© -
Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
It’s not everyday
that a new Jazz label is announced and certainly even rarer still that such a
label will focus on previously un-issued music by Jazz Giants such as Gerry
Mulligan, Benny Goodman and Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, to name just some
artists from the label’s initial release.
Thanks to the
information contained in a recently received press release by Michael Bloom
Media Relations, it looks as though such a cause for celebration is on its way,
March 27, 2012.
For on that date, Naxos
of America and ArtHaus Musik will launch JazzHaus with the first quarterly
release of CD’s by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, the Gerry Mulligan Sextet
and the Benny Goodman Orchestra featuring vocalist Anita O’Day.
The JazzHaus
CD/DVD series will include a first quarterly
release [March 27] of CDs by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet recorded in
performance at Liederhalle, Stuttgart, Germany, March 20, 1969, the Gerry
Mulligan Sextet recorded in performance in the same venue on November 22, 1977
and the Benny Goodman Orchestra in performance at Stadthalle-Freiburg, Germany,
on October 15, 1959 featuring vocalist Anita O’Day.
According to
Michael’s press information, in its future issues, JazzHaus will continue to
bring forth audio and video discs featuring “an indefinite number of audio and
video jazz programs taken from live radio and television recordings from the
archives of Sudwestrundfunk Stuttgart, Baden-Baden and Mainz in southwest Germany.
Jazz broadcasts by
Sudwestrundfunk (SWR) started in the summer of 1947 with young impresarios
Joachim-Ernst Berendt and Dieter Zimmerle. Today, almost 65 years later, the
archives contain about 1,600 audio and more than 350 television recordings of
all major modern jazz artists - probably the biggest collection of unpublished
live jazz recordings in the world: 3,000 hours - and almost all of it has never
been released before. More than 400 ensembles and soloists are listed - many of
them recorded three, four, five or more times over the decades.
For the last three
years, the JAZZHAUS team has been thoroughly researching the vaults, carefully
making the final selections. The old tapes are currently being re-mastered to
high-end technology standards and will be released on CD, DVD, vinyl, and as audio /video-on-demand
downloads.”
Here’s some
additional background information about the project.
Post-War Europe - Germany in particular - gave American jazz artists
a warm reception. Following the nightmare of Nazism, Deutschland was a
devastated country and culturally in ruins. The people warmly welcomed U.S. soldiers who brought jazz to the
nightclubs of their cities and later the big bands and ensembles to the major
venues of their towns.
Many of the
performers felt accepted and understood with their art for the first time in
their lives - and needless to say, these circumstances improved the quality of
their playing. Many of them remained in Europe, finding new homes in Paris, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Baden-Baden.
People flocked to
the concert halls in Freiburg, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Mainz, Ludwigshafen, and Sindelfingen. It took the expertise of young Stunde
Null jazz editors at the radio stations not only to invite top artists and ensembles
but also to ensure excellent audio and (later) video results from the public
performances. The superb acoustics of the newly built Liederhalle-Stuttgart
turned many performances into an unforgettable experience.
In the vaults, we
find exuberant music treasures (to name just a few): a jam session with Duke
Ellington, Lester Young and The Modern Jazz Quartet (1954), a riveting
recording of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers made shortly after their first Blue
Note recording (1958); a Quincy Jones big band television recording (1960).
All major big
bands traveled extensively through Germany's southwest and set the standard for the
radio big bands from Stuttgart and Baden-Baden. Stunning audio recordings feature Dave Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan, The Modern Jazz
Quartet, Zoot Sims, Ben Webster, Joe Henderson, Cannonball Adderley, Roland
Kirk, Max Roach, Archie Shepp, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, Thelonious Monk, and
Eric Dolphy.
Also documented
are upcoming European performers like Hans Koller, Albert Mangelsdorff, Klaus
Doldinger, Joe Zawinul, Joachim Kiihn, and Attila Zoller. Mainz also holds superb hitherto unknown Volker
Kriegel recordings from 1963. From France we hear Kenny Clarke, Martial Solal, Andre
Hodeir, Barney Wilen, Rene Urtreger, and Pierre Michelot.
All the most
influential performers of free jazz and the so-called Third Stream are
extensively recorded. We are gripped by the voices of Nina Simone, Carmen
McRae, Ella Fitzgerald, Abbey Lincoln, or Cassandra Wilson. Blues artists are
featured, with all the leading performers from B.B. King to Olu Dara. We
experience the breakthrough of John Mclaughlin, Chick Corea, Gary Burton,
Eberhard Weber, Jan Garbarek, Pat Metheny, and Bobby McFerrin and crossover
artists like Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker.”
Each of the
“Legends Live” JazzHaus CD is formatted in a six-pack: a tri-fold paper sleeve
with cover art, tray plate information and a photo of the artist by Jorg Becker
on the outside and insert notes in English and German plus the disc itself on
the inside.
The sound quality
of these recordings has to be experienced to be believed. The re-mastering has complemented the
original acoustics in which the performances were made to the point that the
music almost jumps out at you.
And the artists
respond to the obvious adoration that these German audiences put on display by
bringing forth a series of first-rate performances. There is nothing like the experience of
“live” Jazz and these JazzHaus CDs go a long way toward
underscoring this fact.
The late Jazz writer
and essayist Mike Zwerin once said that after the Second World War, Jazz went
to Europe to keep from dying.
If the music on
these JazzHaus CDs is any example,
Mike’s argument is well-substantiated as they leave little doubt that
Jazz was alive and well in Germany from 1959 – 1977.
Recorded live at Liederhalle Stuttgart on
March 20,1969 Julian "Cannonball" Adderley (as), Nat Adderley (tp)
Joe Zawinul (p, key), Victor Gaskin (b), Roy McCurdy (dr)
Total Time: 60:12
“Adderley achieved
immortality in the Miles Davis Quintet with Kind of Blue - and his album
Something Else is possibly the best of the Blue Note albums. That was the late
1950s. Ten years later, Adderley was touring Europe with his own quintet and gave a
performance at Stuttgart's Liederhalle. Even during the sound check, the musicians
must have sensed the concert hall's unique atmosphere; that evening would go
down as a landmark performance. From soul jazz, and blues ("Sweet
Emma", "Why Am I Treated So Bad"), to free-form contemporariness
("Somewhere") and lollipops infused with canny commerciality
("Work Song", "Walk Tall"), the listener is treated here to
the sublime art of the quintet - even at a time when that classic bebop
formation was already on the wane.
And then there is
Zawinul! If truth be told, it was his concert. A jet-black figure at the
keyboard ("Oh Babe"), swinging and quirky on the piano
("Rumpelstiltskin," "The Painted Desert"). A kobold stoking
the flames - as if trying to shed the state of hypnosis that had gripped him a
month earlier while recording In A Silent Way. Something stopped
to make way for the new. Things are getting better. The following year Zawinul
formed Weather Report and stormed to worldwide celebrity. But the concert of
March 1969 remains: the legacy of a unique quintet. Soulful and swinging, a
timeless classic even today.”
Recorded live at Liederhalle-Stuttgart on
November 22,1977 Gerry Mulligan (bs), Dave Samuels (vib), Thomas Fay (p) Mike
Santiago (g), George Duvivier (b), Bobby Rosengarden (dr) Total Time: 68:32
“The youngest of
four brothers, New Yorker Gerry Mulligan spent his teenage years in many
different parts of the United States, learning in succession to play piano,
clarinet, alto, tenor, and finally baritone sax. Together with Gil Evans and
Miles Davis, the 20-year-old worked on the revolutionary nonet compositions for
Birth
of the Cool in 1948. The gangly sandy-haired musician with his big Conn baritone made his recording debut as a
leader in 1951 and moved to Los Angeles as arranger for the Stan Kenton Big Band.
With Chet Baker, he formed a popular piano-free quartet and worked as a sideman
on numerous recording sessions. He never liked the label West Coast Jazz:
"My bands would have been successful anywhere."
In 1960, he put
together the successful Concert Jazz Band and around 1968 began a sporadic but
sustained partnership with Dave Brubeck. In Stuttgart, now aged 50, he was already looking back
on a career spanning almost 30 years and was much in demand at that time as a
soloist for symphonic saxophone concertos. Mulligan presents his handpicked
sextet at the Liederhalle, where the opening number "For An Unfinished
Woman" shows that far from being tinged with nostalgia his approach is
still a contemporary work in progress - albeit one that never abandoned its
Cool School roots. The irrefutable evidence is to be found in inspired, elegant
versions of classics such as "Line For Lyons" and "My Funny
Valentine", as well as in Mulligan's sense of theatre.”
Recorded live at Stadthalle-Freiburg on
October 15,1959 Benny Goodman (cl, arr), Anita O'Day (voc), Russ Freeman (p),
Red Norvo (vib), Jack Sheldon (tp), Flip Phillips (ts), Bill Harris (tb), Jerry
Dodgion (fl), Jimmy Wyble (g), Red Wootton (b), John Markham (d)
Total Time: 76:07
“Ecstatic acclaim
for the King of Swing that Thursday in Freiburg back in October 1959 remains an
intoxicating experience. A tight and sprightly band in top swinging form, the
elegant tones of Benny Goodman's clarinet and the sensational Anita O'Day.
O'Day's sensuality and mellow phrasing in Fats Waller's impudent
"Honeysuckle Rose" and Earl Bostic's somewhat frivolous, leisurely
version of "Let Me Off Uptown" make these sets spark and crackle with
energy even 50 years on.
The recordings
reveal the warmth and enthusiasm with which the King of Swing was received on
his tour of Germany. The tumultuous applause was merely a
foretaste of the liberating effect that rock 'n' roll was about to unleash - a
new genre which before long would steal the limelight from those in the jazz
world who had made it possible. Goodman's orchestra, effectively a band of
bandleaders, showcases one of the finest line-ups of the post-war era and
underpins the evening's success with solos that are sharp and savored to the
full.
Almost a
generation separated Jack Sheldon and Jerry Dodgion from Goodman and the
idiosyncratic Red Norvo, but the ensemble playing is superb. A real highlight
is the medley based on "Not For Me" featuring the scatting O'Day.”
And thanks to the
assistance of the crackerjack graphics team at CerraJazz LTD, we are able to be you an example of the
music on offer in this series with this video tribute to JazzHaus.
The audio is from
the Gerry Mulligan Legends Live CD with Gerry’s sextet performing Duke
Ellington’s Satin Doll.
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