Butterflies and Zebras/And Moonbeams and Fairy Tales

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Blue/Green

From Kind of Blue, by Ashley Kahn:

Evans's introduction is light and airy as originally conceived, creating a peaceful landscape for the group to enter into. The bass keeps a subtle beat while Cobb's two-handed brushwork on the snare drum offers tender reinforcement. Miles's muted solo arrives with an intensely languid, three-note phrase made even longer and more resonant by the natural echo of the studio (turn up the volume, and the vaulted ceiling is almost visible). Davis limits his vocabulary to long-held notes, dividing his phrasing into a series of whispered, two-part statements.

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Evans told writer Brian Hennessey of a visit he paid the trumpeter in late 1958. "One day at Miles's apartment, he wrote on some manuscript paper the symbols for G-minor and A-augmented. And he said, 'What would you do with that?' I didn't really know, but I went home and wrote 'Blue in Green.'"

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h/t: Nextbop

Record Club 1

When I was in high school, I learned of my father's record collection. It was not a huge stash (I think he had about 300 albums in total), just a collection of music he had accumulated since he was a teenager in the 1960s. He had no jazz albums, save for a few Return to Forever records, but his collection did include early pressings of Cream, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, and other sixties luminaries which I was heavily into at the time (and still am, of course).

Dad had an ambivalent relationship with his records. He kept them for a long time, mainly out of nostalgia, but never listened to them (I had to dig them out of a storage unit when I realized what treasures he had in his stash). None of the records were true collectors' items, they had been played too much to be considered mint. But they were one of the major artifacts of his youth, and he and I had some wonderful conversations sparked by discussing the records (eventually, when he finally decided to get rid of the records, he let me keep the hundred or so that I couldn't bear to see trashed).

After bringing the records home from storage one weekend during high school, I hooked up our old record player to the stereo in our living room, and began listening to my dad's old records after school. Shortly thereafter, I discovered that I could get old Blue Note albums on eBay for next to nothing, so I slowly began acquiring a few albums here and there every few months. When I went to college at the University of Florida, I discovered that Gainesville had a handful of great record stores, and I spent a good portion of my freshman year digging through crates at Sharpe's Music and Hyde & Zeke.

Part of my interest in vinyl was the album covers (which shouldn't surprise you). I discovered that album covers made great wall art in my dorm room, and I could hang them by taping a clear plastic sleeve to the cinder block walls. But I also loved the act of sitting down and listening to the record, experiencing the music the way listeners did decades ago. I also felt an extra sense of connection to this "old" music when I had to bring out a slab of vinyl to hear it. I'm no audiophile, and I really can't pick up on the differences between analog and digital sound.So when it comes to vinyl freakdom, I'm more of a dilettante than an enthusiast.

But I do have some music on vinyl that I like to throw on the record player, so when I moved to Virginia, I convinced my parents to let me take the record player with me (it did not take much convincing at all, actually). Of course, I could not hook it up to my modern stereo without an external preamp, plus I had to replace the cartridge, so the record player sat untouched for most of the past four years. But I've since bought a preamp and cartridge, so I can finally pursue my halfhearted hobby once more.

First entry in Record Club after the jump...

Review: Sky & Country

Fly
Sky & Country

It is with a hearty sigh of relief that Fly is back on the road in support of their latest album, Sky & Country. In November of last year, saxophonist Mark Turner cut two fingers on a power saw, severing some nerves and potentially ending his career as a saxophonist. Luckily for everyone, Turner was able to make a full recovery with the help of some expert surgeons and physical therapists. The trio is now touring behind Sky & Country (recorded in early 2008, before Turner's injury).

Whenever a new saxophone-bass-drums trio record is released, the jazz press rather predictably connects that record to a long chain of saxophone trios dating back to Ornette Coleman and Sonny Rollins. However, what strikes me about Fly is how the band at times sounds like any of the 1960s Bill Evans trios. On "Lady B," the interplay between Turner and Grenadier reminds me of the relationship between Evans and bassists Scott LaFaro and Eddie Gomez. See for instance this video of the two plus drummer Alex Riel playing "Nardis" in 1966 (for an even better example, listen to Evans and LaFaro on any of the takes of "Gloria's Step" from the 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings):

Like Evans' trios, Fly is quite democratic. The simple melody of "Super Sister," for instance, allows Ballard to take the lead on drums, much in the way David King is utilized by The Bad Plus on some tunes. Whereas Compass, to pick one recent example of a saxophone trio, serves primarily as a vehicle for Joshua Redman, Sky & Country feels more like a three-person showcase.

The title of the album alludes to open space, a theme which is reflected throughout the disc. However, upon first hearing the album, I was left wishing the band had not kept things so subdued throughout the entire disc. Negative space is important, but without a bit of energy to play off of, it can leave the listener wanting. That is not to say the album was boring; merely, it drags at points. Though Sky & Country is not a perfect album, it is nonetheless a fun ride.


Bonus: Fly plays "State of the Union" at the Sunside jazz club in Paris:

See also: Jason Crane interviews Fly on The Jazz Session

Track Listing: Lady B; Sky & Country; Elena Berenjena; CJ; Dharma Days; Anandananda; Morena, Perla; Transfigured; Super Sister
Personnel: Mark Turner, saxophone; Larry Grenadier, bass; Jeff Ballard, drums

List: 1959: Before and After

Being that 1959 saw the release of so many landmark jazz albums (Kind of Blue, Time Out, Giant Steps, The Shape of Jazz to Come, etc.), plenty of writers will be profiling the golden jubilees of all these albums throughout the year. But focusing on 1959 misses the point of that era. While 1959 was certainly a great year for jazz, the years surrounding 1959 all created their fair share of classics canonized in The Jazz Tradition. Since the late 1950s and early 1960s were a veritable golden age for jazz, when young lions like Coltrane and Coleman were reshaping the music while older stars like Ellington and Hawkins were still thriving, lets not limit ourselves to remembering 1959 as a watershed moment. Below are some great albums from 1958 and 1960 which are sometimes overshadowed by the weight of 1959.

A quick note: I am classifying these albums by the date they were recorded. Some were released the year after they were recorded, but the way things were changing in the jazz world at this time, a musician could sound much different over the space of a year (such is the case especially with John Coltrane).

1958:

1. Bill Evans, Everybody Digs Bill Evans. Featuring an interesting album cover, Everybody Digs Bill Evans effectively introduced Evans to the jazz world just as he was to join Miles Davis' quintet at the piano chair.
   
2. Cannonball Adderley, Somethin' Else. One of the classic hard bop records, Cannonball was joined by a veritable all-star band featuring Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Hank Jones, and Sam Jones. Adderley firmly established his reputation as a prominent figure in jazz with this record.
   
3. Ornette Coleman, Something Else!!!!. One of the few albums in which Coleman used a piano player (Paul Bley in this case), Something Else introduced the world to Coleman before his infamous residency at New York's The Five Spot in 1959.
   
4. Miles Davis, Porgy and Bess and Milestones. Porgy and Bess reinforced Miles' image as the biggest star in jazz, selling countless copies, while Milestones set the stage for 1959's Kind of Blue.
   
5. Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, Moanin'. The title track was, in my estimation, the quintessential hard bop tune, the definitive example of the style I play when trying to explain what hard bop was.
   
6. John Coltrane, Blue Train. Hard to believe Blue Note Records only got Coltrane in the studio as a leader once in his life.
   
7. Sonny Rollins, Freedom Suite. Some say this is Rollins' best studio album. Hard to argue against that, but the album is also important for the brief liner notes written by Rollins which draw light to the status of African Americans in the land of the free.
   

1960:

1. Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain. Though plenty of people will tell you that this is not really a jazz record, it nonetheless introduced jazz to a lot of people over the past five decades. I remember when I bought this album eight years at a music store in Toronto. When I paid for it, the cashier, a guy in a Slayer t-shirt with multiple piercings, simply said to me, "great album." This was not the kind of person you'd expect to make that comment.
   
2. John Coltrane, My Favorite Things and Olé Coltrane. While My Favorite Things propelled Coltrane into stardom, Olé Coltrane is an underrated album in the Coltrane canon, featuring a young Freddie Hubbard in addition to the dueling basses of Reggie Workman and Art Davis.
3. Ornette Coleman, Free Jazz. In which Ornette ups the ante and firmly opens Pandora's Box, cementing the enfant terrible reputation he began to earn with Something Else.
   
4. Charles Mingus, Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus. The opening track, "Folk Forms No. 1," perfectly fuses the blues with improvised contrapuntal composition, while "Original Faubus Fables" unleashes Mingus' contempt for a segregationist Arkansas Govern0r Orval Faubus.
   
5. Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, A Night in Tunisia and Roots & Herbs. Featuring one of the best editions of the Messengers (Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, Jymie Merritt, and Bobby Timmons), Blakey recorded a lot of albums in 1960. These two are my favorites of the bunch.
   
6. Max Roach, We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite. Featuring a photo of black college students at a sit-in, Roach's Freedom Now Suite presented a musical history of African Americans, featuring the vocals of Abbey Lincoln.
   
7. Wes Montgomery, The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery. Montgomery lays down some choice hard bop and shows all who care to listen that he is the guitar boss of the jazz community. His version of Airegin is my favorite recording of the Sonny Rollins standard.

UPDATE 1: The lists have already begun. Here's one from acompleteunknown at The Good, The Bad, and The Unknown. They've made some good choices, though I would replace Mingus' Ah Um with Blues and Roots, and would not have left off Giant Steps...

UPDATE 2: Kevin Kniestedt offers his thoughts on 1959 at Groove Notes.

Out of Office

I'm off to Miami for Thanksgiving weekend. Enjoy your holiday, here are some links...

• Jazz Lives posted a copy of a letter Sonny Rollins sent to Coleman Hawkins in 1962.
• On Rifftides, Doug Ramsey unearthed a great YouTube clip of the Bill Evans Trio in a 1966 Swedish television program. Bill speaks about the groups approach to improvisation, and the trio follows with a wonderful performance of "Emily."
• The New Yorker briefly covers a lecture on cell biology, evolution, and cancer by Harold Varmus, which is accompanied by a jazz quintet led by his son Jacob Varmus. Perhaps next time he could arrange for the Giant Steps robot to open...
• Over on Do The Math, The Bad Plus posted some choice photos from the Life Magazine collection newly hosted on Google. Here's one of my favorites after browsing the collection briefly: Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie on stage at the 1958 Monterey Jazz Festival.

• NPR's All Songs Considered takes a look at the Beatles' White Album, which was released forty years ago this week. Host Bob Boilen interviews Beatles scholar Bruce Spizer, and shares some wonderful demos of songs from the album recorded in May of 1968 at George Harrison's house. Though they were not a jazz group, they were certainly influenced by jazz and left a sizable influence on jazz (would there have been fusion without the Beatles? Probably, but it would have been different, I think).
• Again at Rifftides, here's a retelling of Paul Desmond's final birthday in 1976, which fell on Thanksgiving. He spent it with Jim Hall at Hall's daughter's apartment in New York City. After dinner, the two went to see Thelonious Monk at the Village Vanguard, later hanging out with Monk in the Vanguard's kitchen. I am a sucker for jazz-legends-as-regular-dudes stories like this, they make Desmond and Hall seem like Jerry and George meeting Kramer at the coffee shop...
  
• Sharing a birthday with Desmond on Tuesday was Willie "The Lion" Smith (1897-1973). Here he is in Germany in 1966:

Friday Album Cover: Everybody Digs Bill Evans

Bill Evans
Everybody Digs Bill Evans

In the midst of a big Presidential election, endorsements can be key to a candidate's momentum. With that in mind, let's look at an album cover with some endorsements intended to swing another kind of momentum. In the liner notes to Bill Evans' second album, Everybody Digs Bill Evans , Riverside Records producer Orrin Keepnews writes,

The unusual cover of this album is designed to make completely clear one of the most startling facts about BILL EVANS: that this extraordinarily talented young pianist, although still virtually unknown to the jazz public, is already the object of a truly amazing degree of admiration and respect on the part of some of the most highly regarded of today's jazz musicians.

This seems like a pretty inventive use of the album cover as a marketing tool. Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, Ahmad Jamal, and George Shearing all give glowing reviews of Bill Evans. These were four of the brightest stars in jazz in 1958, the year the album was released. But still, the concept seems a little gimmicky. These are the kind of testimonials one might expect to hear on a late-night infomercial. It's as if Miles and Cannonball are shilling for Ginsu knives. If the purpose an the album cover is to attract attention and boost sales of the album, then this is definitely a great cover. However if you think an album cover should add artistic value to the overall product, or become itself a standalone piece of art, then this cover fails to do that. I think my feelings on the Everybody Digs Bill Evans cover are clear, what do you think?