Alone Together with Rein de Graaff and The Metropole Orchestra

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

“Rein de Graaff is a man of contrasts. He is one of Europe's foremost jazz musicians, but he describes himself as "a jazz fan who happens to play the piano." He turned down many offers to go on tour with American stars like Sonny Stitt and Archie Shepp because he has not much time to travel; he is a businessman on weekdays who gigs only in the weekends.

He will explain to you at length that he considers himself a jazz musician rather than a pianist: "I don't play the piano like a pianist does. I comp like a drummer and play single-note lines like a horn player." However, he has recorded some of the most fluent, swinging and beautiful piano solos I've ever heard in the Low Countries.”

- Jeroen de Valk, Jazz author and critic

Although, the general focus of most of the postings to JazzProfiles is about Jazz musicians and Jazz styles, there are occasions in which we like to spend time with Jazz interpretations of our favorite tunes.

Or to put it another way, no tunes, no Jazz for as the late bassist Charles Mingus stated: “You’ve got to improvise on something.”

As Charles implies it’s all intertwined as one thing leads to another and I generally find myself recounting who the Jazz musician or Jazz group is that’s performed one of my favorite tunes.

Or to rework the tile of this piece a little, Alone But Together; you really can’t separate the Jazz musician from his/her music.

Which brings me to a tune that has always fascinated me - Alone Together.

These excerpts from Ted Gioia’s continually fascinating The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire go a long way toward explaining why.

“Alone Together - Composed by Arthur Schwartz, with lyrics by Howard Dietz

“At 14, Arthur Schwartz played piano accompaniment to silent films in his native Brooklyn, and from an early age he showed a knack for writing his own songs. At his father's urging, though, Schwartz put music on the back burner and pursued a career in law. With degrees from NYU and Columbia in hand, he was admitted to the New York bar in 1924, and practiced law for four years before turning his back on the legal profession to work full-time as a songwriter. Around that same time Schwartz met up with lyricist Howard Dietz, another Columbia University alum (where Dietz had been a classmate of Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein), and the following year they launched their first Broadway production, the successful revue The Little Show. ...

Alone Together made its debut in the 1932 show Flying Colors, which closed as a financial failure after 188 performances, ...The song fared better than the show, however, and Leo Reisman enjoyed a top 10 hit with his recording that same year.

"Alone Together" has an unusual form, with a 14-bar A theme that resolves surprisingly in the tonic major, but in the last restatement is truncated to 12 bars that conclude in the minor. The form can confuse the uninitiated, and don't be surprised if you hear the pianist at the cocktail bar try to squeeze "Alone Together" into a standard 32-bar AABA form. Yet I suspect that the very peculiarities in the composition, especially the major-minor ambiguity, account for much of the appeal to improvisers.

Artie Shaw played the key role in establishing "Alone Together" as a jazz standard, recording it with his band in 1939,  … When Dizzy Gillespie recorded "Alone Together" in 1950, he followed the Shaw playbook with a somber rendition over string accompaniment. Miles Davis adopted a far more modernistic approach in his 1955 recording, with the countermelodies and shifting rhythms bearing more the stamp of Charles Mingus (who was bassist on this date) than the trumpeter.

The personality of this song would change gradually over the years, as it lost its exotic, mood music origins and emerged as a dark, minor-key song in a straight swing rhythm. In the right arrangement, "Alone Together" can sound like a hard bop chart written for a Blue Note session. In fact, given the dark, brooding quality of the tune, I'm surprised it didn't show up on more Blue Note dates, but when it did (as on Stanley Turrentine's 1966 session with McCoy Tyner for the Easy Walker date), it fit perfectly with the grit and groove of the proceedings. Sonny Rollins takes a similar tack on his 1958 performance for the Contemporary label [Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders].

The composition is still typically performed at a medium tempo, not much different from what Leo Reisman offered back in 1932 — although usually more medium-fast than medium-slow nowadays. But fast, aggressive versions are increasingly common —.”

The version of Alone Together that prompted the development of this feature is the one that Dutch Jazz pianist Rein de Graaff recorded on October 3, 1992 in Hilversum, The Netherlands with The Metropole Orchestra conducted by the renown Rob Pronk.

You can located in it on the Timeless CD Nostalgia [SJP 429] which is a compilation CD made up of five tracks with Rein performing with the Metropole in 1992, two tracks of Rein performing with Barry Harris in Groningen, Holland in 1991 with a rhythm section of Koos Serierse on bass and Eric Ineke on drums and four tracks recorded in 1994 in Monster Holland, with alto saxophonists Gary Foster and Marco Kegel and Rein, Koos and Eric.

Thanks to some visits together during his recent trips to the United States, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know Rein somewhat. In conversation - by the way, his English is better than mine, - he is soft-spoken, extremely polite and mild-mannered. He loves “a piece of bread” with all manner of food and in a conversation over a meal he is relaxed, unassuming and an attentive listener; although I suspect that on the subject of most things to do with bebop, he could finish my sentences for me, but demurrers [did I mention that he was polite?].

But all of that vanishes when he sits down at a piano keyboard and becomes a take-no-prisoners, monster improviser who is capable of unfurling line after line of dotted eighth note, syncopated melodies that are loaded with bebop licks that you’ve heard before, but never quite combined in this manner. He becomes an original by the way in which he weaves together the unoriginal as he tries to get as close as possible to the nirvana of interlacing chorus after chorus of uninterrupted improvisations [what Jazz musicians referred to as “lines”]. Sometimes, ideas seem to come to him so fast and furious that he can barely put them together before moving on to the next set of musical thoughts or suggestions. It’s like he’s managed to memorize every piece of bebop ever played in the past, deconstruct them and put them together in a new and different way - instantaneously.

And he doesn’t rush - he pushes the time because he plays ahead of the beat - but he doesn’t rush.

In listening to a lot of Rein’s recordings lately [he’s sending me more!!] - I always suspected that one of the keys to his success as an improvisor was his ability to chose the right tempo to play the tunes he favors.

And what do you know, he confirmed this in a recent conversation about his playing on the tune Flamingo on a CD that he along with Marius Beets [pronounced Bates in English] on bass and Eric Ineke on drums made with tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton. [You can find this track in a video montage at the end of this piece.]

I was sharing with him how the sequence of choruses he plays on this eleven [11] minute track had literally reduced me to giggles they were so good when he blurted out - “It’s the tempo!”

Bingo! - the implication being that the tempo was just right in leaving him time to think and connect one well-constructed, improvised line [melody] with the next.

Of course, notwithstanding his incredible talent, I imagine it helps to have been doing this for 50 years!!

Jeroen de Valk who recently published a revised and expanded biography of trumpeter Chet Baker wrote these insert notes for the Nostalgia  CD.

“Rein de Graaff is a man of contrasts. He is one of Europe's foremost jazz musicians, but he describes himself as "a jazz fan who happens to play the piano." He turned down many offers to go on tour with American stars like Sonny Stitt and Archie Shepp because he has not much time to travel; he is a businessman on weekdays who gigs only in the weekends.

He will explain to you at length that he considers himself a jazz musician rather than a pianist: "I don't play the piano like a pianist does. I comp like a drummer and play single-note lines like a horn player." However, he has recorded some of the most fluent, swinging and beautiful piano solos I've ever heard in the Low Countries.

The most astonishing aspect of Rein's artistry is his understanding of the bebop language. He is almost entirely self-taught as a pianist and has been living most of his life in a small town in the north of the Netherlands. But when he visited New York for the first time as a young man, he felt at home right away. At a jam session in Harlem, a big fat mamma from this black neighbourhood hugged him warmly, with tears in her eyes. "You sound like a black man!", she shouted. This was obviously the highest praise that could possibly be bestowed on Rein.

Although it may sound weird, it is perhaps his jazz fan status that makes him sound so consistently inspired and professional. He makes music because he loves to do it and for no other reason. Music is for him, to quote Zoot Sims, "serious fun". He always plays with at least a hundred per cent dedication.

On this record, you hear what Rein does: playing bebop piano. While listening to the duo-tracks with Rein's favourite pianist, bebop master Barry Harris, you will notice how much they sound alike. Their solos are characterized by clarity; each phrase is a small melody with a beginning, a middle and an end.

Rein plays the first seven choruses in Au Privave, Barry the next five. Then they alternate eight choruses, followed by 'fours' until the last theme. In the next tune, you hear

Rein plays Nostalgia and Barry Casbah, two tunes based on the chords of Out of Nowhere. Barry plays two choruses, Rein the next two. Then they take half a chorus each, they alternate 'eights' for one chorus, followed by a chorus of 'fours'.

Another passion of Rein's is the musical world of Lennie Tristano, the legendary pianist, composer and guru of the cool school who died in 1978 at the age of 59. In four tracks, he plays with two alto saxophonists who know a thing or two about Tristano's concept: Gary Foster from LA (right channel) and Marco Kegel, a 22-year-old from Holland. Their collective improvisations will remind you of Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz, Tristano's great saxophone team.

As usual, the themes are complicated lines, based on standards. Tristano used to say: "That's our link to the people." Ablution is All the Things You Are. Lennie's Pennies is Pennies from Heaven (in a minor key, for a change), Dreamstepper is You Stepped out of a Dream and Subconscious-Lee is What Is this Thing Called Love. The rhythm section is once again Koos Serierse (bass) and Eric Ineke (drums). They have been working with Rein for almost twenty years.

In the first five tracks. Rein is featured soloist with the Metropole Orchestra. The arrangements, written by Dolf de Vries (Alone Together),  Rob Pronk (How High the Moon, I Cover the Waterfront), Henk Meutgeert (Afternoon in Paris} and Lex Jasper (Cherokee), are just right for this combination: relaxed and inspiring. They give the rhythm section room to swing, allow the horns and strings to phrase as one man, and Rein to improvise freely at great length.

Rein sounds as if he has been working with these experienced studio musicians for a hundred years. Listen to him playing bebop piano. He is brilliant.”

• Jeroen de Valk

'Kind of Bill' - Dado Moroni, Eddie Gomez, Joe LaBarbera

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

On September 29, 2017, BFM Jazz released an audio CD entitled Live at The Casino Sanremo: Kind of Bill [B 074 HCYL 22] which features the talents of pianist Dado Moroni, bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Joe LaBarbera.

Anyone familiar with the career of the late pianist Bill Evans certainly knows about Eddie’s 12 year association with him and the fact that Joe played in Bill last trio before Bill’s death in 1980.

But it would also be true that anyone familiar with Bill Evans’ style of playing with its lyrical and lush voicings, rhythmic displacement and moody and introspective harmonies would be rather surprised to find Dado as the pianist in a tribute album to Bill.

Dado is a hard bop oriented, funky swinger who’s perfectly happy in a straight-ahead, pulsating and hard-charging environment.

Bill and Dado both play piano, but to my ears, all comparisons end there as their style of playing the instrument is so markedly different.

Gene Lees once asked Bill Evans, as both were entering the London House in Chicago, IL to hear pianist Oscar Peterson’s trio, why Oscar didn’t incorporate Bill’s unique approach to voicing chords in his playing?

Bill replied: “It wouldn’t fit with what he was doing.”

When I think of the styles of Dado and Bill, “It wouldn’t fit with what he’s doing,” immediately comes to mind.”

But Dado did find a way to make it work and the key is in the CD’s title.

Kind of Bill refers to compositions usually associated with Bill throughout his 25 year career rather than original compositions by Bill. The sole exception is the trio’s performance of Bill’s original composition - Funkallero.

Dado, Eddie and Joe each also contribute an original to the nine track selections that make up the CD and these are evocative of Bill Evans’ way with Jazz improvisation.

The media release that accompanied the recording explains it this way:

“Kind of Bill describes perfectly the intent of the project to capture the music and magic of famed pianist Bill Evans. Created by pianist Dado Moroni, this album features the Grammy award winner bassist Eddie Gomez (Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Dizzy Gillespie) and Evans' drummer Joe La Barbera. Kind Of Bill is an homage which doesn't strictly include Bill's compositions. But also includes songs that under Evans' fingers became entirely new, and original songs by Moroni, Gomez and La Barbera.

Bill Evans has not been with us since September 15, 1980, a very sad day for musicians and music fans. However his notes and his magic are very much alive and this project wants to celebrate this aspect of his world: the never-ending life of his message and legacy.

Because of Evans’ incredible talent and ideas, he needed special partners to develop that wonderful sound that characterized his vision of music, people that, with their fantastic musicality and sensitivity, were able to bring that vision to life…to create that unforgettable, beautiful “Bill Evans Sound.” Eddie and Joe LaBarbera were able to make such contributions.

KIND OF BILL [written by Joe La Barbera]  describes perfectly the intent of the project created by pianist Dado Moroni, who has never hidden his love for Evans, bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Joe La Barbera.”

Dado, Eddie and Joe kicked off the 2016 summer Jazz festivals in Italy with a performance of this material at the Casa del Jazz in Roma, before traveling to the Casino di Sanremo in San Remo, Italy where on July 1, 2016, they recorded the music for the new CD in a live performance.

They reprised the Kind of Bill project for a performance at the  Albenga Jazz Festival on July 4, 2017 where the following video was made.

QUINCY JONES AND HIS ORCHESTRA LIVE IN LUDWIGSHAFEN 1961

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

Quincy Jones has achieved such an iconic status over the years that many people are not aware of the fact that his early years in the music business were mostly involved with big band Jazz.

Of course, Quincy quickly learned the lesson contained in the old adage - “If you want to make a million dollars playing Jazz, start with two million!” - and moved himself into more commercially profitable endeavors such as writing scores for TV shows and movies [he eventually wrote the music for 33 major movies] and, ultimately, becoming a record producer responsible for the mega hits of Lesley Gore and Michael Jackson and many other Rock and Pop stars.

Ironically, Quincy had his greatest successes, and failures, leading his big band in Sweden and France where Jazz was very popular in the years following the close of World War II. But Europe was also the source of much heartbreak for the man who today is lovingly called “Q.”

Quincy soon realized that we learn more from our failures than from our successes because we take the latter for granted but examine the former with greater attention.

Or as he put it: “We had the best jazz band on the planet, and yet we were literally starving. That's when I discovered that there was music, and there was the music business. If I were to survive, I would have to learn the difference between the two.”

However, before he moved on, he took his orchestra to Germany for a concert at the Ludwigshazen Pfalzbrau on March 15, 1961. The concert was produced and recorded by Joachim-Ernst Berendt and has recently found its was as a CD reissue on the SWR-JazzHaus Label under the title QUINCY JONES AND HIS ORCHESTRA LIVE IN LUDWIGSHAFEN 1961 [JAH-455].

Here are Rolf Dombrowski’s insert notes as translated by Jonathan Uhlaner.

“The first attempt to work with a big band went awry. Quincy Jones had met Lionel Hampton; the fifteen-year-old greenhorn was already sitting in the tour bus when the wife of the bandleader discovered him and sent him home again. Soon thereafter, however, he was allowed occasionally to collaborate; five years later he was a member of the band and was learning every evening what it means to put on a good show. And he proved himself. His boyhood friend Ray Charles had taught him the basics of arranging; in Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra he deepened his skill. Soon Quincy was working as composer, arranger and trumpeter for Dinah Washington, Betty Carter, Ray Charles and Billy Eckstine. And he travelled often to Europe, studied with Nadia Boulanger, become acquainted with Frank Sinatra in Monaco, produced recordings with Sarah Vaughan.

In 1959 finally he put together an orchestra for the musical Free And Easy. The show played until February 1960 in Utrecht, Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris. At the end of the engagement, Jones decided to carry on with the orchestra. For ten months he toured Europe; gradually it became evident that the ensemble could be held together only with difficulty. Including entourage, thirty-three people had to be provided for and money was scarce, even though at this time arrangements by Jones for Ray Charles made it into the hit parade. In the end Jones amassed a debt of $145,000.

He borrowed money, had to sell his music publishing house [which later he bought back for almost ten times the price], and so in 1961 the offer of his old friend Irving Green to start as a producer for Mercury records came just at the right time. Two years later he helped the singer Lesley Gore achieve with her It's My Party her first No. 1 hit. In 1964 he was the first black A&R vice-president of a record label. By then his orchestra had long been history.

And had also written a bit of history. The concert in July 1961 at the Newport Jazz Festival became known, and before that the orchestra was again travelling in Europe. The recording of the concert on 10 March in Zurich appeared with Mercury Records under the title The Great Wide World Of Quincy Jones: Live! and contained a sample of his repertoire.

The Quintessence [1961] is more or less the epilogue to this project. And Live In Ludwigshafen now allows further insight into the artistic inner life of Jones' superb and uncommonly vital orchestra. The team consisted of a number of young luminaries of the time: trumpeters such as Freddie Hubbard and Benny Bailey, saxophonists such as Sahib Shihab. The programme included evergreens like Summertime and compositions like Stolen Moments that were to become such. The mood on stage was relaxed, if only because the orchestra was hailed in Europe as a groundbreaking big band. There are experts who believe that this short phase was for Quincy Jones his best as a jazz musician. Live In Ludwigshafen only lends support to this judgement.

Ralf Dombrowski

Translation: Jonathan Uhlaner

Recorded at Ludwigshafen, Pfalzbau on 15.03.1961

Personnel:

Trumpets: Benny Bailey, Freddie Hubbard, Paul Cohen, Rolf Ericsson

Trombones: Curtis Fuller, David Baker, Melba Liston, Ake Persson

French Horn: Julius Watkins

Alto Saxes - Joe Lopes and Phil Woods

Tenor Saxophones: Budd Johnson and Eric Dixon

Baritone Saxophone: Sahib Shihab

Guitar: Les Spann

Piano: Patti Brown

Bass: George Catlett

Drums: Stu Martin

Latin Percussion: Patato Valdes

The Jazz Crusaders - Looking Ahead

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

“Still present in their performance is the great fire and the constant regard for form and content upon which to build solos. Again, the listener will find the music still rooted firmly in the tradition and growing inevitably from the blues. But there remains the close attention also to program content - including rhythmic variety, emotional range, the ballad form, the blues and selection of challenging harmonic make-up.

But it is this willingness to bend double to stay together as a group that I think is the real key to their thoroughly integrated approach to the music.  I don’t think that it is going out on a limb too far to say that among the harder hitting small jazz bands in the nation today that the Crusaders achieve a unique blend of drive and organization, of abandon and form.”

- John William Hardy, liner notes to Jazz Crusaders Looking Ahead [Pacific Jazz PJ-43]

Little did John William Hardy know how prescient some of his comments were when he wrote these liner notes in 1962 for the Jazz Crusaders second LP with the Pacific Jazz label.

Even his reference to “... the Crusaders,” omitting the antecedent “Jazz” was spot on as the group changed its name in the 1970s to eliminate the Jazz reference in its quest to attract a larger audience in order to stay viable [read: pay the rent; feed the family].

Not too many Jazz groups that went professional in the 1960s were able to keep themselves together for 50 years! But the Jazz Crusaders’ “ … willingness to bend double to stay together” was one of the factors that made it possible for them to do so. One could say then that The Jazz Crusaders had truly mastered the art of Looking Ahead!

With the advent of the Beatles and the subsequent development of what is now referred to as Classic Rock, the 1960s saw a mass migration away from Jazz by the listening public, especially the younger one.

Big bands, Jazz combos, piano-bass-drums trio, popular vocalists singing songs from The Great American Songbook, all were eventually replaced by various forms of Rock ‘n Roll, or the music of balladeers such as Carole King, Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, and James Taylor, or by a generation of Motown vocal groups, or by some forms of Jazz Rock Fusion such as Return to Forever with Chick Corea, Al Di Meola, Stanley Clarke and Lennie White, Tom Scott and the L.A. Express and Donald Fagen and Walter Becker’s group, Steely Dan.

Rock even managed to infuse itself into some elements of Country and Western Music. This new form was given the name - Rockabilly. Groups such as Crosby, Stills and Nash added Rock overtones to Folk Music which then became Folk Rock aided and abetted by the likes of as did Bob Dylan, The Band The Searchers, The Animals and The Byrds, among many others.

Of course, Rock pervaded Jazz as well with trumpeter Miles Davis leading the way in his customary role as trendsetter. What followed usually fell into two categories: the “harder” Jazz Rock Fusion bands initially exemplified by ex-Miles Davis drummer Tony Williams’ Lifetime or [2] the “smoother” Jazz Rock groups of which Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter [both of whom also played in Miles’ band] were a main exponent in their group Weather Report.

Smooth Jazz, as it came to be known, was basically comprised of a two chord formula which oscillated back and forth over a light Rock beat. The melodies were simple and straightforward, the beat was insistent and uncomplicated and this combination created a style of Jazz that was accessible to a wider audience.

After the Rock Invasion, some Jazz musicians in New York and Los Angeles who had the reading skills to do it “retreated” into the world of studio music which became the soundtracks for radio jingles, TV commercials and movie scores while others found their way into Jazz Rock Fusion bands or they joined the more popular and commercial Smooth Jazz trend.

Many Jazz fans who favored the modern Jazz styles that evolved from approximately 1945-1965 were disappointed with the Jazz Rock Fusion and Smooth Jazz approaches to the music, but it is important to keep in mind that if music is what you do to earn a living, then at some point it becomes imperative to make a choice as to how you want to go about doing that.

Interestingly, very early on, the Jazz Crusaders had a great deal of practice with different approaches to Jazz and you can hear this versatility on the recordings they made for Pacific Jazz in the 1960’s as they feature everything from hard bop to boogaloo to modal Jazz to Latin Jazz.

The Jazz Crusaders, then, started as a Hard-Bop group, transitioned to a Jazz-Rock group and finished up as a Smooth Jazz group. You can read about some of their stylistic transitions from 1961 - 1982 in the listing of Down Beat articles contained in the bibliography at the end of this piece as compiled by Thomas Owens for The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz.

The initial band was formed in the early 1950s by three high-school students in Houston: pianist Joe Sample, tenor saxophonist Wilton Felder, and  drummer Stix Hooper, who was the group's leader.

Their first name was the Swingsters and the band soon added trombonist Wayne Henderson, flutist Hubert Laws, and bass player Henry Wilson.

Now, as the Modern Jazz Sextet, the band played locally around the greater Houston, TX area during high school and college years.

In the late 1950s Sample, Felder, Hooper, and Henderson moved to California, and changed the group's name to the Night Hawks, and later the Jazz Crusaders (1961). In that year, augmented by the addition of Jimmy Bond on bass player, the band made its first recordings for Pacific Jazz. The Jazz Crusaders soon became extremely successful and stayed with Pacific Jazz recording 16 LPs for the labels between 1961-1969

By 1968 Sample, Hooper, and Felder had become active as studio musicians, and Henderson was working increasingly as a record producer. They ceased touring and concentrated instead on making recordings.

In 1971 they shortened the group's name to the Crusaders and began playing music heavily influenced by rock, soul, and the popular style funk. Sample used electronic keyboards as well as piano and electric piano, and in the mid-1970s the ensemble included Larry Carlton (electric guitar) and Max Bennett (electric bass guitar).

This change of approach brought considerable commercial success, and in 1979 the group's recording Street Life became a substantial hit. Henderson left in 1975, and Hooper in 1983; the latter was replaced by Leon Ndugu Chancler. Sample and Felder continued to lead the group in various iterations until their death in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

SELECTED RECORDINGS

Freedom Sound (1961, PJ 27); Chile Con Soul (1965, PI 20092); The Festival Album (1966, PJ 20115); Crusaders I (1971, Blue Thumb 6001); Scratch (1974, Blue Thumb 6010); Free as the Wind (1976. Blue Thumb 6029); Street Life (1979, MCA 3094); Royal Jam (1981, MCA 8017); Ongaku kai: Live in Japan (1982, Crusaders 16002)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

J. Tynan: "Meet the Jazz Crusaders," DB, xxx/14 (1963), 18

H.Siders: "The Crusaders: Four of a Kind," DB, xl/13 (1973), 16

L. Underwood: "The Crusaders: Knights without Jazz," DB, xliii/12 (1976),

12 [incl. discography]

H. Nolan: "The Crusaders: the Sweet and Sour Smell of Success," DB, xlv/

9(1978), 12

A.J. Liska: "The Lone Crusaders," DB, I/I I (1983), 20 find, discography)

The following video montage of the Jazz Crusaders features the Dulzura track from their 1965 Chili Con Soul Pacific Jazz LP [PJ 10092] on which they reunite with flutist Hubert Laws, Jr. who was one of the original members of the group.

Lee Kontiz - "Food For Thought"

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

While working on the video that you’ll find at the end of this piece which showcases Lee’s improvisation abilities, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles was reminded of an interview that Lee gave to Wayne Enstice [WE] and Paul Rubin [PR] which appears in their book JAZZ SPOKEN HERE: Conversations with 22 Musicians [New York: DaCapo Press, 1994].

Over the fifty years or so that I have been listening to Lee, and with the exception of the more involved pieces that he has recorded featuring the work of Bull Russo, Jimmy Giuffre and The Metropole Orchestra, for example, I have always been struck by the fact that Lee seemed to limit the tunes in his repertoire to a few standards.

I never knew what the reasons were for Lee’s attenuated range of songs until I read the following in Lee’s interview with Wayne and Paul.

"PR: We've noticed that on some of your albums certain standards reappear and, also, that on other tunes the changes sound very similar.

LK: You say, first of all, the changes, the tunes were similar? I don't know what you mean by that. PR: The chord changes.

LK: I know what you mean by chord changes, but what tunes I wonder did you have in mind?

PR: "I'll Remember April." There are other songs that sound like that one. One may even be called "April," but on a different record.

LK: Oh, they're all "I Remember April" but with different titles. Oh, I see what you mean. Well, that's simply a result of, I mean that's basically my repertoire, that few dozen tunes. And if I'm not setting up a special set of material for a record, I will choose those songs I like best and try 'em again, without the melody, say, just using the structure of the song,

WE: So you prefer having a limited body of material to play?

LK: If we have a little short confessional here [laughter], I keep thinking that it doesn't matter what tunes you play. The process is the same, and if it works then it's like a new piece, you know. And it is a fact that the better you know the song the more chances you might dare take. And so that's why Bird played a dozen tunes all his life, basically, and most of the people that were improvising—Tristano played the same dozen tunes all his life. And you know, it's amazing what depth he got. He wouldn't have gotten that otherwise, I don't think, in that particular way.

I think it's something similar to Monet painting the lily pond at all times of the day, catching the reflection of the light. I just feel with each situation I'm in, different rhythm sections or whatever, that "I'll Remember April" becomes just something else. And it is a very preferable point — that's the main thing. Everybody who knows that material knows that material pretty well — the listeners and the musicians. So they know, you can just nakedly reveal if anything's happening or not; there's no subterfuge. And that aspect of it is appealing to me, I think.”

Lee performs I'll Remember April from his Verve Motion! LP with Sonny Dallas, bass and Elvin Jones, drums.