Dizzy Gillespie: Serious and Showy - A look back at one of the most influential trumpeters of the 20th century.

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

It is impossible to fully assess the footprint that John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie left on the path forward of Modern Jazz in the second half of the 20th century.

But the editorial staff at JazzProfiles is doing its best to comprehend as much of it as possible through its numerous postings about Diz on these pages.

Here’s another attempt to acknowledge Dizzy’s significance, this time with the aid of John Edward Hasse.

Mr. Hasse is curator emeritus of American music at the Smithsonian. His books include “Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington ” (Da Capo) and “Discover Jazz” (Pearson).

The following appear in the Oct. 21, 2017 edition of the Wall Street Journal.

“In 1985, as a newly arrived music curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, I was given virtual carte blanche to collect as I wished. What should I seek first? I decided to invite one of jazz’s foremost living innovators—Dizzy Gillespie—to donate his previous “bent” trumpet. I mailed him that request, but heard nothing. After a few months, a colleague who knew him advised, “Get his wife, Lorraine, involved.” So I wrote essentially the same letter to her and figured she might not respond, either. Three days after mailing the letter, a big UPS box arrived. Inside was her husband’s last trumpet. I think she wanted it…out of the

Several months later, Dizzy himself came to formally present the instrument to the museum and drew over a dozen reporters and TV crews. The charismatic Gillespie filled the air with electricity, alternately reminiscent, wise and witty. As the event was winding down, a tall British reporter asked, “Mr. Gillespie, 500 years from now, what will that trumpet be saying?” Gillespie deadpanned, “Five hundred years from now, that trumpet…ain’t gonna be saying nothin’!”

I silently disagreed, for at the Smithsonian his trumpet will be telling stories for centuries; in fact, millions have already seen the trumpet on display there.

John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie was born Oct. 21, 1917, in Cheraw, S.C., the son of a weekend bandleader. Spending two years performing in Philadelphia, he earned the nickname “Dizzy” for his humorous antics. In 1937, he was drawn to the jazz magnet of New York, where he apprenticed in the big bands of Teddy Hill, Cab Calloway and Earl Hines, practiced obsessively, and joined in jam sessions.

In 1940, he met the 20-year-old alto-sax sensation Charlie Parker. They bonded immediately and, over the next few years, invented a new paradigm: music with asymmetric rhythms, rapid-fire tempos, fast-moving and complex chord progressions, and virtuoso improvisations using multiple scales and altered tones. This music—which much of the public found radically different, puzzling, or off-putting—was intended more for listening in small nightclubs than for dancing in big ballrooms, as had been swing music. By 1945, the new style—known as bebop or bop—was fully formed, as heard on such Gillespie recordings as “Shaw ’Nuff” and “Hot House.”

While playing trumpet in Calloway’s band, Gillespie learned about Latin rhythms from his Cuban-born bandmate Mario Bauzá and became a proponent of fusing American jazz with Afro-Cuban rhythms and percussion, on such pieces as “Manteca” and “Night in Tunisia.”

Gillespie developed an unmistakable trumpet style — rich with drama, bravura, humor, technique, and melodic and rhythmic invention — that set him far ahead of his contemporaries. Even today, his torrid cascades of high notes dazzle the ear. He also composed and collaborated on a number of jazz standards such as “Groovin’ High,” “Anthropology” and “Salt Peanuts.”

His impact was enormous. He was one of the most influential trumpeters of the 20th century, taking his distinguished place in the lineage of jazz trumpet royalty that began with Joe “King” Oliver, Louis Armstrong and Roy Eldridge. Gillespie affected virtually every trumpeter who came after him.

Gillespie attracted attention with his beret, goatee, horn-rimmed glasses, and, when playing, froggy cheeks. From 1951 on, a 45-degree-uptilted bell on his trumpet gave him further visual identity. A bandmate fell on his horn, bending it, and Gillespie found that he liked the sound projection. From then on, each of his trumpets was custom-made with an uptilted bell.

Beneath the showy surface, however, he was dead serious. “Men have died for this music. You can’t get no more serious than that.” Yet, as he said, “If I can make people laugh, and if that makes them receptive to my music, I’m gonna do it.” Unlike his contemporary Miles Davis, Gillespie embraced showmanship and charmed audiences with his ebullient humor, funny routines, and comic dancing.

Beginning in 1956, the U.S. State Department sent Gillespie on goodwill concert tours to Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. Insisting that ordinary people—not just VIPs—be admitted to his performances, he disarmed anti-American skeptics and won fans wherever he went, even among people who didn’t know jazz.

In his later years, he became an elder statesman of jazz, a champion of the tradition, and an advocate for global musical exchange. He formed his United Nation Orchestra in 1988 to bring together musicians from North and South America. In 1989, he traveled to 27 countries to give 300 performances. Struck by pancreatic cancer, he died in 1993.

The long roster of musicians Gillespie mentored over several generations includes pianist Billy Taylor, trombonists David Baker and J.J. Johnson, saxophonists James Moody, Phil Woods, Jimmy Heath and Paquito d’Rivera, and trumpeters Arturo Sandoval and Jon Faddis.

The list of musicians Dizzy has inspired is much, much longer.ß

Francesco Cafiso – Ciminiera Verdi [Green Chimneys]

© -Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Some young, Jazz players use a lot of notes in their solos.

This tendency seems to be a part of the joys of first expression; the thrill of discovering that you can play an instrument and play it well.

Kind of like: “Look what I’ve found? Look what I can do? Isn’t this neat?”

Another reason why these young, Jazz musicians play so many notes is because they can.

They are young, indiscriminately so, and they want to play everything that rushes through their minds, getting it from their head into their hands almost instantly.

Their Jazz experience is all new and so wonderful; why be discerning when you can have it all?

If such abilities to “get around the instrument” were found in a young classical musician romping his or her way through one of Paganini’s Caprices, they would be celebrated as a phenomena and hailed as a prodigy.

Playing Paganini’s Caprices, Etudes, et al. does take remarkable technical skill, but in fairness, let’s remember that Paganini already wrote these pieces and the classical musician is executing them from memory.

In the case of the Jazz musician, playing complicated and complex improvisations requires that these be made up on the spot with an unstated preference being that anything that has been played before in the solo cannot be repeated.

But often times when a Jazz musician exhibits the facility to create multi-noted, rapidly-played improvised solos, this is voted down and labeled as showboating or derided as technical grandstanding at the expense of playing with sincerity of feeling.

Such feats of technical artistry are greeted with precepts such as “It’s not what you play, but what you leave out” as though the young, Jazz performer not only has to resolve the momentary miracle of Jazz invention, but has to do so while solving a Zen koan at the same time ["What is the sound of the un-played note" or some such nonsense].

Alto saxophonist Francesco Cafiso plays lots of notes in this interpretation of Thelonious Monk’s Green Chimneys [ciminiera verdi, in Italian].

At only 28 years of age, its hard to believe that he has this much talent [he was only 17 years old when this was recorded].

Monk’s music ain’t easy.

The eminent tenor saxophonist John Coltrane once said that losing one’s way in Monk’s music is like stepping into an empty elevator shaft.

As you will hear in this example of extemporized Jazz at its very best, Francesco never loses his way – not for a moment.

Oh, and he plays a lot of notes, too.

Jack Brownlow: A Hometown Favorite

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Every town has one.

Whether its Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Reno or Seattle.

Somewhere in these cities, there is an exceptional Jazz musician who is mainly known only to those familiar with the local Jazz scene.

For whatever reason, these local Jazz musicians don’t travel, preferring to stay close to home while working the occasional club date, party or benefit.

Every so often, a group of local admirers cobble some schimolies together and produce a compact disc to put on display their local favorite’s talents.

These fans know that their player is special and want portable accessibility to the music while at the same time doing their bit to document it for posterity.

Until the advent of e-commerce, the “distribution” of such recordings often consisted of making it available for sale on a card table that was staffed by someone before and/or after gigs or performances.

When you’ve listened to a lot of Jazz, you can usually tell when someone is special.

You hear it first in the phrasing and with the ready expression of ideas while soloing.

Jazz soloing is like the geometric head start in the sense that you never catch up.

When you improvise something it’s gone; you can’t retrieve it and do it again.

You have to stay on top of what you are doing as Jazz is insistently progressive – it goes forward with you or without you.

People who can play the music, flow with it. Their phrasing is in line with the tempo, the new melodies that they super-impose over the chord structures are interesting and inventive and they bring a sense of command and completion to the process of creating Jazz.

These qualities help bring some Jazz musicians to national, if not, international prominence. Deservedly so.  It’s not easy to play this stuff.

We buy their recordings, read articles about them in the Jazz press and attend their concerts and club dates.

But throughout the history of Jazz, be it in the form of what was referred to as “territory bands,” or local legends who never made it to the big time or recorded, or those who only played Jazz as a hobby, word-of-mouth communication somehow managed to inform us of the startling brilliance of these locally-based musicians.

Such was the case with pianist Jack Brownlow who for many years was one of the most highly regarded Jazz musicians in the greater-Seattle area.

The eminent Jazz author, Doug Ramsey, first brought Jack Brownlow to my attention in 1999 when he hipped me to the fact that Jack’s trio would be appearing at Seattle’s Jazz Alley to commemorate the release of its Jazz Focus CD Suddenly It’s Bruno [JFCD 031].

I was living in Seattle at the time, and little did I know it, but Bruno [Jack’s nickname] and I were neighbors as we both resided in the Green Lake suburb of the city.

Listening to Jack Brownlow play Jazz that evening was a memorable experience.

He reminded me of Nat King Cole, Paul Smith, George Shearing and Bill Evans, all of whom are piano stylists in the sense that their technical ability, or as some call it today, their “pianism” is implied rather than stated.

Jack plays “pretty” piano; the instrument’s sonority rings true. There’s a lot going on in the music, but you’re not overwhelmed by it. He guides the music where he wants it to go and in so doing takes the listener with him on a melodic musical journey.

His knowledge of harmony is huge, but here again, much like Jimmy Rowles, it’s understated. Jack hints; he alludes; he creates impressions. He frames the original chords with substitutions and augmentations, but he doesn’t hit-you-over-the-head while doing so.

To my ears, a key underpinning of Jack’s style is his strong rhythmic sense. He is able to play so lightly while weaving in and out of his inspired solos because of his absolutely centered sense of time. He always knows where he is in the music.

Doug Ramsey wrote the following insert notes to Suddenly It’s Bruno and has graciously allowed us to reprint them on these pages.

They contain a wonderful overview of the career of his friend and a gifted pianist who over the years became a hometown favorite of many Jazz fans in the Seattle and Washington-state area.

© -Doug Ramsey, copyright protected; all rights reserved. Used with the author’s permission.

Suddenly it's Bruno

“Well, not quite suddenly. Jack Brownlow has been playing his inventive melodic lines and exquisite harmonies since he was a boy in the 1930s. At 12, he discovered that he could play any song in any key, without written music, an inheritance from his mother. He studied formally, but when he demonstrated to one of his piano teachers that certain Chopin sonatas needed harmonic improvements, she decided she had taken him as far as she could. His development accelerated. In his teens he was a professional pianist, working in his home town of Wenatchee, Washington, and occa­sionally in Seattle, across the Cascade mountains.

Following his days as a Navy musician in World War Two, Jack spent four months in Kansas City. Most of his play­ing there was at Tootie's Mayfair, a club where Charlie Parker and other KC heroes had worked a few years earlier. As in Bird's day, the experience was intense and the hours were long, from 10 in the evening until 4 a.m. Later in 1945, Brownlow and his service friend Jack Weeks, the bassist and composer-arranger, lived in Los Angles. Working out his Local 47 musicians union card, be spent six months playing around California—mostly at the Big Bear resort in the mountains above Los Angeles—with Weeks and the prominent dance band of his father, Anson Weeks. With an addi­tional six-months hiatus in Wenatchee, he completed the union waiting period and returned to LA., immediately find­ing work with dozens of players prominent in the yeasty post-war Southern California jazz community. Among them were Lester Young, Lucky Thompson and Boyd Raeburn. With Raeburn's trailblazing big band he played piano when

Dodo Marmarosa was otherwise occupied and is heard on some of the bands radio transcriptions.

In late 1946, Weeks enrolled at Mills College for the opportunity to study with the modernist French composer Darius Milhaud. Another young veteran named Dave Brubeck made the same choice. Brownlow considered going to Mills, but he returned to Wenatchee, went into the printing business with his father, married and raised a family. Bruno——his nickname ever since a neighbor's child pronounced Brownlow that way—never gave up his night gig. He played for dances, in taverns, in clubs, in concerts. He accompanied singers and wrote instrumental and vocal arrangements. The lack of sleep was compensated by steadily deepening musical skills. Soon, musicians who worked with Bruno or heard him in the Pacific Northwest circulated word about him, as had Navy musicians and his LA. colleagues.

Ray Blagoff, later a lead trumpeter in name bands and the Hollywood studios, was with Jack at the Farragut Naval base in ldaho. 'We were all in awe of his ear,’ Blagoff says. 'He could play anything in any key. We met shortly after I reported to Farragut. ‘I told him I'd like to play I Had the Craziest Dream " in E. He didn’t 't bat an eye, and I was thrilled because no one had ever been able to accompany me in that key. I told him I had learned the tune from the Harry James record. He said Harry James recorded it in E-flat and my turntable must have been running at the wrong speed.’

His uncanny ear was matched by harmonic acuity and an accompanying gift of melodic inventiveness. Musicians who heard him were impressed. Those who worked with him were astonished. They included the violinist Joe Venuti, whose cantankerousness equaled his brilliance. On their first meeting, Venuti tried his famous trick of derailing the accompanists by changing keys every few bars without warning. Every time he turned left, Bruno and his protégé, bassist Jim Anderson, were on him like flypaper. After Venuti got over his frustration at not being able to instigate one of the train wrecks that gave him so much pleasure, they all settled in and played a great gig.

Bruno moved to Seattle in 1965 and dedicated himself totally to music for the first time since his Los Angeles days. He became a fixture at America’s Cup and, for years, at Canlis, the elegant restaurant high above Lake Union. Usually, he played alone. Occasionally he was joined by Jim Anderson or another bassist. Canlis patrons with sophisticated hearing, among them George Shearing and Alan Hovhaness, were treated to chords and melodic patterns light years beyond what they might have expected as a background for dining. After dinner, the serious listeners joined the cocktailers clustered around the piano.

Musicians serious about developing in harmony, improvisation and repertoire have always found in Jack a wise and will­ing teacher. On his nights off and frequently during the day, the music room of Brownlow’s house, Chateau Bruno, became a workshop for developed and developing musicians. Over the years, they have included trumpeters Randy Brecker and Jay Thomas, guitarist John Stowell and bassists Clipper Anderson, Rufus Reid, Dean Johnson, Andy Zadrozny and Gary Peacock They studied informally with Bruno, as did saxophonist Don Lanphere when he was growing up in Wenatchee

At a party at my house in New York in the early 1970s, the alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, hearing Brownlow for the first time, said, "If I played piano, that's how I'd want to play it.' Paul did not have his horn along. He tried to persuade Bruno to extend his East Coast stay so that Desmond could round up bassist Ron Carter and a drummer for some sessions. Brownlow had to get back to Seattle. The results of what would have been an intriguing partnership must be left to the imagination.

In the mid-1990s, Jack reached the saturation point as a restaurant pianist. He ended the nightly job at Canlis and put himself once again on the jazz market. Work materialized almost at once at clubs in Seattle. The pocket conservatory in his living room saw increasing activity, as the city's latest crop of young jazz players showed up to learn and jam. Bassists are particularly attracted to Bruno's harmonic wisdom. There have been so many of them that if there is ever a Jack Brownlow Big Band, it is likely to be Bruno and 15 bass players. In 1996, his first album, Dark Dance appeared as a CD on the Bruno label. He and Clipper Anderson appeared as a duo at the Bumbershoot Jazz Festival in Seattle in 1997. Musical director Bud Shank featured The Jack Brownlow Trio at the Jazz Port Townsend Festival in 1998… .

Bruno became a Seattle institution soon after he established himself in the city in the 1960s. Fans and musicians spread his name far beyond the Pacific Northwest. For years they urged him to record. When he finally did, it was for a label [his own] with virtually no distribution. Now, after five decades of exquisite music-making, Suddenly It’s Bruno takes him to a wider audience and matches his accomplishments to his legend.”

Paramaribop

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Music by Anton Goudsmit, Efraim Trujillo, Jeroen Vierdag and Martijn Vink

Sometime ago, a friend in Holland sent me a radio broadcast of bassist Pablo Nehar’s tentet that was recorded in performance at the 1996 Jazzmarathon annual festival which took place in October 13^th in Groningen, The Netherlands.

It was my first introduction to a style of Jazz that some refer to a “Paramaribop,” which derives its name from blending “Paramaribo,” the capital of Suriname, with “Bebop.”

By way of background, Suriname is located in the northeast corner of South America and was for many years ruled by the Dutch as Dutch Guiana.

Paramaribo’s culture became a blend of native Indians, Dutch traders and colonists, merchants and traders from other European countries, and West African slaves. Musically, the city became a melting pot of styles similar to that which had occurred in New Orleans at the turn of the 20^th century.

New Orleans’ culture was similarly a blend that was largely created by the early, colonial French and Spanish Catholics, Creoles from the West Indies and Spanish America, European white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants and West African slaves.

Jazz would emerge from the interactions of these cultures in early 20^th century New Orleans.

Juan Pablo Nahar was born in Paramaribo, Suriname in 1952 and started the practice of music at an early age.

Eventually moving to Holland, he studied both privately and at conservatories, and also spent some time in New York studying Jazz with Frank Foster the legendary tenor saxophonist and composer-arranger with the Count Basie Orchestra.

Upon his return to The Netherlands, Pablo organized workshops at Bijlmer Park Theater in Amsterdam that resulted in concerts of the fusion music then being experimented with by musicians of Surinamese and Antillean origin who lived in that area of the city.

In 1981, along with drummer Eddie Veldman, Pablo co-founder the now legendary Surinam Music Ensemble which pioneered the development of "Paramaribop,” a unique combination of Afro-Surinam Kaseko/Kawina rhythms and the abstract and more complex harmonies of Bebop. 

A number of young, Dutch Jazz musicians worked in Pablo Nahar’s groups and subsequently went on to become great supporters of Paramaribop.

Among them are guitarist Anton Goudsmit, tenor saxophonist Efraim Trujillo, bassist Jeroen Vierdag and drummer, Martijn Vink.

While all of these players have made a huge footprint on the Dutch Jazz scene in other contexts – the New Cool Collective, the Metropole Orchestra and Big Band, the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw, the Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra, Nueva Manteca, small groups headed by reed players Tinke Postma and Benjamin Herman - they formed a group in 2005 which has since become known as The Ploctones, which plays a style of music that has a deep allegiance to Paramaribop.

Nominally led by guitarist Goudsmit who was  awarded the VPRO-Boy Edgar Prize for 2010 as the best Jazz musician in Holland, all four musicians are very skilled players with technique and ideas to burn.

In his Volksrant review of their first CD Live Op Het Dak  [VPRO Eigenwijs–EW 0578],Koen Schouten described the group this way [please forgive the Dutch-English tone as an online translator was used]:

“A group with a rare solidity, determination and flexibility. A genuine four-headed monster.

Whether it concerns a rhythmic tour de force, a fun idea or a tearjerker, the quartet always sounds solid and the group members never cease to surprise each other. The changes and shifting times are whizzing past our ears.

With his ardent and passionate guitar playing the versatile and innovating Anton Goudsmit developed into a musical chameleon without losing his recognizable and characteristic style. His miscellaneous compositions are the base of poetic improvisations and flashy power performances.

A critic of the British ‘Guardian’ described Goudsmit as: ‘the kind of musician that makes you wonder where the fire escape is’.

He graduated cum laude at the Amsterdam Music Conservatory in 1995 and today he can be reckoned as one of the most influential guitarists of the Netherlands.

Jeroen Vierdag is a strong and creative bass player who lifts the band up to a higher level with his driving groove and great virtuosity, competing with his 6-string colleague. He’s been around in the field of pop, jazz, Latin and Brazilian music.

Martijn Vink is an extremely passionate drummer with a peerless technique. One moment he raises the roof and the next he colors and refines with the subtlety of a musical box. He is the regular drummer of the internationally renowned Metropole Orchestra and collaborated with many jazz giants like Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock and John Scofield.

Tenor saxophonist Efraim Trujillo stands out in hectic compositions as well as in a more ambient repertoire due to his open and dynamic playing. Because of his abundance of experience and ability to do anything with his instrument he renews and upgrades the music he plays and makes a concert of this group a special experience for the audience and the band members, time and again. Trujillo played with Courtney Pine, Benny Bailey, Steve Williamson and Bootsy Collins among many others.”

In 2010, the quartet adopted a new name – The Ploctones - but as of this writing they are no longer performing together.

See what you think of Paramaribop as Anton, Efraim, Jeroen and Martijn perform their version of it on a tune entitled Boom-Petit which serves as the soundtrack to the following video.

One thing is certain, Paramaribop is sure to move your ears in a different direction.

Eddie Daniels and Roger Kellaway - "Just Friends" on Resonance Records

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Some of us have been around the Jazz World long enough to remember when pianist extraordinaire Roger Kellaway first joined the Clark Terry - Bob Brookmeyer Quintet in the early 1960s and rocked and rumbled his way through a history of Jazz piano during some of his fascinating and fun solos.

And when he moved to the Left Coast, we continued to follow his electronic adventures on the Spirit Feel Pacific Jazz LP he made with a monster quartet made up of multi-reed and woodwind player Tom Scott with Chuck Domanico on bass and Johnny Guerin on drums.

We also dug him with cellist Edgar Lustgarten in The Roger Kellaway Cello Quartet which also highlighted the talents of guitarist Joe Pass.

In the decade of the 1980’s Roger’s duo album with bassist Red Mitchell, his quartet LP with guitarist Jim Hall, and his work on select recording with Paquito D’Rivera allowed for a continuing appreciation of his many talents both as a performer and as an arranger composer.

In 1991 we were thrilled to have a chance to hear him play solo piano on Volume 11 of the Concord Jazz series recorded in the wonderful acoustic confines of the Maybeck Recital Hall in Berkeley, CA.

More recordings with Red Mitchell, Ruby Braff as well as additional solo piano on Soaring and Live at The Jazz Standard populated the 1990s and early 2000s.

Along the way, I was particularly impressed with a recording that Roger made with clarinetist Eddie Daniels in 1988 for GRP -Memos from Paradise: The Music of Roger Kellaway.

Eddie Daniels blew us all away [pun intended] when he joined the Thad Jones Mel Lewis Orchestra during its maiden voyage in 1966 on tenor saxophone.

A single clarinet solo recorded with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis orchestra, "Live at the A single clarinet solo recorded with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis orchestra, "Live at the Village Vanguard" garnered sufficient attention for him to win Downbeat Magazine's International Critics New Star on Clarinet Award. This conversion to clarinet was not new, for Eddie began clarinet at age 13 and received his Masters in Clarinet from Juilliard. “Winning numerous Grammy awards and nominations, Eddie Daniels revolutionized the blend of Jazz and classical.”

The latter synthesis culminated in Breakthrough a 1985 GRP recording that Eddie made with The London Philharmonia Orchestra on which he played exquisite clarinet interpretations of C.P.E. Bach, J.S. Bach and Jorge Calandrelli’s Concerto for Jazz Clarinet and Orchestra.

Throughout the decades of the 1980s and 1990s, I collected all of Eddie’s GRP albums including, Nepenthe, Blackwood, To Bird With Love, This Is Now, Benny Rides Again [with vibist Gary Burton] and Under The Influence.

But I kept coming back to Memos from Paradise: The Music of Roger Kellaway because of the affinity I heard in the musical personalities of Eddie and Roger. They just clicked so well together. It didn’t hurt, too, that the rhythm section was made up of Eddie Gomez on bass and Al Foster on drums. Reams of well-deserved accolades have been accorded Eddie’s work on bass but I’ve always considered Al to be one of the most underrated and unappreciated drummers in Jazz; impeccable time and superb colorist, he is an extraordinarily sensitive accompanist.

Imagine how delighted I was when Chris DiGirolamo of Two For the Show Media informed me of EDDIE DANIELS & ROGER KELLAWAY Just Friends: Live At The Village Vanguard which was released on Resonance Records Deluxe CD & Digital Editions on September 29, 2017.

Here’s Chris’ press release in which he describes how, when and why the recording was made and its distinguishing features. At the conclusion of Chris’ media release you’ll find a video produced by Resonance Records that contains a graphic description about this historic recording.

Resonance Records is Proud to Present

EDDIE DANIELS & ROGER KELLAWAY

JUST FRIENDS: LIVE AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD

Previously unheard recording from clarinetist Eddie Daniels & pianist Roger Kellaway joined by Buster Williams on bass and Al Foster on drums

Recorded live at the historic Village Vanguard on November 26, 1988

Vital addition to the Daniels/Kellaway discography includes 20-page booklet with vintage photos, essays by Resonance producers George Klabin and Zev Feldman, jazz writer John Murph, plus interviews and reflections from Daniels, Kellaway and Buster Williams

Deluxe CD & Digital Editions Available on September 29, 2017

Los Angeles, August 2017 — Resonance Records is proud to announce the release of Just Friends: Live at the Village Vanguard, a spirited never-before-heard live recording by clarinetist Eddie Daniels and pianist Roger Kellaway featuring bassist Buster Williams and drummer Al Foster. Recorded by Resonance Records founder George Klabin in the front row at the storied Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village, New York City in late 1988, Just Friends is a revelatory meeting of two jazz masters, with one of the best imaginable rhythm sections, deep in dialogue on a set including the venerable standard “Just Friends” and two original pieces each by Daniels and Kellaway.

Klabin received permission from the band to record on this Saturday night of their weeklong run at the Vanguard, and came prepared with a high-quality cassette recorder and a single Sony stereo microphone. “I just placed the mic on the table facing the band, hit ‘record’ and let it run. It was as simple as that,” Klabin recalls in his liner note essay. “The tape sat in my personal collection ever since I recorded it. Nearly three decades later, in 2016, I pulled it out and listened to it. Immediately I was transfixed again. I decided to send digital copies to Roger and Eddie for their enjoyment.” Discussions ensued. Klabin got the go-ahead from all four quartet members and began laying plans for this remarkable DIY recording to finally come to light. The album cover photo is by the legendary jazz photographer William Claxton, with interior images by Tom Copi and Richard Laird, all beautifully assembled into the CD package by longtime Resonance designer Burton Yount.

Never intended for commercial release, Klabin’s recording is nonetheless notable for its clarity and intimacy. It also documents a significant period in the Daniels-Kellaway relationship, born from a suggestion by Jack Kleinsinger that they perform together for his beloved “Highlights in Jazz” concert series some years before the Vanguard date. By now, Daniels and Kellaway have documented their inventive partnership as a duo on a number of recent recordings including Live at the Library of Congress, Duke at the Roadhouse: Live in Santa Fe and A Duo of One: Live at the Bakery. They’d also recorded in various ensemble contexts years ago on such albums as To Bird With Love and Memos from Paradise: The Music of Roger Kellaway. Now with the release of Just Friends, the historical record of this special musical bond is even more complete. The lyricism, swing and sheer unpredictability that Daniels and Kellaway bring to the date, as to every encounter, is truly stunning — not least on the abstract rubato intro of the nearly 20-minute-long title track. The presence of Buster Williams and Al Foster, who had never before worked as a rhythm section with these two co-leaders, only adds to the music’s spontaneity and spark.

And yet, as John Murph observes in his liner notes, Just Friends is “Not only a fascinating musical snapshot of Daniels’ early years playing with Kellaway, it introduces the larger jazz world to rare compositions penned by the two.” Kellaway’s fiercely uptempo but strikingly multifaceted “The Spice Man” is something the pianist hasn’t revisited and doesn’t intend to (“I just don’t want to play that fast”). His “Some O’ This and Some O’ That” reveals a Thelonious Monk influence, perhaps Art Blakey as well, in its driving shuffle feel and dazzling solos. Daniels’ contributions, the gorgeous ballad “Reverie for a Rainy Day” and the Mozart-inspired “Wolfie’s Samba,” are also rarities, never again performed by the clarinetist.

Just Friends also offers a window into a particular period in jazz history, when Daniels was a “roving studio rat” on multiple reeds who had logged many hours on the Vanguard bandstand with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra. Williams, as noted in his booklet interview, had just begun working with Kenny Barron in the supergroup Sphere, as well as the Timeless All-Stars featuring Cedar Walton and others. Al Foster, still in the midst of his long Miles Davis association, was also playing with the likes of Joe Henderson, John Scofield and more. Kellaway, with sideman credits including Wes Montgomery, Oliver Nelson, Clark Terry, Sonny Rollins and Herbie Mann, was recording sporadically but always superbly as a leader, bolstering the case for himself as one of the most compelling if overlooked pianists in jazz. Just Friends adds to our understanding of this elusive but important figure.

Adding to the auspiciousness of Just Friends is the fact that Bill Evans ’Some Other Time: The Lost Concert from the Black Forest, a landmark Resonance release from 2016, won top honors for Historical Album of the Year in the annual DownBeat, JazzTimes and Jazz Journalists Association (JJA) critics polls. As Nate Chinen of WBGO.org remarked in a story this April about Resonance’s efforts tying in to the annual Record Store Day, the label has built a one-of-a-kind profile with its deluxe historical releases, including recent items by Wynton Kelly, Wes Montgomery, John Coltrane and Jaco Pastorius. “Each release is a gem,” wrote Chinen, and Just Friends certainly upholds that lofty standard.

Track Listing:

1.     Some O’ This and Some O’ That (9:32)

2.     Reverie for a Rainy Day (5:37)

3.     Wolfie’s Samba (9:09)

4.     Just Friends (17:47)

5.     The Spice Man (15:57)

Resonance Records is a multi-GRAMMY® Award-winning label (most recently for John Coltrane’s Offering: Live at Temple University for "Best Album Notes") that prides itself in creating beautifully designed, informative packaging to accompany previously unreleased recordings by the jazz icons who grace Resonance's catalog. Headquartered in Beverly Hills, CA, Resonance Records is a division of Rising Jazz Stars, Inc. a California 501(c) (3) non-profit corporation created to discover the next jazz stars and advance the cause of jazz. Current Resonance Artists include Richard Galliano, Polly Gibbons, Tamir Hendelman, Christian Howes and Donald Vega. www.ResonanceRecords.org

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Chris DiGirolamo at Two for the Show Media:

Tel: (631) 298-7823 — Email: Chris@twofortheshowmedia.com