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Potato Head Blues

Posted in Biographical, Jazz with tags , , on June 12, 2009 by telescoper

I’ve just spent several hours ploughing through yet more examination scripts – first year ones, not needed before the finals Examination Board. By way of a bit of refreshment I thought I’d listen to this, and enjoyed it so much I thought I’d share it on here.

At one point in the film Manhattan, the character played by Woody Allen makes a list of the things that make life worth living. This record is one of them. Potato Head Blues was recorded on May 10th 1927 in the Okeh Studios in Chicago by Louis Armstrong and the Hot Seven. It’s not actually a blues, but we won’t quibble about that because whatever it is not it is definitely a timeless Jazz masterpiece.

The other members of the band are Johnny Dodds (clarinet, heard to good effect in the solo before Louis Armstrong), Johnny’s brother Warren “Baby” Dodds (drums), Louis Armstrong’s first wife Lil Armstrong (née Hardin, piano), Johnny St Cyr (banjo), Pete Briggs (brass bass or tuba) and John Thomas on trombone. But the star of the performance is, of course, Satchmo himself, who was at the absolute peak of his powers when this record was made. If you have any doubts about what a musical genius he was, go straight to the point (at about 1:50) where he launches into his famous stop-time solo chorus which is just breathtaking in its power and inventiveness. Built from a succession of dazzling impromptu phrases, it explodes into a joyous climax which is beautifully sustained into the final ensemble chorus that follows.  Enjoy!

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Honey, Suck My Nose

Posted in Jazz with tags , on June 3, 2009 by telescoper

I got home this evening to find that the honeysuckle along one side of my garden had burst into flower and was filling the air with beautiful scents.  Unfortunately, it looks like our little heatwave is on the wane so I might not be able to sit outside in the balmy air enjoying the aromas for much longer. It’s nice they chose to open out today though; it was like a birthday present that arrived a day early.

I think Tennyson would have approved:

Come into the garden, Maud,
     For the black bat, night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
     I am here at the gate alone ;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
     And the musk of the rose is blown.
 

I already mentioned yesterday that I have beautiful roses in full bloom on the other side of the garden, so I just couldn’t resist posting a version of the Jazz standard Honeysuckle Rose. This one is by the great Errol Garner, who I posted about not long ago, and features one of his characteristically offbeat introductions followed by his usual delightful improvisation.

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On Green Dolphin Street

Posted in Biographical, Jazz with tags , , , , , on May 31, 2009 by telescoper

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.

Not that the other soloists play badly either. After Bill Evans 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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The Anachronic Jazz Band

Posted in Jazz with tags , , on May 10, 2009 by telescoper

I heard a record by this band ages and ages ago (probably in the 70s) and was delighted to be reminded of them by finding this little clip on Youtube. It’s a bit of an oddity, but I think it’s  both fun and fascinating.

The Anachronic Jazz Band is, I think, now defunct but they were from Paris originally. The style they played in could probably be described as like the New York style of the late 1920s, with definite touches of Bix Beiderbecke. On the other hand, the tunes they played all came from the era of modern jazz, such as this one which is the Charlie Parker classic Anthropology. I’ve already posted a version of it  by Bud Powell, in fact..

You might think that an uncompromising bebop number like this would pose unsurmountable challenges for a traditional jazz outfit, but I think they pull it off rather well. I think though that they were probably helped by the fact that this tune, like many modern jazz compositions, is actually based on a chord progression belonging to a much more familiar tune. In this case the harmonies actually derive from George Gershwin’s standard I Got Rhythm….

Anyway, perhaps the efforts of this fine little band go some way to showing that there’s more continuity between traditional and modern jazz than one might suppose…

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The Onions

Posted in Biographical, Jazz with tags , on May 4, 2009 by telescoper

I’m not going to make excuses. This is a piece of pure nostalgia.

We had this old record in the house when I was a little kid. It was quite an innovation at the time. Most of the jazz records my dad had collected were on 10″ shellac discs to be played at 78rpm. This was a very limited format in that you could never get more than about 3 minutes on each side. They were also extremely fragile. Most of the ones we used to have ended up broken into pieces.

But when Humphrey Lyttelton’s band did a concert in 1954 at the then very new Royal Festival Hall in London, the Parlophone label decided to release four tracks on a vinyl EP (extended play). This allowed them to get a longer playing time but also meant that the actual discs  survived a bit longer than 78s used to.

I was born in 1963, about nine years after the record was released but I distinctly remember as a kid sitting in our house in Benwell with this record playing on our little gramophone. I never seemed to be able to shout “Onions” on the right beat in the little two-bar interval left for the purpose. But, then again, neither did many in the audience.

Humph himself (who died a year ago) does the announcement in that instantly recognizeable voice of his. The whole band plays wonderfully too, but I’d like to single out the clarinet of Wally Fawkes for special mention. In case  you didn’t know,  Wally Fawkes  is actually a pseudonym for the award-winning cartoonist Trog. Anyway, on this track he gives an object lesson in how to build a solo: starting off in the smoky lower register then gradually building up steam until just after 2 minutes in he steps on the gas, switches to the upper register and wails like  a banshee. He never plays anything very complicated and I must have heard that moment hundreds of times over the years but it still gives me a buzz!

They sure don’t make them like this any more.

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Christopher Logue

Posted in Jazz, Poetry with tags , on May 3, 2009 by telescoper

Poetry is in the news today.

Yesterday’s announcement that the 23rd  Poet laureate is to be Carol Anne Duffy has generated as much comment about her sexual orientation as the undoubted quality of her verse.

But that’s not the point of this post.

I don’t know why but all the stuff in the papers reminded of a very rare recording I heard years ago the poet Christopher Logue with a Jazz group led by the drummer Tony Kinsey.

Christopher Logue is now in his eighties and is probably best known as a regular contributor to the satirical magazine Private Eye (to which I have not yet cancelled my subscription). Among other things in the Eye, he edits the hilarious Pseuds Corner, a collection of the most pretentious drivel culled from newspapers and magazines.

But he’s also a fine poet in his own right and has been for many years.

The first time I heard this old recording made in the late 1950s, I didn’t listen very carefully to the words. I thought it was just a very funny skit – a posh British guy doing beat poems couldn’t possibly be serious, could it?   Especially if it sounds like Allen Ginsberg meets Julian Clary…

..but listening to it again, and especially studying the words it’s grown on me so much I now think it’s a minor masterpiece.

large_8be9743ce0f84fa88d982cbdb1949b9cThere is an audio-only version on Youtube, but it refuses to be embedded. Click here if you want to hear the performance on record.

Now read the lyrics:

1.

Lithe girl, brown girl
Sun that makes apples, stiffens the wheat
Made your body a joy
Tongue like a red bird dancing on ivory
To stretch your arm
Sun grabs at your hair
Like water was falling

Tantalize the sun if you dare
It will leave shadows that match you
Everywhere
Lithe girl, brown girl
Nothing draws me towards you
The heat within you beats me home
Like the sun at high noon

Knowing these things
Perhaps through
Knowing these things
I seek you out
Listening for your voice
For the brush of your arms against wheat
For your step among poppies grown underwater
Lithe girl, brown girl

2.

Steep gloom among pine trees
Waves’ surge breaking
Slow lights that interweave
A single bell

As the day’s end falls into your eyes
The earth starts singing in your body
As the waves sing in a white shell
And the rivers sing within you
And I grow outwards on them
As you direct them
Whither you make them run

I follow for you like a hare
Running reared upright to the hunter’s drum
You turn about me like a belt of clouds
the silence, though it is stupid
Mocks the hours I lay
Troubled by…… nothing

Your arms – translucent stones wherein I lie
Exhausted
And future kisses
Die
Lust
Your mysterious voice
Folds close echoes
That shift throughout the night
Much as the wind
Which moves darkly over the profitable fields
Folds down the wheat
From all its height

3.

In the hot depth of summer
The morning is close, storm-filled
Clouds shift –
White rags waving goodbye
Shaken by the frantic wind as it goes and
As it goes
The wind throbs over us
Love-making silenced

Among the trees like a tongue singing
A warning or just singing the wind throbs
And the quick sparrow’s flight is slapped by the wind
Swift thief destructive as waves
Weightless without form
Struck through and through with flame
Which breaks
Soughing its strength out
At the gates of the enormous, silent, summer wind

4.

That you may hear me
My words narrow occasionally
Like gull-tracks in the sand

Or I let them become
Tuneful beads
Mixed with the sound

Of a drunk hawk’s bell
Flick me your wrists…..
Soft as grape skin – yes

Softer than grapeskin I make them
Which is a kind of treachery against the world

Yet
You who clamber
Over all the desolations of mine
Gentle as ivy
Eat the words’ meaning

Before you came to me
Words were all that you now occupy
And now they’re no more these words
Than ever they knew of my sadness

Yet
Sometimes
Force and dead anguish still drags them
And yes

Malevolent dreams still betimes
Overwhelm them and then

In my bruised voice
You hear other bruised voices
Old agues crying out of old mouths

Do not be angry with me
Lest the wave of that anguish
Drown me again

Even as I sit
Threading a collar of beads for your hands
Softer than grape skin
Hung with a drunk hawk’s bell

I think these are beautiful poems made even more effective by the musical setting. In fact they are loose re-workings of some of the famous love poems of Pablo Neruda. Logue moved far away from the Neruda’s originals, but put them into impressionistic free verse, which he reads in his plummy English accent, while the band provides appropriate backing for the sentiments of the poetry as well as providing improvised passages in between the verses.

Looking at this now, I have no idea why I thought it was meant to be funny.

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Bixology

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , on April 21, 2009 by telescoper

 Leon “Bix” Beiderbecke became a jazz-age romantic legend by playing brilliant trumpet and by drinking too much bad prohibition liquor resulting his premature death in 1931, at the age of only 28. His short life was punctuated by episodes of very bad health caused by chronic alcoholism in an era when the only booze that was available was bathtub gin or rotgut whisky. Nevertheless, Bix still gave us some of the greatest ever jazz records.

Although he was of middle-class white origins, Bix’s  playing was deeply admired by leading black musicians of the day. No less a trumpeter than Louis Armstrong refused to play Singin’ the Blues because he felt Bix’s version was so good that it shouldn’t be touched. High praise indeed. Many jazz trumpeters to this day still play some of Bix’s trumpet licks, though few do them justice.

Bix’s trumpet-playing was all quicksilver virtuosity but, above all, he possessed a beautiful ringing, bell-like tone that is quite unlike that of any other trumpeter before or since. His clarion sound even pierces through the hiss and crackle produced by contemporary recording techniques. My favourite example is this, an old tune called At the Jazz Band Ball, where Bix’s trumpet lead is matched in exuberance and skill by Bill Rank (trombone), Frank Signorelli (clarinet) and, particularly,  the superb Adrian Rollini on bass saxophone, who managed to play his enormous and unwieldy instrument not only with great swing but also with a fine sense of humour.

But Bix wasn’t just a trumpeter. He also composed a few pieces for solo piano. I didn’t know about these until about 18 months ago, when I found a recording my Dad had kept of a concert at Newcastle City Hall in which he had played the drums in a trio led by the American jazz pianist Ralph Sutton. Among the numbers they played was a nice tune called, appropriately enough for this blog, In the Dark. The other day I found a clip on Youtube of Ralph Sutton playing the same tune (although not with my Dad). I hadn’t realised that this tune was written by Bix Beiderbecke.

Perhaps I should use it this blog’s signature tune? 

Bix composed other pieces for solo piano too. The most famous, and probably the most interesting because of its unusual harmonic structure, is called In a Mist, but for some reason when Bix’s own recording of this tune was released in the United Kingdom it was renamed Bixology.  Here it is played by the wonderful Marian Macpartland

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Tommy Flanagan

Posted in Jazz with tags , on April 8, 2009 by telescoper

I’ve only got time for a quick post today so I thought I’d put up a clip of someone I think is one of the most consistently enjoyable but underrated Jazz pianists of all time. He was probably best known as the long-time accompanist of Ella Fitzgerald but he also played on a number of really important Jazz albums with Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane, to name just two. He also loved to play within the classic Jazz trio format of piano, bass and drums as represented here.

This is the marvellous Tommy Flanagan playing yet another tune by the great Billy Strayhorn; this one’s called Raincheck.

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Neville Dickie

Posted in Jazz with tags , , on April 4, 2009 by telescoper

Just a quick post in response to a suggestion from a friend:I do requests on here, but only if they’re asked for.

Neville Dickie was born in County Durham in 1937 and did national service in the RAF around the same time as my Dad. He’s still going strong, playing lovely jazz mainly in the Harlem stride piano style of the 1920s with those infectiously bouncing left-hand tenths.

Here is he recorded in 2007 with Danny Coots on drums or, rather, drum. They’re playing a lovely tune by the great Jelly Roll Morton called Wolverine Blues.

The sound balance isn’t great but I think it’s a wonderful version of a classic bit of good time Jazz.

Take it away Mr Dickie!

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Chelsea Bridge

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , , , on March 29, 2009 by telescoper

When the great American songwriter Billy Strayhorn saw the beautifully evocative painting (left) by James McNeill Whistler of one of the bridges over the River Thames, it inspired him to write an equally evocative song to be performed by his longstanding musical collaborator and friend Duke Ellington. The song was written in 1941, but it was only years later that he realized that he had named it after the wrong bridge.

 

The painting was of Battersea Bridge; but he had named the song  Chelsea Bridge, a much less romantic location. Nevertheless, the tune quickly became a standard, and a feature for the band’s star saxophonist, Ben Webster who carried on playing it after he left Duke Ellington’s orchestra in 1943.

By all accounts Ben Webster was a drunken brute of a man but when he played ballads like this he produced music of great warmth and delicacy. In fact, his technique on the tenor sax would probably be called “wrong” by a teacher: he didn’t use his tongue properly on the reed so his notes had to be produced by much more lung power than “normal” players use. Instead of a clean attack, each note is wafted in on a sort of phoohing sound. The breathiness of his tone  is a consequence of this and, although he produced a huge volume which was good for playing in front of a big band like Ellington’s, it also made him unable to play well at faster tempos. His playing on slow ballads, though, was often exquisitely beautiful. Who says everyone has to be a speed merchant?

Ben Webster moved to Copenhagen in 1964 along with several other great Jazz musicians, to escape the racism and consequent lack of opportunity for black artists in  his homeland. He was buried in the part of Copenhagen called Nørrebro when he died in 1973. 

I am a fairly frequent visitor to Copenhagen – I’m going there again in June, in fact – and I did visit his grave once. There’s also a restaurant named after him in the city centre.

Anyway, here he is in in 1964 playing Chelsea Bridge with the marvellous Stan Tracey on piano who featured in a previous post of mine.

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