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diegodobini2
George Braith – Musart
https://youtu.be/ODJhQRIaZsA
Original Liner Notes:
My love for sounds has led me to improvisational music. Many players are searching for instruments with varied temperaments. The search is justifiable since a definite number of sound vibrations striking one's ears will always produce a tone of a certain pitch. In so-called dissonance there is much beauty untold. Spontaneous music fires the imagination, provokes thought, and provides a keen sense of enjoyment.
Musart is a concert in miniature. Each tune was selected to relay a message of love, peace, and tranquility. Three of the five original tunes, Musart. Splashes of Love and Evelyn Anita were inspired by beautiful sights as I crossed the United States. Of the other two original tunes, Our Blessings was inspired by my brother, David, and Del's Theme by Del Shields. Choosing the instruments for Musart, A&R man Cal Lampley and I decided that I should use whatever instruments necessary to portray the
desired effect for each tune. Employing rhythm and melody as a base, many spaces of silence and repetition of ideas allow your mind to absorb, contribute, and participate in the happenings we enjoyed while recording.
Musart, the title tune, begins with the application of a bass note and its first overtone stated in the melody voice. The destination of the tune is infinity; thus, Musart is not only a tune but also a new concept in improvisational music. The instru mentation includes soprano and alto sax, piano, bass, and rhythm.
The straight alto plays the melody on the ballad, Embraceable You. The only accompaniment is the baritone guitar and the upright bass. (Photographer Don Schlitten tells me that this type of guitar tuning was used some years ago by Jimmy Raney.) At the end, the soprano enters to accompany the alto with an authentic cadence.
Our Blessings is a classical melody played on straight alto with organ, piano, guitar, Fender bass, and rhythm as accompaniment.
Evelyn Anita, named for my sister, came to mind as I stopped to play my horns somewhere in the Southwest on my way to L.A. Since Evelyn loves to dance, thinking of her made this dance tune pop into my mind.
Laura, playing on straight alto, is accompanied by bass and rhythm until Jane Getz enters, playing a very beautiful piano solo. She portrays a superb talent for picking out pretty lines and chords.
One hot summer day in Pasadena, I came across an antique shop with a couple of C-melody saxophones lying around. I purchased one and used it on my first Prestige album, Laughing Soul (PR 7474). Before Coleman Hawkins made his famous Body and Soul solo, every saxophonist included in his collection the C-melody saxophone, which is bigger than an alto and smaller than a tenor. After Cole man's solo, every saxophonist excluded the C-mel-ody to replace it with the popular tenor. I like the C-melody's sound and used it on the Musart solo and on Del's Theme.
When Birdland closed, New York became a very cold place for modern sounds. With discotheques
Becoming overbearingly popular, there seemed to be a movement to kill all that was started by the older cats like Bird. Bud, Diz, Monk, etc., etc. Pianist D. J. Billy Taylor had been put off popular radio station WNEW for refusing to program more commercial music on his jazz show. At radio station WADO, Symphony Sid turned to Latin music, and Mort Fega left radio. Since club owners wanted rock type tunes, I decided to disband my organ group. The scene was taking on the appearance of a tired old cow until station WLIB expanded to FM and imported Del Shields, a noted Philadelphia disc spinner, to the New York set. Del's energetic drive and dedication to jazz programming inspired me to write Del's Theme for him. The instrumentation includes voices to state the theme, and Jane Getz again demonstrates her love of pretty tones during her solo choruses. Bill Salter maintains an excellent beat on bass. The percussion section consists of four congas, bongos, a shaker, and a cowbell.
Splashes of Love, the final tune of this concert, came to mind as Freddie Hubbard and I traveled from Los Angeles to a gig in San Francisco. We were hurrying to catch Trane's opening at the Workshop a day before ours at the Both-And. As Freddie took over the wheel of the car, I blew my soprano sax, and a melody came to mind. Splashes suggests a certain mood and feeling, and after returning home several months later, my little daughter wrote a set of words.
The breeze is blowing just as you are by my side. The mountains and rivers are the shapes of nature's tides.
An ocean breeze blew sand right in our eyes that day.
As I tried to tell you the story of love.
The breeze just kept on blowing as the rain fell from the sky on us
To feel the quiet splash of nature's little puddles Secret storms of thunder bring us a message true.
Notes: George Braith (April 1967)
Recording: Rudy Van Gelder
Produced by Cal Lampley
For a free catalog, send to PRESTIGE RECORDS INC., 203 SO. WASHINGTON AVE., BERGENFIELD, N. J.
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diegodobini2
George Braith – Extension (1965)
https://youtu.be/ZaE1XKKqFbA
Original Liner Notes:
ORDINARILY, little anecdotes about what went on at a record session can get a little too cute for comfort (Charlie Parker was sitting in the control room because he once worked a weekend in Indianapolis with the bass player, and that sort of thing), but the quality of the music on this album, combined with the circumstances in which it was made, makes it an exception.
To begin with, this is George Braith's third LP as a leader for Blue Note. The first is called Two Souls In One (4148), the second Soul Stream (4161). On both of them, he plays more than one reed instrument at the same time, which tends to put one in mind of the volatile Roland Kirk, except that Leonard Feather, in his notes to Soul Stream, points out that Wilbur Sweatman used to play three clarinets at once. The idea is that it has to be more than a trick; it has to be musical. In essence, the practice of playing more than one instrument at the same time is an old music hall trick, and those who saw Carol Reed's film about postwar Berlin, The Man Between, may remember the nightclub scene that featured a clown who played a number on two clarinets. So, the ability simply to do it is not the point.
Braith usually plays the straight alto, which again puts one in mind of Kirk, but on this session he plays what he calls the curved alto. The alto is not his, nor is the tenor he uses here, nor the soprano. His horns had been taken from his car the week before the session, and they're not back yet. The ones you hear are borrowed. I don't want to go too deeply into that and would, in fact, be willing to offer some kind of a prize to anyone who could come up with a complete list of record dates executed on borrowed horns, beginning with Charlie Parker's famous King tenor, but it is difficult to play somebody else's sax on short notice. And that is not all, ladies and gentlemen. Clarence Johnston, who sounds as though he had been playing with this group for years, appears here as drummer because Braith's regular drummer had been taken ill.
So much for that. Those are the circumstances under which this LP was recorded, and they are highly unusual, but the music needs no apology, and I intend to make none for it. There is another aspect to this, though, which I find most fascinating. By any standards, Braith would be considered a contemporary.
musician. His style is his own, although one can hear, as can be heard in most saxophonists of his age, debts to Rollins and Coltrane; the most obvious remnants left are those Coltrane tenor flutters he employs now and again. And any reference to Kirk, of course, implies modernity. As a sort of general proposition, I would place Braith in the conservative wing of the avant-garde. But he has not chosen the sort of backing one would expect of such a musician: organ, guitar, and drums—that, with saxophone, is the standard lounge quartet. To followers of Blue Note LPs, the instrumentation will bring thoughts of Jimmy Smith, Stanley Turrentine, Lou Donaldson, and another bag entirely. We all know the immense popularity that groups of this instrumentation have had over the past several years, and it is almost as though Braith seeks to anchor his experiments in the broadest possible base.
I think the idea works. I am not sure that it was a conscious plan on Braith's part, for he is at present working at a resort in upstate New York, and that is the kind of instrumentation most likely to be well received in such a place. But the effect is there, just the same, and deserves comment.
It is also worth noting, incidentally, that two of Braith's three associates have appeared on his previous albums. The first of these is Grant Green, who has by now appeared on so many Blue Note LPs that it is pointless to reintroduce him. But I wonder if a certain tendency in jazz at the moment may not be attributable to Green and a few others like him. Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz, and others, partly as a result of the popularity of the bossa nova, have added guitars to their groups. But as the tendency becomes more widely practiced, we see that it is the flat reverse of the way such things are usually done. Whereas a musical idea ordinarily starts out in a rarefied atmosphere and only later becomes popular (Parker and Gillespie licks now show up on Frank Sinatra arrangements), the idea of sax and guitar started in the local clubs and only now has spread to units with wider critical acclaim. As I said, Green may be partly responsible.
Billy Gardner, a pianist whom Braith convinced to become an organist, has also appeared on the two previous LPs, and the lack of solemnity with which he takes his instrument is the
Because of a refreshingly different sound this group gets Gardner successfully avoids almost every practice and cliche that irritates the anti-argon faction. And I have explained earlier the circumstances under which drummer Clarence Johnston came to be present.
About the material. All except Cole Porter's Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye, which is played at an unusually fast tempo by tenor and alto, is the work of Braith, who seems, on this evidence, to be a composer with more than average promise. Nut City, played on tenor, was originally to be entitled Atlantic City, because that is where Braith had been working prior to this recording and is where he wrote the piece. But certain of the more amusing aspects of that town induced him to change the name of the piece. Ethlyn's Love, a gentle ballad played on soprano with a unique tone, is dedicated to Braith's mother. "Out Here" is another way of saying "the scene," and some of the harshness is a result of the loss of those instruments, the circumstance that inspired the piece. Extension, the title track, has a line played on soprano and tenor, and then the tenor solos alone. Sweetville, in a more Coltranish mood, is also on soprano; it would seem that is the instrument Braith favors for ballads.
There is an unusual amount of variety on this LP, and no trickery at all. Basically, it doesn't matter whether a man has one or eight horns in his mouth; it is all a matter of what kind of music he produces. The music of George Braith is of a very high order and contains a good deal of happy excitement. When you hear what he has done, I think you will be eager to find out what he comes up with the next time out.
-JOE GOLDBERG
Cover Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design by REID MILES
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER
OTHER BLUE NOTE ALBUMS BY GEORGE BRAITH YOU WILL ENJOY:
BLP 4148 TWO SOULS IN ONE https://youtu.be/jg5RpF_mtsw
BLP 4161 SOUL STREAM https://youtu.be/IBbYM10C_6A
Users of Wide Range equipment should adjust their controls for the RIAA curve.
For a complete catalog, write to BLUE NOTE RECORDS INC., 43 West 61st St., New York 23.
Printed in the USA
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diegodobini2
George Braith – Two Souls In One (1963)
https://youtu.be/jg5RpF_mtsw
Original Liner Notes:
About seven years ago, I was asked to be one of the judges in a jazz tourney at a now defunct Greenwich Village club called The Pad. The room was singularly depressing, shaped like a box, painted in black, as I recall, and resembling as a whole the kind of place in which claustrophobics might be assigned in Hell. Some of the music fitted the surroundingsall too well, but there was one band that communicated such fire that it even succeeded in lighting up The Pad. Pete LaRoca was on drums; a young, mocking elf named John Maher was on piano; and the leader was George Braith. The leader couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen, but he already wore the air of command as if he had been to the manor born. He was playing baritone and alto, and he swung with both skill and passion.
Since then, George Braith has continued to lead a variety of units and to broaden his musical knowledge (both academically and through long nights in clubs), and he has also explored several other instruments. As of now, moreover, he has found that there are occasions when one instrument at a time cannot contain his emotions. Therefore, on this, his first album under his own name, Mr. Braith can be heard simultaneously on the soprano saxophone and the stritch (a straight alto). Hence the title Two Souls In
Music as the direct expression of emotion is endemic to George Beaith's background. He was born in New York on June 27, 1939, the youngest of nine children. His late father was the minister of a Pentecostalchurch on Madison Avenue and 127th Street. Himself a pianist and organist, Braith's father taught his children the basics of piano playing. Their mother sang in church, and adding to the musical environment of the home was the fact that the father always had a trumpet, trombone, and violin around the house for any of the children to experimentwith. (George Braith is the only one of the children to have concentrated on reeds).
In the Pentecostal churches, music is a vital and pervasive part of the services. And in the church of George's father, instrumental as well as vocal music was used. Members of the congregation played: George himself improvised on baritone in church, and there were brothers with trumpet and trombone. George's own capacity for leadership began to be evident when he was no more than ten or eleven. At the time, he played a pocket flute, and he organized a calypso band. (That musical heritage was also part of the family's history since his parents came from the West Indies). The calypso band played in neighborhood theaters and on a children's television show. While in junior high school, Braith started studying clarinet and then added baritone and alto saxophones. Throughout his school years, incidentally, Braith always had an extracurricular combo of his own going, and when he was fifteen, he brought a quintet of his to a summer job in the Catskills. It was in the fall of that year that I heard him at The Pad. His band, by the way, won the contest.
Braith went on to Music and Art High School. There he studied bassoon and flute and also took courses in theory. He still played clubs at night despite his age ("I had a beard," he explains, "and so I was able to get away with it"). By this point, among the influences on Braith's music were Gerry Mulligan, Ernie Henry, and particularly Charlie Parker and Art Tatum (later, he was also especially impressed by Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Gil Evans).
Soon after graduation in 1957, Braith took another unit of his, the American Jazz Quintet, to Europe for three months. months. They scored a particular success in an Amsterdam concert headed by J. J. Johnson, and as a result of their quick acceptance, the band didn't have a day off while in Europe. During the trip, George Braith met Lucky Thompson, and that experience spurred him to start on tenor. In September, 1957,
Braith entered the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied during the day and played tenor at night. He was at Manhattan, where he concentrated on theory and arranging, for a year and a half. He left because his nighttime activity was leading to more and more traveling and also because he had gotten married. In the years since, Braith has worked extensively in the East, as well as in Bermuda. Always, he has been the leader.
Braith's absorption in multiple horn playing started about 1961. He came across a straight alto (the stritch). It is different, incidentally, from the stritch that Roland Kirk uses in that the bell of Kirk's horn is considerably larger, and also, Braith's stritch is custom-made. "I brought a few notes up from the bottom of the stritch," Braith explains, "and added them to the top. In that way, I can finger almost the whole range of the instrument with one hand. I did the same thing with the soprano saxophone, and now I can cover practically the whole range of any two-part harmony system when I play them together. I play the stritch with my left hand and the soprano with my right. Putting it another way, I can harmonize any song in any series of intervals I desire."
As Braith perfected his "Two Souls in One," he also worked on developing the organ trio he started two years ago. He couldn't afford a guitar, and so he tried to utilize the two horns simultaneously to fill in for the guitar. "It got so," Braith observes, "that I was able to both comp effectively with the two horns as well as use them in solos. There's a lot more, however, I want to do with simultaneous playing, and eventually, I intend to use the tenor along with the stritch and soprano."
George's first album as a leader came as a result of his work as a sideman on a John Patton album, Blue John (BLP 4143) for Blue Note. Alfred Lion was sufficiently impressed to sign Braith. For this album, Grant Green was added on guitar. Green requires no introduction to Blue Note listeners. He is a musician of uncommonly consistent clarity, swing, and a blues orientation, which heightens the expressivity of his playing. Billy Ga Gardner went to high school with Braith. He started as a pianist, but Braith convinced him to try the organ in 1961, and they have worked together ever since. Braith is impressed with Gardner's inventiveness and also with his sense of color and his attentiveness to everything happening around him in any given musical situation. Donald Bailey, long the drummer with organist Jimmy Smith, is now a member of George Braith's regular trio. "Donald," Braith notes, "is especially skillful at knowing how to play with an organ. He knows which spaces to fill and when not to play too much. Also, he continually stimulates the soloists."
Mary Ann is a vintage calypso, arranged, as are all the numbers in the album, by Braith. The contrast in textures is immediately intriguing: the acridly steaming organ, the pungent fusion of strich and soprano, and the strong, clear guitar of Grant Green. Annealing all these colors, moreover, is a swirling beat. Although generally no admirer of the electronic organ, I find Gardner appealing, partly because of the calliope sound he gets from the instrument and also because of his ebullient musical temperament. Most organists either chug remorselessly ahead or become mired in sentimental syrup. Mr. Gardner, however, has made that usually refractory instrument into a playful adjunct to a rhythm section as well as a high-spirited solo medium. Mr. Braith, as is evident throughout the album, does not hold back his emotions. He is of the full-feeling school of jazz.
Home Street is indeed a street by that name. It's in the Bronx, and Braith lived there for some eighteen years; Braith also based his piece
on the "down home" connotations of the title so that the street is paved in blues. The number is described by Braith as "basically a twelve-bar 'church' type of blues with a channel." Again, the penetrating sound of the combined stritch and soprano makes for increased intensity. Also, the act of playing both instruments simultaneously somehowaccentuates the speech-like nature of Braith's phrasing so that he almost literally "tells a story." Interestingly, Gardner can also make his organ "talk" so that the occasional exchanges between him and Braith are very much in the nature of an idiomatic dialogue. Poinciana has proved one of the most popular arrangements in Braith's repertory on nightclubdates. His interpretation retains the exotic aura usually associated with the tune, but he also infuses a strong admixture of blues colorations and is considerably aided in that area by the forceful presence of Grant Green. Further individualizing this version of Poinciana is the flavorful solo by Billy Gardner.
The concept of transmuting a nursery rhyme into jazz is not unprecedented. Art Blakey, for one, used to feature a fierce version of Three Blind Mice. George Braith's reanimation of Mary Had A Little Lamb also is unalloyed jazz. There is nothing coy in the approach, which is hard-swinging and, in fact, rises through a series of explosive climaxes. Once more, the contrast between Grant Green's sinewy sound and the blistering colors of Braith's solo on combined alto and soprano is unusually beguiling. Following the intense solos by Braith and Green, Gardner demonstrates brilliantly that excitement can be created on the organ without building up a sheer storm of sound. In Gardner's work, the voicings and lines are cuttingly clear.
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diegodobini2
Bennie Green – Walkin' And Talkin' (1959)
https://youtu.be/8EMAp1j49dU
Original Liner Notes:
BENNIE GREEN, in this, the third in a series of recent Blue Note albums on which he is the leader, sustains, with considerable freshness and apparently indefatigable energy, both the near-raucous enthusiasm and openness of expression that characterized the others. Primarily as a result of his early association with Earl Hines and an extended period as a featured soloist. With Charlie Ventura in the late forties, Green has long been identified with these qualities, with which he has consistently revealed a sincere joy in playing and communicated a meaningful and often stirring musical message.
However, any discussion of Green should, of course, begin with his sound, which has been simply but accurately described as unusually "clean" and "smooth" and, as such, compared with that of Lawrence Brown. His delivery, uncluttered, strong, and resonant, is remarkably free of the technical excesses that his extraordinary facility might have inclined him toward. Green knows better than that and has a particularly acute sense of note values and sola organization.
Occasionally, in the past and in this record as well, Green's groups have ranged quite close (but generally with a sense of order and restraint) to the exuberant "rockhouse"-styled excitement usually associated with rhythm and blues bands. Green has always worked, unself-consciously and with an absence of contrivance, in a mode of jazz with close and obvious ties to this idiom. And yet, what has frequently emerged from these excursions are collective statements that seem to be more in the realm of parody—a good-natured "taking off" of the funky school in modern jazz—than of serious intrinsic purpose. And if this propensity sometimes takes on an inverted form, it is, I think, further credit to Green's open risibility, which is another important and consistent facet of his music. Either way, however, no matter on what level such pieces are intended or received, they are generally tasteful and affecting musical statements.
Green has acknowledged Trummy Young as his earliest and
most important influence. Later Jay Jay Johnson was to make a strong and, to a degree, stylish directing impression on him. But Green, though he assimilated much of what he learned from close contact with Dizzy Gillespie and others of similar inclination (the Hines band), has roots in an earlier tradition than that which Jahnsan molded. Leonard Feather, not gratuitously, has called him a modern-day Benny Morton.
Green was born in Chicago in 1923. Once of age and after listening with excited interest to the major trombonists of that period, Young, Lawrence Brown, Bobby Byrne, J. C. Higginbotham, etc., he began to gig with various local groups. In 1942 he caught on with the Earl Hines band, which was passing through, and remained with the "Fatha" until 1948, save for a two-year hitch in the army. A short-lived association with a combo fronted by Gene Ammons was followed by an extended period with Charlie Ventura, with whom Green gained considerable notice and popularity. After leaving Ventura, Green again went with Hines, but in 1953 he left to form the first of his own units.
The group presented here under Green's leadership is one with which he has recently begun working and is particularly attuned to his conception and manner. It is not likely that he could have found a more empathetic quartet of subordinates.
Eddy Williams is a Chicago-born tenor saxophonist of talent and energy who is typical of the strong-toned, fluent tenors who have emerged from that area within the past few years. He played with, and apparently impressed, Green during one of the latter's recent visits to Chicago. Until recently pianist Gilda Mahanes was with Lester Young, and before that with Milt Jackson. Bassist George Tucker has been exposed to Blue Note listeners on several previous LPs, including Bennie Green's first for this label—"Back On The Scene." Al Dreares is a local (N.Y.) drummer who makes his recording debut here. He has worked with Randy Weston, among others.
The Shouter, by Mahones, which opens the session, is fairly
typical of what will be found in the Green repertoire. It is a simple, riff-styled opus containing solos of merit by Mahones, Green, and Williams. Green Leaves, also credited to Mahones, has the inevitable Latin "head," to which no reference is made during the "swing" choruses, but which is unusually pretty. Green's solo illustrates his capacity for lyricism without sacrificing a fine sense of swing and intrinsic drive. Williams and Mahanes are also featured. This Love of Mine is swung at a relaxed medium tempo. Green and Williams solo with open ease and warmth.
Walkin' And Talkin', from which the album's title is derived, is a rocking green riff that contains shouting solos by both horns in which taste manages to restrain, but not inhibit, the strong, rhythmically infectious blowing. Mahones also contributesa typically swinging statement. The line "All I Do Is Dream of You" is rendered in a straightforward manner, which, due to the "tongue-in-cheek" nature of the tune itself, emerges as cute. The solos (by Green, Williams, and Mahones), while not in keeping with this mood, have qualities of their own and maintain a consistently engaging swing. There is a forceful and happy "rockhouse" ending. Mahones' Hoppin' Johns is a blues representative of today's fashion but of the kind that Green has long had a familiarity with and played. All the solos are properly vigorous, and, as in most of the tunes here, Green's enjoyment of the proceedings is audible even when he is not playing.
Shortly after this album was recorded, Green took the group on the road for what would seem, judging by the contents of this sleeve, to be the beginning of a long and lucrative (in a musical sense, at least) working association.
-ROBERT LEVIN
Photos by FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design by REID MILES
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER
Users of Wide Range equipment should adjust their controls to the RIAA curve.
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diegodobini2
Makin’ The Changes Record Vinyl Jackie McLean New Jazz NJ-8231
https://youtu.be/oe_IJBzcIO4
Original Liner Notes:
"I've been on the scene since 1951," Jackie McLean was saying recently, "and although I know I'm not as famous as some other guys, I do think it's ironic that the first article ever written on me was in a British, not an American, magazine, and it didn't happen until 1959." Jackie was referring to Michael James. Jackie McLean—An Introduction, which appeared in the December, 1959, Jazz Monthly.
Makin' The Changes, the title of this album, refers, of course, to a jazzman's capacity to improvise on the right chord progressions of a tune and also to select those combinations of notes that are not only harmonically correct but are also most imaginative and evocative. He is not only thoroughly skilled in change-making, but as Michael James pointed out in his article, "As the years have passed, his playing has taken on a wide melodic sense that underlines his constant devotion to his art. There has been an encouraging and gradual improvement in the quality of his choice of phrase, and a finer melodic perception has been gained with no harm done to the emphatic verve that has always been the hallmark of his style."
Jackie was born in New York on May 17, 1952. His father, John McLean, had been a guitarist with Tiny Bradshaw. His mother gave him a saxophone when he was 13, and he became deeply involved in jazz from that point on. Growing up in the Washington Heights section (around 158th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue), McLean's neighborhood friends included Sonny Rollins and Arthur Taylor. Mclean started to attend the BenjaminFranklin High School, but Rollins had graduated the year Jackie came. Feeling without sufficiently empathic comrades, Jackie left after a year and switchedto the Theodore Roosevelt High School in the Bronx.
A remarkable player whom he came to know there was Andy Kirk, Jr., who is no longer active in music.
"Bird," McLean recalls, "used to come to Andy's house and just listen." In McLean's own development, Bud Powell was a key initial influence. "Bud made me play by ear and taught me a lot about chords. Sometimes I'd come by his house on a Friday afternoon after school, and we'd play, off and on, until Sunday. He also revealed much about himself to me, but I was only about 17 then, and I didn't understand all I heard. It was McLean who started the late Ritchie Powell playingpiano. "You're Bud Powell's brother," he used to explode. "How can you not play?"
Miles Davis gave Jackie his first major league job in 1950, although he had previously played in Sonny Rollins' neighborhood combo. Jackie has since been with George Wallington, Charlie Mingus, and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers; and for the past eight months, as this is written, he has had an acting-player role in Jack Gelber's The Connection, a brilliant and unsentimental probing of the addicts' world, produced at The Living Theatre in New York. Jackie plays with biting passion on stage, although he is getting very bugged at having to play roughly the same music night after night for so long. As an actor, he's displayed unexpected skill, playing his role with sardonic, deadpan effectiveness.
This album is made up of two different sessions. The larger group includes Curtis Fuller, trombone; Webster Young, trumpet; Gil Coggins, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; and Louis Hayes, drums. The quartet tracks have Mal Waldron, bassist Arthur Phipps, and Arthur Taylor Coleman. Hawkins Bean and the Boys was first recorded by Hawkins on Sonora in 1946 with Milt Jackson, Fats Navarro, J. J. Johnson, and Max Roach. It's based, according to tune detective Martin Williams, on Lover Come Back to Me. Jackie's playing has a characteristic urgency and strikingly alive sense of time; Waldron, by contrast, is more thoughtful and contained and complements McLean's burning impatience. Arthur Taylor is his usual non-diffident self, and Arthur Phipps's bass is warm and dependable. Phipps, by the way, is also from the same neighborhood as Rollins, Taylor, and McLean.
What's New opens with a short lyrical solo by Webster Young, a Washington trumpet player who has been encouraged by McLean. There's also a brief comment by the mellow-toned trombonist, Curtis Fuller, currently a member of the Art Farmer-Benny Golson Jazztet. It's interesting to contrast both the musical temperaments and timbres here of Young and Fuller in their larger solos, on the one hand, and McLean on the other. Jackie's tone (which has become rounder in recent years) is nonetheless still piercingly impassioned, and his approach to a solo has always been that of someone who has only this one solo left before Armageddon.
Fuller and Young, by contrast, while emotionally committed to the music, aren't as embroiled. There's a robust solo by Paul Chambers and a clean-lined, functional statement by Coggins; Louis Hayes is bristlingly alert. I Never Knew is taken briskly and played incisively.
I Hear A Rhapsody begins and ends with an introspective McLean. In between, he wails loosely, with Mal Waldron contributing a lucid solo. "Mal," McLean points out, "is a beautiful accompanist, as you can hear here. He leaves room for the soloist. I gave Mal his first record date and have always been attracted by his melodic skill as a writer and player."
The angular Jackie's Ghost contains intelligent solos by all, with perhaps the most arresting being Paul Chambers' bowed flight. Chasin' the Bird, a bop standard, is played with the kind of unselfconscious conviction that the jazzmen of Jackie's generation possess almost by osmosis when working with the material with which they grew up. After also making this point, Michael James went on to say that the primary characteristic of McLean's own playing is "its utter frankness." There are no concessions to good taste in the form of evasions of the less attractive moods. McLean, probably unconsciously, certainly with pretense, has brought a heroic touch to the music of his place and his time; no other word better illustrates the stabbing sense of purpose that comes through even in the confines of a four-bar exchange. Nor does this have anything to do with the false charm of the conventional hero, that tight-lipped cynosure of every eye. McLean's is a quality that carries with it all the hurt and humiliation the sensitive spirit is prey to in a hostile society..."
I find James's definition of a "hero" in this sense—the heroine/dualistic butcher—does project some of the harrowing quality in McLean's playing. Jackie fortunately does not have a "hero" image of himself except as anyone does who is involved in self-expression and aware of mortality. Currently he is concerned, as most jazzmen are doomed to be, "with the fight to stay as modern as I can be, and even more so. Jazz has really taken a change in the past few years, especially because of Coltrane, and Coltrane comes through Monk. I go to Monk's house quite often, and he's helping me. He'll play a chord, and then I'll make a run through that chord. Monk will then show me the other possibilities I overlooked."
Jackie, in short, is continuing to make changes, as all jazzmen have to do, one way or another, to keep getting themselves heard. My own feeling is that Jackie is just reaching a stage where the accumulated experience and personal anguish he's known are fusing into a musical message that is going to be unmistakably significant even to those who write feature articles on jazzmen.
-Nat Hentoff,
Co-Editor, The Jazz Review
Recording, Rudy Van Gelder
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diegodobini2
Gerry Mulligan – The Original Sextet: Complete Studio Master Takes (1955-1956)
https://youtu.be/BS5S79WYMUY
CD Liner Notes:
A commanding composer, arranger, soloist, and bandleader
One of the most widely respected and admired jazz musicians of his generation, Gerry Mulligan occupies a unique place in the American music scene. He plays baritone saxophone, piano, clarinet, and, later in his career, soprano saxophone; played a vital role in the history of modern jazz as a composer, arranger, and conductor; and was also a celebrated person and a man of paradoxes. As Richard Cook stated, "He wrote many of the most precise and considered scores in modern jazz, yet he loved the freedom and spontaneity of jam sessions; he was one of the prime architects of cool, yet his own playing could be as fiercely hot as that of any hard bopper; he ran one of the most famous small groups in jazz, but his heart was surely with the big-band form.
Born Gerald Joseph "Gerry" Mulligan in Queens Village, Long Island, New York City, on April 6, 1927, he spent his childhood and adolescence in several American cities as his family moved wherever his father's career as an engineer took them. By the age of seven, he was composing and copyrighting original songs, and after studying
piano and clarinet, he taught himself to play the alto sax. When the family moved to Philadelphia, sixteen-year-old Gerry called on Johnny Warrington, director of the WCAU-CBS radio orchestra, to offer his services. He later arranged for Elliott Lawrence, Tommy Tucker, and many others. In 1946, he joined drummer Gene Krupa's big band as tenor saxophonist and arranger before writing arrangements for Woody Herman and Claude Thornhill, where he met Gil Evans.
Between 1948 and 1950, Mulligan contributed as a composer and baritone saxophonist to the famous and beautiful Miles Davis' Birth of the Cool nonet. The music that came out of these sessions produced some of the most important evolutionary moments in jazz. However, the general public's initial reaction towards the heavily orchestrated sound wasn't quite so warm.
Due to the increasing lack of opportunities to work as a musician in New York, Mulligan sold his instruments and hitchhiked to California in 1951. When he first arrived in Los Angeles during the spring of 1952, he sold some arrangements to Stan Kenton. After meeting Chet Baker at a jam session in the San Fernando Valley, Mulligan invited the trumpeter to join his first quartet (along with drummer Chico Hamilton and bassist Bob Whitlock) at L.A.'s celebrated club, The Haig. This chamber-jazz group, with its unique piano-less format and contrapuntal style, became instantly successful and established one of the most recognizable sounds of what has since been labeled the "West Coast Jazz" movement.
Although the original quartet survived for just a year—Gerry was arrested on drug charges, and Chet would battle drug addiction for the rest of his tragic life—Mulligan reformed the ensemble in 1954, replacing Baker with valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer. Now a certifiable jazz star, Mulligan returned home to New York City and continued an active career throughout the rest of the 1950s. During this period, he organized several other significant groups, which included a ten-piece band modeled on an extended version of the Birth of the Cool nonet; a highly textured sextet with Brookmeyer, Jon Eardley, and Zoot Sims (which is remembered fondly by many as perhaps Gerry's finest small group ever); and another piano-less quartet with trumpeter and flugelhornist Art
Farmer. He also made several recordings with fellow saxophonists Paul Desmond, Stan Getz, Johnny Hodges, and Ben Webster.
Young Gerry Mulligan playing clarinet.
In 1960, Mulligan started a thirteen-piece ensemble called The Concert Jazz Band. This group, which lasted a couple of years, featured a piano-less rhythm section, five reeds and six brass, and at various times included such great musicians as Clark Terry, Brookmeyer, Zoot Sims, Mel Lewis, and Mulligan himself. He also continued leading big and small bands, playing as a solo performer at countless jazz festivals and concerts, and
touring as a sideman with Dave Brubeck and Charles Mingus. In 1972, Gerry formed another large ensemble called The Age of Steam, featuring Harry Edison, Bud Shank, Tom Scott, Roger Kellaway, and Brookmeyer, among others. He also collaborated with Argentinean accordion master Astor Piazzolla.
Mulligan's career experienced a rebirth in the late 1970s, and the saxophonist toured worldwide with all-star bands into the nineties. He made his first recording with a symphony orchestra in 1987, under the title "Symphonic Dreams." Mulligan also led the Rebirth of the Cool Band in the 1990s, which performed and recorded classics from the Miles Davis Nonet. During the last fifteen years of his career, he sought out new musical territory, driving the music in new directions even when playing in a traditional quartet or quintet format.
Gerry's last concerts were with his Quartet, which performed on board the SS Norway's Caribbean cruise on November 4 & 9, 1995. He died at his home in Darien, Connecticut, on January 20, 1996, at the age of 68, due to complications that arose after knee surgery
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diegodobini2
Hank Mobley, Curtis Fuller, Lee Morgan – Monday Night At Birdland (1959)
https://youtu.be/_wDN_r9LDwI
Original Liner Notes:
For many years I have been very fortunate in being connected with the jazz scene here in America. I have been on the radio for some time, dispensing to jazz followers the type of music and performances on records that I think these followers have wanted to hear. I am not a jazz critic, but I sincerely welcome the opportunity to write a few passing comments about what I honestly believe to be one of the most important jazz albums to be released in many years.
It has been my contention, ever since I became associated with jazz, that to record musicians at their best and to capture the very best that was in them, the place to do it was at the most renowned jazz club in the country. I refer, of course, to that fabulous jazz emporium in the heart of Manhattan at Broadway and 52nd Street—Birdland. Over the years, this nightclubhas become the very symbol for the greatest in jazz music. For this reason I have remained steadfast to the theory that this was the spot to capture on record, for posterity, the very essence of jazz—spontaneity!
This, then, is what this album is about. Roulette Records decided to record the Monday night jazz activities at Birdland. Monday night at Birdland has been a tradition. It has been the night the regular band playing the club is off, and the night has been set aside for the young, up-and-coming jazz musicians. On Monday nights these musicians are given the opportunity to wail, blow, and
Show the world the stuff that goes into a jazz performance. By no stretch of the imagination are these young talents amateurs. Performers like Lee Morgan, Curtis Fuller, and Hank Mobley are well-schooled music men who have not as yet reached the dazzling heights of the greats, the revered giants of the field. Nevertheless, these men have something important to say, and on Monday nights at Birdland, the management gives them a chance to say it.
I wonder how many of you realize how a musician feels when he is blowing at Birdland, "The Jazz Corner Of The World." I think the feeling can be capsulized this way: the musician knows that he is performing before an audience that is the most appreciative in the world. They are people who are curious about jazz, people who follow it blindly, and, finally, people who frequent this temple because they know they will hear this music played as it should be played—loose, unrestricted, and completely spontaneous. Birdland is a showcase they can find nowhere else, and because they know this and know they are wanted, they rise to the occasion and always give their best.
I know that some of our so-called jazz critics say, "Take jazz out of the night clubs; it disturbs the musicians." These critics are either too young or too forgetful. One thing for certain, they were not on the jazz scene years ago. They never experienced a night at
Kelly's Stables, the Onyx Club, the Roost, Bop City, Minton's, or the Uptown House. It was in these hallowed clubs that modern jazz, as we now know it, really started. Monk, Parker, "Fats," "Dizzy," and all of our great jazz men gave their greatest performances in these clubs. I remember Bird, Diz, Bud, and Max one night in the early forties after doing "A Night in Tunisia" for forty-five minutes for the customers, and after the wild, thunderous ovation subsided, they turned to each other and said, "Wow, we've been wailing." It was in such unforgettable performances in such night spots that modern jazz was born.
All this was in the past. All the clubs I mentioned are now just names, nothing more. It's the fifties, and there is still Birdland and those wonderful Monday nights. It has been my pleasure to act as master of ceremonies at these Monday night sessions. After a number of Monday nights, and after hearing what has been captured between the covers of this album, I can say, without hesitation, that the tradition of great jazz that is being made in the night clubs has been faithfully kept. It has been kept by the musicians you will hear on this album and by the Birdland management and Roulette Records.
This album is an auspicious beginning to a series of "on the scene" live performances of the Monday night action at Birdland. I think it will go far in preserving the feeling of a serious young America, the unique part of its culture known as jazz, and most of all, the swingin' young musicians who perform it.
"SYMPHONY SYD" TURIN
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diegodobini2
Hank Mobley – Poppin' (1957)
https://youtu.be/2GW8rz7_LFk
Original Liner Notes (From 1980):
In the mid-1950s the Blue Note label yielded momentarily to super salesmanship, releasing such albums as "The Amazing Bud Powell," "The Magnificent Thad Jones," and "The Incredible Jimmy Smith." That trend was dormant by the time Hank Mobley became a Blue Note regular, and unfortunately so—a record entitled "The Enigmatic Hank Mobley" would have been a natural.
"To speak darkly, hence in riddles" is the root meaning of the Greek word from which "enigma" derives, and no player, with the possible exception of Elmo Hope, has created a more melancholically quizzical musical universe than Mobley, one in which "tab A" is calmly inserted in "slot D."
Mobley is a musician who bears little resemblance to any other. Though he was influenced by Sonny Stitt and, perhaps, Lucky Thompson, he has proceeded down his own path with a rare single-mindedness, relatively untouched by the stylistic upheavals that marked the work of his major contemporaries, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane.
In the words of Friedrich Nietzsche, not previously known for his interest in jazz, Mobley's music is "without grimaces, without counterfeit, without the lie of the great style. It treats the listener as intelligent, as if he himself were a musician. I actually bury my ears under this music to hear its courses."
And that's the enigma of Mobley's art: in order to hear its causes, the listener must bury his ears under it. In a typical Mobley solo there is no drama external to the developing line and very little sense of "profile," the quality that enables one to "read" a musical discourse as it unfolds. Not that high-profile players—Rollins and Dexter Gordon, for example—are unsubtle. But to understand Mobley, the listenerdoes have to come to terms with complexities that seem designed to resist resolution.
First there is his tone. Always a bit lighter than that of most tenormen who worked in hard bop contexts, it was, when this album was made, a sound of feline obliqueness—as soft, at times, as Stan Getz but blue-grey, like a perpetually impending rain cloud.
Or to put it another way, Mobley, in his choice of timbres, resembles a visual artist who makes use of chalk or watercolor to create designs that cry out for an etching tool.
Harmonically and rhythmically, he could also seem at odds with himself. For proof that Mobley has a superb ear, one need listen only to his solo here on Miles Davis" "Tune Up." The apparently simple but tricky changes pretty much defeat Art Farmer and Pepper Adams; but Mobley glides through them easily, creating a line that breathes when he wants it to, not when the harmonic pattern says "stop."
And yet no matter how novel his harmonic choices were—at this time he surely was as adventurous as Coltrane—Mobley's music lacks the experimental fervor that would lead Coltrane into modality and beyond. Mobley's decisions were always ad hoc, and from solo to solo, or even within a chorus, he could shift from the daring to the sober. What will serve at the moment is the hallmark of his style, and thus, though he is always himself, he has in the normal sense hardly any style at all
Even more paradoxical is Mobley's sense of rhythm. His melodies Roat across bar lines with a freedom that recalls Lester Young and Charlie Parker, and he accents on weak beats so offen (creating the effect known in verse as the "feminine ending") that his solos seem at first to have been devised so as to baffle even their maker. But that, I think, is not the case.
Equipped with all the skills of a great improviser, Mobley simply refuses to perform the final act of integration;all. he will not sum up his harmonic, rhythmic, and timbral virtues and allow any one element to dominate for long. In that sense he is literally a pioneer, a man whose innate restlessness never permits him to plant a rag and say, "Here I stand."
Thus, to speak of a mature or immature Hank Mobley would be inappropriate. Once certain technical problems were worked out—say, by 1955—he was capable of producing striking music on any given day. New depths were discovered in the 1960s and the triumphs came more frequently, but in late 1957, when "Poppin'" was recorded, he was as likely as ever to be "on."
Much depended on his surroundings, and the band he works with here has some special virtues. The rhythm section is one of the great hard-bop trios, possessing secrets of swing that now seem beyond recall. Philly Joe Jones and Paul Chambers, partners, of course, in the Miles Davis Quintet, shared a unique conception of where "one" is just a hair behind the beat but rigidly so, with the result that the time has a stiff-legged, compulsive quality. The beat doesn't flow but jerks forward in a series of spasmodic leaps, creating a climate of nervous intensity that was peculiar to the era. Either the soloist jumps, or he is fried to a crisp on the spot.
but As a leavening element there was Sonny Clark, equally intense, more generous and forgiving in his patterns of accompaniment. He leads the soloists with a grace that recalls Count Basie, and his own lines, with their heartbreakingly pure lyricism, make him the hard bop equivalent of Duke Jordan.
The ensemble sound of the band, a relatively uncommon collection of timbres heard elsewhere on Coltrane's and Johnny Griffin's first dates under their own names, gives the album a distinctive, ominous flavor, but this is essentially a blowing date.
Art Farmer, for my taste, never played as well as he did during this period, perhaps because the hard bop style was at war with his deadening sense of neatness. Possessing a musical mind of dandyish suavity coupled with the soul of a librarian, Farmer usually sounded too nice to be true. But this rhythm section puts an edge on his style (as it did a few months later on the "Cool Struttin'" date), and I know of no more satisfying Farmer solo than the one preserved here on "Getting Into Something," where he teases motifs with a wit that almost turns nasty.
Adams' problem has always been how to give his lines some sense of overall design, and too often the weight of his huge tone hurtles him forward faster than he can think. But when the changes and the tempo lie right for him, Adams can put it all together, and here he does.
so twice, finding a stomping groove on "Getting Into Something" and bringing off an exhilarating double-time passage on "East of Brooklyn."
useful to focus first on a small unit and then on a larger one. As for the leader, rather than described each of his solas, it might be
On the title track, Mobley's second eight-bar exchange with Jones is one of the tenorman's perfect microcosms and an example of how prodigal his inventiveness could be. A remarkable series of ideas, mostly rhythmic ones, are produced (one might almost say squandered) in approximately nine seconds. Both the relation of his accented notes to the beat and the overall pattern they form are dazzlingly oblique, and the final whiplike descent is typically paradoxical, the tone becoming softer and more dusty as the rhythmic content increases in urgency. In effect, we are hearing a soloist and a rhythm player exchange roles, as Mobley turns his tenor saxophone into a drum.
On "East of Brooklyn," Mobley gives us one of his macrocosms, a masterpiece of lyrical construction that stands alongside the solo he played on "Nica's Dream" with the Jazz Messengers in 1956.
"East of Brooklyn" is a Latin-tinged variant on "Softly As in a Morn ing Sunrise, supported by Clark's "Night in Tunisia vamp. Mobley's solo is a single, sweeping gesture, with each chorus linked surely to the next as though, with his final goal in view, he can proceed toward
it in large, steady strides. And yet even here, as Mobley moves into a realm of freedom any musician would envy, one can feel the pressure of fate at his heels, the pathos of solved problems, and the force that compels him to abandon
this newly cleared ground. In other words, to "appreciate" Hank Mobley, to look at him from a fixed position, is an impossible task. He makes sense only when one is prepared to move with him, when one learns to share his restlessness and feel its necessity.
Or, as composer Stefan Wolpe once said, "Don't get backed too much into a reality that has fashioned your senses with too many realistic claims. When art promises you this sort of reliability... drop it. It is good to know how not to know how much one is knowing."
- LARRY KART
Original Session Produced by ALFRED LION Recorded on October 20, 1957, at Van Gelder Studios, Hackensack, New Jersey.
Photography FRANCIS WOLFF Mosaic Images, LLC
Recording Engineer RUDY VAN GELDER
LP Supervision by JOE HARLEY
LP Mastering by KEVIN GRAY, Cohearent Audic
Users of Wide Range equipment should adjust their controls for the RIAA curve.
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diegodobini2
Hank Mobley - The Jazz Message of Hank Mobley Vol. 1
https://youtu.be/pRyQF5qlCjo
Original Liner Notes:
Tune #3 of the B side captures the mood of
this album and defines its terms. THE JAZZ
MESSAGE... Freedom For All, and they state
the jazzman's credo with notes, not words!
The notes carry a punch that is understood not only by the ears as you listen but also by the heart! And... the statements are made by jazz musicians worthy of the "musical soapbox" provided in this album. Excellent rhythm throughout by the ever-tasty, ever-swinging Kenny Clarke. That "rock-of-Gibraltar" beat never varies and always moves the soloist he backs. Bass chores are divided between excellent Doug Watkins and Wendell, the "Mighty" Marshall. Catch the whole concept of the JAZZ MESSAGE. It's a true autobiography of Jazz. Blues patterns, established lightly by Klook on brushes and cymbals alone, joined by walking bass, then into solos, fading out to solo Marshall bass, walking rhythm, and light solo cymbal to pianissimo and out. Solo attention is called to Horace Silver's peppery, single-noted brilliance on the up-tempo BUDO and flowery style not known before, behind Donald Byrd's bell-like explorations on the theme of I MARRIED AN ANGEL. Particular attention is focused on the reeds in this set. John La Porta's ornithologic wanderings on MESSAGE and BUDO are a gas! His excellent technical facility, Tristano-like harmonic inventiveness in ideas, and fluidity of improvisational ideas are a high point in recorded jazz. In the contrast group, Hank Mobley, a by-product of Dizzy Gillespie and the Max Roach units, wails away with constant swinging power. His big-toned, gutty attack ranks him high among today's rising tenor stars and deserves him more attention on wax. I'm sure you'll agree after a listen to this set. Ronnie Ball's overseas contribution to the local jazz scene again demonstrates his remarkable flow of expression in the accepted modern mode. Thanks to Savoy, this deserving keyboard stylist is getting the opportunity to express himself on wax and impress more.
with each listening. All in all, the MESSAGE
is here to hear, and the hearing is fine!!
– H. Alan Stein
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diegodobini2
Septet Frans Elsen Featuring Piet Noordijk – Norway (1972,73)
https://youtu.be/lA7EPN70VE8
From CD Liner Notes:
SEPTET FRANS ELSEN featuring PIET NOORDIJK
NORWAY
I first heard the name Frans Elsen on the radio in 1957. He was the pianist with the Peter Schilperoort Quartet, which performed every other week for VARA radio. They performed on Friday afternoons between five pm and a quarter past.
I especially liked the signature tune, As Long As There's Music. Little did I know that, thirteen years later, Frans was going to call me to accompany the famous American singer Mark Murphy with him and bassist Rob Langereis on a TV program by Bob Rooyens. When we had recorded Ich hab' noch einen Koffer in Berlin, I put my sticks on my floor tom and said, 'Well, that went well!' Frans Elsen gave me a stern look and told me never to talk through the reverb again.
After we had played together a few times in The Hague, he told me he wanted to start a jazz-rock group with Piet Noordijk. He had written a 'Norwegian Cycle' after a visit to Norway, and he wanted to perform it with a 'hip' ensemble.
In 1971, new trends were developing within jazz. It had started in the Sixties with freer forms. Ornette Coleman with Time, No Changes, and John Coltrane with his quartet featuring Alice Coltrane and Rashied Ali.
At the same time, the Motown scene was growing in Detroit, and rock and funk were seeping into jazz, partly thanks to musicians like Jimi Hendrix and groups like Sly and the Family Stone, Blood, Sweat and Tears, and Chicago. Miles Davis picked up on this, and his first recording with Fender Rhodes and bass guitar on Miles In The Sky was in 1968. In the early seventies, Weather Report and Chick Corea's Return to Forever were added, and even Stan Getz had a super hip group with Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Tony Williams, and Airto Moreira.
The Fender Rhodes electric piano and the bass guitar were among the standard tools of many keyboard and bass players. It didn't take long before several prominent Dutch bass players also had a bass guitar: Koos Serierse, Rob Langereis, Victor Kaihatu, Wim Essed, and even Ruud Jacobs. The same happened with the Fender Rhodes: Rob Franken and Frans Elsen had both bought one. An interesting development, I thought, and dived into rock and funky rhythms, alongside hard-bop swing. As long as it had a groove, it came in handy in a variety of situations.
This also applied to Frans Elsen's group. He had been enthused by Mwandishi by pianist Herbie Hancock (recorded in December 1970). That must have been the source of his curiosity and inspiration to start a group like this. It started as a sextet with Piet Noordijk on alto sax, Eddie Engels on trumpet, Rob Langereis on bass guitar, Wim van der Beek on percussion, and myself on drums.
I was the youngest of the group (24), but I had no trouble with the music because I had already gained some experience with rock and funk-like styles in the Hilversum studios. In November 1970, I had recorded the album Vocal Ease with the American pianist and arranger Don Trenner and his wife, the vocalist B.J. Ward. It was all very funky.
The LP Home Run from 1971 by the Rob Agerbeek Quintet also included a funky boogaloo, which Frans Elsen heard too. After some rehearsals at his home, we had our first gig at a Rotterdam jazz festival in De Doelen in December 1971. The press said it was the big surprise of the festival. Between Trio Pim Jacobs with Rita Reys, the Dutch Swing College Band, and a few other established celebrities, Frans Elsen's group in this line-up and with this music stood out. I don't think anyone expected Frans to do that, but I think he liked it.
The 'Norwegian Cycle' that Frans had written was melodic, a lot more interesting than the vague Norwegian fjord sounds produced today. It always had a groove (in this case a funky groove), and the improvisations were hard bop and modal. The sound was different only because of the electric piano and bass guitar and the backbeat of the drums.
The pieces had Norwegian titles: Harpefoss, Ringebu, Skåbu, and Otta. These are the names of small towns in Norway that Frans visited at the time. Harpefoss and Ringebu had a funky feel, and Skåbu was much more open. Otta would have fit in perfectly with Ornette Coleman's repertoire; indeed, Coleman could have written it himself.
During the studio session to mark the EBU Jazz Quiz (19 May 1972), only Otta's theme was played, but it featured solos in live concerts, as can be heard on the live version recorded in theater PePijn in The Hague. The EBU recording of Skåbu also only featured the theme, while at the International Jazz Festival in Loosdrecht it is played at length, especially by Wim Overgaauw, with a nod to free jazz guitarist Sonny Sharrock. The addition of Wim Overgaauw worked well because he gave an extra dimension to the music with his pedals and various sounds. The front line was rock solid with the unsurpassed alto sax sound of Piet Noordijk and the great trumpet sound of Eddie Engels.
Despite making few waves in the press, the band was much in demand at festivals, especially in 1972 and 1973; there were also offers for radio recordings.
It was a motley collection of personalities. Frans Elsen (1934-2011) was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and not easy to cope with. Piet Noordijk (1932-2011) was Piet Noordijk, so always conspicuously present, and Eddie Engels (1936-2021) was the charmer of the band. Rob Langereis (1939-2014) was straightforward with typical Amsterdam humor. Wim van der Beek (1917-1993) was the hidden force, and Wim Overgaauw (1929-1995) also didn't say much but kept a close eye on everything. When Rob Langereis could not make it, Victor Kaihatu (1939-2014) filled in for him. With a big spliff on his lip, everything was fine. I had to get used to him, but that didn't last long; he also had to get used to me.
Alongside the various shows, we invariably played every year around Christmas at theater PePijn in The Hague. Some new pieces were added to the repertoire now and then, and Frans was studying Chinese at the time, so we could count on a Chinese funk piece appearing on the music stand as well. Unfortunately, after a while, Frans and Piet separated because of 'musical differences.' I don't know exactly how this happened, but they were two self-willed, highly combustible characters, so it was only to be expected.
From time to time Ferdinand Povel joined the line-up, and it soon became clear he was there to stay. He also played on the session we recorded for the Dutch world service, Radio Nederland. At the time, reed player Charlie Mariano was living in
The Hague and I remember him playing with us at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw. Over time, we performed less and less, and the frontline was mostly Ack van Rooyen, Ferdinand Povel, and Bart van Lier. In the early eighties, Frans Elsen received an offer from Limetree Records to record a live album at what was then the Hot Theatre.
in The Hague. We performed there, but Frans was not happy with the result, and that heralded the definitive demise of the band.
Frans Elsen returned to his greatest love: bebop. He also became one of the founding fathers of jazz education in the Netherlands. He first taught jazz at the conservatories in Zwolle, Rotterdam, and Hilversum, and later only at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, where he had graduated.
He was not an easy teacher, and many a student left the classroom crying. But most musicians who took lessons from him would still argue that they learned the most from Frans. He delved deep into the music and could explain it all clearly. He could fathom all the styles. From Teddy Wilson to Herbie Hancock: he played it perfectly. He also pushed for Barry Harris to give an annual masterclass in The Hague.
But Frans Elsen was not only bebop; there was so much more. Like this septet, forgotten by many people. He was also a gifted arranger, for example, for Wim Kuylenburg's Latin Orchestra and the musical De Engel van Amsterdam by Joop Stokkermans and Lennaert Nijgh.
Later, in the eighties, Frans asked me to play in his trio with Jacques Schols in Café De Sport in The Hague. He had set that up so that students at the Royal Conservatoire could play with a good rhythm section. But Ferdinand Povel, Ruud Brink, Toon Roos, Jasper Blom, and Benjamin Herman also dropped by regularly. Frans just sat at the acoustic piano again and played the most beautiful standards in the world. He also showed himself to be the perfect accompanist, on a par with Hank Jones.
One evening, he turned around and asked me what I wanted to play. I told him that as a ten-year-old, I always heard him on the radio with the Peter Schilperoort Quartet and that I liked the theme tune As Long As There's Music by Jule Styne so much. He looked at Jacques and said, 'That's 35 fucking years ago!' But he played it, and how! Frans recorded all the shows in De Sport, and he promised to make a few tapes for me. A few months later I got two tapes. The first piece on it was As Long As There's Music. That was typical of Frans. A subtle gesture of appreciation. He didn't like to talk about the time with the septet anymore. He saw it as a youthful indiscretion, but when I brought it up, he said with a laugh, 'Eric, we had the first funk band.'
I think that if Frans heard these septet recordings in this high quality, he would appreciate it. It all sounds very fresh, and with the return of the Fender Rhodes to the current generation, I think compositions like Harpefoss, Skåbu, Otta, and Whirligig could well get a great new performance.
-Eric Ineke
Translation: Martin Cleaver
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