If yesterday’s post made you wonder how difficult it is to turn a piece of sheet music into sound using a piano keyboard, then perhaps today’s will make you wonder how a pianist like Bill Evans managed to create music as beautiful as this without any score at all! This is Here’s that Rainy Day from the 1968 album Bill Evans Alone. Miles Davis said of Bill Evans “He plays the piano the way it should be played”. I, for one, won’t argue with that.
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Here’s a lovely little duet by saxophonist Archie Shepp and Abdullah Ibrahim, who was born in South Africa and formerly known as Dollar Brand. A good time to post it, as it’s called Left Alone and I’m spending the day on my own finishing a few things off before returning to Blighty tomorrow…
Follow @telescoperWell, term is over and, inevitably, there are signs that the weather is on the turn. Time, I think, for a bit of inspired silliness by the great Slim Gaillard. I’ve posted about Slim before, but for completeness Slim Gaillard was a truly remarkable character who led a remarkable life, as his wikipedia page makes clear. He was a superbly talented musician in his own right, but also a wonderful comedian and storyteller. He’s most famous for the novelty jazz acts he formed with musicians such as Slam Stewart and, later, Bam Brown; their stream-of-consciousness vocals ranged far afield from the original lyrics along with wild interpolations of nonsense syllables such as MacVoutie and O-reeney; one such performance figures in the 1957 novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac.
In later life Slim Gaillard travelled a lot in Europe – he could speak 8 languages in addition to English – and spent long periods living in London. He died there, in fact, in 1991, aged 75. I saw him a few times myself when I used to go regularly to Ronnie Scott’s Club. A tall, gangly man with a straggly white beard and wonderful gleam in his eye, he cut an unmistakeable figure in the bars and streets of Soho. He rarely had to buy himself a drink as he was so well known and such an entertaining fellow that a group always formed around him, just in order to enjoy his company, whenever he went into a pub or club. You never quite knew what he was going to do next, in fact. I once saw him sit down and play a piano with his palms facing upwards, striking the notes with the backs of his fingers as he does in this clip, wherein he interpolates an upside-down but nevertheless very accurate version of the opening passages of Debussy’s Claire de Lune. I’m posting this primarily because it’s such a hoot, but I think it also demonstrates what a marvellous musician he was both on piano – check out the size of his hands! – and on guitar, playing a medley of his hit Cement Mixer to accompany his own gloriously daft vocal.
Other random things worth mentioning are that Slim Gaillard’s daughter was married to Marvin Gaye and it is generally accepted that the word “groovy” was coined by him (Slim). I know it’s a cliché, but he really was a larger-than-life character and a truly remarkable human being. As one of the commenters on Youtube aptly put it “To Slim Gaillard, the whole world was just one big O-roonie”. Enjoy!
Follow @telescoperHaving an early morning cup of tea in the garden just now, as the fine weather continues, I suddenly remembered this classic from 1954. Fortunately someone has put it on Youtube so I can share it right away. This piece will forever be associated with the late great Clifford Brown who plays trumpet and leads the band, but the real star of the show for me is the arranger, Jack Montrose, who wove a rich texture around the melody of Joy Spring, with more than a hint of the West Coast “Cool” that was to dominate the US jazz scene in later years.
Follow @telescoperLast week saw the 57th anniversary of the death of Charlie Parker, aka Bird, a musical genius on the saxophone whose influence not only on jazz but on twentieth century music is incalculable. I’ve posted quite a few tracks by Bird over the years and one thing I’ve learned from doing that is that he’s by no means everyone’s cup of tea. I can’t do anything about that, of course, but I can at least point out the existence of his wonderful legacy to those (regrettably many) people who’ve never heard of him or his musicI still remember the mixture of astonishment and exhilaration I felt when I first heard him on record and if I can give that sense of joy to just one person via the blogosphere then it’s worth a hundred posts.
Here’s Kim, another one of Bird’s tunes based on the rhythm changes, with an alto sax solo improvised at breakneck speed and with incredible virtuosity. The other day I was talking to a friend of mine who only has a passing interest in jazz and he asked me whether Charlie Parker really was that good. Well, if you’re asking that question to yourself, listen to this and then you’ll have the answer. As far as I’m concerned this is three minutes of pure awesome….
Follow @telescoperI stumbled across this on Youtube; it’s in 3/4 time and I’ve never been very good at waltzing. I thought I’d post it on here because it features Booker Little, fabulous trumpet player who sadly died very young (at the age of 23) in 1961. He was an inspired improviser with a highly individual sense of phrasing, and an amazing ability to articulate complex ideas at fast tempi. Listening to him playing makes you wonder into what new directions he might have taken jazz had he lived even just a few years longer.
The band was led by alto saxophonist Frank Strozier, and the excellent rhythm section of Wynton Kelly (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Jimmy Cobb (drums) will be familiar to fans of Miles Davis. This track is called Waltz of the Demons..
Follow @telescoperHere’s an exhilarating little duo featuring alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson and the extraordinarily brilliant pianist Tete Montoliu. Lou Donaldson at times sounds more like Charlie Parker than Charlie Parker ever did, but if you’re going to play bebop there’s no better example to follow. Tete Montoliu on the other hand never sounded like anyone other than himself. He was from Barcelona, by the way, and was born completely blind. The tune, written by drummer Denzil Best, is called Wee although it does have an alternative title, Allen’s Alley; it’s yet another one built around the chord changes of Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm. Anyway, it’s a typically intricate and edgy tune that finds these great musicians at their playful best.
Follow @telescoperI’m not really into all this St Valentine’s Day nonsense (meaning: “I never get any cards”), but at least it provides me with an excuse to post three versions of the great Rogers & Hart ballad My Funny Valentine.
The first is by the great Miles Davis Quintet featuring Miles Davis on trumpet, Wayne Shorter on tenor sax, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter bass and Tony Williams on drums. This was recorded live in Milan on October 11th 1964. There’s a slight distortion in the sound in the form of a pre-echo, which is a bit eery, but I still think it’s a marvellous performance.
And if Miles Davis isn’t your cup of tea, here is something completely different. It’s by Julie London, but very late in her career in 1981 when she was 55. Her voice was much smoother in her heyday in the 1960s, but I love the smokey sound of this very characterful rendition. By ear I’d say the bass player on this is Ray Brown and the guitar is Barney Kessel, both of whom (like Julie London herself) are no longer with us.
Last one up is a miracle of joint improvisation between the great Bill Evans on piano and Jim Hall on guitar, the sort of music that mere mortals can only dream of…
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In the Dark 