Kenny Garrett - 'Triology'

 

In the ’80s, Kenny Garrett was part of a group of young, talented musicians known as The Young Lions and were heralded as the “saviors” of “classic” jazz.  The Young Lions returned to the foundations of jazz, playing bebop and music from the Great American Songbook, classic swing in some cases, and even melding swing with modern styles to invigorate dance forms from the big band era.  The music was coined as neo-bop, post-bop and even neoclassical jazz.  The essential aspects of the music were rooted in the early parts of jazz language.  Since then, Kenny has also dabbled in hip-hop and world music, which sometimes (not always), at least to my ears, leaves much to be desired. But that's just my personal taste.

Kenny has an impressive professional resume, starting with the Duke Ellington Orchestra (under the leadership of Mercer Ellington), Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Woody Shaw, Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, and many others. Kenny started leading his own groups in 1984.

'Trilogy' was released in 1995, and finds Kenny in a trio format that put the focus squarely on his playing to create all the harmonic and melodic tension. With Charnett Moffett and Kiyoshi Kitagawa alternating on bass, and Brian Blade on drums.

 

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Sonny Rollins - 'The Complete RCA Victor Recordings'

 This 6CD set has all of Sonny's recordings for RCA, including the complete contents of 'The Bridge', 'What's New', 'Our Man In Jazz', 'Sonny Meets Hawk', 'Now's the Time' and 'The Standard Sonny Rollins', the three selections originally included in the sampler '3 for Jazz', and 11 alternate takes only previously released on the French album 'The Alternative Rollins'.

Less known than Rollins' earlier Prestige and Riverside records and the slightly later Impulse albums, his output for RCA was recorded right after he came back from an extended sabbatical. The music on 'The Bridge' (which co-stars guitarist Jim Hall) is the most famous of these dates.

Sonny became increasingly interested in the avant-garde during the era, and he used two of Ornette Coleman's sidemen (trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Billy Higgins) in his group for a period.  On 'Sonny Meets Hawk', Sonny challenged his idol Coleman Hawkins by playing as outside as possible (Hawkins responded well).  

Other musicians heard on the recordings include bassists Bob Cranshaw, Ron Carter and Henry Grimes, drummers Ben Riley and Mickey Roker, pianists Paul Bley and Herbie Hancock and (on a couple of numbers) cornetist Thad Jones.  However, Sonny is the main star throughout the adventurous and sometimes eccentric performances, coming up with many remarkable ideas, often rollicking with a pianoless rhythm section and in two cases taking duets with the congas of Candido. 

 
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Charles Tolliver - 'Mosaic Select 20'

 

This is an interesting Mosaic set, in that these recordings were not owned by Blue Note or any of Capitol's subsidiaries; they are owned by Charles Tolliver, and originally appeared on the Strata East label which he co-founded with the pianist on these dates, Stanley Cowell.  Strata East was a musician's label that recorded some of the greatest jazz music of the 1970s and was well distributed. (Unfortunately, with very few exceptions -- and a real comment on the record industry here in the U.S. -- the only way to procure most Strata East recordings on CD these days is from Japan.)  Most of these sides were cut live at Slug's Saloon, a legendary, long gone spot on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in a space now occupied by a chic bakery.   Slug's Saloon was the go-to joint for musicians who were still developing the "new thing" after Coltrane, who played regularly and collaborated with one another.  Its audience was hip and sophisticated and deeply interested in music that was current.  Charles Tolliver himself went all out to find more of the music recorded on these dates, and there are six selections, roughly a full CD, of completely unreleased music from the Slug's gigs. 

This 3CD Mosaic box set features the music from two Charles Tolliver concerts. The first concert was recorded live at Sluggs Saloon, in New York on 5/1/70. This concert fetures, Tolliver (trumpet), Cecil McBee (bass) Stanley Cowell (piano), and Jimmy Hopps (drums). The second concert was recorded live in Tokyo 12/7/73.  This show features Tolliver, Cowell, Clifford Barbaro (drums), and Clint Houston (bass).  The sound quality is just phenomenal.  In particular, the bass could not sound better. The two concerts feature some of Tolliver's most creative and exciting songs, as well as some great songwriting by McBee and Cowell.  The first show features some of the best playing I've heard from bassist McBee.  Pianist Stanley Cowell, but he provides both some excellent songwriting and playing on these two shows.  The style of the music is 1960s post bop with a tinge of soul jazz, hard bop, and avant-garde.   It is fairly similar in style to the work Charles did on Jackie Mclean's blue note recordings.  To my ears, this is hands down the best recording, with Charles Tolliver listed as the leader.

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Bill Evans - 'The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings'

I previously posted this story, a few years back, on SteveShark's blog, 'The Good Old Major's Hole'.

At the age of six in Brooklyn Heights, I started taking piano lessons, with Mrs. Giordano, a local middle-aged Italian-American woman, who taught music to children.  Mrs. Giordano scared the crap out of me, and I always thought she picked a funny business to go into, as she hated children.  The lessons were not private, so every Saturday morning, I was with three other kids: identical twin sisters, and a strange boy whose name was Jacob, who always wore a bow tie. If you looked at Jacob, he became agitated, and would scream at the top of his lungs, “WHAT?”.  The twins were named Ava and Grace, they wore the same outfits, and had the same hairstyle.  They also played this game where they would switch identities, so when Mrs. Giordano told Ava it was her turn to play, she’d say, “I’m not Ava, I’m Grace” and Grace would follow suit.  This usually caused Mrs. Giordano to go red in the face, and curse to herself in Italian.

After six or so years, and several teachers later, I could sight-read sheet music, and play things I heard on the radio by ear.  The last of those teachers was Miss Eckert, who was retiring to Florida, and recommend a piano teacher named Mark, whom she described to my mother as “A colorful character”.

So I started taking lessons with Mark, who was an early 60s hipster complete with goatee, he had a very cool apartment, and owned hundreds upon hundreds of records that were scattered all over his apartment.  The first time I was around people smoking weed, I recognized the smell from Mark’s apartment, where it always seemed to be lingering in the air, along with Camel cigarettes that he chain-smoked. My Mother thought Mark was a creep, I thought he was dreamy.

During one lesson, Mark told me “Don’t play the melody as written, instead, play a variation of it, improvise, play what you feel and don’t worry if it doesn’t sound good”.  So I did my best with mixed results.  Mark told me it was good for a first try, and said my light touch reminded him of Jazz pianist Bill Evans.  With that, Mark searched through plies of records, and finally found the Bill Evans LP “Sunday at the Village Vanguard”, put it on his turntable, and it blew my mind.

 

Bill Evans records led me to Miles Davis, which led me to Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk. One record led to another, so on and so on, all of which led to my lifelong love affair with Jazz.
 
Years later, in 1968 and 69, during summer breaks from Caltech, my husband Jerry (then boyfriend) and I spent our days on Hermosa Beach in Los Angeles County, surfing, smoking Michoacán, drinking Olympia beer, and dropping “Orange Sunshine”.  Our nights were spent in the cocktail lounge of the Casa del Mar hotel in Santa Monica, where I did my lounge act on piano, while Jerry mixed cocktails.  Every set I played opened and closed with “Gloria's Step”, the first track on “Sunday at the Village Vanguard”.

 Bill Evans’ “The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings” was released as a 3 CD boxed set in 2005. It was recorded on June 25, 1961, and documents each of their five sets from the final day of a summer gig at the Village Vanguard.  Its influence has spanned several generations of musicians, and will continue to do so.  

The Bill Evans Trio’s rhythm section was Scott LaFaro on bass, who, as you will hear, was a phenomenal bassist and writer, who played with an amazing fluidity, velocity, and melodic inventiveness on his instrument.  Tragically, Scott would die in a car accident ten days after this gig.  He was just twenty-three-years old.  On drums, and equally phenomenal, was Paul Motian, who had a style that challenged your idea of traditional timekeeping, but could lay it down simply and solidly with the best of them.  He often blended both approaches within one song, showing that traditional and avant-garde jazz could co-exist.  He would continue recording until 2010, and died in 2011 from Myelodysplastic syndrome. 

Bill Evans is one of my favorite musicians, and one of the most influential and tragic figures of the post-bop jazz piano.  He was known for his highly nuanced touch, the clarity of the feeling content of his music and his reform of the chord voicing system pianists used.  Bill recorded over fifty albums as leader, received five Grammy Awards, and played on Miles Davis’ breakthrough album “Kind of Blue”.  

Bill Evans died on September 15, 1980, at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.  He was 51 years old.

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