Neil, a friend of mine here in Tokyo, hipped me to this video of saxophonists Sonny Rollins and Paul Jeffrey making music and discussing performance, practice, communication, isolation, self- awareness, etc…
This Dexter Gordon solo from the song “Loose Walk”, by Sonny Stitt, is part of a video called JAZZ ICONS: DEXTER GORDON LIVE IN ‘63 & ‘64. it features concert and studio footage from shows in Holland, Switzerland and Belgium. the first section, filmed in Holland with sidemen George Gruntz (pno), Guy Pedersen (Bs) and Daniel Humair (drms), opens with a scene of Gordon making his way down a dark avenue, dressed in a trench coat and hat. he steps into a jazz club, hands his things to the barman and makes his way to the stage where his band is already holding it down. grabbing his horn as the band finishes, he steps up to the mic and introduces the next song- i immediately notice the deep baritone voice and wonder if he’s going to burst into song or quote some Shakespeare. instead, after the quirkily cool chat up, he and the band dive into a nice version of “Night In Tunisia”. Gordon has a presence that is tangible. i wonder how he would have done as a (full time) movie actor, or a crooner- he has that type of aura. he stretches out nicely on “Tunisia”; the video is primarily a vehicle for Gordon, with the other musicians carrying a supporting role. he gets lots of blowing time and makes very good use of it. they play a nice version of “What’s New” and follow it up with “Loose Walk”. Gordon alternates between orthodox bebop lines and riffing in an earthier blues style. he lays down a lot of nice ideas and at times i can hear why Coltrane cited him as a stylistic influence. i also hear some hints of Lester Young, one of his models. Gordon was such an awesome player. big, focused, instantly identifiable sound, fat pocket, inventive melodies and always swinging, with the blues ever close at hand. these elements are shown to great advantage on this video. the same rhythm section is featured on “Lady Bird” and “Body And Soul”. Gordon plays with another unit (Kenny Drew, Gilbert Rovère and Art Taylor on piano, bass and drums) on two songs, “Second Balcony Jump” and “You’ve Changed”. the sample liner notes are below…
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When the performances on this DVD were filmed in Europe in 1963 and 1964, Dexter Gordon was not on tour from the United States. He was living in Copenhagen, Denmark, working for months at a time at the Montmartre Jazz Club. At the time of the concert in Lugano, Switzerland, on September 20, 1963, Dexter was 40 years old and was referred to as an expatriate even though he never considered himself anything but a jazz musician living in Europe where he could find steady work and peace of mind. When he wasn’t working, he would often be seen riding around town on his bicycle. Though clearly attached to the United States —he made numerous trips back to visit his family—he considered Copenhagen his second home.
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Dutch TV, Amersfoort, Holland
July 29, 1964
Dexter Gordon often used the rhythm section on this performance in Amersfoort, Holland, and on the last one on the DVD recorded January 8, 1964, in Brussels, Belgium, when he was on tour. Asked to recall these concerts, which took place more than 40 years ago, pianist George Gruntz replied, “this trio with Humair and myself went on tour so often with American jazz artists who came to visit and play in Paris and often from there we went on tour with them. We were the preferred rhythm section!” This was surely the case because they can be seen in many European TV appearances, including those with Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Johnny Griffin and Donald Byrd.
The “preferred” drummer, Daniel Humair, when asked to recall the days with Dexter, commented: “Dexter was the perfect jazz musician because the music was always about purity and creation. He never played the role of the leader, he never dictated, because he knew that this would have a negative effect on the musicians and would cancel the purpose of the mutual adventure. As a drummer, he was one of the most pleasing soloists to be behind. We never had an argument and he was devoid of an ego. His attitude was respect of musicians to musicians.”
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On this performance, Dexter plays “Second Balcony Jump”, which he had recorded in 1962 on the Blue Note album Go! The Billy Eckstine and Gerry Valentine composition certainly reminded him of those days that he considered his best, when he was playing in a band with Sarah Vaughan, Fats Navarro, Gene Ammons, Leo Parker and Art Blakey. He never tired of talking about the great Eckstine Band and all that he had learned from its musicians. He is also heard on the beautiful ballad, “You’ve Changed”, which he had recorded in 1961 on the Blue Note album, Doin’ Allright. He was certainly thinking about Billie Holiday when he played this tune. On both compositions, Dexter is able to stretch out and give plenty of solo space to his stellar sidemen.
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Jazz Prisma (Brussels, Belgium)
January 8, 1964
The personnel on this performance is the same as that on the July 29, 1964, television recording in Amersfoort, Holland: George Gruntz, piano; Guy Pederson, bass; and Daniel Humair, drums.
The compositions played on this DVD were part of Dexter Gordon’s repertoire during this period when he was living in Europe. He played “Body and Soul”, “You’ve Changed”, “Second Balcony Jump”, “What’s New” and “Lady Bird” almost nightly—and re-worked them every time. (“Lady Bird” was written by Tadd Dameron. Called “the romanticist of the bebop movement” by Dexter, he also composed “If You Could See Me Now”, which became Sarah Vaughan’s first signature song.) The chance to hear and see these performances after listening to them on LPs and CDs makes us acutely aware of the ability of jazz musicians to interpret and re-interpret and then re-interpret again what we think of as a perfect performance.
When Dexter played “Body and Soul”, he often announced, “There comes a time in every tenor saxophonist’s life when he must play his rendition of ‘Body and Soul’. If it weren’t for Coleman Hawkins, where would we all be by now?” This composition is a fitting finale to this Jazz Icons DVD as it gives us Dexter Gordon as he was in 1964—not only as part of a very long line of tenor players whom he respected and listened to over and over again, but also as a modern tenor saxophonist listening to everything around him and using what he found beautiful and meaningful and leaving the rest aside.
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—Maxine Gordon
Arguably the most sampled record of all time, “Funky Drummer”, from IN THE JUNGLE GROOVE, is most well known for the Clyde Stubblefield drum break that has appeared as a sample on countless hip hop beats since the late 80’s. it also contains some incredible sax work by Maceo Parker and the ridiculously stinky organ of James Brown himself. this tune clocks in at about nine minutes but i can never seem get enough… in the wrong hands, funk can come off as repetitive, cliche driven junk. “Funky Drummer”, one of the foremost examples of the style, is in fact an intricately balanced tapestry of subtly morphing rhythmic motifs between the drums, bass and guitars, that support Brown’s conversational- then- melodic vocalizing over greasy organ stabs, and Parker’s sermonizing tenor sax. the accompanying voices have specific roles but they are free to take liberties as the moment dictates. the one constant is the hypnotic chant of the horn section that acts as congregation to preachers Brown and Parker. i think the thing that fools many who listen to James Brown’s music is that its relaxed, off the cuff pose masks a rigorous discipline. when listening to this song, try zeroing in on a specific voice and checking out all the variations on the initial motif that happen over the course of the song. the bass line (played by Charles Sherrell) is a thing of beauty. it becomes simpler or more complex in response to the other voices but more importantly, it melds with the drum pattern and never lets go. Parker blows liberally through most of the song with a biting tenor sound, reminiscent of Stanley Turrentine, and short, highly syncopated riffs that weave in and out of the horn section line. like Yusef Lateef who i wrote of in a previous post, Parker sculpts each note with bends, smears, staccato attacks, etc. his solo’s complexity does not necessarily lie in the note choices (he rarely moves outside of a blues scale), but rather in the intricate rhythmic delivery and endlessly varied articulation which is in a class by itself. will this song ever get old?
Here’s a nice, lesser known compostion from the pen of tenor sax/ composer legend, Benny Golson. “Strut Time” is the opening track from one of his early records, THE OTHER SIDE OF BENNY GOLSON. Golson’s sax along with Curtis Fuller’s trombone make for a warm, mellow front line. pianist Barry Harris, Jymie Merritt playing bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums provide support for them. like his classic compositions, “Strut Time” features a catchy, singable melody over a fast-moving and challenging progression. i like the nice comping patterns of the rhythm section under the two horn front line which precedes the tight swinging bridge. a nice example of classic hard bop songwriting…
BENNY GOLSON
MELODY FOR STRUT TIME (mp3)
In an earlier post i talked about setting two soloists side by side, performing on the same song, in order to do a little comparison and contrast. Pepper and Adderley seemed like a good pair to begin with. but before getting into things, lemme throw this out there: perhaps the title of Pepper’s disc (ART PEPPER MEETS THE RHYTHM SECTION) suggests a little about his solo on “Star Eyes”. Pepper seems quite restrained on this cut. perhaps it’s due to the fact that this was a one-off recording. i’m not sure if he’d ever played with, or even knew personally, Garland, Chambers or Jones, and from what i’ve read, this session came as a surprise to him. he was also caught up in his habits and hadn’t been musically active for several months up to that point. just imagine waking up one morning with no idea that later in the day you’d be in the studio playing with the legendary Miles Davis rhythm section, arguably the hottest trio of their day! more than a few musicians would absolutely freeze up. not to make excuses, but given the circumstances, Pepper provides a beautiful, although tentative, performance. but still, i can’t help feeling that he is a sideman rather than the leader. Adderley, on the other hand, recorded his version of “Star Eyes” on his record THE CANNONBALL ADDERLEY QUINTET PLUS with his working band featuring brother Nat on cornet, Sam Jones on bass, drummer Louis Hayes, special guest Wynton Kelly on piano, and Victor Feldman on vibes and piano. unlike Pepper, Cannonball sounds totally at ease with his bandmates- he brings off his two choruses with great style. but really, i can’t ever recall a time hearing Adderley when he didn’t sound incredibly poised and confident. in my opinion, Cannonball’s take is the better of the two but given the very different circumstances of these recordings, it’s rather unfair to compare them… and in another quick aside: being born in Los Angeles and raised in Northern California, i tend to wear my irritation on my sleeve concerning the narrow attitudes toward West Coast Jazz. it has with a few exceptions, been routinely stereotyped as commercial and blasé. when i listen to someone like Pepper for example, i hear a deep, emotional undercurrent hiding behind what can be referred to as a characteristically west coast sound and style… i’ll concede that quite a bit of music that’s come out of California has been forgettable- the same can easily be said for some east coast stuff. but let’s never forget that the west coast, along with the easy-listening aesthetic, also spawned or nurtured musicians like Mingus, Dolphy, Don Cherry, Dexter Gordon, Chico Hamilton, Bobby Bradford, John Carter, Harold Land, Teddy Edwards, Hampton Hawes, Gerald Wilson, Sonny Simmons, Sonny Criss, Aurthur Blythe, James Newton, Billy Higgins, Horace Tapscott and David Murray, to name a very few. the west coast has never had one sound or style, and many of the above named musicians have left indelible fingerprints on the music. okay, i’m off the soapbox…
with all that said, the glaring fact is that these two artists interpret this music from unique cultural and stylistic vantage points: Pepper, a young white saxophonist, coming up in Los Angeles, was affiliated with the likes of Chet Baker, Shelly Manne and Gerry Mulligan, all of whom were exponents of a “cool(er)” jazz style, while Adderley, a young Black saxophonist up in New York by way of the south, was aligned with many of the major hard bop’s leading exponents. LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) writes at length about his opinions on the differences between hard bop and cool jazz in his great resource, BLUES PEOPLE. in a nutshell, he feels that the cool players tended to, intentionally or subconsciously, supress the overtly Black elements of jazz style while the hard boppers tended to do the opposite.
the thing that jumps out at me first when listening to these recordings is how different Pepper and Adderley sound. Pepper’s sound, is for the most part, unadorned. very little vibrato with light articulation. his sound, to me has a delicate, brittle, acidic edge to it. Adderley’s sound, on the other hand, has an unrestrained, romantic quality to it. he incorporates a generous vibrato, heavily articulates his phrases. his sound is sweet and syrupy, and has an overt blues orientation.
the feel of each soloist is also very different. Pepper’s understated lope is contrasted by Adderley’s deep bounce. Pepper’s solo, in this respect typifies what some dislike about the rhythmic concept of many “cool jazz” musicians. he doesn’t really dig in to the beat but rather seems to float slightly above it. he seems to keep himself at arm’s length. Adderley grabs on and doesn’t let go. he rides the beat as well as reinforces it with a hard articulation.
rhythmically, Pepper generally expresses his lines using eighth notes with occasional triplet figures. Adderley is more varied. he alternates his eighth note figures with sixteenth note runs, triplet patterns and lots of syncopation.
both improvisers approach “Star Eyes” with concepts rooted in the innovations of the previous generation of jazz musicians. much of their language is similar. i think the biggest difference is in their stylistic attitudes. although i dislike labels like “cool jazz” or “hard bop”, the adjectives in them do roughly describe the styles of Pepper and Adderley respectively. Pepper, in this recording, is more at a distance, more reserved in his blowing, while Adderley is much more blues-based, assertive and confrontational. hearing these two great players, who were only three years apart in age, side by side shows how varied personal styles can be….
ART PEPPER
SOLO FROM STAR EYES (mp3)
CANNONBALL ADDERLEY
SOLO FROM STAR EYES (mp3)
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