The Magnificent Voice Of Arthur Lee Simpkins

 

The Magnificent Voice Of Arthur Lee Simpkins

The Magnificent Voice Of Arthur Lee Simpkins
Miranda Hi-Fi Records
ALBUM 1917 Miranda Records, Lexington, Kentucky

From the back cover: A REVIEW: For a long time, I have heard the name Arthur Lee Simpkins. These hearings concerned a wonderful singer. Several times I have wondered that I had never heard him sing, and asked several impresarios why he had never been in our town. When Lou Walters told me that he booked Simpkins I looked forward to hearing him sing. Friday night was the long-awaited night. I realize perfectly well that it is hardly fair to an artist to go to his show without an open mind, for I was expecting great things.

We were unhappy when we were advised that Simpkins was under the care of his physician, and might not make the performance. But he arrived. We watched the excellent Latin Quarter show with some restlessness, for we wanted to hear Simpkins. And then, he walked on stage. We immediately fell a victim of his charm, for here is a modest and a humble man. For those of you who may not know, he is colored. He grew up in Augusta, Ga., where the townsfolks, recognizing his great talents, got him a scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music.

Ladies and gentlemen, without fear of contradiction, I have never heard a singer that is more talented, or who has a finer voice than has Arthur Lee Simpkins.

I don't know how many of my readers remember the great John McCormack, the Irish tenor. I was putty in his hands. He had the ability to weave a spell over me. As a youngster, I followed him around to hear him sing, like a stage door Johnnie. When he was in theaters, I would sit through show after show.

I have now found another singer who has also been blessed by Almighty God, whose vocal chords have received the magic touch of the magic wand of Him who dishes out talent. And what a wonderful choice it was when the blessed was this modest man, probably the best ambassador for the colored race I have yet met.

To attempt to describe his voice is like trying to tell you of the tones of a perfectly matched set of bells. Words can't do it. You have to hear Arthur Lee Simpkins to get even a vague idea of what I am trying to tell you.

Simpkins has all the range and tone quality that was possessed by the late John McCormack, but he has much more volume. I sat there and didn't believe my own ears. I looked around me at the customers and I saw beautiful young women with their mouths open in amazement, and near disbelief. I watched staid and calloused ringsiders applaud, when for years they had made a specialty of sitting on their hands. I heard enthusiastic ovation after enthusiastic ovation given him at the conclusion of each number he sang, of the kind and quality which is seldom heard in a night club. – Paul M. Bruun "Over Miami"

Diane
I Wonder, I Wonder
Marie
This Is The Real Thing
Them There Eyes
Down By The Riverside
I Long For You
Aurora 
My Fate
Restless
For Old Times Sake
I Resolve

Krontjong Music From Indonesia

 

Djiko untuang

Krontjong Music From Indonesia
Song And Sound The World Around
Philips 831 229 PY stereo
1973

From the back cover:  The word "krontjong" has three different meanings that are, however, connected with each other. Firstly it is the name of a typically Indonesian stringed instrument that resembles the Hawaiian ukelele.

This instrument gave its name to a kind of music that again is typically Indonesian, the "krontjong music," which has been known in Indonesia since the 15th century.

Every song composed for interpretation in this style is also called a "krontjong."

Krontjong music developed from Western musical elements but native musical sources like "gamelan music" also exercised their influence on its origin. (Listen to Philips 831 209 PY - "Gamelan music from Java."

When the Indonesians became familiar with Western musical instruments, they looked for those that came nearest in sound to the classic instruments used with gamelan music.

This resulted in the choice of these substitutes:

The violin for the "Rebab," a classic two-string instrument, for the melody.

The flute for the "Suling," made of bamboo and different in scale from the modern flute, also for the melody.

The guitar for the "Sitar," a classical touched-instrument. The guitar is twanged in a special way and produces a "fill-in" throughout the whole song.

The krontjong itself for the "Kenong," a classic percussion instru- ment made of copper, that produces the beat.

The banjo or mandolin for the "Ritjik," another percussion instrument, to produce the counter-beat.

The cello for the "Kendang," a drum played on both ends, or the "Rebana," a one-sided drum covered with an animal skin, most probably of Arabian origin. The cello is not played with a bow but is plucked in a special way, producing syncopations while keeping up a steady rhythm.

The bass for the "Gong."

Making use of these instruments and, the Western barmonic system, the Indonesians created the Krontjong style, primarily for entertainment.

The Krontjong music is very dear to them as it very often reflects their mood, be it the cheerful or the sentimental side. It has become the musical language of all the inhabitants of this beauti- ful archipelago.

The programme starts with KRONTJONG MORITSKO, a tradi- tional song which has only a melody: it is up to the singer to improvise on the text.

NINA BOBO is a lullaby. The mother, usually carrying her baby in a "slendang" (shawl) on her back, sings it as she rocks the child very gently. The song is taught to little girls who want to rock their dolls to sleep, and later they, in turn, pass it on to their daughters.

STAMBUL DJAMPANG is a traditional song in which the verses are chosen according to the mood of the singer.

BULAN PURNAMA (full moon) is a song depicting a tropical night when the moon is in her full glory. Two people promise each other to be together for ever.

KRONTJONG MAWAR SEKUNTUM means "Pretty rosebud" and the melody gives the singer wide scope for personal verses to express love for another.

RUDJAK ULEG is the name of an Indonesian fruit salad. The song, full of humour, tells how tasty it is.

DJIKO UNTUANG, which opens Side 2, is a popular West Sumatran song in which the singer tells how she feels when she is lucky enough to be in love.

NASIB TAMBANGAN, which comes from Central Kalimantan, tells of the fate of a ferry-boatman who dearly loved his work of taking people across the river.

RONDA MALAM is about a night-watch organised by the inhabitants of a certain city quarter. By patrolling periodically criss-cross through the area, striking bamboo sticks rhythmically. the watchmen let the resting people know that all is well.

KRONTJONG AIR LAUT. Entitled "Ocean water," this is an instrumental piece, open to improvisation.

BENGAWAN SOLO is a song about the river Solo in Central Java which has always been an important means of communica- tion for the merchants. It passes many towns before it reaches the ocean.

KRONTJONG PENAWAR DUKA is another instrumental piece, designed this time to cheer up the depressed.

Bluegrass Music - Jack Lynch

 

Little Birdie

Bluegrass Music
Jack Lynch & The Miami Valley Boys
Jalyn Records - Dayton, Ohio
JJLP 121

From the back cover: Jack Lynch, was born September 13th, 1930, on a farm near Richmond, Ky. He has been interested in Bluegrass Music as long as he can remember. Jack has been active in several phases of show business. He has been an actor, promoter, disc jockey, recording artist and now is owner and president of Jalyn Records and Jaclyn Music. He sings lead and bass, however he doesn't specialize in vocalizing. He plays guitar, banjo, fiddle and bass.This album was recorded on several different sessions, using musicians and singers, that have played with Jack for the last several years. These artists include; Frank Wakefield, Roy Lee, Fred Spencer, Daniel Boone Centers, Bernard Gumm, Wilburn Hall and Lonnie Bolin.

It is my pleasure to recommend this fine album to you. – Ralph Stanley

Wildwood Flower
Little Birdie
Man Of Constant Sorrow

Shady Grove

All The Love I Had Is Gone
Hook And Line
Will You Miss Me
Whoa Mule Whoa
Tears On My Pillow
Cripple Creek
Cowboy Jack
Home Sweet Home

Tonight Only! - Dave Brubeck & Carmen McRae

 

Weep No More

Tonight Only!

The Dave Brubeck Quartet

Guest Star: Carmen McRae

Cover Photo: Columbia Record Studios - Henry Parker

Columbia Records CL 1609

Weep No More, Briar Bush, Paradiddle Joe and Strange Meadowlark were recorded in New York City on September 9, 1960. Melanctha and Tristesse were recorded December 14, and Talkin' and Walkin', Late Lament and Tonight Only on December 15

From the back cover: Tonight Only! brings together TheDave Brubeck Quartet and Carmen McRae, performing eight compositions by Dave and two members of his Quartet, saxophonist Paul Desmond and bass player Eugene Wright, an one fine jazz standard. The collaboration points up the remarkable lyric qualities of the Brubeck group, along with Carmen's uncommon talent for revealing the meaning of a song.

Dave and Carmen worked closely on the choice of the selections. Says Dave of this artistically stimulating project, "One afternoon Carmen came to our house and obligingly ran through half a dozen songs we had picked out for her to sing. I looked at my wife in amazement. We had never dreamed our songs could sound so good. Carmen has an instinctive, intuitive understanding of a lyric. She can generate an emotional impact seldom found in a popular song."

As in the Brubeck Quartet's album with Jimmy Rushing (CL 1553/CS 8385), collaboration with another superb musician produces an especially exciting program.

The first selection, Melanctha, is a blues from an opera-in-progress by Dave and Liz Blake, based on the story "Melanctha," from Gertrude Stein's book, "Three Lives." The song opens with the cries of Negro workmen calling "Melanctha! Melanctha! Melanctha!" Dave plays the verse and then the song moves into a 12-bar blues with different chord progressions.

Dave wrote Weep No More in 1945, and played and sang the song for his fellow Gls while in Europe. The tune made its first recorded appearance in the Columbia album "Brubeck Plays Brubeck" (CL 878). At Carmen's request, Dave hunted up his old sheet music and lyrics for this program.

'Talkin' and Walkin', as the name implies, makes its communication as it walks along, featuring a bass solo by composer-Quartet member Eugene Wright.

Briar Bush is a little folk sermon, with quotations from "Proverbs." The melody first appeared as the title piece in the Quartet's album, "Southern Scene" (CL 1439/CS 8253"). Lyrics were subsequently provided by Dave and his wife Lola. Carmen's remarkable performance brings this tribute from the composer: "Carmen has added even to my own understanding of the music."

Paradiddle Joe is a dialogue between Carmen and drummer Joe Morello, a driving new version of a jazz classic. This number was included at my suggestion.

Paul Desmond's composition Late Lament reflects his own sensitive lyricism. Brubeck's haunting Tristesse is the same mood, a melancholy ballad in Dave's most reflective style.

Strange Meadowlark, based on the notes of the meadowlark call, was originally an instrumental in the Quartet's lively experiments-in-rhythm album, "Time Out" (CL 1397/CS 8192*). Lyrics, by Mrs. Brubeck, explain the plight of a poor meadowlark who had to sing the blues after her mate flew south.

Dave wrote Tonight Only in collaboration with O. (for Original) Basil Johns. Dave's original Number One fan, Johns has been a devoted listener since 1946, when Dave was playing in San Francisco clubs. Original Basil Johns used to sit as close to the keyboard as possible, reacting to Dave's playing with a bewildering mixture of grunts, groans and laughs. They became fast friends. Basil, using his own tape ma- chine, was the first to record Dave. He has been present at many subsequent Brubeck recording sessions, by Dave's request, for his contagious enthusiasm helps to ease studio tension. This number is dedicated to Basil's wife. – Teo Macero

Dave Brubeck's remarkable influence on contemporary jazz is reflected in the enthusiasm his appearances arouse throughout the world. With his Quartet, Dave has appeared every- where from Carnegie Hall (with the New York Philharmonic and Leonard Bernstein in Howard Brubeck's Dia- logue for Jazz Combo and Symphony Orchestra heard on Columbia record CL 1466/CS 8257) to open-air platforms in the Middle East, and always to overflow audiences.

A consistent poll winner, both as pianist and as leader of the Quartet, Dave is also a prolific composer. He has written many of the Quartet's most popular numbers and has demon- strated his classical studies in a ballet, a string quartet, two piano works and numerous songs. As a spokesman for contemporary music Dave is as forceful a writer as he is at the keyboard.

Dave was born in Concord, California in 1920, the youngest of three sons. His mother was one of the leading piano teachers in the San Francisco area. Her three sons have distinguished themselves in the field of music, Henry, in musical education; Howard, as a composer, conductor and teacher; Dave, as a jazz pianist and composer.

Dave entered The College of the Pacific in 1938 to become a veterinarian. The Science Building and the Music Conservatory, however were closely situated on the campus; soon Brubeck was spending free hours in jam sessions with other students, or playing piano in Stockton night clubs. With the encouragement of J. Russell Bodley, a composition student of Nadia Boulanger, Dave decided to make music his career. Following graduation from The College of the Pacific in 1942 he began private lessons with the renowned French composer Darius Milhaud.

Army service interrupted his lessons. For two years Dave played with the Army Ground Forces Radio Band at Camp Haan near Riverside, California.

Dave was sent to the European theater as an infantryman. When a Red Cross entertainment unit sent out an S.O.S. for a piano player, Brubeck volunteered. This was the first step toward organizing, writing and arranging for the Wolf Pack Band, which played for thousands of soldiers on their way to and from the front lines. In 1946 he returned to Oakland to resume composition studies with Darius Milhaud at Mills College and to study piano with Fred Saatman of San Francisco. At Mills he organized an experimental jazz group known as "The 8."

It was at a concert of "The 8" that Jimmy Lyons, KNBC disc jockey, first heard Brubeck. After the concert Lyons rushed to NBC program director Paul Speegle to make known his discovery of a new jazz stylist. NBC pianist Marie Choppin beat Lyons to Speegle's office by a few minutes to announce her discovery of a new composer. Both discoveries were Dave Brubeck.

Today, thanks to his extensive Columbia record catalog, worldwide tours in 1958, appearances at concerts, jazz festivals, and clubs, Brubeck has an international following. *Stereo

Melanchtha
Weep No More
Talkin' and Walkin'
Briar Bush
Paradiddle Joe
Late Lament
Strange Meadowlark
Tristesse
Tonight Only

Supersax Plays Byrd

 

Be-Bop

Supersax Plays Byrd
Produced by John Palladino
Executive Producer: Mauri Lathower
Recorded at Capitol Records Studios

Recording & Remix Engineer: Jay Ranellucci
Disc Mastering at Capitol Records Studios: Wally Traugott
Art Direction: John Hoernle
Photography: Rick Rankin

Capitol Records SW 71177
1973

Trumpets: Larry McGuire, Conti Candoli & Ralph Osborn
Trombones: Charley Loper, Mike Barone & Ernie Tack

From the back cover: It is a rare occurrence in contemporary music when a new group is organized whose premise, while uniquely fresh and exciting in execution, is based, on a concept deeply rooted in the best traditions of the past. Supersax is just such an instance.The premise is simple. Charlie Parker's solos, exactly as improvised while being committed to records, were of such inspired and awesome originality that they constituted de facto compositions in their own right. In other words, when Bird blew a series of choruses based on the chord pattern of some standard song, the product was a work of art worthy of being extracted from its context and expanded through the medium of orchestration.

There have been occasional isolated cases in which ad lib solos were developed in this manner. Two of the earliest were the Bix Beiderbecke solo on Singin' The Blues and Bunny Berigan's contribution to the Tommy Dorsey version of Marie, both of which were transcribed off the records and voiced for trumpet sections. Vocally, of course, the idea was picked up by a long line of singers, from Eddie Jefferson to King Pleasure to Lambert, Hendricks & Ross.

The unprecedented use of this precept as the basis for an entire instrumental library grew out of Med Flory's association with the late Joe Maini, a widely respected alto player who died in 1964. "Joe was working in a big band I had around Los Angeles," Flory recalls, "when I wrote out the Parker solo on Star Eyes for a full saxophone section. Then I did the introduction on Just Friends and Joe Maini, who had memorized Bird's solo note for note, gave me the lead line for the rest of the chart. It seemed like a great idea, but nothing came of it, and after Joe's death it was more or less forgotten. Then one night a year or so ago Buddy Clark, who'd played bass on that band with us, said 'Wouldn't it be great if we could have a whole book of Bird things like that, and play jobs with it?'

"I said, 'Fine, but who's going to write it?' Buddy said, 'Let me try it – just show me what to do.' I gave him a few hints on which way to go, and he started writing. I was busy at the time on a movie script, so I was too hung up to do many of the arrangements myself." (Flory has long led a triple life as TV actor, professional script writer and studio musician.)

A band coalesced to meet the formidable challenge of reading and sensitively inter- preting these uncommonly demanding ar- rangements. After one or two changes the personnel heard on this album was arrived at, with Flory and Joe Lopes on alto saxes, Warne Marsh and Jay Migliori on tenors, Jack Nimitz on baritone, Conti Candoli on trumpet, Ronnell Bright on piano, Jake Hanna on drums and Clark on bass. On Just Friends, Repetition and Moose the Mooche, a seven-man brass section was added.

The common bond among these men that canceled out the diversity of their back- grounds was an intense love for and understanding of the contribution of Charlie Parker. Two of them actually worked with Bird briefly, Ronnell Bright in Chicago and Jay Migliori in Boston. The others came up in music just in time to be aware of the bop revolution, and of Parker as one of its two chief architects (along with Gillespie) while it was happening along 52nd Street and proliferating on records.

When, after 11 months of patient woodshedding, Supersax finally was presented to the public at Donte's, a question came to the minds of some listeners: does this concept constitute living in the past, or is it rather a case of relevance-through-renovation?

My own feeling immediately was that a new dimension had been added to these timedefying solo lines, as though a Picasso painting had become a sculpture, or an Old Master restored. In fact, just to hear, sectionalized and harmonized, the incredibly fast choruses based on the phenomenal Ko-Ko solo, is an experience such as Bird himself surely would have dug.

This, in effect, is how Charlie Parker would have sounded had he been able to play five saxophones at once, in harmony.

Med Flory wrote the arrangements for Be- Bop, Star Eyes, Moose the Mooche and Just Friends; the other charts were all written by Buddy Clark. As Clark points out, "Most of the way we had the baritone sax double the melody line. That was the simple, logical way to do it. Everything moves so fast in a Bird solo that if you start breaking it up, it becomes kind of logy."

"Besides," added Med, "the lines themselves are as important and timeless as Mozart, so we didn't dare do anything that would tend to understate them."'

The reed team is balanced so that Med's lead alto is the strongest voice, the baritone is next, and the three harmony parts are just about equal. Occasionally, on the more sustained passages, the voicings were changed to add a little sonority (one instance is the second chorus of Star Eyes), but the group's basic sound is that of the two parallel melody lines an octave apart.

Since Charlie Parker made many of his definitive recordings before the age of the long play record, and because he usually accorded part of the limited solo space to his sidemen, in many cases there was not enough improvisational Bird, on any one record of each tune, to constitute a full length Supersax arrangement. Buddy and Med resolved this in several tunes by using a composite of solos from two different versions of the same number. Hot House, says Buddy, is "a combination of all kinds of Bird riffs from various records he made on these changes, either as Hot House or as What Is This Thing Called Love."

Ko-Ko, possibly the greatest Bird master- piece of all, is based on the original 1945 recording, just as Parker's Mood derives from the master take cut in 1948. Similarly drawn from a single source is Just Friends, from the chart that became the most celebrated of the precedent-setting Parker-With-Strings date taped Nov. 30, 1949. Even Mitch Miller's brief oboe solo following the first chorus was retained in this faithful translation by Med of the Jimmy Carroll arrangement. Oh, Lady Be Good! was taken in its entirety from a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert record cut in Los Angeles in 1946.

Regardless of the sources of their inspiration, most important of all is that steeped as they were in the subject, the Supersax musi- cians succeeded in retaining the spirit as well as the letter of Bird's one-to-a-century genius.

"Just say," Med Flory enjoined me as we discussed my notes for the album, "that this was our affectionate tribute to a man we've respected and idolized through the years."

The comment was almost redundant, for on every track in this extraordinary set of performances you will hear the overtones of a project conceived and written with patience and dedication, executed with honesty and warmth. Supersax Plays Bird, as much as any album I have heard in recent years, is a thoroughgoing labor of love. – LEONARD FEATHER (Author of From Satchmo To Miles, Stein & Day)

Ko-Ko
Just Friends
Parker's Mood
Moose The Mooche
Star Eyes
Be-Bop
Repetition
Night In Tunisia
Oh, Lady Be Good!
Hot House

The Great Byrd - Charlie Byrd

Don't Have To Take It

The Great Byrd

Charlie Byrd

Featuring Wichita Lineman

Produced, Arranged and Conducted by Teo Macero

Cover Design: Ron Coro

Engineering: Stan Tonkel, John Guerriere, Arthur Kendy

Columbia Records CS 9747
1968

**Happy Together

  *Who Is Gonna Love Me

**Lullaby From "Rosemary's Baby

        Teo Macero - Conductor
        Charlie Byrd - Guitar
        Mario Darpino - Flute

        Chuck Rainey - Fender Bass
        Bernard Purdie - Drums
        Paul Griffin - Organ and Piano
      *Specs Powell - Percussion
    **Bobby Rosengarden - Percussion

        Vinnie Bell - Electric Guitar

  Wichita Lineman
  For Once In My Life
*Those Were The Days
   Scarborough Fair / Canticle
*Hey Jude
  Abraham Martin And John
* I'll Never Fall In Love Again

       Teo Macero - Conductor
       Charlie Byrd - Guitar
       Mario Darpino - Flute
       Bernard Purdie - Drums

       Bobby Rosengarden - percussion

       Vinnie Bell - Electric Guitar
       Herbie Hancock - Piano & Electric Piano
       Romeo Penque - Flute, Alto Flute, English Horn, Piccolo, Recorder
       Joe Mack - Fender Bass
     *Bobby Rosengarden - drums

     *Phil Kraus, percussion

I Don't Have To Take It

      Charlie Byrd - Guitar

      Bobby Rosengarden - Percussion

      Chuck Rainey - Fender Bass

      Paul Griffin - Piano & organ
      Vinnie Bell -Electric Guitar

      Mario Darpino Flute
      Bernard Purdie - Drum

From the back cover: The grooves of this record are fairly bulging with beautiful music. Charlie Byrd has selected the out- standing melodies of today (and we daresay tomorrow) and created a truly unique recording. Now, this is hardly unusual for any Byrd album, whether he be playing classical guitar or wailing with his own swinging group.

Believe it or not, this is still another bag for this multi-faceted virtuoso. There seems to be nothing in music he cannot do. Here he has added instruments like the electric guitar, the Fender bass, the electric piano, the organ, for the ultimate in contemporary sound. (Charlie's mandolins on Those Were the Days makes it!) At the same time, he utilizes the flute, English horn and recorder where he wishes a sweet and delicate chamber music sound-but it's a long way from longhair. (Yes, kids, you can trust someone over thirty to handle your favorites-if his name is Charlie Byrd.)

Of course, the songs need no introduction-but, the distinctive new sounds of Charlie Byrd might need a bit. (See above!) At any rate, it's a subtly rocking Byrd here-listen to him. It's a brand-new thing.

Wichita Lineman
For Once In My Life
Those Were The Days
Scaborough Fair / Canticle
Hey Jude
Abraham, Marting and John
I'll Never Fall In Love Again (from "Promises, Promises)
Lullaby from "Rosemary's Baby
I Don't Have To Take It
Who Is Gonna Love Me

Late Late Show - Dinah Washington

 

Feel Like I Wanna Cry

Late Late Show

Mercury Wing MGW 12140
1963

Dream
My Lean Baby 
Feel Like I Wanna Cry
Please Send Me Someone To Love
I Don't Hurt Anymore
You Stay On My Mind
I Cried For You Short John
I Love You Yes I Do
My Man's An Undertaker
Never, Never
I Just Couldn't Stand It No More

Evergreens - Billy Taylor

 

All The Things You Are

Evergreens

The Billy Taylor Trio

Produced by Creed Taylor

Engineering by Rudy Van Gelder

Cover Photography by Alan Fontaine

Cover Design by Bob Crozier

ABC-Paramount ABC-112

Recorded February, 1956

Billy Taylor - Piano

Percy Brice - Drums

Earl May - Bass

From the back cover: Jazz has never been a predictable music. It is not really surprising, then, that there should suddenly be more modern jazz pianists than there were heady sonneteers in Elizabethan England. Their names are legion. Their styles, however, like those of most modern jazz musicians, are not. Scratch them, and one finds, like clams in the mud, the queer, solid shells of Thelonius Monk or Bud Powell. One also finds, in discouraging measure, an iron sophistication that disguises, in varied degree, ugliness, ineptness, barreness, and timidity. Sophistication, these days, is rarely synonymous with emotion. Further, it is difficult at any time to project jazz emotion through the piano. As a result, much modern jazz piano is riblike and cold. It is, in fact, like a greenhouse in the sun: glassy and blinding, but, at the same time, hollow, transparent, and quickly conductive. Some among these mechanized gypsies are, of course, honest and highly creative souls. One is Billy Taylor.

Taylor, perhaps more than any, runs almost directly counter-stream to contemporary jazz pianistry. Where much of it is sullen and chrome-bound, he is gentle and economical. Where it dis plays a sad ignorance of piano tradition (both classical and jazz), Taylor has written deft, comprehensive piano instruction books on dixieland piano, boogie woogie, and ragtime piano. Again, where modern jazz piano is largely a ululation of Powell and Monk, Taylor's style speaks of Tatum, Waller, Hines, Nat Cole, as well as Powell and Monk. Finally, where most modern pianists consider immaterial such fundamentals as the sound of their instrument and how it should be struck, Taylor continues to study with Richard McClanahan, a pupil of Tobias Mathay and the teacher of Dame Myra Hess, who approaches the keyboard as if it were a moth's wing.

Taylor's style is deceptive. Primarily, one is struck by his delicately round sense of touch, which is equalled, perhaps, only by Nat Cole, Bengt Hallberg, and Hank Jones. Immediately apparent, as well, is his adoption, on his improvised passages, of a Tatum-Powell single-note attack. More puzzling is the fact that Taylor has been appreciated both at the Copacabana and Birdland. One reason for this is that, superficially, his style is unshouting and melodically kind to the ear, and as fresh in sound as pebbles being dropped into a fish bowel. Furthermore, his planed, cocktail-seeming attack contains for those willing to listen one of the most inventive improvisational minds in jazz. On a fast tune, for example, Taylor's creative intelligence works so rapidly that he can construct in one breath a new and uninterrupted melodic line that sometimes stretches for half a chorus or more. In itself, this would of course be a useless feat (cf. Clifford Brown, Art Tatum, Buddy Rich) if the ideas were not as cohesive and logical as the clapboards on a frame house. At the same time, his left hand, unlike the dead, dust- covered appendage that lies over so much of the landscape of modern jazz piano, continually frames countering or supportive chords, or, more rarely, a completely separate, non-contrapuntal melodic line. (This is still an experimental device, and can be heard here on All The Things You Are.) On slow tempos, Taylor's sausage-machine approach is considerably modified. The phrases are shorter, and often, because there is more time for intensity highly eloquent. (Taylor occasionally drowns in his own great good taste. For his long, exquisitely modelled lines once in a while take on a kind of garrulous, compulsive quality. Tayior's rhythmic approach is equally subtle. Although it rarely has the tobogganing drive of Tatum or Billy Kyle, it is so controlled that he can slip abruptly but without pause from a long, staccato-like series of notes into a run and back to the staccato, or from the staccato to a phrase that heel-drags at the beat, giving one the pleasant effect of having seen a perfect platoon suddenly skip, change step, skip again, and resume its step. His left hand, as well, is replete with off beats, various accents, and strong underpinning rhythms that provide a striking contrast to the creamy right hand.

Billy Taylor, at thirty-four, is a slight, handsome, well put together man who wears heavy horn-rimmed glasses, neither smokes nor drinks, has a formidable set of teeth, a noticeably well-modulated voice, and a first-rate intelligence. He has, too, an infectious sense of humor, humility and talks as he plays with ease, clarity, and knowledge. "This is something I have never been able to explain to myself," he will say typically. "I like Bartok. You'd never know it from my playing. The reason is, that as much as I like him, I have never been able to assimilate him into what I do. Yet, Bach, Mozart, and Debussy have auto- matically become a part of my jazz thinking. Don Shirly takes a block of Ravel and puts it in the middle of his My Funny Valentine and builds on it, using it as a basic motif. Sounds good, but to me, anyway, it's kind of like cheating. You've got to stay somewhere near the tradition. To do that, of course, you have to know the tradition. Until recently, Randy Weston had never even heard a Jelly Roll Morton record. But the minute you open these new avenues to a musician, it's like a stream flowing in. I saw this happen years ago to Thelonius and Bud Powell. Mary Lou Williams took them in hand. One of the things she made them aware of was touch. On some of Powell's most recent records the sound is so much better. She used to sit down with both of them and say, Now, this is the way it goes.' She's helped more young musicians than anyone."

In addition to being a mellifluous talker, Taylor is a talented and fluent composer with some three hundred tunes to his credit. He has acted on the legitimate stage and on television, lectured on music at schools and colleges, and last summer was one of the most articulate members of the second jazz panel at the Newport Jazz Festival.

Taylor, briefly, was born in Greenville, North Carolina. His father was a dentist and a choir conductor, and an uncle played the organ and sang. After trying a number of instruments, he settled on the piano, playing his first professional job when he was thirteen at a "real dive" called Harry's Bluebird Inn outside of Washington, D. C., where his family moved shortly after his birth. He attended Virginia State College, graduating with a Bachelor of Music. Shortly after this, he moved to New York. On the evening he arrived he was heard uptown by Ben Webster, and two days later was a member of his quartet at the Three Deuces on 52nd Street. Before forming his own trio, he went on to work with a Burke's Peerage of jazz that included Sid Catlett, Gillespie, Don Redman, Oscar Pettiford, Gerry Mulligan, Charlie Parker, and so forth. (In the Forties, there was still a good deal of jamming and sitting-in going on all over New York. Taylor believes that the eventual breakdown of this custom is one reason why there is so little individuality among young jazz mus- icians; jamming, as well as big-band experience, was a trying-out where jazzmen listened to one another, learned, and separated the men from the boys.)

Half of the ten selections here, all of which are standards, are ballads, and half in medium or up tempo. The trio itself is the same with the exception of Percy Brice, who replaced Charley Smith on drums about a year ago as the one originally formed some four years ago. It is a tightly relaxed unit that uses its ensemble passages more for recharging episodes and jumping-off points than for bookends. It is also a mildly intricate group that experiments a good deal with Cuban rhythms and with, for example, 6/8 time against 4/4 (All The Things You Are). The trio, as it appears on this LP, is loose enough to allow several bass solos by Earl May and a few brush passages by Brice, who reveals himself as a sensitive, gritty drummer.

A mature, responsible musician thoroughly grounded in the techniques, history, and aesthetics of his music, Taylor is what many "geniuses" never are – a continually inspired, creative performer who plays his instrument with the understanding and beauty it deserves. – Whitney Balliett, The Saturday Review

Cheek To Cheek
It's Too Late Now
I Only Have Eyes For You
Then I'll Be Tired Of You
All The Things You Are
But Not For Me
You Don't Kown What Love Is
Satin Doll
More Than You'll Know
Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

Gone With The Wind - Dave Brubeck

 

Gone With The Wind

Gone With The Wind
The Dave Burbeck Quartet
Columbia Records CL 1347
1959

Dave Burbeck - Piano 

Paul Desmond - Alto Sax
Joe Morello - Drums
Gene Wright - Bass

From the back cover: A good deal has been said in print about the merits of the Dave Brubeck Quartet, what it stands for in relation to jazz, what it has contributed to the facade of jazz, etc., and as you listen to the easy flow of melodic lines and the development of each standard composition in this recording, you will know that this is the Quartet at its best. We feel that the music speaks for itself, and that no words need be said here by way of explanation. Therefore, I would only like to tell you of some special incidents which happened during the recording of this album, and include a few comments from Dave himself concerning some of the pieces.From the very first take, we all knew that this was going to be a swinging session, and it was. I believe it is significant that three- fourths of the compositions contained herein are "first-takers," if I may coin a word. On listening to the first play-back by Dave and the group, the comment would almost invariably be: "That's it! Let's make the next one." This happened throughout the entire session in the studio, until it was time to leave for Dave's evening concert at Orange Grove College in Costa Mesa, California, where we also recorded.

Some of the compositions that were used as a basis for improvisation here were played by the group for the first time at the recording studio, and in several cases the arrangements you hear were not previously planned, but worked out spontaneously while recording. This is why, when you listen to Georgia on My Mind, you will hear a low bass note near the beginning and a rather deceptive ending by Dave. There was great speculation in the studio as to how he would end this piece, and we all waited expectantly until the last note was recorded. It is interesting to know that both Georgia on My Min and Swanee River have been favorites of Dave's for years, but this was the first opportunity he had to record them.

You will notice, too, that there are two versions of Camptown Races: because each had its own special quality, both were used. The first one was the original take at the session, and the second one we thought would be of interest because of more West Indian rhythm played by Joe Morello. This, by the way, just happened, too. No cues, no plan before hand. Everything at that point just seemed to work out spontaneously.

In Dave's words, "Look Down That Lonesome Road is a little drama depicting the life story of man. Loneliness in the beginning, then a fuller, expanded life, then gradually back to the loneliness of old age at the end of the road." The clicks that you hear at the end of this tune are intentional, and are meant to represent footsteps.

Gene Wright volunteered to do a tune that he had long wanted to play – Ol' Man River – and Joe Morello contributed to this album about the South by lengthening a quote from Dave's last album, "Newport 1958," where he quoted Short'nin' Bread on the drum solo of C Jam Blues. He lengthened that quote into a track for this album-added yeast to the original Short'nin' Bread, I guess.

Putting together this album, which evokes memories of the South, was an idea which came to Dave following a concert tour of the South. He decided that he would like to do one album of old and familiar tunes in contrast to the album of originals already released (CL 1251), and with the hope of entertaining everyone North, South, East and West.

Swanee River
The Lonesome Road
Georgia On My Mind
Camptown Races
Camptown Races
Short'nin Bread
Basin Street Blues

Ol' Man River
Gone With The Wind

The New Tristano - Lennie Tristano

 

G Minor Complex

The New Tristano
Lennie Tristano
Recording Engineer: Lennie Tristano
Cover Photo: Lee Friedlander
Cover Design: Loring Entemey
Atlantic Records 1357
1962

Lennie Tristano is heard on this LP in unaccompanied piano solos. No use is made of multi-tracking, over-dubbing or tape-speeding on any selection. Lennie Tristano can also be heard on Atlantic LP 1224: Lennie Tristano

From the back cover: As much as possible, everything in this remarkable set of performances by Lennie Tristano is improvised. Lennie improvises with the time, with the time signature; Lennie improvises on the melodic line, on the chord progressions. Although each of the performances has a definite set of chords implicit in it, there is no fixed sequence in any one of them. Nothing is static. Improvisation is all.

Lennie calls what he does here "stretching out in the forms." Within the jazz forms, simple as they are, he has sought the utmost limits of spontaneity of the improvising imagination. He is never altogether unconscious of the progression. He is never enslaved to any sequence of notes or chords. He is almost completely free but not completely. That is part of the joy in it, he explains: "to see how far you can stretch out in a given frame of reference." The possibilities, he says, are "practically infinite, endless even in the most simple forms. You are constantly creating form on form, a multiplicity of lines, a great complex of forms."

The mathematics of this procedure can be deduced. If someone has "practically infinite" patience, he can sit down and copy out the notes Lennie plays. Or, with somewhat less perseverance, he can sit down with Lennie and discover what sort of exercises go into the preparation of such performances. There are, for example, the exercises for the left hand, one finger at a time, in which the single hand is divided up into lines. He will practice improvising with, say, two fingers assigned the bass line and three the melody, then with three on the bass and two on the melody, and so on and on until the fingers drop off from exhaustion or he has negotiated twelve choruses. For what it may be worth to those who want to try this out for themselves, it should be added that so far Lennie has lost no fingers; his hands are intact and so are his twelve- chorus exercises.

The point of all of this is to assure Lennie and the listener of no dissociation of technique and music. All his playing life, Lennie has been working to develop enough skill to express feeling "without be- ing hung up in the skill itself." It is possible to arrive at such control, such a combination of freedom and restraint, that one is never preoccupied with one's fingers as one plays, that one, in fact, is only barely conscious of what one is doing with one's fingers. At that extremely delicate peak of stability, where instability is just a finger's breadth away, one can give over entirely to feeling. That is exactly what jazz musicians have been doing, however high or low their individual peaks of stability, ever since the beginning of jazz (whenever that was). For jazz is an art of feeling and the jazz musician's greatest joy is to yield to his feeling if he has the equipment with which and to which he can surrender. Such a yielding is what we have here, a triumphant demonstration of the art of feeling.

In this most intimate art, this art of feeling, statements are usually highly personal. One has the choice  of exchanging sentiments with other musicians, with a horn or two or with a rhythm section, or of speaking for oneself alone. Inevitably when one enters a jazz dialogue, there are stiff constraints that stand in the way of an open and honest communication of feeling. Not only is there the formal deference that must be shown other musicians, but also a constant return to a melodic line and a rigid adherence to a fixed chord progression so that the improvising musicians may walk together on common ground. By comparison one can see the many advantages of a performance like this one of Lennie's, alone, without rhythm or any other support. Here all the usual meditative resources of the soliloquy are at his disposal as well as the new ones he has developed for himself, devices which permit him to express as many as five ideas at once and in his improvisations to follow the most elaborate involutions of his feelings.

The elaborations are prodigious. In most of these tracks, he works with multiple time patterns, setting 5/4 or 3/8 or some other time against a steady 4/4. But the 4/4 is not so much a fixed measure of four quarter-notes to a bar as a continuity of beats, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, without any bar-line restrictions. On top of this Lennie constructs a fresh contour out of triplets. He alters the basic structure by adding a fourth note to the triplet, borrowing one note from the second triplet to make four notes of the first one, borrowing two from the third triplet to make four notes of the second one, picking up a whole triplet from the next bar to add to the one left in the third, etc. The result is an astonishing contour made up of 4 on 3 (the altered triplet on the conventional triplet), on top of 5 on 4 (the time in one hand), on top of 4/4 (the basic beat). He does as much again with a triplet to which he had added two notes, creating a contour in fives that, if nothing else, is a breath-taking mathematic. al exercise. But it is much more. "I can never think and play at the same time," Lennie says. "It's emotionally impossible." The thinking is in anticipation of the performance. The exercise precedes a recording such as this one by weeks, by months, by years.

Some idea of the extent to which this collection is a unified display of feeling may be gathered from the fact that everything here except one track (the first on the second side) comes from one tape. The first that you hear is the first that Lennie played, the one he calls Becoming. It is a "sort of waking everything up myself, the studio, the tape recorders; a bringing together of all my forces." And so for four and a half minutes he flexes his fingers and articulates his ideas, in preparation for the monumental statement which follows. The appropriately named C Minor Complex is the most eloquent of jazz solos, a complex gathering of melodic lines and contrasting times and swinging beats out of a C minor progression into nearly six minutes of concentrated feeling that reminds one of nothing so much as the D minor Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue of Bach. After so much music, a pause is called for, a lengthy one, before going on to the tuneful ballad You Don't Know What Love Is and the middle-tempo Deliberation which follow.

The second side starts with a kind of suite entitled Scene And Variations, consisting of three sections, Carol, Tania and Bud, based on more or less the same chord progression, moving from a brilliant brief exam- ination of block chords, through a flurry of single-note patterns, to a driving line which does nothing so much as proclaim in precise accents its own linearity. It is not hard to understand, the response of Lennie's baby daughter Tania to these performances. She listened, and listened, and listened, and then just got up and walked all over the place never having walked before.

The set concludes with two typical Tristano performances. First there is an original ballad, Love Lines, handsomely compendious: Lennie makes his point, develops it a little, and stops; that's all he has to say. Then there is another minor-key gathering of lines and times and beats, G Minor Complex. "When I'm through," Lennie says, "I'll have the well-tempered complex." No better description exists of what Lennie Tristano has already achieved: The well-tempered complex: A marvelous multiplicity of forms swinging together in the service of feeling. – Barry Ulanov

Becoming
C Minor Complex
You Don't Know What Love Is
Deliberation
Scene and Variations
  a) Carol
  b) Tania
  c) Bud
Love Lines
G Minor Complex