Danny Gatton - Joey DeFrancesco: Relentless

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

“Danny is full of surprises and into every kind of bag. I think he's going to reach a whole new audience with this one and i want to wish him a lot of luck." 

- Les Paul

“Relentless is a deadly set of swinging performances showcasing the monster talents of boundary-crossing guitar wizard Danny Gatton and the all-time classic Hammond Organ stylings of Joey DeFrancesco. Both cook Relentlessly throughout.”

- Duke Robillard

“Of all the B-3 players that I have ever heard (much less recorded with) Joey D. is the King!  It is inconceivable to me that he can have assimilated the musical knowledge that he has (and uses so tastefully) at only 23 years of age.  Not only was it an honor to work with him, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that he is also a classic car enthusiast like myself... kindred spirits I think ... As usual my regular rhythm section kicked my butt all over the room, it's truly a privilege to be surrounded by such master talent on a regular basis.”

- Danny Gatton

Whenever Hammond B-3 organist Joey DeFrancesco is in town, I try to catch him because if, per Miles Davis, Joey’s inspiration and fellow organist, the late Jimmy Smith, was “the Eighth Wonder of the World,” then Joey must certainly be the Ninth [and possibly the Tenth, too!!].

Joey’s technique is absolutely frightening - the mind-to-hand coordination that he has is right up there with the late pianist Art Tatum.

And what a mind. So incredibly inventive and so studied. Harmonic inventions, rhythmic displacement, risky improvisations with unbelievable resolutions - Joey makes all of them seem commonplace.

But there is something else that makes Joey D. very special - his heart. He has a generosity of spirit that is reminiscent of the late Gerry Mulligan who went out of his way to seek out and play with Jazz Masters of every style and every era.

Joey does that, too. Just check out the records he has made with fellow organists "Brother" Jack McDuff, Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff, guitarists Pat Martino, Jake Langely, Frank Vignola, Larry Coryell, John McLaughlin and Paul Bollenback, vibist Bobby Hutcherson, saxophonists, Gary Bartz, David Sanborn, George Coleman, Houston Person, Jerry Weldon, Randy Brecker and Teddy Edwards, trumpet players Tom Harrell and Randy Brecker, and drummers, Byron Landham, Dennis Chambers, Joe Ascione, Billy Hart, Terry Clarke and Jimmy Cobb.

He even does tribute CD’s to the music of such diverse themes such as Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Italian Love Songs, and Christmas [“Home for the Holidays”].

Joey has even found time to re-imagine Horace Silver with his own versions of each of the tunes on the classic Blue Note album Finger Poppin’.

I mean, the man is positively ecumenical in his approach to the many faces and facets of Jazz.

For me, perhaps, the oddest pairing of Joey with another musical associate was the CD he made in 1994 with Country and Western guitar master Danny Gatton entitled Restless [Big Mo Records 20232].

The remarkable thing about this CD is how well Danny and Joey work together [along with bassist John Previti and drummer Timm Biery] and compliment one another’s disparate styles.

You can get a sense of what’s going on with these “boundary-crossing ...wizards” from a reading of Frank-John Hadley’s enthusiastic insert notes to the CD and by listening to one of the tracks from the recording which you will find in the video that concludes this feature.

“Only rarely in this staid, dispassionate jazz era does a collaboration take place that provides listeners with the hair-raising thrill of a roller coaster making a 92-foot drop at 65 mph. Well, hold on tight because guitar man Danny Gatton and organist joey DeFrancesco have the ability to pack extraordinary excitement into the music they play throughout their first recorded all-instrumental Relentless.

On jazz classics, the partners brim over with bold ideas that always lead somewhere interesting. Rejecting the starchiness of typical bop guitar, Gatton makes his melody lines and surprising chord choices modulate with a driving determination. The organist is also in fine fettle, conveying his complete assurance. Take their lickety-split rendition of Wayne Shorter's The Chess Players, where they nearly match the verve and emotional pull of Art Blakey's jazz Messenger soloists Shorter, Lee Morgan and Bobby Timmons. Hear them negotiate the knotty angles of Thelonious Monk's Well, You Needn't (which benefits from the urgency of Gatton's long-time bassist John Previti) or fresh roast the chestnut Broadway, an impromptu studio outburst with rousing guitar-organ exchanges. The density of the fleet-fingered playing is balanced by an honest propensity for swinging.

Gatton's trusty guitars and amps have been a thunderbolt from the blue for a good number of years before this exciting session. Washington D.C.-area bar patrons of the mid-1970s were the first to get swept along in his six-string inferno and later the flames spread like wildfire among guitar buffs around the country when Gatton toured with rockabilly advocate Robert Gordon and singer-songwriter Roger Miller. Gatton eventually hooked up with an aggressive manager and broke out of D.C. with a typically raucous appearance before Manhattan industry bigwigs gathered for a 1988 Hard Rock Cafe bash in honor of techno guitar master Les Paul. With Guitar World proclaiming him the "World's Greatest Unknown Guitarist," Elektra released an album, 88 Elmira St. (1991), that placed his distinctive melange of rockabilly, country & western, soul, proto-rock, blues and exotica in the pop-music marketplace. Second Elektra release Cruisin' Deuces (1993), explosive gigs all over, and now Relentless, keep his skills on public display.

Gatton, by the way a respected hot-rod customizer, is no stranger to jazz, and his pairing with Hammond whizz-kid DeFrancesco on Relentless is as natural as daybreak. Though cutting his stylistic teeth on Chuck Berry, Wilson Pickett and rockabilly as an up-and-coming player, he's long been awestruck by the jazz-playing of Paul and the late great Lenny Breau. The occasional jazz gig, it's said, sustained Gatton's faith in music during a soul-searching period in the '80s, and just last year the 47-year-old did himself proud soloing and chording with poise in the company of mighty young lions Joshua Redman and Roy Hargrove on the Blue Note studio jam session titled New York Stories. In fact, catch Gatton live or scrutinize his discography (which includes obscure home-made records from way back when) and you'll encounter respectful nods to Breau, Paul, Wes Montgomery and even "free jazz" in a style that also encompasses Duane Eddy twang, Berry reelin' and rockin' and references to young Elvis "hillbilly" Presley and guitar sidekick Scotty Moore.

DeFrancesco, only 23 this past April, is at the forefront of the ongoing organ revival. Born and bred in Philadelphia, once the organ-fueled hard bop paradise of Jimmy Smith and others, he's made a mark on the international jazz scene in just a short while, largely on the strength of five feature albums on the Columbia label. With his grooves rivaling those of elder B-3 specialists, DeFrancesco's remarkable technical skills and comprehensive knowledge of harmony have earned him accolades from no less than venerated jazz men Illinois jacquet, jack McDuff (joey's recent B-3 sparring partner in clubs) and Milt Hinton.

Both Danny Gatton and Joey deFrancesco play it for keeps, and Relentless makes a large impression as an eventful and unpretentious meeting. Enjoy — but remember to keep those seat belts fastened.”

Frank-John Hadley Down Beat/jazziz

You can check out Danny and Joey “at work” on Wayne Shorter’s The Chess Players on the following video.

Jaki Byard - The Jazz Tradition and The Tradition of Humor in Jazz

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

Humor has always been a part of Jazz. Anyone who has ever read bassist and all-around-good-guy Bill Crow’s book Jazz Anecdotes knows the truth inherent in this statement.

Maybe the reason for this prevalence of humor is because The Jazz Life has always been such a hard pull that musicians have been forced to develop a sense of humor in order to deal with its vagaries.

Jokes abound everywhere in the Jazz World including the play on words found in songs titles: pianist Russ Freeman’s Hugo Hurwhey [You Go Your Way] or Fats Waller’s Puttin’ On The Witz, or Charlie Mingus’ The Shoes of the Fisherman’s Wife Are Some Jive Ass Slippers.

Another example can be found in the actions of these humorous Jazz Wind-Up Dolls;

The Stan Kenton Wind-Up Doll: Wind it up and it raises its arms.

The Miles Davis Wind-Up Doll: Wind it up and it turns its back on the audience.

The Thelonious Monk Wind-Up Doll: Wind it up and it disappears.

Or in the humor in Jazz lyrics like the following which were written and sung by Annie Ross of Lambert Hendricks Ross to Wardell Gray’s famous solo on Twisted.

“My analyst told me

That I was right out of my head

The way he described it

He said Id be better dead than live

I didnt listen to his jive

I knew all along

That he was all wrong

And I knew that he thought

I was crazy but I’m not

Oh no

My analyst told me

That I was right out of my head

He said Id need treatment

But I’m not that easily led

He said I was the type

That was most inclined

When out of his sight

To be out of my mind

And he thought I was nuts

No more ifs or ands or buts

They say as a child

I appeared a little bit wild

With all my crazy ideas

But I knew what was happening

I knew I was a genius...

What’s so strange when you know

That you’re a wizard at three

I knew that this was meant to be

Now I heard little children

Were supposed to sleep tight

That’s why I got into the vodka one night

My parents got frantic

Didn’t know what to do

But I saw some crazy scenes

Before I came to

Now do you think I was crazy

I may have been only three

But I was swinging

They all laugh at angry young men

They all laugh at Edison

And also at Einstein

So why should I feel sorry

If they just couldn’t understand

The idiomatic logic

That went on in my head

I had a brain

It was insane

Oh they used to laugh at me

When I refused to ride

On all those double decker buses

All because there was no driver on the top

My analyst told me

That I was right out of my head

But I said dear doctor

I think that it’s you instead

Because I have got a thing

Thats unique and new

To prove it Ill have

The last laugh on you

cause instead of one head

I got two

And you know two heads are better than one.”

Or these lyrics to Dave Frishberg’s Peel Me A Grape as made famous by Diana Krall:

“Peel me a grape

Crush me some ice

Skin me a peach

Save the fuzz for my pillow

Talk to me nice, talk to me nice

You've got to wine me and dine me

Don't try to fool me; bejewel me

Either amuse me, or lose me

I'm getting hungry, peel me a grape

Pop me a cork, french me a fry

Crack me a nut, bring a bowl full of bon-bons

Chill me some wine, keep standin' by

Just entertain me, champagne me

Show me you love me, kid glove me

Best way to cheer me, cashmere me

I'm getting hungry, peel me...

Here's how to be an agreeable chap

Love me and leave me in luxury's lap

Hop when I holler, skip when I snap

When I say "do it", jump to it

Send out for scotch, boil me a crab

Cut me a rose make, my tea with the petals

Just hang around, pick up the tab

Never out think me, just mink me

Polar bear rug me, don't bug me

New Thunderbird me, you heard me

I'm getting hungry, peel me a grape

Slowly

Here's how to be an agreeable chap

Love me and leave me in luxury's lap

Hop when I holler, skip when I snap

When I say, "do it"...

Send out for scotch, boil me a crab

Cut me a rose, make my tea with the petals

Just hang around, pick up the tab

Never out think me, just mink me

Polar bear rug me, don't bug me

New Thunderbird me, you heard me

I'm getting hungry, peel me a grape

Peel me

Peel me a grape”

One musician who always seemed to find the humor in Jazz was the late pianist Jaki Byard [1922-1999].

Jaki’s way of mixing styles, selecting unusual tunes to improvise on or reaching back into the Jazz tradition to create bebop versions of ragtime and stride piano tunes [James P.Johnson’s Yamecraw on his Hi-Fly New Jazz CD, OJCCD-1879-2 or his Tribute to the Ticklers on his Concord CD recorded at Maybeck Hall, Vol. 17, CCD 4511 come to mind] - are all examples of the sheer delight that Jaki found in approaching Jazz with a slightly humorous bent.

Never disrespectful, Jaki Byard liked his Jazz with a large dose of fun.

More than any other performing pianist, Jaki Byard alludes explicitly to the jazz piano tradition in his playing. Consider his tour de force album, Solo Piano (Prestige ‎– PR 7686, Prestige ‎– PRST 7686). With equal authenticity and conviction, he plays a stride left hand like Fats Waller, atonal clusters like Cecil Taylor, and nearly every pianistic idiom that evolved between them.

Of course, Byard paid for his reliance on the Jazz tradition by giving up the pursuit of a clear stylistic identity for himself. It hurt him commercially; the public, unless it is indulging in an occasional bout of nostalgia, demands individuality and novelty.

Musicians generally have more respect for tradition than their listeners have. Bandleader Charles Mingus, in whose work the roots of jazz are always showing through, took full advantage of Byard's historical sense in his great bands of the sixties. Byard also enjoyed a few favored years in the mid-sixties, when Prestige recorded him as a leader with groups that included Freddie Hubbard, Eric Dolphy, Ron Carter, and George Benson. One of the great thrills provided by these groups and the Mingus bands is hearing a tradition-oriented pianist like Byard with an iconoclastic saxophonist like Eric Dolphy. Byard prided himself on his adaptability and never affects the pose of "uncompromising artiste."

In an interview with Len Lyons which is contained in The Great Jazz Pianists, Speaking of Their Lives and Their Music, Jaki tells of playing a mayors' conference in New Orleans, where, despite the presence of two marching bands, he was asked to open the event with The Star-Spangled Banner, probably the least improvised-upon tune in the entire American songbook. "Something told me before the job to check out the song," Jaki recalled, "and sure enough they asked for it. ... So maybe it's good to have songs like that in your repertoire. The Battle Hymn of the Republic, When the Saints Come Marching In, Burt Bacharach, Blood, Sweat & Tears - I've used them all over the world and improvised on them. I go from that to Bach, to outside, back to inside, and all over the place."

Not surprisingly, Byard was an excellent teacher, not only of piano but of composing and arranging. He has served on the faculties of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, City College of New York, the Julius Hartt School of Music in Hartford, Connecticut, and several other institutions.

Jaki was a simple, direct man with little pretense about what he did. He understood intimately how varied and evolutionary the Jazz piano tradition is. Len Lyons said of his interview with Jaki:  “I had hoped to discover the training and background that enabled him to re-create so authentically virtually all of jazz piano history. But Byard explains this versatility in his own terms. For him it all comes down to ‘tingling in your spine.’"

The yelps, squeals of joy and the huge smile on his face when he found his improvisations going into “unexpected places” would probably make for an interesting Jaki Byard Wind-Up Doll, don’t you think?

The following video features Jaki along with Ron Carter on bass and Roy Haynes on drums in a 2:20 tour de force on John Coltrane’s Giant Steps. Recorded in 1961, Jaki was one of the first and, for a long while, the few to play the tune after the Coltrane version came out a couple of years earlier.

Jaki’s playing on this piece is a perfect example of the assertion by Richard Cook and Brian Morton in their Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.: “Blessed with a powerful left hand and a free approach to harmony, Jaki was able to work in almost any context, from gospelly blues to the avant-garde.”

The Brass Connection - "Giant Steps"

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

"I think this is a great album! Of the Trombone albums I have heard to date, -this is one of the most exciting."

- Slide Hampton, Jazz trombonist

"This record exposes a new breed of artist, both traditional and visionary.

The compositions and arrangements therein demand a great spontaneous effort and yet keep a sensitive awareness of fellow performers. Truly an outstanding tribute to Jazz of the '80s!"

- Sammy Nestico, arranger and composer

"Doug Hamilton has brought together some of the top musicians in North America. The musical colours painted by the trombones make this a rare and beautiful album."

- Phil MacKellar Host of CKFM's "All That Jazz"

“This is jazz-pure and simple. This is jazz that entertains and recharges the spirit. Here are forty minutes and eight tracks that define what jazz is all about: music that depends on its performers to transform themselves into spontaneous poets, expressing their personalities and imaginations through their instruments.

Here is a band composed of a trombone quintet and a rhythm section enriched by the addition of vibes and guitar that alternately swings or sighs and never loses its unerring beat. The swirl of tonal colours lends this album a haunting quality, both of the sounds of jazz remembered and perhaps a revelation of the sounds of jazz in the future." - Peter C. Newman Editor, Macleans Magazine

I developed this posting because I wanted to spend a little time with two of my favorites things - the sound of the Jazz trombone playing John Coltrane’s by now famous composition - Giant Steps. [If this statement calls to mind the lyric - “... these are just two of my favorite things,” then I confess to being a maker of bad puns.]

I have always been intrigued by the bass clef sound of the trombone, especially in combination [e.g.: Jay and Kai/J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding] or in a choir [e.g. the trombone section of a big band which is usually made up of three or four trombones including a bass trombone].

The rub against two trombones as the co-leads in a Jazz combo is that they do not generate enough contrasting sound by comparison with a trumpet and a tenor sax or a trumpet and an alto or baritone saxophone, which make up the more common front lines in a Jazz group. Put another way, the trombone’s range of sonorities [textures] on a tonal “palette” is limited.

Of course, the key to establishing sufficient contrast in two bass clef instruments is the way in which they are voiced [arranged].

I’m always on the lookout for cleverly orchestrated multi-trombone recordings which is basically how I stumbled upon The Brass Connection [Dark Orchid 652 - 02018; I’m not aware of a CD version of the recording].

The album features five Canadian trombonists - Doug Hamilton, Ian McDougall, Jerry Johnson, Bob Livingston and John Capon - with a rhythm section made up of guitarist Lorne Lofsky, pianist Frank Falco, Dave young on bass and Terry Clarke on drums. The versatile Don Thompson who plays bass vibes and piano with equal excellence, plays piano and vibes on some tracks and also arranged two of the eight tracks. The arrangements for the other six tracks on the album are by trombonists McDougall [three] Hamilton [two] and Johnson [one].

The LP is made up of an interesting mix of Jazz standards such as Dizzy Gillespie’s Tanga and Joe Henderson’s A Shade of Jade and the traditional Dear Old Stockholm combined with some intriguingly arranged original compositions including Ian McDougall’s Lightly Turning and Osteology and two beautiful ballads: Lee by Doug Hamilton and Quiet Steps by Don Thompson.

But the group’s version of John Coltrane’s Giant Steps is the outstanding track in my opinion and the one that caused me to run down to my local record shop [remember those?] when I first heard it on the local FM Jazz radio station [remember those?]. It’s probably a good thing that I sought out a copy right away as I doubt that the small audience for Jazz recordings caused a run on sales.

What really gassed me about The Brass Connection’s version of Giant Steps was how Ian McDougall arranged the five ‘bones to come in right after the guitar solo by Lorne Lofsky playing Coltrane’s first two choruses from his solo on the original Giant Steps Atlantic LP. I mean, talk about running a musical obstacle course!

Ted Gioia in his The Jazz Standards offers this view of the challenges inherent in Coltrane’s masterpiece.

“Giant Steps, first recorded by John Coltrane for his 1959 Atlantic album of the same name, quickly became famous in jazz circles — but more as an obstacle course than a favored jam session tune. The song Cherokee had played a similar role for the boppers of the early 19405, weeding out the wannabes not ready for the demands of modern jazz. Think of Giant Steps as Cherokee on steroids. [Emphasis, mine.]

True, Giant Steps was not as revolutionary as some of the more avant-garde offerings of the day. Coltrane's song stayed in 4/4 time, followed a i6-bar form, and did not veer outside the conventional boundaries of tonality. The chord progression borrowed many elements used previously by jazz players—listen to Richard Rodgers's bridge to the 1937 standard Have You Met Miss Jones? for

an important predecessor. Yet at Coltrane's brisk tempo and with a few of his own ingenious harmonic twists added to the mix, this musical steeplechase presented a stiff challenge to an unprepared soloist, circa 1959.

Ah, Coltrane was quite prepared  …. The saxophone titan, for his part, had developed some handy improvisational patterns to employ on the song, most notably a repeated phrase that draws on the opening four notes of the pentatonic scale. Coltrane relies on this motif repeatedly in his solo, and close study of his improvisation reveals a certain rote quality to it. Yet the overall effect is nonetheless impressive, perhaps even a bit unsettling. I tend to view Giant Steps less as a song, and more an exercise Coltrane developed as part of his own intense self-imposed musical education — one that he left behind after he had mastered it. ….

But the jazz world did not forget Giant Steps. Every serious jazz musician ought to learn and master it—not just because it might be called at the next gig, but simply for the mind-expanding lessons it imparts.” [pp.126-127]

The following video features The Brass Connection on - what else? - their version of Coltrane’s Giant Steps [You can hear them play the original Coltrane choruses beginning at around 2:28 minutes].