Milt Jackson - Statements

Milt Jackson
Statements

This is an album that you can safely let your toddler play with. There are no sharp edges, no jagged bits, nothing that might cut their delicate little selfs. You can safely listen to this record all day long and never have to worry about those pesky moments you sometimes get in music where you are drawn in, those bars that cause you to back the needle up a couple of millimeters worth of grooves to hear it again. Without worry, you can cue this up, put it on repeat, and never have to think about the music again at your next cocktail party. Your only job will be to keep the gin martinis dry.

What don't I like about this record? Very little, but my one complaint is quite significant. There is nothing on this album that makes any serious contribution to jazz as an art form. It is decent jazz. It is well-performed by a pretty solid group of musicians - nobody real famous or notable, but still professionals, not amateurs. The tracks were selected with intelligence. The production team stayed out of the way. (Not a small point considering it was Bob Thiele.)

I have to stop short of calling this ear candy, but...

I have to be fair, maybe it is due to the limitations of the vibraphone, being such a relaxed instrument in the hands of most jazz musicians.

Maybe it was Milt Jackson himself. Maybe he is just too mellow and didn't want to push it. Just do an album everyone can be comfortable with.

There is nothing wrong with this recording. It is great background music. No one will have their train of thought interrupted by this thing. You can safely play it without worry about your conversation being sidetracked by a witty run from Milt or any of the other soloists.

And that is why I have little to write about this record. There isn't much to say about it.

Benny Carter - Further Definitions

Benny Carter and His Orchestra
Further Definitions
1961

I could not decide what to write about this album. Which finally made me realize that it is just an average recording that isn't anything too special. I feel like a contrarian for holding that view since everything I have read about this record is very complimentary. But I just don't hear it.

First, too much saxophone. It pains me to write that. But all of the sax on this album just gives it the feel of a novelty. Not to the extent that the two Winding and Johnson trombone "choir" albums feel like a novelty, but enough that you wish someone would have suggested a little more restraint. Perhaps a brass instrument? Just something with a timbre that would be less saxophony, if you will forgive the expression.

Second, the charts feel constrained and stiff to me. It has that sweet (as opposed to hot) big band structure. I thought that sound had been relegated to dance halls frequented by blue-haired ladies in the Bronx by the late-40s, but apparently not. Here it is.

Third, (and this one is purely personal and not entirely fair) I don't like the sound of Collins' guitar. I am quite picky about jazz guitar, and this is a sound/tone/setup that is boring. Too many jazz guitarists blend into one another, it almost seems that being indistinguishable from others is a career goal for these guys. My problem is that whatever they play, they seem bored by it. This is quite clearly the selling point for some of these guys, and when done really well it can be brilliant. (Grant Green, "Idle Moments" which for my money is a top 10 jazz tune.) But if they  miss just a little bit, you end up with a performance that sound like it has been mailed in. That is what happens here.

Having said all that, this is a good background music sort of album.There is just enough individual instrumental brilliance to keep me lightly engaged, but it doesn't assert itself musically or creatively. You can ignore it when you need to. Which is why it has been hard to write this entry, this record was on all week and it never really grabbed my attention. Really bad music will grab it, really good music will too. This just sort of lay there, waiting for me. Good music should assert itself, and this just didn't seem assertive to me.

I am glad I own it. Nothing that I don't like about it is fatal to the album. To tell the truth there are several solos on it that are really great. But they don't really do anything new. Like a said, good background music, you don't have to worry about it actively distracting you, but if you need a couple of minutes of staring into space with a little musical accompaniment, this would work rather nicely.

Quincy Jones - The Quintessence

Quincy Jones and His Orchestra
The Quintessence

The Quintessence is a solid album, not brilliant, but solid. The reason why is simple, and will explain why this is such a short review.

By this point in Quincy Jones' career he is an arranger. So, expectations for his albums are such that you would expect the creativity to come from the compositions and arrangements. These compositions and arrangements are competent, probably more than competent considering their source, but then again, considering their source, you would expect better.

Simply stated, there is little that is original on this recording. It is quite disappointing; I have been listening lately to another Quincy Jones recording from 1969 (The Complete Jam Sessions). That is a fascinating recording, and not just because Bill Cosby was involved in it. The Quintessence falls short of being what you hope to get with a Jones' album.

It isn't a bad album. It is worth the time to listen to it. There just isn't a whole lot there to get excited about or write about.

Live at the Village Vanguard - John Coltrane

John Coltrane
Live at the Village Vanguard

There isn't much to dislike about this one. Coltrane on tenor and soprano, Dolphy on bass clarinet, Tyner on piano, Workman on bass, and Jones on drums, playing what was, in 1961, some pretty crazy stuff. I don't know that I will develop this idea at all, but, this is a good example of why fame is important in music, it lets you be extremely progressive - imagine an unknown artist recording this album. No record company is going to touch it, who wants to buy 37+ minutes of shrieking and howling from an unknown? Who will buy it if you Coltrane's name on it? Lots more, some of us in triplicate. Having an established name gives you license to be weird. All of those artists that are "being true to themselves" and whatnot - that is why you are poor, you need to establish some trust and rapport with your audience so that when you want to take them someplace that might be uncomfortably experimental, they will go along.

This is the album that introduced me to the saxophone, Coltrane, and jazz. My Dad had* this on vinyl, original pressing, in stereo. I had inherited my parent's first turntable when in the early 80s, they made the wise choice to switch to a system with an 8-track. (My first album purchase was the score to Star Trek: Wrath of Khan.) Live at the Village Vanguard was there in the hi-fi cabinet stacked uncomfortably between Ray Allen and Johnny Horton. The Streak made me laugh, so did The Battle of New Orleans (love the part about powdering the alligator's ass), but Vanguard fascinated me.

I was young, and everything about this album screamed that it was different and must be dealt with in ways that would expand my musical literacy. It would not let me ignore it. The gatefold cover that was printed on stock that was at least twice as heavy as the other album covers. The track list that only had three tunes, all of other records had at least 7 or 8. The record itself, not a lightweight affair, but impressively substantial, thick, hefty, that black expanse of uninterrupted grooves not anything like others that had many more of the blank grooves between tracks. The thing even smelled different, like the way an old library smelled different from mass market paperbacks at the airport newstand. The record was importantly sophisticated.

Listening to it was just as different. This wasn't a smooth, overproduced recording. The music was raw, with an edge like a rusty, serrated steak knife. This music drew me in, the same way punk and metal would in a very short handful of years, and for the same reasons. The music was rough and loud. It sought to agitate and anger. It wasn't pretty or mellow. This was not the music of Herb Alpert, which was written with the unstated intent that the tinkling of ice in myriad double old fashioneds would serve as an additional percussion track.

You listened to this music. You listened seriously and with conviction. To not listen with conviction gave the music the power to destroy you, to obliterate your musical sanity with ruthlessness that would make Pol Pot seem cuddly and warm. If listening to this album was to kill time, you better just go ahead an listen to the Iglesias or the Alpert, much safer. Dolphy and Coltrane played those instruments exactly the same way that brought one of my parents to my bedroom door, admonishing me to "practice right"; they honked and squealed, they played stuff that I instinctively knew would never show up in my "Level One Alto Saxophone Student: A Method for Individual Instruction".** I wanted the lesson book they learned that stuff from.

Unfortunately, I never found it. That is why today, I am a history teacher. But I did finally realize that you don't learn that kind of playing. In fact, somewhat hypocritically, I would suggest that playing like that is only possible when you have learned so much, and practiced for so many hours, that playing becomes meditation, and gives you the freedom to liberate yourself from the confines of the instrument and the tune and musical theory. You simply play. And what you play is music that grabbed a little kid's ears, confusing the living daylights out of him. That little kid is still confused, but in the most pleasant sort of way.
 

*I say had, because the past tense is correct. I have it now. Hanging on the wall in an LP frame. I don't have a turntable. Neither does he. I stole it from his record collection and it welcomed me as a liberator, happy to be freed from its perverted sandwiching between a Julio Iglesias greatest hits album and The Streak by Ray Stevens. I like to imagine that my father bought this when he was a graduate student in Chicago in the early 1970s. I want to believe that. But submitted as evidence that he might have been given this as a gift are the rest of the records in his collection. Thankfully his tastes have improved. But his Iglesias collection is something he will have to answer for to St. Peter.

**If you are interested in reading something a real writer wrote about this type of music, try "John Coltrane Lives" by Lester Bangs which can be found in Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, pages 103-111. I can't find it online, at least not with a cursory search, but it is probably out there somewhere.

Gil Evans - Into the Hot

Gil Evans
Into the Hot

I don't think that I will bother spending much time writing about this album. It is not even a Gil Evans album - as even the most cursory of listens will reveal; Evans was fulfilling a contractual obligation to impulse! with it, and while he apparently was in the same building during its recording, the extent of his contributions was the occasional adjustment to the studio thermostat. This album is mostly interesting as an early example of Cecil Taylor on the piano - and to be quite frank, you need to be a pretty serious Taylor fan to find it interesting.

That this is not a Gil Evans album is moderately frustrating, even if you chose to be incredibly generous and incredibly kind and give him credit as a "producer", this isn't Evans' music. Compared to Out of the Blue, as was clearly intended by its title, Into the Hot has none of the characteristics that define Evans' music of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Enough has already been written about this, what I have to say about this album is in an attempt to judge it based on its merits without getting wrapped up in its rather complex and disappointing history

The point I would make about this album is that it is largely, "Angkor Wat" being the exception, a very early free jazz recording (if you consider Coleman's Something Else the beginning of the movement). Sadly, it does not contribute much to free jazz.

The problem is that the tunes are largely indistinguishable. I still, after listening to this album for the last week, can not tell you with any more confidence than that of a slightly experienced guess, tell you which song is playing. This is largely because of the lack of clear guidance and ownership of the album's putative leader. But the larger issue that is exposed is free jazz musicians' tendency to dismiss the importance of a guiding structure in their compositions and improvisations ad being too constricting to their musical freedom.

(It is a separate post that this idea is crap. The very brilliance of great music of any genre is the ability of the musician/composer to express ideas using the rules of the genre/form being employed. It is easy to be creative while disregarding the rules and then claim that what you have achieved is serious music. Since you have no objective standard of comparison, how can anyone disagree? It is much more impressive to create something new and vibrant within an existing framework. Think of Shakespeare's sonnets. They are some of the world's most impressive poetry, composed in a well-defined form. Now think of the poetry written by every goth teenager who has no idea of the rules of poetry and you will get a sense of what I am talking about. Working within the restrictions of the genre/form is where true brilliance can be demonstrated. Please note that I am not opposed to breaking rules and innovation. I am simply against artistic laziness wherein musicians and artists can claim that rules are holding them back.)

Free jazz is nothing more than taking improvisation to its ultimate extreme where the ideas of the performing musician become dominant and relegate the composer to a minor background role. (Compare this to classical, at the other extreme, where the composer is the ultimate. Consider how the two musics are marketed, jazz is marketed based on who is doing the playing, classical is marketed on the piece being performed. There are exceptions, Itzhak Perlman in classical or a recent recreation of the Kind of Blue album at a jazz club in my hometown.)

My issue is, just as you can not just throw any bum up on the stage with a violin and the sheet music for a Mozart violin concerto and expect an inspired performance, you can't give well-trained musicians the key to the studio and let them randomly fill up tape and expect anything brilliant - you might get it in either of the two scenarios, but you can not expect it. You need a central, guiding force.You need a trained musician. You need a preset piece of music. If you didn't, you could walk into any junior high band hall in the country, record the warm-ups before rehearsal and sell it as free jazz. And that, at its worst, is what free jazz sounds like, random tootings and bangings of prepubescent geeks.

But given a sophisticated leader who understands that music needs structure, even if it is the most minimal structure possible, the result can be sophisticated and sublime. It takes talent to find that little piece of structure, and most musicians lack that talent. Which is why so much free jazz sounds like the aforementioned junior high concert band warming up - there is too much concern with the "free" and not enough of the "jazz", the part that is supposed to provide the structure.

This album's major problem is a lack of that structure, both within the tunes themselves and between the tunes. Like I mentioned above, it all sounds the same, which is the ultimate sign that a free jazz album is a failure. If you can't tell if that is the band warming up or if it is the band performing, there is something wrong. It does not mean you are an unsophisticated listener, it means it is bad music.This album has no intellectually rigorous leader who imposes a central, guiding principle. It fails in providing a basic framework from which the listener can experience the ideas put forth by the musicians. At its most basic then, this album is nothing more than random rehearsals that someone was silly enough to put down on tape.

This sort of stuff reminds of Jackson Pollock, who I do not like. I hate looking at a Pollock:

I get that lots of people see great art in that kind of stuff. I do not. I do not see any structure their, either philosophical, or artistic, or technical. It is paint splatters. I finally realized that I can't consider this to be art because I can not find any guiding central principle to its creation. This does not mean I dislike all abstract art. Far from it. I just demand that it have structure, even if that structure is so minimal as to be transparent, if it is there it will exert its influence.

Max Roach - Percussion Bitter Sweet

Max Roach
Percussion Bitter Sweet
1961

The music: This is an ok album. The music is interesting, not brilliant, but still engaging. Eric Dolphy is less vibrant than usual, but is still worth it. Max Roach understands percussion but plays with a very unpleasant arrogance. Abby Lincoln only shows up twice - once ("Garvey's Ghost") she is brilliant, the other ("Mendacity") she is trite and remarkably unsophisticated.

The other: Since this album was recorded as a political statement, the fair thing to do is consider it as a political statement. In almost every way, Percussion Bitter Suite gets so caught up trying to be political that the music suffers.

The lyrics to "Mendacity" are ridiculous. The way Lincoln enunciates on this piece is enough to drive me insane. Is she trying to give an elocution lesson? The words themselves are better suited to an expository composition piece in your first year of college. Using "mendacity" in a piece of music that is trying to make a serious statement about the state of the world is a great example of immature pretentiousness. The music itself is great, but those vocals/lyrics are so stupid, they cancel each other out.

What irritates me the most, is this is a jazz album trying to make a political statement - one of the strengths of the art form (jazz) is its subtlety, and those lyrics are not subtle. They rest of the album is subtle, and those lyrics stick out - Max Roach took the trouble to compose an album that expressed some of the emotions of the civil rights movement using instrumental music and then he goes and includes those lyrics? Why?

What's frustrating about that is "Garvey's Ghost" gives Lincoln a chance to record using scat that does a more satisfying job of fitting in with the overall idea of the album.

The simple truth is that compared to "Freedom Now", "Percussion Bitter Sweet" is a failure. It does not generate that anger, fear and violence that "Freedom Now" does. "Percussion Bitter Sweet" in simple musical terms is not going to be able to do that, at least not with the Afro-Cuban flavor that Roach gives it.

My impression is that Roach felt compelled to record a follow up to "Freedom Now", didn't really have the right kind of ideas, so he recorded the ideas he had, and gave them titles that suggested a civil rights millieu.

Of course, I have a philosophical aversion to abstract forms of art trying to deal with concrete issues. Jazz is one of the most abstract art forms in this consideration. The better the musician is, the more capable that person will be in evoking a specific emotional response. But I do not believe that it is possible to write instrumental, improvised music that addresses such a specific issue. To do so imparts powers to jazz that it does not have. Which, on a tangent, is why I often feel those musicians who think they are the most advanced musically fail those miserably - they do not understand the limitations of the musical form they work in.

That is what I take away from this album, and why I ultimately don't find it all that satisfying outside of a few individual performances. It is important that jazz's limits be understood. As admirable as it is to try new things, there is stuff that jazz is incapable of doing. Jazz of the type that Roach has recorded here can't do what he wants it to do.

For your consideration: The best example of politically-engaged jazz is "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holliday. It isn't trite, it is subtle, and it is musically engaging and satisfying.

Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers - art blakey!!!!!! jazz messengers!!!!!

Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers
Art Blakey!!!!! Jazz Messengers!!!!!
Art Blakey - drums
Freddie Hubbard - trumpet
Wayne Shorter - tenor sax
Curtis Fuller - trombone
Cedar Walton - piano
Jymie Merritt - bass

This album is quite good. The musicians are exceptional (as should be expected, Art Blakey's standards are quite rigorous, you can safely purchase almost any of his albums sound unheard without having to worry about being dissappointed.) and the tunes nicely balanced.

My modus operandi for the first month and a half of this project has been to pick apart the music, either song-by-song or musician-by-musician. I don't see too much that would be interesting following that pattern for this album, it doesn't have those surprises, good or bad, of the other recordings I have reviewed so far. The question that occurs to me to ask is: What makes this a really good hard bop record?

Because of energy. The one thing that defines hard bop at its simplest level is an intense energy that is conveyed through all parts of the music: tempo, tone, chording, bass lines, the list goes on and on.(As an aside, tempo is the least important of these things. Listen to "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You" from this record. It is played at a relatively slow tempo, but it still bristles - Wayne Shorter's tone and phrasing on that tune can only be described as energetic.)

Another way to put it might be to say that the music never relaxes. Listen to something like "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck, a tune from the cool jazz catalogue - it has a lot of things that might create tension and therefore energy (uptempo, active rhythm section, odd time signature) but the way Brubeck and Paul Desmond and the rest of the quartet play that song makes it practically a lullaby - it is boring, but in the best possible way.

It is close to midnight as I write this, I have been up since about 6:00 a.m., I have taken a couple of allergy pills that normally put me to sleep like a baby in a car seat, and I am wide awake. Because I'm not listening to Brubeck, I have art blakey!!!!! jazz messengers!!!!! playing. Right now "Invitation" is playing, not a tune that can be called uptempo. Freddie Hubbard's tone on the solo he just played was piercing, and Wayne Shorter just started on a short couple of bars and is going to turn it over to Curtis Fuller on trombone.

And here is where my point is proven. Curtis Fuller. On trombone. On a slower tune. And the energy is still there. And here is the beautiful part - you get that energy without the caffeine-induced edginess of some of that frenetic, Charlie Parker-inspired bebop that can sometimes feel like a crack addict that sprinkles crystal meth on your cornflakes. Alright, I exaggerate, but, you get my point.

So the real question is, where does that energy come from? There are several ways I think they do it, without resorting to cheap musical tricks that would only serve to cheapen the hard bop art form.

Art Blakey can simply play the drums. For example, when Shorter begins his solo in the third minute of "You Don't Know What Love Is", Blakey knows that Shorter's sax is going to provide a jolt of electricity - so he adjusts his playing - he uses less, most notably less of the ride cymbal. Then, Curtis Fuller takes over with a trombone solo. Trombones might need a bit more help in the energy department, so, after a small bridge section with Hubbard on trumpet, Blakey picks up the lost energy with more ride cymbal. Simple, yes, but that little thing helps maintain the consistency of the song without relying on Buddy Rich-style pryotechnics.

Also on "You Don't Know What Love Is" you can hear how Blakey manipulates tempo to create tension, and therefore energy. This is a mainly a slow tune (100 bpm? I am not good at estimating that kind of stuff) but every once in a while, they jump it up to time and a half (? again, not good at estimating that stuff). That expectation is always there, leaving the listener with anticipation, that anticipation is tension, and that creates energy. 

That energy also comes from the tones that the musicians pull from their instruments. Shorter on "Alamode" might be the best example. The sound he gets out of the sax is focused, efficient, clean; it isn't loose, or curved. The sound is sharp without being out of tune. It grabs attention, conveying a sense of energy through tone.

I keep using the word energy, and I feel that I am getting a bit cliched. I think it is important to explain what I mean. From my standpoint, as a listener (and I do know both sides of the musical transaction having ever so briefly been in the minor leagues, to use a sports metaphor) energy in a piece of music commands my attention. It sharpens my focus on listening. When I have been listening to the albums for this blog, I typically listen to it five or six times just listening to the music, the individual musicians, the solos, et cetera. All of my other listening to the album is done while I putter around the kitchen or do laundry or read. I have not gotten a lot of that done this week, especially reading because this album dictates my attention. (I have only managed a paltry 100 pages in a lengthy history of the Korean War.) So I suppose that is what I mean when I say energy - there is something about the music that forces me to pay attention to it, it simply will not be ignored, it will not be relegated to background music.

That, I think, is what makes this an excellent hard bop album.

Africa/Brass - The John Coltrane Quartet

Africa/Brass
The John Coltrane Quartet
1961








Africa/Brass is a John Coltrane album that is largely only interesting as documentation of his evolving musical ideology. It has some 1950s hard bop, a little foreshadowing of what he will be doing, a la the Live at the Village Vanguard stuff, and one part trying out the larger ensembles of his later 1960s recordings. The result is a somewhat muddled effort, not bad music, but the album as a whole has a sort of tentativeness to it that makes me think that Coltrane didn't quite know what he wanted to do with it. What is interesting is that taking each song individually yields a different verdict than does considering the album as a single entity of Coltrane music.

(I am only reviewing the three tunes on the original Africa/Brass since that was what was originally released, the others will be dealt with later, when the second volume is released with the other recordings from the session.)

The track listing for this recording is confusing when you consider its gestalt, and it shows that Coltrane was only just starting to move into the next era of his music. "Africa" - a tone poem that was inspired by an African album he had been listening to; "Greensleeves" - nothing more than a cheap follow-up to "My Favorite Things"; "Blues Minor" - a tune that is the best on the album if only because it doesn't veer too much from what a Coltrane tune is expected to be and therefore benefits from the listeners comfort and familiarity.

"Greensleeves" actually makes me a bit angry because it comes across as nothing more than a weak attempt to follow up on the popular success of "My Favorite Things" from earlier in 1961 (though that was released through Atlantic). Coltrane does this at least one more time, when he records "Chim Chim Cheree" (1965) from Mary Poppins.

I suppose there are two different perspectives for these types of Coltrane-interpreted tunes. The generous one is that Coltrane decided to use them as a basis for his increasingly trippy and challenging music to increase the accessibility factor for the average fan. The less-generous perspective is that "My Favorite Things" was a popular hit and Coltrane kept beating that horse. "Chim Chim Cheree" probably deserves the more generous perspective. "Greensleeves" is too normal and straight-ahead; he record that to take advantage of his very recent success with "My Favorite Things".

"Greensleeves" just doesn't fit with the two other tunes. In fact, none of them go together. Aside from the really large ensemble used on these tracks (essentially a big band instrumentation without the saxophone section) there is no connection between these tunes. It is a muddled album.

"Blues Minor" is a pretty good hard bop tune. It isn't particularly creative, it isn't particularly boring, it is just a standard Coltrane tune that doesn't change anything about his music. There is no forward movement, which isn't always a bad thing. When I listen to it, and manage to isolate it from the rest of the Africa/Brass songs, it reminds me strongly of the stuff on Coltrane's Blue Train recording from 1957. To be fair, that is about all I can say about this one.

"Africa" is fascinating for a Coltrane devotee. It is an intellectually compelling recording for the simple fact that it is the junction of the old Coltrane, who was innovative, but who wasn't breaking all that many of the rules yet, and the new Coltrane of the 1960s who was wasn't so much going to break rules, as he was going to pile them in the center of the recording studio, douse them in gasoline and burn them to ashes. I can't say that I like this song - but it intrigues me to be able to see a little bit of the process that Coltrane went through that is going to terminate in Kulu Se Mama and Ascension and stuff like that.

Listening to this song reminds me of the quote about laws and sausages, its better not to see them being made. "Africa" isn't bad, but unless you are a serious Coltrane fan, you aren't going to get anything out of it - it is liable to just frustrate you. If you like his early stuff from the 1950s, this one is just going to be weird. If you like his crazy stuff from the late 60s, you will feel like he is just holding back.

I am a serious Coltrane fan. I like the songs on this album, I just don't like the album. Thankfully I live in the age of the iPod and I don't have to listen to the album as a whole. (I don't care what Coltrane's plan was for this record, I am in charge of what I listen to.) I have a playlist of early Coltrane stuff - that is where Blues Minor plays. I have a playlist of moderately crazy Coltrane stuff, "Chim Chim Cheree" for example - that is where "Africa" is. "Greensleeves" isn't anywhere - I have to admit I don't really like that song. But those kinds of categorizations are what you have to do sometimes with such a dynamic musician. Coltrane changed. Frequently and wildly. And sometimes he changed so quickly that you can see it in the course of one album.

Oliver Nelson - The Blues and the Abstract Truth

Oliver Nelson
The Blues and the Abstract Truth
1962

Oliver Nelson, Eric Dolphy - woodwinds
Freddie Hubbard - trumpet
Bill Evans - piano
Paul Chambers - bass
Roy Haynes - drums

I don't think I want to discuss this recording tune by tune. With one exception. "Hoe Down". And that will come at the end. I don't want to think too much about that song until I have finished with the rest of the album. There is no doubt at all that it will color the rest of the album's greatness with a darkness that I don't think is fair.

Instead, I think going through each artist will be the best way to look at this thing. There is a reason why the front of the album cover lists the personnel so prominently: this is an all-star recording session. Not to be dismissive, but of the six guys on the date, Oliver Nelson, the leader, is (at least in my perception) the least famous.You put those kinds of musicians together and you have some pretty high expectations. Which with very few exceptions they manage to meet.

So, in the order they are listed on the album cover...

Oliver Nelson

Nelson's solo on "Stolen Moments" is great - laid back, relaxed, smooth. It is a great counterpoint to the Dolphy flute solo that comes before. Nelson has this lazy arpeggio thing he does for about the first 7 bars that is understated and quiet. Those couple of bars manage to mix the melodic and harmonic ideas of the song together in a nicely balanced way.

Appreciating those sorts of things are important to really getting Oliver Nelson. Even where he is playing with more fire (see the first solo on "Butch and Butch", he is still understated.You throw in some Eric Dolphy craziness, and if you don't know what you are listening to, his abilities are going to get ignored.

I will throw this out there for discussion: Oliver Nelson, at least on this album, is for hard bob/post bob what Paul Desmond was for cool/west coast jazz. Quiet and smooth, but musically interesting. Paul Desmond is easy to listen to, just as Nelson is. At least on this album, Nelson served as a counterpoint for a more "interesting" player (Dolphy), just as Desmond did throughout his career (Brubeck - which is interesting considering that Brubeck is mostly famous for a Desmond composition - "Take Five"). But there is stuff for the more sophisticated listener to get excited over; neither of these two guys are simply ear candy.

Paul Chambers

Chambers is the least obvious thing to like about this album, short of you being a bass player. I very much enjoy the more prominent sound that Chambers has on this recording. It is, quite simply, that Chambers knows exactly how to play - when to be innovative and when the tune needs conservative backing. "Teenie's Blues" has dissonance in the head, an Eric Dolphy solo that is typical Eric Dolphy - as a whole the tune gets pretty musically crazy. Chambers keeps it all together (obviously the rest of the rhythm sections helps, but...). His solo on the song is short and intriguing and new without being trite, but keeps the tune safe enough for the average listener not to be alienated - which is his m.o. for the entire album - keep things comfortable while still doing something a little bit progressive.

Eric Dolphy

(I am limiting myself to 175 words or so on Dolphy. And I am only writing about him on this album. I could go on and on. I am going to force myself to be concise. And this aside doesn't count toward my word limit.)

Here is my guiding thought on Dolphy on this album: inflammably seditious. Dolphy manages to make music that is so far outside the normal range of what jazz is (at least in 1961) and he makes it swing. It is quite simply effulgently brilliant. I am tempted to say that he reigns it in, to keep it musically acceptable with the rest of the music and musicians, but knowing what I know about Dolphy, no way. This is exactly what he wanted to do - and it is great. "Yearnin'" is a relatively brief solo that blows me away (I love hearing the clattering of the keys...) What I love about this stuff (see again, his flute solo on "Stolen Moments") is that it is just crazy stuff that he is playing, it is crazy musically, emotionally, technically; but it is still exciting. I am not a demonstrative person, so anything that gets a reaction from me has to be good. Dolphy's stuff on this album gets a reaction.

(Less than 175, I have a few to spare, but, I am being concise.)

Bill Evans

Bill Evans greatest contribution on this album is his dynamic range. He knows when to play loud and he knows when to play soft (I know that the producing and engineering team has a lot to do with that, but, it is still the musician who ultimately influences what is on the album). This is a piano player who knows that he is part of the rhythm section - not the leader of the band. If there was only some way to get trumpets to learn that...

Roy Haynes

I am afraid I am taking the easy way out with Haynes. See Evans, Bill. Haynes doesn't try to be the center of attention. Drums are for accents and rhythm, not a constant barrage of ride cymbals and snare hits. He floats along behind the tunes, sounding the most cloud-like of any drummer I have ever heard. Haynes might be the only drummer that I would describe as being relaxing. Not always a good thing in a percussionist, but it is definitely a trait that more of them could develop. See Roach, Max. (I do love Max Roach, but I am trying to make a point.)

Freddie Hubbard

One of the things hat makes me saddest is that, because of illness, Hubbard had to cancel a show that I had tickets to the summer before he died. I never got to see him perform. (It is only of moderate consolation that shortly after that I did get to see Dave Brubeck play - hands down the most incredible live music I have ever seen.) All that I will say is that this might be the best of the early Hubbard performances. He had recorded a few solo albums when he participated in this session, but I think that being a sideman on this recording took off some of that pressure and gave him the chance to work a bit more freely, which helped Hubbard in his later recordings as a leader.

Finally, "Hoe Down". This song is a 44-bar melody that is strange. It reminds me of a 1960s television game show theme song - "Are you ready to play Hoe Down?" - that has gone horribly wrong. Its melody is just weird. If this album was the subject of a Sesame Street "One of These Things is Not Like the Others" segment, this song would be the right answer. The musicians know it too - the solos have no relation to the head, it just doesn't fit. The only reason that I don't completely pan this tune is that if you can ignore the first 44 bars and the lat 44 bars, the solos in the middle are passable. They aren't great, but they aren't bad either. Consider that this tune has no place on the album and their averageness is understandable - what can you do with thing? I won't say that I skipped over this tune when I was listening to this album this week, but I didn't look forward to it coming up.

Gil Evans - Out of the Cool

I would like to propose a bold statement. Gil Evans should be considered the source of Miles Davis' success and his musical genius. I base this on this album alone because on this album, freed from Davis' arrogance, Evans is able to create what has to be in the running for the best large ensemble jazz album of all time. When you listen to the three albums (Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess, and Sketches of Spain) that Evans did with Davis in the late 50s what you hear is Evans arrangements being played by a Miles Davis who thought he could make them better with his laconic, lackadaisical, perpetually-Harmon-muted trumpet.

Strong stuff, I know, but I use those terms to denigrate Miles to emphasize how important I think Evans is as a musician. Out of the Cool is as good an album as any that Davis ever recorded, with the sole possiblity (notice it isn't guaranteed in my view) of Kind of Blue.

(As a bit of a footnote here, please recognize that I do like Miles Davis. I just think that his brilliance lay in surrounding himself with the best musicians, and that ultimately this made Davis come out looking better than his individual contributions to the music warrant.)

"La Nevada"

I know this is probably by far the most popular tune on the album. It deserves it. Evans' piano manages to create an amazing, brilliant tension that even when the piano line changes to a standard style of chording accompaniment as the piece progresses, maintains itself in the rest of the rhythm section.

I have this tune on right now, and I have no idea what to write about it. It is a cliche, but it leaves me speechless. I know why it hits me that way, too. It says what it wants to using music. What this song is trying to communicate it isn't possible to say using words.

The trombone solo on this thing just kicked in (at the 6:02 mark). After 2 recent weeks of trombone choirs and their attendant horrors, I feel like like someone finally gets what a trombone could and should be. Thank god, I was worried that the Flying Dutchman (Winding) was going to be the last word on jazz trombone.

And now a tenor sax solo - I know it is a bit of a sacrilege (especially for me), but that solo rivals any of Coltrane's from the same time period. (Not overall, Coltrane played stuff that will make your head explode and you will love every minute of it, but from 1960 - this is good stuff even compared to Coltrane).

"Where Flamingos Fly"

I would like to believe that this album might be Gil Evans' response to the trombone-schlock that Winding and Johnson put out on impulse! before Out of the Cool. I want to believe that Evans heard those albums, reacted to them the same way I did, and then turned "Where Flamingos Fly" into a musical smackdown of Winding's and Johnson's crime against the trombone. (I feel as though the Hague should get involved with the unnatural acts that two perpetrated on that fine instrument.)

The feeling in this song would make me actually weep openly, in front of other males, if my heart was not a chunk of ice-cold granite.

"Bilbao"

Listen for the dissonances in the head - it is a small thing, but they make this tune. A perfect example of how knowing the rules, and then breaking them just a little bit, can turn something from a rather mundane piece into a piece of music that is art and not just ear candy. Breaking the rules a little bit is where so many of the avant-garde guys are going to go wrong - they break every rule and a lot of what they do is just a waste of time.

"Stratosphunk"

This tune has a nice quiet energy, that frankly doesn't excite me all that much. The walking trombone line, frankly gets a bit irritating. It does have a really great horn line at about 1:53 or so that is just a great riff that doesn't end up feeling like it was destined to be played ad infinitum by a basketball pep band.

But, honestly, I just can't get over how this song just seems to plod all the way through. It isn't a bad tune, its just that its mellowness leans towards the boring and unenergetic - not the calm and relaxed vibe that I think Evans wanted with it.

"Sunken Treasure"

I think this is my favorite song on the album. (I am a contrarian. If I was not, it would be "La Nevada", but since every body else picks that one...)

It swells. There is no other way to describe it. Having relatively recently been on several boats on the ocean, this is the musical equivalent of feeling waves pass under the keel. And the part I like best about this swelling? it isn't dynamics/volume. It is tone, timbre, chord progression, etc. He does it the hard way, not the easy way.

It is also painfully relaxing.

"Sister Sadie" (this is a bonus track from the C.D. release, and I have it, so I will talk about it, but...)

This is a bonus track for a reason. It does not fit this album. "Sister Sadie" isn't bad, but its vibe is much more Genius + Soul = Jazz by Ray Charles, than it is Gil Evans Out of the Cool. It swings much harder than the rest of the tunes, and its swingingness is much more obvious. The other tunes swing, but it is a subtle type that only a true jazz aficionado is able to appreciate.

It is not that I don't like this tune, but in the context of the rest of the material on this album, I don't. It doesn't belong, and in my humble opinion it seems pretty obvious why it wasn't included on the original release. It just feels a little too much like a red-headed stepchild - it stands out and just doesn't fit in.

If you like anything that Miles Davis did before he went crazy and plugged every damn instrument in his ensemble into an amp, you will love this. This one album pushes Davis down at least one notch in the jazz musician pantheon, to at least right below Gil Evans. Seriously, Gil Evans was the genius, Miles just knew how to take advantage of him.

Kai Winding: The Incredible Kai Winding Trombones

The Incredible Kai Winding Trombones

Personnel: Kai Winding, Johnny Messner, Ephie Resnick, Jimmy Knepper--tenor trombone; Tony Studd, Paul Faulise, Dick Lieb--bass trombone; Bill Evans, Ross Tompkins--piano; Bob Cranshaw, Ron Carter--string bass; Olatunji--conga drum; Ray Starling--mellophone; Sticks Evans, Al Beldini--drums.






I think the best way to approach this album is to remember what it is: a novelty record of a "trombone choir" (Kai Winding's term for his group), consisting of 7 trombones. It also has a mellophone. A mellophone. (As a side note, this begs someone to ask whether or not Winding ever really quit Stan Kenton's band...) If that isn't a recipe for a bunch of mid-range mushiness, I don't know what is.

A brief statement: There is a difference between being musically creative and just trying something new for the sake of something new. This album isn't creative - it is simply a random experiment that turned out rather badly for those of us who don't worship at the Church of the Holy Trombone.

That many trombones makes this a niche record - I think the guy who wrote the allmusic.com review gets it just right: "Fine straight-ahead music obviously most enjoyed by listeners who like the sound of trombones."That is a remarkably polite way of saying that if you like the distinct tone of the trombone, in all of its mushy, non-offensive blandness, this is the album for you.

I have been listening to this music for a week now, and I have spent this week with a vague sense of irritation. I know that one of the reasons for this irritation is because this is the 2nd Kai Winding trombone high holy services I have attended in 3 weeks. It is frankly a rather inauspicious start to this blogging project (and frankly to impulse!). Thankfully the next 9 or 10 weeks of albums are going to be much better. But this has been way too much trombone for me.


I think the rest of my irritation is based on how boring this album is. After I listen to an album at least once a day (and for this one it is a few more times a day than that since it is just under 40 minutes long) I would expect to be able to remember track names and at least a general idea of where the each song is going. But there is so little to engage me musically on this recording, each time I listen to it is like it is new, and I mean that in the worst possible way. That is why this review is so incredibly nonspecific. I can't remember anything about it. Nothing sticks. Nothing stands out. Not even for me to take notes while I am listening.


Bye, Bye, Blackbird is the Stairway to Heaven of jazz - just like in the guitar shop in Wayne's World, the jazz community should forbid that song from ever being played again. This version is particularly horrible. 7 trombones and a mellophone working their way through it? This can only be considered a crime against humanity.


The album also contains the same tune twice, Michie (Fast) and Michie (Slow). Other than the fact that this tune is the musical jazz version of Charlie Brown's adult-character voices being done with a trombone (undifferentiated and mushy), the slow version of this song made me physically angry. The slow version is clearly a slow-tempo ballad. The first trombone solo (and all the solos for that matter) are essentially in double time. These are professional jazz musicians - that apparently never learned to improvise in a slow tempo. Why the hell the head slow and then speed it for the solos? The result is crap.


I honestly can't write any more about this album, thinking about it anymore is going to ruin my Saturday. If I didn't know what music was coming up, I would quit this project. Whoever let Creed Taylor record to Kai Winding albums in the first 3 impulse! releases should have been fired. 


I am going to go listen to the next album at least 6 times in a row - Out of the Cool by The Gil Evans Orchestra. There are trombones on it, but the ratio of trombones to normal instruments is much lower than on this Kai Winding stuff. I am sorry if you like him, but it is just too Lawrence Welk for me.


I will write a better review next week I promise. It will probably be a good review too. But try to make me listen to Kai Winding again, and you get hurt.

Ray Charles: Genius + Soul = Jazz

 

Genius + Soul = Jazz

1961

Personnel: Ray Charles (vocal, organ); Marshall Royal, Frank Wess, George Dorsey, Earle Warren (alto saxophone); Frank Foster, Billy Mitchell, Budd Johnson, Seldon Powell (tenor saxophone); Charlie Fowlkes, Haywood Henry (baritone saxophone); Philip Guilbeau, Thad Jones, Joe Newman, Clark Terry, Eugene Young, John Frosk, Jimmy Nottingham, Joe Wilder (trumpet); Henry Coker, Urbie Green, Al Grey, Benny Powell, Jimmy Cleveland, Keg Johnson, George Matthews (trombone); Freddy Green, Sam Herman (guitar); Eddy Jones, Joe Benjamin (bass); Sonny Payne, Roy Haynes (drums).

The key to listening to this album is to try and forget that it is Ray Charles. Especially in 2010, we have over 50 years of collective cultural expectations and assumptions about his music, if you can manage to drop those for these recordings you will appreciate this music at a different level. This isn't "Georgia on My Mind" or "I Got a Woman", as great as those tunes are. This is magnificent jazz by incredible musicians, not a novelty recording by a pop star. Count Basie's band, Charles on a Rudy Van Gelder-hacked Hammond B3, and Quincy Jones and Ralph Burns to arrange, this is good stuff.

There is one comparison with "The Great Kai and J.J.", the album I reviewed last week. I made the point that the opening song on the record, "This Could be the Start of Something Big", was played much "too earnestly" and could have used a bit more of a "toungue-in-cheek" attitude. If you want an example of how to play a slightly cheesy tune (this one happens to sound like an old-fashioned roller rink melody, especially on the B3), listen to "Stompin' Room Only". It still made me cringe the first time I heard it, but in the best possible way to cringe. It is cheesy. Sweet lord is it cheesy. But it's great. Charles and the band play the melody lines with what can only be described as sophisticated sarcasm, then come the solos, which are incendiary. They are good solos not just for this tune, or this album, they would be good solos on just about any jazz recording. 

The success has everything to do with the fact that Ralph Burns arranged this piece. Not to denigrate Quincy Jones, the other arranger that worked on the album, but Burns works magic here, managing to bring together Creed Taylor's pop sensibilities as producer with the unique demands of creating music that is not insipid and trite. And trust me, this isn't easy to do with this tune, it is an old-fashioned, corny composition from the 20s that might be brilliant and great in context, but doesn't always match modern musical sensibilities.

I think that some of lack of recognition due to Burns should be fixed by the last track on the record, "Birth of the Blues". The original liner notes describe the song: "This Ralph Burns arrangement generates a good blues feeling and is a fine vehicle for Charles' organ artistry." It seems like Dick Katz (liner notes author) could have been a little more kind and energetic in his assessment. I agree that Charles is great on this tune. But I don't think that Katz appreciated what Burns was able to do with the arrangement. Compare the horns on this version with Sinatra's version - a show tune designed to appeal to the unwashed masses (let's always remember that Sinatra would have been on American Idol had it been around - the man sold out faster...you want a male vocalist worth listening to check out Johnny Hartman). The voicing of the horns actually makes sense here - it is after all, the blues. Most of the versions of this song I have ever heard, turn it into a bombastic exercise in brass pyrotechnics, like Sinatra's. Burns gives it the feel it should have.

(I realize that I am largely ignoring Quincy Jones contributions. I am o.k. with that. He gets too much attention anyway, and being the music snob that I am, I like focusing on the more obscure stuff that isn't overplayed, and discussed, and worshipped. He is a good musician, composer, and arranger, but he will get his due - Jones recorded for impulse! and his stuff will fall under my axe eventually.)

I almost don't feel like it is necessary to review the two tunes with Ray singing - "I've Got News for You" and "I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town". So I won't. They are great.

I do have at least one mild criticism of the album. That is "Moanin'", Bobby Timmons tune, originally and most famously done by Art Blakey. I don't know if it is because that is a rather distinct composition with a structure that makes creative interpretations of it difficult, but the version on "Genius" just doesn't have much to it. It is enjoyable to listen to, but there isn't any provocative about it. It occurred to me that it has the same feel of a jazz tune played by a very talented, but relatively inexperience high school jazz band.Those kids can sometimes play their hearts out and be really entertaining. But my problem: this is a Quincy Jones arrangement being played by the Count Basie Orchestra (sans Basie) and Ray Charles; I think we have a right to something more than mere competence especially given the excellent work on the rest of the album.

This is a good record.  It is definitely worth owning if you can find it, but you need to be careful.The Amazon download of the album is "My Kind of Jazz" (an o.k. album by Charles, but not impulse! and not of the same quality) not "Genius". It is worth noting that in April, a compilation of Charles' jazz recordings is being released that includes "Genius". I would point out that his other jazz recordings are not nearly as good as "Genius", so you might want to just find a used copy of the late-90s release of "Genius" that included "My Kind of Jazz" (which Amazon has, but not to download). Unless you are a serious fan of Ray Charles, the new 2-disc set might be overkill. But I can assure that "Genius" is well worth the effort and price.

The Great Kai and J.J.

The Great Kai and J.J.

1961

J.J. Johnson, Kai Winding--trombone; Bill Evans--piano; Paul Chambers & Tommy Williams--bass; Roy Haynes & Arthur Taylor--drums

This is the first Impulse album, produced by Creed Taylor, one of the few records he did produce for the label before leaving to take over Verve.

I have two statements that are important to understand what I think about this album:

1. As a collection of individual musical performances this is a brilliant record.

2. In a small ensemble, 2 of the same instrument (especially trombones) make it a novelty performance that detracts from the musical gestalt. This might have been overcome, but Creed Taylor is probably not the producer for this project, given his connections with the worst of the pop music genre.

I think you have to first recognize and appreciate that the first track on the first Impulse album is "This Could be the Start of Something Big". Frankly, I could have done without this tune, it lacks any kind of subtlety. It's missing, I suppose, maturity: how obvious is this? Not only the title's allusion to the start of the new record label, but also that it is a big band-style tune that Steve Allen used as the theme song for his incarnation of the Tonight Show. If they had played the tune with a tongue-in-cheek styling, (I have seen several reviews that call it "witty".) it might have added something to the album, but the tune was played too earnestly, too conformist for it to be able to stand up 50 years later.

Along those same lines is the 6th tune on the album, Side by Side.Remember the lyrics, give this a little thought, and you have to ask yourself, did they seriously record this for a trombone-duet album? I understand that it has become a standard that everyone performs. But sweet lord...have a little bit of self control. And trombone players wonder why they don't get any respect. It is a good thing that Ebony and Ivory hadn't been written yet, these two would have been all over that one.

I think that my only other major criticism of this album is going to be that they try way too hard to differentiate between Winding's and Johnson's trombones. They do play straight on a couple of the tunes (which are the best on the record, see my comments about Blue Monk in one of the later paragraphs.), but in general they seem to spend a lot of time and effort to make sure that you can distinguish the two. Most of this time and energy is spent in trying to musically justify the use of mutes and slightly odd timbres that each of two use throughout the album.

This bothers for me two reasons. First, it is insulting to your fans. It is playing down to them. Which makes their effort no better than any of the Brittney Ray Swift crap that passes for music. I think one of the first rules of music is to play your music with honesty and dignity and let the fans rise to the occasion. Sometimes they won't like it or understand it, but you have at least maintained your credibility as a musician.

Second, and obviously related to the other reason, is that playing like that significantly compromises the artistic value of the music. It is nothing more than adjusting the music to make it easier to listen to so that you avoid exposing a creative emptiness on the musician's part. This genre of music is based on taking a chance, sometimes you fail. But not taking a chance means you are just making a pop album. The Great Kai and J.J. ends up in that record bin more often than it should.

Its important to note that much of my criticism is probably equally directed at the musicians and at Creed Taylor, the producer of the album. Taylor is often blamed for much of the direction that popular music has taken, and this album is a good example of his work.

Which brings me to my first statement from above: that this is a collection of brilliant individual musical performances in spite of Taylor's producing and its other cheesinesses. 

Both Winding and Johnson are brilliant musicians. Blue Monk, the third tune, is the best on the album, it is an example of what the entire album could have been. Neither wastes energy trying to play anything other than what they are. The solos are what bop trombone should be, they use the advantages of the instrument to express their ideas without exposing the limitations of the trombone. (I should also point out that the arrangement is excellent, good arranging is a lot like having a good director for a movie, you don't even realize that the movie had a director because he gives the actors' performance primacy. Arrangers should do the same thing for musicians.)

Bill Evans' piano on the album is the performance that pushes it from an above average record to one that even casually serious jazz fans should own. It is seriously worth listening to this album several times just paying attention to Evans. He knows exactly how to accompany the group, twinkling when needed, leaving gaps, accentuating the lead. Absolutely exceptional brilliance. He makes this album, he steals the show from the two leaders.

I feel somewhat contradictory about this album. I can criticize it for its cheesy novelty. I don't like its pandering to the listener. The song selection leaves something to be desired. At the same time I enjoy it. Even after listening to it fairly intensively for the last week, it still intrigues me. Leaving behind the lesson that maybe technical considerations should be set aside, don't get too caught up in the intellectual, left-brain analysis of the music. In fact, it is probably in your best interest to try and shut off that part of your mind and just let music settle into you. Music is art, and while you might not appreciate it in the academic sense, you might not be impressed by the technical musical accomplishment, that does not mean that it can not be enjoyed for its entertainment value.