The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz (74 page)

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Authors: Tom Piazza

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BOOK: The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz
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"Resolution." And no one will escape a case of the chills as Coltrane enters with the melody on that track. "Pursuance" opens with an extended drum solo and turns into an up-tempo modal exploration; the power and concentration that Coltrane and Jones generate are nothing short of staggering. And "Psalm" is an incantatory offering around one tonal center. This is powerful stuff, certainly one of the classic statements of the music.
Not quite a year later, Coltrane recorded
Meditations
(MCA/Impulse MCAD-39139), another album centered on spiritual concerns. Its five sections - "The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost," "Compassion," "Love," ''Consequences," and "Serenity" - make use of an expanded ensemble with a second drummer, Rashied Ali, and another tenor player, Pharoah Sanders, in a program that takes things much farther out than anything Coltrane had released before, with the exception of
Ascension
, which was Coltrane's answer to Ornette Coleman's
Free Jazz
(Atlantic 1364-2). Here Coltrane has moved away from the roots of jazz almost entirely into forms that sound more like Tibetan devotional music or Indian ragas or Middle Eastern music. From this point on, what he recorded is more or less in this other territory. This was his choice, and no one can reasonably question his sincerity in moving that way. It seems to me that Coltrane's final work was an attempt to make a sort of spiritual separate peace in a language that was, finally, not usable by the largest part of the community he was addressing. Whether one agrees with this estimate or not, Coltrane's contributions, over the ten or so years of the heart of his career, were immense; he was one of the most serious artists jazz has ever known. He died in July 1967 at the age of forty.
More Tenors
Great as they were, Rollins and Coltrane were not the last word in the 1960s, although no one has really extended the saxophone's range or ground rules beyond what those two did. A number of excellent stylists came along in their wake, combining elements from both their styles as well as from those of older players.
One of the best of these, and an important jazz composer as well, is Wayne Shorter. He was first heard at length with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, then as a member of Miles Davis's great mid-1960s quintet with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams; he composed lasting tunes for both bands, as well as forging a very personal style with roots in Coltrane's playing. Among his own albums, the 1966
Adam's Apple
(Blue Note 46403), a quartet set with Herbie Hancock, Reggie Workman, and Joe Chambers, showcases his playing at its best, in a varied program including the funky title tune, the bossa-nova-
 
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flavored "El Gaucho," an eerie ballad by pianist Jimmy Rowles called "502 Blues," Shorter's famous six-eight blues "Footprints" (which he recorded with Miles Davis later in the year), his gorgeous ballad ''Teru," in which his tone is pebble-smooth in the upper register, and more. This is a perfect introduction to his playing.
Perhaps an even more interesting set, from a compositional point of view, is the 1964
Speak No Evil
(Blue Note 46509), which is made up entirely of Shorter tunes played by a group including trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and a rhythm section of Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Elvin Jones. One thing to listen for here is the attention to dynamics, both in the compositions and in the solos; Shorter obviously likes to surprise, and he will spike a cool-sounding tune like "Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum" with unexpected accents or build to a hysterical crescendo from a cocky, I-don't-care theme in "Witch Hunt." This set also includes Shorter's ballad "Infant Eyes." Shorter's playing here isn't as smooth as on
Adam's Apple
; his lines are full of speechlike turns of phrase and timbral manipulation, changes from loud to soft. He thinks as a composer while he plays, too, which means he knows how to play and listen at the same time. Very little of what he sets up in a solo gets lost; he tends to remember the motifs he uses, bringing them up again just when you've forgotten them. If he plays some melodic fragment that strikes you, listen for it to pop up again, subtly transformed.
Juju
(Blue Note 46514), recorded about five months before
Speak No Evil
, is a quartet session with McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones, borrowed from John Coltrane's quartet, and bassist Reggie Workman, again consisting entirely of Shorter originals. The title tune is a waltz based on a whole-tone scale, very much in the Coltrane mode compositionally. "Yes or No" is an up-tempo cooker that echoes the Coltrane of the Atlantic period - especially "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes" from
Coltrane's Sound
(Atlantic 1419-2), alternating, as it does, a pedal-point vamp with chord-changes-based swinging. Shorter plays very strong stuff here and throughout.
Shorter has an extremely high batting average as a sideman, having made classic statements as composer and soloist with both Blakey and Davis, as well as on recording dates with others. Blakey's
The Big Beat
(Blue Note 46400) has several Shorter tunes, including the haunting "Lester Left Town," and his
Caravan
(Riverside/OJC-038) has Shorter's exquisitely voiced tribute to Bud Powell, "This Is for Albert." The compact disc of Blakey's
Ugetsu
(Riverside/OJC-90) has no fewer than four Shorter tunes, including the lovely ballad "Eva," never before released. All of these also feature Shorter's tenor, of course.
Miles Davis's 1967 album
Nefertiti
(Columbia CK 46113) features the Shorter-
 
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Hancock-Carter-Williams quintet and includes three Shorter tunes on which the saxophonist really shows how far he has come both as player and writer. Especially beautiful is "Fall," a thing of unparalleled delicacy of mood; Shorter's solo here, brief and quiet as it is, is worthy of Lester Young at his greatest. "Nefertiti" 's structure is worth noting; the idea here was to turn the usual conception of melody and solos on its head. Davis and Shorter play Shorter's walking-tempo, sing-song line over and over, varying the dynamics and (ever so slightly) the timing, while the rhythm section gets louder, softer, denser, and sparser around it. This is a fascinating eight minutes.
E.S.P.
(Columbia CK 46863), recorded in 1965 by the same band, is also top-notch; Shorter's ballad "Iris'' is a standout.
Shorter went on to form the fusion band Weather Report with pianist Joe Zawinul, but their work falls outside the range of this book. One album Shorter recorded on his own during this period, entitled
Native Dancer
(Columbia CK 46159), is a collaboration with Brazilian singer Milton Nascimento and contains some lovely things, especially the ethereal "Ponta de Areia" and the rock-based "Beauty and the Beast," on which Shorter plays some roaring soprano saxophone.
Joe Henderson
Tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson arrived in New York City in 1962 at the age of twenty-five and made a big splash. He was, and is, a strong stylist with a big debt to Sonny Rollins but has a way of phrasing and constructing melodies that is as personal and unpredictable as Shorter's. He also has the same interest in timbral effects as Coltrane and the avant-gardists, but these are always used as a way of expanding his options within a more or less straight-ahead context.
His two best and most characteristic albums are probably
Inner Urge
(Blue Note 84189) and
Mode for Joe
(Blue Note 84227).
Inner Urge
is a quartet set that, like Wayne Shorter's
Juju
(Blue Note 46514), uses McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones from John Coltrane's quartet, along with bassist Bob Cranshaw, one of Sonny Rollins's favorite accompanists. It includes three Henderson originals, including the turbulent title track, the swinging blues "Isotope," and the two-chord, Spanish-feeling "El Barrio." A standout on the album is a cooking version of "Night and Day." Like Shorter, Henderson doesn't waste material, and his solos are both adventuresome and coherent; his control in all registers is impressive, to say the least.
Good as the quartet album is, the 1966
Mode for Joe
is even more interesting. Henderson had grown substantially as a player, and the accompanying
 
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group is formidable, consisting of trumpeter Lee Morgan, trombonist Curtis Fuller, vibist Bobby Hutcherson, and a rhythm section of Cedar Walton, Ron Carter, and the excellent Joe Chambers. The ensemble passages are lent a fascinating texture because of the way the vibes are used, and the rhythm section provides maximum flotation under the solos. The tunes (three by Henderson, two by Walton, and one by Morgan) are unfailingly interesting; they tend to be in the modal bag rather than based on chord changes, and they tend to end up in straight four-four, usually at medium or fast tempos. Lots of care was given to the overall shapes of the performances; not everyone solos on every tune, and there are nice arranging touches behind the solos in places. Henderson is intense and fiery throughout; he sometimes leaps into the upper register unexpectedly, to great effect, and he always swings like mad. (Listen to the head of steam he builds on Walton's "Black," especially when he comes back in after Walton's piano solo. On the alternate take of this tune included on the compact disc, Henderson makes use, less successfully, of some of the same motivic material, and it is interesting to see how his conception coalesces on the originally issued take.) His phrasing is as personal and unpredictable as Shorter's, and his control of the horn's sound is phenomenal. This is a great jazz album.
Henderson's first album under his own name,
Page One
(Blue Note 84140), is fine, too; it includes his own bossa nova, "Recorda Me," a smoking, up-tempo blues called "Homestretch," and two good tunes by trumpeter Kenny Dorham - the fine ballad "La Mesha'' (which Henderson plays beautifully) and "Blue Bossa," which has become a jazz standard. The accompanying band consists of McCoy Tyner on piano, Butch Warren on bass, and Pete La Roca on drums, as well as Dorham himself on trumpet. Dorham was a close associate and supporter of Henderson's, and they ended up on quite a few recording dates together. One of the best is Dorham's
Una Mas
(Blue Note 46515), the first record Henderson ever made, on which the trumpeter and tenorist are backed by Herbie Hancock, Butch Warren, and Tony Williams on the title tune (a highly spiced bossa nova), "Straight Ahead" (an up-tempo riff based on "I Got Rhythm"), Dorham's moody, medium-tempo "Sao Paulo," and a CD bonus track of Lerner and Loewe's "If Ever I Would Leave You," taken at a deliciously relaxed walking pace spurred by Williams's brushes. Henderson explodes with ideas and soul throughout. He is also featured to advantage on Dorham's
Trompeta Toccata
(Blue Note 84181) and pianist Andrew Hill's
Point of Departure
(Blue Note 84167), on which Dorham also takes part. He is on hand for Lee Morgan's very popular
The Sidewinder
(Blue Note 84157); the title tune on this one bears a close resemblance to Dorham's "Una Mas," by
 
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the way. Henderson also played for a while in pianist Horace Silver's small group, and he appears on Silver's
The Cape Verdean Blues
(Blue Note 84220) and
Song for My Father
(Blue Note 84185). As you might expect, he burns it up on all of these.
Booker Ervin and Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Booker Ervin's playing is not as well known today as it should be. At his best he was a strong, intense tenor voice who could be mistaken for no one else. Some of his best work can be found on the mid-1960s recordings called "Books" that he made for Prestige -
The Space Book, The Freedom Book, The Song Book
, etc.
The Song Book
(Prestige/OJC-779) and
The Blues Book
(Prestige/OJC-780) are both available, and both are worthwhile.
The Song Book
has Ervin playing tasty standards like "Just Friends" and "The Lamp Is Low'' with a rhythm section of Tommy Flanagan, Richard Davis, and Alan Dawson;
The Blues Book
substitutes Gildo Mahones for Flanagan and adds trumpeter Carmell Jones. Ervin's playing is full-bodied, sometimes strident, always emotional, usually on top of the beat; he rarely sets a finger-popping groove.
Another Prestige set,
Setting the Pace
(Prestige 24123), features Ervin at his wildest in epic tenor battles with Dexter Gordon on the title track and on the old Gordon bebop signature tune "Dexter's Deck," on which Gordon takes a nine-and-a-half-minute solo. Ervin's keening, fervent tenor obviously had been keeping up with the avant-garde players of the time. The ultraflexible, amphibious rhythm section of Jaki Byard, Reggie Workman, and Alan Dawson could adapt themselves to any circumstances, setting themselves for Naturalism, Cubism, or Abstract Expressionism; here they play a constantly evolving, shifting, contrapuntal background that could have been matched by few rhythm sections for imagination and sheer go-for-broke spontaneity. This set is worth having for them alone.
Ervin also recorded a good quartet set for Candid, entitled
That's It!
(CCD 79014); the repertoire consists of several Ervin originals, including the eerie ballad "Uranus," and two standards, "Poinciana" and Kurt Weill's "Speak Low." Charles Mingus valued Ervin enough to use him regularly; he appears on Mingus's
Blues and Roots
(Atlantic 1305-2), as well as on several of the sessions included in
The Complete Candid Recordings of Charles Mingus
(Mosaic MD3-111). Listening to Ervin for too long can wring you out a little; the emotional pressure is relentless. But he is more than worth a listen.
Another musician beloved by Mingus was the reed prodigy Roland Kirk, later known as Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Kirk initially gained attention with his ability to play as many as three reed instruments at the same time, sometimes

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