Collector’s Corner
VOICES Notes and news on Collector's Corner releases
Meet The New Miles
22 JUN 09 ANNE FARNSWORTH
Having left New York to kick a drug habit, 1955 was an important year for Miles Davis. He returned to begin his tenure as one of the great forces of jazz in the second half of the 20th Century. He was also making the move from Prestige to Columbia. Miles: The New Miles Davis Quintet was one of his last Prestige releases and is now available on CD, newly remastered by Rudy Van Gelder.
Davis was known as a "leader of leaders," because he had a supernatural horse sense when it came to picking sidemen, many of whom went on to become important leaders and innovators themselves. This quintet is a prime example -- John Coltrane (replacing Sonny Rollins), Red Garland, Philly Joe Jones and a 19-year-old Paul Chambers on bass.
There is much to satisfy on this session. For starters, it's a great example of Miles' transition from the manic virtuosity of the Parker years to the laconic style of his later Modal and Cool periods. And it swings like crazy, with Chambers' fat quarter notes and Jones' confident feel driving the rhythm.
Also, the audio sounds great. Not sure what magic dust the great Van Gelder sprinkled on these tapes, but the result is as warm as the best of the mid-century LP's without letting the digitizing inadvertently highlight any of the era's technical limitations.
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How Am I To Know?
Miles Davis, from Miles: The New Miles ...
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Russian Lullaby
John Coltrane, from Soultrane [Rudy Van ...
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St. Thomas
Sonny Rollins, from Saxophone Colossus ...
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Almost Like Being In Love
Red Garland, from Red Garland's Piano ...
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Bird
Philly Joe Jones, from Drum Songs
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Sugar Ray
Roy Haynes, Phineas Newborn, And Paul ...
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Hot House
Charlie Parker, from Bird On 52nd Street
in this playlist.
Q And The Cos
23 APR 09 ANNE FARNSWORTH
Bill Cosby's '80s-era sitcom was actually the second "Cosby Show." The first aired from 1969-71 and was groundbreaking in many ways, not least being the Quincy Jones-produced soundtrack -- a series of funky jazz/soul jams featuring an astounding group of musicians. Released for the first time, The Original Jam Sessions - 1969 (Concord) epitomizes all that was hot, fun and groovy about the black music scene in the '60s.
The 11 tracks are a sneak peak, a seat in the corner where a top producer has gathered the cream of L.A. studio musicians, letting them cut loose. You can almost hear the laughter and goofing around that must have gone on between takes.
The mostly 12-bar blues-based tunes are effortlessly tight. Bassist Ray Brown, bandleader on these sessions, is known worldwide for his sophisticated jazz playing. Here he takes it back to basics, driving the rhythm with palpable pleasure.
The pianist roster is amazing: Joe Sample, Les McCann, Clare Fischer and Monty Alexander. I may overuse the word "historic" when reviewing Concord reissues, but come on -- where else would these four marquee names be in a room together? On acoustic and Fender Rhodes, they often play together in the same song, as in "Eubie Walkin'," "Monty, Is That You?" and the Edwin Hawkins anthem, "Oh Happy Day." Vibist Milt Jackson and organist Jimmy Smith also make appearances. And then there's Cosby, adding his cool, humorous and highly musical scat vocals to "Hikky-Burr," the show's theme song.
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Monty, Is That You?
Quincy Jones and Bill Cosby, from The ...
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Days Of Wine And Roses
Ray Brown, from The Best Of The Concord ...
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A Matter Of Adjustment
Milt Jackson, from Night Mist
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Farther On Up The Road
Jimmy Smith, from Prime Time
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Hurricane
Monty Alexander, from Goin' Yard
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Hikky-Burr
Quincy Jones and Bill Cosby, from The ...
in this playlist.
Classic Hot Jazz Set
24 MAR 09 ANNE FARNSWORTH
In 1922, Louis Armstrong left his beloved New Orleans and traveled up the river to Chicago to play 2nd cornet in Joe "King" Oliver's septet. Louis Armstrong And King Oliver (Milestone) is a terrific set of Hot Jazz, plus six cuts of Armstrong with the Red Onion Jazz Babies, featuring Sidney Bechet and Alberta Hunter.
The two bands are not only stylistically linked but shared the same pianist, a young woman named Lil Hardin -- the future Mrs. Armstrong.
The Oliver sides include classics like "Dipper Mouth Blues," noted for Oliver's solo, and the hard swinging "Alligator Hop." "Riverside Blues" contains one of Armstrong's and Oliver's famous duet breaks, 2-line improvisations they created by plotting them literally minutes before while the rest of the band played around them.
Modern ears may find it difficult to connect with music recorded under what now would be considered primitive techniques. Gunther Schuller, noted jazz composer, conductor and historian, sees a positive aspect to the dated monophonic sound. Aside from the pleasure of a nostalgic evocation of a bygone time, he suggests that stereo would unravel the carefully arranged polyphony of Oliver's arrangements, which were unmatched in the era of collective improvisation.
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Riverside Blues
Louis Armstrong & King Oliver, from Louis ...
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Autumn Leaves
Louis Armstrong, from Live At The 1958 ...
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Four Or Five Times
Sidney Bechet, from Up A Lazy River
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Streets Paved With Gold
Alberta Hunter, from Chicago: The Living ...
in this playlist.
Anniversary Of Excellence
11 MAR 09 CHRIS SLAWECKI
The Very Best of Prestige Records (Prestige 60th Anniversary) inaugurates 2009's celebration of the label's six decades of history by compiling the best and best-known instrumental tracks laid down for the label by some of the most "prestige"-ious musicians of the modern jazz era.
Bob Weinstock's label is most famous as one of the few companies to contemporarily record four men who became retrospectively known as "the Mount Rushmore of Jazz" -- John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and Sonny Rollins -- all of whom are represented with trademark classics on this Anniversary release.
But this 2-disc set also spreads plenty of jam from other sections of the Prestige roster, from artists whose influence proved more widespread than their popularity, including saxophone aces Dexter Gordon and funky "Jug" Gene Ammons and neo-jazz/classicists The Modern Jazz Quartet.
Anniversary hits digital and physical shelves later this month. You can also relive the original artwork from these and other Prestige titles in the forthcoming book Prestige Records: The Collected Album Cover Art, coming soon to the Concord website.
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Lover, Come Back To Me
John Coltrane, from Black Pearls
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Vierd Blues
Miles Davis, from Collectors' Items
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These Foolish Things
Thelonious Monk, from The Complete ...
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Strode Rode
Sonny Rollins, from Saxophone Colossus ...
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Misty
Dexter Gordon, from XXL: Live At The ...
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Stompin' At The Savoy
Gene Ammons, from Boss Tenor [Rudy Van ...
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Delaunay's Dilemma
The Modern Jazz Quartet, from Django ...
in this playlist.
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