I was looking through my collection of old CDs last night and saw a track on Kenny Burrell’s classic album Midnight Blue with the title Wavy Gravy. I hadn’t noticed the name before, but thought it might do as a theme tune for my Cardiff colleagues who work on gravy waves gravitational waves…
Anyway, the album was recorded at the Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey on April 06-07, 1963, and originally released on Blue Note (4123). The complete personnel listing is: Kenny Burrell (guitar); Stanley Turrentine (tenor saxophone); Major Holley, Jr. (bass); Bill English (drums); Ray Barretto (congas).
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.
Well, 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!
Having 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.
Last 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….
I’m indebted to Alan Heavens (currently of Edinburgh University, shortly to move to Imperial College) for drawing my attention to outstanding young jazz pianist and composer Dan Tepfer. I’ve been listening to quite a lot of Dan’s music, over the past few days and I think he’s brilliant. What’s even more interesting about him from the point of view of this blog is his background: he is a former Astrophysics student (at the University of Edinburgh). He changed direction away from academic studies in order to focus on his music, relocated to New York and has subsequently received rave reviews for his performances both live and on various albums. He tours extensively in the USA and worldwide; next time he’s in the UK I’m definitely going to check out one of his live gigs. Do visit his website; as a taster here’s his highly original (and pretty long) live version of the John Coltrane classic Giant Steps..
Time to try countering the melancholy mood that has settled on me over the last few days. I just heard this track on the radio and coincidentally it came up on a random play on my iPod on Friday too. Clearly someone up there is telling me to share it with you.
This gem, recorded in New York city in 1928, is a duet between Louis Armstrong (on trumpet) and Earl Hines (piano). Both were marvellous musicians in their own right but in combination they were dazzling. This piece is obviously totally spontaneous and it’s almost miraculous how it holds together while the two men attempt mischievously to pull it in different directions. But hold together it certainly does; this piece takes “making it up as you go along” into another dimension altogether and the result is 2 minutes and 38 seconds of the most joyful music-making you can ever hope to hear..
I just read of the death, at the age of 88, of the legendary jazz musician Sam Rivers who passed away on 26th December. Sam Rivers was born in 1923 and started playing professionally during the bebop era of the early 1950s. Later he evolved a unique avant garde style that was nevertheless firmly based in the jazz traditions he had grown up with. He was probably best known as a tenor saxophonist, but could also play flute, clarinet, piano and viola.
I first heard Sam Rivers on Humphrey Lyttelton’s BBC Radio Show The Best of Jazz in 1979. Humph was clearly a great admirer of Sam Rivers, especially the superb trio he formed with the brilliant Thurman Barker (drums) and Dave Holland (bass). The energy and vitality of the track he played made a lasting impression on me. The album was called Contrasts, by the way, and the track in question called Zip. I bought the album straight away. At least almost straight away, because it wasn’t the sort of record you could buy in the shops; I had to send away for it.
The following video was made in Germany around the same time featuring the trio mentioned above. It’s in several parts so please click through if you want to see and hear Sam Rivers’ full repertoire of instruments.
It’s very sad to hear of the passing of such a wonderful musician and inspirational figure, but at least we still have the music. Rest in peace, Sam Rivers.
I saw that someone posted this on Youtube, so couldn’t resist putting it on here. For a long time in the 70s and 80s this was used by Humphrey Lyttelton as the theme tune for his BBC Radio programme The Best of Jazz so it’s full of nostalgia for me as I used to listen to it every Monday night when I was school. Although quite a traditionalist in terms of his own music, Humph played all kinds of Jazz on his programme and in so doing introduced me to a great deal of music that I still love, thirty odd years later. The only problem with using this as his theme tune was that I never got to hear the whole thing all the way through, until I finally got around to buying the LP (which I still have).
This track, Wanderlust, is taken from the album Duke Ellington meets Coleman Hawkins and it features star performers from the Ellington Band of the early sixties, with the great Coleman Hawkins sitting in on tenor saxophone. It’s a fairly basic blues composition, of the type often played at jam sessions like this; Ellington himself doesn’t play a solo, but provides wonderful piano accompaniment throughout. The rest of the rhythm section comprises Aaron Bell (bass) and Sam Woodyard (drums). Soloists in order are: Johnny Hodges (alto sax), typically relaxed; Ray Nance on trumpet; Harry Carney (baritone sax); Lawrence Brown (trombone); and finally a longer contribution by the star of the show, Coleman Hawkins, whose climactic solo is superbly constructed around the simple blues chords, taking it into another dimension entirely, before an ensemble chorus after which Sam Woodyward whips it up in sixths and takes them home. A great record by a bunch of great musicians that manages to be simultaneously very typically Duke Ellington and very typically Coleman Hawkins.
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In the Dark 