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Yancey Special

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , on November 30, 2016 by telescoper

Time for a bit of Boogie Woogie. This is by the great Jimmy Yancey who, despite having a strong claim to be regarded as the founding father of this style of piano playing, is nowhere near as well known as he should be. In fact he only began to make recordings relatively late in life and never earned enough money to give up his day job, which was as a groundsman for the Chicago White Sox baseball team. He was nevertheless a huge influence on people like Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons who made a great commercial success out of this  genre.

You may or may not know that Boogie Woogie encompasses quite a wide `library’ of left-hand bass patterns, many of which have their own names: the Rocks, the Trenches and the Fives to name but three. I’ve always felt that there was an interesting paper (or perhaps PhD thesis) to be written about the various permutations of notes involved in these figures, which mainly (but not exclusively)  involve the root, third, fifth and sixth notes of the relevant chord, which are usually themselves part of a standard 12-bar blues progression. Usually the little finger of the left hand picks out the root note and since the pattern played by the other fingers doesn’t change as the chords change remembering where your pinkie has to go more-or-less guarantees that the rest of the pattern ends up in the right place.

The simplest of all these Boogie Woogie figures to play is the Barrelhouse left-hand style that just involves a pair of two-note chords (root-fifth and root-sixth). Double up each of those chords and you get the left hand for Meade Lux Lewis’s classic Honky Tonk Train Blues, and so on. I mention that because if you follow the Youtube link you’ll see a photograph of Jimmy Yancey watching Meade Lux Lewis play.

Anyway, though most Boogie-Woogie left-hand bass figures have rather abstract names such as those listed above, this one – which you’ll recognize from a number of other tunes, such as Fats Domino’s Blueberry Hill –  is always called the Yancey Special left hand as a tribute to its inventor. Apart from that lovely rolling bass line, what else is great about this track is the way Jimmy Yancey generates such a sense of forward momentum at a relatively slow tempo, e.g. by using the very effective technique (called a “pick-up”) of starting a right-hand phrase just before the bar line indicate by the left hand.

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Five – Tony Scott & Bill Evans

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , on November 24, 2016 by telescoper

Just this morning finally submitted some documents for a couple of proposals that I’ve been stressing over for the past couple of months, so I thought I’d relax a little bit by posting some music.

Not long ago I shared a track on which Lester Young played clarinet as opposed to his usual tenor saxophone. I got to thinking afterwards that it’s quite interesting how the clarinet has become less prominent in Jazz as the music has evolved. The old `liquorice stick’ is one of the instruments that appears in the front line in `traditional’ New Orleans Jazz (alongside trumpet and trombone) and remained a key part of bands as different styles gradually developed until the Swing Era of the 1930s. Some of the greatest big bands of that period were led by clarinetists such as Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Woody Herman to name but three. However, when bebop arrived on the scene in the immediate post-War era the clarinet had been almost totally eclipsed by the saxophone. Perhaps that was because bebop was largely a reaction against swing music and musicians wanted to establish a radically different musical vocabulary. The alto saxophone in particular, championed by Charlie Parker, could – at least in the hands of a virtuoso like Parker – be played at breakneck speed but also had a much edgier sound and was capable of a different range of expression. The same comments apply to the tenor saxophone, as exemplified by John Coltrane. There were exceptions of course, notably Buddy Defranco, but as modern jazz developed the saxophone remained the dominant solo instrument.

Anyway, these thoughts popped into my head the other day when I was listening to Composer of the Week on BBC Radio 3 which featured the great Jazz pianist Bill Evans. One of the tracks played on the programme I listened to featured Evans together with clarinetist Tony Scott taken from the album A Day in New York which was recorded in 1957. A very large proportion of my very favorite recordings derive from the late 1950s, largely because so many new directions were being explored, and this is another track that seems to be looking ahead to something beyond the bebop era. Anyway, this is the track I heard the other day. It’s called Five, and I love the way the Scott constructs his solo from the jagged fragmentary theme, at first cautiously but gradually gathering momentum until it gets fully into its groove.

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Your Molecular Structure – R.I.P. Mose Allison

Posted in Jazz on November 16, 2016 by telescoper

R.I.P. Mose Allison (1927-2016)

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Midnight Blues

Posted in Jazz with tags , , on November 15, 2016 by telescoper

It’s amazing what you can find on Youtube…

This extraordinary recording of a slow blues was made in 1944. It’s extraordinary for two reasons.

One is that it is far longer than most discs of the time, and was recorded at 33 1/3 rpm rather than the 78 rpm that was usual for the time. The reason why that is extraordinary is that the long-playing record wasn’t introduced until 1948 so this track had to wait about five years until it was released commercially. The sound quality is unusually good for the period and it’s great to hear the musicians stretch out in a way that wasn’t possible on a 78rpm record. Notice also that it’s not just a string of solos, there are duets and ensemble passages , all very characteristic of authentic New Orleans music.

The other extraordinary thing is the band: Bunk Johnson (tpt) Jim Robinson (tmb); George Lewis (clt); Alcide “Slow Drag” Pavegaeu (bss); Lawrence Marrero (bjo); and Warren “Baby” Dodds (dms). Most of these musicians who had grown up in New Orleans but had not joined the mass exodus of great musicians (including  Louis Armstrong) who left for Chicago when Storyville was closed down in 1917. Most of the jazzmen who stayed behind fell into obscurity compared to those who left. Bandleader on this occasion,   Bunk Johnson was a case in point. He was born way back in 1879 and played with some of the legends of early New Orleans Jazz, a connection with history which was enough to make him a sort of “patron saint” of the revivalist movement when he was rediscovered in the 1940s.

One musician who had moved to Chicago (with his brother, clarinettist Johnny Dodds) was Baby Dodds, the first really great Jazz drummer, who had played alongside his brother and Louis Armstrong in  King Oliver’s Band as well as on the glorious Hot Fives and Hot Sevens. His playing is barely audible on most of those old records, but he is heard to good effect on this track.

Anyway, I think it’s a superb performance, dripping with nostalgia for an era of music that would have been lost had it not been for these priceless recordings…

 

 

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They Can’t Take That Away From Me

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , , , , on November 10, 2016 by telescoper

This seems an appropriate piece of music for these days. It’s an unusual but deeply moving performance by the  legendary Lester Young who  was best known as a tenor saxophonist, but decided to play clarinet on two numbers that wound up on an album called Laughin’ to Keep from Cryin’. I have the original vinyl LP, which was issued on the Verve label, but it’s still waiting for me to transfer it to digital. The other members of the band are Roy Eldridge and Harry Edison (trumpets), Herb Ellis (guitar), Hank Jones (piano), George Duvivier (bass) and Mickey Sheen (drums).There were lots of problems making the record, apparently, but it did produce some fine music including this devastatingly tragic version of the standard They Can’t Take That Away From Me which is among the very best recordings he ever made.

At the time of this recording, in February 1958, Lester Young was terminally ill with cancer – he died just a year later at the age of 49.  Despite being barely able to stand, struggling with his breath control, and playing almost in slow motion, he manages to cast his fading light over this tune in a way that’s heartbreaking as well as beautiful.

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Friday Music Quiz: The Yardbird Suite

Posted in History, Jazz with tags , , on September 30, 2016 by telescoper

Not much time to write today so I thought I’d put up a bit of music to end the week. This is a classic from 1946, featuring Charlie Parker leading a band that included a very young Miles Davis. The Yardbird Suite an original composition by Parker, and has become a jazz standard, but he never copyrighted the tune so never earned any royalties from it.

Now, here’s a little question to tease you with. Can anyone spot the connection between this tune and a notable event that occurred today, 30th September 2016?

Answers through the comments box please!

 

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Happy 70th Birthday to the “Third Programme”!

Posted in Jazz, Music, Opera, Uncategorized with tags , on September 29, 2016 by telescoper

I’ve just got time for a quick post-prandial post to mark the fact that 70 years ago today, on September 29th 1946, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) made its first radio broadcast on what was then called The BBC Third Programme. The channel changed its name in 1970 to BBC Radio 3, but I’m just about old enough to remember a time when it was called the Third Programme; I was only 6 when it changed.

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It was a bold idea to launch a channel devoted to the arts in the depths of post-War austerity and it was perceived by some at the time as being “elitist”. I think some people probably think that of the current Radio 3 too. I don’t see it that way at all. Culture enriches us all, regardless of our background or education, if only we are given access to it. You don’t have to like classical music or opera or jazz, but you can only make your mind up if you have the chance to listen to it and decide for yourself.

My own relationship with Radio 3 started by accident at some point during the 1990s while I was living in London. I was used to listening to the Today programme on Radio 4 when I woke up, but one morning when my alarm switched on it was playing classical music. It turned out that there was a strike of BBC news staff so they couldn’t broadcast Today and had instead put Radio 3 on the Radio 4 frequency. I very much enjoyed it to the extent that when the strike was over and Radio 4 reappeared, I re-tuned my receiver to Radio 3. I’ve stayed with it ever since. I can’t bear the Today programme at all, in fact; almost everyone on it makes me angry, which is no way to start the day.

Over the years there have been some changes to Radio 3 that I don’t care for very much – I think there’s a bit too much chatter and too many gimmicks these days (and they should leave that to Classic FM) – but I listen most days, not only in the morning but also in the evening,  especially to the live concert performances every night during the week. Many of these concerts feature standard classical repertoire, but I particularly appreciate the number of performances of new music or otherwise unfamiliar pieces.

I also enjoy Words and Music, which is on Sunday afternoons and Opera on 3, which includes some fantastic performances Live from the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and which is usually on Saturday evenings. And of course the various Jazz on 3 programmes: Jazz Record Requests, Jazz Line-up, Geoffrey Smith’s Jazz, etc.

It’s not the just the music, though. I think BBC Radio 3 has a very special group of presenters who are not only friendly and pleasant to listen to, but also very knowledgeable about the music. They also have some wonderful names: Petroc Trelawny, Clemency Burton-Hill, and Sara Mohr-Pietsch, to name but a few. There’s also a newsreader whose name I thought, when I first heard it, was Porn Savage.

I feel I’ve found out about so many things through listening to Radio 3, but there’s much more to my love-affair with this channel than that. Some years ago I was quite ill, and among other things suffering very badly from insomnia. Through the Night brought me relief in the form a continuous stream of wonderful music during many long sleepless nights.

I wish everyone at BBC Radio 3 a very happy 70th birthday. Long may you broadcast!

 

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Jazz Samba – Bill Evans & Jim Hall

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , on September 21, 2016 by telescoper

A couple of weeks ago I posted an item about a classic recording of On Green Dolphin Street featuring the great pianist Bill Evans. At the weekend I was listening to some CDs from my collection and thought I’d post a track from one of them, an album called Intermodulation (recorded in 1966) which features Bill Evans in collaboration with the guitarist Jim Hall. One of the notable things about Bill Evans’s On Green Dolphin Street was the “two-handedness” of his playing which gives his improvisations a very rich harmonic structure. In this recording, however, apart from the introduction and ending he uses practically only his right hand. The reason for this change in style is simple: he wanted to leave space for Jim Hall’s guitar chords to be heard. Anyway, it’s a lovely piece with a real sense of dance to it, and in which the pairing of these two great musicians is heard to great combined effect. Enjoy!

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Back On Green Dolphin Street

Posted in Biographical, Jazz with tags , , , , , on September 12, 2016 by telescoper

I was listening to this wonderful track yesterday and couldn’t resist reposting a piece I wrote I wrote about it over 7 years  ago. If I were ever to be asked on one of those programmes where you have to pick examples of your favourite music, this would probably be the first I’d write on my list.

Years ago in 1980, when the great pianist Bill Evans passed away suddenly, Humphrey Lyttelton paid tribute to him on his radio programme “The Best of Jazz” by playing a number of tracks featuring him. I didn’t really know much about Bill Evans at the time – I was only 17 then – but one track that Humph chose has been imprinted on my mind ever since, and it’s one of those pieces of music that I listen to over and over again.

The track is On Green Dolphin Street, as recorded in 1958 by the great Miles Davis sextet of the time that featured himself on trumpet, John Coltrane on tenor sax, Julian “Cannonball” Adderley on alto sax, Jimmy Cobb on drums, Paul Chambers on bass and Bill Evans on piano. This is the same band that played on the classic album Kind of Blue, one of the most popular and also most innovative jazz records of all time, which was recorded a bit after the recording of On Green Dolphin Street.  I love Kind of Blue, of course, but I think this track is even better than the many great tracks on that album (All Blues, Flamenco Sketches, Blue in Green, etc). In fact, I’d venture the opinion – despite certainty of contradiction – that this is the greatest Jazz recording ever made.

On Green Dolphin Street was suggested to Miles Davis the band’s leader by the saxophonist Cannonball Adderley. It was the theme tune from a film from the late 1940s. It’s also the title of a more recent very fine novel by Sebastian Faulks.

I think the Miles Davis version demonstrates his genius not only as a musician himself but also as a bandleader. On Green Dolphin Street definitely bears the Miles Davis hallmark, but it also manages to accommodate the very different styles of the other musicians and allows them also to impose their personality on it. This is done by having each solo introduced with a passage with the rhythm section playing a different, less propulsive, 3/4 time behind it. This allows each musician to set out their stall before the superb rhythm section kicks into a more swinging straight-ahead beat  (although it still keeps the 3/4 feel alongside the 4-4, courtesy of brilliant drumming by Jimmy Cobb) and they head off into their own territory. As the soloists hand over from one to the other there are moments of beautiful contrast and dramatic tension, especially – and this is the reason why Humph picked this one in 1980 – when Bill Evans takes over for his solo from Cannonball Adderley. He starts with hesitant single-note phrases before moving into a richly voiced two handed solo fully of lush harmonies. It’s amazing to me to hear how the mood changes completely and immediately when he starts playing, and it always sends shivers down my spine.

Not that the other soloists play badly either. After Bill Evans’s short but exquisite prelude, Miles Davis takes over on muted trumpet, more lyrical and less introspective than in Kind of Blue but still with a moody,  melancholic edge. He’s followed by John Coltrane’s passionately virtuosic solo which floods out of him in an agonized stream which contrasts with Miles’ poised simplicity. By contrast, Cannonball Adderley is jaunty and upbeat, sauntering through his solo up to that wonderful moment where he hands over to the piano. Then Miles Davis takes over again to take them to the conclusion of the piece.

I’m not into League tables for music, but this is definitely fit to put up alongside the greatest of them all…

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R.I.P. Rudy van Gelder (1924-2016)

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , on September 1, 2016 by telescoper

One of the sad items of news that appeared last week while I was indisposed was the death at the age of 91 of legendary recording engineer Rudy van Gelder. He was the man who established the sound of a huge proportion of the greatest Jazz records made in the 1950s and 60s, including classic albums on the Blue Note, Prestige and Impulse labels by musicians of the calibre of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Art Blakey. It’s quite unusual for sound engineers to become famous, but Van Gelder certainly did and his passing has left us with a priceless legacy of extraordinary music.

By sheer coincidence, one of the books I took with me to read in hospital was this:

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Written by Richard Havers, this is an excellent illustrated history of the legendary record label, Blue Note. Blue Note began with a number of classic recordings from the era of Sidney Bechet, Edmond Hall and Bunk Johnson, but it was the post-bebop era that really established the label  in terms of sound and distinctive artwork:
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Van Gelder’s  first recording studio was set up in his house in Hackensack, New Jersey, and it was probably because of the unsuitable shape of the room he used that he experimented so much with, e.g.,  the number and placing of microphones and in the way he mixed the tapes do produce a much fuller sound than was typical for jazz recordings of that era.  He moved to a bigger house – again with a built in studio – later on, but stuck by many of his earlier innovations.

One immediate result of his habit of close-miking both solo and backing instruments – he was known to use three mikes on the drums, which was unheard of at the time – and recording them as “hot” as possible, was that he guaranteed that his records would have a huge and vibrant sound when played on a gramophone or jukebox. He also captured the unique sound that Miles Davis created when he played the trumpet with a Harman mute. When Miles moved from Prestige to another label he asked their engineers to reproduce exactly what Van Gelder had done. They wouldn’t -or couldn’t – do it.

Not everyone approved of Van Gelder’s approach. You can read some severe criticisms here. Some musicians – including Charles Mingus – didn’t like the sound at all either. But there’s no question that what he did brought a new dimension to what was an extraordinarily creative time for Jazz. An astonishing fraction of the great records described in the book I mentioned above were recorded by him. As a tribute I’m including the record that for me established the Blue Note sound, Moanin’ by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers recorded in Van Gelder’s Hackensack Studio, New Jersey in 1958, the cover of which is shown above.

Rest in Peace, Rudy Van Gelder (1924-2016).

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