This is a Recording

Benny Green, one time jazz critic of The Observer , begins his sleevenotes for this UK pressing of The Oscar Peterson Trio's Night Train with a heavy-duty literary reference: "'The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of the intellect,' wrote Proust, 'in some material object we do not suspect'". Green is thereby setting up his contention that "it is a brave man indeed who would make an album composed of material which he knows belongs to the past consciousness of those likely to listen to it", a roundabout way of explaining most of the tracks here were well-worn, familiar standards by 1962, when the album was recorded. The telescoping effect of time's passing inevitably gives the listener from a later generation a foreshortened perspective and a less acute sense of the historical truth: I know in the abstract that Duke Ellington's 'C-Jam Blues', for example, evokes the early '40s rather than the early ...

For a few years I was haunted by a song I could not identify. On the infrequent occasions I listened to the radio during my time in Rome, whichever station it was I'd settled upon as the least objectionable might play a jazzy-sounding number in which a deep male voice sang in Italian, but with some words of English in the chorus: "It's wonderful... good luck my baby...I dream of you... chips, chips". It was the kind of song where it seemed likelier that these were the chips one might be given in a casino, and not any potato-based foodstuff. I grew to love the song, but each of the half dozen or so times I heard it I never caught the artist or track-title being announced. I resigned myself to its remaining a mystery. But then I heard a snippet of it again a few years later in Amsterdam, issuing from a hotel-room TV as the soundtrack to an ad. On returning from that trip back to the UK, I resolved to see if the internet might be able to solve the puzzle for me. This w...

Early in 2017, a correspondent asked if I knew of any contemporary Brazilian instrumental music. I did not, but on searching in YouTube I found a goldmine of such material in the form the channel of "Programa Instrumental SESC Brasil". It contained many dozens of 50-55 minute shows, each one devoted to a performance by a specific musician or group. Not only were practically all of the featured artists new to me, but, judging by the frequently very low view counts, many must not have been widely-appreciated even in Brazil. One of my favourite such videos featured a band called Quartabê. I liked their performance so much I bought their debut album: Lição #1 Moacir .  It's among a handful of records I've bought in download form from Bandcamp and then burned to CD-R. I can't then make much comment about the cover design (I snagged the image from the Discogs listing) or the insert/booklet notes - which, in any case, would be in Brazilian Portuguese. The band's ...

Travelin' Light is the fourth and last album jazz singer and pianist Shirley Horn recorded in the '60s, before taking time away from the limelight to devote to family life. Thereafter she performed only occasionally in and around her home city of Washington D.C., until the first stirrings of a career revival in the late '70s. Her early records had been well-reviewed and earned admiration from her peers (no less a figure than Miles Davis singled out her debut LP Embers and Ashes in some rare public praise), but they had sold poorly. I first heard of her via YouTube, having searched for versions of a song I'd taken a shine to called ' You're Blasé '. At length I got around to tracking down a copy of the album it had appeared on, i.e. this one. Specifically I bought a mid-'90s French-made CD re-issue. While not terribly rare, it's uncommon enough that it took me a while before I found an affordable copy. I think I ended up paying something in the ...

Swing may not have altogether still been the thing even in 1956 when this album was recorded. It isn't, in any case, what I look for when I put the record on, but rather tenor saxophonist Jean-Baptiste Illinois Jacquet's way with slow blues & ballads. He plays here as part of a sextet including such notable big band veterans as Jo Jones on drums and Roy Eldridge on trumpet. Jacquet himself had first found fame in the early '40s playing with Lionel Hampton's orchestra. My favourite track is the singularly evocative version of ' Harlem Nocturne ', with the number that follows it ('Can't We Be Friends?' - a mellow ballad dating back to '29) a close second. Not much in evidence (even on the more uptempo numbers) is the "honking" sax style that Jacquet had become associated with, where high harmonics alternate with notes from the bottom of the instrument's range. He had hit upon this style - according to the slightly stilted sleeveno...

The centrepiece of Idle Moments is its title-track, as languidly lovely a quarter hour of jazz as one could hope for. The story goes that it was a happy accident, born of a misunderstanding. Having been talked through the piece by its composer (pianist Duke Pearson), Green played his first solo part for sixty-four bars rather than the thirty-two that Pearson had intended. It sounded so good that the rest of the musicians (including Pearson himself, saxophonist Joe Henderson, and Bobby Hutcherson on vibes) followed suit. It left them with a track that was too long, in conjunction with the others they'd already recorded, to shoehorn on to a single LP. After some failed attempts to recapture the magic of that first take in truncated form, they decided to re-do the other pieces instead, arranging the rest of the album around 'Idle Moments'. Although the other tracks are also excellent, it was undoubtedly the right choice. Those who have the CD version of the album can also hea...

The quantity and quality of the sessions that were recorded for Blue Note records but not released until many years after the fact almost beggars belief. One imagines the increasingly adverse commercial climate for jazz as the '60s wore on must have played a significant part in that. Even so, some of their decisions seem baffling in retrospect. Saxophonist Hank Mobley's A Slice of the Top is a prime example: recorded in '66; released in '79. Personally I think it's one of his finest outings, and a better record than those adjacent to it in his discography ( A Caddy for Daddy and Hi Voltage ), both of which were given more timely releases.  A Slice of the Top is unique in Mobley's output for having been written and arranged for an octet. The usual suspects of tenor sax (Mobley); alto sax (James Spaulding); trumpet (Lee Morgan); piano (McCoy Tyner); bass (Bob Cranshaw) and drums (Billy Higgins) were augmented by euphonium (Kiane Zawadi) and tuba (Howard Johnson)...

There's no way of telling if the photo of Wes Montgomery reproduced on the rear of this LP's sleeve was taken at the Half Note, but he is undoubtedly smoking: a lit cigarette in his mouth as he plays his guitar. The photo of Wynton Kelly looks to have been taken in a recording studio if the out-of-focus reel of tape on his piano is anything to go by. He isn't smoking, but concentrating intently on the keys before him. Both men are wearing white shorts with skinny black ties: Montgomery also in a dark-coloured jacket; Kelly in a cardigan and a beanie-type hat. Only half of Smokin' at the Half Note was recorded in June '65 at the Half Note Club on Hudson Street in New York. The intention must surely have been for it to be entirely a live album, but producer Creed Taylor, presumably dissatisfied, had insisted on some of it being done over a few months later in a studio setting. The two tracks on side A are the live ones; the three on side B those from Rudy Van Gelder...

Only twice have I stumbled upon Miles Davis LPs in charity shop record bins: on one occasion I found an '80s re-press of Sketches of Spain , and on another, during a trip to Newport, I found this 1960 UK mono pressing of Miles Davis' Lift to the Scaffold/Jazz Track . This album had been released the year before in the US, where it had been simply, if generically, titled Jazz Track . Before that, the music on side A, recorded in Paris in late 1957 as a soundtrack to Louis Malle's film Ascenseur pour l'échafaud , had been issued in Europe on a 10" album. The three pieces on side B were recorded in New York in '58, and first saw the light of day on Jazz Track . On the ten short soundtrack cues, Davis was joined by Barney Wilen (tenor sax), René Urtreger (piano), Pierre Michelot (bass) and Kenny Clarke (drums). The personnel on side B are the same sextet as famously can be heard on (most of) Kind of Blue , that is, with Bill Evans rather than Wynton Kelly on piano....

Imagine my delight on finding a copy of The Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis Cookbook Vol. 3 at a local emporium a couple of months back, and with a '60s U.S. Prestige Records label on it too - the first one of those I've seen hereabouts. Last year I'd acquired Vols. 1 & 2 of the same series, albeit in the form of a '74 2xLP re-issue, and ordered via Discogs. This copy of Vol. 3 has quite an advanced case of shelf-wear, but the sturdy mono disc within still plays very well. I first heard of the "cookbook" sessions ca. 2014 and had obtained a download version of them then. Apparently the origins of Davis' unusual nickname are lost in the mists of time. He earned a reputation as a "tough tenor" but he was just as adept on mellow bluesy numbers and in ballads, with many of the "Cookbook" tracks showcasing his tender side to great effect. He plays here in a quintet, with co-star Shirley Scott at the organ (one of the very few female in...

On the back cover of Memphis Underground is a remarkable photograph taken in the American Sound Studio (in Memphis) during the making of the album. From an elevated vantage-point we see Mann himself, shirtless & hirsute in tight white jeans playing his flute; along with five other musicians and one other man, who I think may be recording engineer extraodinaire Tom Dowd. Mann is separated from the others by padded room dividers to help isolate his contribution, the larger of those dividers with a window in it seemingly punctured by four bullet-holes, above which is written - possibly in lipstick - "BONNIE AND CLYDE WAS HERE". It's a very good album of soul jazz, or perhaps jazz-meets-r'n'b. While I admire and enjoy Mann's flute-playing lead, for me the chief interest comes from the wonderful grooves laid down by the "Memphis Boys", i.e. the studio's excellent house band, aided by an additional trio of visiting musicians, among them Roy Ayers....

No more than dimly aware of his music, I hadn't known of Chet Baker's outings as a vocalist until about four or five years ago. Then, in a classic case of the so-called Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, I suddenly seemed to hear and read about it from multiple sources within the space of a few months. Having much enjoyed some of the tracks from Chet Baker Sings , I obtained it on CD, as part of a four-disc set of Eight Classic Albums which also included two other records with some of Chet's crooning on them: Grey December and Embraceable You . Then, last year, I happened to find a vinyl copy in the wild - specifically a mid-'80s Spanish re-issue in excellent condition that, according to Discogs, is worth rather more than the few pounds I paid for it. The record brings together the contents of a 10" album recorded and released in 1954 (the original Chet Baker Sings ) with a further half dozen numbers recorded in 1956 for the initial 12" issue. The music is mellow, a...

Having fallen for the late, lamented Jaimie Branch's wonderful album Fly or Die II , I wondered if there might be anything else on the same label - International Anthem - that I'd also enjoy. Via YouTube I began listening to Irreversible Entanglements, and, while the music was a little freer than I typically take my jazz, I was hooked by the video for the track 'No Más', and had soon acquired the Who Sent You? album on CD. Irreversible Entanglements are a quintet with four instrumentalists (Keir Neuringer - saxophone; Aquiles Navarro - trumpet; Luke Stewart - bass; Tcheser Holmes - drums) and a vocalist (Camae Ayewa, aka Moor Mother). Ayewa recites rather than sings her words, yet the rhythmic quality of her delivery enhances the music as well as providing the message. Who Sent You? released in 2020, is their second album. There are five tracks over the disc's forty-three minutes. The first half of the second number, which gives the album its name, is another hig...

At the local charity shop one Saturday about five years ago I spotted something with the distinctive orange-&-black Impulse! Records spine. I hadn't heard of Gary McFarland, but felt it was worth the few pounds' asking price to give Profiles a listen. The cover provides a good deal of information up-front: "RECORDED LIVE / Sunday, February 6, 1966-8PM / Norman Schwartz presents / Gary McFarland: / Profiles / A unique concert of original compositions reflecting the special qualities of today's most accomplished jazzmen..." Inside the gatefold, Nat Hentoff stresses the occasion having been a sit-down concert performance of (chiefly) through-composed music. This was evidently a major showcase for McFarland, who had made a name for himself through the early '60s as a composer and arranger, having worked with the likes of Anita O'Day and Gerry Mulligan . The 20-piece band recruited for the performance did McFarland proud: among their number the likes of Cl...

Time Further Out (Miró Reflections) was my first Dave Brubeck Quartet LP. It was initially released in 1961, with my copy having the look of a later-'60s repress. Within a year of finding it, I'd also picked up a copy of its more famous prequel, Time Out . A couple of the Quartet's other albums have only rested briefly on my shelves, but one further LP of theirs I enjoy and will be keeping is Anything Goes! (The Dave Brubeck Quartet Plays Cole Porter) . As on Time Out there are a variety of unconventional time signatures included here. The tracks are arranged in ascending order of beats-to-the-bar, starting with 'It's a Raggy Waltz' and 'Bluette' in 3/4, by way of 'Unsquare Dance' in 7/8 (the record's big hit, and the only one of its pieces I knew before buying it), and ending with 'Blue Shadows in the Street' in 9/8.  According to Brubeck, the album is also a musical interpretation of the Joan Miró painting shown on its cover, and ...

Another CD I picked up from the seemingly now-defunct Kriminal Records in Newport is this 2010 2-disc issue on the "Not Now" label. Disc 1 contains the 1958 album Moanin' , while disc 2 has Orgy in Rhythm , originally released on two LPs in 1963. The Jazz Messengers only appear on the former, with the latter the fruits of a separate project where Blakey played with no fewer than three other drummers; along with a quartet of percussionists plus bass, piano and flute. Interesting & unusual as they are, I haven't yet taken a shine to the Orgy in Rhythm tracks. Moanin' , on the other hand, is a firm favourite. From the opening piano notes of the title track, one feels in safe hands, and the quality barely dips though the whole record. The Jazz Messengers on this occasion were Benny Golson on tenor sax; Lee Morgan on trumpet, Bobby Timmons on piano and Jymie Merritt on bass. For me, the most memorable instrumental moments on the record come from Morgan, such the s...

Nala Sinephro's debut album Space 1.8 could have been among my favourite records of 2021, if it weren't for its initial issue being vinyl-only. Having heard a few tracks from it on-line, it seemed to me like music that could easily sound a little better on CD (and it would be cheaper too). So I waited - and my patience was rewarded when a re-issue early this year brought forth CD copies as well as more vinyl ones. In that way it has become one of my favourite records of 2022. I've listened to it many times and feel very far from exhausting its delights. At Discogs, the album has been categorised as "Contemporary Jazz, Ambient" which seems about right. There are saxophones and double basses and drums involved, and a few tracks are unquestionably jazzy - but there are also other textures too, courtesy of Sinephro's mastery of two highly unalike instruments: the harp and the modular synthesizer, which both excel at laying on soothing ambience. All eight tracks a...

Ella Swings Brighly With Nelson is one of half a dozen records on my shelves issued by the "World Record Club", a mail-order label set up in the UK in the mid-'50s. The records themselves (mostly) sound good, but the sleeve designs depart from the original ones in ways that don't improve them. The Verve issues of this album feature a photograph of Ms Fitzgerald & Mr Riddle, wheras here we have a rather muddily impressionistic drawing/painting of the singer. By 1961, as Alun Morgan's sleevenotes state, both Ella and Nelson were widely renowned and much in demand. They had already worked together on The George and Ira Gershwin Song Book in '59. This record is one of a pair arising from sessions in '61 that were released the following year, the other being Ella Swings Gently With Nelson . It's an album that isn't perhaps either headliner's finest work, but it's still a very good one, and makes for enjoyable listening. The sorrowful lyric...

Before wholeheartedly embracing jazz music in my early forties, I had made a few only partially successful attempts to get to grips with it over the prior decade. About five or six years before the lightbulb was finally illuminated, there had been some fitful flickerings ca. 2005/6, during which time I came to hear of Canadian saxophonist Michael Blake. The first of his albums I bought was one called Drift , which I'd found courtesy of an Amazon recommendation. I liked it well enough to acquire another of his records, again on CD: Blake Tartare . It's a 2005 release (on the Copenhagen-based Stunt label) of music recorded in 2002. The Danish angle ties in with Blake's backing band on this occasion coming from that country: Soren Kjærgaard plays piano; Jonas Westergaard bass and Kresten Osgood the drums. The (non-Danish) Teddy Kumpel joins them on guitar on three of the tracks. It's not an album that seems to have made much of a splash anywhere, but it's one I've ...

The Exciting Joe Williams is among the best of several big band jazz records I've acquired in recent months. It's one of those LPs which just sounds fantastic from the moment the needle hits it, despite getting off to what is, to my mind, a slightly shaky start, thanks to an inadvisably upbeat, jazz-hands waving version of 'Ol' Man River'. The second song, 'This is the Life', however, is much more like it, and puts things on a surer footing that's then maintained throughout. On 'This is the Life', among other numbers, Williams' smooth and strong baritone sounds somewhat Sinatra-like, and his delivery has a similarly (and justifiably) confident swagger about it. Frank may have had the edge when interpreting a slow ballad, but on uptempo numbers, Joe was at least as good.  Other favourites of mine on the record are 'Come In Out Of The Rain', 'Gypsy In My Soul', and, especially 'Last Love, Last Kiss, Goodbye'. The last-n...