The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz (82 page)

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Authors: Tom Piazza

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BOOK: The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz
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Sonny's Crib
(Blue Note 46819), from 1957, is the least interesting of the three group sessions, despite the presence of John Coltrane's tenor saxophone in the front line with Donald Byrd's trumpet and Curtis Fuller's trombone (Paul Chambers and Art Taylor fill out the rhythm section); it contains two long takes apiece of "With a Song in My Heart" and "Speak Low," and a long version of ''Come Rain or Come Shine." The set gains its main distinction from the presence of one of Clark's best tunes, the tantalizingly arranged "News for Lulu."
Clark was very active as a sideman throughout the 1950s and the early 1960s. If you like his playing and would like to hear him as a sideman on a session that gives satisfaction on every level, pick up tenorist Dexter Gordon's quartet masterpieces
Go!
(Blue Note 46094) and
A Swingin' Affair
(Blue Note 84133), recorded two days apart in 1962. Gordon is in top form, Clark is in top form, bassist Butch Warren and drummer Billy Higgins are in top form, and together they laid down some immortal jazz. Clark's work on
The Complete Verve Recordings of the Buddy De Franco Quartet/Quintet with Sonny Clark
(Mosaic MD4-117), from 1954 and 1955, is in a slightly less developed vein than the material mentioned previously, although these sides with one of the few bop clarinetists are enjoyable.
A unique and unclassifiable pianist and composer of the 1950s who recorded very little was Herbie Nichols. Nichols made most of his living playing with traditional jazz bands or in any other honorable situation that would sustain him financially. But he made a series of trio recordings for Blue Note in 1955 and 1956, with either Art Blakey or Max Roach on drums, that show him to have been an interesting composer and pianist, obviously influenced by Monk and Ellington but with a wryness and formal originality that were all his own. These recordings are collected on
The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Herbie Nichols
(Mosaic MD3-118), a worthwhile set for anyone interested in jazz piano or the possibilities of jazz composition. By all accounts, Nichols was a soft-spoken, very intelligent man; his playing and compositions reflect both qualities. His work is an acquired taste, but very rewarding. Young musicians, in particular, will find in Nichols many interesting ideas, as well as some healthy challenges to tried-and-true formulas.
Red Garland, the pianist with the original Miles Davis quintet, with John Coltrane, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones, is one of the most underrated pianists in jazz. He was a distinctive stylist, a fine accompanist, an arsonist in a rhythm section, and one of the hardest-swinging soloists around in the late 1950s. For evidence of this last claim, acquire a copy of his album
High Pressure
(Prestige/OJC-349) and proceed directly to the first track, the popping,
 
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up-tempo blues "Soft Winds." For over seven minutes (until John Coltrane enters with a roaring solo), Garland serves up a graduate-level lesson in bluesology, swing, and riffsmanship. Like tenorist Sonny Stitt, Garland sometimes seems to be an encyclopedia of well-known phrases and devices; what sets both of them apart from average players is not only the phenomenal repertoire of phrases they command but the flexibility and wit with which they deploy them and the pure swing and exhilaration in that deployment.
Garland was, in Davis's group, a member of one of the most famous rhythm sections that ever existed; you can hear them at work in the Prestige quintet sets (see the Davis section), on
'Round About Midnight
(Columbia CK 40610) and, especially, on
Milestones
(Columbia CK 40837), with Garland's up-tempo version of "Billy Boy." (A technical note: Garland's signature sound, although usually referred to as a block-chord technique, comes not from block chords, in which all the notes move as the melody moves, in harmony and counterpoint. What Garland does is to play the melody either in octaves or in a line of single notes, along with chords that remain constant until the background harmony shifts.) A funny moment in this album occurs in "Straight, No Chaser," when Garland inserts a two-chorus-long quote from Davis's solo on Charlie Parker's 1945 "Now's the Time," available on
Bird/The Savoy Recordings (Master Takes) Volume 1
(Savoy ZDS 4402). The Garland-Chambers-Jones trio occasionally found itself backing other horn players, as it did on an excellent album by the California altoist Art Pepper,
Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section
(Contemporary/OJC-338).
When Garland recorded on his own - as he did, copiously, for Prestige in the late 1950s - he usually used Art Taylor on drums and either Chambers or George Joyner (later known as Jamil Nasser) on bass. It is possible to be happy in life with only a few of the many albums that Garland cut; a certain sameness begins to be apparent after a while. Still, one needs at least one or two Garland sets around, just as one needs an umbrella, or a jar of peanut butter, or a spring-weight jacket. You won't die without them, but they improve the quality of life. Certainly the version of the blues ballad "Please Send Me Someone to Love" on
Red Garland's Piano
(Prestige/OJC-073), with its perfect dance-floor, belly-rub, walking tempo, is not the kind of thing you want to go too long without hearing. The rest of this set is fine, too, a mixture of ballads like "The Very Thought of You" and medium-tempo groovers like "Stompin' at the Savoy" and "But Not for Me.'' This is a classic example of the piano trio genre.
The same can be said for the ace set
Red in Bluesville
(Prestige/OJC-295), on which Sam Jones replaces Paul Chambers on bass. This one has Garland exploring six different blues, material as traditional as the slow "See See Rider" and "Trouble in Mind." Garland's quintet albums with John Coltrane,
High
 
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Pressure
(Prestige/OJC-349), the fine
All Mornin' Long
(Prestige/OJC-293),
Dig It!
(Prestige/OJC-392), and
Soul Junction
(Prestige/OJC-481), are all worth having. If one has a yen for Garland, John Coltrane's
Black Pearls
(Prestige/OJC-352) should be procured for the pianist's long solo on the swinging "Sweet Sapphire Blues."
Other Stylists
Garland's replacement in the Davis group was Bill Evans, who was to become one of the more influential players of the 1960s. Evans had a subtle touch, a brilliant harmonic mind, and a real lyric talent. He was not the most blues-oriented pianist who ever lived, but perhaps he compensated for this by articulating a certain autumnal melancholy that he proved could have a place in the music.
Bill Evans is more or less idolized by many pianists, although he is less in vogue today than he once was. He was a serious artist, with a near-genius for voice leading and a personal ear for harmonies involving major-seventh chords. He also introduced some new techniques into the vocabulary of the piano trio. But I must admit that I have trouble sitting still for his work for very long. He doesn't swing enough, he can't play the blues, and I don't feel close to his soul. But everyone, especially pianists, should at least hear him; I'll recommend a few places to start, and from there you're on your own. His recordings are very consistent, so you'll have few disappointments if you like his playing.
A good place to start is with
Waltz for Debby
(Riverside/OJC-210), recorded in June 1961 at the Village Vanguard by Evans's most famous trio, with Scott La Faro on bass and Paul Motian on drums. This group was remarkable for the way in which the virtuoso La Faro intertwined his lines around Evans's playing; the three men truly evolved a way of turning the piano trio into a sort of improvisational chamber music group. One could argue that La Faro's influence, which was profound and widespread, did more harm than good in making the bass solo an inevitable feature of every tune in a jazz group's performance and in steering younger players' attention toward the upper ends of their basses and away from the roundness and depth of sound that is indispensable to a jazz group's swing. We have had to wait until very recently to see a revival of youngsters who could walk strong and varied bass lines with a broad, rich sound as well as playing interesting solos. But taken on his own terms, La Faro was a real stylist, and his interplay with Evans is justly renowned.
On this set, as in almost all of Evans's sets, choice popular and jazz standards comprise the repertoire; here we are offered "My Foolish Heart," "My
 
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Romance," and the fine and seldom-done "Detour Ahead," as well as Evans's own composition "Waltz for Debby," and Miles Davis's "Miles" (called "Milestones'' here). It is a mood set, finally, like most of what Evans did; those who listen closely to piano players' chordal work and who know harmony will find a lot to listen for. If these performances were short stories, though, one might say they were long on setting and mood and short on plot. It's a question of what you're looking for. The trio's studio recordings are a bit better balanced in terms of sound;
Portrait in Jazz
(Riverside/OJC-088) and
Explorations
(Riverside/OJC-037) are good examples of their studio work.
Evans's swinging side, such as it is, comes out on
Everybody Digs Bill Evans
(Riverside/OJC-068), on which he is joined in a 1958 trio by bassist Sam Jones and drummer Philly Joe Jones. Even more swing-minded is
New Jazz Conceptions
(Riverside/OJC-025), a 1956 set with bassist Teddy Kotick and drummer Paul Motian on which Evans sounds at times like Red Garland; this resemblance also comes out on a 1958 Newport Jazz Festival appearance by the Miles Davis sextet with Evans, available on
Miles and Coltrane
(Columbia CK 44052). Evans's work on Davis's epochal
Kind of Blue
(Columbia CK 40579) is justly celebrated for its sensitivity and beauty. Finally, the 1963
Conversations with Myself
(Verve 821 984-2) is a fascinating set; on it, through overdubbing, three Evanses converse at the keyboard in dense, ingenious performances of three Thelonious Monk tunes ("'Round Midnight," "Blue Monk," and "Bemsha Swing") and on a number of good standards like "Just You, Just Me," "How About You," and the too-seldom-done "A Sleeping Bee."
Erroll Garner was a unique talent, one of the most distinctive stylists in the history of jazz piano. He projected a certain joy and buoyancy that made him a great favorite with audiences that ordinarily didn't pay much attention to jazz. But musicians, too, held Garner (who supposedly was unable to read music) in awe for his inventiveness and spirit. The pianist Mary Lou Williams, whose Harlem apartment was a kind of salon for musicians in the 1940s and 1950s, told me that Bud Powell went to hide in her kitchen after hearing Garner play during one session there.
Garner also contributed certain devices to the vocabulary of jazz piano, the most well known being his way of using his left hand as a rhythm guitar, playing four chords to the bar, while his right played characteristically voiced chords a hair behind the beat. You can hear this technique clearly on his witty version of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" on
Long Ago and Far Away
(Columbia CK 40863). His sensibility was primarily romantic, but he could swing hard on up-tempo numbers; he was truly unclassifiable stylisti-
 
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cally. Although he came up in the time of bebop (he made some 1946 recordings with Charlie Parker, including the famous "Cool Blues," available on
The Legendary Dial Masters, Volume 1
[Stash ST-CD-23]) and he incorporated some bop devices in his playing, the spirit and attitude of his music went back to earlier forms of jazz.
Long Ago and Far Away
is a wonderful set and a perfect introduction to Garner's playing. The repertoire on these beautifully remastered 1951 sides (trio performances with bassist John Simmons and drummer Shadow Wilson) consists almost entirely of standards such as "It Could Happen to You," "Lover," ''Poor Butterfly," and "When You're Smiling" (a quintessential performance). This is extremely listener-friendly music; it obviously made Garner feel good to play it, and it is designed to make you feel good when you listen. The message communicates itself directly, and anyone can understand it. All but one of these performances is under four minutes, but Garner, like all truly great artists, could say a lot in a small space. Highly recommended.
Garner's 1955
Concert by the Sea
(Columbia CK 40589), recorded at a live performance in Carmel, California, is his most enduringly popular album and one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time. It's no mystery why; Garner was in an expansive mood, and he really stretches out to heights of invention and swing on this program of standards such as "Autumn Leaves," "I'll Remember April," and "April in Paris." The sound is not as good here as it is on
Long Ago and Far Away
, but you get a chance to hear Garner's characteristic grunt in action. And, anyway, the immediacy of the occasion and the pure fun of the proceedings more than make up for any deficiency in sound. While
Long Ago and Far Away
is one of the most romantic, candlelight-and-wine jazz albums you can buy, this has a little more of a party feeling.
Another pianist who has achieved a strong reputation and following outside of the ranks of jazz connoisseurs is the mighty Oscar Peterson. He is also one of the most prolific jazz recording artists of all time, a sort of house pianist for probably the most prolific jazz record producer of all time, Norman Granz, whose Verve and Pablo labels would have been at quite a loss without Peterson. The pianist has been a sideman on recordings by, it seems, everyone who recorded for Granz - Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Roy Eldridge, and others too numerous to mention. He has also recorded countless albums under his own name, for Granz and others as well.
A phenomenal technician whose first and biggest model was Art Tatum, Peterson can execute intricate, rapid-fire single-note lines at brutally fast tempos, sometimes with both hands playing in unison. He is the archetypal

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