That's One Way to Do it...

Jazz solos transcribed on recorder, presented without comment:

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List: Under-the-Radar Live Albums

If you want to really experience jazz, you must see it live. With that in mind, record labels have been churning out live albums at a steady pace for as long as the technology existed to make high-quality recordings of live performances. Below are some of my favorite live albums that you might not have listened to yet.

One quick qualification: I'm going for underrated and lesser-known live albums on this list. Everyone knows about the Coltrane Village Vanguard recordings and Miles at the Plugged Nickel, so why repeat what's already been written? Here is the list, in chronological order...

1. Art Blakey: A Night at Birdland, Volumes 1 and 2 (1954). Come for the early incarnation of the Jazz Messengers, stay for the Clifford Brown. Brownie tore it up on this night in 1954, and his solos on Confirmation, Once in a While, and A Night In Tunisia are among the best he ever put on record. Not the most obscure choice to lead off the list, but it was also one of the first albums I ever bought, so I threw it in.
2. Count Basis: Count Basie at Newport (1957). To quote Ethan Iverson, "My advice is merely: listen to it. You want to know what jazz is? This is fucking jazz." Lester Young and Jo Jones sit in for an extended guest appearance; Illinois Jacquet, Roy Eldridge, and Jimmy Rushing also make guest appearances.
   
3. Miles Davis: At Newport 1958. Miles has many great live albums in his catalog, so it's no surprise this one isn't mentioned more often. However, there aren't many live offerings of Miles with Cannonball and Coltrane, so this one is essential, methinks. Throw in Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb, and you've got a great set. Mr. P.C.'s bass solo on Straight, No Chaser is sublime. Plus, the album cover features Miles in his sartorial splendor.
4. Cannonball Adderley: Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco (1959). Quintessential hard bop from some of the masters. Cannon & Co.'s take on Spontaneous Combustion is some of the best 12 minutes on record.
   
5. Eric Dolphy: Eric Dolphy at the Five Spot, Vol. 1 (1961). Dolphy with Booker Little, Mal Waldron, Richard Davis, and Ed Blackwell, need I say more? More than any other album on this list, I revisit this recording again and again, and each time I am amazed at the unfulfilled potential of Dolphy and Little. Who knows what heights they may have scaled had they not died too young? Volume 2 is also available.
6. Elvin Jones: Live at the Lighthouse, Volumes 1 and 2 (1972). Perhaps if someone had given a copy of these albums to Ken Burns, he would not have alleged that jazz "went away for awhile" during the 1970s.
7. Old and New Dreams: Playing (1980). I was made aware of this one by Destination Out, and I am better off now that I know it exists. Brilliant free jazz from Dewey Redman, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Ed Blackwell.
8. Keith Jarrett Standards Trio: Keith Jarrett at the Blue Note (1994). Jarrett's trio with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette have a ton of live recordings out there, but this one is my favorite, taken from a three-night stand at New York's Blue Note in 1994. Bonus quote from Amazon reviewer Stephen A. Smith: "Keith Jarrett's trio is the McDonald's of jazz. Its greatest sales asset is consistency."
9. Pat Metheny: Tokyo Day Trip - Live EP (2008). I've gushed about this one enough already.
   

These are just some of my favorites, feel free to tell me what I missed in the comments.

Extra Credit: See also the recommended recordings on last year's list of top working ensembles.


All images via jazz.com except Live at the Lighthouse via inconstantsol.blogspot.com.

On Booker Little and Jazz Mythology

Booker Little and Clifford Brown had much in common. Both were trumpet players from middling cities (Little from Memphis, Brown from Wilmington, Delaware) who played important roles in the development of jazz trumpet, but died before their thirtieth birthdays. Brown's and Little's solos are both studied and transcribed intently by young trumpet players. Both made impressive albums, both as a leader and a sideman, which are among the greatest jazz on record. Both were sidemen in Max Roach's quintet, and both built on the bebop trumpet style of Dizzy Gillespie and Fats Navarro.

Yet while Clifford Brown has been mythologized in The Jazz Tradition, Little remains a surprisingly obscure figure in the history of jazz, known mostly by musicians and aficionados. Why is this? It can't be because Little did not record enough masterpieces. Take a look at his discography, he appeared on Africa/Brass, Percussion Bitter Sweet, and Eric Dolphy's live recordings at The Five Spot. They may not be the most legendary recordings, but they are just as memorable and important to the development of jazz as any of the best Clifford Brown recordings. I would argue the same of Little's solo work, especially the well-regarded Out Front.

I wish I could come up with a better reason, but it seems to me that the answer largely has to do with timing and circumstance. Brown's heyday fits within a neat break in The Jazz Tradition. His first recording with Max Roach, Brown and Roach, Inc., was recorded in August 1954, just a few months before the death of Charlie Parker. Brown's ascent comes just as a the historical arc of jazz is in need of a protagonist. The same cannot be said for Little. Among his contemporaries were Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, two figures who seemingly crowd out all other jazz musicians in some writers' retellings of the history of jazz between 1960 and 1963. Little seems to get lost in the background of jazz history.

But Clifford Brown is not just a lead player during one period of The Jazz Tradition, his personal story is also more easily mythologized. Because Charlie Parker's death stemmed from years of drug abuse, the clean cut image of Brown, who shunned drugs, smoking, and drinking, served as important story in jazz. Brown was kind of a corrective to the surprisingly-prevalent notion among jazz musiciansat the time that herion use contributed to creativity and performance (at least, according to some). This factor is also key in transforming Brown's life into myth; he is the opposite kind of fast-burning flame than Parker, and his story serves as a captivating next chapter following Bird's life and death. Ken Burns uses this dichotomy to much effect in his documentary Jazz.

So for having reasons little to do with their own music in some regard, perhaps, Brown can be mythologized into this jazz martyr, while Little is neglected by history. This fact in itself is an interesting critique of the mythologization of jazz inherent in The Jazz Tradition, and should inspire us to think beyond this master narrative when considering the history and development of jazz.