In “Jazz After Politics,” John Halle says he is a jazz fan.

Shuja Haider responded in a most inspired fashion. Thanks! (Also thanks to Darcy James Argue for debating with Halle on Twitter a little bit and privately pointing me in the direction of Haider’s piece.)

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The nice thing about these little internet dust-ups is how they give us occasion to re-listen. I’ve owned Joe Henderson’s The Kicker forever, but I can honestly say “Without A Song” is not a JoeHen track I’ve really dealt with until tonight.

Halle says:

A nadir of obliviousness was reached by the legendary tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson through the inclusion of the standard “Without a Song” in a sequence of classic recordings paying tribute to the then-dominant Black Power movement. Some of the titles of the albums are “Power to the People,” “In Pursuit of Blackness,” “If You’re not Part of the Solution, You’re Part of the Problem,” and “Black is the Color.” So it is more than a little disturbing, in this context, to encounter the vile Jim Crow racism of the second phrase: “A darky’s born/ but he’s no good no how / without a song.”

Henderson is by no means unusual among jazz musicians in being oblivious to the silliness and, worse, to the casual racism and misogyny informing the sensibility of the golden age of American song from which jazz draws.

H’mm. Okay. Well, Haider says it all, really, with his tart comment,

I wish I could state this with more restraint, but how dare John fucking Halle purport to know what Joe Henderson was thinking?

…But I’d thought I’d check out this track for myself and see what I could discover. It was an enjoyable investigation.

—

In 1967, the Blue Note label was fading fast, so JoeHen tried out Orrin Keepnews’s new venture. It seemed to be a good fit: There were a dozen Milestone JoeHen albums produced during the next decade.

For a long time, these albums were only available on CD as part of a box set Joe Henderson: The Milestone Years. So maybe that is why Halle claims that “Without a Song” is part of “a sequence of classic recordings paying tribute to the then-dominant Black Power movement.”

In reality, the first two Milestone records, The Kicker and Tetragon, are utterly conventional jazz dates. Only with 1969’s Power to the People was there a turn to the four albums with an overtly political theme.

—

For his Milestone debut, JoeHen had a sextet: Mike Lawrence, Grachan Moncur, Kenny Barron, Ron Carter, and Louis Hayes. It’s a great collection of great musicians, especially in the rhythm section.

However, for those that love experimentation, this configuration is a bit of a disappointment. It is inarguably more conservative than the bands on JoeHen’s previous classic Blue Note dates. The key figure is Louis Hayes. Mr. Hayes is one of the greatest bebop and hard-bop drummers, but no one thinks his major virtue is flexibility. Previously on Blue Note, JoeHen used Pete LaRoca, Elvin Jones, and Joe Chambers, all musicians who could bend to an avant-garde notion if needed. Mr. Hayes just isn’t that kind of player.

Not that Louis Hayes isn’t truly great. If his deep musicianship on The Kicker doesn’t satisfy, see any of his records with Horace Silver or Cannonball Adderley. My point is that the inclusion of Hayes suggests that JoeHen (or his producer) thinks this new label needs groovy sextet music in the Art Blakey and Horace Silver mold.

Trumpeter Lawrence and trombonist Moncur only get limited solo space, mostly playing on the heads and supplying backgrounds. The major soloist besides JoeHen is Kenny Barron. Despite his very young age, Barron had already been with Dizzy Gillespie and James Moody, and his playing on this album is marvelous in every detail. But just like Hayes, Barron is essentially conservative.

As far as repertoire goes, “Mamacita,” “The Kicker,” “If,” and “Mo’  Joe” are blues-based originals dispatched in fine style. More and more, I think this marriage of funk and velocity is the ultimate in jazz virtuosity. A couple of these themes were recorded before, it is interesting to compare different versions.

“Chelsea Bridge” is a revealing choice, suggesting that JoeHen’s much later album of Billy Strayhorn has more depth than one might guess, and (more importantly) also that Strayhorn’s suspended harmony really meant something to JoeHen.

“Nardis” is a rather weak attempt to make these hard-boppers play some Bill Evans-style modality. Ron Carter gets it (of course thanks to his Miles Davis training) but Louis Hayes is perhaps a bit lost. I wonder if this tune was an Orrin Keepnews suggestion, as Keepnews seemed hell-bent on getting Evans back on his new label. (Previously Evans was Keepnews’s most-beloved project on Riverside.)

“O Amor Em Paz” is a nice bossa done by João Gilberto; as far as I know this was the first jazz instrumental version. JoeHen loved not just the bossa-nova influence in jazz but also loved Stan Getz, the tenor sax player most associated with bossa. Indeed, JoeHen’s tribute to the genre, “Recorda-me,” may be his most-covered tune.

—

Anyway, before I get to “Without a Song”: There’s absolutely nothing about The Kicker that overtly suggests social ferment. Rather, it seems to suggest that the great records on Blue Note made a decade earlier are the correct model for happening jazz.

—

In his 1967 liner notes, Jack Springer says “Without a Song” is

…an old standard that Joe loves to stretch out on.

Fair enough. Jazz cats play old tunes. “Without a Song” is from 1929.

I am not an expert in how old tunes become “standards,” but when looking at the Lord discography, it seems like “Without a Song” was only taken up by jazz players after Billy Eckstine made a hit version in 1946. Being Afro-American, naturally Eckstine changed the word “darky” (or “darkie”) cited by Halle to “man.”

Every elder Afro-American jazz musician I’ve ever met reveres Billy Eckstine for being one of the most profound, sophisticated, and stylish Afro-American entertainers.

I personally believe this is why John Coltrane repeatedly made Eckstine’s “I Want to Talk About You” his outrageous ballad feature in the 1960’s. After all, Trane could have selected one of a thousand other non-black composers for royal deconstruction midway through his intense sets. It’s a political statement to repeatedly choose something by Eckstine.

I hasten to add, this is speculation! But if you are jazz fan who understands anything about black history, it becomes impossible not to read between the lines.

JoeHen must have known the Eckstine version of “Without a Song” as a kid. Intriguingly, that glamorous arrangement is full of chromatic chords. (I don’t know the arranger, but it is clearly someone hip to bebop.) These changes are not “Coltrane changes,” that difficult mediant movement given life by Coltrane in “Giant Steps” and other compositions and arrangements…but they aren’t so far off from mediant movement, either.

In August 1967, JoeHen had a record date. He needed to fill out the rep with an old standard. John Coltrane had just died a couple of months ago. Hey, why not arrange an old tune with Coltrane changes, just like Trane did with “How High the Moon” and “Body and Soul?” And since Trane always played that Eckstine ballad “I Want to Talk About You,” why not play one of Mr. B’s classic hits, “Without A Song,” but with Coltrane changes? Even the title suggests the loss we feel from Trane’s sudden absence…

Again, I’m speculating!

But John Halle definitely shouldn’t have seized on this track as “oblivious” politically. From where I’m sitting tonight, the 1967 JoeHen reharmonized “Without a Song” is absolutely a political statement about pretty tunes, hard bebop, Coltrane, race, velocity, and transition. If you love jazz, it’s impossible not to admire it.

At any rate, no speculation is required when listening to Louis Hayes here. Hayes plays like a man possessed! For me it is Hayes’s best performance on the album. The ferocious solos by JoeHen and Kenny Barron are great too.

—

Of course I get why John Halle and others are so interested in putting jazz down these days. It’s fairly moribund time, and jazz fans (like me) clearly respond to clickbait.

I also dig Halle’s leftist perspective in general. By all means let us address his list of racial inequities!

At the end of the day, though, I just can’t really accept anyone weighing in on jazz without proving that they actually love and care about the music first. In my view, musicians like Joe Henderson and Louis Hayes have never gotten the credit they deserve. Halle inadvertently reinforces the importance of JALC (an organization Halle seems to disapprove of) by fumbling around in this amateur fashion. Can you imagine the rage Wynton Marsalis has privately felt during a lifetime of trying to convince white establishment that this music deserves a proper platform and a proper elucidation?

—

Louis Hayes is still around: Perhaps Halle could talk to Hayes about jazz, race, and politics. Now that would be an interesting read.

I see from Twitter that today is Sonny Clark’s birthday…

Sam Stephenson’s pieces in the Paris Review have the most information on Clark extant (one, two). “One day a book,” Sam says: Let’s hope so.

By happy accident I transcribed some Sonny Clark yesterday on the plane. Dexter Gordon’s Go is justly famous. Throughout the whole date, Clark, Butch Warren, and Billy Higgins set up a groove that just won’t quit.

On “Second Balcony Jump,” Clark plays some immortal rhythm changes.

I took down only the first two choruses, a really marvelous mixture of blues and search. (The third chorus always seems like a mistake, like he has to keep going in order to preserve the exquisite take. I might be wrong, though.)

It was probably only happenstance that James Baldwin called his famous short story “Sonny’s Blues.” The biographical details of the “Sonny” in Baldwin’s tale don’t match Clark’s. Still, the short story and the real life story go together extremely well.

(Update: Ahem. There is no fourth bar of rest! Also there’s a wrong note in bar 59. Please blame my copyist.)

New(ish) recordings of note:

Eric Revis In Memory of Things Yet Seen Wow, a really fun listen! Great tunes and a beautifully mysterious line-up: Darius Jones, Bill McHenry, and Chad Taylor, with Branford Marsalis on two tracks. Frequently the reference is the kind of blistering avant-garde music from the 60's Leroi Jones dubbed "New Black Music." But I haven't enjoyed a record made in that style so much as this one in years. Truthfully the compositional element trumps freedom, and on some tracks the horns don't even improvise. Revis's provocative and groovy bass is recorded well; the production overall is excellent. Branford sounds great in this context. It's more standard turf for Darius and Bill, and when they intertwine both pay attention to building a statement, not just blowing their brains out. Chad Taylor is a relatively new name for me; I'm paying attention as of now.

Bill's group with Eric, Orrin Evans, and Andrew Cyrille is at the Village Vanguard starting tonight. Cut and pasted from the website:

June 24 – June 29
BILL McHENRY
Bill McHenry-sax, Andrew Cyrille-d,
With:
Orrin Evans-p, Eric Revis-b (Tuesday, Wednesday)
Duo: Bill McHenry & Andrew Cyrille (Thursday)
Ben Monder-gtr, Reid Anderson-b (Friday & Saturday)
David Bryant-p, Jonathan Michel-b (Sunday)

Johnathan Blake Gone, But Not Forgotten Another seriously entertaining date. Who doesn't want to hear Mark Turner and Chris Potter try to cut each other in a bare bones situation? Actually the superb repertoire choices ensure that the testosterone stays at a managable level: Johnathan has selected pieces by recently departed masters Charles Fambrough, Trudy Pitts, Sid Simmons, Cedar Walton, Jim Hall, Mulgrew Miller, Paul Motian, Frank Foster, Frank Wess and Eddie Harris. Nifty arrangements with a very full sound despite the absence of piano. In this case I have to fault the production a bit, for Ben Street's bass really should be louder. Very swinging drumming and nice notes by David Adler, though. The standout track for me so far is "Firm Roots," I'm tempted to transcribe both Mark and Chris burning through this famous steeplechase.

Hiroko Sasaki Debussy Preludes The most unusual thing about Hiroko's recording – which is technically and musically excellent by any standard – is the instrument, a 1873 Pleyel. The sonority is grainier and more intimate than usual, and makes these familiar works sound new. "Historically informed performance practice" is one of the most exciting areas of classical music, and naturally sonority is one of the most important elements in that voyage of discovery.

That said, if you don't know the Debussy Preludes, than this wonderful recording is still a good place to start. (That's not true of all historical instrument recordings I've heard.)

When Sarah Deming interviewed Hiroko a few years ago for Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, I especially enjoyed this exchange: 

Sarah: What does classical music have to teach us in the 21st century?

Hiroko: You tell me!  Actually, I think about this quite a bit.  Sometimes it feels so silly to me, everyone playing the same old repertoire that has already been played by millions of people.  It’s not like the old days, when recordings were not readily available, and people had to go to a concert to hear music, and the performers were closer, culturally, to the composers.  Or the really old days, when the performers were the composers.  Having said that, these are great works of art that have survived the test of time. We can always go back to them and be nourished.  I often notice that my impressions of a certain historical time and place are quite vivid, though they are informed almost entirely by music. Classical music takes people to different places in space and in time.

…Something similar happened with the cylinder phonographs that the merry matrons from France brought with them as a substitute for the antiquated hand organs and that for a time had serious effects on the livelihood of the band of musicians. At first curiosity increased the clientele on the forbidden street and there was even word of respectable ladies who disguised themselves as workers in order to observe the novelty of the phonograph from first hand, but from so much and such close observation they soon reached the conclusion that it was not an enchanted mill as everyone had thought and as the matrons had said, but a mechanical trick that could not be compared with something so moving, so human, and so full of everyday truth as a band of musicians. It was such a serious disappointment that when phonographs became so popular that there was one in every house they were not considered objects for amusement for adults but as something good for children to take apart.

– One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (1967)

…The Library, formerly the Library of Congress, but no one calls it that anymore. Most people are not entirely clear on what the word “congress” means. And even the word “library” is getting hazy. It used to be a place full of books, mostly old ones. Then they began to include videotapes, records, and magazines. Then all of the information got converted into machine-readable form, which is to say, ones and zeros. And as the number of media grew, the material became more up to date, and the methods for searching the library became more and more sophisticated, it approached the point where there was no substantive difference between the Library of Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency. Fortuitously, this happened just as the government was falling apart anyway. So they merged and kicked out a big fat stock offering.

– Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson (1992)

Sun Ra will be 100 years old as of tomorrow. The event I’m most curious is the 100 sax players in Chicago. Tootie Heath told us a story about Ra recently: Right before being pushed in the back of a police cruiser following a bust for possession of marijuana, Herman Blount turned, looked the arresting officer right in the eye, and said, “This is the unfriendliest planet I’ve ever been on.”

Recent passings include:

Steve Backer, a record executive responsible for documenting so much vital and thorny jazz. Steve Smith has a good post that includes contributions from Anthony Braxton and David Sokol.

Herb Wong, whose Palo Alto and Blackhawk record labels turned out several important mainstream discs at a time when that music didn’t have many worthy venues in America. There’s a photo of Wong with Duke Ellington and some stories from musicians in Gabe Meline’s memorial essay.

Fred Ho, the legendary activist and baritone saxophonist. Kyle Gann has an interesting take; Ben Ratliff’s obit is excellent.

Joe Wilder, sweet-toned trumpeter from jazz’s golden era. Mark Stryker pointed me in the direction of this fascinating interview by Keith Winking. I want to hear that Alec Wilder trumpet sonata played by Joe Wilder. It’s hard to find; from what I can tell, Milton Kaye is the pianist, who I once visited in his apartment next to Carnegie Hall. Kaye was then in his late 80’s and not playing much, but that didn’t stop him from running though Moszkowski’s “Guitarre” in marvelously high-handed fashion.

—-

TBP just played the new SF JAZZ for the first time. It was extremely well run and a lot of fun all around; congratulations to Randall Kline and team for making the big building happen.

There’s no doubt that the future of American jazz is the patronage system. The latest financial bequests from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation include an astonishing collection of our best and brightest. Since it is so rough out there, these kinds of transfusions are becoming essential to keeping the music alive.

JALC and SF JAZZ are just the beginning; probably every major American city will have its dedicated non-profit jazz space eventually. (UPDATE: A few hours after posting, a Blog Supreme tweeted this article about the new space in St. Louis by Kevin C. Johnson. Of course I know the Jazz at St. Louis people, they are great.)

When enjoying the benefits of societal largesse, is up to the musicians themselves to keep the art form rooted in private folklore. 

—-

Vijay Iyer has benefitted from the patronage system. I’m so impressed that he uses his ever-brightening platform to speak truth to power. In the speech to Yale’s Asian American alumni, “Our Complicity with Excess,” Vijay just goes in and dismantles it all beautifully:

And as we continue to consider, construct and develop our trajectories as Americans, I am also constantly mindful of what it means to be complicit with a system like this country, with all of its structural inequalities, its patterns of domination, and its ghastly histories of slavery and violence.

Many of us are here because we’ve become successful in that very context. That’s how we got into Yale, by being voted most likely to succeed; and that may be what emboldened some of us to show our faces here this weekend, because we actually have something to show for ourselves, that somehow in the years since we first dined at the Alternate Food Line we’ve managed to carve a place for ourselves in the landscape of America. Whether you attribute it to some mysterious triple package or to your own Horatio Alger story, to succeed in America is, somehow, to be complicit with the idea of America—which means that at some level you’ve made peace with its rather ugly past.

Bravo. If I am ever in a position of addressing a group of students at an Ivy League college, I hope I have this kind of courage.

—-

Vijay’s quote from Martin Luther King is obviously admirable, and certainly a good thing to tell students:

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?”

But Vijay and I might see the place of activism in jazz a little differently. To me, even radical musicians like Monk, Coltrane, and Ornette – even Albert Ayler – seem essentially to be about about pitches, rhythms, tones, and private emotions. Yes, they all argue that we need to make a better world, but that is a subliminal transmission, not the overt argument.

There are great jazz activists, of course. The greatest was probably Charles Mingus, who wore contentious raiment with superb grandeur. Archie Shepp is another; indeed, when he settles down and plays bebop and standards it can seem like something is missing. My idol Mal Waldron says somewhere that jazz was always protest music, and that idea surely helped him ignore conventional piano influences like Hank Jones and Red Garland when creating his mature doom-and-drone style. Oliver Lake can place beautiful politically-themed punches: Oliver recently broke into spoken word at Smalls, which was was thrilling and chilling; some old white people got up and left the club instantaneously. Max Roach made some of the best overtly civil-rights era records, although in the 70’s he seemed to get stuck somewhere and have trouble broadening out into a more generous vision the way Mingus did with Let My Children Hear Music.

In truth, many of my jazz heroes were and are essentially free-spirited gangsters, even Max and Mingus. (Perhaps even especially Max and Mingus.) I’d reject any suggestion that most great jazz musicians lived to the Yo-Yo Ma code Vijay cites, “A life in the arts is a life of service.”

Service was optional. Service was up to you, the listener.

—

I’ve complained about the New York Times obit for Cedar Walton by William Yardley before in the “Critic’s Blues” section of “Cedar’s Blues”.

Fred Ho’s New York Times obit was twice as long as Walton’s. Probably the main reason is simply that Ratliff commands the material in a way Yardley doesn’t. But another reason may be that Ho’s lectures about the oppression of Afro-Asian culture smoothly translate to a newspaper column, while only jazz insiders will ever really know how great Cedar Walton was.

Vijay namechecks Fred Ho in his speech but doesn’t mention any uncontroversial straight-ahead masters like Cedar Walton. That’s easy to understand; Vijay is talking to a specific audience in a special circumstance. Since he’s a jazz pianist who knows his onions, I can’t imagine that Vijay would be any happier than I am with the implication of the two NY Times obituaries: “Cedar Walton is a lesser musician than Fred Ho because social justice wasn’t Cedar’s overt message.”

—

Much of what Vijay says is simply true: racism exists. Activism is required. Racism exists. If you love jazz, you should fight for racial equality.

I was rather stunned to read Willard Jenkins’s article about William Shadd, “The First African-American Piano Manufacturer.” It never occurred to me, in all these years of playing the piano and listening to all the great black pianists, that there wouldn’t have been some black-made pianos somewhere. I can’t wait to put my hands on a Shadd and try it out. 

—

UPDATE: Vijay tweeted, “thanks for linking my speech. you might try checking out my music before talking about the role of activism or service in it.” Whoops! It’s true, I might have mentioned the man’s music. I’m very out of the habit of reviewing peers (other than buddies) on DTM, I get so many press requests already. Vijay let me off the hook with second tweet, “‘I admit I don’t know all of Vijay’s work as well as I should, mainly because I don’t want to be influenced by it.’ – @ethan_iverson,” quoting me from an earlier DTM post. I could then respond, truthfully, “[laughter] I’m worried I sound too much like you already! I admit I listened to MUTATIONS and really dug it.” Vijay: “thanks. so do you hear the “place” of activism in that music as “subliminal” or “overt”? or neither?” Me: “I liked that the first solo piece was clearly the Monk-Randy Weston-Muhal axis, a nod to Afro before ‘ECM classical’ began. kudos.”

SECOND UPDATE: There was more back and forth between us on Twitter, including Vijay calling me out on an embarrassing grammar mistake that is now fixed. A memorable tweet of his was, “anyway I find it difficult to make assumptions about what the dead were thinking, especially those who weren’t often asked.”

Which is of course a very good point. They almost never were asked. The one place I can think of offhand where they were is Arthur Taylor’s Notes and Tones. I’ve been looking through it right now and A.T. brings up politics and protest to almost every single musician. It seems to me that most of them want to keep it separate, even in the wake of the Civil Rights era (some praise the Black Panthers). 

Art Taylor: What do you think about musicians putting political aspects in their music?

Elvin Jones: There’s so much politics, and politics can be such a subtle sort of subject. The musicians who do that think there will be some advantage in it for themselves. Either you’re going to be a musician or a politician. 

Not everyone agrees:

Art Taylor: Have you felt any kind of protest in your music?

Don Byas: I’m protesting now. If you listen you will notice I’m always trying to make my sound stronger and more brutal than ever. I shake the walls of the joints I play in. I’m always trying to sound brutal without losing the beauty, in order to impress people and wake them up. That’s protest, of course it is.

There’s lots more in Notes in Tones – if you are interested in this topic, it’s a must read. Just one more from Ron Carter:

All of a sudden black-studies programs have been getting hot. Everybody is a black music authority. A lot of them are not, as you know.

This special project was initiated by Aaron Greenwald of Duke Performances at Duke University and premiered March 2011 as On Sacred Ground: The Bad Plus plays Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring with video by Cristina Guadalupe and Noah Hutton featuring dancer Julie Worden.

Photos of the first performance in Durham, NC by Darryl Pitt:

The Mark Morris Dance Group premiered Mark’s dance Spring, Spring, Spring with live TBP in June 2013. The joyous atmosphere of Mark’s choreography gave the band license to relax a bit: After all, none of us want to actually kill any virgins.

Photos of the premiere in Berkeley, CA by Peg Skorpinski:

In March 2014, TBP released the studio recording The Rite of Spring on Sony Masterworks with an art package by David King.

In all of the above, the prelude is my pre-recorded piano with electronic orchestration by Reid Anderson. Beginning with the second movement, TBP plays down the Stravinsky score with minimal improvisation.

Interviews: Jason Rabin with me in 2011. Juan Rodriguez with Reid in 2014.

—

Related DTM: Mixed Meter Mysterium.

—

I’ve listened to many orchestral performances of the Rite, including Stravinsky’s in 1960, Bernstein, Boulez, and Rattle. The one I ended up enjoying the most is less familiar: Neeme Järvi conducting Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. (The couplings, Requiem Canticles and Canticum Sacrum, are also fabulous.)

While other valuable texts are cited in Mixed Meter Mysterium, Peter Hill’s Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring was the most helpful single volume resource when learning the notes. Hill offers bar-by-bar analysis, historical context, digests of others’ criticism, and compares several recordings.

When you are done reading the book, you can listen to Hill’s excellent recording with Benjamin Frith. Of the other two-pianist recordings I’ve heard, the astonishingly virtuosic Ashkenazy-Gavrilov rendition has pride of place.

There are several interesting solo piano transcriptions of The Rite of Spring. I managed to hear or look at most of them: thank you Dag Achatz, Sam Raphling, Vladimir Leyetchkiss, and Vicky Chow for the inspiration.

I especially admire the transcription by Serhiy Salov, who treats the score with freedom in the tradition of Lizst and Godowsky. (For that matter, it is in the tradition of Stravinsky’s own Three Movements from Petrushka.)

The Rite has long been an inspiration to jazz and rock musicians. I’m aware of recorded excerpts by Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, Hubert Laws, Don Sebesky, the Dylan Howe/Will Butterworth Duo, E.S.T., and Jamie Baum. The complete work has been tracked by Larry Coryell, the Butchershop Quartet, and Darryl Brenzel and the Mobtown Modern Big Band. There must be others as well.

For that matter, the Rite has been played by other classical ensembles: I once saw the Kronos Quartet play a quintet version with pianist Margaret Kampmeier, and in The Apollonian Clockwork: On Stravinsky by Louis Andriessen and Elmer Schönberger there is a fascinating picture of the four piano version created by Maarten Bon.

By the way, just because I anthologized my personal journey of Rite research here, that doesn’t mean I directed Reid and Dave in creating the TBP arrangement. As always, everyone in the band does what they wants, and the arrangement was a collective process.

—

Reviews of TBP recording include Bradley Bambarger in DB

and

Jon Pareles in NY Times: “Jazz-classical crossover is often a collision or a dilution. This is a true connection, one that makes the piece newly vivid. As with the original, every instant is tense.”

Chris Barton in LA Times: “The Bad Plus mostly set aside improvisation in an effort to capture Stravinsky’s modernist vision, but in some ways it’s never sounded freer.”

Jon Garelick in Boston Globe: “This stripped-down ‘Rite’ offers another way to hear the piece, and another understanding of why it’s remained new.”

Fred Kaplan in Stereophile: “What really comes through in this Rite of Spring (and I’m not the first to say so) is the pulse—something that few orchestral conductors can sustain through the storms that this half-hour-plus piece throws their way at every curve.”

Dan Bilawsky in AAJ: “This is history and modern day life coming together as one. It’s a recording for the ages.”

Will Layman in PopMatters:  “The work here is impeccable and astonishing. The piece, played through with both precision and joy, has a natural feeling that denies any suggestion that this kind of tightrope act—Jazz Trio Plays Stravinsky Note-for-Note!—is a gimmick or mere schtick.”

Roger C. Miller in the Talkhouse: “The Bad Plus has obviously honed their ensemble playing, and this is clear in their seamless and lively performance of a very complex composition.  They ain’t just reading the notes, that’s for sure.”

—

A big undertaking requires many moving parts. Very special thanks to Aaron Greenwald. Also thanks to Todd Walker, Bill Bragin, Cristina Guadalupe, Noah Hutton, Julie Worden, James Diers, Jeanna Disney, Darryl Pitt, Chris Hinderaker, Bradford Swanson, Mark Morris, Nancy Umanoff, Pete Rende, Wülf Muller, Chuck Mitchell, and Jason Tors.

[UPDATED.]

In Spring 1965, the classic Trane quartet with Tyner, Garrison and Jones played quite a bit at the Half Note. Bootlegs of the material – mostly radio broadcasts – have circulated for decades. Indeed, an illegal three-LP set from Audio Fidelity that included some of those tunes was my very first Coltrane album, purchased for a few bucks from the mail order vendor Publishers Clearing House.

According to the Tom Lord discography (verified by David Wild) the four Half Note sessions are:

WABC FM radio broadcast, "Half Note", New York, March 19, 1965
"Lonnie's Lament" 
Announcement 
"Chim Chim Cheree"
"Impressions" 
Announcement

Live "Half Note Cafe", New York, March 26, 1965
"One Down One Up" 
"Afro Blue"

WABC FM radio broadcast, "Half Note", New York, April 2, 1965
Announcement 
"Untitled Original" AKA "Creation" (ei: I've also heard it called "Chromaticon") 
"I Want to Talk About You" 
"Afro Blue" (incomplete)

WABC FM radio broadcast, "Half Note", New York, May 7, 1965
"Song of Praise"
"My Favorite Things"

—

In 2005 Impulse put out Live at the Half Note: One Down, One Up, consisting of the second and fourth sessions. 

At the time, in my review for DownBeat, I complained about how they didn't release the all the Half Note material. Several of the other tracks are simply essential. Maybe someday everything can get a proper release, although that moment may have been lost as YouTube get more and more rare content. Some of the most highly sought trade items among collectors are now just a click away.

"Creation" is remarkably fast and intense. A one off; for me even greater than "One Down, One Up."

"Impressions" is also really fast and has an astounding McCoy solo. For once he plays longer than Trane.

I'm most excited to find "I Want to Talk About You," previous only obtainable to my ears by going to Billy Hart's house and listening to a Japanese collector's cassette tape marked DO NOT DUPLICATE. Over the years I've looked for it on various pirated releases, but it was always another "I Want to Talk About You" from an earlier Half Note set.

Again, McCoy takes one of his best solos, but unlike "Impressions," where Coltrane sounds a bit diffident in response,  on "I Want to Talk About You" Coltrane downshifts into a stunning deconstruction while the band churns away. Usually Coltrane's cadenza was the highlight of this tune, but this time there's no cadenza: he's said it all already.

[UPDATE:  The whole April 2 set is up with better sound and pitch here.]

—

From later in 1965 (I believe, I can't find "official" documentation anywhere) McCoy plays "On Green Dolphin Street" with Scotty Holt and Jack DeJohnette. 

I'm listening to a lot of McCoy at the moment, probably working towards a future DTM post. This "On Green Dolphin" ranks easily as one of his greatest trio performances. 

Are there any more tunes from the date? There's also some live stuff with Henry Grimes and DeJohnette from around the same time I see listed occasionally…

[UPDATE: Yes! Here is "Summertime" and a C Minor blues.]

It would be nice to put out a well-produced "rare 60's McCoy" album while the master is still around. My services as liner note scribe are offered gratis if the right label has the interest and clearance to do a good job on that worthy project.

I saw Ralph Penland twice in high school, with the Freddie Hubbard quintet (Don Braden, Benny Green, Jeff Chambers) in Minneapolis and the Don Menza quartet (Cedar Walton, Tony Dumas) in New Orleans. I already had a big record collection, and was impressed that there were such great players out there that were veterans but not yet a familiar name.

Penland was a West Coast musician, and therefore automatically comfortable with all kinds of genres. Unlike some musicians with similar careers and interests, though, Penland was truly convincing when dealing out serious swing.

There are 100 Penland sessions in the Lord discography, including dates with Hubbard, Hubert Laws, Joe Henderson, Eddie Harris, Nancy Wilson, Chet Baker, Dianne Reeves, Kirk Whalum, Stanley Clarke, Etta James, and many others. I’d like to hear some of the West Coast jazz dates led by players like Bob Cooper, Conte Candoli, Andy Simpkins, and James Leary, I’m sure they all benefit from having Penland behind the kit.

Penland was on Charlie Rouse’s last live album, Epistrophy, and on Bunky Green’s gentle Feelin’ the Pain. But the Penland I know best are several piano trio albums: The discs with George Cables are solid top to bottom. Two records with Marc Copland and Dieter Ilg have a playful and experimental sound, with Penland playing out more than usual. And a couple of tracks on Buddy Montgomery’s So Why Not? with Ron Carter are among Buddy’s very best recordings on piano.

Back in the heyday of hard bop, when everyone played a similar folkloric ride cymbal beat, it was up to the drummer to make sure his pattern was distinctive.

A quarter note is a quarter note is a quarter-note: Al Harewood’s version was effortless and Caribbean-inflected. His left hand coughed and bumped. Of course the bass drum was feathered just right. There was probably no moment of his professional career as a musician where Al Harewood wasn’t swinging.

Harewood can be heard on the following albums, all of which are lifted up by his beautiful beat. The 60's music is the most famous: the many albums with Horace Parlan and George Tucker show that unit was a canonical rhythm section. Later, through Betty Carter, Harewood linked up with Norman Simmons, another musician with whom he shared similar ideals and taste. Completed by Lisle Atkinson, that unit was canonical too.

Jay Jay Johnson & Kai Winding Jay & Kai Quintet (1954)

Ahmed Abdul-Malik Jazz Sahara (1958)

Ahmed Abdul-Malik East Meets West (1959)

Curtis Fuller Blues-ette (1959)

Benny Golson Gone With Golson (1959)

Lou Donaldson Sunny Side Up (1959)

Horace Parlan Movin' And Groovin' (1960)

Horace Parlan Us Three (1960)

Stanley Turrentine Look Out! (1960)

Horace Parlan Speakin' My Piece (1960)

Lou Donaldson Midnight Sun (1960)

Horace Parlan Headin' South (1960)

Booker Ervin That's It! (1961)

Stanley Turrentine Jubilee Shouts (1961)

Stanley Turrentine Up At Minton's (1961)

Horace Parlan On The Spur Of The Moment (1961)

Dexter Gordon Doin' Allright (1961)

Horace Parlan Up And Down (1961)

Grant Green Remembering (1961)

Ike Quebec Heavy Soul (1961)

Stanley Turrentine A Chip Off The Old Block (1963)

Grant Green Idle Moments (1963)

Bobby Hutcherson The Kicker (1963)

Betty Carter Finally – Betty Carter (1969)

David Amram No More Walls (1971)

George Benson Quartet (1973)

Norman Simmons Ramira The Dancer (1976)

Horace Parlan Frank-ly Speaking (1977)

Lisle Atkinson Bass Contra Bass (1978)

Norman Simmons Midnight Creeper (1979)

Norman Simmons I'm … The Blues (1980)

Buddy Tate/Al Grey Just Jazz (1984)

Dick Katz In High Profile (1984)

Norman Simmons 13Th Moon (1985)

Lee Konitz Ideal Scene (1986)

Benny Carter Cookin' At Carlos I (1988)

Curtis Fuller Blues-ette Part II (1993)

Joshua Breakstone Remembering Grant Green (1993)

Howard Alden Your Story – The Music Of Bill Evans (1994)

Louis Smith There Goes My Heart (1997)