Goin' to Kansas City

The unfortunately ill-treated inside cover to Decca's classic "Kansas City Jazz" album. Basie's
been obliterated, but there's a candid of the legendary guitarist Floyd Smith, and one of Joe
Keys from the Blue Devils and another of the unjustly obscure Clarence Trice. Most of these
shots must have been taken during Decca's marathon November 1940 recording sessions
with the guys from Kay-Cee.

It's my firm belief that the familiar swing of jazz – as we understand it today – came to us from the Tom Pendergast's Kansas City of the 1930s. Specifically, from the men and women who created an original sound in the city's many night clubs, dance halls, speakeasies and dives. Four beats to the measure never swung so hard.

Here's impresario Gene Norman with a couple
of wannabe starlets, digging the sounds of
our offering for this posting. A typical period
pose from the editors at Down Beat magazine.

If you're not convinced, I offer this posting as as Exhibit A. It's from Decca Records' 1957 series of regional reissues (the "Chicago Jazz" LP posted a while back is another) and it features a veritable who's who of KC players. Most of these recordings were originally done in New York over a seven day period in 1940, so they come from a time when the heyday of Kansas City jazz had largely passed. But present are many of the original Blue Devils plus pianists Pete Johnson and Mary Lou Williams. The real treat is the two sides from Basie's superb composer and arranger, trombonist and guitar man Eddie Durham.

You hardcore collectors certainly know that all these tunes are available elsewhere – especially the familiar Basie numbers. But having them all in one place is a treat. You get a real feel for KC's hotbed musical environment. The two titles by Mary Lou are fairly obscure and feature terrific work from Shorty Baker (pre-Ellington, of course) and driving solos from long-forgotten Andy Kirk tenor star, Dick Wilson. Ms. Williams herself is in full command of the keyboard and her arrangement of "12th Street" occasionally foreshadows the developments of bop several years hence.

Gems' copy of the original release
is a little worse for wear. We opted
to use the LP version for the upload.

Then there's Eddie Barefield's unattributed clarinet on "South" with Lips Page's pick-up band. That coupled with the leader's muted trumpet solo and Don Byas' still-developing tenor sound make the tune a classic. Pete Johnson's band rollicks through a tune named for the Kansas City Colored Musician's Union, Local No. 627, with the cast the same as for Lips' titles. Great Don Stovall here. Roll 'em, Pete!

The standout for this posting has to be the rare Durham sides. Not only do we get Eddie's advanced electric guitar work, but Buster Smith demonstrates why Bird's sound was compared to his in Parker's early days. And catch the soli toward the end of "Little Girl" – fabulous Durham writing and very tight playing by the guys. 

Note that the liner notes for this LP refer to its selections as "dance compositions." Exactly right. This was music to move your feet to, and if you're like me your toes will be tapping. This is the music that taught the rest of the jazz world to swing. Mixed in, of course, were some of the greatest jazz statements by some of the music's greatest practitioners. You only have to catch the bookended solos by Hershel Evans and Prez on "Doggin' Around" to understand that.

So, download and roll back the rugs! As always, these tunes were ripped from the original vinyl with, in this case, no cleaning of the sound.  

Kansas City Jazz

Various Groups
Personnel listed in download
Decca DL 8044

Pete Johnson's Band
November 11, 1940
1. 627 Stomp
Joe Turner and His Fly Cats
November 11, 1940 
2. Piney Brown Blues
Mary Lou Williams and Her Kansas City Seven
November 18, 1940 
3. Baby Dear
4. Harmony Blues
Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy
November 7, 1940 
5. The Count
6. Twelfth Street Rag
Hot Lips Page and His Band
November 11, 1940 

7. South 

8. Lafayette 

Count Basie and His Orchestra

August 9, 1937 

9. Good Morning Blues

10. Doggin' Around 
Eddie Durham and His Band
November 11, 1940 
11. Moten's Swing
12. I Want a Little Girl

Find it here: http://www.mediafire.com/download/r4xq8id26sh088j/KC_Jazz.rar

Our Kind of Jazz

Tony Scott in the late '70s, during his Yul Brynner tonsorial period. At this point, the clarinetist had been in the jazz biz for almost four decades. He died in 2007 at age 85. Photo from "Jazz: A Photo History"

Here's another jazz player who labored long and hard in the vineyards but never received his due. Antony Sciacca, known in music circles as Tony Scott, made numerous records with many of the jazz greats beginning way back in 1945 without ever attracting much attention. Maybe it was because he played clarinet, an instrument that belonged stylistically to an earlier generation? Dunno, but the guy's largely a footnote today.

Tony Scott does, however, get credit for spreading the jazz gospel abroad. Not long after this record was made, he decamped from New York and headed off to the mysterious East. In the '60s he lived variously in Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and other exotic locales in Asia. Wherever he went, he proselytized for jazz and won numerous converts for America's greatest cultural export. He also delved into zen meditation and other Eastern spiritual practices, releasing several albums having those experiences as a central theme. He was successful enough abroad that as early as 1960 Japanese jazz fans voted him best clarinetist in one of Down Beat's polls. Of course, that's an honor he'd already won in the United States four times.

This recording comes to Gems via eBay – a source that I usually try to avoid because I'm much too cheap to pay their prices. But the LP went for all of ninety-nine cents, so even with the shipping it was a bargain. It was recorded in 1957 for the ultra-obscure Perfect label (the liner claims it was a division of Epic Records, itself a division of Columbia). It is notable for several reasons.

Evans, like Tony Scott, was from
New Jersey. They made several
excellent records together for
RCA in addition to this one.

The first is the presence of pianist Bill Evans. These sessions capture Bill just months before he joined Miles Davis and emerged onto the national stage. He exhibits here many of the unusual chord voicings and unorthodox lines that later came to define his style, both with Miles and with his famous Evans-LaFaro-Motian trio. And coincidentally, Paul Motian is the drummer on these sides (or maybe not so coincidentally – Evans and Motian worked regularly in Tony Scott's groups in 1956 and '57).

The other reason to grab this recording is the presence of trombonist Jimmy Knepper. One of the unheralded greats on his instrument, Knepper had just started his on-again-off-again association with Charles Mingus in 1957. On this LP he exhibits a dynamism that may have been inspired by the bassist's own aggressive approach to music and composition. 

For added interest are Clark Terry on one number and baritonist Sahib Shihab on two others (all the other baritone solos are by Scott himself). And this may be legendary bassist Henry Grimes' first recording. (Actually, it was Henry's third recording session, preceded by dates with Shahib Shihab and Lee Konitz – this info courtesy of Margaret Davis Grimes. Thanks, Margaret!). 

So here is Tony Scott on clarinet, with his characteristic scratchy tone and cascade of notes. All the compositions are his – with the obvious exception – and some are more than a bit quirky. You'll note that the back cover offers an incomplete listing of the tunes, but Gems has corrected it in the download. As always, these tunes were ripped from the original vinyl with only a minor tidying up of the sound.

My Kind of Jazz
Tony Scott

Tony Scott, cl, bar; Clark Terry, tp (3); Jimmy Knepper, tbn (1); Sahib Shihab, bar (2);
Bill Evans, p; Henry Grimes (4) or Milt Hinton, b; Paul Motian, d.
New York, NY; November 16, 1957 (1, 2, 5), other titles 1957; Perfect PL 12010 
 
1. Villa Jazz (1)
2. Zonk (1)
3. Blues for Fives (1)(2)(4)
4. Third Moon (3)
5. For Pete’s Sake (1)
6. Just One of Those Things (2)(4)

Find it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?ww1ujfszedwmzdd

'Trane and the Critic

Coltrane caught cleaning his horn, possibly at the "Cathouse," Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter's home in Weehawken, possibly in 1958. From "Three Wishes" (2008)

Today is John Coltrane's 86th birthday anniversary, and I couldn't let it pass without posting an acknowledgement here on Gems. The day should be a national holiday, but of course that's not how this game plays out.

This offering is the now-famous interview that author and critic Frank Kofsky did with Coltrane in John's car at the railroad station near Dix Hills on Long Island, the town where Coltrane was living. Kofsky was working on his major opus, a Marxist polemic on jazz and politics called "Black Nationalism and the Revolution in Music." The book has its good moments, but for the most part it's pretty rough going. Suffice it to say that Kofsky was a product of the times and that his theories haven't aged all that well. 

When I was living in Connecticut back in the early '80s, I got to know an extraordinary horn player named Tom Guralnick. He was studying at Wesleyan University in Middletown, and was busy exploring the limits of creative music. One day he gave me a copy of a taped interview with John Coltrane – he knew I was a collector and thought I'd find it interesting. It was something he'd gotten it from his brother, author Peter Guralnick. I was intrigued to learn the interviewer was Frank Kofsky because I had Kofsky's book and had even tried to read it. The interview with Coltrane was a central part of it.

The actual taped interview turned out to be a testament to Coltrane's gentle spirit, the clarity of his vision and the purity of his intent. Poor Kofsky goes to great lengths to get Coltrane to condemn one group or another, to endorse Kofsky's radical vision of race and politics. But John steadfastly refuses to take the bait and speaks not out of malice or spite but from the heart with real wisdom and generosity. Inspirational!

This historic recording is available in several places on the web already, but I thought I'd post it here as well. This version clocks in at about 60 minutes, and it may be more complete than others out there.

So, happy birthday, John Coltrane! And I hope those Gems visitors who haven't ever heard it will find the interview to be the revelation it truly is.

The Kofsky Interview

John Coltrane

John Coltrane interviewed by Frank Kofsky for Kofsky’s book, “Black Nationalism and the Revolution in Music” (Pathfinder Press, 1970). Done in Coltrane’s car at the railroad station near Dix Hills, Long Island, NY, probably in the spring of 1966 (Kofsky had taken the train out from NYC to meet Coltrane near his home).

1. Interview, Part 1
2. Interview, Part 2

Find it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?9mdzb79g9fhf7zy

Jazz Royalty

I can't remember why I made this sketch – possibly it was for a display for the record store I worked in back in college. Whatever the reason, happy birthday, Yard!

August 27th and 29th are cardinal days in jazz culture, being the respective birthdays of Lester Young and Charlie Parker. I always do a special on my radio show for them, and I thought I'd mark the dates by posting an offering here at Gems as well.

Nothing need be said here about these two seminal figures – if you're into jazz, you already know the backstory. The President was the progenitor of a entirely divergent school of thought about the tenor saxophone and the Bird took flight on those ideas and made improvisation into an art music. 'Nuff said.

Lester as one of Walter Page's Blue Devils
in 1932. With him are Doc Ross, left, and
Buster Smith, right, the band's other reed
players. Pres does indeed look devilish with
whatever that is behind him.

These two LPs came into my possession when I was working in Boston at that Discount Records warehouse I mentioned many posts ago. The assistant manager of the company's Northeast region had offices there and I would see him occasionally on the phone behind his desk as I humped record cartons from the freight elevator to the delivery truck. He was about my age and was something of a party animal with high-waist bell bottoms, platform shoes, fitted nylon shirts and a severely teased mullet. He had a penchant for all-night revels, usually with a few of the hipper store managers in tow, and after one particularly wild weekend he never returned. The story went around that he'd burned too many bridges and had been asked to seek his fortune elsewhere. We heard he'd gone to L.A.

A few days after his departure, several skids of boxes were delivered to the warehouse. These turned out to be the former assistant manager's personal effects. The cartons contained clothes, shoes, toiletries, papers, nick-knacks and the like, and we were supposed repack them and ship them out to him when the word came down. I noted that along with all the personal stuff were a half dozen boxes of records. These intrigued me, because they were almost all rare and unusual imported jazz LPs. The manager, I knew, cared nothing for jazz and wouldn't have known John Coltrane from Chi Coltrane. How had these come into his possession?

Word never did come down on where to ship the boxes. The assistant manager's effects sat a the corner of the warehouse for months. My boss eventually tired of moving the cartons and got rid of them. But before he did, we were allowed to pick through the lot. I, of course, went for the records, and these two Queen Discs were among those I took.

The music contained in these records is probably available today on CD in one form or another, but back in the '70s these performances were ultra-rare. And they are, almost without exception, truly inspired.

The accepted take on Lester's playing following his devastating US Army stint is that it is inferior. His performances here disprove that canard. "Jumpin' with Symphony Sid" stands with the best of Pres, and "Lester Leaps In" is outstanding. Plus, you get to hear Lester introduce the tunes. 

The Bird LP captures Charlie in several unusual settings – including a version of "Groovin' High" with Lionel Hampton's keyboardist, Milt Buckner, playing organ. "Dance of the Infidels" finds Bird playing with the Massey Hall line-up minus Diz, probably right around the same time as the famed Toronto concert. It's astonishing for its intensity. And on the Bandbox aircheck, Bird corrects a confused Leonard Feather on tune titles.

So, happy birthday to Bird and Pres! Celebrate by enjoying these fine examples of their magnificent artistry. The files were, as always, ripped from the original vinyl with only a slight cleaning of sound.

By the way – how did the assistant manager come by these and the other remarkable jazz sides in his pile? I found out many years later that his father was one of the West Coast's leading rare jazz LP dealers. If you've been in the collecting game for a while, you've probably been a recipient of one of his record auction lists in the not-too-distant past ...

Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker

Parker, as; various groups, locations, dates (see cover for listings). 

Queen Disc 002

1. Anthropology

2. Cool Blues

3. Your Father's Moustache

4. Groovin' High

5. Star Eyes

6. Ornithology/How High the Moon

7. Diggin' Diz

8. Embracable You

9. Moose the Mooche

10. Cheryl

11. Dance of the Infidels

Find it here: http://www.mediafire.com/download/ypcumghzha4arzb/Bird_and_Pres_01.rar

 Lester Young

Lester Young

Lester Young, ts: various groups, locations, dates (see cover for listings). 

Queen Disc 001

1. Pennies from Heaven

2. Polka Dots and Moonbeams

3. Jumpin' with Symphony Sid

4. These Foolish Things

5. Three Little Words

6. Lester Leaps In

7. A Ghost of a Chance

8. Just You, Just Me

9. Sweet Georgia Brown

Find it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?rqeqjyy59ld7brc

Penck's Pals

Looking not a little like a modern-day Walt Whitman, German artist Ar. Penck is also a man of many interests, not the least of them creative music. If nothing else, he has excellent taste in sidemen. Wikipedia photo

I was rooting around in a now-defunct East Village record store (not far from the then-mighty Tower Records) back in the '80s on what had to be the hottest day of the year. I mostly went in to take advantage of their delightful air-conditioning, not expecting to find anything of interest amid their big U-2 and Prince displays. But then, in the 99-cent bin, I came across a half-dozen LPs with hand-decorated covers that caught my eye. Several of them featured the legendary cornetist Butch Morris. All of them included a drummer named Ar. Penck. Who?

"Wechsein-Verwechsein," a

woodcut by Ar. Penck

The music on these records was a mix of Downtown and free jazz styles – self-consciously minimalist, sly, utterly hip. I loved it. But a painter friend who was into the new music scene rolled her eyes when she saw the covers. "Ugh," she said. "Penck!"

"Who is this Penck?" I asked. "These are great."

"He's some German – an artist, or so he thinks. A doodler. Those are his scribbles on the covers." I had to admit I didn't think much of the LPs' cover designs. "And those records?" she added. "They're nothing but vanity projects. He just bought himself some sidemen and got a grant to put them out." She turned up her nose.

"But they've got Butch on them. And they sound good to me," I protested. I was feeling a little defensive, but my friend wasn't buying it. We agreed to disagree.

Butch Morris conducting, using
his "from the heart" gesture.

The records were good, I knew that. I mostly wanted them because of Butch Morris. 

Butch was the first jazz player I saw when I moved to New York City in the early '80s, and by then I knew him pretty well. His cornet playing was absolutely magnificent, unlike anyone else's then or since. And he was just starting his large-scale "conductions," whereby he would improvise a composition using prearranged combinations of instruments and sound patterns cued by a series of gestures. He used his musicians the way Ellington did, but he did it in live performance, shaping the piece even as he heard it evolve. Tres cool! 

An original concept – a new music
music box!

My musician wife occasionally played in Butch's large ensemble, and I got to know him through her. When he learned that I was an artist and modelmaker, he asked me if I'd help him with a project he had in mind. He was working on a new suite of pieces for an upcoming recording for the Sound Aspects label, and he'd had an outfit in Switzerland create a number of music box mechanisms that played the suite's signature motif, a melody called "Nowhere Ever After." Would I be interested in helping him create a production music box to hold the device? Oh, yes, I would!

 
I worked with a neighborhood furniture shop to create a simple wooden box that when picked up would play the melody. One side held the mechanism and the other provided access to the winding key and left space for Butch's "dancing notes" logo. I priced it out at a very reasonable buck-and-a-half per box, and presented a prototype version to Butch at a conduction performance at Cooper Union. He seemed delighted.

After that, I saw Butch use the box several times in performances of the new suite and I heard that he'd been showing it around. But nothing much happened with the planned production of the music boxes. So I decided to create a one-off music box to really show him what I could do.

Tiny Butch-in-a-box, a device with more
meaning than I had initially realized

I was working primarily as a sculptor of detailed miniatures in those days, so I created a three-inch-tall figure of Butch from a photo I had of him conducting. I built a red oak box to hold it and the music mechanism, and gave the little model a movable arm. When the music played, the miniature Butch conducted. It was like a hip version of the little girl jewelry box with the dancing ballerina!

At another conduction performance a few months later, I showed Butch my creation. I was excited, hoping he'd be pleased with my elaborate treatment. But it was not to be. I could tell that Butch, though he was politely complimentary, was a bit put off. That confused me. 

It was my friend, the woman who had dissed Ar. Penck, who later cleared up the mystery. Butch, she said, saw my music box with the little figure of himself inside it as a coffin. The thing struck him in that moment as an ominous sign of impending mortality – his. Not a good thing.  

I have no idea if that was how Butch really felt, but the music box production plan was never mentioned again, and not long afterwards I left New York City for the Catskills. I still have the "coffin" music box, and Butch Morris is still very much alive and kicking, so I guess he was right to abandon the project – with me, at least. He did have a music box created by someone else, and you can see it here.

Back to Penck and his musical pals. Here is one of those "vanity" records with Butch. Filling out the ensemble are free jazz veteran Frank Wright and the Wollny brothers. The music is a marvelous amalgam of creative, free and downtown styles. The record was probably the result of an afternoon in the studio, a spontaneous creation that is a testament to the skill of the musicians involved. And Butch's skittering cornet is still one of my favorite sounds in new music. 

And, in case you're wondering what the music box sounds like, click this player.


As always, these files were ripped from the original vinyl with, in this case, no cleaning of the sound.

Our Sound Unity

Ar. Penck

Lawrence "Butch" Morris, cnt; Frank Wright, ts; Frank Wollny, g; Heinz Wollny, b; Ar. Penck, d.

Dimensional Sound Studio, New York, NY; May 27, 1984; No label, number

1. We Met Frank and Butch in Town

2. Our Sound Unity

Find it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?xo3d6a6lccv94g5

Devil's Music

Herbie Harper, from Salina, Kansas, made a name for himself playing in the sections of Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa before settling in Los Angeles in 1947. He recorded several very nice records for small labels like Tampa before getting swallowed up by the movie studios. Photo by William Claxton

Ever have a very bad day that suddenly turns into a very good day? It almost never happens that way, but I well remember one that I had just like that.

This was back in my scuffling days, when I was freelancing as an illustrator and paste-up artist. Had I been living in New York City, this might have been a lucrative way to spend the day. But I was light years from the graphic epicenter of the world, living instead in suburban Connecticut. I'd just gotten married, needed money and had no work. There wasn't any work, of course. Not in the Nutmeg State anyway.

But eventually I did find something. There is a very well regarded, high-end magazine publisher located in Newtown, and in the early '80s they were just getting started. They'd acquired an old farmhouse and had retro-fitted it as offices and a graphic studio. They needed occasional help finishing up mechanicals for their woodworking title. I got the gig.

My first day there they parked me at a drafting table and handed me a massive stack of boards in various states of incompleteness. The art director, who was nice enough, gave me some notes she'd made on fixes and changes, and then disappeared. I never saw her again the entire time I was there.

The site of my first Connecticut
freelance job – boonieville!

Meanwhile, a parade of editors and writers drifted in and out of the studio, yucking it up while grabbing endless refills at the coffee maker. No one spoke to me or even seemed to know I was there.

At 1 p.m. a huge buffet lunch was brought in and the editors and writers crowded around it for the better part of an hour before wandering off again, leaving only empty cartons, greasy paper plates and crumpled napkins. I began to wonder if I was the only one doing any work in the place.

The comings-and-goings continued throughout the afternoon, but they were now focused around the water cooler. By 6 p.m. I'd finished all the boards and was feeling a little light-headed from hunger. At that moment the managing editor – the guy who had hired me – walked in and looked surprise when he saw me.

"You still here? I thought you'd left hours ago. Didn't anybody give you anything useful to do?"

When you're just starting out in the world, your professional ego is a delicate thing. Mine was particularly so, and that comment just about wiped me out. I felt useless, unseen, a failure. I sulked my way out of the building and to my car. I anticipated a 45-minute ride home filled with comforting self-pity.

To ease my misery, I decided I'd stop in to a used bookstore I'd passed on the way to the job. It was near the intersection of I-84 and what was then Route 66, close to Southington. The place was set well back from the road in an funky old warehouse building. It was called the Printer's Devil Bookstore.

I went in, hoping for nothing more than a Rex Stout mystery I didn't already have. To my surprise, I saw they had an entire wall of records. A very big wall. Thousands of them!

I started looking, expecting the usual Herb Alpert/Ferrante & Teicher/Mitch Miller mix. But no – here was a Sweets Edison record on Roulette. And here a Sonny Stitt on Roost! A Clef Basie! A Harold Land on Imperial! I began to thumb through the discs feverishly.

By the time I'd done the lot, I had some 70 sides. They all seemed to be in mint condition, and all were choice stuff. A sign on the wall said the were a buck a piece, and that was fine with me. The hitch was that I only had a sawbuck in my pocket. Would they hold the records until I could go home, get my check book and return?

"Hi," said I hopefully to the attractive young woman behind the counter. "I, uh, wonder, could you hold these for me while I go get my check book? I'll be right back ..." I plopped the huge stack down on the counter.

"Oh, sure," she smiled pleasantly. "No problem. But I have to tell you something – we've just taken over the store." She pointed to a big banner hanging behind the counter. It read "Under New Management."

Uh-oh.

"All those records," she continued, "Sorry, but they're not the right price."

"Not the right price," said I slowly. "What, uh, is the price?" I knew it was too good to be true. Ten bucks a piece would be my guess.

Integrity – one of the world's best jazz
record stores – and one of the last.

"No, they're not the right price. Because we've just taken over the store, everything is on sale this week at 50 percent off."

That was indeed a bad day gone good. I rushed home, returned with a check and walk out of the Printer's Devil with a primo haul. Some of the LPs I already had, and those I sold to Integrity 'n' Music in Wethersfield where I more than made back the money I'd spent at the bookstore. By the way, if you're ever in central Connecticut and find yourself with an urge to look at records, you won't find a better place. You can check it out here.

In the score was an old Tampa Records release called "Modern Jazz Performances." Musicians on it included Herbie Harper, Bob Gordon, Oscar Moore and quite a few others. I was intrigued by it because the label also listed pianist Carl Perkins, and I knew that recordings by the short-lived Perkins were very hard to find (at that time anyway). The record was unfortunately missing its jacket (it was in plain cardboard sleeve), so there was no information on it aside from what was on the label. But the music was quite good, and though the pianist didn't sound like Perkins on all of the cuts, he was clearly present on some.

Many years later, I made an effort to determine who actually played on "Modern Jazz Performances." With the help of several discographies and a few web sources, I was able to piece together personnel and dates for the LP. It turns out the record is a compendium of material from other Tampa releases – nothing special if you happen to have those other records. If you don't, I think you'll find disc intriguing.

So here's one of those sides from my good bad day. The cover has been cribbed from an auction site and is somewhat funkier than my usual offering. And, this being a recording by a company with somewhat indifferent quality standards, the sound had to be clean up quite a bit. A caveat: There is one serious dropout toward the end of "Lover" where it appears a hapless gnat got pressed into the vinyl. I kid you not.

Nice to know that when things go wrong, they sometimes right themselves in rewarding ways ...

Modern Jazz Performances • Composer’s Series
Various Artists, Tampa TP 15

Paul Smith, p; Tony Rizzi, g; Sam Chiefetz, b; Irv Cottler, d.
Los Angeles, CA; November 13, 1953; originally Skylark LP 13
1. C’set La Vie (Shorty Rogers)

Oscar Moore, g; Carl Perkins, p; Joe Comfort, b; George Jenkins, d.
Los Angeles, CA; 1954; originally Tampa TP 16
2. Nearness of You (Carmichael-Washington)

Bob Gordon, bar; Herbie Harper, tbn; Don Pruell, p; Maury Dell, b; George Redman, d.
Los Angeles, CA; 1957; originally Tampa LP 26
3. Babette (Maury Dell)

Dick Taylor, tbn: J.D. King, ts; Joe Felix, p; unknown, b; Paul Vallerina, d.
Los Angeles, CA; 1954; originally Skylark LP 18
4. Blue Moon (Rogers-Hart)

Same personnel, date as #3.
5. Slow Mood (Eddie Miller)

Same personnel, date as #2.
6. Love for Sale (Cole Porter)

Same personnel, date as #1.
7. F.S.T. (Nat Cole)

Same personnel (omit Taylor), date as #4.
8. Lover Come Back to Me (Romberg)

Find it here: http://www.mediafire.com/download/4m7r5h24y2o6dno/Modern_Jazz_Performances.rar

The New Thing, 60 Years Hence

He of the pocket trumpet, Ornette Coleman and – briefly – the New York Contemporary 5, Don Cherry. He's shown here in 1984 at Tramps in New York City, some 21 years after his appearance at the Jazzhus Montmartre with the NYC5. Photo by Lona Foote

What can one say about a record that was pivotal in one's collecting experience? Words fail. For many of my generation, it was that first LP by the Beatles, or by the Grateful Dead or Jimi Hendrix. For me it was "New York Contemporary 5, Vol. 2." The beat of a different drummer, for sure.

It was on one of my first trips to New York City that I found this gem. I was a freshman at an upstate college, and a friend who came from the Bronx invited me home for the weekend. It was a five-hour ride to parents' digs, and I remember they lived in a featureless grey highrise right off the Major Deegan, but I was overwhelmed by the vastness of the urban landscape and by the endless activity contained within it. Very exciting!

Mr. Hall and Mr. Carter, as they
looked around the time I saw them.

We went out that Saturday night to a small club in Midtown to see guitarist Jim Hall and bassist Ron Carter. They had just formed a duo and I'd read they were planning to make a record. As a budding guitar player myself, I was eager to see as many jazz plectrumists as I could, and Hall – who was almost a myth at that time because he was so obscure – was at the top on my list.

The audience for the show was small – only a dozen or so patrons for what felt like a private performance. Hall and Carter said not a word during the entire set, only glancing at each other occasionally and then falling back into deep concentration as the tunes evolved. I was new to jazz and didn't recognize any of pieces they played, but I found the experience intensely cerebral and, truth be told, a trifle boring. A pal of my friend went with us to the show and he was a real jazz enthusiast. He later demonstrated on piano some of the things Jim Hall had played. That really amazed me. It also told me there were things in the music that I had yet to hear.

The next morning we went back into the city to check out the record stores. As I thumbed through the jazz stacks of one of the hipper Midtown disceries (I've forgotten its name, unfortunately), a striking cover caught my eye (that's how my purchases frequently happened back in the vinyl heyday). It featured a grainy, black-and-white photo of a quartet of intense young musicians in suits and ties, obviously in mid-performance, under huge block lettering that proclaimed the "New York Contemporary 5." I recognized Don Cherry's name – he 'd been with Ornette Coleman – but the rest of the players were new to me. On the back it said they played a tune by Ornette and another by Thelonious Monk. And the album was an import. I had to have it!

Back at the apartment, I put the LP on my friend's parents' massive console stereo and cranked it up (they were at work, fortunately). What came out of the speakers was wild, jagged, herky-jerky music, unlike anything I'd ever heard. Music that sounded like the electric blues I loved, but with an energy that was both visceral and intellectual. I played it over and over until my friend finally pulled the plug. 

I now know that in that recording by the New York Contemporary 5 I heard what I'd missed the night before during Jim Hall and Ron Carter's set. I heard the sound that makes the blues so compelling – the "voice." Not actual singing, but the sound of human emotion with all its randomness, its moods, its braggadocio, its aggression, love and sadness. Hall and Carter were just too darn tidy. The music of Cherry, Shepp and Tchicai was anything but neat – it lived and breathed. I was hooked for life.

So here is that pivotal recording. For some reason, Vol. 1 of the Monmartre date was issued Stateside on Storyville and then on Delmark, while Vol. 2 remained available only as a Sonet import. As always, these files were ripped from the original vinyl and, in this case, had no cleaning of the sound whatsoever.

 New York Contemporary 5

'Live' at the Jazzhus Montmartre, Vol. 2

Don Cherry, tp; John Tchicai, as; Archie Shepp, ts; Don Moore, b; J.C. Moses, d.

Jazzhus Montmartre, Copenhagen, DK; November 15, 1963; Sonet SLP 51

1. Consequences (Cherry)

2. Monk's Mood (Monk)

3. Emotions (Ornette Coleman)

4. Wo Wo (Tchicai)

5. Trio (Bill Dixon) 

Find it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?4txcdola04d7ld5