1. Today is Cedar Walton's birthday. He would have turned 91. (1/17/34).
2. Your six pianists include the midcentury fearsome foursome of Detroit -- Hank, Barry, Tommy, and Roland. #JazzFromDetroit
3. Few piano trio LPs are in the Interstellar Bebop canon, but it's not a coincidence that the two prime examples, "Now He Sings, Now He Sobs," and "Time for Tyner" have drummers with fundamentally light cymbal beats -- Roy Haynes and Freddie Waits. (Yes, McCoy's side is technically a quartet with Bobby Hutcherson, but my larger point stands.) .
4. To further link "Night in Tunisia" to forthcoming modal jazz, did you ever notice that a chunk of the A section changes of Wayne's "Black Nile" are the same as "Night and Tunisia" backwards (D minor/E-flat 7)? That can't be coincidence given the title.
Would love for you to write something specifically about percussive-ness/how piano players hit! To me Monk hits harder than his contemporaries, interesting to think how that influence played out, also Don Pullen, Jaki Byard, Stanley Cowell are all people I think of hitting kinda hard, not in the McCoy way, but still jazz musicians. And there's also the discussion of Cecil, Muhal, any other improvisers...
I think the McCoy followers were the loudest. After McCoy it is Kenny Kirkland. Or maybe Kirkland was even louder than McCoy, I don't know. You are right that Monk was incredibly loud, but in terms of playing lines in that generation, Bud Powell might have been even louder. Cecil and Don Pullen is kind of different topic with those wrist flourishes. Great questions that I definitely don't have the answers for!
I love McCoy (my favorite concert of all time was his trio at Oberlin College) but when I heard him solo at a small dinner club it was as if I was at a metal stamping plant! (He was also marking time by tapping his foot quite loudly.) Later when he was on break sitting at a table he seemed to have an aggrieved look, so maybe it was just an off night for him. PS: Don't know if anyone would agree, but I always felt Mulgrew Miller was the next generation's McCoy.
Really enjoyed this article! Wondering how you think of Kenny Barron in relation to the six pianists listed in the final section - I associate Barron with that same tradition, but he's almost a decade younger than the youngest of those listed (Walton), so maybe he doesn't quite fit the chronology under discussion.
That makes sense, thanks! I love Barron's playing on Booker Ervin's Tex Book Tenor with Woody Shaw, Jan Arnet, and Billy Higgins, and that definitely sounds more like "interstellar hard bop" to me. I suspect my perspective may be a bit skewed by the fact that the Kenny Barron album I've listened to the most is the 1983 trio release with Buster Williams and Ben Riley, Green Chimneys. Perhaps because of the repertoire and the presence of Ben Riley, that one sounds more akin to the swinging pianists' albums listed at the end of this article.
You are absolutely right that Mr. Barron covers a LOT of ground. And Ervin's TEX BOOK is definitely Interstellar Hard Bop! Great record, I need to listen to that again soon
Free for All is one of my all-time faves, not least because I was walking in Greenwich Village listening to it (on a Discman! this must have been ~30 years ago) and saw Stanley Crouch looking for a cab. I offered my hand & said "Mr. Crouch! I have the Free for All Blakey band here." He arched his eyebrow, shook my hand. "That's a bad band..." and proceeded to discourse through Wayne Shorter, then to a tenor player he'd just seen the other night, and whether & how saxophonists can get down to the low notes of the horn and still sound like themselves rather than blasting out a low honk. "Like Ben Webster, frow frow FROWHHHH." A mini master class, in 5-10 minutes til a cab came along.
Great, great record. But for me, it’s a little messy. They find it, but not all the time. That’s why I put ballads and blues, which is such a nice moody LP
it's one of my favorites. I had it young, so I am biased, but Mark Stryker is one of the deepest Hanna listeners and he thinks it is one of Hanna's best as well.
Barry Harris' Magnificent, was a revelation to me. It is very under appreciated.
I learned a lot lifting Barry's solo on Bean and The Boys (a contrafact on the changes of "Lover Come Back to Me", sometime called "Lover, Back Up to Me" by old jokesters on the bandstand.)
Anyway the intensity of that solo just keeps on keepin' on.
Turn the volume way up after the last note and you can hear somebody on mic quietly go: "SCHPHEW!" Like they had just run a 3 minute mile.
How about the poor bass players!? RVG mixes the bass fairly high but there's no way you'd be able to hear much from an acoustic bass playing alongside Blakey on Free For All
A PERFECT PARAGRAPH: "In general, the pianists really took a beating in the 1960s. McCoy Tyner was unbelievably strong, maybe the strongest of all time, and his example led many others to helplessly flail and bang away next to loud drummers."
"Elvin Jones was one thing: somehow, there was always transparency in Elvin’s sound. But not every other drummer could create that intensity while leaving enough headroom for the acoustic piano."
That may have been true when nightclubs started getting better PA systems, and is certainly true on recordings. Ethan: When and in what settings did you hear Elvin?
I have a vivid memory from the first time I heard the Coltrane classic quartet (February 1963): I shifted my attention from Coltrane to Tyner and saw that he had his hands in his lap. I realized that I hadn't noticed when he had begun to lay out because I wasn't hearing him anyway when Elvin got really loud. This happened several times. I also remember looking at Jimmy Garrison and realizing that I couldn't delineate specific notes from him. Coltrane had the bell of his horn right at the microphone (that was connected to a cheesy PA system), and HE was just loud enough to be heard riding the tidal wave that was Elvin. That didn't keep me from becoming one with the band. It was a great night!. (The venue was Cleveland's Jazz Temple which had no liquor license so 15-year-old me was allowed in without being carded.)
I don't have a specific memory along those lines from the second time I heard the classic Coltrane band at Birdland (I was there with my parents, so I got in). I do remember that during a set break, when the kitchen door swung open I heard Coltrane practicing patterns someplace back there.
The first of two times I heard Elvin leading his own group, he had no piano whatsoever--problem solved.
Wow, Carl, great stories! I only heard Elvin much later. However, what I say in my post about drum dynamics is conventional wisdom in my circle. Still, I don't doubt there were nights when young Elvin buried everybody.
I saw Elvin leading his own group at the original Joe Siegal's Jazz Showcase in the Blackstone Hotel (might have been the group with Ravi Coltrane) and what stands out in my memory is that after the first set Elvin went around shaking the hand of those of us in the front row.
<< In general, the pianists really took a beating in the 1960s. McCoy Tyner was unbelievably strong, maybe the strongest of all time, and his example led many others to helplessly flail and bang away next to loud drummers.
Elvin Jones was one thing: somehow, there was always transparency in Elvin’s sound. But not every other drummer could create that intensity while leaving enough headroom for the acoustic piano.
Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and a host of others soon took up the electric keyboard. It was simply one way to survive.>>
Some of this is down to chemistry as well as aesthetic, no? I take your point (100%) but while I wonder how Herbie would have sounded alongside Elvin, he and Tony Williams play off each other *perfectly* even when TW is in God mode (like, say, on "Footprints" or "Black Comedy"); isn't this in part b/c they both used space and managed to be nimble and light (but not soft) -- mixing in the curveball where Elvin, in all the right ways, was throwing his fast ball all day every day?
Well the drummers played differently over the years. Tony got louder, much louder than Elvin. And the story goes that when Herbie first touched an electric piano, his first thought was, "Tony!" meaning now he could be heard. That's in an interview somewhere.
It is interesting to compare Blakey's Tunisias from 1957 and 1960. The solos on the earlier one are very boppish (particularly Jackie McLean and Bill Hardman).
Four footnotes.
1. Today is Cedar Walton's birthday. He would have turned 91. (1/17/34).
2. Your six pianists include the midcentury fearsome foursome of Detroit -- Hank, Barry, Tommy, and Roland. #JazzFromDetroit
3. Few piano trio LPs are in the Interstellar Bebop canon, but it's not a coincidence that the two prime examples, "Now He Sings, Now He Sobs," and "Time for Tyner" have drummers with fundamentally light cymbal beats -- Roy Haynes and Freddie Waits. (Yes, McCoy's side is technically a quartet with Bobby Hutcherson, but my larger point stands.) .
4. To further link "Night in Tunisia" to forthcoming modal jazz, did you ever notice that a chunk of the A section changes of Wayne's "Black Nile" are the same as "Night and Tunisia" backwards (D minor/E-flat 7)? That can't be coincidence given the title.
Carry on.
4 excellent notes. Never noticed that about “Black Nile!”
Would love for you to write something specifically about percussive-ness/how piano players hit! To me Monk hits harder than his contemporaries, interesting to think how that influence played out, also Don Pullen, Jaki Byard, Stanley Cowell are all people I think of hitting kinda hard, not in the McCoy way, but still jazz musicians. And there's also the discussion of Cecil, Muhal, any other improvisers...
I think the McCoy followers were the loudest. After McCoy it is Kenny Kirkland. Or maybe Kirkland was even louder than McCoy, I don't know. You are right that Monk was incredibly loud, but in terms of playing lines in that generation, Bud Powell might have been even louder. Cecil and Don Pullen is kind of different topic with those wrist flourishes. Great questions that I definitely don't have the answers for!
I love McCoy (my favorite concert of all time was his trio at Oberlin College) but when I heard him solo at a small dinner club it was as if I was at a metal stamping plant! (He was also marking time by tapping his foot quite loudly.) Later when he was on break sitting at a table he seemed to have an aggrieved look, so maybe it was just an off night for him. PS: Don't know if anyone would agree, but I always felt Mulgrew Miller was the next generation's McCoy.
Harold Mabern?
Really enjoyed this article! Wondering how you think of Kenny Barron in relation to the six pianists listed in the final section - I associate Barron with that same tradition, but he's almost a decade younger than the youngest of those listed (Walton), so maybe he doesn't quite fit the chronology under discussion.
I think of Barron more with John Hicks and Harold Mabern, someone you could actually call for some shredding modal music
That makes sense, thanks! I love Barron's playing on Booker Ervin's Tex Book Tenor with Woody Shaw, Jan Arnet, and Billy Higgins, and that definitely sounds more like "interstellar hard bop" to me. I suspect my perspective may be a bit skewed by the fact that the Kenny Barron album I've listened to the most is the 1983 trio release with Buster Williams and Ben Riley, Green Chimneys. Perhaps because of the repertoire and the presence of Ben Riley, that one sounds more akin to the swinging pianists' albums listed at the end of this article.
You are absolutely right that Mr. Barron covers a LOT of ground. And Ervin's TEX BOOK is definitely Interstellar Hard Bop! Great record, I need to listen to that again soon
Thank you for sharing the wisdom of Jabali.
Free for All is one of my all-time faves, not least because I was walking in Greenwich Village listening to it (on a Discman! this must have been ~30 years ago) and saw Stanley Crouch looking for a cab. I offered my hand & said "Mr. Crouch! I have the Free for All Blakey band here." He arched his eyebrow, shook my hand. "That's a bad band..." and proceeded to discourse through Wayne Shorter, then to a tenor player he'd just seen the other night, and whether & how saxophonists can get down to the low notes of the horn and still sound like themselves rather than blasting out a low honk. "Like Ben Webster, frow frow FROWHHHH." A mini master class, in 5-10 minutes til a cab came along.
To me the classic Tommy Flanagan album from that era is Eclypso.
Great, great record. But for me, it’s a little messy. They find it, but not all the time. That’s why I put ballads and blues, which is such a nice moody LP
Swing Me No Waltzes! What a title. Another great TT.
it's one of my favorites. I had it young, so I am biased, but Mark Stryker is one of the deepest Hanna listeners and he thinks it is one of Hanna's best as well.
Nice to see Roland Hanna's brilliance recognized. Too often he's left out of the conversation.
I agree!
RE Chano Pozo I recommend the box set "El tambor de Cuba" for a great overview of NYC Cuban music in the 40s + 50s
I have that set, amazing
Barry Harris' Magnificent, was a revelation to me. It is very under appreciated.
I learned a lot lifting Barry's solo on Bean and The Boys (a contrafact on the changes of "Lover Come Back to Me", sometime called "Lover, Back Up to Me" by old jokesters on the bandstand.)
Anyway the intensity of that solo just keeps on keepin' on.
Turn the volume way up after the last note and you can hear somebody on mic quietly go: "SCHPHEW!" Like they had just run a 3 minute mile.
https://youtu.be/DGdiWTJZB1Q?list=OLAK5uy_n8KbiMsoJjD4J2TDK4olt7XQVOCwNPrE4&t=396
right on. GREAT record
How about the poor bass players!? RVG mixes the bass fairly high but there's no way you'd be able to hear much from an acoustic bass playing alongside Blakey on Free For All
no doubt!
A PERFECT PARAGRAPH: "In general, the pianists really took a beating in the 1960s. McCoy Tyner was unbelievably strong, maybe the strongest of all time, and his example led many others to helplessly flail and bang away next to loud drummers."
"Elvin Jones was one thing: somehow, there was always transparency in Elvin’s sound. But not every other drummer could create that intensity while leaving enough headroom for the acoustic piano."
That may have been true when nightclubs started getting better PA systems, and is certainly true on recordings. Ethan: When and in what settings did you hear Elvin?
I have a vivid memory from the first time I heard the Coltrane classic quartet (February 1963): I shifted my attention from Coltrane to Tyner and saw that he had his hands in his lap. I realized that I hadn't noticed when he had begun to lay out because I wasn't hearing him anyway when Elvin got really loud. This happened several times. I also remember looking at Jimmy Garrison and realizing that I couldn't delineate specific notes from him. Coltrane had the bell of his horn right at the microphone (that was connected to a cheesy PA system), and HE was just loud enough to be heard riding the tidal wave that was Elvin. That didn't keep me from becoming one with the band. It was a great night!. (The venue was Cleveland's Jazz Temple which had no liquor license so 15-year-old me was allowed in without being carded.)
I don't have a specific memory along those lines from the second time I heard the classic Coltrane band at Birdland (I was there with my parents, so I got in). I do remember that during a set break, when the kitchen door swung open I heard Coltrane practicing patterns someplace back there.
The first of two times I heard Elvin leading his own group, he had no piano whatsoever--problem solved.
Wow, Carl, great stories! I only heard Elvin much later. However, what I say in my post about drum dynamics is conventional wisdom in my circle. Still, I don't doubt there were nights when young Elvin buried everybody.
I saw Elvin leading his own group at the original Joe Siegal's Jazz Showcase in the Blackstone Hotel (might have been the group with Ravi Coltrane) and what stands out in my memory is that after the first set Elvin went around shaking the hand of those of us in the front row.
<< In general, the pianists really took a beating in the 1960s. McCoy Tyner was unbelievably strong, maybe the strongest of all time, and his example led many others to helplessly flail and bang away next to loud drummers.
Elvin Jones was one thing: somehow, there was always transparency in Elvin’s sound. But not every other drummer could create that intensity while leaving enough headroom for the acoustic piano.
Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and a host of others soon took up the electric keyboard. It was simply one way to survive.>>
Some of this is down to chemistry as well as aesthetic, no? I take your point (100%) but while I wonder how Herbie would have sounded alongside Elvin, he and Tony Williams play off each other *perfectly* even when TW is in God mode (like, say, on "Footprints" or "Black Comedy"); isn't this in part b/c they both used space and managed to be nimble and light (but not soft) -- mixing in the curveball where Elvin, in all the right ways, was throwing his fast ball all day every day?
Well the drummers played differently over the years. Tony got louder, much louder than Elvin. And the story goes that when Herbie first touched an electric piano, his first thought was, "Tony!" meaning now he could be heard. That's in an interview somewhere.
It is interesting to compare Blakey's Tunisias from 1957 and 1960. The solos on the earlier one are very boppish (particularly Jackie McLean and Bill Hardman).
absolutely. But I was surprised at how much they also play in one key. It helps explain how JackieMac in particular was ready for modal music.
It’s an upright piano on Forces of Nature, Isn’t it? I’m guessing they just had a basic PA with no mics in the piano, maybe an amp for the bass?
no amp for the bass yet. Nor any PA. The front of house would have been acoustic, but obviously the recording engineer put up some mics.
Incredible.