The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz (83 page)

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Authors: Tom Piazza

Tags: #Discography, #Jazz, #Reviews, #Sound Recordings, #Music, #Discography & Buyer's Guides, #Genres & Styles, #Reference, #Bibliographies & Indexes, #test

BOOK: The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz
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piano-trio pianist and has led several classic groups, the most famous of which had Ray Brown on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums. At his best, he can generate a huge, tidal-wave swing. He has many, many fans.
So I am not necessarily in the majority in saying that I find his playing almost unrelentingly devoid of real ideas. His single-note right-hand lines resemble bebop the way wood-grained formica resembles wood. His solos don't build, or tell a story, yet he can emit line after line of notes, ad infinitum, the way a computer could generate sentence after sentence if you programmed it with a dictionary and the rules of grammar. Listening to a performance like, say, "If I Were a Bell" on
Blues Etude
(Limelight 818 844-2) is like witnessing an extraordinary musical perpetual-motion machine.
And yet there is a kind of greatness about him. I have seen him live twice, once playing solo at Carnegie Hall and once in a reunion with bassist Ray Brown, guitarist Herb Ellis, and drummer Bobby Durham at the Blue Note in New York, and both times his energy and the swing he generated carried the day and made for big-time excitement. But it is hard to recommend his playing as long as there is a Hank Jones or a Tommy Flanagan around. If you're curious about him, he is at his best on
Night Train
(Verve 821724-2), with the Ray Brown/Ed Thigpen edition of the trio. Peterson's swing here is compelling on tunes like the fast "C Jam Blues" and the walking-tempo title track.
Very Tall
(Verve 827 821-2) features the same trio with vibes player Milt Jackson as a guest for some good home cooking. And if Polygram ever gets around to reissuing a set originally recorded for MPS called
Hello Herbie
, with Herb Ellis on guitar, Sam Jones on bass, and Bobby Durham on drums, there will be at least one truly great Peterson album available; here he takes his propensity for swing to its limit on cookers like "Seven Come Eleven" and "Naptown Blues," and there's no arguing with it.
A pianist who has gotten nothing like the acclaim he deserves is Ray Bryant. A master of the blues, with a distinctive touch and way of swinging, Bryant was a very active sideman in the late 1950s, recording with Coleman Hawkins and Miles Davis on Prestige, for two; he is the pianist on Sonny Rollins's classics
Worktime
(Prestige/OJC-007) and
On Impulse!
(MCA/Impulse MCAD-5655 JVC-458), and he keeps all the pots cooking on one of the greatest recording dates of the 1950s, Dizzy Gillespie's
Sonny Side Up
(Verve 825 674-2), with Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt. "After Hours" here affords a good look at his blues playing.
But for a good look right down into Bryant's big soul, track down his
Alone with the Blues
(New Jazz/OJC-249, no CD), a solo recording from 1958 on which the repertoire consists of the blues in several tempos as well as two slow
 
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ballads, "Lover Man" and "Rockin' Chair." This is a first-rate solo piano album; Bryant's blues playing is absolutely authentic, the sound of someone who grew up steeped in the idiom. There's nothing affected, no mannerisms or posturing - just the real goods, delivered hot. His style is not richly ornamented but rather a percussive, call-and-response-based sound rooted in old-time blues piano and gospel music. Yet he can pour on the heat with right-hand single-note lines à la Bud Powell. Check this one out.
Bryant's trio set
Con Alma
(Columbia CK 44058) is a more uneven set, but some of it is fine. His version of John Lewis's lovely ballad "Django" is memorable, as are his solo reading of "Ill Wind" and his trio version of "Autumn Leaves." My favorite track on this set is the tantalizing arrangement of Bryant's own "Cubano Chant," which consists of a minor-key, chantlike melody in the right hand set against a left-hand riff played unison with the bass. Any piano fan will enjoy this set.
Cedar Walton also has not received his due, either as a pianist or a composer. His 1967 disc
Cedar!
(Prestige/OJC-462) presents his credentials in a program made up of four originals, two Ellington/Strayhorn tunes, and Kurt Weill's "My Ship," played by a group that includes Kenny Dorham on trumpet, Junior Cook on tenor, and Leroy Vinnegar and Billy Higgins rounding out the fine rhythm section. The record is very good, but Walton was also one of the most in-demand sidemen of the 1960s, and his playing on records like Freddie Hubbard's
Hub Cap
(Blue Note 84073), Joe Henderson's
Mode for Joe
(Blue Note 84227), and Blue Mitchell's
The Cup Bearers
(Riverside/OJC-797) is so good that it threatens to steal the spotlight away from the front-line players. Listen, for just one example, to his solo on "Dingbat Blues" on the Mitchell set. Walton was also the pianist for Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers for a good stretch in the 1960s; listen to him on the great
Mosaic
(Blue Note 46523),
Indestructible
(Blue Note 46429), and
Caravan
(Riverside/OJC-038).
The brilliant and eclectic Jaki Byard is another unfathomably neglected figure. When Byard is in a rhythm section, anything can happen, from straight-ahead swing to avant-garde fireworks to stride piano, sometimes within the same chorus. As a solo pianist, Byard is one of the most interesting compositional thinkers out there. His 1965 album
Jaki Byard Quartet Live!
(Prestige 24121), recorded at a Massachusetts nightclub with saxophonist Joe Farrell, bassist George Tucker, and drummer Alan Dawson, is an explosive, kaleidoscopic view of what happens when Byard is on the stand. The set is of its time in the way all the members of the group contribute to an overall com-
 
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positional effect and in the group's willingness to shift tempo and texture, but Byard is, finally, a tonal thinker, and one thoroughly grounded in the history of the music.
Byard was one of the most active recording sidemen of the 1960s and contributed to a number of the best sessions of the time, including Rahsaan Roland Kirk's
Rip, Rig and Panic
(EmArcy 832-164-2), Booker Ervin's
Setting the Pace
(Prestige 24123), Eric Dolphy's
Outward Bound
(New Jazz/OJC-022) and, especially,
Far Cry
(New Jazz/OJC-400), Al Cohn and Zoot Sims's
Body and Soul
(Muse MCD 5356), and Phil Woods's
Musique Du Bois
(Muse MCD 5037). He was a favorite pianist of Charles Mingus's and is prominent on many of the great bassist-composer's 1960s recordings, especially the famous
Town Hall Concert
(Jazz Workshop/OJC-042).
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk and Horace Silver were two of the most important pianists, bandleaders, and composers of the 1950s and 1960s. Both provided alternatives to the mainstream of piano thinking of the time, playing in a less florid and ornamental style than many of the Powell/Tatum disciples, reaffirming some of the basic elements of the jazz piano tradition - especially the essentially percussive nature of the piano. Silver was noted for his incorporation of church-oriented phrasings and voicings, as well as call-and-response patterns, in his playing. Monk's affinity for the players of the stride school has been widely remarked. But for both men, less was often more; they tended to use fewer notes in their chords and to play those chords with a different philosophy than did most players of the time. Silver's accompaniments usually consisted of a constantly shifting barrage of riffs, Monk's of almost Basie-like surgical-strike chords. And in solo, both men tended to strip melody down to its essentials.
Silver's work is discussed in the Ensembles section. Monk's band recordings, as well as his piano style in accompaniment, are also discussed in the Ensembles section; what follows is a brief look at some of Monk's best recordings in a solo or trio setting.
Monk's 1959 solo set
Thelonious Alone in San Francisco
(Riverside/OJC-231) is one of his most relaxed and satisfying all-piano recordings; it is a good illustration of what Albert Murray, in his book
Stomping the Blues
, calls the "empty ballroom etude" quality of Monk's playing. "Thelonious Monk," Murray writes, "... is in a sense also a very special descendent of the old downhome honky-tonk piano player who likes to sit alone in the empty ballroom and play around with unconventional chord combinations and
 
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rhythms for his own private enjoyment." That describes the mood of this album perfectly; it was, in fact, recorded in an empty meeting hall on a fall day in California, and it finds Monk taking his time, and having a good time, poking around and reharmonizing a number of standards (including "Everything Happens to Me"), as well as doing some unbuttoned versions of originals like "Blue Monk," "Ruby, My Dear," and "Pannonica." On ''Blue Monk" he even slips into some stride playing. Very highly recommended.
Thelonious Himself
(Riverside/OJC-254) is in some respects a less satisfying set than
Thelonious Alone in San Francisco
. Monk seems less engaged for much of this 1957 session; the performances are not as relaxed and expansive. It includes, again, a mixture of standards and Monk originals. One of the more interesting aspects of this set is a twenty-two-minute take of Monk working out an arrangement for his own "Round Midnight," on which you can hear him trying things, making choices and rejecting them. It is a more interesting than pleasurable listening experience. The album also includes a version of "Monk's Mood," on which he is joined by John Coltrane and bassist Wilbur Ware, and a good blues called "Functional." But much of this set is almost funereal in pace.
Much better is
Solo Monk
(Columbia CK 47854), with its spirited stride version of "Dinah" and its great ballad interpretations of standards like "I Surrender, Dear," "I Should Care," and Monk's own "Ask Me Now." A bonus on this CD is the seldom-heard Monk original "Introspection," which was not on the original LP. If you are looking for the essence of Monk's solo style, this is almost as good a place to look as
Thelonious Alone in San Francisco
- lighter on mood, perhaps, but better recorded.
Standards
(Columbia CK 45148) contains a number of solo performances from the mid-1960s taken from Monk's numerous Columbia albums, many of which are hard to find. The 1964 "Nice Work if You Can Get It" shows off Monk's stride to its fullest, and the wonderful 1967 "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" also has more than a glimpse of it, as do others here (check out "Sweetheart of All My Dreams," one of Monk's most joyous performances). But everything on this album is engaging; Monk enjoyed finding his own way around in these standards, and his enthusiasm jumps out at you.
The Complete Black Lion and Vogue Recordings of Thelonious Monk
(Mosaic MR4-112) contains early (1954) and late (1971) solo tracks that are not up to the level of the Riverside or Columbia material. The 1954 cuts have pretty rough sound, and the 1971 cuts have Monk sounding a little spacy. He plays well on these later tracks - Monk always sounded like himself, which is reason enough to listen - but some part of him sounds as if it were out to lunch. Still, "Something in Blue" is a thoroughly enjoyable blues, and "Little Rootie
 
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Tootie" has more Monk stride. "Chordially," a unique, extended chordal study at a very slow tempo, is just about unlistenable for pleasure but is intriguing musically. The trio tracks recorded at the same session, with bassist Al McKibbon and drummer Art Blakey, are unremarkable.
For good Monk trio playing, the 1955
Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington
(Riverside/OJC-024) is hard to beat. Monk is accompanied by bassist Oscar Pettiford and drummer Kenny Clarke in an all-Ellington program in which the mood is mostly mellow; this was one of the first Monk recordings to introduce him to a wider audience, after years of being regarded as "difficult" to listen to. This set is very easy to hear.
Thelonious Monk
(Prestige/OJC-010), a trio set recorded in 1952 and 1954 with either Max Roach or Art Blakey on drums, contains some very uninhibited and percussive Monk piano; the Latin-flavored "Bye-Ya," especially, is a celebration of the piano's tuned-percussion qualities, with Monk setting up one rhythmic pattern after another against Blakey's churning drum rhythms. This is about as far away from the traditional European conception of piano playing as you can get and still be playing piano. The version of ''Little Rootie Tootie" included here is one of Monk's most famous recordings; his solo was transcribed by arranger Hall Overton and played by a large ensemble under Monk's direction in a 1959 Town Hall concert, available as
The Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall
(Riverside/OJC-135).
Scattered Seeds
The 1960s began, in jazz as in America in general, with an unprecedented array of possibilities and hope. The decade ended with most of those hopes in pieces and with many of the best minds and hearts in retreat from the kinds of responsibilities implied by the opportunities the decade offered. In jazz, some who seemed most promising ended the decade with retreats from the peculiarly American sophistication of jazz into ersatz tribal music, or rock and roll, or imitation European chamber music. There were many reasons, subtle and not so subtle, for these various tangents, among them the desire to make money and to be popular with a new, affluent audience, the rise of interest in African culture among many black Americans, and the increasing power of critics who thought of the music either in purely political terms or in terms more appropriate for European concert music.
At any rate, the decade's four most influential pianists - McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Cecil Taylor - each, in his own way, ended the decade involved in music that bore slim resemblance to anything I would call jazz. Tyner was playing what often sounded like a combination of African

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