Friday, December 25, 2009

Al Cohn



ال كان متولد 24 نوامبر 1925 در نیویورک و مرگ در 15 فوریه 1988 . از شش سالگی پیانو می زد و از 12 سالگی کلارینت. در نوجوانی خودش به تنهایی به سراغ تنور ساکسفون رفت و کمی بعد با جو مارسالا و جرجی آلد توانایی هایش را به کمال رساند و حتی کمی بعد برای آنها دست به تنظیم آهنگ زد. در تابستان 1947 با ارکستر بادی ریچ نامی برای خود به هم زد. از نیمه دهه 1940 بیشتر انرژی خود را صرف نواختن در ارکسترهای بزرگ کرد که ارکستر مشهور وودی هرمان با نام چهار برادر یکی از آنها بود. علاقه او به کار با ارکسترهای بزرگ به خصوص تنظیم آهنگ ها و نوشتن برای آنها در دهه 1950 با ارکسترهای آرتی شاو و الیوت لارنس ادامه پیدا کرد. در 1957 با زوت سیمز ، که از زمان چهاربرادر وودی هرمان او را می شناخت، به استودیو رفت، دوستی و ضبط های مشترکی که تا دهه 1980 و مرگ او ادامه پیدا کرد. در این دوره کان به گروههای کوچکتر علاقه پیدا کرد و بعضی از بهترین کارهایی که او در استودیو انجام داده را در این روزها و کوارتت ها و کوئینتتهای او می توان جستجو کرد.

ال كان با زوت سيمز


نفس گرم و ملودیک کان در ساکسفون همواره یادآور لستر یانگ بود اما بسیاری از نشانه‌های منحصر بفردی که کان با خود به این موسیقی آورد باعث ایجاد تمایزی بی بروبرگرد میان او و ساکسفونیست های هم نسلش می شد. هوش و استعداد منحصربفردش در این موسیقی او را میان بقیه موزیسین های جاز به شخصیتی محبوب تبدیل کرده بود. او مدتی همسر مریلین مونرو، ستاره سینما، بود.
كان همواره از شیوه نواختن زوت سیمز، چارلی پارکر و سانی استیت با ستایش فراوان یاد می کرد. براي اين كه يك نمونه از كارهاي ال را بشنويد به اين‌جا برويد. اين آلبوم از كارهاي متأخر او با جيمي راولز (پيانيست) است.



Monday, December 21, 2009

Count Basie at Newport 1957



یکی از بهترین آلبوم هایی که در زندگی ام شنیده ام این کار درجه یک کنت بیسی در فستیوال جاز نیوپورت (نیویورک) 1957 است، کنسرتی که رفقای قدیم بیسی - لستر یانگ، ایلی نوی جکت، جو جونز و روی الدریج - با آدم های همیشگی‌اش مثل جیمی راشینگ، جو ویلیامز، سانی پین و فردی گرین و دیگران را دور هم جمع می کند تا برای یک ساعت برق از سر شنونده فستیوال، و امروز شنونده آلبوم ضبط شده، بپراند. جان هاموند اعضای گروه را معرفی می کند و بین اجراها با شعف از بیسی و مردانش حرف می زند. "سویینگ در نیوپورت" که مخصوص این واقعه نوشته شده آغازگر آلبوم و یکی از بهترین قطعات است. بعد از مدتی که یاران قدیم می آیند آلبوم شتاب و جانی می گیرد که دیگر هیچ چیز نمی تواند متوقفش کند. آلبوم را این جا بشنوید.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

On 52nd Street, Part I



In September 1943 Dizzy Gillespie left Earl Hines. Oscar Pettiford, who had been with Charlie Barnet from January, left that band in May. Gillespie played with Coleman Hawkins; and, for three weeks in October, with Duke Ellington at the Capitol theater on Broadway. Pettiford worked with Thelonious Monk at Minton's for four months before moving down to 52nd street's Onyx Club with Roy Eldridge. Then Gillespie and Pettiford got together as co-leaders of what is generally acknowledged to be the first group to formally present bebop to the general public. Shortly after the debut of the Gillespie-Pettiford unit, a recording was put together on February 16, 1944, that was the first formal statement of the new music on record. The leader and featured soloist of the date was Coleman Hawkins. Budd Johnson and Clyde Hart co-authored "Bu-Dee-Daht," the piece that later made Daniel Bloom rave to us in front of Columbia Grammar School, and "Disorder at the Border"; and Dizzy contributed a milestone with his composition "Woody'n You" (hee named it for Woody Herman because Herman had liked and encouraged his writing. Herman never recorded it. ) That was the begging of a new era.

***

"To hear the guys on the Street was another thing, and when I finally arrived on the Street, I guess it was the last few years. It was the few years before that that I didn't know too much about. When I got there, that's when Dizzy had the band with Oscar Pettiford, Don Byas. And then Budd Johnson was on there for a while. Then there was a band with Don and Coleman Hawkins, Benny Harris and Monk. As a matter of fact I played in the only square club on the Street for a while which was called the 51 Club. It was opposite from the Three Deuces— the same side of the street as the Onyx Club. And they just had a little trio. Bob Baron was the leader, and piano players, there was revolving piano players in and out, and tenor. We played for a couple of singers. I don't know what that club was doing there. But it was straight . . . just a corny club. I played there a few months. And one of the piano players was Al Haig. Before he got to play with Dizzy and Bird. He was still in the Coast Guard, I believe. Apple cheeks. Clean-cut young fellow. I guess he sounded like Teddy Wilson. We didn't get a chance to play a lot down there. We just played the shows, 'cause they had dancing. But it was great 'cause I was right on the scene there, and between sets I could go to hear all these guys. I got to hang out on the Street a little more after that. Got to know some of the guys. I was young enough to be flexible. It wasn't the thing that it hit me over the head because it was something new. It was something new but it wasn't a dramatic thing like it was for older guys that couldn't bend with it." -- AL COHN

**


"When I did come to New York to settle down in 1942, I joined Diz, Oscar Pettiford, Max Roach, and all those men at the Onyx Club. We really started to get into it, getting down arrangements, head arrangements, and recordings and all of that. So that's what I did. That's when it started. The Street made everybody aware of this new music. Dizzy was the theoretician to this music to my way of thinking and my knowledge, and he was really. It was lots and lots of fun. But some guys it didn't really influence too much—a lot of guys like Don Byas and Lucky Thompson and all of 'em. They stayed more in the Hawk thing, but they got the swiftness and the changes but they didn't necessarily sound in the exact style.
Dizzy tried to hum everything; he had to hum everything to everybody to get them to see what he was still talkin' about. It would be hard to explain it. It could be notated, but it was very hard to read, because cats weren't used to reading and actually, that's how I think it got its name, bebop. Because he would be humming this music, and he'd say, "Ooop bop ta oop a la doo bop doo ba." So people said, "Play some more of that bebop" because he would be saying, "Bebop." And the cats would say, "Sing some more of that bebop," and actually, I think that's how it got its name, because that's the way he would have to sing it to make you get the feeling that he wanted you to play with. I put down a lot of things for Oscar Pettiford. Actually, what they call "One Bass Hit" that was Oscar's tune. He called it "For Bass Faces Only." It's absolutely his tune, and he was the first one to play it. Oscar Pettiford contributed much to this music. Most all of those tunes that we played on sand Street when I worked with Diz, damned near half of them were Oscar's tunes. He was writing tunes every day. "Hey, Budd. Put this down. Put this down. Put this down." 'Cause he couldn't notate it on paper, so a lot of that happened that way. A lot of that happened with Monk. I used to put down things for Monk. That was back in the 52nd Street days. In fact, me and Monk used to hang out. We'd get a bottle of wine. I'd go over to his mother's house where he was livin' over on the West Side. I would put down things for him. Sometime he would come to my house. I was livin' on 152nd Street then. Oh, he was beautiful. He was a little bitter, because everybody was sorta getting credit, and actually I really heard Monk doin' this stuff before anybody. I don't think anybody else had the tunes. I really would put Monk before Diz from my knowledge. Of course, I wasn't in New York."--BUDD JOHNSON

**

"When I came out of the Army, I was very hurt because Charlie Parker had become famous, Dizzy had become famous, Max had become famous, and I said to myself, "What happened to Monk?" because we were playing a lot of Monk's tunes. We used to go to an after-hours place; this was an apartment. After Monroe's would close down we would all go to this guy's apartment called Mat Maddox. This would be about nine or ten in the morning. And we'd be there until twelve or one in the afternoon playing in a little room that had a piano in it, and there was Monk, myself, and—who else now—well, Victor Coulson and George Treadwell were always there. It has been said that Monk wrote "Round Midnight" about 1939. And a lot of the tunes that he recorded much later were written in the early '40s, but nobody heard them on record." -- ALLEN TINNEY

*

Monday, December 7, 2009

Jam Session at Carnegie Hall 1949




آلبوم دوشنبه این هفته به جای کاری سولو، یک Jam Session تمام عیار است در سالن کارنگی هال نیویورک با حضور غول های بی باپ.

کنسرت با تریوی باد پاول (با مکس روچ به عنوان طبال) آغاز می شود. بعد مایلز دیویس، بنی گرین (ترومبون)، سانی استیت (آلتو) و سرژ چالوف (باریتون) هم برای اجرای سه قطعه دیگر به آنها ملحق می شوند.

برای اجرای بعدی یک گروه تازه روی صحنه می آید که از استن گتز (تنور)، کای ویندینگ (ترومبون)، ال هیگ (پیانو) و تامی پاتر (باس) و روی هینز (طبل) تشکیل شده است.

ترکیب بعدی گروه شش تایی لنی تریستانو – پیانیست سفیدپوست نابینای نیویورکی – با لی کانتیز – آلتویست نامدار – است. و در انتها دایناسورها روی صحنه می آیند: چارلی پارکر و رد رادنی برای اجرای پنج قطعه.

تاریخ این کنسرت روزهای 24 و 25 دسامبر 1949است و می توانید امروز این کنسرت تاریخی را در شصت سالگی اش بشنوید که هنوز تازه است. حال و هوای کریسمسی آن، به اضافۀ روحیۀ جمعی اش هم چیزی است کاملاً مناسب امروز و این روزها.

***

آلبوم را در قسمت الف و ب در این جا بشنوید.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Singing Off-Key, But Singing Anyhow



"I am going to sing for you, a little off key perhaps, but I will sing. To sing you must first open your mouth. You must have a pair of lungs, and a little knowledge of music. It is not necessary to have an accordion, or a guitar. The essential thing is to want to sing. This then is a song. I am singing.

It is the twenty-somethingth of October. I no longer keep track of the date. Would you say – my dream of the 14th November last? There are intervals, but they are between dreams, and there is no consciousness of them left. The world around me is dissolving, leaving here and there spots of time. The world is a cancer eating itself away… I am thinking that when the great silence descends upon all and everywhere music will at last triumph." Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer


Thursday, December 3, 2009

William Gottlieb's Jazz Photos, Part 1

One of 52nd Street's saints, Allen Eager was received lessons on tenor saxophone from Ben Webster. He was a fanatic about skiing, horse riding, and motor racing. Lived a long life and played with cats like Coleman Hawkins, Red Rodney, Max Roach, Al Haig, Serge Chaloff, Charlie Parker, Barney Kessel, Shelly Manne, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Tad Dameron, Fats Navarro, Wardell Gray & Gerry Mulligan.


Born blind eminent master of jazz piano. Glenn Gould used to sit and learn from him. His music is one of the most complex creations in jazz history. He's the art; Art Tatum.

A poor boy from Red Bank, New Jersey who became one of the greatest masters of modern music. A minimalist pianist and founder of the best rhythm sections in the world. Needless to say, he is Count Basie himself.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Listen to the Ahmad Jamal Quintet (1960)


Ahmad Jamal
Listen to the Ahmad Jamal Quintet

Release Date: Apr 1961
Recording Date: Aug 15, 1960-Aug 16, 1960
Label: Argo (673)


Line Up:
Ahmad Jamal (Piano)/Ray Crawford (Guitar)/Israel Crosby (Bass)/Vernell Fournier (Drums)/
Joe Kennedy (Violin, Arranger)


Listen to "The Ahmad Jamal Quintet"

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Good Morning Blues#1: With Bill in the Mornings



Good Morning Blues
will be my early morning notepad. It is the result of the time I spend in a bus to get to my office. This time is long enough for listening to usually a jazz record (to be exact from 6:25 AM to 7:10 AM) and shape my thoughts about the tunes and artists while I'm looking at the window and dig the first efforts of people for getting out of beds and being back on the streets.

This morning iPod was playing "New jazz conceptions", Bill Evans's first record under his own name. A collection of songs for trio and occasionally solo instrumentation.

In the bus, when the day hasn’t arrived completely and darkness is fading from east section of town, and spent colors of autumn mixed with hazy colors of early morning winters, listening to Bill's first record is exactly like observing a morning rises from darkness and thick mist of a long cold night.

He was in the same age as I, when he went to Riverside studios to cut 11 songs for his new conceptions. Yet the music isn't mature enough, but the spirit is complete. Even one can hear Waltz for Debby in the album but without that spontaneous swing of his latter ground-breaking performance.

I'm in the hardest days of my life, but I think I can go on with Bill in the mornings and Hawk at nights.