The title of this isn’t meant to reflect the state of science funding. It’s just that it’s a bleak and freezing January and I thought we could probably all do with a bit of an injection of happiness. If Louis Armstrong can’t do that for you, then nobody can. OK, so it’s a far cry from the exhilirating adventurousness of the trumpet playing on his early recordings, but he was an old man when this was recorded and had already more than paid his dues. Anyway he always saw himself as much as an entertainer as a musician, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I just love the infectiously swinging way he sings on this track, and I hope it brings a smile to your face as it does to mine every time I see it.
This is the great man, recorded in 1968, singing a tune from Walt Disney’s film The Jungle Book, which came out the year before. Take it away, Satchmo!
I used to have a wonderful old record of this tune by Louis Armstrong which I loved to bits (you can hear it here if you’re interested), and it’s actually one of the tunes on a CD my Dad recorded many years ago, but I found this spellbinding version by the great Ray Charles and it’s become my favourite rendition. If you like it half as much as I do, then I like it twice as much as you…
As you probably noticed, I’m studiously avoiding posting anything serious until the holidays are over so as to avoid spoiling anyone’s New Year with even more bad news. I’ll get back to the doom and gloom shortly, of course. However, in the meantime, here’s a clip of the man who taught me everything I know about Jazz, the great Louis Balfour. I didn’t manage to acquire his dress sense or hairstyle though.
Now, does anyone know how to buy a subscription to Wrong Note magazine?
Sun Ra, one of the most extraordinary composers and bandleaders of the 20th Century, was born Herman Poole Blount in Bimingham, Alabama, on 22nd May 1914. From the 1950s, until his death in 1993, he led various combinations of musician in bands with various permutations of names involving the word Arkestra, such as the Blue Universe Arkestra and the Solar Myth Arkestra. He himself played keyboards, sometimes solo and sometimes with huge bands of over 30 musicians; his music touched on virtually the entire history of jazz, from ragtime to swing music, from bebop to free jazz. He was also one of the first musicians, in any genre to make extensive use of electronic keyboards.
He never achieved mainstream commercial success, but was a prolific recording artist with a cult following, partly fuelled by his outrageous claims to have been born not on Earth but on Saturn and the fact that much of his music was to do with space travel. Quoted in Jazziz magazine
They really thought I was some kind of kook with all my talk about outer space and the planets. I’m still talking about it, but governments are spending billions of dollars to go to Venus, Mars, and other planets, so it’s no longer kooky to talk about space
Quite. In fact, Sun Ra developed a complex performing identity based on his music, “cosmic” philosophy, and poetry. He abandoned his birth name, took on the persona of Sun Ra (Ra being the ancient Egyptian god of the sun), and often dressed in the style of an ancient Egyptian pharoah, as in the video clip. In other words, he was very odd.
At this point you’re probably thinking this is all a bit “New Age” and heading in the direction of Charlie Parker‘s Private Hell, one of my favourite Gary Larson cartoons:
However, although I admit Sun Ra’s music is eclectic, outrageous and sometimes downright mystifying, it also has a marvellous coherence to it maintained as his style evolved over four decades and is consistently imbued with a powerful sense of the Jazz tradition. In fact, I think Charlie Parker would have approved. I know I do! Anyway, whatever I think, the music of Sun Ra has withstood its skeptics and detractors for generations and long may it continue to do so. The world needs more of his kind.
Here’s a typically psychedelic number, Calling Planet Earth.
I just came across this amazing performance and thought I’d share it with you. In fact I’ve been meaning to post something by the great Eric Dolphy for some time, and finding this reminded me to do so. I think Eric Dolphy was one of the true geniuses of Jazz, in that his sound and way of playing were completely unique. Like all the other great Jazz musicians you only have to hear a few notes to know that it was him. He was at home in diverse settings, and played with many of the greatest modern musicians – Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman to name but a few – but he always seemed to be able to impose his own musical personality whoever he was playing with. He’s also one of those characters that Jazz historians find difficult to categorize. Although he came to the fore in the late 50s and early 60s he didn’t really sound like anyone else of that period. In particular, his music wasn’t really free jazz, although he did play on many classic records in that idiom, so he doesn’t fit comfortably in the neat evolutionary sequences that historians like to construct.
He also died very young, just after his 36th birthday. He was on tour in Germany in 1964 when he collapsed onstage and was taken to hospital. Since he was a Jazz musician, the doctors thought that he had overdosed on drugs and left him on a saline drip to recover. They had no idea that in fact he was diabetic. He had probably become confused by the concentration and dosage instructions on the insulin he acquired while in Germany with the result that his blood sugar levels had become messed up. Simple treatment would have saved his life, but he died in hospital on June 29th 1964.
Eric Dolphy’s was a virtuoso on many instruments, including saxophones (especially alto) and flute, but I found this one of him playing the bass clarinet unaccompanied. The tune, God Bless the Child, was co-written by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzong Junior and is probably best known for Billie’s version which you can find here. The Eric Dolphy version here was recorded in Germany, possibly during his last tour. I think it’s amazing.
Yesterday I was listening to Jazz Record Requests on BBC Radio 3 and a piece cropped up that reminded me that today, 29th November 2009, would have been the 94th birthday of the great composer and arranger Billy Strayhorn.
The piece that came up wasn’t specifically chosen to mark Strayhorn’s birthday but I thought I’d put it up here because it is so beautifully poignant. Strayhorn collaborated extensively with Duke Ellington over the years, producing some of the most gorgeous music to emerge from the 20th century in any genre.
Although apparently started some time earlier, Blood Count was the last piece completed by Billy Stayhorn who put the final touches to it while he was in hospital suffering from a terminal cancer. It was first performed after his death in 1967 by Duke Ellington’s orchestra as a tribute, with Johnny Hodges‘ alto sax taking the lead. Hodges was never a speed merchant on the alto sax, but his big warm sound, beautiful tone and poised lyricism won him huge admiration from all parts of the jazz spectrum, including John Coltrane who described him as “The World’s Greatest Saxophone Player”. High praise indeed, but listening to this performance it’s hard to disagree! Heartfelt but dignified, it’s not just a fitting eulogy for Strayhorn, but a lovely piece in its own right.
Well, you’ll either love this or hate it. If you’re of a certain age like me you might also remember that happiness is a cigar called Hamlet but not remember who played the tune. This is, fact, Jacques Loussier and his trio doing their take on Johann Sebastian Bach. And before you get too sanctimonious and music-hysterical about this version, I’ll just add that it is well known that Bach enormously enjoyed improvisation. I have a sneaking feeling he would actually have quite liked this…
Regular readers of this blog (both of you) will know that from time to time I like to post little bits of poetry. The verses are usually related to astronomy (or science generally) and they’re usually things I come across pretty much by accident when I’m browsing through the books of poetry I occasionally buy. This evening I was leafing through a collection calledA Book of Lives, by the popular and highly respected Scottish national poet Edwin Morgan. In the middle of this set is a long sequence of poems called Planet Wave, each of which is to do with a specific historical episode or important character, such as Copernicus or Darwin. The first poem in the cycle is about the Big Bang so I thought it would be a good choice.
However, regular readers will also know that I like to post bits of jazz on here too – although the blog statistics suggest that these are much less popular than the poetry! I read in the Book of Lives that the first half the sequence of poems making up Planet Wave was commissioned by the Cheltenham International Jazz Festival and set to music by the excellent Tommy Smith. The poetry and music combination was first performed in Cheltenham Town Hall on 4 April 1997.
Great, I thought. Here’s a chance to combine jazz and poetry (for what would only be the second time on here, the first being this post). Unfortunately, though, I’ve been unable to locate any recording of a performance of this work. I found an interview with Tommy Smith on the net which suggests a recording was made but never released. I’d certainly love to hear it and I hope that there might be a jazz fan out there somewhere who knows what happened to it.
Anyway, in the absence of the music here’s just the first verse of the first poem of the cycle. As you will see, Morgan’s style is very inventive, often extremely funny, and always extremely Scottish.
In the Beginning (20 Billion BC)
Don’t ask me and don’t tell me. I was there.
It was a bang and it was big. I don’t know
what went before, I came out with it.
Think about that if you want my credentials.
Think about that, me, it, imagine it
as I recall it now, swinging in my spacetime hammock,
nibbling a moon or two, watching you.
What am I? You don’t know. It doesn’t matter.
I am the witness, I am not in the dock.
I love matter and I love anti-matter.
Listen to me, listen to my patter.
(Reproduced by kind permission of Carcanet Press.)
If you want to read the rest you’ll have to buy the book! And if anyone out there knows what happened to the recording of Planet Wave please let me know. I’d love to hear it!
Today has been a very busy day, so I haven’t had time to put finger to keyboard at all. I always feel I’m letting the side down if I don’t post every day, but I’ve only got a few minutes before going for dinner. Fortunately I’ve got a list of little fillers for such occasions so I thought I’d try this one on you. Experience suggests you will either love it or hate it!
I’ve blogged before about the pioneering clarinettist Johnny Dodds, who appeared on an astonishingly high fraction of the greatest recordings of the era of classic jazz. But although he was a jazz age superstar he remained until his death in 1940 a modest and self-effacing man who never tried to hog the limelight.
One day in December 1926, Johnny Dodds happened to be in the Chicago studios of the Victor record company. The band that happened to be recording at that time was an obscure folk group from Louisville (Kentucky)with the unpromising sounding name of The Dixieland Jug Blowers. After some discussion, Johnny Dodds agreed to sit in with them while they recorded a tune called Memphis Shake. They weren’t really a jazz band and didn’t use the usual jazz instruments. There is what sounds like an alto sax on this record, but there is also a fiddle, banjo and, of course, the “jug” (an earthenware whisky jar or some such item, played by blowing across the top to produce a whimsical kind of bass). The idea of a jugband probably sound very hokey now, but were in fact extremely popular in the pre-jazz era and well into the 1920s. Other than the fact that they were led by a chap called Earl Macdonald and the fiddle is played by Clifford Hayes, I really don’t know anything else about the personnel.
As you’ll hear, Johnny Dodds takes quite a back seat, but his presence on this record turned it into a little piece of jazz history and original 78s of this are much sought after among collectors. It is a bit of an oddity. It’s not really jazz and it’s not really folk, but what it is is one of the most joyously carefree pieces of music you will ever hear in your life. Even if it’s not your cup of tea, I hope it at least brings a smile to your face as it does to mine whenever I hear it.
I couldn’t resist a quick post about this old record, which was made in Chicago in 1928. The personnel line-up is very similar to that of the classic Hot Sevens, except that Louis Armstrong wasn’t there. Satchmo was, in fact, replaced for this number by two trumpeters, Natty Dominique and George Mitchell. John Thomas played trombone, Bud Scott was on banjo and Warren “Baby” Dodds played the drums.
The star of the show, however, is undoubtedly the great Johnny Dodds (the older brother of the drummer). He was a clarinettist of exceptional power, a fact that enabled him to cut through the limitations of the relatively crude recording technology of the time. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Louis Armstrong doesn’t make it easy for a clarinettist to be heard!
This is still a favourite tune for jazz bands all around the world, but I’ve never heard a version as good as this one. There are lots of little things that contribute to its brilliance, such as the thumping 2/4 rhythm (which also gives away its origins in the New Orleans tradition of marching bands). It’s a bit fast to actually march to, though; I suppose that’s what turns a march into a stomp. I like the little breaks too (such as Bud Scott’s banjo fill around 2:10 and, especially, the ensemble break at 2:45). But most of all it’s all about how they build up the momentum in such a controlled way, using little key changes to shift gear but holding back until the time Johnny Dodds joins in again (around 2:20). At that point the whole thing totally catches fire and the remaining 40 seconds or so are some of the “hottest” in all of jazz history.
Some time ago I heard Robert Parker’s digitally remastered version of this track, which revealed that Baby Dodds was pounding away on the bass drum all the way through it. He’s barely audible on the original but it was clearly him that drove the performance along. Anyway, despite the relatively poor sound quality I do hope you enjoy it. It’s a little bit of musical history, but also an enormous bit of fun.
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In the Dark 