originally performed on Mobley’s 1968 Blue Note album Reach Out, Cecil Payne’s “Flying Fish,” which dates back to a 1968 Strata-East record, and Mabern’s unique-to-this-session (?) “Blues for Mabe.” The standards here include “The Nearness of You,” “Bewitched” and “I Remember Clifford” and while each is competently performed, they seem more like necessary exposition than impassioned experiences. Also on tap here are the little covered “Eronel” and the delightfully expounded “Ba-lue Bolivar Ba-Lues Are,” both tunes by Thelonius Monk, who bassist John Ore spent a great deal of time playing with in the fifties and the sixties. Indeed, Ore is afforded generous space on both tunes (Ore solos nicely on “Blues for Mabe” too). While it’s all good, this disc is probably higher-than-average class filler for more meaty samples of what Eric Alexander has since accomplished and is assuredly much more capable of. But it’s still worthwhile on any number of levels.

Mode For Mabes (Delmark, 1997): By the time of his third and final Delmark recording, Eric Alexander had already relocated from Chicago (where Delmark is based) to New York and recorded three albums for the Dutch Criss Cross label, Man With A Horn (with Cedar Walton) for Milestone, the wonderful Alexander The Great (with Charles Earland) for HighNote and the first of the “One For All” discs for Sharp Nine. Since Up, Over & Out, the tenor player had also only partnered with pianist Harold Mabern on Cecil Payne’s 1996 disc Scotch And Milk. But here Alexander returns to Chicago with Mabern, where, lest it be forgotten, the pianist got his start in the late fifties as part of the MJT + 3, for another exuberant and entrancing recording. The tenor-trumpet-trombone front line hints at John Coltrane’s Blue Train, but Mode For Mabes suggests a very different brew altogether. (Interesting oddity: Blue Train bassist Paul Chambers can be heard on other versions of this album’s “Sugar Ray,” “For Heaven’s Sake,” “Love Thy Neighbor,” “Stairway to the Stars” and “Naima” – all the songs that are not new to Mode For Mabes and mostly all with John Coltrane in the lead.) The difference is probably the soulful authority that Eric Alexander, trumpeter Jim Rotundi, trombonist Steve Davis and, most especially, pianist Harold Mabern bring to the proceedings. It’s not soulful in the usual way that critics often praise with faint damnation. It’s soulful in the true sense of the word. These guys feel the music and play to it. These are talented cats that, in addition to delivering the expected chills and thrills of melodic delivery and unique improvisation, are having a damned good time just playing the music. Highlights are plentiful and include Alexander and Rotundi’s title track, surely dedicated to the date’s pianist, whose signature sound is nicely spotlighted here; Phineas Newborn’s “Sugar Ray,” previously performed by fellow Memphis accolade Mabern on the 1990 Japanese compilation 100 Gold Fingers; trombonist Steve Davis’s Lee Morgan-like “Erik The Red” (where Alexander makes a particularly strong case as a powerful, melodically-endowed soloist – like his mentor, Harold Mabern, who also solos magnificently here); the Blakey-like intensity of Alexander and Rotundi’s “Stay Straight;” the terpsichorean quartet reading of “Stairway to the Stars,” a particularly excellent feature for Alexander’s lovely, swinging approach (and another Mabern model of pianistic nobility) and something which Coltrane performed with Milt Jackson on the great 1959 album Bags And Trane; and, of course, a particularly rousing take on Coltrane’s “Naima,” which Mabern – who is mesmerizing here – had previously recorded with George Coleman in 1981 and as part of a 1983 Jamey Aebersold play-along set. Eric Alexander shines most splendidly on “Naima” as well, capping off a shining disc in a rather sparkling – and capacious! – discography.

Postscript: Considering all the Coltrane references listed here, it is worth noting that Eric Alexander does not cover any of the aforementioned Coltrane material on his recent Venus quartet disc, Chim Chim Cheree, a sort of John Coltrane on Impulse tribute, which also features pianist Harold Mabern and bassist John Webber from Mode For Mabes.

Ahmad Jamal Trips Out: The 20th Century Recordings

After a long stretch of records for the Argo/Cadet label dating back to 1955, Pittsburgh-born piano prodigy Ahmad Jamal opted in 1968 to “retire” from recording to set his sights on running his own trio of labels. Unfortunately, the capital required to run his business had to come from further recordings of his own. Producer Bob Thiele talked Jamal into recording, not for the high-profile Impulse label that Thiele oversaw at the time, but for the more pop-oriented owner of Impulse, ABC-Paramount, for which Thiele had also helmed many productions.

The resulting album, 1968’s Tranquility (reissued in 1973 as an Impulse album), maintained Jamal’s working trio with bassist Jamil Sulieman and drummer Frank Gant, but differed from previous recordings in that there was a higher quotient of Jamal originals and a more contemporary spin on pop cover tunes (“The Look Of Love,” “I Say A Little Prayer”).

Jamal migrated to the Impulse label just as Thiele was leaving and recorded the live Ahmad Jamal At The Top – Poinciana Revisited and the studio classic, The Awakening. He finished out his Impulse tenure with two recordings from his appearance at the 1971 Montreux Jazz Festival, Freeflight and Outertimeinnerspace, where he no doubt shocked the crowd in much the same way Dylan did back in 1965, by introducing an electric instrument into his repertoire.

He didn’t give up the Steinway altogether though. But it was very clear that when he touched the electric piano, he’d heard sounds he’d never explored before and discovered nuances that were new to his thinking.

Going electric was good for Ahmad Jamal. When he switched back to the piano, you could hear the change in his playing. His phrasing nearly did an about face. Indeed, he began to fill those spaces Miles Davis praised him for with new modes, dramatic flourishes and a revelation of all his left hand could do to orchestrate a mere trio.

Meanwhile, Jamal’s entrepreneurial venture had unfortunately not succeeded and the handful of little-known records that were released in 1969 and 1970 on three imprints (AJP, Jamal and Cross) sort of just disappeared. But these, too, were of monumental importance to the musician’s way of thinking.

To hear them, you’d never know that the great pianist had anything to do with them. There is the South African groove of Jonas Gwangwa (Jamal), the Jamaican funk of Carlos Malcom, the psych rock of Julius Victor, the cosmic fuzz of Stark Reality, the R& B soul of Johnny “K” (all AJP) and the deep church gospel pronunciations of Norman Clayton and Beverly Glenn (both Cross).

Since Ahmad Jamal has hardly ever gigged on other people’s records, his presence is more likely that of benefactor on these records than as participant. But there is little doubt that his heart, his soul, his ears and his thinking were opened wide to new directions in sound.

This is the Ahmad Jamal who transitioned from his former self to appear, of all places, on the 20th Century Records label in 1973. The label, an outlet for the better-known film and TV studio, was home to many film soundtracks such as Jerry Goldsmith’s Patton (and later, John Williams’s precedent-setting Star Wars score), pop acts like the DeFranco Family, and, most profitably for the label at that time, Barry White and his various groups.

From the start, Ahmad Jamal was virtually the only jazz act at 20th Century and, strangely, it stayed that way throughout his entire tenure with the label, which ended pretty much with the label’s demise in the early eighties.

20th Century clearly offered Ahmad Jamal the freedom to do as he pleased, providing him an outlet to explore music on his terms, in his own way. There seems to have been little corporate interference or pressure to produce copy-cat jazz, mainstream reprises or fusion filler.

Ahmad Jamal recorded prolifically for the label, serving up five studio recordings and two “compilations” of singles, outtakes and previously unreleased recordings between 1973 and 1980 and a “best of” package spanning the 20th Century years issued in 1981. These recordings remain among the very best of Ahmad Jamal’s career, summing up much of his recorded output during the 1970s and, sadly, all of these albums, out of print for many, many years, have not ever appeared on CD before – and aren’t expected to anytime soon.

Ahmad Jamal ‘73 (20th Century, 1973): Reuniting in Chicago with another former Argo/Cadet mainstay Richard Evans (the two produced 1962’s Macanudo together), Ahmad Jamal uses his 1973 debut on the suspiciously un-jazzy 20th Century label to go fully electric. Long an expensive collector’s item and DJ favorite, the electrified Ahmad Jamal ‘73 contains many superb moments worth sampling – and many have done just that. The well-chosen, well-covered pop tunes take up side one and include War’s “The World Is A Ghetto” (the album’s single release), The Jones Girls’ “Children of the Night” and Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.” Side two features the nicely grooving “Sustah, Sustah,” a soulful piece of near spiritual jazz probably written by Evans under the moniker Ra Twani Za Yemeni. Throughout, Jamal entrances and amazes as a very credibly individualistic electric pianist. Unlike other periodic forays onto the electrical instrument, Jamal sticks to Fender Rhodes throughout every song on the album. Evans sprinkles in hints of horns, sparks of strings and the occasional voice, but always in a complementary style that never hinders, overwhelms or outshines the keyboardist or his unnamed rhythm section. The album’s centerpiece is undoubtedly “Peace at Last,” one of the finest pieces of 70s funk ever heard and the funkiest thing Ahmad Jamal has ever done. The piece was composed by the little-known Chicago-based musician Charles Colbert (b. 1939), who also co-wrote the fine Blaxploitation funk of “Keep on Trucking,” the 1973 45-only B-side to Jamal’s 45 of “M*A*S*H Theme.” It is unknown whether Colbert, who was the bassist in the earliest formation of Rufus, but left music around this time to go into the ministry, participated as a musician on Jamal’s album. “Peace at Last,” though, is an extraordinary piece and Jamal invests in it all of the magic he possesses on the Fender Rhodes. While the album is probably a pretty costly treasure to obtain, “Peace at Last” makes it worth every penny. It is one of Ahmad Jamal’s finest performances in a very long career of fine performances. Surprisingly, the very Andy Warhol-like front cover image of Ahmad Jamal was not done by Andy Warhol. The photo, though, is by celebrated fashion photographer Norman Seeff. Available to download from the great Smooth at My Jazz World.

Jamalca (20th Century, 1974): The second of Ahmad Jamal’s 20th Century albums is this interesting, if not entirely successful, mix of electric and acoustic takes on mostly soulful pop numbers. Jamal spins electric gold out of The Spinners’ “Ghetto Child,” Foster Sylvers’ “Misdemeanor” (a justly oft-sampled piece, with a great Richard Evans arrangement), Marvin Gaye’s “Trouble Man” and the surprisingly engaging “M*A*S*H Theme.” Jamal then switches to the acoustic piano for “Along The Nile” (written by the same Ra Twani Za Yemeni who contributed “Sustah, Sustah” to the previous Ahmad Jamal ‘73), “Jamalca” (Jamal’s only original here, an interesting gospel-meets-Jamaican tryst), Gordon Parks’ “Don’t Misunderstand” (from Shaft’s Big Score), which gets a strangely old-timey arrangement from Evans, and drummer Brian Grice’s moderately interesting “Theme Bahamas.” The pianist switch-hits the acoustic and the electric keyboards on the intriguing “Children Calling,” composed by the Joel Beal(e) of “Soul Girl” from the pianist’s previous album. The groove stays pretty loose and funky, even when Jamal is on the acoustic piano. But it just feels a little more fractured than it should, and more forced than it did before. Throughout much of the album, Jamal is supported by arranger/bassist Richard Evans and drummer Brian Grice. On the “M*A*S*H Theme”, Jamal is accompanied by the pianist’s regulars (at the time), Jamil Nasser on bass and Frank Gant on drums. By way of elaboration, the “M*A*S*H Theme” featured here was first issued as part of the 1973 TV soundtrack album (Columbia S 32753) and also appeared on a 1973 45 on 20th Century. Jamal gives this surprisingly brief performance a most distinctive reading. The Columbia album’s liner notes enthuse that Ahmad Jamal is “one of the most exciting of all of today’s instrumentalists.” The album’s annotator further elaborates that the tune in Jamal’s hands gets “a Seventies excitement laid on the now familiar melody composed by Johnny Mandel.” This wickedly electric treatment became something of a hit for the pianist, who often played it in concert throughout the next decade or so and recorded another interesting electric variation for his 1980 Motown album,Night Song. Jamal also recorded the song in a more acoustic environment for his great 1985 album Digital Works.

Jamal Plays Jamal (20th Century, 1974): While Ahmad Jamal seasoned many of his previous albums with original compositions, he had never had a whole album dominated by or devoted to his own compositions before this 1974 release. The pianist presents six of his own compositions here and sticks to the Steinway grand piano for most of the occasion in the familiar company of bassist Jamil Nasser, drummer Frank Gant and percussionist Azzedin Weston (Randy Weston’s son, who passed away in 2007). Backed by Richard Evans’ mostly spare backgrounds. Jamal Plays Jamal returns the pianist to a familiar groove that listeners of his earlier Impulse! albums would recognize and appreciate. The record helps to unlock the unique artistry and the passionate logic Jamal brings so marvelously to other people’s music. The album’s highlights are surely “Eclipse,” “Spanish Interlude” and “Swalililand” and while their construction hint at other tunes, these are quintessentially Jamalian in fact, fashion and fascination. Coincidentally, each of these tunes features the pianist stating his melody on the acoustic piano and soloing it out on the Fender Rhodes electric piano. Surprisingly, of these three pieces, Ahmad Jamal kept only “Swahililand” in his repertoire, often performing it and recording it again for Crystal (1987), After Fajr (2004) and It’s Magic (2007). Sadly, the rest of the album borders on rather pointless exposition, with Jamal presenting musical ideas or fragments that are strung together rather than fully developed as tunes. Even the songs’ evocative titles hint at this. “Pastures” meanders around some soundtrack-like string quartet whole tones, allowing Jamal to get a bit too florid on the keyboard and making the song feel even longer than its six minutes and 40 seconds. Likewise, “Dialogue” rambles about, always threatening to get started before it ends nearly nine minutes later without any real point or perceptions and “Death & Resurrection” (which also features a Fender Rhodes solo) dispels any mood or moods it might be trying to evoke by constantly shifting key changes. Still, the album’s three highlights offer nearly 25 minutes of exciting and worthy music that’s a very significant thread in the Jamlalian fabric.

Steppin Out With A Dream (20th Century, 1976): While this above average musical document is several steps above the previous Jamal Plays Jamal, the album’s title, Steppin Out With A Dream, which has nothing to do with any of the music presented here (the album was issued as Prelude to a Kiss in Europe), and the cover graphics show that Ahmad Jamal, or his record label, was a little out of step with the times or the expectation of the times. Even the music, though superb, seems a tad out of step with what anyone might expect from a jazz pianist in the Bicentennial year. Jamal presents three strong originals (none of which he has recorded since), “Handicapper,” the all electric “Tucson” and “Crossfire” and two rather long piano/bass duets for the jazz standards “Prelude to a Kiss” and “My One And Only Love.” The pianist, on the electric piano for the “Handicapper” and “Crossfire” solos and throughout “Tucson,” is accompanied by bassist John Hurd (sic - who goes electric on “Tucson”), guitarist Calvin Keys, drummer Frank Gant and percussionist Selden Newton (the last three are not heard on the two standards). “Tucson,” is the most obvious bow to fashion here, almost nearly breaking from Jamal’s typically complex jazz structure into good old simple funk. Funky, though it is, it is not a funk tune, nor is it as easy to classify. The long ballad explorations elicit Jamal’s great love for timeless melodies and elucidate the way many of his ideas truly jettison mere musical themes. Ahmad Jamal was playing – and, as a result, thinking – at the very top of his game here, and clearly he was able to present the music his own way – avoiding any of the corporate pressure major labels placed on musical artists for the next “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” “Chameleon” or any dip into the commercial music cesspool (which would have meant disco in the day). The underrated California-based guitarist Calvin Keys, who was heard on the pianist’s 1975 45-rpm single, “Pablo Sierra” and later on Live at Oil Can Harry’s (1976), One (1978), Night Song (1980) and Live In Paris 1996, adds a surprisingly complimentary element to the proceedings. He brings a welcome touch of soulful wit to the proceedings in a way that Ray Crawford, Jamal’s previous guitar partner, had all those years ago, accenting the pianist with adept distinction and no sign of declarative domination. The album’s highlights are, undoubtedly, “Handicapper” (which many discographies erroneously list as “Handclapper”) and “Crossfire,” but “Tuscon” will appeal to anyone who holds Ahmad Jamal ‘73 in deserved high regard.

One (20th Century, 1978): This was the first fashionable bent pianist Ahmad Jamal took toward pop acceptance during the 1970s, and while it’s a fairly decent attempt, it never found much of an audience in jazz or elsewhere. Given its attempt for formulaic success, Jamal surprisingly sticks to the acoustic piano nearly throughout the record (his odd clavinet on “Black Cow” is the only exception), leaving the electronics to such studio keyboardists as Mike Melvoin (“One,” “Just the Way You Are”) and Steve Bowling (“Black Cow”) – the only time Ahmad Jamal ever recorded with other keyboardists! Like Night Song (1980), the pianist’s next studio album, there is also an unusually high preponderance of L.A. studio musicians on board here and some then-fashionable pop covers in Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are” and Steely Dan’s “Black Cow” (the tune “Jet” heard here is the old Nat King Cole chestnut and not the Wings song some discographies and reviews suggest). The pop tunes get some strange, sub-disco arrangements that hardly suit the pianist or what he might have done to transcend these songs. But he gives it the old college try and almost succeeds in giving the Billy Joel number his stamp before some thudding rhythm comes in to dumb it all down. The most notable performance here is the album’s stunning opener, “One (Ahad),” co-written by bassist Welton Gite and vocalist Sigidi B. Abdullah, aka Sigidi, both of whom were working with Gary Bartz at the time, and neither of whom are featured musicians here, despite Sigidi’s sporadic arrangements throughout. Something about this track shouts out Ahmad Jamal. So thoroughly does he own the hypnotic groove and deliberate pacing of the piece, it could suggest no one else. The pianist would continue to perform this song in concert and he was heard to record it again on the 1981 live sets captured with vibraphonist Gary Burton that have been issued in many different packages and also as part of Digital Works (1985). The album’s other highlights include Jamal’s own distinctive “Dynamo” (which the pianist recently re-recorded on the 2007 album It’s Magic) and the messy and rather lesser “Festival,” both sextet performances showcasing Calvin Keys on guitar, John Heard on bass and Eddie Marshall on drums and Kenny Nash on congas. Outtakes from this album found their way onto both Genetic Walk and Intervals, suggesting there might not have been a real strong plan behind One, despite the exceptionally fine presence of “One (Ahad)” and “Dynamo” that makes the record exceedingly worthwhile anyway.

Genetic Walk (20th Century, 1980): The first of two compilations of previously-recorded and mostly unreleased tracks Ahmad Jamal laid down during his time at 20th Century Records during the 1970s. While this record’s sleeve thankfully contains musician credits throughout, there are no recording dates – and no indications to suggest this is anything other than “new” music despite the back cover’s credit that the “compilation (is) produced by Michael Stewart.” One can possibly “sort” out the album by the various producers noted. “Pablo Sierra” is, without a doubt, a 1975 45-only release that many probably never knew existed until this 1980 album was issued (there could have been an album planned around this time – there are three more songs on the following Intervals compilation that probably date from this period). It is likely that both “Bellows” and “Time for Love” are outtakes from the 1976 album Steppin Out With A Dream. A whopping four of the eight songs presented here (“Genetic Walk,” “Chaser” “La Costa” and “Don’t Ask My Neighbors”) were produced and arranged by frequent collaborator Richard Evans for what sounds like an aborted 1977 album project. And “Spartacus Love Theme” is probably an outtake from the 1978 album One. Despite the variance of time and recording environments, the set is a consistent and surprisingly satisfying collection of Jamalian jests. There’s nothing at all wrong or leftover-feeling about this set and the many highlights include “Genetic Walk,” “Chaser,” the electric lounge funk of “Pablo Sierra” and the pianist’s own exploratory “Bellows” (which also features on Live At Oil Can Harry’s, Pittsburgh, Chicago Revisited and Live in Paris 1996). Curiously, the label issued this album’s “Don’t Ask My Neighbors” as a 45-rpm single. Available to download from the great Smooth at My Jazz World.

Intervals (20th Century, 1980): The second of the two compilations of mostly unreleased recordings the pianist Ahmad Jamal made for the 20th Century label during the seventies, Intervals is a bit more inconsistent and shows why some of these performances, most of which are well above the average outtake, were left off the original releases. It’s a quirky record as programmed here and will certainly not be to all tastes. It’s harder to determine the origin of many of this record’s tracks, but “Reggae” and “Boatride” are no doubt additional outtakes from the 1976 album Steppin Out With A Dream. Certainly the ultra-brief “Excerpt from My One And Only Love,” oddly included here, comes directly from this particular album. “You’re Welcome, Stop On By,” “Jordie,” “The Tube” (which Jamal recorded again on his Live In Paris 92) and “Bones” are most likely outtakes from Jamal’s 1978 album One or part of an unfortunately aborted follow-up to the album. Jamal’s cover of Cole Porter’s “So In Love” could have come from anywhere – it is both timeless and, sadly, without much musical distinction to place it in any way. The album’s most significant highlight is an excellent cover of Bobby Womack’s 1974 hit “You’re Welcome, Stop On By” (with Ahmad Jamal on both acoustic and electric piano – and possibly even synthesizer!), a DJ favorite and something that has been previously sampled. It’s a great song, a great cover and probably something that deserved to give Ahmad Jamal a hit single (though I don’t think it was ever issued as a single, for whatever reason). Other highlights include “Boatride,” “The Tube” and, at times, “Bones,” all excellent and worthy of more notice than they ever got here.

The Best Of Ahmad Jamal (20th Century, 1981): An odd and hardly accurate or satisfying collection put together by Michael Stewart, who collated the previous two 20th Century compilations, featuring “Soul Girl” from Ahmad Jamal ‘73, “Swahililand” from Jamal Plays Jamal, “Prelude to a Kiss” from Steppin Out With A Dream, “Black Cow” and “Dynamo” from One and “Don’t Ask My Neighbors” and “Genetic Walk” from the Genetic Walk compilation. I would need about two full CDs to put together a real “best of” Ahmad Jamal on 20th Century Records. I would probably also include a few tunes from the simpatico 1980 Motown album Night Song (“When You Wish Upon A Star,” “Bad Times,” “Night Song,” “Theme From M*A*S*H”), which is also owned by the Universal Music behemoth. Hopefully the ageless Mr. Jamal won’t have to die before someone finally puts out all of this incredibly fine and satisfying music for us to hear, enjoy and appreciate.