Caleb

Listening

Listening

To listen to this album for free, visit Munia @ Last.fm. To play a song, click the round play button next to its name.

Nitty Gritty (Reference Section)

Recorded 2003. Musicians on this album include Richard Bona (a bassist and vocalist who also plays guitar, percussion, synth, and keyboards here), Kenny Garrett (soprano saxophone on Painting A Wish), Salif Keita (additional vocals on Kalabancoro), and a host of other musicians. The songs vary from solo efforts to larger ensembles. For a full line-up, see Munia @ Discogs.com.

Personal Connections

This is an album and artist that I know little about. It came to me as part of a bundle of jazz album recommendations from friends.

You’ll notice that this album is, in many ways, outside the scope of my usual jazz appreciation. Most obviously, it was recorded and released in 2003, long after most of the jazz I listen to. A lot happened in jazz between the ’60s and 2000s, and I know little about most of it. I do feel that I have something of the ears to listen to this album despite this. There is a lot on the album that I can easily associate with—specifically influences from older jazz, hip-hop, pop, and “world” music. Also, although he is a multi-instrumentalist, Bona is first-and-foremost a bassist. His familiar approach to the instrument makes the music immediately accessible to me. In fact, one of his clearest influences on the instrument is Jaco Pastorius—a voice I am more than familiar with.

The Music: A Dissection of Influences

Much more than the periods in jazz that I usually concern myself with, contemporary jazz is about blending different existing genres and jazz sub-genres in interesting ways. Bona has had great exposure to a large number of different musical styles. It is hard to say whether he is so successful as a jazz artist right now because jazz is interested in these sorts of melting pots, or whether he pursues the melting pot that he pursues because this is the direction that contemporary jazz is in right now. The chicken or the egg, I suppose. It’s easy to say that Bona just plays the music that is in him, but the truth is that what Bona’s music would’ve been like if he was born 60 years earlier is a valid question.

This album covers a huge amount of territory. This is both because Bona is comfortable in a number of different styles, and in part because Bona hadn’t yet found a cohesive artistic voice with this album. This doesn’t come across as a fault, though. Rather, each new style revealed feels like a little gift. In terms of style or voice, the element that unifies this music is the extreme joy centering around music-making for Bona and his musicians. In my mind, there is a lot that Bona “gets away with” on this album on account of how charming and joyful he is, but some of it is material that I suspect I otherwise wouldn’t put up with.

When I listen to this album, I can’t help but be reminded of John Mayer (and it isn’t just because of Balemba Na Bwemba, which sounds like him outright). More generally, both Mayer and Bona are eager, young, and extremely technically proficient musicians with a diverse array of influences. At times, they each choose less-than-impressive influences to draw from, making the easy, uninspired, or cliche musical choice. With Bona (I, admittedly, haven’t given Mayer much of a chance), I tend to forgive him, distracted as I am by the more exciting and impressive moments in the music.

When Bona draws clearly on a more self-consciously “jazz” texture in Muto Bye Bye (for a piano solo from 2:19 to 3:35), it sounds like the beautiful musical portraits that Joni Mitchell makes (with Jaco on bass, not surprisingly) on albums like Hejira. To my ears, this fares much better than the similar passages on Painting A Wish (a tribute to Miles Davis), which draws on the less-interesting side of commercial and smooth jazz. He demonstrates, though, that this distinction is not related to his Jaco-like bass-playing, which is a constant in both of the tunes in question. Is it simply the use of soprano saxophone that transforms the bright sound that I like in Muto Bye Bye to the one I like less in Painting A Wish? I hope not! And the soprano saxophone in Playground doesn’t bother me (maybe because of the extent to which it feels like a duet with the bass there). Food for thought…

I am similarly divided when it comes to what I hear as a French influence in his music (he lived and studied, for a time, in Paris). On Bona Petit (a much-appreciated play on words), he makes some downright silly choices (and I can’t say that I know enough about French music to be able to point with confidence to that as the source). One example is the whispered “ecoute” that he uses at 1:57 and other places in the song. Is this really necessary? The speaking during the section beginning at 2:35 hits me in a similar way. I hear the artist Manu Chau here, and I suspect that he’s drawing on other influences that I’m unable to identify. I do like Manu Chau, but it’s just that Bona seems a bit indiscriminate when it comes to what he took from Chau and what he left behind. The song Bona Petit is redeemed by beautiful sounds, a great groove, and a few really thoughtfully-constructed moments (for instance, the section beginning at 4:03).

Bona also brings a clear hip-hop influence to this music. Like the influences above, Bona draws on hip-hop both in strong positive ways and also in some disappointing ways. His most explicit reference to hip-hop is on Kalabancoro in the section from 1:45 to 2:55. For me, this section is rather disappointing. The electronic drums here sound out of place throughout. The transitions into and out of this section (the loud Michael Jackson-esque bursts) might work for a different artist or in a different context, but Bona really doesn’t merit or need it here. The whole thing sounds forced.

That said, some of the best parts of the album also represent a hip-hop influence. Bona’s attention to detail when choosing instrumentation and instrumental colors are definitely a highlight of the album for me. These colors vary from those created using synthesizers to novel combinations of live instruments. A favorite use of synthesizer (I can’t tell, to be technical, whether this is a synthesized voice or a vocoder) is in Sona Mama, beginning at 0:18 (I also hear an African influence in this, as the sound is not unlike that of a talking-drum). In Kalabancoro, Bona creates a similar sound at 2:43, here combining flute and voice by having them sound in unison. A similar effect is created in Balemba Na Bwemba at 2:03 (and again at 3:02), where the voice and keyboards are in a stunning unison. Another example is between a guitar-like keyboard and voice in Bona Petit at 3:28. By combining voices in this way, Bona freshens up even the most commonplace unison, as in Engingilaye from 2:08-2:15.

What I take to be the West African influence on the album is by far the strongest to my ears. Bona was born in Cameroon (see map below), and grew up there.

Bona was a professional musician in Cameroon for years before discovering jazz (although this was also at a very young age), and to my ears, the music he grew up with is very much part of his style.

So, what do you hear as the African influences in this music? For me, I can point to it in a few different places. Most obvious are technical details: many of his lyrics are (I believe) in the Douala language, and he uses African-sounding percussion instruments, some of which I’m unfamiliar with (what the hell is the quiet, fascinating rubbing sound throughout Bona Petit? If you can’t hear it, listen during the break at 4:02). He also makes use of beautiful, catchy, sung melodies that I associate with his African roots as well. Some examples of this are in Playground at 3:04, Couscous at 2:37, Sona Mama at 0:47, Dina Lam at 3:45, and throughout Bonatology.

Personally, the most exciting way in which this album seems to be influenced by African music is the hypnotic pacing and structure of the songs. Unlike in most jazz and popular music, the sections of the songs seem to fade into one another. The music slowly evolves more often than it changes. This is what gives much of the music (Playground or Couscous, for instance) its trancelike quality.

In Closing

I hope that you enjoyed this album as much as I did, and that my efforts were useful in picking apart the music and understanding where some of it may come from.

Thanks again for reading!
Dan

Listening

To listen to this album for free, visit Such Sweet Thunder @ Last.fm. To play a song, click the round play button next to its name. Note that the original release of the album was just the first 12 tracks, and that’s what I’ve focused my listening on for this week.

Nitty Gritty (Reference Section)

Recorded August 1956 through May 1957. Line-up: Duke Ellington (piano); Cat Anderson, Willie Cook, Ray Nance, and Clark Terry (trumpet); Quentin Jackson, John Sanders, and Britt Woodman (trombone); Harry Carney (baritone saxophone); Paul Gonsalves (tenor saxophone); Jimmy Hamilton (clarinet and tenor saxophone); Johnny Hodges (alto saxophone); Russell Procope (clarinet and alto saxophone); Jimmy Woode (bass); Sam Woodyard (drums). All songs by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.

Personal Connections

My formal jazz education has been entirely under the guidance of Drew, a professor and friend of mine, who is a big fan of Duke Ellington. Between a few years of jazz band and a small handful of classes with Drew, he was able to expose me to a huge amount of Duke’s music. One of the amazing things about Duke is precisely how many-sided his oeuvre is. Duke lived from 1899-1974. Not only is this an unusually long life for a historical jazz musician, but it is also extremely well-timed to overlap with all of the important historical periods of the genre. Over the course of his lifetime, there were some constant through-lines in his music (sounds like you hear in Take The A Train or It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Thing, for instance), and other things that changed drastically. Compare the two examples below:

Take The A Train

Come Sunday (one of my favorite gorgeous ballads), featuring Mahalia Jackson

I am, personally, really interested in the difference between Duke’s “lighter” fare and his more “serious” fare. I am surprised by how much I knew about Duke’s music before I really began to discover his more “serious” fare.

Introduction To The Album

This album was conceived of as a musical suite (a group of pieces tied together in some way and intended to be performed together), in the classical tradition. Duke wrote a number of suites during his career, as well as other long-forms (sacred concerts, extended compositions, etc.). In this respect, he was more or less unique in the jazz idiom (yeah, I’m leaving out some important footnotes here, but I’m comfortable doing so for now). There is evidence that Duke’s use of suites was a sort of structural ‘cop-out’ when critics insisted that he didn’t have the skills to unify a long piece of music in more elaborate ways. A suite allows Duke to sort of throw together relatively unrelated musical material in a way that other long structures don’t. In any case, Duke made great and plentiful use of the suite structure throughout the latter half of his career.

This suite, Such Sweet Thunder, was a commission from the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, and all of its material is related (often very literally) to works of Shakespeare. The back of the album makes some interesting and strong connections between Duke and The Bard (credit to John Edward Haase from Beyond Category—The Life And Genius Of Duke Ellington): “As did Shakespeare, Ellington deployed his players like great actors on a stage. For nineteen years, Shakespeare was part owner of a repertory company, and wrote ONLY for that company. Likewise, Ellington had HIS own repertory company—for fifty years—and wrote almost exclusively for its players. Shakespeare’s plays have outlived the actors for whom they were conceived. Ellington’s music may, as the centuries pass, attain the same achievement.”

Musical “Program”

The first thing that should be said about this music is that it is what classical musicians know as “program music”. This is music that tells a literal story (a story that could, for instance, be printed in text on a concert program to help inform the audience listening experience). The music is supposed to more than just evoke certain moods, it is supposed to refer literally to specific characters, specific facets of those characters, specific settings, etc. This is the sort of music that might have woodwinds intended to sound like witches cackling or saxophones creating the sounds of a city.

This musical program plays itself out in a number of ways on this album. Songs are written to represent specific Shakespearean plays. Within the songs, specific instruments are often supposed to represent specific characters. In a few instances, Shakespeare’s literary structures are represented literally in the music as well.

In general, I don’t much care for program music. Here, though, Shakespeare does some interesting work. I particularly like the song Up And Down, Up And Down (I Will Lead Them Up And Down), which portrays a specific plotline from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Puck (represented by the trumpet) chases, watches, and interacts with three different couples (Demetrius and Helena: clarinet and violin; Lysander and Hermia: alto and tenor saxophones; Oberon and Titania: alto sax and valve trombone). To me, this conceit is very clear musically (especially the way the three pairings interact with one another and with Puck). Puck sounds spritely indeed. Apparently, Puck’s textual quotation “Lord, what fools these mortals be” is supposed to be represented by the final trumpet statement (but I am not sold on this).

One element of the program that I have mixed feelings about is Duke’s attempts to fairly literally represent literary sonnets. It is clearest in Sonnet For Caesar, where the clarinet melody has fourteen 10-note-long statements (corresponding to 14 10-syllable lines in a sonnet): 12 similar ones and two final statements that stand out to create the ending. I don’t think that I experience the sonnets on this album in anything like the way that I experience literary sonnets. That said, exploration of this rigid set of constraints was clearly a useful one for Duke, as it allowed him to create some pretty unexpected material (I find Sonnet For Caesar in particular to be bizarre and wonderful).

Work As A Theatrical Director

On this album, Duke did a lot to fulfill the role of a theatrical director, interpreting Shakespeare’s text. He has very clear visions governing his portrayal of each of the characters. These beautiful re-imaginings are, in part, what makes me feel so uncomfortable about how literal some of his programmatic devices are. In any case, I love the ways in which Duke paints each of the characters. He chooses a somewhat unique direction to go in with regards to Lady Macbeth (on the song Lady Mac), emphasizing simultaneously the elegance of her upbringing (through the use of waltz meter) and the extremity of her passion. These two sides meet during the section beginning at 1:26 in the music. Lady Mac’s dark side is revealed at the very end of the song (this coda is a musical theme used throughout the suite).

"Though she was a lady of noble birth," Ellington says, "we suspect there was a little ragtime in her soul". Photo of Jessie Bear by Eleftherios Kostans.

I also love Duke’s portrayal of the witches from Macbeth (along with Iago from Othello) in the song The Telecasters. I love Duke’s connection between the fortune-tellers in these two plays and the creepy way that he paints them (especially through his use of silence). While I think the specifics of the program are not terribly useful here, the chorus of trombones is supposed to represent the witches while the baritone saxophone represents Iago.

Other Thoughts

Three other brief comments about the album:

-I can’t think of anything to say about the opening song (Such Sweet Thunder), and the first piano entrance on the song in particular (at 0:27, although the entrance of the brass right after that also deserves a strong mention) other than that it defines bad-ass for me.

-If you can’t hear the bass on Sonnet In Search Of A Moor, you are missing the melody of the song (have you caught the pattern here? The bass represents Othello. How innovative!). Let this be a reminder that the built-in speakers on a Mac (or other bad speakers) simply won’t do. Take a listen on headphones or better speakers instead!

-The song Circle Of Fourths stands out for having no apparent explicit connection to the works of Shakespeare. The liner notes of the album explains that this song is “inspired by Shakespeare himself and the four major parts of his artistic contribution: tragedy, comedy, history, and the sonnets”. This is represented by the musical interval of a fourth which dominates the harmonic language of the piece (as it does most Western music, but it is rare to move by fourth as quickly and frequently as Duke does in this piece without firmly establishing a tonal center). More can be said about the potential significance of the interval of a fourth in Circle Of Fourths, but I don’t know that the piece is particularly worthy of it (the song seems like a throw-away to me).

Wrap-Up

I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know this suite this week. It has a ton to offer—in the relationships between the music and its source material, in the beautiful melodies, in the great grooves, and in the cleverness of it all. My only warning is to not spend too much time with the bonus material. Much of it is intended only for true collectors (5 or so takes of The Star Crossed-Lovers on track 22 alone is almost enough to spoil the beauty of the piece), although the material not part of the original release is at least worth a listen (I especially like the simple song Suburban Beauty, which sounds more like a Basie tune than an Ellington tune to me).

Hope you enjoy it too.

Thanks again for reading!
Dan

Listening

To listen to this album for free, visit Our Man In Paris @ Last.fm. To play a song, click the round play button next to its name.

Nitty Gritty (Reference Section)

Recorded May 23, 1963, except “Like Someone In Love”, which seems to have been recorded during a different session (maybe July 20, 1967?). Line-up: Dexter Gordon (tenor saxophone), Bud Powell (piano), Pierre Michelot (bass), Kenny Clarke (drums). Again, I don’t know what the exact line-up is for the track “Like Someone In Love”.

Personal Connections

Dexter Gordon is one of my favorite players. By the end of this week, I hope you have a sense of why that may be.

One thing that might be important to mention in regards to Dexter Gordon is that the album for which this blog is named is his: A Swingin’ Affair (1962). I will likely write about that album at some point, but it truthfully isn’t a favorite of mine (sure do like the title though), so I decided to start out with Our Man In Paris, which is a favorite of mine!

Like most jazz artists who I now dig, I remember a time when I didn’t get what the big deal was with Dex. I remember having two of his most famous albums for a long time and never really enjoying either of them. These were Go! and A Swingin’ Affair, both from 1962. I remember feeling like they didn’t leave much for me to hang my hat on. I also felt alienated by their sound. In retrospect, I think that it was some combination of Billy Higgins’ drumming and the production of the album (a very bright, live mix) that turned me off. The whole thing felt too aggressive for me.

I ended up being turned on to Dexter Gordon through the movie Round Midnight (1986), in which Dexter starred (he was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance).

This movie is about a fictional jazz musician living in Paris. Specifics of it were based on the true stories of Lester Young and Bud Powell. Some aspects of it also seem to be based on Dexter Gordon, who played the jazz musician in the film. One of the best parts of the film is the music (composed by Herbie Hancock). In particular, there are scenes in a jazz club that feature actual jazz musicians (including Dex and Herbie) both as actors and as the musicians.

What’s With The Name?

Dexter Gordon was one of a group of American jazz musicians who moved to and settled in Europe. In general, they found both less racism and more opportunities to make a living as a jazz musician there. Dex settled in Paris, as Our Man In Paris suggests. Bud Powell (the pianist on the album) and Kenny Clarke (the drummer on the album) were likewise American jazz musicians who settled in Paris. The bassist on the album, Pierre Michelot, was the only true Parisian on the album.

The Music

There are a number of things that I love about Dex’s playing on this album (many of them are highlights of his playing more generally). One is the feel of the album. The entire thing is laid-back. It just swings along and feels great, whether they are playing a ballad or a brisker number. This is one of the things that initially attracted me to Dex’s playing in the movie Round Midnight. I really love Dex’s solos on this album and in general. To me, they are extremely clear and well thought out. Each phrase means something and is part of the story he is telling (listen, for example, to his solo on Stairway To The Stars, which I find to be beautiful, elegant, and simple). Nothing is played for naught. One final thing that I love about Dex’s playing is the constant joy that he finds in filling his solos with quotations. Two simple examples on this album are a quotation of “Summertime” in A Night In Tunisia (beginning at 2:14) and a brief quote of “Pop Goes The Weasel” (a tune that Dex uses often) in Our Love Is Here To Stay (beginning at 2:21).

The only other thing I’ll say about the music for now is about his choice of songs on the album. Here, he plays only jazz standards. Scrapple From The Apple and A Night In Tunisia are bebop standards, tipping his hat to the era of jazz that is probably his largest influence (same goes for his sidemen Bud Powell and Kenny Clarke). There isn’t an effort to show off what he is capable in this idiom; he just wants to play good music! The other songs are all standards from Tin Pan Alley (the era of the Gershwins, Rogers & Hart, etc.). I guess that among them, Broadway has the least right to be called a “standard”, as it isn’t played a ton by jazz artists besides Dexter. I think it’s a really neat little tune though. I have always loved it, and it is definitely characteristic of Tin Pan Alley as well.

A standout for me on this album is the track Willow Weep For Me. It is a great tune, filled with great playing, and I particularly like the surprise ending (Dex gears up for an ending at around 8:00, but the band kicks back in and they bring the tune home in style. I wish it didn’t just fade out from there, though).

It’s true, Dexter was known for playing with one of my favorite bassists while in Europe: Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen (“the great Dane with the long name”). Soon, I’ll get to one of my favorite albums where they play together. I thought that Our Man In Paris made for a better introduction to Dexter Gordon though (and the bassist on this album, Pierre Michelot is under-appreciated anyways. I think he’s great on this album!).

Thanks again for reading!

Dan

Listening

This album can be heard for free on the web at Know What I Mean? @ Last.fm. To play a track, click the round button next to its name.

Nitty Gritty (Reference Section)

Recorded January 27 to March 13, 1961. Line-up: Julian “Cannonball” Adderley (alto saxophone), Bill Evans (piano), Percy Heath (bass), and Connie Kay (drums).

Background

This album comes at the intersection of a number of different jazz lineages. In some ways, Cannonball Adderley and Bill Evans come from a shared line of thought, and Percy Heath and Connie Kay from another. In other ways, there is a strong connection between Bill Evans, Percy Heath, and Connie Kay, and Cannonball is a sort of outlier. There are, presumably, other ways of dissecting this as well. I’ll explain the two that seem clearest to me. First is that Cannonball and Bill Evans played together in Miles Davis’ band around 1958 and 1959. This was an important time for all of the musicians involved because it was in this band, and at this time, that the new frontier of modal jazz was being explored (in particular, on the album Kind Of Blue, 1959, on which both of them played). Indeed, some of this rubs off onto this album, for instance on the title track. While Cannonball and Evans were playing together, so were Connie Kaye and Percy Heath, in the Modern Jazz Quartet (along with Milt Jackson and John Lewis).

This brings us to the second way of thinking about the line-up on this album: the MJQ (and thus Connie Kaye and Percy Heath) were at the forefront of a jazz subgenre called Third Stream, of which Bill Evans was also an avid practitioner (as was Miles Davis for a period). From what I know, Cannonball wasn’t really involved in Third Stream (but I’m no expert on Cannonball, so please correct me if I’m wrong!). Third Stream was a subgenre which sought to combine Classical music (“first stream”) with Jazz music (“second stream”) to create something entirely new (hence “third stream”). Miles Davis was working on Third Stream, bringing sophisticated arrangements and classical instrumentation (tuba, french horn, etc.) into jazz. The MJQ (and thus Connie Kaye and Percy Heath) were also writing sophisticated compositions and arrangements and utilizing some compositional tropes common in classical music (take, for a striking example, their song Vendome, which is written in a fugal style). Although some of this music strikes me as gimmicky, the MJQ also played music that I find to be more tasteful, and which relied on classical music only subtly (I’m happy to make recommendations to anyone who’s interested). Bill Evans was trained in classical music and it influenced all of his playing and writing… always. (I’ll show some examples of it from Know What I Mean? below). Thus, he is also thought of as a Third Stream player.

The reason that I mention all of the above is two-fold: it really informs the music, and the line-up strikes me at once as bizarre and explainable. Anyways, however it occurred to them to do so, Cannonball and Bill Evans recorded an album together and this was the line-up they chose to work with. The billing of the album is one final thing that strikes me as unexpected. Take a look at the album cover. (Big Letters) “Cannonball Adderley” (small letters) “with Bill Evans”. I can’t tell if the suggestion is that they are co-leaders and Bill Evans is getting neglected, or if Cannonball is the leader, and Bill Evans is getting more mention than the usual. I’m not sure if this is for marketing reasons or what. (If you have any thoughts, please chime in!). A more exaggerated version of the same can be seen in the artwork on the album. At first glance, the only person in the scene is Cannonball. Go on and take another look at the album cover (last time, I promise). Ten points if you noticed the photograph of Bill Evans before I mentioned it. For those of you who still haven’t found it, that face just below the pair of legs (the white guy with the glasses) is Bill Evans. I’m further confused by the fact that I think that, to some extent, Bill Evans ought to get top billing on this album. Evans wrote two of the songs on the album (Waltz For Debby and Know What I Mean?), while Cannonball wrote none. Also, through most of the album, Evans just sounds like the one in charge (can you hear in his piano playing the same qualities that we found in Art Blakey’s drumming last week?). Now, neither of these are actually useful identifiers for leaders in general, but they do certainly make things just a bit more confusing here.

The Album

This is an album with wonderfully fantastic highs as well as some pretty dismal lows. It’s extremely rare for a piece of music to be a “miss” for me, and I tend to have faith in all music, so I’ll just say that there are a few tracks on this album that I haven’t been able to wrap my head around yet. Most of the great parts can be attributed (not surprisingly) to Bill Evans’ subtle, beautiful, and emotional piano playing (both as a soloist and as an accompanist) and to Cannonball’s post-bop stylings and his care with choosing licks and carving out phrases. In addition to faulting my own listening for the “bad” parts of the album, I’m also going to say that they were probably under-rehearsed and thrown together last minute (Know What I Mean?, for instance, was supposedly just put together on the spot during the recording session. Seriously though, listening to the main take, you really wonder why it sounds so off even after 7 tries. Even by the 12th try, also available on the CD, they still haven’t gotten the piece to work completely).

Another reason that some parts of the CD don’t work for me has to do, I think, with what Joe Goldberg writes about in the liner notes: “…The whole album is filled with the aura of relaxation… Ordinarily, this would get referred to rather tritely as an ‘after-hours’ mood, but in this instance it can be recognized as simply a matter of four highly skilled artists away from their usual tasks and delighting in one anothers musical company.” Like I said, I’m likely not yet ready for the simple recognition that he mentions. And so, I’ll say (tritely) that the album does, in places, veer too close to an “‘after-hours’ mood” for my tastes. Look, when they get rolling, they really get rolling. It’s just that they don’t always get rolling! A great example (again, I’m sure some one is going to tell me how brilliant this track is, and that I’m simply missing the point. I would like nothing more than to be shown the brilliance in the portions that I’m failing to understand) is the track Elsa, which, as far as I can tell, begins with two minutes of Bill Evans noodling on nothing terribly interesting before Cannonball joins in. It is at this point that it feels like the song finally begins. However, Cannonball, after entering, also fails to take things very far or to do anything profound. To be picky, some of his licks, in fact, seem quite stale (2:06-2:09, or 2:17-2:25, for instance). The section from 2:45 to 2:58 is almost comical in its failure. None of the licks make much sense on their own, and when strung together, they are a sequence of non-sequiturs (the passage reminds me, unfortunately, of something from the series of parody “guitarist shreds” YouTube videos, such as Van Halen Shreds). In his defense, it just sounds like he is reading the chart for the first time, without having practiced it.

It’s about time we turned to the good, because the truth is that I did really enjoy getting to know this album. There is so much that is great about it. In my opinion the four best songs on the album are (in this order): Waltz For Debby, Toy, Venice, and Goodbye. Waltz For Debby is a famous Bill Evans song. You can listen to the most famous version for free at Myspace (and I really recommend you do). It is a beautiful ballad, performed on the version linked above with Scott LaFaro on bass (he’s a man who really transformed the instrument. Hopefully I’ll have an opportunity to write more about him in a blog entry soon). The version on Know What I Mean? puts a new spin on the old favorite. Aside from Cannonball’s additions to the piece, take a listen to what Bill Evans does as an accompanist. He keeps things simple, but always refreshingly novel. One moment that stands out to me is the very beginning of Cannonball’s solo (2:03-2:14). Here, Cannonball is playing a very simple rhythmic game with the melody of the song (just making each note of the melody a little surprise in terms of its timing). It is not particularly unexpected (given the melody, and also given previous things that Bill Evans has done with the song in his solos), and Bill Evans presumably picks up on it instantaneously. In contrast, I have played with too many musicians in my time who would jump all over (and ruin) an idea like this once it is presented by a soloist. The truth is that it really isn’t their place to do so, and Bill Evans respectfully leaves the game in Cannonball’s hands. Bill Evans plants enough hints about it to support Cannonball and to make it clear that he is right there with him. But, he isn’t even close to the thin line between supporting a soloist and stepping on their toes. In my opinion, this is one of the most important lessons for amateur jazz musicians to learn.

Toy is a really joyful number, and it’s a great place to point out an example of the influence of Classical music on Bill Evans playing. He is constantly paying attention to the interplay and counterpoint between members of the ensemble, both in his compositions and in his improvisations. A very clear example of this can be heard in the B section of the head (0:39-0:47). Here, there is a very interesting and specific relationship between the melody (saxophone part) and the accompaniment (what Bill Evans plays). Together, they form a really interesting whole. Venice has another great example of the influence of Classical music on all of their playing (the song, by the way, is written by John Lewis, one of the other players in the Modern Jazz Quartet, and a big Third Stream guy). They are all able to play astoundingly quiet, and with great precision. This is used to great effect throughout the piece, but especially at the beginning of the head (0:21), and its repetition (2:24), where they create the impression that they are stopping (as if they got lost or something). Nope! We find ourselves deceived by them again and again!

One final word is about the saxophone playing in the song Goodbye. It is often said (of all musicians, but especially singers) that one of the things that separates amateurs from good players is their ability to create long phrases (amateurs only are capable of keeping the thought going for a short time). It’s true—it really does take skill, precision, and sometimes delicacy to weave a long thread of a phrase. I am finding more and more often that in my exposure to amateur musical theater, people take the easy way out to this problem. Singers (although it’s really their vocal coaches who are to blame) try to make phrases longer by simply keeping the sound going through them. Using this method, the phrase can only possibly be as long as a breath (although it tends to be even shorter). Cannonball teaches on this album that sustaining a long phrase has nothing to do with breath or with breaks in the sound. The most extreme example of this occurs from 1:56-2:27, where Cannonball constructs a very beautiful, long, and complete phrase. At the beginning, it is as if he is challenging himself to keep the phrase going, sometimes despite comically short notes. He is depriving himself of every possible crutch. Even though a lesser musician playing the same notes would have extremely short phrases, Cannonball is able to sustain the phrase for the entire 30 seconds (exactly as it ought to be played).

Bonus

This week, you get two bonuses from me! The first is a neat-ish blog post on I’m An Old Cowhand from Sonny Rollins’ album Way Out West, which I wrote about here. The blog post was sent to me from Caleb, and can be found on NPR’s A Blog Supreme. They touch on a few interesting things (in particular the YouTube video they include), but some of their points are, in my book, misses (notably the comment about the cow imitation, which the author acknowledges).

The second bonus for the week is a new page on my blog, where I will keep inventory of my personal jazz collection. I’m not sure why I wanted to include it. And I’m not sure why you’d want to read it. But it’s now available, as a work in prorgress, even though some amount of it is rather embarrassing (for instance, I’m even missing one of the important albums that I mention in this very blog post). I hope to add detail as I find the time to do so. The page can be found here.

Thanks again for reading!

Dan

Listening

This album can, once again, be found for free on the web! Listen to Free For All @ Myspace Music. If that doesn’t work for you (Myspace sometimes requires internet plugins), you can at least hear the title track on imeem.

Nitty Gritty (Reference Section)

Recorded February 10, 1964. Line-up: Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), Wayne Shorter (tenor saxophone), Curtis Fuller (trombone), Cedar Walton (piano), Reggie Workman (bass), Art Blakey (drums and leader). Workman is credited on the album cover as Reginald Workman. I don’t know how common or uncommon that is, but it’s the only time I’ve seen his name given that way. What a strange change of character that name creates!

It should be noted that none of the compositions on this album are by Blakey (they rarely are). The first two tracks are written by Wayne Shorter. The third is by Freddie Hubbard. The fourth is a Hubbard arrangement of an existing song (by Clare Fischer).

Personal Connections

The primary reason for chosing this album this week was that I didn’t know it that well. There are, however, a few reasons that I was particularly interested in getting to know it. First off, Blakey is a musician I’ve always wished I knew better.

Wait! this point can be made clear with some visual aids!

and, because this shot of him cracks me up:

Okay, now do you see why I’ve always been eager to get to know this guy better?

Anyways, I’ve had a bunch of Blakey albums for a while and haven’t really given any of them their fair due. I’ve listened to them each once or twice, but none of them really stood out for me. Everybody talks about and loves Blakey, though, so I was curious to figure out what the story was!

Also, there aren’t all that many drummers who are also bandleaders in the jazz idiom. Blakey is definitely the most famous of them, although Gene Krupa and Chick Webb also come to mind. It sort of comes with the territory (as a bassist) to spend most of my time listening to the drums on a track. I feel like most people, though, need to spend more time getting familiar with the drum parts, as it is easy for them to fade into the background. So, the idea of a drummer who is the focus of the band (in some ways) is really exciting for me.

Finally, with regards to this specific album, I selected it (as usual, I suppose) based on recommendation from my friend and jazz guide, Caleb. In light of my thinking about Blakey this week, Caleb and I had a conversation about him a few days ago. Although I had had a different Blakey album in mind originally, Caleb pointed me towards this one. Listening to the title track confirmed that this was indeed the way for me to get into Blakey!

The Fire

From the mid-50s until the 80s, Art Blakey led a band called The Jazz Messengers. The band served as a jazz school or apprenticeship of sorts. Many rising jazz greats cut their teeth with the band: Keith Jarrett, Mulgrew Miller, Wayne Shorter, Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley, Johnny Griffin, Benny Golson, Clifford Brown, Donald Byrd, Woody Shaw, Freddie Hubbard, Curtis Fuller, Robin Eubanks, Wilbur Ware, Reggie Workman, Wynton & Branford Marsalis, to name a handful.

Blakey’s playing is often described as intense and fiery. From the little of his work I knew, I never had understood what that all meant. An example of a track of his that I knew really well was Moanin’ (1958), which you can hear on YouTube. I always liked the song, but I didn’t really understand what was so special about Art Blakey. These aspects of his playing became clear to me, however, when listening to Free For All (the album, but the title track in particular). It is audible to me that Blakey is leading the band in a way that it had never been before. He is more than just the foundation—he is pulling the other musicians along (in intensity, not in speed), and generating a great deal of force in the process. When the heat is mounting during a solo by one of the lead players, Blakey says more than “I’ve got you” (which is what many good drummers sound like to me). Pulling harder than a simple “I’ve got you”, Blakey seems to be making an offering of energy to the player: “Hey, take this”.

Another element of Blakey’s playing that I think people have in mind when they describe him as fiery is the extreme precision with which he approaches his instrument. For me, this is one of the things that separates good players from mediocre ones, and I’ve found it to be true in my work in the theater as well. In the last month or so, I have been to two theater workshops thrown by well-established Philly-based ensembles (Quinn Bauriedel with Pig Iron and Whit McLaughlin with New Paradise Labs). Both of them used different vocabulary to describe this precision, but both of them certainly made it a focus of the work in some way. Whit used a useful image of the mind darting around the body, constantly checking in with and invigorating every square inch of the body. This is what I hear in Blakey’s playing. His mind and ear are whizzing rapidly around his instrument (both his drum kit and his band at large). This, for me, is what connects Blakey’s playing on Moanin (where I can’t hear his playing as “fiery”, per se) to Free For All. To borrow Quinn’s vocabulary, the two tracks are at different levels of tension, but each of them is performed with extreme precision.

Because the heat is so high on so much of this album, it was a really useful way for me to get a sense of what makes Blakey’s playing special. For me, I can totally enjoy myself listening only to the interplay between Blakey and Walton (piano) as they cook through some of these numbers (Free For All and The Core in particular). The way that they feed one other’s fire is simply exciting.

The Lead Players

The first thing that stands out to me about the lead players is that there are three of them: a trumpet, a tenor sax, and a trombone. Together, they form a choir of sorts. The sextet format in jazz isn’t all that common (the septet being the sort of default configuration, and quartets and trios both being more common than sextets). The written arrangements put this instrumentation to good use, switching from unisons to harmonies in the heads (the composed parts) of the tunes. Listen for example to the head of Free For All (which begins after a short introduction, at around 0:18 and finishes around 0:51). I love how at 0:35, the texture gets stripped down suddenly to a unison melody for a few measures. Then, with the chord at the end of that phrase (at about 0:41), the harmony leaps out, and continues through the second phrase of this section (which is, aside from the addition of the harmony, almost identical to the previous phrase). The moment that begins this (at 0:35) feels like that instant when that big chunk of gook the vacuum cleaner has been struggling with finally gets sucked up and shot into the body of the vacuum.

Another great use of the horn trio is during the head of Hammer Head. For me, the chord sounded at 0:09 (as well as future repetitions of this section) is comically ugly. It has such a clear character for me—snarky, saucy, and rude, like a young boy sticking his tongue out at you or something.

Now, there is something else worth mentioning about the horn players (and, I promise, this will lead us to your assignment for the week, and then we’ll be finished). The truth is, when the playing on this album gets fiery, Blakey isn’t the only one to blame. And I’ll admit that there’s even more to it than the play between Blakey on drums and Walton on piano.

(For those of you interested in Workman’s contribution, and why I seem to be leaving out the bassist… he does do a lot that is interesting on this album to help build the energy. In particular, he spends a lot of time “pedaling”, or just playing the same note over and over again in an insistent rhythm to build the tension. I wish his volume was a bit louder so that we could fully appreciate all of what he does on the album. Truthfully, I bet that his impact on the recording session was much bigger than we are able to discern from listening to the record. The bass just lacks power at this volume.)

Yes, it’s true, the horn soloists do some pretty incredible things in their playing as well! A favorite set of moments for me are back-to-back in Wayne Shorter’s solo on The Core: the first beginning at 2:00 and the second following immediately after (beginning at 2:10). Another favorite part is at 3:18 on the same track, when Shorter brings in the figure from the melody of the song (also used as a background figure by the other horns during the solos). I love it when jazz musicians bring in familiar figures to keep us from feeling lost at sea.

Another favorite moment for me is during Freddie Hubbard’s solo on Free For All, at 7:34. Okay, it’s true that it doesn’t take much to please me. I love the sound of a horn player hammering away at a note, pleading with it and screaming it. It is an easy technique to abuse, for sure, and it doesn’t work unless the energy has been merited—building up in the work of the rhythm section and the soloist leading up to the climax. But when it all comes together well, it feels so intense for me.

There is so much that I’ve left out this week, in particular with regards to this last section (i.e. the work of the horn players during moments of high intensity and energy). A million examples could be found. I encourage you to spend some time with the album, finding moments that stand out to you. Moments where the whole band is cooking together. Where they are kicking one another in the butt with their playing. Pushing themselves and each other to new extremes. There’s a ton here, and I hope you enjoy finding it.

Bonus

For those of you who listened to the Ella stuff last week, I thought I’d post this little tidbit. This is an example of her work that I had been familiar with before learning the Harold Arlen songbook last week. There is another recording of her singing How High The Moon more famous than this one, but I think this makes the point pretty clearly. Not much needs to be said about it. She is brilliant! (too bad the video is not synced with the audio). Hope you enjoy it! How High The Moon @ YouTube.

Thanks again for reading!

Dan

Listening

To listen to this album for free, visit Harold Arlen Songbook, Vol 1 @ Last.fm. To play a song, click the round play button next to its name. Sorry that Last.fm is missing two of the songs. I’ve made one of them available for free on Youtube, here.

Nitty Gritty (Reference Section)

Recorded Aug 1, 1960 to Jan 14, 1961. Arrangements and conducting by Billy May. The line-up is huge and can be found at wikipedia for those interested. For the rest of us, it’s probably enough to know that the vocalist on the album is Ella Fitzgerald.

Personal Connections

Those of you who know my taste in jazz might be a bit confused by this choice of album. For one thing, I don’t listen to much vocal jazz. I also have never really understood the appeal of orchestras or entire string sections in jazz. There does seem to be something there, though—Charlie Parker and Clifford Brown each put out entire albums accompanied by string sections. I think Nina Simone did the same, and there might be others too. The cursory listens I’ve given the Charlie Parker and Clifford Brown albums don’t attract me that much (even though I am big fans of both of the players in other contexts). And strings in jazz are just fine for me (Sam Jones on cello, Ray Nance or Stephane Grappelli on violin, to name a few). It’s something about the lush string section as a whole that feels out of place in most jazz contexts.

And those of you who know my taste in musical theater might know that Harold Arlen (and most stuff pre-Sondheim) is outside of my knowledge-base.

BUT (to the point now)! One of the main reasons I started this blog is as a way to keep learning about jazz that I’m unfamiliar with. In the last few weeks, I’ve uncovered new things about albums I’ve already known. This, however, was an opportunity to sit down with an album that I had hardly ever listened to. And in the process, I might fill in some of my missing knowledge about musical theater as well as some of the songs that have entered the jazz cannon (Stormy Weather and My Shining Hour, for instance). Also, despite my feelings about vocal jazz in general, the little that I’ve heard of Ella has gotten me really excited about her. She ought to be taken as seriously as a soloist as instrumentalists are.

On The Music

In the late ’50s and early ’60s, Ella Fitzgerald put out eight sets of songbook albums (each set contained multiple discs). Cole Porter, Rogers & Hart, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, George & Ira Gershwin, Arlen, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer. These were (most of) the masters who contributed works to the so-called Great American Songbook, a very important oeuvre for jazz. Jazz musicians have historically relied on the Great American Songbook for material. Because of the jam-culture in jazz, it is useful to have a set of common songs that all musicians are expected to be familiar with (even better if the songs are beautiful and brilliant, as most of these are). For decades, jazz musicians have visited and re-visited these popular American tunes. In addition to borrowing entire songs from this body of work, jazz also borrowed one of its most common song forms/structures, AABA form, a 32-measure form with an 8-measure theme repeated, then a contrasting section (called the “bridge”), and a repeat of the initial theme. Examples of this from the Great American Songbook include I’ve Got Rhythm and Over The Rainbow. (In jazz, unlike in Classical music, AABA refers to just the content of the “head” of the tune, the composed part, not the entire length of the recorded track. The AABA form is typically repeated over and over again in the track). There are also certain harmonic tropes which I believe that jazz inherited from the Great American Songbook (I associate them with it at least, but I’d appreciate any thoughts that anyone else has on the issue). This includes harmonic motion from the tonic (major) to the supertonic (minor), which is relatively uncommon in Classical music, but quite common in pop, musical theater, and jazz. This is especially characteristic with the leading-tone diminished seventh chord of the supertonic connecting the two. If you didn’t follow what I just said, you can click here to hear an example of it.

With the exception of Duke Ellington, all of the other composers that Ella paid tribute to in her Songbook albums were early musical theater composers from Tin Pan Alley. It’s interesting that this music, composed mostly by Jewish immigrants, became so important to jazz.

Harold Arlen is, of course, most famous for composing the music for The Wizard of Oz. On the second volume of her Harold Arlen Songbook, Ella recorded versions of both Over The Rainbow and Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead, which can be heard here.

Like many of the Tin Pan Alley composers, Arlen’s music is simple, catchy, clever (thanks as well to the lyricists he collaborated with: Mercer and Gerhswin among others), and memorable. My favorite songs on this volume are the upbeat and clever ones (Let’s Fall In Love, Ac-Cen-Tchu-Ate The Positive, Let’s Take A Walk Around The Block, Hooray For Love). I also have a soft spot for Blues In The Night, probably because it makes me think of the Louis Armstrong / Oscar Peterson version.

I wish Ella had more solo space on this album. The small amount of  solo space that the lead players in the band get throughout the album is a little underwhelming, especially considering that Ella, a great soloist, was right there! Some of the work that Ella does, however, is really virtuosic. Her precision and choice of licks at the end of That Old Black Magic (especially from 3:05-3:15, 3:23-3:30, 3:33-3:38) are characteristic Ella. The rest of the album is littered with similar moments (for instance, on Hooray For Love from 2:15-2:25). Ella’s vocal dexterity always amazes me.

While I don’t love all of the orchestral playing on the album (especially the string writing on the ballads, Ill Wind for instance—I guess I like my jazz Hotter Than That), there are times that the band really swings hard. Let’s Fall In Love is a standout for me. And when I gave the band a chance, I did really end up liking much of the writing more than I would’ve expected (the beginning of Hooray For Love, for instance).

To My Readers

This week, I heard from four people saying that they’ve been following my blog but haven’t had the courage to post a comment. I suspect they aren’t the only four in that boat. I’m so glad that people are reading the blog. There’s nothing to be afraid of though in the comments. I’d love it if you wrote something, no matter how simple, just telling me what you thought of the album or a specific song. How did things hit you? What moments caught your attention? In particular, this week, I largely stayed away from commenting on specific moments in the music. The floor is yours!

Also, some of you may have noticed that the instructions I had initially spread about setting up email alerts about my blog didn’t end up working. Bummer, huh? I’ve found a new free service that sends email alerts for blog updates. You can read about it here!

Finally, just a quick plug for the blog for Matchbox Theater Company, the brand new theater company I’ve started along with 5 of my best friends. We’ll be writing about our work together all summer.

Thanks again for reading!

Dan

Listening

To listen to this album for free, visit Night Train @ Last.fm. To play a song, click the round play button next to its name.

Nitty Gritty (Reference Section)

Recorded December 15 and 16, 1962. Line-up: Oscar Peterson (piano), Ray Brown (bass), Ed Thigpen (drums).

Personal Connections

I chose this album on recommendation from Greg, a drummer-friend of mine. Rumor has it that at some point in our playing together, I burnt Greg a copy of this CD, gave it to him, and said “play like this”. I hadn’t remembered that story until Greg reminded me, but it seems plausible enough.

For me, this album brings me back to my jazz listening at the end of my freshman year and start of my sophomore year of college, when I was listening to a lot of Oscar Peterson. At that time, I also learned Ray Brown’s bass solo from the song Night Train. It was the first jazz bass solo that I had ever learned note-for-note. It is still one of the finest bass solos I know of.

Overview of the Music

Often times, to remind students to play simply, jazz teachers will tell beginning soloists not to play 10 notes where 1 will suffice. Oscar Peterson always stands out to me for playing 100 notes where 1 would’ve done just fine (in the bebop tradition, I suppose). No teacher would find fault in his playing though, as he is able to maintain extreme simplicity despite the quantity of notes he chooses. For me, he does so in two ways. First, he maintains a very delicate and controlled touch on the keyboard. Each note is placed with precision and care. Secondly, O.P. is constantly aware of the longer line or phrase that he is creating. He never gets bogged down in the smaller notes that he is playing, which serve merely as detail. In this way, his playing reminds me of the famous Jan Van Eyck painting, “The Arnolfini Wedding”.

The Arnolfini Wedding by Jan Van Eyck

At first glance, this painting looks like a simple and elegant scene. However, closer inspection reveals the painstaking detail present in the rendering. For instance, take a look at he detail of the clothing and the dog fur. To top things off, Van Eyck paints a mirror at the back of the room. In the reflection in the mirror, the entire scene is recreated. Like O.P.’s playing, there is far more detail in this painting than is necessary, but none of it steals focus or reads as extravagant (okay, maybe a little in the painting, but rarely ever in O.P.’s playing).

Remind yourself for a moment that this album was recorded in 1962. At this time, a lot of jazz was trying to push boundaries (as discussed last week), or to look for increasingly mathematical and abstract ways of viewing things (one example that comes to mind is John Coltrane’s study of Nicolos Slonimsky’s Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns, from which he was learning about complex musical constructions with names like sesquiquadritone progressions and infra-inter-ultrapolation). Oscar Peterson’s playing, however, is as simple and pure as anything. His goal seems to be to make music that feels good. His playing takes a huge influence from the blues, and all of his lines can easily be sung (okay, you might have to leave out a few notes here and there, but their arches are extremely clear).

Specifics To Listen For

My favorite songs on the album are My Heart Belongs To Daddy, C-Jam Blues, and Night Train. For beginners to jazz, Georgia On My Mind might be a good place to start, as it’s probably a tune most are familiar with.

For folks new to jazz who still feel a bit uncomfortable listening to long jazz solos, Oscar Peterson’s solos are well worth taking a shot at. They have a very clear logic and are really easy to follow. If you choose any song on this album and spend a few moments concentrating on it, listening to the solos with attention, I promise that you will rarely (if ever) get lost.

One of my favorite things about Oscar Peterson’s playing is the way that he is able to drum up a lot of energy very simply. He pays a lot of attention to textures, creating at times a very thin and sparse sound, and at other times a very thick sound. There are two devices worth listening for to hear how he creates a thick sound, energizing the band. The first is a pianistic technique called “locked-hands” playing. Most often, you’ll hear O.P. playing chords with his left hand and a solo line with his right hand. In contrast to this style, locked-hands playing refers to the use of thick chords with both hands moving together and a melody on top of the chord. An example of this is on the song Band Call. He switches into locked-hands style at around 2:25 and continues fairly strictly until the end of the song. Notice during the ending how he has a sort of call and response between locked-hands and more traditional solo playing. He plays a phrase in locked-hands, then responds with a fill in just his right hand. The opening of Volare also employs locked-hands playing.

The second technique that O.P. uses to drum up energy is called tremolo. This is when a pianist rapidly alternates between two or more notes, in imitation of tremolo bowing on a stringed instrument. A dramatic example of this approach can be heard on Hymn To Freedom, beginning around 3:45 and continuing (building) until around 4:25. He uses this tremolo effect in smaller doses frequently for a little bit of emphasis (because a piano is a percussion instrument, it can’t hold a note for a long time like a singer or violinist, so tremolo is often used to lengthen a note). A brief example very characteristic of O.P.’s style can be heard on the song Night Train at around 3:37.

I just want to mention the bass playing on this album. The bassist, Ray Brown, was a longtime collaborator with Oscar Peterson, although he also played with a huge number of other musicians (Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Milt Jackson, etc.). Some of you may remember him as the bassist on Sonny Rollins’ album Way Out West. He is one of my favorite bassists to listen to because his walking basslines tell incredible stories. At (almost) any point on this album, I can happily tune out the other musicians and listen just to Ray Brown and still feel satisfied. Even when he is simply playing an accompanimental role, he constructs long lines with very satisfying melodic shape to them.

A highlight for me is Ray Brown’s playing at the beginning of Easy Does It. He opens the track in beautiful counterpoint to the piano. Here, the melody of the song is pretty static, so it almost feels as if Ray Brown’s part is the true melody. The two parts together, though, really create something delicate and special (and Ray Brown knows he got it right, as he plays with the same idea on successive repetitions of the melody).

Well, that’s all I have for this week. Thanks for reading, and be sure to leave your impression of the album in the comment section!

Dan

Listening

To listen to this album for free, click on the links below. If you’re not sure where to start, my favorites are tracks 1, 4, and 6!

1. Goin’ Home

2. Ol’ Man River (Take 2)

3. Down By The Riverside (Take 6)

4. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Take 3)

5. Deep River

6. When The Saints Go Marchin’ In

7. Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen

8. Ol’ Man River (Take 1)

9. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Take 1)

10. Down By The Riverside (Take 5)

Nitty Gritty (Reference Section)

Recorded February 24, 1964. Line-up: Albert Ayler (soprano, alto, and tenor saxophones), Call Cobbs, Jr. (piano), Henry Grimes (bass), Arthur “Sunny” Murray (drums).

Personal Connections

The specific reasons that I was so eager to write about this album were three-fold, I guess. Yeah, there are all sorts of musical reasons as well (and hopefully we can scratch the surface of them here too), but there are three personal reasons that have gotten me really excited about this album lately.

The first is that Goin’ Home is the jazz album that I have most recently shared with a friend. About a month ago, I sent her one song from this album (Down by the Riverside), and one song from another Albert Ayler album (the song was Summertime, which I love in the same way that I love the Goin’ Home album). Her excitement about the music (despite her lack of a strong jazz background) made it clear it was a good choice to be shared with y’all!

The second reason is that I recently sat with a good friend, Mr. Magee, and listened to a street musician solo clarinetist (am I remembering this correctly, Harrison?) play songs like The Battle Hymn of the Republic and Amazing Grace. The clarinetist was a relatively old man who seemed to be figuring out how to play the instrument as he went along. The tunes he played clearly lived somewhere deep within him. He played them simply. And sloppily. The whole thing would’ve been comical (the sounds he was producing weren’t far from those of an elementary school clarinetist trying to play these songs), if it wasn’t for how genuine the music sounded. When an elementary school clarinetist tries to play a song from their memory, he/she is barely listening to what they are playing, and there is a reaction, for instance, to the wrong notes that are played. This man, however, listened closely to what he played, but seemed to not be bothered by the wrong notes or unusual sounds that he was making. There was no striving for something better. He found in what he played the essence of the music from his memory. In many ways, his sound was not unlike Albert Ayler’s on this album.

The third personal reason that I’ve chosen this album is that it represents my most recent breakthrough in my own jazz appreciation. I have always approached my jazz listening very methodically, only getting into one period of jazz once I’ve garnered a detailed appreciation for the previous periods (those to which it was a response). For about a year and a half I was stuck in the mid-’50s and wouldn’t really listen to any jazz later than that. The two main hurdles to tackle for me at the beginning of the ’60s were John Coltrane and The New Thing (also known as Free or Avant-Garde Jazz). Fortunately, both of these have been cracked for me over the past few months: Coltrane clicked during my preparations for my jazz honors exam, and Free Jazz clicked when I began listening to Albert Ayler, who made it all make sense to me.

Overview of the Music

In order to understand Albert Ayler (whose name, by the way, is pronounced ‘Eye-ler’), it is useful to explain a little bit about Free Jazz. By the 1950s, the rules of jazz music had been pretty well codified. There were basic assumptions in place about what players and listeners ought to expect, about what sounds, notes, and harmonies were “allowed”, and which ones wouldn’t make any sense at all. There were standard ways in which jazz musicians communicated to and relied on one another. The 1950s represented the stretching of these rules/assumptions/expectations to their peak (which is why this period produced great album after great album after great album—the cats had simply figured out how the music works best). In this way, jazz in the 1950s is roughly analogous to the Classical period in music (and art, literature, etc.). The 1950s in jazz is, as I see it, Newtonian physics.

But, by the end of the ’50s, musicians started to ask a host of “what if” questions. Like in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in “Classical” music (as well as analogous periods in science, literature, visual art, and the post-Sondheim period in musical theater), people experimented with breaking all or some of the rules. There was a search for new ways to make the music coherent and new, unexpected, devices that could be relied on. The new, experimental, language that emerged made use of techniques novel in jazz (playing on the inside of the piano, creating squeaks and squawks on the saxophones, …), used atypical jazz instruments (bass clarinet, tuba, …), changed the roles of the existing instruments (removing the piano entirely, removing the responsibility of the bass and drums to be “timekeepers”, …), changed the way that harmony was used (ignoring it altogether in favor of other devices, creating harmonies in an improvised fashion instead of working them out in advance, …).

In looking away from the codified rules of jazz, some musicians latched on to other musics. The Art Institute of Chicago, for instance, looked back to the music and culture of Africa. Albert Ayler looked to gospel, spirituals, marches (which he would have learned during his time in the military), and other music. Even hints of mariachi can be found in his compositions and improvisations. For me, dependence on these familiar musics and musical elements makes Albert Ayler’s music compelling, even when he strays far from the beaten path.

Most often, Ayler albums are comprised of original compositions that draw upon the above-mentioned musics in various ways. Goin’ Home is an album that only contains Ayler’s interpretation of existing songs, drawn from our collective cultural musical memory.

The allmusic guide, whose ratings I usually trust, gives Goin’ Home only three out of five stars. The album might not be the most inspired album (it might be the most impassioned, however), and it is probably too simple for many. Ayler doesn’t seem to have any lofty ambitions for this album (unlike some of his others, Spiritual Unity (1964), among them). He doesn’t say much more than he needs to say on this album, but I think he says it damn beautifully!

Specifics To Listen For

I’ll draw your attention to three of my favorite tracks on the album.

Track 1, Goin’ Home. This song, in many ways, encapsulates the entire album for me. Ayler’s playing on the take is incredibly emotional and earnest. He doesn’t take a solo. He simply states the melody, with barely any melodic embellishment or ornamentation. What he adds, though, with his wailing, his wide vibrato, and subtle shifts in tone color, is incredibly powerful and beautiful.

I’m not sure if it is an artifact of the recording medium (analog tapes), or if either Ayler or Cobbs (piano) was recording along with a different saxophone take, but you can hear on the recording another saxophone in the background. It is very quiet and only audible a second or so before each saxophone entrance, but if you listen carefully (listening on headphones might help), you will be able to hear it in the silences. (It can also be heard on Track 7, Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen). I’d be interested to hear if anybody knows the story behind this!

Track 4, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Take 3). I wanted to mention this track for those of you who will only have a chance to listen to a few tracks on the album… this one is one of my three favorites. As the song speaks for itself, I won’t say anything about it, but as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!

Track 6, When The Saints Go Marchin’ In. This song is filled with incredible joy and exuberance. You will notice that the rhythm section has slightly different values than in most jazz recordings. There is no real emphasis on lining up, or playing strictly in time with one another. Their playing is not, in any way, clean. This track has some brilliant play between members of the rhythm section, but it is not typical, either for dixieland music (which they are evoking), or jazz music more contemporary to the ’60s. Listen, in particular, for the ride cymbal on the drums, which often feels irregular, as if Murray is missing a stroke every so often. Also, listen for moments where the bass feels clumsy (sounds to me like Grimes is stumbling or tripping as he walks).

I know many of you had been expecting a more bass-centric view of jazz than I’ve offered so far… I promise I’ll get there soon enough!

Dan

Listening

To listen to this album for free, visit Way Out West @ Last.fm. To play a song, click the round play button to the left of the song name. Despite the strange ordering of track numbers on that website, all of the songs are available. They’ve just left off some alternate takes.

Nitty Gritty (Reference Section)

Recorded March 7, 1957. Line-up: Sonny Rollins (tenor sax), Ray Brown (bass), Shelley Manne (drums).

My Thoughts

In the week since I’ve started this blog, I’ve been pretty lost as to where I might begin. Folks, we’ve got A LOT of exciting ground to cover!

I chose this album for a few reasons. First, I wanted something that could be interesting for a large majority of my readership. I’m assuming that most of my readership knows little about jazz beyond having heard a taste of some of the biggest names (Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, and if you have been involved in the Swarthmore music department over the course of the last few years, Thelonious Monk). For those folks, Sonny Rollins is hopefully new. For those of you who know more about jazz, you are likely to know Sonny Rollins, and even this album in particular. My feeling, though, is that this album is often overlooked. I hope that whether or not you know this album, it won’t be on your most-played list.

A second reason that I chose this album is that it goes against one of my personal biggest complaints about jazz. When I listen to too much jazz, I tend to think that it all sounds more or less the same. Truthfully, compared to some other genres, the stylistic range of jazz is a bit limited. Take musical theater as an example from the other end of the spectrum. Sondheim, for instance, composed one show that uses elements of Gregorian chant as well as Victorian era parlor music (Sweeney Todd), another that uses elements of many American folk traditions (Assassins), another that uses elements of ancient Japanese music (Pacific Overtures), and another that uses ballroom music (A Little Night Music). Most jazz, on the other hand, sounds like… well… jazz! It is often hard to identify a musical setting outside of that of a smokey jazz club (there are, of course, exceptions—I’m thinking of Duke’s Far East Suite, for instance). NOT SO, however, with Way Out West, which attempts to set its jazz sound in, well, the Old West. A large part of this can be attributed to the drummer, Shelley Manne, who imitates the sound of a covered wagon on the rims of his drums, in particular on the songs I’m Just an Old Cowhand (From the Rio Grande) and Wagon Wheels.

A final reason that I chose this album is because it is from my favorite sub-genre of jazz (hard bop). In the mid-’50s, there were a group of jazz musicians playing jazz that was quite simply great. The sound is characterized by a small ensemble (typically a quartet) that seems to strive for little beyond great music. The periods in jazz before and after the mid-’50s (bebop and free jazz, respectively) saw larger scale boundaries being pushed. Post bop music, however, was less ambitious. It doesn’t sound like it is trying to do anything “different”. Although a constant striving for “better” can be heard (more virtuosic instrumentalists, more independence of the rhythm section, new musical textures), the musical result is generally more laid back (less fire-y, less revolutionary) than in the surrounding periods. For me, post bop is like the apex of the art form. Musicians had figured out the basic rules that governed the music, they had found some ways of making interesting advancements, and they mostly just played what felt good.

One thing of note about this album is that it is a trio album. Typically, an outfit like this one would be complemented by a pianist or guitarist. The absence of a chordal instrument puts greater demands on each member of the trio. It also gives each of them increased freedom.

Listen especially to Sonny’s rendering of Solitude, a standard by Duke Ellington. If you are unfamiliar with the tune, I recommend you familiarize yourself with the melody as performed on the Duke Ellington / Louis Armstrong recording from The Last Summit:

All of Sonny Rollins’ embellishments of the melody sound so perfect. In many of the gaps in the melody, he plays riffs building up momentum to the next phrase. Listen to how he does the same thing during his solo. His solo remains poignantly close to the melody, at least not in phrase structure (hear his solo along with your recollection of the melody in your head, and you’ll find that his solo is really a commentary on the melody).

One last thing to mention as you listen to the album is that if you can’t hear the bass clearly, you really ought to listen on headphones or better speakers. Because of the absence of a piano, Ray Brown really takes the opportunity to interact with Sonny Rollins. Listen, for instance, to the call-and-response between bass and sax in the first 8 measures of I’m Just an Old Cowhand (from the Rio Grande) (after the drum intro) as well as its repetition around 40 seconds into the recording.

I know that I haven’t touched on much in this blog post. For the most part, I think the album speaks for itself. Spend a little time with it, and I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I do.

Thanks for reading!

Dan