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jazzviewswithcjshearn · 4 years

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A deeper look at: Thelonious Monk: Palo Alto (Impulse!/Sony /Legacy, 2020)

Thelonious Monk: piano; Charlie Rouse: tenor saxophone; Larry Gales: bass; Ben Riley: drums

Palo Alto, the much awaited archival find from Thelonious Monk recorded in 1968, serves as arguably the most significant release in two decades in what has seen a number of finds from the iconic pianist. The last 16 years have seen quite a few releases of “new” Monk; Live at The Olympia (Thelonious Records, 2004) the revelatory and now classic Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall (Blue Note, 2005) and Paris, 1969 (Blue Note, 2013) which documented one of the pianist's final bands with tenor saxophonist Paul Jeffry, and a guest appearance from one of the Magnificent 7 of modern jazz drummers: Philly Joe Jones. What makes this new release so important is it stands as a mirror for contemporary times in the present moment-- How music can bring individuals together in times of racial and social crisis.

The dream of integration in the highly segregated town of Palo Alto, California if only for one afternoon, was brought about by a student at Palo Alto High School, Danny Scher. Scher had an unusual and voracious appetite for jazz beginning as an elementary school student, playing in the school band, lead his own dixieland group and taught lectures on jazz history. In order to quench his thirst for jazz, he would speak with local jazz disc jockeys and assist in helping hang up posters for artist's concerts. Knowing this incredible enthusiasm in such a young person was a rare occurrence, the DJ's would give out the musician's phone numbers to Scher so he could start booking them. Thelonious Monk was an idol for the booking prodigy and he contacted Monk's manager to discuss terms for bringing the iconic pianist to play at his high school. However due to racial tensions, Palo Alto being a predominantly white town, and the fact that Scher was promoting a black artist, the tickets for the event, with their (thinking of the present era) incredible $2 price tag were not moving as the community, and country at large were reeling over the death of Robert Kennedy and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Further, no one thought the pianist would show.

To complicate things, when Scher phoned Monk at the Jazz Workshop where he was the featured attraction, the pianist was simply unaware of the plans the high school student had to bring him in for the concert. After being assured he could get to and from Palo Alto high school via Scher's brother, in the pouring rain Monk's quartet with tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, (a member since 1959), bassist Larry Gales, and drummer Ben Riley arrived in a white van to eager fans, black and white. Scher would later go on to be the most important bookers in jazz and rock, booking and managing Jon Hendricks from his college dorm room, and later working with Bill Graham for over 20 years.

By the time of the October afternoon show, this iteration of the Monk Quartet had been together for five years. Gales had replaced Butch Warren and Riley, Frankie Dunlop. As 1968 rolled around, the pianist was having a tough year. The pianist had been in a coma as a result of several seizures and was being charged for studio time by Columbia, whom his tenure was ending with initially convened with the indispensable Monk's Dream (1962) and by the late 60′s he was playing his music the way he wanted.

Columbia had tried unsuccessfully to market him to the younger demographic, by creating the memorable, outrageous cover to Underground (1968) portraying the pianist, seated at a basement upright piano adorned with bottles of spirits, as if in a saloon, rifle strapped to his side with a Nazi SS member tied up in the background in a bit of absurdity. Monk’s Blues, recorded that same year but released in 1969, flanked Monk’s quartet with Oliver Nelson arrangements, in an attempt at recapturing the vitality and creativity of Hal Overton’s charts for the classic albums The Thelonious Monk Orchestra At Town Hall (Riverside, 1959) and Big Band And Quartet In Concert (Columbia, 1963) but the album was met with mixed critical reaction.

While many Monk devotees regard the groundbreaking Blue Note recordings, his Prestige and most notably Riverside catalog as the pinnacle, he settled into a comfortable groove at Columbia with little in the way of surprises, but the beauty of this newly discovered recording are the levels of interplay it contained. It can be argued that Charlie Rouse, as great as John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Johnny Griffin were at understanding the nuances of the pianist's music (Hank Mobley also served an undocumented stint), was the ideal foil for Monk. Rouse did have devices to be sure, but was wonderful at spinning inventive improvisations, as he does on the opening ballad “Ruby My Dear” here, wrapping the tune in a romantic, velvety longing. He finds delight in the uptempo material, launched by the pianist's provocative figures and mining the freedom when he's left to stroll on “Blue Monk” really laying into the cushion the rhythm section sets for him. Larry Gales provided superb bass lines with forward motion to the group and it is fascinating to compare his choruses of walking on The Complete Live At The It Club (Columbia/Legacy, 1998 rel. 1964) to his solos here that get to the heart of matter. He brings an agile fluency to “ Well You Needn't”, flexing his chops, even taking time to humorously quote “Boo Boo's Birthday”. Throughout the set the pianist showcases his gift with melodic variation in a solo rendition of “Don't Blame Me” which demonstrates this to the fullest, his left hand providing steady stride rhythms giving illusions of a complete rhythm section, his right often ornamenting with patented whole tone runs. Ben Riley is unusually energetic and responsive and contributes exciting, extroverted comping on “Well You Needn't” and “Blue Monk” also supplying some strong, inventive soloing, sticking and moving like a boxer with a strong jab and swift combinations. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the 47 minute set is Monk's brief reading of “I Love You Sweetheart of All My Dreams” as an encore. He was always great at choosing some off the beaten path repertoire and his comment to the audience, “we gotta go to work, you dig?” ends the set on a rapturous note.

Sound:

For a recording made by the Palo Alto High School janitor, Palo Alto is surprisingly good. The recording is mono, with Rouse's biting tone palpable, Monk's piano somewhat under recorded in the background. If there are minor quibbles to be made, Gales bass is VERY heavy in the recording and there is a hollowness to Riley's cymbals that carries a bit through to his brush work. All things considered, the recording which is from a 24 bit/44.1 review copy WAV file conveys a certain excitement that the Focal Chorus 716 speakers capture fairly well-- being matter of fact speakers which may be far from glamorous for some, tell the truth.

Concluding thoughts:

While Palo Alto finds the Thelonious Monk Quartet examining their typical set list there is a particularly energy that makes this new find a joy to hear. Those starting with Monk are advised not to start here but at the classic Blue Note, and Riverside recordings as well as a few of the Columbia albums, but for Monk fanatics it's a worthy find. The fact the group was promote harmony in a community and country in turmoil and perhaps the unusual high school gym venue was something that clearly inspired them as they gave the audience at Palo Alto High School a sparkling show.

Music rating: 8.5/10

Sound rating:7/10

Equipment used:

HP Pavilion laptop

Yamaha RS 202 stereo receiver

Focal Chorus 716 Floor standing speakers

Schiit Modius DAC

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John Coltrane

John William Coltrane, also known as Trane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967), was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and was later at the forefront of free jazz. He led at least fifty recording sessions during his career, and appeared as a sideman on many albums by other musicians, including trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk.

As his career progressed, Coltrane and his music took on an increasingly spiritual dimension. Coltrane influenced innumerable musicians, and remains one of the most significant saxophonists in music history. He received many posthumous awards and recognitions, including canonization by the African Orthodox Church as Saint John William Coltrane and a special Pulitzer Prize in 2007. His second wife was pianist Alice Coltrane and their son Ravi Coltrane is also a saxophonist.

Biography

Early life and career (1926–1954)

Coltrane was born in his parents' apartment at 200 Hamlet Avenue, Hamlet, North Carolina on September 23, 1926. His father was John R. Coltrane and his mother was Alice Blair. He grew up in High Point, North Carolina, attending William Penn High School (now Penn-Griffin School for the Arts). Beginning in December 1938 Coltrane's aunt, grandparents, and father all died within a few months of one another, leaving John to be raised by his mother and a close cousin. In June 1943 he moved to Philadelphia. In September of that year his mother bought him his first saxophone, an alto. Coltrane played the clarinet and the alto horn in a community band before taking up the alto saxophone during high school. He had his first professional gigs in early to mid-1945 – a "cocktail lounge trio", with piano and guitar.

To avoid being drafted by the Army, Coltrane enlisted in the Navy on August 6, 1945, the day the first U.S. atomic bomb was dropped on Japan. He was trained as an apprentice seaman at Sampson Naval Training Station in upstate New York before he was shipped to Pearl Harbor, where he was stationed at Manana Barracks, the largest posting of African-American servicemen in the world. By the time he got to Hawaii, in late 1945, the Navy was already rapidly downsizing. Coltrane's musical talent was quickly recognized, though, and he became one of the few Navy men to serve as a musician without having been granted musicians rating when he joined the Melody Masters, the base swing band. As the Melody Masters was an all-white band, however, Coltrane was treated merely as a guest performer to avoid alerting superior officers of his participation in the band. He continued to perform other duties when not playing with the band, including kitchen and security details. By the end of his service, he had assumed a leadership role in the band. His first recordings, an informal session in Hawaii with Navy musicians, occurred on July 13, 1946. Coltrane played alto saxophone on a selection of jazz standards and bebop tunes.

After being discharged from his duties in the Navy, as a seaman first class in August 1946, Coltrane returned to Philadelphia, where he "plunged into the heady excitement of the new music and the blossoming bebop scene." After touring with King Kolax, he joined a Philly-based band led by Jimmy Heath, who was introduced to Coltrane's playing by his former Navy buddy, the trumpeter William Massey, who had played with Coltrane in the Melody Masters. In Philadelphia after the war, he studied jazz theory with guitarist and composer Dennis Sandole and continued under Sandole's tutelage through the early 1950s. Originally an altoist, in 1947 Coltrane also began playing tenor saxophone with the Eddie Vinson Band. Coltrane later referred to this point in his life as a time when "a wider area of listening opened up for me. There were many things that people like Hawk [Coleman Hawkins], and Ben [Webster] and Tab Smith were doing in the '40s that I didn't understand, but that I felt emotionally." A significant influence, according to tenor saxophonist Odean Pope, was the Philadelphia pianist, composer, and theorist Hasaan Ibn Ali. "Hasaan was the clue to ... the system that Trane uses. Hasaan was the great influence on Trane’s melodic concept."

An important moment in the progression of Coltrane's musical development occurred on June 5, 1945, when he saw Charlie Parker perform for the first time. In a DownBeat article in 1960 he recalled: "the first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes." Parker became an early idol, and they played together on occasion in the late 1940s.

Contemporary correspondence shows that Coltrane was already known as "Trane" by this point, and that the music from some 1946 recording sessions had been played for trumpeter Miles Davis—possibly impressing him.

Coltrane was a member of groups led by Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Bostic and Johnny Hodges in the early to mid-1950s.

Miles and Monk period (1955–1957)

In the summer of 1955, Coltrane was freelancing in Philadelphia while studying with guitarist Dennis Sandole when he received a call from Davis. The trumpeter, whose success during the late forties had been followed by several years of decline in activity and reputation, due in part to his struggles with heroin, was again active and about to form a quintet. Coltrane was with this edition of the Davis band (known as the "First Great Quintet"—along with Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums) from October 1955 to April 1957 (with a few absences). During this period Davis released several influential recordings that revealed the first signs of Coltrane's growing ability. This quintet, represented by two marathon recording sessions for Prestige in 1956, resulted in the albums Cookin', Relaxin', Workin', and Steamin'. The "First Great Quintet" disbanded due in part to Coltrane's heroin addiction.

During the later part of 1957 Coltrane worked with Thelonious Monk at New York’s Five Spot Café, and played in Monk's quartet (July–December 1957), but, owing to contractual conflicts, took part in only one official studio recording session with this group. Coltrane recorded many albums for Prestige under his own name at this time, but Monk refused to record for his old label. A private recording made by Juanita Naima Coltrane of a 1958 reunion of the group was issued by Blue Note Records as Live at the Five Spot—Discovery!in 1993. A high quality tape of a concert given by this quartet in November 1957 was also found later, and was released by Blue Note in 2005. Recorded by Voice of America, the performances confirm the group's reputation, and the resulting album, Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall, is widely acclaimed.

Blue Train, Coltrane's sole date as leader for Blue Note, featuring trumpeter Lee Morgan, bassist Paul Chambers, and trombonist Curtis Fuller, is often considered his best album from this period. Four of its five tracks are original Coltrane compositions, and the title track, "Moment's Notice", and "Lazy Bird", have become standards. Both tunes employed the first examples of his chord substitution cycles known as Coltrane changes.

Davis and Coltrane

Coltrane rejoined Davis in January 1958. In October of that year, jazz critic Ira Gitler coined the term "sheets of sound" to describe the style Coltrane developed during his stint with Monk and was perfecting in Davis' group, now a sextet. His playing was compressed, with rapid runs cascading in hundreds of notes per minute. He stayed with Davis until April 1960, working with alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley; pianists Red Garland, Bill Evans, and Wynton Kelly; bassist Paul Chambers; and drummers Philly Joe Jones and Jimmy Cobb. During this time he participated in the Davis sessions Milestones and Kind of Blue, and the concert recordings Miles & Monk at Newport(1963) and Jazz at the Plaza (1958).

Period with Atlantic Records (1959-1961)

At the end of this period Coltrane recorded his first album as leader for Atlantic Records, Giant Steps (1959), which contained only his compositions. The album's title track is generally considered to have one of the most difficult chord progressions of any widely played jazz composition. Giant Steps utilizes Coltrane changes. His development of these altered chord progression cycles led to further experimentation with improvised melody and harmony that he continued throughout his career.

Coltrane formed his first quartet for live performances in 1960 for an appearance at the Jazz Gallery in New York City. After moving through different personnel including Steve Kuhn, Pete La Roca, and Billy Higgins, the lineup stabilized in the fall with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Steve Davis, and drummer Elvin Jones. Tyner, from Philadelphia, had been a friend of Coltrane's for some years and the two men had an understanding that the pianist would join Coltrane when Tyner felt ready for the exposure of regularly working with him. Also recorded in the same sessions were the later released albums Coltrane's Sound (1964) and Coltrane Plays the Blues (1962).

Coltrane's first record with his new group was also his debut playing the soprano saxophone, the hugely successful My Favorite Things(1960). Around the end of his tenure with Davis, Coltrane had begun playing soprano, an unconventional move considering the instrument's neglect in jazz at the time. His interest in the straight saxophone most likely arose from his admiration for Sidney Bechet and the work of his contemporary, Steve Lacy, even though Davis claimed to have given Coltrane his first soprano saxophone. The new soprano sound was coupled with further exploration. For example, on the Gershwin tune "But Not for Me", Coltrane employs the kinds of restless harmonic movement used on Giant Steps (movement in major thirds rather than conventional perfect fourths) over the A sections instead of a conventional turnaround progression. Several other tracks recorded in the session utilized this harmonic device, including "26–2", "Satellite", "Body and Soul", and "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes".

First years with Impulse Records (1959–1961)

In May 1961, Coltrane's contract with Atlantic was bought out by the newly formed Impulse! Records label. An advantage to Coltrane recording with Impulse! was that it would enable him to work again with engineer Rudy Van Gelder, who had taped both his and Davis' Prestige sessions, as well as Blue Train. It was at Van Gelder's new studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey that Coltrane would record most of his records for the label.

By early 1961, bassist Davis had been replaced by Reggie Workman, while Eric Dolphy joined the group as a second horn around the same time. The quintet had a celebrated (and extensively recorded) residency in November 1961 at the Village Vanguard, which demonstrated Coltrane's new direction. It featured the most experimental music he had played up to this point, influenced by Indian ragas, the recent developments in modal jazz, and the burgeoning free jazz movement. John Gilmore, a longtime saxophonist with musician Sun Ra, was particularly influential; after hearing a Gilmore performance, Coltrane is reported to have said "He's got it! Gilmore's got the concept!" The most celebrated of the Vanguard tunes, the 15-minute blues, "Chasin' the 'Trane", was strongly inspired by Gilmore's music.

During this period, critics were fiercely divided in their estimation of Coltrane, who had radically altered his style. Audiences, too, were perplexed; in France he was booed during his final tour with Davis. In 1961, Down Beat magazine indicted Coltrane and Dolphy as players of "Anti-Jazz", in an article that bewildered and upset the musicians. Coltrane admitted some of his early solos were based mostly on technical ideas. Furthermore, Dolphy's angular, voice-like playing earned him a reputation as a figurehead of the "New Thing" (also known as "Free Jazz" and "Avant-Garde") movement led by Ornette Coleman, which was also denigrated by some jazz musicians (including Davis) and critics. But as Coltrane's style further developed, he was determined to make each performance "a whole expression of one's being".

Classic Quartet period (1962–1965)

In 1962, Dolphy departed and Jimmy Garrison replaced Workman as bassist. From then on, the "Classic Quartet", as it came to be known, with Tyner, Garrison, and Jones, produced searching, spiritually driven work. Coltrane was moving toward a more harmonically static style that allowed him to expand his improvisations rhythmically, melodically, and motivically. Harmonically complex music was still present, but on stage Coltrane heavily favored continually reworking his "standards": "Impressions", "My Favorite Things", and "I Want to Talk About You".

The criticism of the quintet with Dolphy may have affected Coltrane. In contrast to the radicalism of his 1961 recordings at the Village Vanguard, his studio albums in the following two years (with the exception of Coltrane, 1962, which featured a blistering version of Harold Arlen's "Out of This World") were much more conservative. He recorded an album of ballads and participated in collaborations with Duke Ellington on the album Duke Ellington and John Coltrane and with deep-voiced ballad singer Johnny Hartman on an eponymous co-credited album. The album Ballads (recorded 1961–62) is emblematic of Coltrane's versatility, as the quartet shed new light on old-fashioned standards such as "It's Easy to Remember". Despite a more polished approach in the studio, in concert the quartet continued to balance "standards" and its own more exploratory and challenging music, as can be heard on the Impressions (recorded 1961–63), Live at Birdland and Newport '63 (both recorded 1963). Impressions consists of two extended jams including the title track along with "Dear Old Stockholm", "After the Rain" and a blues. Coltrane later said he enjoyed having a "balanced catalogue."

The Classic Quartet produced their best-selling album, A Love Supreme, in December 1964. A culmination of much of Coltrane's work up to this point, this four-part suite is an ode to his faith in and love for God. These spiritual concerns characterized much of Coltrane's composing and playing from this point onwards—as can be seen from album titles such as Ascension, Om and Meditations. The fourth movement of A Love Supreme, "Psalm", is, in fact, a musical setting for an original poem to God written by Coltrane, and printed in the album's liner notes. Coltrane plays almost exactly one note for each syllable of the poem, and bases his phrasing on the words. The album was composed at Coltrane's home in Dix Hills on Long Island.

The quartet played A Love Supreme live only once—in July 1965 at a concert in Antibes, France.

Avant-garde jazz and the second quartet (1965–1967)

In his late period, Coltrane showed an increasing interest in avant-garde jazz, purveyed by Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra and others. In developing his late style, Coltrane was especially influenced by the dissonance of Ayler's trio with bassist Gary Peacock, who had also worked with Paul Bley, and drummer Sunny Murray, whose playing was honed with Cecil Taylor as leader. Coltrane championed many younger free jazz musicians such as Archie Shepp, and under his influence Impulse! became a leading free jazz record label.

After A Love Supreme was recorded, Ayler's style became more prominent in Coltrane's music. A series of recordings with the Classic Quartet in the first half of 1965 show Coltrane's playing becoming increasingly abstract, with greater incorporation of devices like multiphonics, utilization of overtones, and playing in the altissimo register, as well as a mutated return of Coltrane's sheets of sound. In the studio, he all but abandoned his soprano to concentrate on the tenor saxophone. In addition, the quartet responded to the leader by playing with increasing freedom. The group's evolution can be traced through the recordings The John Coltrane Quartet Plays, Living Space, Transition (both June 1965), New Thing at Newport (July 1965), Sun Ship (August 1965), and First Meditations (September 1965).

In June 1965, he went into Van Gelder's studio with ten other musicians (including Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Freddie Hubbard, Marion Brown, and John Tchicai) to record Ascension, a 40-minute piece that included solos by the young avant-garde musicians (as well as Coltrane), and was controversial primarily for the collective improvisation sections that separated the solos. After recording with the quartet over the next few months, Coltrane invited Sanders to join the band in September 1965. While Coltrane frequently used over-blowing as an emotional exclamation-point, Sanders would overblow entire solos, resulting in a constant screaming and screeching in the altissimo range of the instrument.

Adding to the quartet

By late 1965, Coltrane was regularly augmenting his group with Sanders and other free jazz musicians. Rashied Ali joined the group as a second drummer. This was the end of the quartet; claiming he was unable to hear himself over the two drummers, Tyner left the band shortly after the recording of Meditations. Jones left in early 1966, dissatisfied by sharing drumming duties with Ali. Both Tyner and Jones subsequently expressed displeasure in interviews, after Coltrane's death, with the music's new direction, while incorporating some of the free-jazz form's intensity into their own solo projects.

There is speculation that in 1965 Coltrane began using LSD, informing the "cosmic" transcendence of his late period. After the departure of Jones and Tyner, Coltrane led a quintet with Sanders on tenor saxophone, his second wife Alice Coltrane on piano, Garrison on bass, and Ali on drums. Coltrane and Sanders were described by Nat Hentoff as "speaking in tongues". When touring, the group was known for playing very lengthy versions of their repertoire, many stretching beyond 30 minutes and sometimes being an hour long. Concert solos for band members often extended beyond fifteen minutes.

The group can be heard on several concert recordings from 1966, including Live at the Village Vanguard Again! and Live in Japan. In 1967, Coltrane entered the studio several times; though pieces with Sanders have surfaced (the unusual "To Be", which features both men on flutes), most of the recordings were either with the quartet minus Sanders (Expression and Stellar Regions) or as a duo with Ali. The latter duo produced six performances that appear on the album Interstellar Space.

Death and funeral

Coltrane died of liver cancer at Huntington Hospital on Long Island on July 17, 1967, at the age of 40. His funeral was held four days later at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in New York City. The service was opened by the Albert Ayler Quartet and closed by the Ornette Coleman Quartet. Coltrane is buried at Pinelawn Cemetery in Farmingdale, New York.

One of his biographers, Lewis Porter, has suggested that the cause of Coltrane's illness was hepatitis, although he also attributed the disease to Coltrane's heroin use. In a 1968 interview Ayler claimed that Coltrane was consulting a Hindu meditative healer for his illness instead of Western medicine, although Alice Coltrane later denied this.

Coltrane's death surprised many in the musical community who were not aware of his condition. Davis said that "Coltrane's death shocked everyone, took everyone by surprise. I knew he hadn't looked too good... But I didn't know he was that sick—or even sick at all."

Personal life and religious beliefs

In 1955, Coltrane married Naima (born Juanita Grubbs). Naima Coltrane, who was already a Muslim convert, heavily influenced his spirituality. When they married, Naima had a five-year-old daughter named Antonia, later named Saeeda. Coltrane adopted Saeeda. Coltrane met Naima at the home of bassist Steve Davis in Philadelphia. The love ballad he wrote to honor his wife, "Naima" was Coltrane's favorite composition. In 1956 the couple left Philadelphia with their six-year-old daughter in tow and moved to New York City. In August 1957, Coltrane, Naima and Saeeda moved into an apartment on 103d St. and Amsterdam Ave. in New York, near Central Park West. A few years later, John and Naima Coltrane purchased a home on Long Island on Mexico Street. This is the house where they would eventually break up in 1963. Said Naima about the break in J.C. Thomas's Chasin' the Trane: "I could feel it was going to happen sooner or later, so I wasn't really surprised when John moved out of the house in the summer of 1963. He didn't offer any explanation. He just told me there were things he had to do, and he left only with his clothes and his horns. He stayed in a hotel sometimes, other times with his mother in Philadelphia. All he said was, 'Naima, I'm going to make a change.' Even though I could feel it coming, it hurt, and I didn't get over it for at least another year." But Coltrane kept a close relationship with Naima, even calling her in 1964 to tell her that 90% of his playing would be prayer. Coltrane would be dead in four years, but he always kept in touch with her. Naima brought serenity and a calmness into his life. All who knew Naima described her gentle spirit and serenity. They remained in touch until his death in 1967. Naima Coltrane died of a heart attack in October 1996.

Coltrane and Naima were officially divorced in 1966. In 1963, Coltrane met pianist Alice McLeod. He and Alice moved in together and had two sons before he was "officially divorced from Naima in 1966, at which time John and Alice were immediately married." John Jr. was born in 1964, Ravi in 1965, and Oranyan ("Oran") in 1967. According to the musician and author Peter Lavezzoli, "Alice brought happiness and stability to John's life, not only because they had children, but also because they shared many of the same spiritual beliefs, particularly a mutual interest in Indian philosophy. Alice also understood what it was like to be a professional musician."

Coltrane was born and raised in a Christian home, and was influenced by religion and spirituality from childhood. His maternal grandfather, the Reverend William Blair, was a minister at an African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in High Point, North Carolina, and his paternal grandfather, the Reverend William H. Coltrane, was an A.M.E. Zion minister in Hamlet, North Carolina. Critic Norman Weinstein noted the parallel between Coltrane's music and his experience in the southern church, which included practicing music there as a youth.

In 1957, Coltrane had a religious experience that may have helped him overcome the heroin addiction and alcoholism he had struggled with since 1948. In the liner notes of A Love Supreme, Coltrane states that, in 1957, "I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life. At that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music." The liner notes appear to mention God in a Universalist sense, and do not advocate one religion over another. Further evidence of this universal view regarding spirituality can be found in the liner notes of Meditations(1965), in which Coltrane declares, "I believe in all religions."

After A Love Supreme, many of the titles of Coltrane's songs and albums were linked to spiritual matters: Ascension, Meditations, Om, Selflessness, "Amen", "Ascent", "Attaining", "Dear Lord", "Prayer and Meditation Suite", and "The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost". Coltrane's collection of books included The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, the Bhagavad Gita, and Paramahansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi. The last of these describes, in Lavezzoli's words, a "search for universal truth, a journey that Coltrane had also undertaken. Yogananda believed that both Eastern and Western spiritual paths were efficacious, and wrote of the similarities between Krishna and Christ. This openness to different traditions resonated with Coltrane, who studied the Qur'an, the Bible, Kabbalah, and astrology with equal sincerity." He also explored Hinduism, Jiddu Krishnamurti, African history, the philosophical teachings of Plato and Aristotle, and Zen Buddhism.

In October 1965, Coltrane recorded Om, referring to the sacred syllable in Hinduism, which symbolizes the infinite or the entire Universe. Coltrane described Om as the "first syllable, the primal word, the word of power". The 29-minute recording contains chants from the Hindu Bhagavad Gita and the Buddhist Tibetan Book of the Dead, and a recitation of a passage describing the primal verbalization "om" as a cosmic/spiritual common denominator in all things.

Coltrane's spiritual journey was interwoven with his investigation of world music. He believed not only in a universal musical structure that transcended ethnic distinctions, but in being able to harness the mystical language of music itself. Coltrane's study of Indian music led him to believe that certain sounds and scales could "produce specific emotional meanings." According to Coltrane, the goal of a musician was to understand these forces, control them, and elicit a response from the audience. Coltrane said: "I would like to bring to people something like happiness. I would like to discover a method so that if I want it to rain, it will start right away to rain. If one of my friends is ill, I'd like to play a certain song and he will be cured; when he'd be broke, I'd bring out a different song and immediately he'd receive all the money he needed."

Religious figure

After Coltrane's death, a congregation called the Yardbird Temple in San Francisco began worshiping him as God incarnate. The group was named after Charlie Parker, whom they equated to John the Baptist. The congregation later became affiliated with the African Orthodox Church; this involved changing Coltrane's status from a god to a saint. The resultant St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church, San Francisco is the only African Orthodox church that incorporates Coltrane's music and his lyrics as prayers in its liturgy.

Samuel G. Freedman wrote in a New York Times article that "the Coltrane church is not a gimmick or a forced alloy of nightclub music and ethereal faith. Its message of deliverance through divine sound is actually quite consistent with Coltrane's own experience and message." Freedman also commented on Coltrane's place in the canon of American music:

In both implicit and explicit ways, Coltrane also functioned as a religious figure. Addicted to heroin in the 1950s, he quit cold turkey, and later explained that he had heard the voice of God during his anguishing withdrawal. [...] In 1966, an interviewer in Japan asked Coltrane what he hoped to be in five years, and Coltrane replied, "A saint."

Coltrane is depicted as one of the 90 saints in the Dancing Saints icon of St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco. The icon is a 3,000-square-foot (280 m2) painting in the Byzantine iconographic style that wraps around the entire church rotunda. It was executed by Mark Dukes, an ordained deacon at the Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church, who painted other icons of Coltrane for the Coltrane Church. Saint Barnabas Episcopal Church in Newark, New Jersey, included Coltrane on their list of historical black saints and made a "case for sainthood" for him in an article on their former website.

Documentaries on Coltrane and the church include Alan Klingenstein's The Church of Saint Coltrane (1996), and a 2004 program presented by Alan Yentob for the BBC.

Instruments

In 1947, when he joined King Kolax's band, Coltrane switched to tenor saxophone, the instrument he became known for playing primarily. Coltrane's preference for playing melody higher on the range of the tenor saxophone (as compared to, for example, Coleman Hawkins or Lester Young) is attributed to his start and training on the alto horn and clarinet; his "sound concept" (manipulated in one's vocal tract—tongue, throat) of the tenor was set higher than the normal range of the instrument.

In the early 1960s, during his engagement with Atlantic Records, he increasingly played soprano saxophone as well. Toward the end of his career, he experimented with flute in his live performances and studio recordings (Live at the Village Vanguard Again!, Expression). After Dolphy died in June 1964, his mother is reported to have given Coltrane his flute and bass clarinet.

Coltrane's tenor (Selmer Mark VI, serial number 125571, dated 1965) and soprano (Selmer Mark VI, serial number 99626, dated 1962) saxophones were auctioned on February 20, 2005 to raise money for the John Coltrane Foundation. The soprano raised $70,800 but the tenor remained unsold.

Legacy

The influence Coltrane has had on music spans many genres and musicians. Coltrane's massive influence on jazz, both mainstream and avant-garde, began during his lifetime and continued to grow after his death. He is one of the most dominant influences on post-1960 jazz saxophonists and has inspired an entire generation of jazz musicians.

In 1965, Coltrane was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame. In 1972, A Love Supreme was certified gold by the RIAA for selling over half a million copies in Japan. This album, as well as My Favorite Things, was certified gold in the United States in 2001. In 1982 he was awarded a posthumous Grammy for "Best Jazz Solo Performance" on the album Bye Bye Blackbird, and in 1997 he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante named Coltrane one of his 100 Greatest African Americans. Coltrane was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize in 2007 citing his "masterful improvisation, supreme musicianship and iconic centrality to the history of jazz." He was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.

His widow, Alice Coltrane, after several decades of seclusion, briefly regained a public profile before her death in 2007. A former home, the John Coltrane House in Philadelphia, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1999. His last home, the John Coltrane Home in the Dix Hills district of Huntington, New York, where he resided from 1964 until his death, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 29, 2007. One of their sons, Ravi Coltrane, named after the sitarist Ravi Shankar, is also a saxophonist.

The Coltrane family reportedly possesses much more unreleased music, mostly mono reference tapes made for the saxophonist, and, as with the 1995 release Stellar Regions, master tapes that were checked out of the studio and never returned. The parent company of Impulse!, from 1965 to 1979 known as ABC Records, purged much of its unreleased material in the 1970s. Lewis Porter has stated that Alice Coltrane intended to release this music, but over a long period of time; Ravi Coltrane is responsible for reviewing the material.

Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary, is a 2016 American film directed by John Scheinfeld. Narrated by Denzel Washington, the film chronicles the life of Coltrane in his own words, and includes interviews with such admirers as Wynton Marsalis, Sonny Rollins, and Cornel West.

Discography

The discography below lists albums conceived and approved by Coltrane as a leader during his lifetime. It does not include his many releases as a sideman, sessions assembled into albums by various record labels after Coltrane's contract expired, sessions with Coltrane as a sideman later reissued with his name featured more prominently, or posthumous compilations, except for the one he approved before his death. See main discography link above for full list.

Prestige and Blue Note Records

Coltrane (debut solo LP) (1957)

Blue Train (1957)

John Coltrane with the Red Garland Trio (1958)

Soultrane (1958)

Atlantic Records

Giant Steps (first album entirely of Coltrane compositions) (1960)

Coltrane Jazz (first appearance by McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones) (1961)

My Favorite Things (1961)

Olé Coltrane (features Eric Dolphy, compositions by Coltrane and Tyner) (1961)

Impulse! Records

Africa/Brass (brass arranged by Tyner and Dolphy) (1961)

Live! at the Village Vanguard (features Dolphy, first appearance by Jimmy Garrison) (1962)

Coltrane (first album to solely feature the "classic quartet") (1962)

Duke Ellington & John Coltrane (1963)

Ballads (1963)

John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (1963)

Impressions (1963)

Live at Birdland (1964)

Crescent (1964)

A Love Supreme (1965)

The John Coltrane Quartet Plays (1965)

Ascension (quartet plus six horns and bass, one 40' track collective improvisation) (1966)

New Thing at Newport (live album split with Archie Shepp) (1966)

Kulu Sé Mama (1966)

Meditations (quartet plus Pharoah Sanders and Rashied Ali) (1966)

Live at the Village Vanguard Again! (1966)

Expression (posthumous and final Coltrane-approved release; one track features Coltrane on flute) (1967)

Wikipedia

#John Coltrane #09-23 #07-17

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theloniousbach · 2 years

Text

PROGRAMMER’S NOTES: JAZZ SPECTRUM, WGTE TOLEDO PUBLIC RADIO, 2 JULY 2022

The host, my friend for over 60 years, needed to record three shows this past week, so he asked if I had ideas, suggestions, even a whole show. Well, sure I did. This one—save for one substitution and sets seven and nine—is mine. I did have a Song of the Week and five other sets, but I didn’t plan it as a whole show as such. “Just some sets to use over the three weeks,”Fri(end), along with a set of blues by Kansas City connected musicians (and there are some amazing jazzers from our shared home town) for next week when I will be there to see my sister. The July 16 show is probably mine as it takes off from Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz.

Here, with interspersed commentary, is the playlist:

Set 1

Herbie Hancock, Maiden Voyage, "Dolphin Dance" (9:16)

Grachan Moncur III, Evolution, "Evolution" (12:24)

Renee Rosnes, Written in the Rocks, "Galapagos" (7:14)

I discovered GM3’s Evolution through my recent listening project of listening to the vibraphone instead of piano as a bed for horns. His collaborations with Jackie McLean are even edgier than Dave Holland’s brilliant quintet with the same instrumentation. GM3 died in the middle of that excursion, so this tune is in order.

Of course, I would like a tune called Evolution, but it’s an impressive composition. So is Rosnes’s Galapagos which shares an inspiration. Dolphin Dance is always good to hear and is at least vaguely related.

Set 2

Milt Jackson and the Thelonious Monk Quintet, Milt Jackson and the Thelonious Monk Quintet, "I Mean You" (2:47)

Fred Hersch Trio, Alive at the Village Vanguard, "Dream of Monk" (6:10)

Eric Dolphy, Out to Lunch, "Hat and Beard," (8:25)

Grachan Moncur III, Evolution, "Monk in Wonderland" (7:54)

Milt Jackson and the Thelonious Monk Quintet, Milt Jackson and the Thelonious Monk Quintet, "Mistrioso" (3:24)

We kid ourselves that every show should have some Ellington/Strayhorn and some Monk. Bags was part of the vibraphone journey so he frames three tributes/pastiches by some worthy acolytes, including GM3.

Set 3

Miles Davis, Round Midnight, “Round Midnight” (5:58)

Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane, Live at Carnegie Hall, “Monk’s Mood” (7:52)

Ornette Coleman, New York Is Now, “Broadway Blues” (8:40)

Pat Metheny, 80;/81, “The Bat” (6:05)

A bit more Monk, but this set and the next was to see how sidemen sounded with different leaders. So John Coltrane with Miles and Monk, then Dewey Redman and Charlie Haden with Ornette and Pat Metheny. Here is where the substitution was as I had a tune by Keith Jarrett’s American quartet. I have no objections to this choice, but Jarrett was more familiar to me and that band has always intrigued me for what it synthesized. But Metheny does the same thing and 80/81 is a more significant album. It may be a bit more Ornette influenced though.

Set 4

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Africaine, “Lester Left Town” (7:57)

Miles Davis, Miles Smiles, “Footprints” (9:46)

Ornette Coleman, The Art of the Improvisers, “The Alchemy of Scott LaFaro” (9:53)

Here it’s Wayne Shorter and his tunes with the Messengers and Miles before Scott LaFaro with Ornette and, at least by plan, THE Bill Evans Trio. That he played with both is illuminating about all three of them. It may be that he’s more out there with Evans.

Set 5–Song of The Week

Invitation has shown up on my streams and intrigued me, but I heard the Webster Jazz Faculty do it at a program that also featured tunes from the 1957 Monk/Coltrane Carnegie Hall concert. There it got fixed in my mind that it was written by Bronislau Caper who also gave us On Green Dolphin Street.

I do poorly with singers but Sarah Vaughn, Tony Bennet, and Dinah Washington are safe, right? Jackson, Joe Henderson, Lee Konitz, and John Coltrane too make for illuminating improvisational juxtapositions.

Les Brown and His Band of Renown, The Les Brown Story, “Invitation” (3:16)

Milt Jackson Sextet, Invitation, “Invitation” (3:55)

Joe Henderson, Live at the Lighthouse, “Invitation” (7:34)

Sarah Vaughn, You’re Mine You, “Invitation” 2:16)

Set 6

Tony Bennet, The Good Things in Life, “Invitation” (3:14)

Lee Konitz Trio, Oleo, “Invitation” 4:38

Dinah Washington, I Wanna Be Loved, “Invitation” (2:39)

John Coltrane, Standard Coltrane, “Invitation” (10:22)

Set 7

Walt Dickerson, To My Queen, “To My Queen”.

Set 8

Out to Dinner, Play On, "Rebecca's Dance" (5:34)

The Stan Getz Quartet, In Paris, "The Knight Rides Again" (10:10)

Sonny Rollins, No Problem, "No Problem" (7:43)

Melissa Aldana, 12 Stars, “Falling” (6:21)

This set both plays with vibes and guitars, but no pianos, and a tenor sax survey with new favorites, Nicole Glover and Melissa Aldana, each with tenures in the all star band Artemis, framing giants Stan Getz and Sonny Rollins. That’s Glover’s tune with Behn Gellice’s project that uses the Dolphy Out to Lunch instrumentation while Aldana’s Falling kicks off her album with Lage Lund that started me down the sax/guitar project.

The Knight Rides Again with Gary Burton is way edgier than lots of Getz. The Rollins is not as spectacular as he can be, but he is with Bobby Hutcherson and guitarist Bobby Broome. On The Bridge he and Jim Hall opened up spaces and tested the guitar as a substitute for the piano; this is the example I found of him playing with Bobby Hutcherson.

Set 9

Glenn Dickson, Wider Than the Sky, “Brave Shines the Sun”. 9:44

Tomas Fujiwara, March, “Silhouettes in Smoke”. 5:29

John Yao’s Triceratops, Off-Kilter, “Quietly” 6:53

Gordon Grdina Nomad Trio, Boiling Point, “Shibuya”.

Sets 7 and 9 are from the regular host and they are typically interesting. I’m sure I’d learn some new music, but I will do that by other means as I’ll have turned off the radio by then because I’m old enough to have been friends with someone for over 60 years.

#jazz #2022 #jazz spectrum #wgte

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themaninthegreenshirt · 7 years

Photo

Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall, November 29, 1957

#thelonious monk #jazz #john coltrane #blue note #NYC

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seeselfblack · 7 years

Photo

Happy 100 Thelonious Monk...

Thelonious Monk is one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time and one of first creators of modern jazz.

Thelonious Monk is one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time and one of first creators of modern jazz and bebop. For much of his career, Monk played with small groups at Milton's Playhouse. Many of his compositions have become jazz standards, including "Well, You Needn't," "Blue Monk" and "Round Midnight." His spares and angular music had a levity and playfulness to it.

Musician. Thelonious Monk was born on October 10, 1917 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. When he was just four, his parents, Barbara and Thelonious, Sr., moved to New York City, where he would spend the next five decades of his life.

Monk began studying classical piano when he was eleven but had already shown some aptitude for the instrument. "I learned how to read before I took lessons," he later recalled. "You know, watching my sister practice her lessons over her shoulder." By the time Monk was thirteen, he had won the weekly amateur competition at the Apollo Theater so many times that the management banned him from re-entering the contest.

At age seventeen, Monk dropped out of the esteemed Stuyvesant High School to pursue his music career. He toured with the so-called "Texas Warhorse," an evangelist and faith healer, before assembling a quartet of his own. Although it was typical to play for a big band at this time, Monk preferred a more intimate work dynamic that would allow him to experiment with his sound.

In 1941, Monk began working at Minton's Playhouse in Harlem, where he joined the house band and helped develop the school of jazz known as bebop. Alongside Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, he explored the fast, jarring, and often improvised styles that would later become synonymous with modern jazz.

Thelonious Monk's first known recording was made in 1944, when he worked as a member of Coleman Hawkins's quartet. Monk didn't record under his own name, however, until 1947, when he played as the leader of a sextet session for Blue Note.

Monk made a total of five Blue Note recordings between 1947 and 1952, including "Criss Cross" and "Evidence." These are generally regarded as the first works characteristic of Monk's unique jazz style, which embraced percussive playing, unusual repetitions and dissonant sounds. As Monk saw it, "The piano ain't got no wrong notes!" Though widespread recognition was still years away, Monk had already earned the regard of his peers as well as several important critics.

In 1947, Monk married Nellie Smith, his longtime sweetheart. They later had two children, whom they named after Monk's parents, Thelonious and Barbara. In 1952, Monk signed a contract with Prestige Records, which yielded pieces like "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" and "Bags' Groove." The latter, which he recorded with Miles Davis in 1954, is sometimes said to be his finest piano solo ever.

Because Monk's work continued to be largely overlooked by jazz fans at large, Prestige sold his contract to Riverside Records in 1955. There, he attempted to make his first two recordings more widely accessible, but this effort was poorly received by critics.

Not content to pander ineffectively to a nonexistent audience, Monk turned a page with his 1956 album, Brilliant Corners, which is usually considered to be his first true masterpiece. The album's title track made a splash with its innovative, technically demanding, and extremely complex sound, which had to be edited together from many separate takes. With the release of two more Riverside masterworks, Thelonious Himself and Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane, Monk finally received the acclaim he deserved.

In 1957, the Thelonious Monk Quartet, which included John Coltrane, began performing regularly at the Five Spot in New York. Enjoying huge success, they went on to tour the United States and even make some appearances in Europe. By 1962, Monk was so popular that he was given a contract with Columbia Records, a decidedly more mainstream label than Riverside. In 1964, Monk became one of four jazz musicians ever to grace the cover of Time Magazine.

The years that followed included several overseas tours, but by the early 1970s, Monk was ready to retire from the limelight; save for his 1971 recordings at Black Lion Records and the occasional appearance at the Lincoln Center or Carnegie Hall, Monk spent his final years living quietly in seclusion. After battling serious illness for several years, he passed away from a stroke in 1982. He has since been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry, and featured on a United States postage stamp.

As a pioneering performer who managed to slip almost invisibly through the jazz community during the first half of his career, Monk is exactly the type of figure who invites rumor and exaggeration. The image the public has been left with is that of a demanding, eccentric recluse with an inborn gift for piano. The real person was more complex. "People don't think of Thelonious as Mr. Mom," his son points out, recalling his father changing diapers, "but I clearly saw him do the Mr. Mom thing, big-time."

Whatever Thelonious was to the media, it's clear what his legacy will be to jazz music: that of a true originator. Monk probably said it best when he insisted that a "genius is one who is most like himself."

See also:

- Atlantic.com’s Interview with Robin Kelly - The Secret Life of Thelonious Monk

- Whose Your Daddy

- The Women Who Made Thelonious Monk

- Monkzone.com

- NPR - In A New Biogeraphy, Monk Minus The Myth

- Thelonious Monk and a Siamese Cat...

- Newsweek - A LONG-LOST THELONIOUS MONK ALBUM IS FINALLY RELEASED NEARLY 60 YEARS LATER

#monk #Thelonious Monk #jazz #bee bop #black classical music #black historoy

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kvetchlandia · 4 years

Video

youtube

The Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane Blue Monk, Live at Carnegie Hall, New York City 1957

Thelonious Monk, piano

John Coltrane, tenor sax

Ahmed Abdul-Malik, bass

Shadow Wilson, drums

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raggywaltz1954 · 7 years

Text

This is the big one. The unicorn. The white whale. The record that woke the vinyl collector within me. The search for this record took years, but this year the vinyl gods smiled on me, and I am now the owner of this rare bootleg album. One of the reasons why I’ve been on the hunt for this album is because it’s only available on vinyl. It was because of this and other rare Brubeck and Desmond music that’s only on vinyl that started me on the journey of record collecting. Naturally, this record has a rather unconventional background. But first…

The Music

Tune: Two-part Contention

Recorded live 25 August, 1956 at Basin Street, New York City

Personnel:

Dave Brubeck- Piano

Paul Desmond- Alto Sax

Norman Bates- Bass

Joe Dodge- Drums

This album is a super bootleg album made up of at least two different radio broadcasts of Dave Brubeck performances, one from 1959 and the other from 1956. Side one is a broadcast from a December 1959 Carnegie Hall performance featuring the Dave Brubeck Quartet with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. They play “Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra” by Dave’s brother Howard. The music was eventually recorded in the studio the next month and came out on the Columbia album ‘Bernstein Plays Brubeck Plays Bernstein’. The liner notes to that album mention that there three Carnegie Hall performances of the work on December 10, 11, and 13, 1959, so this broadcast is from one of those dates. By the sound of the music (stiff, tentative, with a few ‘mistakes’ compared to the studio album), I’d peg it closer to the December 10th date. The preservation of this performance on record is a great historical document and it’s interesting to compare this with the official Columbia release, but I’m more excited and interested in the other side of the album.

The main reason why I wanted to find this album was for the music on the second side of the album. The two tracks allegedly stem from a Basin Street club date on 25 August, 1956. I say allegedly because the two tracks differ in sound quality, which makes me wonder if they’re from two separate dates. Putting on my Sherlock hat (i.e. serious Googling), I discovered a very detailed schedule of the NBC radio show Monitor from the weekend of August 24-26, 1956. Scheduled for late Saturday night, August 25 at 11pm Eastern Standard Time was live music from Dave Brubeck at Basin Street, in New York City. I don’t know where the 25 August, 1956 date came from originally, but it looks like it’s accurate.

Dave Brubeck was frequently on Monitor during the mid-1950’s as well as other jazz shows on the radio, and a few of these live airchecks have turned up on bootleg CDs and records over the years, but nowhere near as many have surfaced as similar radio broadcasts from Miles Davis. The few Brubeck radio broadcasts that have showed up typically have Paul Desmond and Brubeck in great form. Live Brubeck is the best Brubeck, especially when it’s a club date. This particular lineup provided Desmond and Brubeck with a solid foundation to really stretch out and play some tasty stuff, as Desmond does on the cut above.

‘Two-part Contention’ is a Brubeck original, being a play on words based off of Bach’s ‘Two-part Invention’. The contention comes from the changing rhythms and soloists. After some improvised counterpoint, Paul Desmond launches into his solo, followed by the slower section featuring Brubeck’s piano. It’s the fast section after this that Desmond really shines. He throws a lot of different quotes in his solo, including the melody of Gerry Mulligan’s ‘Limelight’, and Brubeck follows with a solo that references the old standard ‘I Get A Kick Out of You’, before concluding the performance at the twelve and a half-minute mark. Joe Dodge’s drumming is simple, basic, but solid. His successor, Joe Morello, had a much more powerful and noticeable presence on the drums, but I like Dodge’s drumming. His occasional accents and spare playing (he only used a bass drum, snare, hi-hat, and two cymbals) are a welcome contrast to the many busy jazz drummers popular then and now.

Being a club date, there’s applause, rattling dishes, and the buzz of conversation, but it’s hardly intrusive. Taken with the info above, it’s a great example of late-night jazz from a jazz club, as heard on somebody’s radio in 1956. I wonder if people back in the 1950’s truly appreciated those days of radio when you could flip a switch and catch a club date from Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Thelonious Monk, and the other jazz greats, with barely any commercials? Those days surely aren’t coming back.

The Cover

College Jazz Collector Rating: D+

It’s extremely basic, the cover is. Of course it’s a bootleg, so the bar is already low. We get treated to three stencil-like reproductions of a Brubeck photograph and an actual photograph of Leonard Bernstein himself, surrounded by a frame of… rope? Flowery banner? I’m not sure. What’s up with the ‘stereo-mono’ up there, too? The lack of any color all makes for bland cover, typical of a bootleg album. It looks like it was made in someone’s basement. More on that later. The album came sealed in shrink-wrap (!), but still has signs of a rough life, including a tattered upper spine and bent edges.

The Back

This album takes minimalism to another level. There’s absolutely nothing on the back of it. Not a thing. This is the only album I have that has a completely blank back. It’s actually kind of neat. The bootlegger provided all of the info on the front and felt that none was needed on the back, I suppose.

The Vinyl

The vinyl is extremely thin and flimsy, non-deep groove, but in mint condition. The labels continue the trend of little information. The info that is there is partially incorrect. ‘Musical Montage’ as labeled on the cover and the label is completely false, and is in fact the musical work by Howard Brubeck entitled ‘Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra’, and the four different ‘musical montages’ are ‘Allegro’, ‘Andante-Ballad’, ‘Adagio-Ballad’, and ‘Allegro-Blues’. The four movements aren’t separated on the record, instead lumped together as one big block of music as it’s performed on the record. There were slight pauses between each movement, but the record presser didn’t bother to separate them.

The sound quality is amazingly clean for being taped off of the radio. Despite the ‘stereo-mono’ label on the cover, the music on both sides of the record are in mono.

I did some research on the Ozone label, as I was unfamiliar with it, and was surprised to discover that this album was recorded by the legendary jazz bootlegger- I mean archivist- Boris Rose. Boris Rose was a man from New York City that tirelessly captured live jazz performances of some of the greatest jazz musicians on his portable tape recorders, either by taking them illicitly into clubs (particularly Birdland) or taping radio broadcasts from his home. During jazz’s golden era of the 1950’s and 60’s, Rose documented the jazz that came through New York and meticulously kept written records of the tapes he made. He amassed quite an archive of valuable live music, and the whole operation was conducted in his basement.

Rose traded tapes between like-minded friends, and in the 1970’s began pressing some of his tapes to records and sold them in small quantities on a variety of made-up labels, such as Alto, Ozone and Session Disc. Apparently he didn’t like serious record collectors and discographers (ironic given his meticulous record keeping) and consequently provided little or purposefully wrong information on his albums.

I found about Boris Rose before I bought this album though, through late-night internet searches for rare live jazz performances. I always wondered if Rose had captured the Dave Brubeck Quartet on tape, and it looks like he did and that there’s possibly more. An article from the Wall Street Journal about Rose has made the rounds on different websites, and it is in the spirit of Boris Rose that I bootleg a bootlegged article. Bon appetit!

Wall Street Journal December 4, 2010

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704354704575651483072044218.html

Elaine Rose, daughter of famed jazz archivist Boris Rose, holds a portrait of her father in front of a small portion of his many master tape recordings from Birdland and a number of other New York jazz venues.

In a dark basement in a quiet residential neighborhood in the Bronx, a well-known archive of privately recorded live tapes and acetates is gathering dust and waiting for some institution to acquire it. The Boris Rose archive, named for the New Yorker who amassed it, is so capacious, in fact, that no one has even cataloged all of it and Elaine Rose, who has owned it since her father died 10 years ago, can’t even begin to guess how much it’s worth.

“This collection certainly deserves to be in a major institution, such as the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, or Institute of Jazz Studies—intact,” said John Hasse, the curator of American music at the Smithsonian Institution.

The collection contains everything from rare performances by modern jazz legends like Charlie Parker and John Coltrane to swing stars like Benny Goodman, Count Basie and Mr. Rose’s own favorites, like Sidney Bechet and Eddie Condon. Ms. Rose is well aware of the need for finding a permanent repository; the acetates and the tapes are, she said, in delicate condition.

“It needs a home. I just can’t keep it in storage. I’m giving myself a time frame of six months to a year to do something with it,” she said.

Boris Rose (1918-2000) was one of those legendary characters who seem to proliferate in the world of jazz. He was tall, articulate, always very well groomed—and by all accounts an outrageous character. An inveterate prankster, he dreamed up a dizzying array of fake label names (including “Titania,” “Ambrosia,” “Caliban,” “Session Disc,” “Ozone” and “Chazzer Records”), many of which he tried to pass off as European imports. Most of his albums bore an address on the front, such as “A Product of Stockholm, Sweden.” But if you looked closely on the back, it would say something like “Manufactured in Madison, Wisconsin” in much smaller type.

The truth was that Mr. Rose produced them all from his brownstone on East 10th Street. He told me once that he took great delight in confounding collectors and discographers, whom he regarded as the bean counters of jazz.

“I always felt something about jazz,” Mr. Rose said in an undated interview with historian Dan Morgenstern that was taped for German television. “As far back as 1930, I listened to broadcasts from the Cotton Club. I heard Duke, I heard Don Redman, I heard Cab Callaway.”

During his years at City College, Mr. Rose practiced the c-melody saxophone but began to find his calling when he got a job at the MRM Music Shop on Nassau Street.

“As far back as 1940, I purchased a home [disc-cutter] recorder and I began to dub records,” he told Mr. Morgenstern. “For the next few years while I was in the Army, I was able to dub records for collectors who couldn’t find the originals.”

From there, he branched out to recording radio broadcasts and then live bands in clubs. “Getting out of the Army in 1946, I had professional equipment, and began to take down all of these jazz broadcasts,” he explained. “First on 16-inch acetate discs. Later on, when tape came into the picture, I was able to record on tape.”

Mr. Morgenstern remembers Mr. Rose as “a man who never sat down—he was always monitoring three or four tape recorders or disc-cutters at any given time.” For decades, Mr. Rose ran a thriving business, recording jazz wherever he could, then making and selling copies or trading them for rarer material.

He operated from 10th Street, but stored most of his original tapes and acetates in the basement of his house in the Bronx, where he raised his three daughters.

One of Rose’s tape recorders

It’s still fairly well-organized: Discs are mostly in one area; soundtracks are in one set of cabinets; 10-inch reels are in one spot and 7-inch reels in another. 78 RPM discs and LPs are all over the place. A thick layer of dust rests on top of everything, but considering the vastness of the collection, the few tapes I recently took out and examined seemed to be in good shape—though neither tape nor shellac will last forever.

Mr. Rose kept detailed notebooks of almost every recording he made. The trick, though, is to find the tape to match the written entry.

“We won’t know what’s in there—or what shape it’s in—until somebody wants it,” Ms. Rose said.

The centerpiece of the Rose archive is the Birdland Collection: Mr. Rose recorded virtually every band that played this most legendary of jazz joints, either directly off the airwaves or by smuggling a concealed tape recorder into the club.

Over time he amassed a spectacular library of modern jazz from the glory years—the 1950s. His friends found this amazing since he rarely listened to the stuff himself; his own tastes ran to Louis Armstrong and Kid Ory. Still, he documented an entire era of music, the great majority of which hasn’t been heard in 60 years.

Around 1970, Mr. Rose’s business entered a new phase when he began using some of his material for mass-produced LPs that were distributed internationally, generally bearing amateur-looking artwork and misleading information. According to friend and researcher Arthur Zimmerman, Mr. Rose rarely if ever bothered to negotiate with the actual musicians or pay mechanical royalties for the compositions (with the exception of several country albums by Gene Autry, after the singing cowboy’s lawyers got in touch). He sold Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday material to ESP Records, and a famous double-LP set of Parker at Birdland to Columbia Records.

In the end, Mr. Rose released hundreds of albums, under dozens of label names, up through the mid-’80s. When compact discs took over, he gradually lost interest. In the ’90s, he made it known that the archive was for sale, but kept raising the price whenever anybody expressed interest.

“He left it to me so I could have an income,” said Elaine Rose. “His words to me were, ‘Make money with it.’ But it’s a whole different era now.”

That was in 2010. I’ve tried to find out what happened in the seven years since, but haven’t found a thing. I sure hope somebody with more money than me takes interest in it.

The Place of Acquisition

Good old eBay. After an almost six-year search, I found this album for sale online as ‘Buy Now’ for $20, sealed and in mint condition. It’s only shown up once on Discogs since 2011, and I barely missed a sale on eBay last year. Good things come to those that wait. Like the other rare Brubeck bootleg album, I clicked ‘Buy Now’ quick, and in a week I was the proud owner of this album, probably one of the rarest if not the rarest album in my collection. A search on Popsike only turned up one result, and that was my own purchase on eBay. Despite its rarity, it doesn’t seem to go for much. A sale on Discogs ended at $10.00 and some change. Either the people selling it don’t realize it’s worth or it’s really just not that valuable. Any thoughts and comments would be appreciated!

Dave Brubeck, Leonard Bernstein, Dialogue For Jazz Combo & Orchestra // Ozone (Ozone 14) This is the big one. The unicorn. The white whale. The record that woke the vinyl collector within me.

#Bootleg #Dave Brubeck #Joe Dodge #Live Jazz #Ozone #Paul Desmond #Rare

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admiral70 · 8 years

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Right now I am listening to:

Monk's Mood (Live At Carnegie Hall) by Thelonious Monk Quartet With John Coltrane, on Amazon Echo http://amzn.to/1V2WeBm

#Monk's Mood (Live At Carnegie Hall)#Thelonious Monk Quartet With John Coltrane #At Carnegie Hall

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slmorganposts · 4 years

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Russian helicopters take part in military exercises

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#Russian helicopters take part in military exercises

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