One record that truly changed my life was Science Fiction. I had never written one fan letter in my life, but after listening to SF about 300 times one night, I wrote to Charlie Haden, I was just so moved by his (and everybody else's) playing on that record. Fast forward 25 yrs. & I'm at a high-powered record biz dinner in NYC to celebrate Teldec's signing of Zubin Mehta & the NY Phil. At the dinner were Bob Krasnow & squeeze, the head of WEA's distributed classical labels, Zubin Mehta, & his friend, a nice middle-aged Indian lady in a sari. She happened to be seated next to me, and I turned to introduce myself as we were sitting down. She replied "Nice to meet you, I'm Asha Puthli". Thunderstruck, I heard these words come out of my mouth: "THE Asha Puthli?"
The only other AP session with jazzers I knew of was the one track on Henry Threadgill's 'Easily Slip into Another World'… but evidently there's a Charlie Mariano record, too.
I found this post very helpful, because I like both the Ornette approach and the more European approach about equally. It’s interesting to get testimony from you about the orientation of players like these. I sometimes have suspicions, and I don’t find any of your observations here surprising— but I wasn’t clear on most of these distinctions. I’ll listen to these players with your comments in mind from now on.
I also like your comments about how various bassists or drummers provided organization to a free improv in a particular way— again, I’ll be listening now with these distinctions in mind.
I think the reason the bass solo comes first on Inner Urge has something to do with Joe Henderson’s conception of the tune. When I played the tune with Joe, he said quite emphatically “This is a bass tune.” Joe did like to play bass, and there is something about the way the first sixteen bars of the melody lay on the instrument that make me suspect that he composed that part of the tune on the bass. The arrangement on the recording, where the sax and bass play that part of the melody unison, also seem to support that idea.
Anyhow, as a bassist I am trying not to take any uneccesary offense at you picking the bass solo as the part of this tune that kept it from attaining its rightful success. Not sure exactly what qualifies bringing a tune “more into the general consciousness of non-musicians,” but I think that the opening locrian statement of the melody, played over four bars of a half diminished chord, along with the long sinuous lines of the melody that never let up in intellectual rigor, would be plenty to keep the postman from whistling this one.
Speaking of Blackwell, any thoughts about the Mal Waldron Quintet with Rouse, Shaw, Workman, Blackwell? The Git Go is a favorite album of mine. I always assumed it was a one-off gig for that line up, but poking around on youtube just now I see there are live recordings from 83 and 84 circulating as well, so I guess it was a working band for a few years at least.
I love Mal Waldron and jokingly call the unit with Workman and Blackwell “The Evil Trio.” Total menace. The quintet is great — all praise Shaw and Rouse — but I think the tunes are a bit long for home listening. I would have loved to have been there.
Thanks for this, very interesting. I am looking forward to more thoughts on Joe Henderson. You're right, he's one of those "in and out" players who always sounds like himself whether he's playing the straightest ballad, the smoothest samba, or the outest fire solo. I love his solo on "Tress-Cun-Deo-La" from Multiple. While I love his Blue Note albums the most, I feel like his Milestone years don't get enough praise. I was so lucky to see him in Boston, with Charlie Haden. Loves me some Joe Henderson!
Now that Charlie and Ed have left the building, I’m so grateful to have seen the Mighty Lights quartet play live.
I make it a priority to see people play while it’s possible - and so far the strategy seems more than worthwhile. Heck, I even saw a piano trio play The Rite of Spring once 😉 and it was revelatory…
I adore Fred Hersch, and I often wonder why Jane Ira Bloom isn’t better known. Her music is gorgeous and her approach is unique.
There are at least four records of Jane Ira Bloom and Fred Hersch together, including two on Columbia that are now pretty hard to find. It would be a worthy project to review them
I daresay you have plenty of ideas for material, but I'd love a post on the poet Paul Bley's solo work... I don't quite get what he's tryna do on Open, To Love.
Also something on Jack (maybe the various Special Editions?) would be swell!
Thank you for an inspiring and insightful Substack.
I’m a big fan of “this is all I ask.” Also, Monk and Motian both include the verse on “tea for two,” the Motian version has what might be my fav Potter on record.
Superb analysis by Ethan and great comments below. To further highlight something Ethan said, Spring is a (relatively) unknown classic and I think up there in rare territory with Miles Smiles. So glad it was mentioned. The influence of the bass player or rhythm section can be easily overlooked. I remember when I was younger, Chick Corea pointed out to me that the 1964 NAACP concert (Four and More and My Funny Valentine) was the Bible of comping. That woke me up. By the way, Spring was a favorite of Michael Cuscuna.
Where do you place Mingus in the Euro-folk spectrum? As with many others, I am in awe of the density and intensity of Gary in the 1960s. Is this Euro? I think of it as very advanced call and response. And then there is Gary on Spiritual unity. Euro? In any case, Spring is the ultimate for me in the mid-sixties Miles vein.
Well everyone used both. Mingus is a perfect example, his titles like "Folk Forms No. 1" straddle a variety of lineages. Gary Peacock could play the blues too of course. I wrote an appreciation of early Gary for JazzTimes that is no longer online, where I talked about three streams of freedom: Ornette, Ayler, and Sam Rivers. Gary didn't play with Ornette but he did play with Paul Bley, the pianist who did the most to put Ornette on the piano. Gary was marvelous in all three contexts: Paul Bley With Gary Peacock, Albert Ayler Spiritual Unity, and Tony Williams/Sam Rivers Spring. incredible. (FWIW Peacock read the article and signed off on it before he passed.)
Exactly, who would guess that "Half-Mast Inhibition" and "Better Git Hit..." came from the same composer?! When Crouch et al suggested that jazz musicians had to choose between American blues and Euro modernism (and were clear which choice was correct), it pretty much ignored the people (Charlie Parker, hello?) who loved and studied both.
Hi Ian! I don't think that's entirely fair to Crouch, who certainly had nuance on this topic. Indeed, I think Crouch would be the first to say Bird knew European music.
Your comment reminded me of something that Joe Chambers said in an interview: "[Free jazz] never appealed to me. Stanley Crouch –I don’t agree with much he says– but he said the real avant garde was what we were doing on those Blue Note dates. We were very grounded, we could play anything. You can hear the blues, the changes, the time. Them cats couldn’t do that, they could only do what they were doing. We were thorough, but we were also stretching out. We were the real avant garde." From here: https://andybetacom.wordpress.com/2021/02/27/joe-chambers-interview/
Fair point, I guess I was lumping him in with the less nuanced version of that argument (that seems to live on). That's a great Chambers quote and he's not wrong. I guess my difference of opinion with him would be that "what the other cats were doing" was often great, and was one of the forces pushing the more straightahead stream to stretch!
Curious what your favorite texts on Louis are and what your favorite Duke recordings/comps are. Thanks, love your work.
Lastly I don't know if you know this but there is a recording featuring Shorter, Hancock, Williams, *and* Haden. The CD is called Conrad Silvert presents Jazz at the opera house. It's very strange to hear---they even play "Silence"
OMG I totally forgot about the Slivert record. The fact that the producer is listed first gives some idea of the mis-alignment from the git-go. Some rich dude is trying to be Norman Granz and everyone is just cashing a check. The presence of Wynton Marsalis is another chaotic element. I heard it once in high school and had totally totally totally forgotten it.
Ricky Riccardi is the man for Pops. Duke -- there's a lot there, much of it I don't know, but of course his memoir MUSIC IS MY MISTRESS has wonderful things. I also like the Stanley Dance books like THE WORLD OF DUKE ELLINGTON.
Thanks for this fascinating post. I grew up in NYC and can still vividly recall the glorious spring day 46 years ago when I was walking on the Upper West Side near Columbia and bought an LP copy of “Spring” from a guy selling records on the sidewalk. Even though I was just a teenager, and had heard lots of Miles with Herbie, Wayne, et al., I was not prepared for that record. I somehow never really played it much since, which is odd because I usually hung in there with music I couldn’t grasp after only a few listens. In any event, I plan to revisit Spring with fresh ears. Thanks again.
Country/ urban and north/south currents are something I've come to understand quite late in jazz. There may be a book to be written about the great Black migration and its influence on jazz.
I liked this piece, Ethan. Re your remark on Joe Henderson and Ornette, I've always been partial to "Joe's Bolero" with Chick Corea, Ron Carter and Billy Higgins -- 1980. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckiK0hh-nms
One record that truly changed my life was Science Fiction. I had never written one fan letter in my life, but after listening to SF about 300 times one night, I wrote to Charlie Haden, I was just so moved by his (and everybody else's) playing on that record. Fast forward 25 yrs. & I'm at a high-powered record biz dinner in NYC to celebrate Teldec's signing of Zubin Mehta & the NY Phil. At the dinner were Bob Krasnow & squeeze, the head of WEA's distributed classical labels, Zubin Mehta, & his friend, a nice middle-aged Indian lady in a sari. She happened to be seated next to me, and I turned to introduce myself as we were sitting down. She replied "Nice to meet you, I'm Asha Puthli". Thunderstruck, I heard these words come out of my mouth: "THE Asha Puthli?"
OMG that is THE record. Greatest album ever!? I love Asha Puthli so much, as far as I know she didn't work with jazz cats too much otherwise.
The only other AP session with jazzers I knew of was the one track on Henry Threadgill's 'Easily Slip into Another World'… but evidently there's a Charlie Mariano record, too.
Aha. Thanks!
Easily slip into another world is also probably one of the greatest records
https://apple.news/A-9ImAEakTaC9e8yEoNa2Xw
I hadn’t heard about this. That’s great
Literally just found it. Pretty comprehensive story
What a coincidence, that this piece just appeared at this moment! So happy to hear she is still active, I'll look for her new stuff. Good for her.
I found this post very helpful, because I like both the Ornette approach and the more European approach about equally. It’s interesting to get testimony from you about the orientation of players like these. I sometimes have suspicions, and I don’t find any of your observations here surprising— but I wasn’t clear on most of these distinctions. I’ll listen to these players with your comments in mind from now on.
I also like your comments about how various bassists or drummers provided organization to a free improv in a particular way— again, I’ll be listening now with these distinctions in mind.
Right on. This is the kind of comment I like to read! 😂
I think the reason the bass solo comes first on Inner Urge has something to do with Joe Henderson’s conception of the tune. When I played the tune with Joe, he said quite emphatically “This is a bass tune.” Joe did like to play bass, and there is something about the way the first sixteen bars of the melody lay on the instrument that make me suspect that he composed that part of the tune on the bass. The arrangement on the recording, where the sax and bass play that part of the melody unison, also seem to support that idea.
Anyhow, as a bassist I am trying not to take any uneccesary offense at you picking the bass solo as the part of this tune that kept it from attaining its rightful success. Not sure exactly what qualifies bringing a tune “more into the general consciousness of non-musicians,” but I think that the opening locrian statement of the melody, played over four bars of a half diminished chord, along with the long sinuous lines of the melody that never let up in intellectual rigor, would be plenty to keep the postman from whistling this one.
Brilliant comment Mark thank you so much!
Speaking of Blackwell, any thoughts about the Mal Waldron Quintet with Rouse, Shaw, Workman, Blackwell? The Git Go is a favorite album of mine. I always assumed it was a one-off gig for that line up, but poking around on youtube just now I see there are live recordings from 83 and 84 circulating as well, so I guess it was a working band for a few years at least.
I love Mal Waldron and jokingly call the unit with Workman and Blackwell “The Evil Trio.” Total menace. The quintet is great — all praise Shaw and Rouse — but I think the tunes are a bit long for home listening. I would have loved to have been there.
Thanks for this, very interesting. I am looking forward to more thoughts on Joe Henderson. You're right, he's one of those "in and out" players who always sounds like himself whether he's playing the straightest ballad, the smoothest samba, or the outest fire solo. I love his solo on "Tress-Cun-Deo-La" from Multiple. While I love his Blue Note albums the most, I feel like his Milestone years don't get enough praise. I was so lucky to see him in Boston, with Charlie Haden. Loves me some Joe Henderson!
Yeah baby
Now that Charlie and Ed have left the building, I’m so grateful to have seen the Mighty Lights quartet play live.
I make it a priority to see people play while it’s possible - and so far the strategy seems more than worthwhile. Heck, I even saw a piano trio play The Rite of Spring once 😉 and it was revelatory…
I adore Fred Hersch, and I often wonder why Jane Ira Bloom isn’t better known. Her music is gorgeous and her approach is unique.
There are at least four records of Jane Ira Bloom and Fred Hersch together, including two on Columbia that are now pretty hard to find. It would be a worthy project to review them
I daresay you have plenty of ideas for material, but I'd love a post on the poet Paul Bley's solo work... I don't quite get what he's tryna do on Open, To Love.
Also something on Jack (maybe the various Special Editions?) would be swell!
Thank you for an inspiring and insightful Substack.
two good ideas!
I’m a big fan of “this is all I ask.” Also, Monk and Motian both include the verse on “tea for two,” the Motian version has what might be my fav Potter on record.
Hi Michael! I think you want to add this to the Joel McGlothlin question/comment.
Cool--looks like Monk recorded this twice with the bass taking the melody on the verse. First recording is with Oscar Pettiford playing arco.
Superb analysis by Ethan and great comments below. To further highlight something Ethan said, Spring is a (relatively) unknown classic and I think up there in rare territory with Miles Smiles. So glad it was mentioned. The influence of the bass player or rhythm section can be easily overlooked. I remember when I was younger, Chick Corea pointed out to me that the 1964 NAACP concert (Four and More and My Funny Valentine) was the Bible of comping. That woke me up. By the way, Spring was a favorite of Michael Cuscuna.
nice to hear that Cuscuna dug Spring!!
Yes! Spring, especially for Gary Peacock.
Where do you place Mingus in the Euro-folk spectrum? As with many others, I am in awe of the density and intensity of Gary in the 1960s. Is this Euro? I think of it as very advanced call and response. And then there is Gary on Spiritual unity. Euro? In any case, Spring is the ultimate for me in the mid-sixties Miles vein.
Well everyone used both. Mingus is a perfect example, his titles like "Folk Forms No. 1" straddle a variety of lineages. Gary Peacock could play the blues too of course. I wrote an appreciation of early Gary for JazzTimes that is no longer online, where I talked about three streams of freedom: Ornette, Ayler, and Sam Rivers. Gary didn't play with Ornette but he did play with Paul Bley, the pianist who did the most to put Ornette on the piano. Gary was marvelous in all three contexts: Paul Bley With Gary Peacock, Albert Ayler Spiritual Unity, and Tony Williams/Sam Rivers Spring. incredible. (FWIW Peacock read the article and signed off on it before he passed.)
Exactly, who would guess that "Half-Mast Inhibition" and "Better Git Hit..." came from the same composer?! When Crouch et al suggested that jazz musicians had to choose between American blues and Euro modernism (and were clear which choice was correct), it pretty much ignored the people (Charlie Parker, hello?) who loved and studied both.
Hi Ian! I don't think that's entirely fair to Crouch, who certainly had nuance on this topic. Indeed, I think Crouch would be the first to say Bird knew European music.
Your comment reminded me of something that Joe Chambers said in an interview: "[Free jazz] never appealed to me. Stanley Crouch –I don’t agree with much he says– but he said the real avant garde was what we were doing on those Blue Note dates. We were very grounded, we could play anything. You can hear the blues, the changes, the time. Them cats couldn’t do that, they could only do what they were doing. We were thorough, but we were also stretching out. We were the real avant garde." From here: https://andybetacom.wordpress.com/2021/02/27/joe-chambers-interview/
Fair point, I guess I was lumping him in with the less nuanced version of that argument (that seems to live on). That's a great Chambers quote and he's not wrong. I guess my difference of opinion with him would be that "what the other cats were doing" was often great, and was one of the forces pushing the more straightahead stream to stretch!
Curious what your favorite texts on Louis are and what your favorite Duke recordings/comps are. Thanks, love your work.
Lastly I don't know if you know this but there is a recording featuring Shorter, Hancock, Williams, *and* Haden. The CD is called Conrad Silvert presents Jazz at the opera house. It's very strange to hear---they even play "Silence"
OMG I totally forgot about the Slivert record. The fact that the producer is listed first gives some idea of the mis-alignment from the git-go. Some rich dude is trying to be Norman Granz and everyone is just cashing a check. The presence of Wynton Marsalis is another chaotic element. I heard it once in high school and had totally totally totally forgotten it.
Ricky Riccardi is the man for Pops. Duke -- there's a lot there, much of it I don't know, but of course his memoir MUSIC IS MY MISTRESS has wonderful things. I also like the Stanley Dance books like THE WORLD OF DUKE ELLINGTON.
And yes - Joe H. is astonishing and unmistakable in any context.
Certainly true
Thanks for this fascinating post. I grew up in NYC and can still vividly recall the glorious spring day 46 years ago when I was walking on the Upper West Side near Columbia and bought an LP copy of “Spring” from a guy selling records on the sidewalk. Even though I was just a teenager, and had heard lots of Miles with Herbie, Wayne, et al., I was not prepared for that record. I somehow never really played it much since, which is odd because I usually hung in there with music I couldn’t grasp after only a few listens. In any event, I plan to revisit Spring with fresh ears. Thanks again.
Country/ urban and north/south currents are something I've come to understand quite late in jazz. There may be a book to be written about the great Black migration and its influence on jazz.
true enough!
It's my understanding that Wayne Shorter was close personal friends with Patrick Duffy.
I liked this piece, Ethan. Re your remark on Joe Henderson and Ornette, I've always been partial to "Joe's Bolero" with Chick Corea, Ron Carter and Billy Higgins -- 1980. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckiK0hh-nms
Oh I have heard that of course but not recently thanks Ted!