Dave Pike: It’s Time, Again

“I was in [Roy Harte’s] Drum City in Hollywood one afternoon in 1953, where I saw a vibraphone for the first time, picked up the mallets and started playing. I knew immediately that I had found my means of expressions.”

- Dave Pike

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

Although we went to the same high school, Dave Pike is five [5] years older so I missed him.

He was President of the high school’s Instrumental Music Association, as was I, and for a time, our photos hung together above the wall of the music room.

By the time I graduated and had started gigging around Hollywood, Dave had already left for the East Coast and was gigging around New York.

Given my long association and friendship with Victor Feldman and Larry Bunker, both of whom were exceptional vibraphonists, vibes were always a part of my musical life. Some of my earliest Jazz gigs as a drummer were playing in trios and quartets that featured them on vibraphone.

All three of us were to become great admirers of Dave Pike’s skills on the instrument.

I’ve also always been a big fan of be-bop, a style of Jazz that Dave Pike specializes in and which he plays passionately and with great reverence for its traditions, particularly those established by its principal co-founders, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

Therefore, when Orrin Keepnews, President, Artists and Repertoire man and Chief Cook and Bottle washer for Riverside Records issued his 1961 LP – It’s Time for Dave Pike - it seems that I was destined to own a copy [Riverside RLP-9360].

The 2001 CD reissue of this recording on Original Jazz Classics [OJCCD-1951-2] contains the following annotation on the back tray plate.. Presumably written by Orrin, it is an excellent summation of Dave Pike’s playing:

“Dave Pike occupies a distinctive niche in modern Jazz. A vibraphonist with an attack and sound like no other, he plays with a concentrated strength that makes the improvised lines all but take physical shape.”

The ace graphics team at CerraJazz LTD put together this video tribute to Dave on which he performs Solar, one of the tracks from the It’s Time for Dave Pike, along with Barry Harris on piano, Reggie Workman on bass and Billy Higgins on drums.

We’ve also gathered the following observations about Dave by Thomas Schnabel, Zan Stewart and Mark Gardner, Ira Gitler, and a little more from Orrin Keepnews in closing. The editorial staff at JazzProfiles thought these might be helpful in providing some perspective on this marvelously talented and too often overlooked musician.

“The sound of the vibraphone is like no other instrument. At once seductive and ce­lestial, the sound is transparent, cool, and airy, yet it is capable of filling a large room with a soothing warmth. Countless people have been fascinated with its magic sound, yet ironically there are only a dozen mallet players world wide who have mastered the instrument. Of these precious few artists, some have exploited the instrument's gentle pulse, churning out syrupy ballads; others have been seduced by the harpies of com­mercialism, while others have remained sub­merged in the tidepools of esoterica. That leaves the world with just a handful of truly creative and evolving players, an exceedingly small family of gifted artists in which Dave Pike has secured for himself an enduring and enviable niche.

Pike is a gentle and slightly built man, whose ingratiating and soft-spoken manners don't betray the rhapsodic power one exper­iences when watching and hearing him per­form. He was born in Detroit on March 23, 1938, and though not from a musical fam­ily, found himself playing piano, drums, and horns from an early age. A percussive player, the vibraphone perfectly suited his artistic needs. "The minute I touched the instrument", he began in his thoughtful and deliberate manner, "that was it, I knew that this was the instrument I was meant to play. I was physically designed to play it. Your whole body's involved with it, your soul, heart, and mind, just like the drums, but with the enormous universe of harmony and melody. I love the sound, I believe music should be beautiful and strive for a beau­tiful sound, and I just can't imagine playing anything else."

- Thomas Schnabel, liner notes to Let the Mnstrels Play On [Muse Records MR-5203

“The vibraharp, or vibraphone, a descendant of the xylophone developed in the United States in the late 1920's, is an instrument with an unusual, very clear tone. A superior set of vibes can send a reverberating sound across a room, filling that space with a sooth­ing diffused warmth. With the mallets in the hands of a master player, the vibraharp can sing the softest song or wail the wildest waltz, always with that sen­suous, percussive timbre that only it possesses. The vibraharp is, indeed, a magical instrument.

Dave Pike is a magical vibraharpist. He is a player of sensitivity and emotion, of imagination and power. His concept of music is broad and open, allowing for many diverse styles in the make up of the complete musician. Over the years, he has shared the limelight with such heralded compeers as Ornette Coleman, Bill Evans, Charlie Haden, Paul Bley, Herbie Mann and Lee Konitz, and his art reflects the expanded horizons he experienced while working alongside these greats. Whether playing free form or jazz-rock, Dave Pike is a superb modern creator in the jazz idiom.”

- Zan Stewart, liner notes to On A Gentle Note [Muse Records MR- 5168]

“… [Dave’s] style is notble for its well resolved and quicksilver ideas, inspired more by such bop giants as Charlie Parker and Bud Powell than any other vibraphonist. Pike's sound has come in for much praise from his fellow musicians and jazz critics over the years. Dan Morgenstern wrote in 1963: 'Dave's sound is neither excessively vibrato-laden nor excessively dry; it is clear but not brittle, lyrical but never sentimental. The honesty and warmth of his playing is underlined by his habitual 'singing' - as much a part of his improvisation as Hamp's 'grunts' are part of his.'”

- Mark Gardner. Insert notes to Pike’s Groove [Criss Cross 1021]

“The electrically amplified set of metal bars, first made popular in jazz by Lionel Hampton, is known by many names-vibraphone, vibraharp, vibes and bells are some of its appellations. Dave Pike has another name for his set. He calls it the "steam table,”  a humorous title, but one that has accuracy.

Adjectives like "steamin',” "cookin’,” etc. have been used to signify playing with heat, or, to put it even more basically, swinging. The best jazz vibists have always realized the percussive nature of their instrument and have never allowed it to become a purveyor of bland sounds. While Dave Pike is a steamer, he is not a steam fitter. He is a dancer and a singer.

Let me qualify this. Pike's physical approach to the vibes is very active. On up tempos he seems to be interpreting his own modern dance; on ballads his toe-work is gracefully in a ballet bag. Of course, you can11 see this on a record, but you can hear another example of his complete involve­ment with his instrument in the singing with which he underlines his playing. This is common practice among many pianists and vibists, but in Dave's case it is perhaps more intense. Most importantly, you can hear his playing. Inspired more by Charlie Parker and Bud Powell than by other vibists, his conception is original and becoming more so all the time.”

- Ira Gitler, insert notes to Pike’s Peak, [Portrait RK 44392]

“The intensity with which … DAVE PIKE ap­proaches the vibes seems to me so compelling and over­whelming that it surely can almost be felt —  like a ghost at a séance that cannot be seen or touched, but is nevertheless so convincing a presence that you're ready to swear it's definitely there. Having watched Dave at work, I considered the possibility that I was assuming too much in feeling that this aura of vivid excitement comes through clearly on a recording. But a couple of judicious advance experiments with listeners who had never seen him in action convinced me that all that spirit and energy are really audible, and almost tangible, here.”

- Orrin Keepnews, insert notes to It’s Time for Dave Pike [OJCCD-1951-2]

In case you haven’t already done so, it’s time for you to take a hearty sampling of Dave Pike’s music.

Art Ensemble of Chicago

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

“With a mixture of parody and the obtuse, humor and intuition the Art Ensemble of Chicago combined their considerable skills to common cause and emerged as perhaps the most innovative group of the 1970s.”

- Stuart Nicholson, Jazz: The 1980s Resurgence, p. 129.

For a variety of reasons, some to do with preferences, but mostly to do with unawareness, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles, missed much of the Free Jazz movement at its inception.

Perhaps Free Jazz movements might be a better term.

But thanks to a variety of informative sources that have helped to educate us on the subject, it has been great fun to subsequently discover some aspects of this style of Jazz that suit our taste. [“one is never too old to learn something new?”].

One of these discoveries was the Art Ensemble of Chicago, whose music had to be seen as well as heard.

Although AEC did not travel very much during the latter years they were together, I was fortunate to see and to hear the group at the “old” Yoshi’s Jazz and Supper Club in Berkeley, CA in the mid-1990s.

You can get a basic “feel” for their music from viewing the following video tribute to them.

And here are some authoritative descriptions of what’s on offer in the AEC’s approach to Jazz.

“The Art Ensemble, like many other groups and musicians who emerged in this period, was an offshoot of the Chicago musicians' cooperative known as the Association for the Advancement of Crea­tive Musicians. Muhal Richard Abrams, who founded the AACM in 1965 and served as a mentor to a generation of avant-gardists, was a talented pianist and composer whose best recordings, among them Levels and Degrees of Light (Delmark) and The Hearinga Suite (Black Saint), manage a graceful balancing act between ensemble writing and unfettered improvisation.

The Art Ensemble of Chicago, consisting of saxophonists Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell, trumpeter Lester Bowie, bassist Malachi Favors Magoustous, and drummer Famoudou Don Moye, learned much from Abrams. But their approach probably owed even more to the otherworldly showmanship of the pianist-composer-bandleader Sun Ra, who had been a fixture on the Chicago scene for years and served as a kind of spiritual godfather to the AACM. Taking its cue from Sun Ra, the group enlivened its performances with costumes, makeup, poetry recitations, and even the occasional comedy routine.

If the Art Ensemble's music was sometimes in danger of getting lost in the shuffle, it was powerful enough to withstand the onslaught, and it was varied enough to hold audiences' attention. (Jarman, Mitchell, and Bowie were all prolific composers, and all three re­corded several albums as leaders in addition to their work with the Art Ensemble.) Indeed, with its mixture of free improvisation and complex composition, seasoned with an overlay of African and other influences, the Art Ensemble's music arguably merited the label "fu­sion" as much as anyone else's did—although the group itself pre­ferred "great black music." (And as if to suggest that categories are meaningless anyway, in the late seventies and early eighties the Art Ensemble made a series of outstanding albums, including Nice Guys and Urban Bushmen, for ECM Records, supposedly the most "Euro­pean" of all jazz labels.)” – Peter Keepnews in Bill Kirchner, ed., The Oxford Companion to Jazz, p. 494

“The Art Ensemble of Chicago was created in the mid sixties by Roscoe Mitchell, Lester Bowie and Malachi Favors, all members of Chicago's Association for the Advance­ment of Creative Music (AACM). They recorded for Delmark and Nessa, two small independent labels. Later, during a two year stay in Europe, they made a dozen albums for various European labels.

This, I believe, is their most versatile and exciting album yet. It is the complete and unedited non-stop per­formance that they gave at the 1972 Ann Arbor festival. All the excitement, originality, tightness, and brilliance that this group possesses can be heard on this album. Please listen to this record in its entirety without interruption to grasp the full beauty and impact of their performance.

The Art Ensemble of Chicago may be the most sig­nificant and creative group in the new music since the original Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane quartets.”

—Michael Cuscuna, original liner notes to The Art Ensemble of Chicago Bap-Tizum

“The Art Ensemble initially featured Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, Lester Bowie, Malachi Favors, and, for a brief spell, drummer Phillip Wilson. The band ig­nored the division of labor traditionally practiced by most jazz combos. True, Mitchell and Jarman could brandish their saxophones in the front line, but they were just as likely to be accompanists as lead soloists, just as inclined to play percus­sion or unusual wind instruments—conch shells or whistles—as the alto or tenor sax.

Lester Bowie could show off his mastery of a wide range of trumpet styles, covering the gamut from pseudo-early jazz growls and groans to up-to-date funk grooves. But he also might energize an Art Ensemble performance by pounding on the bass drum or engaging in offbeat on-stage antics. Malachi Favors served as bassist for the group, but almost any string instrument, from banjo to zither, might grace his hands, as well as the ever-present percussion instruments that became Art Ensemble trademarks. Indeed, the Ensemble reportedly brought some five hundred music-making implements with them when they moved to France at the close of the 1960s.

The Art Ensemble caught the attention of European audiences in this new set­ting. Within a few months of arriving, the band had recorded a half-dozen projects, including some of their finest work. Recordings were supplemented by frequent concerts, radio performances, and commissions for movie scores. During this pe­riod, percussionist Don Moye joined the band. Although this addition was lamented by some of the band's fans—who saw it giving a more conventional rhythmic foun­dation to the Art Ensemble's free-flowing sound collages—Moye's background in free jazz and his wide-ranging collection of percussion instruments fit nicely with the Ensemble's artistic impulses. By the same token, Moye added a more structured and overtly polyrhythmic, often more insistent, undercurrent to the band's sound. …

Concerts and club appearances conveyed the band's essence in a way that the group's later studio sessions often only approximated. In truth, this band needed to be seen as well as heard. Dressed in African garb, their faces painted or wearing masks, surrounded by their "little instruments"—so many that it took two hours simply to set up the bandstand—the Art Ensemble presented a striking appearance that had few precedents in the jazz world. The group's various live recordings, such as Live at Mandel Hall, Baptizum, and Urban Bushmen, may stop short of presenting the full experience of the Art Ensemble in performance, although they still manage to convey the band's vitality and unpredictability, as well as its kaleidoscopic range.”

- Ted Gioia, The History of Jazz, pp. 357-358 [paragraphing modified].

“As a mix of personalities, the Ensemble has always been in a crisis of temperament, with Bowie's arsenal of sardonic inflexions pitched against Mitchell's schematic constructions, Jarman's fierce and elegant improvis­ing and Favors's other-worldly commentaries from the bass. Sat­ire, both musical and literal, has sustained much of their music; long- and short-form pieces have broken jazz structure down into areas of sound and silence. At their best, they are as uncom­promisingly abstract as the most severe European players, yet their materials are cut from the heart of the traditions of black music in Chicago and St Louis.”

- Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6^th ed.,

 p. 56.

“That generation of musicians, building on the achievements of post-bop apostates who questioned the rules and put their ids on the table, began with the assumption that playing free meant just that. It wasn't a matter of whether or not you used chords or swing rhythms or the tem­pered scale, or of how you measured improvisation against composition, but of having the options—of choosing to do with or without any of the tools of music in any given performance.

One measure of the Great Black Music vaunted by the Art Ensemble was embodied in the freedom to be or not to be free, and followed from a fundamental idea: Jazz is a classical music with an established yet expanding canon of masterworks, wed to a language of rules and structures. In playing off the acknowledged clas­sics, the shared postulates, the new jazz of the '60s kept the intrinsic aesthetic alive, demonstrating to the max that a worthy foundation can withstand every sort of experimentation, however adventitious or pro­vocative it may seem. The jazz avant-garde, like the classical avant-garde, is empowered by the fact that true classicism is impervious to anything but prostration. Imitation, as Emerson pointed out, is suicide.”

- Gary Giddins, Visions of Jazz, p. 503 [paragraphing modified]

If you are looking for a gateway into the world of Free Jazz, the Art Ensemble of Chicago will serve as an excellent entry point.

Joe Morello 1928-2011 R.I.P.

“The drummer is generally the member of the band most underrated by the audience and least discussed in the jazz historical and analytical literature. Since drummers don't play harmonies and melodies in the same way as the other instrumentalists, audience members and even some musicians have a tendency to deprecate the musical knowledge of the person sitting behind the drum set. Many mistakenly assume that the drummer just plays rhythm and therefore doesn't participate in the melodic and harmonic flow of the music. [However] … the drum set represents a microcosm of all the interactive processes … , including harmonic and me­lodic sensitivity.”

- Ingrid Monson, Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction, p.51

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

The following is a reposting of a JazzProfiles feature on Joe that originally appeared on Tuesday, March 25, 2008.

To paraphrase Ted Gioia from his chapter entitled The San Francisco Scene in the 1950’s from his seminal West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California 1945-1960:

“At the start of 1956 Brubeck made a personal decision that proved to be a most important change in his group. After three years with the quartet, drummer Joe Dodge decided to leave. Brubeck took a chance by hiring Joe Morello. Actually, little risk accrued from this decision as Morello was a masterful choice as his polished virtuosity and marked creativity made an immediate contribution to the quartet.

Described by some critics as a sort of purgatory for jazz drummers, Morello was to absolutely flourish in the confines of this supposedly ‘unswinging’ ensemble, especially with its high visibility, daring improvisations and later experimentation with odd or unusual time signatures.

All these factors helped launch Morello to a position of preeminence in the world of jazz drumming and with good cause. The leap into the limelight was no concoction of media hype but well-deserved fame for an exceptional musician.” [p.96].

Morello was born in Springfield, MA and after gigging around New York in the early 1950’s and recording with guitarist Tal Farlow and arranger-composer Gil Melle’s group, pianist Marian McPartland brought him into her trio along with bassist Bill Crow where they appeared together at The Hickory House on New York’s famed 52nd street from 1954-56.

In her book, All in Good Time, Marian talks about how the word on the street was all about this “fabulous” young drummer from Springfield. But given how many times she had been disappointed after actually hearing the Mr. Fabulous in question, she remained skeptical. Nevertheless, given her generous heart, Marian decided to give Morello a chance to sit in although when he showed up “… he looked less like a drummer than a student of nuclear physics.”

"I really don’t remember what the tune was, and it isn’t too important. Because in a matter of seconds, everyone in the room realized that the guy with the diffident air was a phenomenal drummer. Everyone listened. His precise blending of touch, taste and almost unbelievable technique were a joy to listen to…. I will never forget it. Everyone knew that here was a discovery." [pp.34-35.]

As Gioia concludes:

With the Brubeck quartet, this powerful young workhorse on drums continued to have the same effect on audiences, but now in larger concert halls rather than in small clubs. Soon Morello was no longer a discovery, but a known commodity, emulated by a generation of young percussionists. [p. 98 paraphrased]

When in 1938, the legendary photographer Alfred Stieglitz was presented with one of the only 500 copies of Ansel Adams’ photographic masterpiece –Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail – Stieglitz declared: “I am an idolater of perfect workmanship and this is perfect workmanship.”

I, too, am an idolater of the perfect workmanship that is to be found in the drumming of Joe Morello as primarily exemplified in the many recordings he made with the Dave Brubeck Quartet from 1956-68. Sadly, Joe made too few recordings outside the DBQ including those under his own name.

Joe is a complete musician who listens attentively to what the soloist is saying and tries to contribute to it. Equally as important in this context is that Joe can play brushes as well as he can play sticks so he doesn’t mind reverting to these unwieldy clumps of wire to express his drumming; something which cannot be said about many contemporary Jazz drummers [some of whom don’t even carry a set of wire brushes in their kit!].

Joe is a constantly inventive drummer. Unlike an Art Blakey or an Art Taylor or a Roy Haynes, Joe is not a drummer who plays a prepared number of figures over and over again during his drums solos, be these over a few bars or over a chorus or open-ended.

Although he played them with authority, Art Blakey repeated the same configurations in every solo he played. He may have combined these drum figures differently, but throughout his long and distinguished career Art’s arsenal essentially replayed the same “licks,” “kicks” and “fills”.

While Max Roach and Philly Joe Jones were considerably more sophisticated in their approach to the instrument and had a larger repertoire of invented drum figures that they employed, they were also limited to what they had practiced and memorized when it came time to taking a solo.

Joe is from a school of drummers that includes Buddy Rich and Louie Bellson. They are drummers who, for all intents and purposes, know no limits and can create endlessly on the instrument. [Alan Dawson, Ed Shaughnessy and Dave Weckl are also in this category].

Like a professional athlete, these drummers essentially slow down the pace of things and are able to visualize and/or conceptualize how they are going to build a solo, especially an extended one.

What enables them to do this is their technical command of the instrument, a facility that is garnered over long hours of practice, as well as, through the gift of talent.

Bill Evans once remarked to the effect that playing an instrument well was 98% hard work and 2% talent.

As Eric Nissenson has observed in his work Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest:

Any good Jazz musician has developed from hard work and hard thought, a personal conception. When he improvises successfully on the stand or in the recording studio, it is only after much thought, practice and theory have gone into that conception, and it is that conception which makes him different from other Jazz musicians. Once he knows what he is doing, in other words, he can let himself go and find areas of music through improvisation that he didn’t know existed. Jazz improvisation, therefore, is based on a paradox – that a musician comes to a bandstand so well prepared that he can fly free through instinct and soul and sheer musical bravery into the musical unknown. It is a marriage of both sides of the brain ….” [p, 53].

Morello devoted himself to mastering the drum rudiments [originally 26 but later expanded to 40] through long hours of practice essentially using only the snare drum. Drum rudiments are typically practiced slowly at first to gain control. Later the practice pace is increased and they are alternated so as to be able to begin them with either hand. It takes an enormous amount of time and effort to develop the skill necessary to play these rudiments at any speed and from any position on the drum kit.

Once these exercises are brought to a level of controlled speed on the snare drum, they can be expanded to include the tom toms that extend from the top of the bass drum shell and those that rest on the floor beside the bass drum through the use of telescoping legs. They can even be interwoven with the use of the bass drum as played with a foot pedal although very, very few drummers are able to execute this feat [no pun intended].

For those interested in the more technical aspects of drum rudiments, a narrative explanation can be found here: 

For the notation of drum rudiments as well as audio and video examples, click on one of the 40 essential rudiments after going here 

Joe also spent long hours developing the independence of limbs that enabled him to use all four of these at the same time on different parts of the instrument, sometimes playing against one another in contrasting time signatures.

If a drummer doesn’t have to think about how to play a rhythmic pattern, he can begin to think of what he wants to play, how he wants it to sound [what drums and/or cymbals to employ to produce this sound] and how to “tell his story” either in fragments [four bar, eight bar, 12 bar etc. exchanges with the horns] or in an extended solo.

Just as it is incumbent for a horn soloist to “say something” in their solo, preferably something more than just a linking pf phrases that have been heard many times before as played by other musicians, so too the drummer has to originate ideas that fit the context of the piece that is being performed and which generate a certain interest in and make a contribution to the piece in their own right.

Beyond the customary long drum solo piece that is intended as a highlight of many of the DBQ concerts there are a number of tracks that demonstrate what Marian McPartland described as Morello’s “precise blending of touch, taste and unbelievable technique ….”

For touch and taste, one need only listen to his brushwork accompaniment to alto saxophonist Paul Desmond’s enchanting and stirring solo on These Foolish Things from the Jazz Goes to Junior College Columbia recording [CL 1034/Sony Japan Sleeve CD 9523].

Desmond was a lover of ballads and he would use them as a platform upon which to build lyrically layered and titillating textured solos. He also once described himself as “the world’s slowest alto saxophone player." And while he was slowly weaving his wonderful solos he preferred that the drummer stay out of the way and simply keep time [quietly].

Paul was a major exponent of the style of drumming that the legendary tenor saxophonist Lester Young once described as “a little tinky boom.”

While they initially clashed when Joe first came on board the USS Brubeck bringing all of his firepower to bear, Paul and Joe were later to become close friends.

And although Joe is anything but “a little tinky boom” drummer he can lay down sensitive and unobtrusive brushwork behind a soloist, even helping to achieve new heights in the intensity of their solo as is the case with Desmond’s magnificent exposition on These Foolish Things.

More of Joe’s magnificent brushwork can be heard again behind a Paul Desmond solo, this time on a more up tempo version of Tangerine on the The Dave Brubeck Quartet in Europe album [Columbia CL 1168/SRCS 9529] and this album is also an excellent place to hear Joe as a fabulous colorist with his use of tympani mallets on Nomad and The Golden Horde.

These Jazz Impression albums are also an excellent vantage points from which to enjoy his marvelously constructed extended drum solos such as Watusi Drums on The Dave Brubeck Quartet in Europe, his intriquing finger drum solo meant to sound like and Indian “tabla” drum on Calcutta Blues from Jazz Impressions of Eurasia [Columbia CL 1251/CK 48531] and his clattering homage to the noises of Chicago’s on Sounds of the Loop fromJazz Impressions of the USA [Columbia CL 984].

However, Joe may have reached a pinnacle of extended drum solos with the one he recorded on Castilian Drums from The Dave Brubeck Quartet at Carnegie Hall [Sony Jazz 2K61455/Sony Japan 9365-6] performance given at this distinguished hall of the arts in February, 1963.

In 1961, RCA released Joe’s first album under his own name which was fitting entitled It’s About Time [RCA LPM-2486] which finds Joe in the company of a quintet made up of Phil Woods [alto sax], Gary Burton [vibes] John Bunch [piano] and Gene Cherico [bass]. It’s a corker of an album that was subsequently released in CD as Joe Morello[RCA Bluebird 9784-2-RB] and combines the six quintet tracks that made up the original LP with 9 tracks from previously unreleased 1961-62 big band sessions that were arranged and conducted by Manny Albam and which featured a bevy of prominent New York studio players.

Joe’s drumming on these recordings is hard-driving and aggressive and is an example of his ability to play in a cooking, straight-ahead manner which was not always possible in the more formalized and structured setting of the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

I hope that in listening to these recordings and spending time in the company of Morello’s unparalleled talent that they will serve to confirm for you the adage -“God places occasional geniuses in our midst to help inspire the rest of us to greatness.” Joe Morello is one such genius.

Rio

Earlier, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles and the ace graphics production team at CerraJazz LTD did a feature on Buenos Aires, so since we "were in the neighborhood," we thought we'd do one on the city of Rio de Janiero.  The music is pianist Victor Feldman's original composition Brazilian Fire on which he is joined by Tom Scott on flute, Chuck Domanico on bass and drummer John Guerin. Listen for how the mood changes when Johnny switches from a bossa nova beat to straight 4/4 time at 1:57 minutes.

Valery Ponomarev - The Best Thing For You

The vibrant, vigorous and valiant [he's a Jazz musician from Moscow!] Valery Ponomarev is joined on this version of Irving Berlin's The Best Thing for You by Ralph Moore on tenor saxophone, Larry Willis on piano, Dennis Irwin on bass and the ever-swinging Victor Jones on drums.

Be sure and checkout the 8-bar "kicker" that launches Valery's solo at 1:34 minutes and Ralph Moore's at 2:40 minutes, respectively.

Cookin' Jazz at its very best on JazzProfiles.

Boppin’ & Burnin’ - the Rein de Graaff Trio with Herb Geller, Dave Pike, and Benjamin Herman

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

A recent visit to the editorial offices of JazzProfiles by drummer Eric Ineke and pianist Rein de Graaff who were in town to attend the Los Angeles Jazz Institute's four-day tribute to Frank Sinatra on the 100 year anniversary of his birth coupled with the passing on October 3, 2015 of vibraphonist Dave Pike prompted a recollection on my part of this feature that originally posted to the blog on March 9, 2011.

I thought I would re-post it as an homage to Dave and to Herb Geller, who died on December 19, 2013, and as a panegyric on friendships, both old and new.

Having admired their music for many years, it was nice to meet Eric and Rein in person.  After all, us Beboppers have gotta stick together .

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles is very fortunate to have a friend in Holland who keeps us informed about many of that country’s Jazz-related developments.

One of the most recent of these concerns a concert tour entitled Boppin’ and Burnin’.

Under the leadership of Dutch Jazz pianist, Rein de Graaff, the initial concert in the series took place in Groningen on February 24, 2011 and included a front-line made up of Jazz greats Herb Geller and Dave Pike, and Benjamin Herman, an up-and-coming alto sax and flute player who is a native of The Netherlands.

Our friend, who works in Groningen, a city located in Northern Holland, sent along the following review as part of a personal correspondence and he has graciously allowed us to share it.

The photographer Willem Schwertmann posted photographs of the concert on Flickr and you can view them here.

“Hello Steve,

Boppin’ and Burnin’ is the title of the current series of concerts by the Rein de Graaff Trio in the Netherlands: eight concerts with Dave Pike, and one Dutch guest each evening: Benjamin Herman or Tineke Postma or Sjoerd Dijkhuizen. The first concert, last Thursday [February 24^th] in Groningen (with Benjamin Herman), is/was the only concert with Herb Geller in the line-up!

During the first set it was clear that Pike, Geller and Herman were searching for the right way to communicate: Geller seemed to be used to being in control, but for example at the end of one of Geller’s solo’s Geller nodded to Benjamin Herman that he was next, but behind Geller’s back it was the energetic Dave Pike who started an inspired solo following Geller’s solo, and Herman had to put his alto sax down quickly. But make no mistake, they all clearly enjoyed themselves playing together, and the second set was much better, with inspired soloing by all six musicians (and Geller somewhat more in control of the proceedings). Marius Beets on bass and Eric Ineke on drums were of course the other members of the Rein de Graaff Trio.

Both sets consisted of well-known standards, among them “Billy’s Bounce, “Star Eyes”, “Ornithology”, “Scrapple From The Apple”, “Hothouse,” “Half Nelson” and “Alone Together”. During the first set Dave Pike had the opportunity to shine as the sole front man on “I Can’t Get Started”, and during the second set Geller played “The Peacocks” completely on his own, no one else on stage; and Benjamin Herman played “Autumn In New York” with just the trio behind him.

It was great listening to and watching Geller (82) and Pike (72) play! I could not help but notice Herman’s big smile as soon as Geller started his first solo of the evening. Geller looked fit and relaxed, and he used a kind of barstool to sit on, but he stood up during most of his solo’s. I also heard and 'recognized' Dave Pike singing along with his own playing (a little bit like you can hear on “Pike’s Peak”). My estimate is that about 200 people attended the concert, very few of them below 35 years of age. Anyway, it was a memorable evening, and the second time I’ve seen Geller play live: the previous time was at the same venue with the same trio, a couple of years ago, with Steve Davis on trombone.

Hope the above gives an impression of the evening.”

Hans

Some JazzProfiles readers may recall that the title that Rein de Graaff adopted for this concert series – Boppin’ and Burnin’ – is taken from a 1968 Prestige album by the same name that was recorded under the leadership of Hammond B-3 organist, Don Patterson [Prestige P-7563]. The LP was reissued on CD in 1998 as Original Jazz Classics OJCCD-983-2.

The CD tray plate offers the following background information:

“Don Patterson was an experienced pianist before he took up the organ. Inspired to learn to play the Hammond B-3 after hearing Jimmy Smith, he transferred his piano conception to the electric instrument. The result was a style in which he supported single-note lines with rhythmic comping in the left hand and pedal bass lines of great urgency. His taste, lyricism, and attention to dynamics in no way impeded his ability to swing. Before long, Patterson attracted the attention of first-rank musicians like Wes Montgomery and Jimmy Heath. For this date, his colleagues were trumpet legend Howard McGhee, the young alto sax star Charles McPherson, drummer Billy James, and Pat Martino, a guitarist already on the way to cult status when Boppin' and Burnin' was recorded in 1968. Patterson and friends perform two McGhee originals, two classics of the bop era, and a piece by Thelonious Monk.”

Scott Yanow in his review of the CD on allmusic.com noted: “The quintet date is most notable for the playing of trumpeter Howard McGhee. McGhee, who had not been heard from much on record for a few years, proves to still be in prime form.”

It is regrettable that when fine Jazz Hammond B-3 organist are mentioned such as Jimmy Smith, Brother Jack McDuff and, of course, more recently, the magnificent Joey De Francesco, that Don Patterson’s name is rarely included amongst them.

For as Mark Gardner points out in his liner notes to Boppin’ and Burnin’:

“First and foremost, putting forward such an eloquent case for you the jury to consider, is Patterson himself. His playing is personal, resourceful, and full of feeling. Don has learned his instrument well and mastered it.

Unlike so many organists he does not parade the instrument's multitudinous effects like some vaudeville conjurer desperately attempting to engage the interest of a restless, yawning audience. His lithe sobs are full of surprises but not cheap trickery, and there lies the difference. In other words, he avoids trying to dupe the listener with false frenzy, yet at the same time Don never plays his ideas in cold, clinical detachment as if he were riveting metal parts.

As an accompanist Patterson also distinguishes himself from the average soul shop treadmill-turners. Instead of seeking to swamp the soloist in an electronic sound storm, Don offers discreet but helpful support to his colleagues. Patterson has said, "I try to keep the piano sound—play piano licks" and this approach is clearly reflected on all his records.”

Lucas van Merwijk - Cubop City Big Band - Que Sensación!

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

Lucas van Merwijk is one of the great drummers of our time.

He lays down so much good stuff that even the eyes of a trained drummer can't catch it all [thank goodness for the ears, too!].

And he makes it all look so easy.

Lucas is based in Amsterdam, although he travels all over the world as a principal in a number of percussion-oriented groups.  You can locate more information about Lucas' background, his current group affiliations and his recordings by visiting his website.

Lucas' main passion is Latin Jazz; he's a real afficianado when it comes to the many percussion rhythms and elements associated with this music.

Under his leadership, the Cubop City Big Band [CCBB], which is partially supported by an ethnic music grant made possible through the people of The Netherlands, has developed a reputation for performing authentic and excellent quality Latin Jazz.

Therefore, whenever the CCBB puts out a new CD, in this case -  Que Sensación! - it is considered to be "an event" by those who follow the music.

Fortunately, for fans of the Cubop City Big Band, there are also first-rate videos of the band performing two tracks from the new CD that were made from the Dutch public broadcaster VPRO's "Free Sounds" [vrije geluiden] television program.

The first of these has the band performing the title track: Que Sensación! The arrangement is by pianist Marc Bischoff.

The audio track on the next video is also a Marc Bischoff arrangement and is entitled A Puerto Padre.  See if you can pick up on what Lucas is laying down beginning at 4:54 minutes - it's a shame that we can't see his feet in action, too.  By the way, Lucas is holding his drum sticks in the "matched hands" position.

Earlier we featured the best in Latin Jazz by the Nettai Tropical Jazz Big Band based in Tokyo, Japan!

And now we follow with a Latin Jazz profile of a band led by a drummer based in Holland!!

The world is becoming such a cosmopolitan place.

Rest assured, wherever the best in Jazz is happening, we'll bring it too you here on JazzProfiles or should we say - JazzProfielens?

Something to Crow About: Bill Crow Revisited

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

Bassist and author Bill Crow has been playing Jazz for six decades.

When the editorial staff at JazzProfiles posted its earlier features about him which can be located by going here and here, the ace graphics production team at CerraJazz LTD had not as yet developed the following video tribute. Each of the previous features on Bill have been reposted [sans the original graphics] to the columnar side of the blog; just scroll down on the left-hand side of the blog to find them.

The audio track is made up of Bill performing How Long Has This Been Going On? with pianist Marian McPartland and drummer Joe Morello from their first Hickory House LP.

In many ways, Bill’s Jazz career really began in February, 1954 when he joined Marian & Joe for their gig at the Hickory House in New York City.

Bill is also the author of two excellent books about Jazz: Jazz Anecdotes and From Birdland to Broadway: Scenes from a Jazz Life [New York: Oxford, 1992].

Here are the opening paragraphs from Bill’s From Birdland to Broadway:

“Birdland was my alma mater. I studied for a little while at another institute of higher learning, the University of Washington in Seattle, but when I dropped out and moved to New York, Birdland became my college of modern jazz. The illustrious professors there, who taught by example, were some of the world's finest jazz musicians. The dean of them all was Charlie Parker, "Bird," for whom the club was named.

I studied hard and learned my lessons well at Birdland. But if any­one had told me when I first arrived that just two years later I would be playing on that hallowed bandstand myself, I would have scoffed. And had that prophet declared that the instrument I'd be playing at my Birdland graduation would be the string bass, I'd have laughed out loud. I was a brass player, not a bass player.

When I took a Greyhound bus from Seattle to New York in January 1950, I carried a valve trombone with me. In the Army I had switched to that instrument from the baritone horn, which I had been playing since grade school. The baritone horn has a beautiful sound, but it wasn't considered to be a jazz instrument, and I wanted to play jazz.

I'd already made a good start. As a schoolboy in Kirkland, Washing­ton, I had collected and memorized every jazz record I could get my hands on, and I had been jamming with friends in the Army and around Seattle. But at Birdland my education moved up to a new level. At that midtown New York nightclub, I heard modern jazz played nightly by the masters.” [p.3]

Bill’s books are two of the best books that I’ve ever read on the subject of Jazz.

If you are a fan of the music and its makers, you won’t want to miss these treats.