In Walked Walter Davis, Jr.

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

“A PROBLEM that frequently confronts jazz musicians is the basic one of what to play. Jazz has always consisted on what is, for the most part, a borrowed repertoire. The first jazz bands played marches and quadrilles, and today you hear mostly popular and show tunes. Fortunately, there are certain musicians with the gift for composition, who are able to supply their own material, thereby making a musical statement completely their own, rather than borrowing from a storehouse of music they might find less suitable

.

Of course, every jazz musician is a composer in a sense; in fact, some people define a jazz solo as spontaneous composition. Some solos have been turned into compositions by other hands — Lester Young and Charlie Parker have both received this tribute, and a phrase of Dizzy Gillespie's, for instance, was reworked by Tadd Dameron into the lovely If You Could See Me Now. And the world of jazz history is full of so-called "originals," most of them vanishing with the same speed it took to write them. Occasionally, though, one of these "originals" achieves some degree of permanence, and some of them have passed into the basic repertoire — Milt Jackson's "Bags' Groove," for example.

But beyond this, there are a few men who can rightly be called jazz composers, and, perhaps not so surprisingly, four of the most important of them have been pianists: Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, and John Lewis. In speaking of any of these men, you can always get a good argument going about which aspect of their careers are most important — their music, their groups, or their piano playing.

To take this very brief discussion right down to the present, what amounts to a new school of jazz composition is to be found in the person of Horace Silver. The conjunction of Silver and the Jazz Messengers, and the music Silver has written for that and subsequent groups, is probably the single greatest impetus to the "funky" school. Some examples of this work have achieved enormous popularity, such as Senor Blues on Blue Note 1539, and other instances are scattered liberally throughout the Blue Note catalogue, but the one record that may have been the start of it all is Blue Note 1518, which includes such near-standards as The Preacher.

And here, on this album, is a young man, another pianist, composing in the same tradition — Walter Davis Jr. On his first Blue Note album, Jackie McLean's New Soil (BLP 4013) he contributed three tunes, notably the bouncing, humorous Greasy. On this, his first album as a leader, he contributed all the music. There is a difference between composition and the mere sketching out of riffs, and Walter Davis Jr. has gone a long way toward achieving this distinction. It is practically a parlor game in some circles to put the newest "original" on the phonograph and then figure out what song it really is — what standard has had its harmony lifted to provide the basis. This music will afford little satisfaction to players of that game. They are truly compositions, varied in mood, rhythm, and harmony.

One of the things that Walter Davis Jr. has kept in mind on this album is one of the best lessons of the great Duke Ellington, a lesson so simple it is often overlooked — write for the men who are going to play your music. As I mentioned, Davis is in the Silver tradition. At present, he is pianist with Art Blakey and he has chosen as soloists two men associated, at various times, with these musicians — Donald Byrd [tp] and Jackie McLean [as]….

Sam Jones and Art Taylor, on bass and drums, are veterans of several Blue Note sessions, and provide here their usual sympathetic support….”

- Joe Goldberg, insert notes to Davis Cup [Blue Note B-232098]

Up the street from the “old” Yoshi’s Jazz club and restaurant in Berkeley, CA was a small shop that sold LP’s [or, as they are referred to today – “vinyl”] and CD’s.

In typical Berkeley fashion, the shop had a distinctive name – D.B.A. Brown – and although I never asked, I assume the “D.B.A.” reference was to the standard initials for the phrase “doing business as.”

After driving over from San Francisco to catch pianist Benny Green’s trio at the club, I had a little time to kill before the first set so I parked my car in the nearby Dreyfus Ice Cream factory lot and strolled over to D.B.A. Brown.

While browsing the music on offer at the shop, I came across a solo piano CD by Walter Davis, Jr. entitled In Walked Thelonious [Mapleshade 56312] which I purchased with the idea that it would “keep my company” on the drive back to the city.

When the doors to the club opened, I was able to get a table close to Benny’s piano. I laid the Walter Davis, Jr. Monk tribute disc on the table, took off my jacket and placed an order with the cocktail waitress.

After playing a magnificent first set with his trio consisting of Christian McBride on bass and Kenny Washington on drums, Benny stepped down from the bandstand, noticed the In Walked Thelonious CD and said to me: “Isn’t Walter Davis, Jr. a gas?”

The next thing I know, Benny had seated himself at my table and began to regale me with stories about how Walter Davis, Jr. and Walter Bishop, another pianist who played in the style of Bud Powell, had helped him when he moved to New York [Benny grew up in Berkeley] and how much he had learned from them over the years. He couldn’t say enough nice things about these men.

Interestingly, although it was many years apart, we both first experienced Walter Davis, Jr. by listening to him on Jackie McLean’s New Soil Blue Note recording.

In addition to his marvelous Bud Powell/Horace Silver-inflected piano solos and accompaniment, Walter had contributed three, original contributions to New Soil [BLP 4013].

Alfred Lion of Blue Note Records was so impressed with Walter that soon thereafter, he featured him on his own LP entitled Davis Cup. [CDP 7243 8 32098 2 8]

I must admit that I hadn’t really followed Walter’s career that closely after those early Blue Note recordings.

But I’d really loved his writing and enjoyed his piano playing enough to pick up the Mapleshade CD featuring his solo piano interpretations of Monk’s tunes.

Walter’s treatment of Thelonious music was a revelation to me for as Pierre M. Sprey, the producer of the CD put it: “… in listening to Walter play Monk, I learned more about the inner workings of Monk’s music than in my previous thirty years of listening to the original.”

Talk about the serendipitous way that Life works: I had not heard Walter Davis, Jr. play for almost three decades and here I was listening to him play what has to be considered as one of the definitive solo piano treatments of Monk’s music ever recorded.

Pierre M. Sprey’s complete insert notes to In Walked Thelonious [Mapleshade 56312] are as follows.

© -Pierre M. Sprey, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Walter Davis, Jr. had been thinking about a solo recording project ever since he left Dizzy Gillespie's group in 1986. There was no question in Walter's mind as to what the album would be. It would be dedicated entirely to the music of his mentor and close friend, Thelonious Monk—a thank-you to the New York bebop giant who had taken Walter, a gifted East Orange, New Jersey teenager, under his wing in 1949.

Until the day he died in June, 1990, Walter did things the hard way. The Monk project was no exception. Rather than picking eight or ten comfortable Monk stan­dards and rehearsing them for a few days, he immersed himself in fifty of Monk's toughest compositions for two months, deliberately leaving the choice of which to record until the moment he sat down at the studio Steinway. As though things weren't difficult enough, he limited himself to three minutes pertune, saying, "I just want to get in, say what I have to say, and get out—no endless b.s. solos."

A week before the long-planned first recording session, Walter, a deeply mystical man, called me early one morning. Without saying hello, he said with a quiet intensity, "Man, you won't believe what happened to me last night. I sat down to my electric piano and Thelonious came into the room. I played for three hours and never even turned on the piano" For Walter, this was no vision or metaphor. Thelonious Monk really was in his basement practicing room, giving him specific technical lessons on how to play Monk, correcting Walter's tempo on one tune, revamping his chord voicings on another, showing him how to put more "stride" feeling into a third.

Still, I didn't fully understand how deeply Walter felt that this recording was to be a dialogue between himself and Monk until we got started. Most of the five days we worked in the studio, it was just Walter at the beautiful old Steinway and me at the tape recorder. But Walter was clearly playing for someone else. Every time he'd pull off a tricky time change or voice a chord in some startling way, he'd shoot a sly look of triumph sideways at the air—the kind of look you see when jazz musicians play to impress each other.

At one point, Walter was falling short of the strict standards he had set for himself. The tune was "Gallop's Gallop," intricate and laden with pitfalls. Walter had already tried eight takes, breaking off, deeply dissatisfied and frustrated, in the middle of each one. When I couldn't bear it anymore, I suggested he proceed to another tune, maybe return to this one later.

Walter replied instantly, "You don't understand, Pierre. If I don't do the hard ones, Thelonious will be laughing at my ass for the rest of my life." And indeed, on the ninth take, he whipped off a witty and jewel-like rendition—one that, no doubt, earned an approving chuckle from Monk.

In those five days of listening to Walter play Monk, I learned more about the inner workings of Monk's music than in my previous thirty years of listening to the original. Yetthis album presents neither a mere skillful imitation nor a Davis-style reinterpretation of Monk (even though Walter could have performed either task had he wanted). Instead, this album is a brilliant illumination of the elements that made Monk unique and unforgettable: the little boy playfulness, the devilish delight in startling harmonic or rhythmic twists, the teasing with slightly changed quotations from familiar standards, the old-time "stride" piano sound in the midst of modern harmonies, and the stark emotion of those angular, unadorned ballad lines. Walter has somehow managed to intensify each of these facets—in a way that sounds just like what Monk would have played had he chosen to let us in on his secrets. Yet he has also fused these elements into concise, polished gems quite different from Monk's own constructions.

For sheer playfulness, check out Walter's "Green Chimneys." For ballad lines of austere beauty, listen to what he does with "Ruby, My Dear." In "Criss Cross," Walter dissects Monk's devilish trickiness. "Gallop's Gallop" becomes a swinging vehicle for clarifying the stride roots in Monk's composition.

If you want to come to grips with what has been achieved here, compare some of Walter's versions side by side with Monk's. Pick something as overplayed as "'Round Midnight." If you listen first to Monk's solo version (on Blue Note's Genius of Modem Music, Vol. 1), then listen to either of Walter's versions, your immediate reaction will be surprise at how much Walter's improvisation differs without violating any aspect of Monk's spirit. Your second reaction will probably be to put the Monk solo back on the turntable because Walter's clear exposition has suddenly made you aware of the subtleties you missed the first time around.

Perhaps the most spontaneous tribute to Walter's otherworldly achievement in these sessions comes from Dwike Mitchell, the pianist in the Mitchell-Ruff duo. Several months after these sessions, I happened to be playing the tapes for Dwike. I had told him nothing about Walter's immersion in the Monk project or about Monk's "visit" to Walter's basement. After two cuts, Dwike stopped the tape and said, "I've been listening to Walter all my life and I know exactly how he plays. What's on this tape is not Walter; it's Monk playing through Walter's hands."

Here’s a sampling of what’s on offer in Walter Davis, Jr.’s In Walked Thelonious [Mapleshade 56312]. The tune is Monk’s rarely heard Gallop’s Gallop.

Christian Escoudé and la France Profonde

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

“France’s position as the world’s leading tourist destination is no accident, and not just because of the scenery or the food. To many people it stands for a dream, encompassing the revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity and epitomizing … the promotion of culture, literature and intellectual debate, even the very notion of civilization.”

In its 14-page Special Report on France [November 17^th-23^rd 2012 issue], The Economist magazine goes on to explain:

From deep rurality to multi-ethnic suburbs, non-metropolitan France matters:

“THERE IS SO much more to France than Paris. Cities like Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Nice and Toulouse count for a lot, both economically and politically. The country's variety is en­trancing, one reason why so many foreigners come to France and so relatively few French people holiday abroad. France boasts some of the world's most beautiful Gothic cathedrals, such as Amiens, Chartres, Notre-Dame de Paris and Reims, as well as some of its finest medieval sculptures in Autun and Vezelay. There are Flemish towns like Lille and Arras, Italianate ones such as Nice and Menton and Teutonic cities like Strasbourg and Metz. And along with Loire valley chateaux such as the fairytale Chambord and the river-crossing Chenonceaux there are the gorgeous multicoloured roofs of Beaune and Dijon, spectacular hilltop villages along the Cote d'Azur and in the Cathar country of the Languedoc - and some of Europe's most modern and fash­ionable ski resorts.

The political significance of regional France is enhanced by the tradition of multiple mandates, which has meant that many ministers and deputies in Paris have simul­taneously been presidents or mayors of lo­cal regions, departments or towns. The effect of this lingers …, thanks to successive waves of decentralisation, regional and local government accounts for a fifth of public spending.

The  weight  of what is sometimes known as la France profonde is greater even than this number suggests.

Geographically, France is western Europe's biggest country (even if you leave out the French overseas departments), and much of it has remained well hidden until surprisingly recently….

Farming also matters far more in France than in many other countries. The population became urbanised relatively late: even in 1920 over a third of French people lived in rural areas, a far bigger share than in most of the rest of Europe. The cult of the paysan remains: many of today's Parisian sophisticates can trace their ancestral roots to the countryside, and plenty still keep a property in the country-something that came in useful during and just after the second world war, when food was scarce. Even today the French fervently believe in the magical qualities of their local vineyard or of the terroir and politically, agriculture also packs a big punch.”

So what has all of this to do with Jazz?

It’s simple really.

Because of their affinity for things cultural, cosmopolitan and sophisticated, the French have always viewed and respected Jazz as an art form.

From the earliest years of the music, the French have embraced Jazz and treated the musicians who performed it with the highest regard and dignity.

Some have maintained that when Jazz fell-out-of-favor in its native United States, primarily after 1960, that Jazz went to Europe - to live. Many expatriate Jazz musicians would settled in France because they were so warmly received there.

Not surprisingly, the home grown form of Jazz in France would be reflective of “the deep rurality” and paysan qualities which dominate in the French countryside.

For while the Parisian sophisticates were welcoming American Jazz musicians, the paysan of “la France Profonde” were creating their own versions of Jazz using acoustic guitars, violins and accordions.

Indeed, the three have become so interwoven that it is almost impossible to say French Jazz without mentioning the guitar, violin and accordion in the same breath.

The French even used more guitars instead of bass and drums as a rhythm section in some of their earliest Jazz combos.

The sound of French Jazz with its links to the paysan instruments of guitar, violin and accordion were immortalized in the 1930’s recordings of The Hot Club of France, a group under the leadership of guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli.

Over the years, Django has become a Jazz legend and the tradition of gypsy-Jazz guitar stylings has been carried on by a number of both French and international guitarists.

One of these modern-day, regional France counterparts is guitarist Christian Escoudé, who, in 1989 put together an octet and recorded an album entitled Gipsy Waltz [Emarcy 838772-2].

While it is representative of The Hot Club of France style of paysan Jazz, the music on this album has been embellished in a number of ways.

Escoudé adds three other guitarists [Frederic Sylvestre, Paul Ferret and Jimmy Gourley] to form a vehicle for four-part-guitar harmony while also using a bass [Alby Cullaz] and an accordion [Marcel Azzola].

Somewhat uncharacteristically, drums [either Philippe Combelle or Billy Hart] are added to the mix as is a cello [Vincent Courtois] which adds another sound dimension when it is phrased in unison with the accordion on a number of tunes.

The result is as described by Alain Tercinet in the recordings insert notes: “Escoudé constantly plays on the association of different sounds: an accordion, by turns one, two or three guitars, a zest of guitar-synthesizer or cello, all joining together, playing off each other or separating at the whim of the scores that are rich but avoid ostentation.

Relaxed, and at the peak of inspiration, all the musicians speak out with infectious warmth and enthusiasm.

Besides paying a magnificent tribute to his musical heritage, Christian Escoudé also paints his autoportrait here; that of a guitarist to be numbered among the best – irrespective of nationality or class.”

The Ultimate Organic Tenor Groove Experience

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

We put this feature together essentially to pay homage to the venerable tradition of the jam session.

As defined by Gunther Schuller in The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, the jam session is:

“An informal gathering of jazz musicians playing for their own pleasure. Jam sessions originated as spontaneous diversions when musicians were free from the constraints of professional engagements; they also served the function of training young players in a musical tradition that was not formally taught and accepted in music schools and academic institutions until the 1960s.

In the late 1930s jam sessions came to be organized by entrepreneurs for audiences; this under­mined their original purpose, and by the 1950s true jam ses­sions were becoming increasingly rare.

However, in the 1970s and 1980s the concept of "sessions" has made a comeback among younger jazz musicians, especially those trained in con­servatories. An "open" session is one in which anyone who is more or less competent may take part. The so-called loft scene of the late 1970s in New York may also be seen as a quasi-commercial offshoot of the jam session. (B. Cameron: "Soci­ological Notes on the Jam Session," Social Forces, xxxiii (1954), 177) - GUNTHER SCHULLER “

And Paul F. Berliner, in his wonderfully informative, Thinking in Jazz, The Infinite Art of Improvisation, offers these observations about the jam session:

“As essential to students as technical information and counsel is the understanding of Jazz acquired directly through performance. In part they gain experience by participating in one of the most venerable of the community's insti­tutions, the jam session. At these informal musical get-togethers, improvisers are free of the constraints that commercial engagements place upon repertory, length of performance, and the freedom to take artistic risks. Ronald Shannon Jackson's grade school band leader allowed students to conduct daily lunch-hour jam sessions in the band room. "During those years, I never saw the inside of the school's official lunch room."

Ultimately, sessions bring together artists from different bands to play with a diverse cross section of the jazz community. "New Yorkers had a way of learning from each other just as we did in Detroit," Tommy Flanagan says. "From what I heard from Arthur Taylor, Jackie McLean, and Sonny Rollins, they all used to learn from just jamming together with Bud Powell and Monk and Bird. Even though Bird wasn't a New Yorker, he lived here a long time and got an awful lot from it."

Some sessions arise spontaneously when musicians informally drop in on one another and perform together at professional practice studios. Improvisers also arrange invitational practice sessions at one another's homes. Extended events at private house parties in Seattle "lasted a few days at a time," Patti Brown remembers, and they held such popularity that club owners temporarily closed their own establishments to avoid competing for the same audience. Guests at the parties "cooked food and ate, [then] sat down and played," Brown continues. Musicians "could really develop there. Sometimes they would really get a thing going, and they would keep on exploring an idea. You would go home and come back later, and it was still going on.... [Improvisers] some­times played a single tune for hours." Other sessions were similarly very re­laxed: "Everybody was in the process of learning. Some guys were better than others, but it was always swinging, and the guys went on and on playing. We played maybe one number for an hour, but nobody ever got bored with it.”

Jazz organizations such as the Bebop Society in Indianapolis and the New Music Society at the World Stage in Detroit, where Kenny Burrell served as president and concert manager, promoted more formally organized sessions. Others took place in nightclubs, especially during weekend afternoons or in the early hours of the morning after the clientele had gone. In Los Angeles, according to Art Farmer, opportunities abounded for young people. "During the day you would go to somebody's house and play. At night there were after-hours clubs where they would hire maybe one horn and a rhythm section, and then anybody who wanted to play was free to come up and play. Then these clubs would have a Sunday matinee session. We used to just walk the streets at night and go from one place to another."

Musicians distinguish some sessions in terms of the skills of participants. The New Music Society would have a group "the caliber of Elvin Jones, Barry Harris, Tommy Flanagan, and Kenny Burrell," and then they would have "the next crew of guys" like Lonnie Hillyer and his schoolmates, who rehearsed a couple of weeks in advance to prepare for their own session. The youngsters "wouldn't interfere" with those involving "the guys of high caliber." At times, the arrival of musicians from out of town intensified session activities—artists like Hampton Hawes and John Coltrane "who'd be working in some band and had that night off. It was a hell of a playing atmosphere going on there.”

.

Likewise in Chicago, musicians knew that the session "at a certain club down the corner was for the very heavy cats and would not dare to participate until they knew that they were ready," Rufus Reid recalls. As a matter of re­spect, "you didn't even think about playing unless you knew that you could cut the mustard. You didn't even take your horn out of your case unless you knew the repertoire." At the same time, naive learners did periodically perform with artists who were a league apart from them. David Baker used to go to sessions including Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray "when they came to Indianapolis." He adds with amusement, "I didn't have the sense not to play with them."

Although initially performing at sessions in their hometowns, musicians from different parts of the country eventually participate in an extensive net­work of events in New York City, "mixing in with players from everywhere." In the late forties and fifties, they made their way each day through a variety of apartments, lofts, and nightclubs, where they sampled performances by im­promptu groups and joined them as guests during particular pieces, a practice known as sitting in. In addition to having pedagogical value, the sessions served as essential showcases. As Kenny Barron points out, "That's how your name got around." Count Basie's club in particular "was like a meeting ground" during Monday evening sessions, as was the renowned club Birdland, although the latter was difficult "to break into without knowing somebody.”  There were also well-documented sessions at Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Up­town House in Harlem.

Tommy Turrentine's fondest memories of the mid-forties concern Small's Paradise Club "in Harlem.... Everybody used to come there." Spanning four musical generations, the artists included trumpeters Red Allen, Hot Lips Page, Idres Sulieman, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Clifford Brown; saxophon­ists Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean, and Stan Getz; pianists Bud Powell, Walter Bishop Jr., Walter Davis, and Mal Waldron. The house band was led by Big Nick Nicholas, who knew "every tune that's ever been written." Nicholas was, in fact, an important teacher of the community for his role in challenging players to expand their repertories by constantly choosing unfamil­iar compositions on the bandstand. Within the context of such a rich and varied repertory, the improvised interplay, night after night, served as inspiring learning sessions for Turrentine and his friends. "That was Paradise University. You would hear so much good music each night that, when you went to lay down, your head would be swimming!"

Rivalry among the participants added spark to an already charged atmo­sphere. "During that time, there was somewhat of a mutual respect among the musicians, and they had cutting sessions. They would say, “I am going to blow so and so out.' It wasn't with malice. It was no put-down; it was just friendly competition." Turrentine goes on to describe actual events. "Maybe two tenor players would get up; maybe there would be about seven horn players on the bandstand. Everybody had the sense to know that saxophones was going to hang up there tonight — they was going to be blowing at each other — so we all got off the bandstand and let them have it. Maybe the next night, two trumpet players would be getting up there at each other; then there would be drummers. I have seen it many times. It was healthy really, just keeping everybody on their toes."

Interaction with an increasing number of musicians in these settings pro­vided aspiring artists with stimulus for their own growth as improvisers. Don Sickler speculates that one renowned trumpeter "became so great" because he was aware of the competition around him: "Booker Little was born just a few months before him, and Lee Morgan was just a little younger. He really had to work hard to keep up with that level of competition."

Of course, any instrument was generally welcomed in a jam session, but somehow, to my ears, at least, the tradition of the jam session is best exemplified by the sound of “battling” or “dueling” tenor saxophones.

Over the years, there have been many such pairings including Lester Young and Herschel Evans; Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster; Illinois Jacquet and “Flip” Phillips; Don Byas and Buddy Tate; Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray; Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt; Al Cohn and Zoot Sims; Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott; Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and Johnny Griffin; Frank Foster and Frank Wess; Pete Christlieb and Warne Marsh.

The title of this piece gets its name from two Dutch tenor saxophonists – Simon Rigter and Sjoerd Dijkhuizen – who along with guitarist Martijn van Iterson, organist Carlo de Wijs and drummer Joost Patocka – revived the jam session tradition with their appearance on August 18, 2006 at the Pure Jazzfest which was held at De Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague, The Netherlands.

For their performance at the Pure Jazzfest, the group adopted the name -  The Ultimate Organic Tenor Groove Experience – and I have absolutely no idea what the “organic” in the title is in reference to – sign of the times, maybe?.

By way of background, Simon and Sjoerd enjoy a major presence on the Dutch Jazz scene as both perform with The Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw and with the Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra. Sjoerd can also be heard regularly as a member of drummer Eric Ineke’s JazzXpress.

Martijn van Iterson has his own quartet and often wroks with The Metropole Orchestra in Amsterdam.  Carlo has also performed with The Metropole Orchestra, Lucas van Merwijk’s Cubop City Big Band and alto saxophonist Benjamin Herman’s group to which drummer Joost Patocka also belongs.

Both in their late thirties, Sjoerd Dijkhuizen and Simon Rigter formed their own quintet as an outgrowth from their appearance together with the late Dutch pianist Cees Slinger on his "Two Tenor Case" recording. In addition to their work in The Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw,” they are also a part of a group called "The Reeds,” a sax ensemble and rhythm section.

As  far as I can determine, Simon and Sjoerd in combination with Carlo, Martijn and Joost made only one public appearance together and that was at the 2006 Pure Jazzfest.

You can view images of all the members of The Ultimate Organic Tenor Groove Experience in the following video montage which is set to the group’s performance of Dexter Gordon’s Sticky Wicket.

As we’ve noted before, straight-ahead Jazz is alive and well – in Holland!

R.I.P. David Warren Brubeck, 12.6.1920 - 12.5.2012

Jim Hall: The Quiet Guitarist

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

“Jim Hall is the perfect musical partner.”

- Joachim Berendt, Jazz writer and producer

Today [12/4/2012] is Jazz guitarist Jim Hall’s eighty-second birthday and the editorial staff at JazzProfiles thought it might be nice to honor him on these pages with a profile that touches upon his many contributions to the music.

Jim Hall is such a quiet, understated and unassuming person that it’s very easy to overlook his many accomplishments in a career that has spanned almost 60 years!

Gene Lees wrote of him:

“Jim Hall sometimes is compared by critics to Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt, but then probably every guitarist in jazz has a debt to Christian who, in his short life — he died in 1942 aged twenty-four — became the most important early explorer of amplified guitar as a solo instrument. However, Jim and his trom­bonist friend Bob Brookmeyer both cite the unsung Jimmy Raney among their influences. From Raney, they say, they developed their integrated and highly compositional approach to the improvised solo, the pensive development of motifs.

Jim started playing guitar professionally in Cleveland when he was in his teens, and he studied at the highly respected Cleve­land Institute of Music, from which he received a bachelor of music degree in 1955. He then settled in Los Angeles where he became a member of the Chico Hamilton Quintet, meanwhile studying classical guitar with Vincente Gomez. From 1956 to 1959 he was part of the Jimmy Giuffre Three. Then Jim moved to New York where he was for a time under the curse of his association with so-called West Coast jazz. That ended when one of the major jazz icons, Sonny Rollins, hired him.

Jim had close associations, too, with Paul Desmond, with whom he recorded a series of superb albums for RCA, and with Bill Evans. He and Bill recorded two stun­ning duo albums together, achieving a rap­port that at times was uncanny. Another close associate has been the bassist Ron Carter, with whom he has worked as a duo from time to time since 1984.”

Elaborating further on the duo albums that Jim made with pianist Bill Evans, author Peter Pettinger remarks in his Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings biography:

“One of the mysteries of music that defies analysis is the ability of two musicians to play especially well together, to feel and instinctively adapt to what the other is doing. The duet recording made by Evans and Hall, Undercurrent [and a latter collaboration entitled Intermodulation], exemplified this secret. In this sublime meeting, the artists shared a common ground of musical values, Hall confessing to having long been influenced by Evans. Both, too, had a strong feeling for chamber music: the interactive trio was the pianist's aspiration, and Jim Hall's small-group pedigree was high, especially within the intimate settings of the Jimmy Giuffre 3. Quality of sound encompasses a blending of timbres, in this case lovingly conjured; singing tone shines out from every note.

There is a hazard attached to combining piano and guitar, both essen­tially chordal instruments. Although jazz musicians use alternative chords with ease, the simultaneous choice of two valid but different chords may well not work. Evans and Hall had the intelligence and mutual awareness to escape this snare. And to avoid textural overcrowding, both were conscious of the value of space, every note being made to count in their joint tapestry.”

James Isaacs describes Hall’s value this way in his insert notes to Intermodulation:

“While Evans was bringing jazz piano to a new pinnacle of sheer beauty, Hall was spending the first half of the 1960's as. in the words of the German critic Joachim E. Berendt, ‘the perfect part­ner.’ He shared the front line with tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins and flugelhornist Art Farmer in two of the outstanding small groups of any decade, and recorded a series of debo­nair LPs with the late altoist Paul Desmond.”

Since the mid-1980s, thanks to long association with two labels, Concord and Telarc, Jim Hall has  performed and made recordings with some of the best and brightest musicians on the current Jazz scene including trumpeters Tom Harrell and Ryan Kisor, trombonists Conrad Herwig and Jim Pugh, saxophonists Joe Lovano and Chris Potter, guitarist Pat Metheny, and bassists Don Thompson, Rufus Reed, Steve La Spina, Scott Colley and George Mraz.

In one of his timeless and superbly written essays for The New Yorker magazine that have been collected in his American Musicians: 56 Portraits in Jazz, Whitney Balliett offered the following depiction of Jim Hall:

“Hall, though, doesn't look capable of creating a stir of any sort. He is slim and of medium height, and a lot of his hair is gone. The features of his long, pale face are chastely proportioned, and are accented by a recently cultivated R.A.F. mustache. He wears old-style gold-rimmed spectacles, and he has three principal expressions: a wide smile, a child's frown, and a calm, pleased playing mask—eyes closed, chin slightly lifted, and mouth ajar. He could easily be the affable son of the stony-faced farmer in "American Gothic." His hands and feet are small, and he doesn't have any hips, so his clothes, which are generally casual, tend to hang on him as if they were still in the closet. When he plays, he sits on a stool, his back an arc, his feet propped on a high rung, and his knees akimbo. He holds his guitar at port arms.

For many years, Hall's playing matched his private, nebulous appearance. When he came up, in the mid-fifties, with Chico Hamilton's vaguely avant-garde quintet (it had a cello and no piano), and then appeared on a famous pickup recording, "Two Degrees East, Three Degrees West," that was led by John Lewis and involved Bill Perkins, Percy Heath, and Hamilton, he sounded stiff and academic. His solos were pleasantly designed, but they didn't always swing. But as he moved through groups led by Jimmy Giuffre, Ben Webster, Sonny Rollins, and Art Farmer, his deliberateness softened and the right notes began landing in the right places.

Then he married Jane [in 1965; she is a psychotherapist], and his playing developed an inventiveness and lyricism that make him preeminent among contempo­rary jazz guitarists and put him within touching distance of the two grand masters—Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt. Listening to Hall now is like turning onionskin pages: one lapse of your attention and his solo is rent. Each phrase evolves from its predecessor, his rhythms are balanced, and his harmonic and melodic ideas are full of parentheses and asides. His tone is equally demanding. He plays both electric and acoustic guitars. On the former, he sounds like an acoustic guitarist, for he has an angelic touch and he keeps his amplifier down; on the latter, a new instrument specially designed and built for him, he has an even more gossamer sound.

Hall is exceptional in another way. In the thirties and forties, Christian and Reinhardt put forward certain ideals for their instrument—spareness, the use of silence, and the legato approach to swinging—and for a while every jazz guitarist studied them. Then the careering melodic flow of Charlie Parker took hold, and jazz guitarists became arpeggio-ridden. But Hall, sidestepping this aspect of Parker, has gone directly to Christian and Reinhardt, and, plumping out their skills with the harmonic advances that have since been made, has perfected an attack that is fleet but tight, passionate but oblique. And he is singular for still another reason. Guitar­ists are inclined to be an ingrown society, but Hall listens constantly to other instrumentalists, especially tenor saxophonists (Ben Webster, Cole-man Hawkins, Lester Young, Sonny Rollins) and pianists (Count Basie, John Lewis, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett), and he attempts to adapt to the guitar their phrasing and tonal qualities.

In his solos he asserts nothing but says a good deal. He loves Duke Ellington's slow ballads, and he will start one with an ad-lib chorus in which he glides softly over the melody, working just behind the beat, dropping certain notes and adding others, but steadfastly celebrating its melodic beauties. He clicks into tempo at the beginning of the second chorus, and, after pausing for several beats, plays a gentle, ascending six-note figure that ends with a curious, ringing off-note. He pauses again, and, taking the close of the same phrase, he elaborates on it in an ascending-descending double-time run, and then skids into several behind-the-beat chords, which give way to a single-note line that moves up and down and concludes on another off-note. He raises his volume at the beginning of the bridge and floats through it with softly ringing chords; then, slipping into the final eight bars, he fashions a precise, almost declamatory run, pauses a second at its top, and works his way down with two glancing arpeggios.  He next sinks to a whisper, and finishes with a bold statement of the melody that dissolves into a flatted chord, upon which the next soloist gratefully builds his opening statement.”

Fortunately for all of his many fans, on March 30, 2009, the Library of Congress sponsored the following video interview of Jim Hall recounting the highlights of his career and his approach to Jazz guitar. Larry Applebaum moderates the discussion.

A Tribute to the Music of Gerald Wilson

We always enjoy it when Gerald Wilson "stops by" and brings along some of his music. The tune is Patterns and it features solos by pianist Jack Wilson, Carmell Jones on trumpet, Harold Land on tenor saxophone and Joe Pass on drums with Mel Lewis booting things along from the drum chair. You can locate our previous, two-part feature on Gerald in the blog sidebar.

Grant Geissman: Studio Jazz Guitarist

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

“Grant Geissman's latest CD looks like a five-inch homage to the album-cover artist Jim Flora, with a cartoon of the guitarist serenading a bikini-clad redhead on the cover, and a collage in the center spread crammed with beatnik musicians, cats, birds and a pink elephant. The disc itself is designed like a vinyl record, complete with fake grooves.

Musically, Geissman takes a step into the past too, abandoning his smooth-jazz track record in favor of rootsy sound based in soulful hard bop, with a little New Orleans and upbeat melodies that still go down smoothly without the gloss.

From the Horace Silver-influenced title track to "Theme From Two and a Half Men," which gives the guitarist and Brian Scanlon (on soprano sax) a chance to blow over the sitcom theme, Geissman proves himself to be no wallflower when he puts his mind to it. But often tracks like "Bossa," with wordless vocals by Tierney Sutton, or "Wes Is More," with an excessive section of traded fours and twos with organist Jim Cox, come off more like bossa nova and blues without the necessary roughness.”

- Mike Shanley Review of Grant Geissman’s Say That! CD in JazzTimes APRIL 2006

“Grant Geissman's third in a trilogy of wildly eclectic outings once again has the versatile guitarist indulging in more than a few of his favorite things. From loping funk to boogaloo to earthy blues shuffles, with a haunting ballad, a beautiful samba and an urgently swinging post-bop romp thrown into the mix —along with touches of classical, flamenco and zydeco — he covers all the bases with authority on “Bop! Bang! Boom!

'It's all stuff I'm interested in and like to play, so it just comes out," says the San Jose native who is well known for his improvised guitar solo on Chuck Mangione's 1978 pop crossover hit 'Feels So Good* and more recently for co-writing the theme for the hit CBS-TV sitcom Two and a Half Men ("Men, men, men, men, manly men!*] ‘I have eclectic tastes and the way I play and write follows that. And since this album is on my own label, I get to do what I want!’”

- Bill Milkowski, liner notes

“One of the reasons I created my own label, Futurism, was so that I could explore anything I wanted—which to me is what an artist is supposed to do.”

- Grant Geissman

Like his counterpart, guitarist Lee Ritenour, who is affectionately known as “Captain Fingers” for his legendary ability to play any style of guitar at a moment’s notice, Grant Geissman really knows his way around a recording studio.

Grant is a Pro’s Pro: he brings it; he lays it down; it’s perfect. No need for another take. It’s done. Let’s move on.

Given the amount of money that record producers have to spend to develop an album, Grant’s ability to make it happen and to make it happen right the first time is why he’s first call on most contractor’s lists.

Grant also understands the technical aspects of the studio; he's savvy about the processes involved with making a recording. Whether it’s the sound board, the mix, the use of electronics and synthesizers to create and enhance the music, Grant knows about this stuff.

More importantly, Grant knows enough about all of these elements of engineering sound so that he can make them subservient to the final product – good music.

Grant also surrounds himself with musicians who are at home creating Jazz in a studio environment.

In recent years, Grant has taken matters a step further with the formation of his own label - Futurism Records.

Beginning in 2006 with Say That! and following in 2009 with Cool Man Cool, Grant has offered eclectic Jazz stylings that appeal to a wide range on interests: some Smooth Jazz; some Latin Jazz; some straight-head Bebop – all infused with Grant’s sophisticated studio sensibilities.

Bop! Bang! Boom!, the latest CD in the series, was released by Grant on July 17, 2012

In addition to a whole host of special guest such as saxophonist Tom Scott, guitarist Larry Carlton and keyboard artist  Russell Ferrante who join Grant on selected tracks, there is the bonus of the artwork of Miles Thompson that graces these CDs and is very reminiscent of the classic LP cover art that Jim Flora developed for many RCA and Columbia classic Jazz LP’s in the 1950s.

Here’s what Michael Bloom Media Relations had to say about Bop! Bang! Boom!:

“[This CD] is the third album in a loosely fashioned trilogy that reflects Grant Geissman's shift to more traditional jazz expressions. The powerfully eclectic follow-up to Say That! and Cool Man Cool includes amped-up ventures into numerous genres that reflect Geissman's multitude of passions.

The key to making meaningful music for me is to not limit myself stylistically. I actually can't envision writing an album where every track sounds the same. One of the reasons I created my own label, Futurism, was so that I could explore anything I wanted—which to me is what an artist is supposed to do. I don't know what happens after Bop! Bang! Boom!, it might be completely different. But it's not about having a master plan, it's about writing and recording music that excites and inspires me.”

Geissman co-wrote the Emmy-nominated theme (and also co-writes the underscore) for the hit CBS-TV series Two and Q Half Men. He also co-writes the underscore for the hit series Mike & Molly (also on CBS). As a studio musician, he has recorded with such artists as Quincy Jones, Chuck Mangione (playing the now-classic guitar solo on the 1977 hit "Feels So Good77), Lorraine Feather, Cheryl Bentyne, Van Dyke Parks, Ringo Starr, Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, Joanna Mewsom, Inara George, Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello.”

Here’s a taste of the music on Bop! Bang! Boom! The tune is Un Poco Español on which Grant plays his mellow-sounding 1972 Hernandis nylon string classical guitar with Russell Ferrante featured on piano.

Louis Stewart /Mundell Lowe. play Body and Soul. Duets#2

Put your feet up, grab a cup of coffee or tea and relax while listening to some exquisite guitar playing.