Here’s a lovely and rare video of a performance by Dexter Gordon, playing What’s New in 1963 (after a characteristically jaunty introduction by him) which I just had to post. Actually, he reminds me a lot of Barack Obama in this clip…
It also gives me the excuse to post one of my all-time favourite Jazz photographs, which happens also to show Dexter Gordon but was taken in 1948 by the great Herman Leonard. Jazz clubs just haven’t been the same since the smoking ban…
I’ve been taking it easy today, attempting to recover from a bout of sickness by loafing about and listening to old records. I don’t know why I haven’t listened to Out of the Cool by the Gil Evans Orchestra for a while, but at least that meant I came back to it relatively fresh.
Gil Evans was one of the few composer/arrangers in Jazz to have successfully blended his own orchestral textures with solo improvisations in such a way that both complement each other; the scored passages he devised are complex and beautiful, but never so rigid that they inhibit the soloist’s imagination. He directed a number of albums that incorporated Jazz solos in classically-inspired orchestral settings, including Sketches of Spain and Porgy and Bess (with Miles Davis). This one is less famous than those, but in my opinion at least as good.
Trumpeter Johnny Coles (no relation) is particularly inspired by the imaginative surroundings constructed by Gil Evans on this album, and he responds by inventing beautiful solo lines on several tracks on this album. But the tonal spectrum he encompasses, his use of dynamics, and his distinctive play with inflection are best illustrated by his feature piece, Sunken Treasure, a mysterious, almost evanescent creation which he fashions out of Evans’ floating harmonies. I think this is the best track off a great album.
Follow @telescoperA late post this evening, as I’m just back from a short visit to Brighton. I travelled down there yesterday evening and stayed with an old friend in a house I lived in for a time about 25 years ago. I spent most of today meeting some of my future colleagues at the University of Sussex, who made me feel very welcome, and also catching up on some important things to be dealt with when I take over there in the new year. It’s all part of a gradual process of acclimatisation which I’ll need to do so I don’t take ages getting up to speed when I officially start. I didn’t get much time to wander about the town, but many Brighton memories have flooded back over the last couple of days. Cue an old favourite track that I listened to this evening on the train on the way home. It’s from a lovely album recorded by the unlikely combination of John Coltrane and Duke Ellington. They were men of different musical generations, but they admired each other enormously. It’s clear from the relaxed nature of this collaboration that neither felt he had any points to prove; each adapts his style to suit the other, with gorgeous results.
Follow @telescoperI discovered by accident the other day that the classic Miles Davis composition All Blues has found its way onto the GCSE Music syllabus. I think that’s wonderful. In fact here’s a recording of the track, produced and distributed as “set work” for that purpose:
I never took any qualifications in music at School – although I did get music lessons, I didn’t find them at all inspiring and it took me years to develop a taste for anything other than Jazz, which I knew about mainly from home, because my father was a (part-time) Jazz drummer. There wasn’t much mention of Jazz at School from teachers, and none of my friends were into it, so it became a very private passion, although I’m glad to say it never faded.
Anyway, what little I know about music I picked up by studying on my own, and trying to figure out what was going on by listening to records. All Blues is a really interesting composition to unpick in this way, as it tells you a lot about how Jazz was evolving in the late 1950s (it was released in 1959). Musicians like Miles Davis were experimenting with ways of breaking away from the standard approach to Jazz improvisation based on chord progressions, and one of the routes that developed was modal Jazz. All Blues is particularly interesting because it teeters on the edge between the old approach and the new; it’s clearly based on the traditional 12-bar blues progression but diverges from it in several respects.
A standard blues progression in G might go like this (although there are many variations):
|G|G|G|G|
|C|C|G|G|
|D|C|G|G|
It’s based on just three chords: the tonic (in this case G): the sub-dominant IV (C) and the dominant V (D); the V-IV-I progression in the last four bars is usually called the turnaround.
The progression for All Blues is this:
|G7| G7| G7| G7|
|Gm7| Gm7| G7| G7|
|D7| E♭7 D7| F G|F G6|
While the addition of a major 7th note to the basic triad G isn’t unusual, the two G minor 7th chords are more interesting, because they involve adding a blue note (a flattened third) to the basic chord . But it’s in the last four bars that the harmonies move dramatically away from the standard turnaround. Chromatic chords are included and the usual resolution back to G is subtly changed by the addition of a 6th note (E) to the basic G chord (GBD) at the end; that trick became a bit of a trademark for Jazz of this period.
However, it’s the two F chords that represent the strongest connection with modal harmony. The scale of G major involves F-sharp, so the F is a flattened note (a flattened VIIth). In fact, all the Fs in the piece are natural rather than sharp. For this reason you could argue that this is a piece not played in the key of G major but in the corresponding Mixolydian mode (the white notes on the piano from G to G).
So it’s a blues that’s not quite a blues, but is (appropriately enough) Kind of Blue. There’s so much going on harmonically that the fact that it’s played in 6/8 rhythm (rather than the more usual 4/4 for the Blues) seems almost irrelevant.
Those are just the bare bones, but the improvisations of Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane et al. breath life into them and create a living Jazz masterpiece. Although it seems like a complicated tune, apparently what happened at the recording session was that Miles Davis talked the band through the piece, they played it once to get a feel for it, and then recorded the entire track that was released on the album, in one go.
I must have listened to All Blues a thousand times, and I’ve never tired of it. The thing is, though, I could say the same thing about all the other tracks on the album Kind of Blue, about which Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote
Kind of Blue isn’t merely an artistic highlight for Miles Davis, it’s an album that towers above its peers, a record generally considered as the definitive jazz album, a universally acknowledged standard of excellence. Why does Kind of Blue posses such a mystique? Perhaps because this music never flaunts its genius… It’s the pinnacle of modal jazz — tonality and solos build from the overall key, not chord changes, giving the music a subtly shifting quality… It may be a stretch to say that if you don’t like Kind of Blue, you don’t like jazz — but it’s hard to imagine it as anything other than a cornerstone of any jazz collection.
Follow @telescoperI huddled in the cold, rainy wind and watched everything across the sad vineyards of October in the valley. My mind was filled with that great song “Lover Man” as Billie Holiday sings it; I had my own concert in the bushes. “Someday we’ll meet, and you’ll dry all my tears, and whisper sweet, little things in my ear, hugging and a-kissing, oh what we’ve been missing, Lover Man, oh where can you be …” It’s not the words so much as their great harmonic tune and the way Billie sings it, like a woman stroking her man’s hair in soft lamplight.
I’m up bright and early this morning – well, early, at least – after my long trip yesterday. I was slightly nervous about my itinerary, especially the (for me) uncharted territory at the end. As it happens, the train from Cardiff to Heathrow, direct flight from Heathrow to Phoenix and shuttle bus from Phoenix to Flagstaff, Arizona, all went to plan. I arrived just after nine yesterday evening, tired but intact.
One thing worth mentioning is that this is the first time I’ve set foot on American soil for many years. My lamentable experience with the US Embassy in London in 2005 succeeding in putting me off visiting the States almost entirely. However, I’m told that travelling is meant to be good for me, so I decided to accept the invitation to attend and speak at the conference I posted about a while ago. One of the relics of the 2005 episode is an unused J-1 visa in my passport, and when we arrived in Phoenix I was consequently a little apprehensive about whether questions might be asked about it. That added to the usual anxiety about length of queues at Immigration. As it turned out, the staff were courteous and efficient and the uniformed officer I spoke to at the desk and who took my fingerprints etc was an enthusiastic amateur astronomer who seemed more interested in my work than in the formalities at hand. Anyway, my virgin visa attracted no comment at all.
Despite landing a bit late, I actually got through the airport in good time to catch the shuttle to Flagstaff. Phoenix, by the way, was a scorching 37 Celsius, even at 5.30 in the pip emma. I dread to think how hot it must have been at mid-day. Flagstaff is, I’m told, a bit cooler being up in the mountains although it was dark when I arrived and I didn’t really see much of the place before getting to the hotel, having a quick blog, and then crashing out.
Incidentally, the route from Phoenix to Flagstaff is north on the I-17 until it hits Route 66, subject of the famous song in which Flagstaff gets a mention:
My hotel is actually situated on Route 66, but so far there’s no sign of anything that could truthfully be described as “kicks”.
Anyway, I have to speak later today so I should probably start writing my talk. As they don’t say around these parts, Toodle-pip!
Follow @telescoperListening to this track from Ornette Coleman on my iPod on the way home today reminded me that I haven’t posted anywhere enough by the great man, so I decided to post this as a soon as I got home. Faces and Places was recorded live at the Golden Circle club in Stockholm in 1965, and is part of a famous album that was proclaimed “Record of the Year” the following summer in Downbeat magazine. By the mid-60s Ornette Coleman had already established his reputation as leading light of avant-garde saxophonists and, in his own way, was as great an influence on jazz as Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane had been earlier.
It features a trio of Coleman on alto sax, David Izenzon on bass, and Charles Moffit on bass. It goes like the clappers right from the start, with some terrific work on the drums by Moffit, skittering along on the cymbals with interludes of powerful rapid-fire accents on the skins. Fantastic stuff.
Follow @telescoperLast week’s post about Vincent Price reminded me of the film that really established him as a movie actor, the classic film noir Laura, in which he played the parasitic boyfriend of the eponymous heroine. If you’ve never seen the film, you should because in my opinion it hasn’t dated at all even though it was made in 1944. A song with the same name written for the film in 1945 (after the filming was completed) became a popular hit at the time as well as a favourite for jazz musicians, spawning numerous cover versions including one by the great Charlie Parker. Those of you who associate Bird with jagged bebop tunes played at a frenetic pace might be surprised to hear his take on this romantic ballad, particularly as it involves him playing with strings. The Charlie Parker with Strings session recorded in 1950 received mixed reviews from the critics, primarily because many of the arrangements are a bit bland, but while I don’t like all these tracks, I do think Parker’s version of Laura is a gem in which he reveals a sensitive side to his music-making that isn’t often appreciated.
Follow @telescoperI haven’t posted any jazzy bits for a while. I don’t know why. Anyway, I just found this track, called Ablution, by alto saxophonist Lee Konitz . Unless my ears deceive me the pianist on this track is Ronnie Ball (British, by the way) whose comping makes no attempt to disguise the fact that it is a variation on the famous Jerome Kern tune All The Things You Are, the unusual chords of which have made it a popular vehicle for jazz musicians to improvise on ever since it was written back in 1939. In the bebop era it was typical practice to base original compositions on top of the chord sequences of standard tunes, and this is a prime example although I don’t know in this case whether Lee Konitz managed to get away without paying composer’s royalties!
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At the end of a long, trying (and rather muggy) day what better than a bit of Cool Jazz from the West Coast of the US of A. This lovely track was recorded in 1957; it features singer Marilyn Moore, who clearly based her vocal style very closely on that of Billie Holiday, and an arrangement by tenor saxophonist Al Cohn who in turn based his style very closely on that of the great Lester Young. Come to think of it, Marilyn Moore and Al Cohn sound more like Billie Holliday and Lester Young than Billie Holliday and Lester Young ever managed to on any of the many great records they made together…
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In the Dark 