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This Is Our Music – A tribute to Charlie Haden

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , , on July 14, 2014 by telescoper

I was saddened at the weekend to hear of the death, on Friday 11th July, at the age of 76, of the great jazz bassist, Charlie Haden. I always associate Charlie Haden with a series of great records he made with Ornett Coleman and Don Cherry during the late 50s and early 60s, including The Shape of Jazz to Come and Change of the Century, both of which I’ve blogged about already. I thought I’d pay a little tribute to Charlie Haden by writing about another of these masterpieces, a disc called This Is Our Music. As with the other two, this is also available in full on Youtube so you can listen to it here:

When he first arrived on the jazz scene the licence Coleman allowed himself in his improvisations drew criticism bordering on abuse from several prominent musicians. This a view echoed, for example, by the great Charles Mingus in quote I got from another blog about Ornette Coleman

Now aside from the fact that I doubt he can even play a C scale in whole notes—tied whole notes, a couple of bars apiece—in tune, the fact remains that his notes and lines are so fresh. So when [the jazz dj] Symphony Sid played his record, it made everything else he was playing, even my own record that he played, sound terrible.

Although he clearly admired his originality, Mingus may have been right about the very young Ornette Coleman’s technical ability; but I don’t think any unbiased listener could argue that he lacked mastery of his instrument by the time this record was made, in 1960. His skill in sustaining notes (always difficult on alto sax, which he plays throughout this album) is especially evident on this album in the standard Embraceable You whilst the precision of his articulation at any temp makes it quite clear that he really had little to learn in any aspect of control of his instrument. The slurs and distortions that are so much a part of his style are beautifully managed, and combine with his daring tonal approach to give the impression of great freedom that he strove to convey in his music.

It used to be question whether the liberties in which Coleman indulged were not so as extreme as to preclude overall unity, yet for all his virtuosity in rhythmic and melodic invention, he displays a genuine continuity of line in everything he does on this record. On Blues Connation, for example, his solo evolves with impeccable logic, each phrase growing almost inexorably out of the one before, whilst the general melodic shape bears continuous affinity to the theme. Moreover, his music boasts an intensity of feeling that no charlatan could ever hope to achieve. As I hear it, the dominant emotion in his playing at fast tempo is not love, as some have claimed, so much as fear, although this mood is often relieved by flashes of lyrical sadness. In the slower pieces, such as Beauty is a Rare Thing and Embraceable You, and the medium-paced Humpty Dumpty, the latter sentiment comes through even more strongly.

Don Cherry was an ideal partner, for his work is cast in a similar mould, but at this stage in his own development he did tend to stand in Coleman’s shadow. Drummer Ed Blackwell is very good throughout, but Charlie Haden is nothing short of brilliant, which is why I chose this as a tribute piece for him.

The bassist Haden not only displays all the classic jazz virtues expected of him, but also possesses an amazing sense of anticipation that enables him to work hand in glove with the two hornmen. Blackwell is neither a loud nor an aggressive drummer, but he evinces genuine drive and the interweaving mobility he and Haden achieve together is truly remarkable in its own right as well as fitting well with the richness of the leader’s own work.

Had I the time, I could write a lot more about this album in particular and about Charlie Haden in general, but all I can do his suggest that you listen to the LP for yourself. Coleman was still refining his concept of how his Quartet should function, so it’s a little rough around the edges in places, and in any case I know many devout jazz fans who find this kind of music challenging. It is worth it, though. Charlie Haden was only 22 when This Is Our Music was recorded. He went on to many great things during his subsequent career. Sadly that spark has now gone out, but he will live on in our hearts through his music.

Rest in Peace, Charlie Haden, Jazz legend (1937-2014).

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Space is the Place: 100 Years of Sun Ra

Posted in Jazz, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on May 22, 2014 by telescoper

When I’m struggling to find the time or the inspiration to write a blog post, serendipity usually comes to the rescue. A post on Twitter just alerted me to the fact that today is the 100th birthday of  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, Sun Ra 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.

To give a taste of his music, here is the classic album Space is the Place in its entirety (at least until it gets taken off Youtube for copyright violation!):

 

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Jim Europe’s Society Orchestra

Posted in History, Jazz with tags , , , , on April 30, 2014 by telescoper

More than a few people have commented on the fact that my musical tastes are a little old-fashioned, but here’s a piece that’s a bit old even by my standards. It’s by a band from the immediately pre-Jazz era called Jim Europe’s Society Orchestra. Led by James Reese Europe this band pre-dated the much more famous Paul Whiteman band in popularity, playing at the Carnegie Hall for example long before Whiteman’s ever did which, for a group of black musicians, was quite remarkable at a time of racial segregation in the United States.

When World War 1 started, Jim Europe enlisted in the 369th Infantry Regiment, which fought with immense distinction on the Western Front. The regiment, comprised of African-American and Puerto Rican soldiers, was dubbed the “Men of Bronze” by the French army and as the “Hellfighters” by the German army, on account of their legendary toughness. In the latter stages of the war, Jim Europe formed a military band to which he gave the name “The Harlem Hellfighters”. He died in 1919, after being stabbed in the neck by one of his own musicians.

This particular record was made over a century ago, on December 29 1913. As you might expect, the recording quality is not particularly good (to put it mildly) but it always strikes me as absolutely amazing that we can hear anything at all that was recorded so long ago. The line-up is very unusual by modern standards: two pianos, five banjo mandolins, three violins, clarinet, cornet, and a drummer. That’s on this particular tune. No personnel information is available except that it is certainly Jim Europe himself who delivers the encouraging shouts.

It’s pretty basic stuff from a musical point of view, in that everyone plays in unison and there’s no improvisation or any other development of the tune, but it’s certainly a performance full of energy and fun as well as a valuable piece of Jazz prehistory. The tune is Downhome Rag, which was written sometime in 1913 by Wilbur C Sweatman, is still performed by traditional jazz bands today. But not like this!

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Matzo Balls

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , on April 14, 2014 by telescoper

This evening sees the start of the Jewish Festival of the Passover (Pesach) which made me think of posting this piece of inspired silliness by the legendary Slim Gaillard to wish you all a Chag Sameach.

Slim Gaillard was a 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  in order to enjoy his company whenever he went into a pub. 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. 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.

They don’t make ’em like Slim any more, but you can get a good idea of what a blast he was by listening to this record, which is bound to bring a smile even to the  most crabbed of faces….

 

 

 

 

 

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Hampton Hawes – The Trio, Vol. 1

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , on March 25, 2014 by telescoper

The old blog has been generating far too much traffic over the last couple of weeks so I thought I’d try to calm things down by posting something about Jazz (which usually scares the traffic away). I was listening this album the other day and thought I’d write about it because the pianist concerned Hampton Hawes is so underrated.

The Trio – Vol. 1  was Hawes’s first LP under his own name and it proved to be the start of a long and successful association with Contemporary Records. Hawes’s playing has been described as a more-or-less literal keyboard transcription of Charlie Parker and indeed his lines do sound more like Parker than those of Bud Powell, the archetypal bebop pianist. Indeed Hawes stated that Powell had never really been influence, or at least not as much of an influence as he had been on the rest of his generation of jazz pianists. Like Charlie Parker, Hawes had a great gift for playing the blues and even when not actually playing standard 12-bar blues material he somehow managed to make almost everything he played sound like the blues; a great example from this album is the ballad Easy Livin’ which Hawes augments by inserting some blues phrases into the melody. There are three “orthodox” blues tracks on the album, although one of them Feelin’ Fine is based on an altered chord progression.

Fast tempi gave Hawes very few problems. On the album he seems completely comfortable maintaining the logic and continuity of his improvisations even while playing at about 80 bars to the minute.  I Got Rhythm is taken at a very brisk pace but Hawes is always master of the situation. The track I’ve picked from Youtube, the great Jerome Kern standard All The Things You Are, the chords of which lurk underneath a great many bebop tunes, is very different, with an out-of-tempo introduction picking up into the jaunty medium pace “bounce” that’s very characteristic of the bebop era.

Throughout the 50s and 60s, Hampton Hawes was head and shoulders above most of his competitors. Red Mitchell (bass) and Chuck Thompson (drums) remained his colleagues for years, which is no doubt why their playing is so together.

 

 

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Now This is What You Call a Gig!

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , on March 5, 2014 by telescoper

No time for a proper post today, but I couldn’t resist reblogging this advertisement for what must have been an amazing concert with an amazing lineup; so amazing that Pharaoh Sanders and Albert Ayler, who were also there, didn’t even make it onto the poster!

jazzlabels's avatarthejazzword

Now This is What You Call a Gig!

It was 1966…Pharaoh Sanders and Albert Ayler were also there playing with Coltrane’s group

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The Quintet at Massey Hall

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , , , , , , on February 23, 2014 by telescoper

Time for a quick Jazz review, I think. This time I thought I’d pick a classic live performance from May 15th 1953 at Massey Hall in Toronto. Originally released as a vinyl LP with only 6 tracks on it, and called The Quintet of the Year, but subsequently re-released in various versions on CD, with various titles including Jazz at Massey Hall. The whole concert  is now available on Youtube here:

This concert was planned to unite the greatest stars of the bebop era who had performed together earlier in their careers but had gradually evolved different styles over the intervening years. The line-up is Charlie Parker on alto, Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet, Bud Powell on piano, Charles Mingus on bass and the great Max Roach on drums which is stellar by any criterion!

Gatherings of star jazz players have often turned out to be disappointing, largely because very great musicians can sometimes interfere negatively rather than positively with each other, not necessarily consciously but because they can have ideas incompatible with one another. This evening, however,  was a glorious exception to this rule, doubtless because all the musicians had worked together in the past, and their subsequent individual development had not taken them too far beyond their shared musical background. It is true that the ensemble passages are slight, but that doesn’t matter much because the solos are of such a remarkable and consistently high standard. Charlie Parker turns in some of the very best of his later recorded work, giving the lie to those who argue that his musical abilities were in decline at this time. He might not play as elegantly as he did on the classic Dial and Savoy sessions, but he is significantly more adventurous, with startling melodic contrasts in much of his work. At times this is a bit of a problem in that he seems to full of ideas that what comes out is a sequence of breathtaking fragments rather than a cohesive solo. This happens on A Night in Tunisia, for example, which never quite fulfills the promise of its magnificent opening break. On other tracks, though, especially Hot House his improvisations are just brilliant. It’s hard to imagine listening to this that in less than two years he would be dead.

Dizzy Gillespie matches Parker in superb fashion, betraying none of the offhandedness that often afflicted his later recorded performances, and the pyrotechnical quality of his playing is as exhilarating as it is instantly recognizable. Gillespie was an extrovert on stage and his frequent dancing around on the stage results in him going on and off mike from time to time, but it doesn’t detract from the performance once you realize why he’s fading in and out. It is, after all, a live performance and if you shut your eyes you can imagine Dizzy Gillespie the showman without any difficulty at all!

Most Jazz reviewers confine their comments on the rhythm section to a few kind words, but in this case that would be a travesty. The limitations of live recording technology in 1953 result in a rather unbalanced mix, but the flip side of that is that you can hear  particularly well the pivotal importance of the bass playing of Charles Mingus. Between them Mingus and Max Roach lay down a relentlessly propulsive beat as well as taking gripping solos; the drum workouts in Wee and Salt Peanuts are astonishing in their interplay of rhythm and texture. Trumping even them, however, is the genius of Bud Powell who plays at a level consistently high even by his own standards.

Bud Powell is a fascinating musician for many reasons. Much less of a formalist than many Jazz pianists he nevertheless seems to generate a real sense of unity, more through the  emotional drive underpinning his phrases than by imposing any set structure on his improvisations. His solo on Wee offers a fine example of this: moving inexorably towards a shattering climax as the right hand figures vary ceaselessly in their length and the chords punched out by the left hand grow more frequent and more percussive.

This album is another must-have for any serious collector of post-War jazz. The individual parts are all superb, but the whole is even greater than their sum.

PS. I had the pleasure of attending a concert at Massey Hall myself, when I was on sabbatical in Toronto in 2005/6.

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Early Junction: Door of the Cosmos

Posted in Jazz, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on January 15, 2014 by telescoper

One of the quirks of being in Japan is the 9 hour time difference between here and the UK, which means I’m just getting up when folk back home are going to bed; and one of the consequences is that BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction is on (via the internet) in the morning. It’s playing as a write this, in fact. Yesterday morning there was a track by Sun Ra, which reminded me that 2014 is the centenary of his birth. It prompted me to look back at an old post I’d written about him where I found the track included there had been deleted from Youtube. I therefore decided to post a new version, including a different track.

Sun Ra was 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 musicians 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, as well as soul and pop. 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.

Sun Ra’s music is eclectic, outrageous and sometimes downright mystifying, but 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.  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 of eccentric.

Here’s a number called Door of the Cosmos. See what you think.

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My Favo(u)rite Things

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , on January 7, 2014 by telescoper

I’ve got a short gap in between meetings which I thought I’d fill by posting a classic piece by John Coltrane. This is the title track from the 1961 album My Favorite Things which, as it happens, is one of my favourite things. Coltrane plays soprano sax on this track; apparently he hadn’t played a soprano sax until 1960, when Miles Davis bought him one. I like its use on this particularly recording as it gives the performance a very “Eastern” sound.

You might think that a song from The Sound of Music would be unlikely material for John Coltrane to tackle, but in fact he does something extremely interesting with it: the melody is heard numerous times throughout the track, but instead of playing solos over the written chord changes, the soloists improvise over just two chords, E minor and E major, in a manner that seems influenced by Indian music. The whole thing is played in waltz time. In fact, although John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner are great on this track I can never quite manage to tear my ears away from the drummer, the late and very great Elvin Jones, who keeps an intense but fluidly swinging pulse going in 3/4 but also does so much around and across that central beat that it seems he must have more than one pair of hands…

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The Jazz Legends we lost in 2013

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , , , , on December 29, 2013 by telescoper

I’ve become rather slow to find out about things since I gave up buying  newspapers regularly. That’s why I only found out yesterday that Jazz musician Yusef Lateef had passed away on 23rd December, at the age of 93. He had a good innings, but it’s still sad to lose someone who was there at the birth of the modern era of jazz; Lateef played with Dizzy Gillespie’s band way back in the 1940s before going on to carve out his own career as a bandleader and a pioneering figure in the development of world music.

The death of Yusef Lateef got me thinking about all the other great jazz  musicians who also passed away in 2013 to whom I haven’t yet found time to pay tribute. The list I’ve selected is sadly rather long, and I could have included more. I’ve added links to examples of their playing:

  • Cedar Walton (August 19, aged 79).  Terrific piano player in the hard bop tradition, who came to prominence with Art Blakey’s band of the 1960s as pianist and arranger. Listen to him clearly enjoying himself playing Duke Ellington’s Satin Doll here.
  • Chico Hamilton (November 25, aged 92). Drummer and bandleader who, among many other things, sought to merge jazz with classical forms (e.g. by bring a flute and cello into his band). Check out Blue Sands Live , recorded at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958.
  • Jim Hall (December 10, aged 83). Brilliant jazz guitarist, also played at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958, with Jimmy Giuffre and Bob Brookmeyer on The Train and the River.
  • Donald Byrd (February 4, aged 80). Began his career as a bebop trumpeter, but later moved towards a more popular jazz funk/rhythm & blues/fusion style. Listen to him on his famous Blue Note recording of Cristo Redentor.
  • Marian McPartland (August 20, aged 95). British born pianist who presented a long-running radio series on piano jazz on US Radio. Here she is playing a duet with Dave Brubeck. You might just recognize the tune!
  • Stan Tracey (December 6, aged 86). Uniquely gifted British pianist with an instantly recognizable style.  House pianist at Ronnie Scott’s Club in London for many years, in which role he earned the respect and admiration of the very best musicians in the world.The one musician on this list that I’ve seen live. I’ve seen him several times, in fact, and could never take my eyes off his hands:

People such as these are irreplaceable, of course, but at least they will live on in our hearts through their music. I hope they all knew how much we loved them.

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