Larry Kart

Re-acquainted myself with "Improvisation 1." Roscoe says of it, "That was a very structured improvisation." Yes, indeed. I can't imagine what this will sound like if one hasn't heard it before. Ardor plus order at a level of intensity that is almost shocking, except that it's also (you might say) happy because it's so coherent. Right afterwards, I thought, "I wish Coltrane could have lived to hear this."

The actual recordings are not accessible to me right now, but I recall that the CBS LP drawn from this material sounded better than the Lonehill. The music can be made out, and at best it's incredible. Here's something I wrote when the LP came out: Live at the Beehive is one of jazz’s delayed explosions. Recorded at a South Side Chicago club on November 7, 1955, the group heard here was co-led by Clifford Brown, the young trumpet master who would die in an auto accident the following year, and Max Roach, the dominant percussionist of the bebop era. Also present were bassist George Morrow, tenorman Sonny Rollins (who would soon leave town as a member of the band), and three Chicagoans--tenorman Nicky Hill, guitarist Leo Blevins, and pianist Billy Wallace. The wide-open jam session that took place that night was captured by Roach on a home tape machine, and until now, the music has been heard only by the people who were at the Beehive and by a few of the drummer’s friends. Deeply wounded by Brown’s death, Roach long found himself unable to contemplate the music that reminded him of his loss, and the mediocre sound quality of the tape seemed to preclude commercial release. But Roach finally gave in to those who told him that the Beehive session had to be heard. And it turns out that the refurbished tape is more than listenable; anyone familiar with these musicians will be able to fill in the missing elements in the aural landscape. Compared with Live at the Beehive, even the best of the Brown-Roach combo’s studio work sounds restrained. Immediately striking is the change one hears in Brown’s playing. In a tragically brief career that ended when he was only twenty-five, Brown became known for his mellow, butter-smooth tone and his ability to construct seemingly endless lyrical lines. And yet, as lovely as it was, his music at times seemed limited by its loveliness, which could became sweet and cute. But the Clifford Brown heard on Live at the Beehive is virtually another man, a savagely adventurous virtuoso who repeatedly rises into the trumpet’s topmost register to create patterns that seem to have been etched in space by a needle-sharp flame. Brown excels on every one of the album’s five tracks, but he surpasses himself on a twenty-minute version of “Cherokee.” The tune, traditionally used to separate the men from the boys, is taken at a lightning tempo, which forces Brown’s lyricism to the point of no return. Eventually, he finds himself stabbing out phrases whose content would be purely rhythmic if it were not for the way his sense of tone and attack makes each note of the design vibrate with melodic meaning. It is Roach who spurs Brown to these dangerous heights, and in the process, the drummer surpasses himself, too. Neither before nor since has he played with such abandon, and often it sounds as though two or three drummers must be at work. This multiple-player effect comes, in part, from the way Roach has tuned his drum kit. Several years before the Beehive session, he began to adjust his instruments to precise pitches. As a result Roach’s playing became filled with tympani-like effects, as though he were trying to make the drums into a melodic voice. During that same period, though, a certain sobriety crept into his work, perhaps because Roach had to exert conscious control over his new resources. But at the Beehive session, all the wraps were off. Roach’s explosive solo on “Cherokee” is the most startling display on the album, but in no way does he slight his role as an accompanist. Brown’s solos are inseparable from Roach’s support, and the drummer creates inventive patterns behind every player at every tempo from the mercurial “Cherokee” on down to the medium groove of “Walkin’.” Although the album includes skillful playing from Blevins and Wallace, the other major point of interest is the contrast between Sonny Rollins and Nicky Hill. Rollins, who was just about to establish himself as the dominant tenorman in jazz, is in generally fine form. But Hill, who precedes Rollins on ‘I’ll Remember April” and follows him on “Walkin’,” more than holds his own. An eccentrically individualistic player who died in 1965, Hill was a master of oblique construction; and his solos are surprisingly prophetic of developments to come. Particularly on “Walkin’,” he ends phrases by extending a note until its harmonic meaning becomes more and more ambiguous, an insistence on the purely linear that foreshadows early Ornette Coleman.

You're saying 'routine' might be a noun and a verb? This is more complicated that I thought ... Yes -- as in "First I play the melody, then I vary it, then I vary the variation."

Got it -- all of it, I think. Hope that jerk doesn't come back.

I'm glad I asked. Just listened again while trying to sort out who's who, and I recommend it as in interim step because it naturally leads to hearing the four parts both individually and as a whole. For instance, in Section One I had a bit of trouble finding Threadgill at first (his part is often near-chalemeau-ish and the calmest), but when I did find him it was like I was hearing a third more of everything than I had before -- e.g. it's now clear that parts of Section One that I thought were all Roscoe actually are Roscoe and Wallace McMillian tightly interweaving. Also, finding Threadgill and then reconnecting with the whole made Section One seem surprisingly unhectic, almost lyrical, which was quite a switch. The music just opens up when you "see" the four players.

Thanks. Will listen again with that in mind. What an incredible performance. Can't imagine the sense of satisfaction that everyone must have felt, though I can just see Roscoe being very take-care-of business afterwards, packing up the parts, saying "Thank you," etc. BTW, Roscoe's musical notation (reproduced in the booklet) is very beautiful/expressive -- the ink strokes seems to wriggle with energy, everything clear but urgent.

Arrived today -- many thanks, Chuck, for doing it in the first place and for doing all this now. Began by playing the saxophone quartet "Nonaah" because I know it well. The gain in clarity is startling, but that prompts a question, which you probably can answer unless there's a reason not to: In the final section, there is almost certainly a fair amount of room for individual embellishment by each player within the bounds of what's given (the details of these embellishments/variations being significantly more audible now). So I'm wondering, who is who from left to right? Assuming that the recording set-up reproduced the seating arrangement as indicted on the title page of the score, it would be Alto III, left; Altos I and II, center; and Alto IV, right. I could take a reasonable guess (Roscoe himself being readily identifiable, I think; he's the most rhythmically abrupt, prominent, lower-register protagonist in section one of the whole work, no?) but would rather know for sure.

I agree, but sadly it's hard to tell on my LP, which never sounded even decent (the pressing no doubt). A RVG remaster would be lovely.

Good points, Duke City -- which means I agree with them. Also agree that "Poor Butterfly" is right up there with "Serenata" -- the latter is the one I think of first because plenty of people have played "Poor Butterfly" but no one else AFAIK has played "Serenata," which also has, like most Anderson, grim associations if you lived through the '50s ("The Typewriter"? "The Syncopated Clock"?)

The problem (if that's the way to put it) is that Cannonball's "overly florid" streak is inseparable (or not easily separable) from his virtues. "Dancing in the Dark" is an example of this (though not perhaps a perfect one); a perfect example IMO would be "Serenata" from "Cannonball Takes Charge." Cannonball digs Leroy Anderson from the inside out; indeed, the genius of this performance is that it imposes no framework of finger-popping hipness or whatever on the Anderson vibe but instead homes in on its Straussian (Johann, not Richard or Leo) blend of musicality, sweetness, and lilting sentiment; Cannonball had that in him, deeply, and if at times things get out of control and one feels like gagging, there it is -- virtually inseparable. Anyone for "Lisbon Antigua"? As for Allen's point about Miles nagging Cannonball about his harmonic blandness and Cannonball taking Miles advice to use more "advanced" chord substitutions, to my mind this led (at least when Cannonball was with Miles) to the most unsuccessful, disjointed (one kind of musical diction butting up against another, to the detriment of both) playing of Cannonball's entire career. "Autumn Leaves" arguably is as fine as any solo Cannonball ever recorded; maybe I'm deaf, but I don't hear a significant chord substitution throughout; the solo, in harmonic terms, almost could have been played by Benny Carter (that's not to say that Carter is harmonically unsophisticated but that he would have shunned the kind of "hip" harmonic babbling that Cannonball gets into on, say, much of the contemporaneous Columbia album "Milestones"). Also, I always thought that it was Coltrane's example that lured Cannonball into what was (for him) a morass.

Harold Danko, who I felt for many years had a lot of Hines in him, turns out to have been a longtime Hines fan and did a trio album of Hines pieces "Hinesight" (Steeplechase) in 2005. The liner notes speak touchingly of a live Hines festival performance in Europe in the 1970s that turned the young Danko (himself playing at the festival with Thad and Mel) from a respectful admirer to a stunned devotee. The album includes many seldom played (even by Hines) works, including his first recorded composition "Congaine" (1923), which as Danko indicates includes a striking pre-echo of Bud Powell.

I'd be curious what anyone with experience in the jazz record business feels about Tapscott's account of what went down at this session, especially the part about actually bringing his rehearsal band to the studio. I don't doubt that there was serious static of some sort somewhere along the line, but I can't imagine an experienced producer like Don Schlitten actually hiring the musicians he did (and a good number of them, too) if he had any thought that a whole other band was going to show up. The possibilities for chaos boggle the mind. BTW, I review "Sonny's Dream" for Down Beat when it came out, gave it ****1/2 out of *****.

There are some topnotch late Hines solo albums on the Australian label Swaggie, including an album of compositions by Dave Dallwitz.

Giuffre, yes, up to a point in time (1959, probably, when he tried to incorporate Rollins almost wholesale, with strange though sometimes interesting results); Holman almost never IMO, though his sound was softer early on than it became.

Yes. Got so wrapped up I forget to add the link.

-- bassist and drummer could be Arvell Shaw and Roy Burns. Lord, how this thing comes off! Everyone in great form -- really listening to each other, very relaxed. Notice that the most recent comment is from Stafford and Paul Weston's daughter, who says that this is among the clips they watched after returning from her mother's funeral. Stafford's phrasing is so trumpet-like, a la Louis. Ella's "I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues" would convince even those who are normally indifferent to her. Too bad there's no solo space for Norvo or Wilson, though they're quite audible and playing major roles. BG and HJ are all caught up in it, too -- the latter so "in there" emotionally as well as musically.

Pianist is Milcho Leviev, a native of Bulgaria: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milcho_Leviev best-known for his stint with the Don Ellis Orchestra. Given Leviev's Bulgarian background, Ellis' odd meters were nothing that new to him.

Fine remembrance that Michael Weiss contributed to Doug Ramsey's Rifftides: http://www.artsjournal.com/rifftides/ I particuarly liked: "On the gig, he listened closely to the rhythm section as we worked our stuff out in our solos. He especially delighted in listening to us wrestle through a particular musical idea. During such occasions, I might look up and see Johnny with his eyes aglow and a big smile. He enjoyed the creative struggle and he was along with you for the ride. (My emphasis)

Thursday night, with a terrific roadhouse cheeseburger and fries at a genuine roadhouse that opened in 1950, Killian's Irish Red. Last night, with dinner, a glass of Gravina 2005. This morning, coffee.

Where are EDC's good wishes?

Far be it from me to explain what You Must Be is saying, but I think I understand and agree with him. Within what guys who were thinking within a "changes" framework at the time were thinking and doing, LaFaro made lots of harmonic choices (notes and phrases) that were without much if any precedent in jazz this side of, say, Bob Graettinger -- and unlike Graettinger, those choices weren't intended to (and didn't) sound weird, just right and new, and they also managed to link up well with what the other people who were playing with LaFaro were doing. The stunning nature of the best of LaFaro remains so for me; yet what he did was also, though this sounds contradictory, very much of its time and place (and also, arguably, a bit "precious"). The best evidence of this probably is the way LaFaro sounds with Ornette. Without the relative stability of framework that Bill Evans gave him (i.e. LaFaro always knew that harmonically and rhythmically he'd be to the "outside" of Evans if he wanted to be) -- or to put the other way, within the at once more fluid and more basic world of Ornette -- LaFaro's inventions just don't "speak" very well, don't have that "I'm pushing way off from this" quality that his language relies on. On the other hand, though I don't recall the source, I believe that Ornette has said (surprisingly to me) that LaFaro was his favorite bassist. About the weakness of LaFaro's sound in a club without a mike, I don't have any personal experience but that certainly sounds likely. I did hear Red Mitchell in a club in about 1962, though (Mitchell being one of LaFaro's precursors), expecting something "booming" from the way Mitchell sounded on record, and he was almost inaudible. About the "cheating" thing -- if I had to choose, I'd pick Wilbur Ware over LaFaro, but I don't have to choose. Also, LaFaro certainly wasn't trying to trick anyone by setting up the instrument the way he did; he was going for something he wanted to hear. As for whether the other guys on the stand could hear him, the interaction on the Evans Vangaurd recordings makes it clear that Evans and Motian could pretty well, somehow -- if not, they were mind readers. Another thing about the time and place aspect of LaFaro -- while his influence was vast for a good long time, affecting many thousands of bassists around the world, I don't even need all the fingers of one hand to count the players who were influenced by him or in the same bag right alongside him whose playing IMO had the quality of genuine, febrile ecstasy that was the rationale for the whole thing: the young Gary Peacock, Albert Stinson, and Russell Thorne.

The saxophone quartet (four altos) version of "Nonaah" is one of the great works of the 20th Century -- by any standard, in any musical genre. Tough you could say it is because it certainly is forceful, but it's also exquisitely efficient, not a moment that doesn't count, and it all adds up, climactically. In this it reminds a bit of Stravinsky's Octet (a work I never tire off). And there's much more here (the opening solo "Nonaah"!), some of which will be new to most everyone but Chuck and Roscoe.

From memory: The flowering plum out the front-door window sends whiteness inside my house -- Charles Olson, excerpt from "Maximus Poems" Also from memory, though I had to look to see where the dashes go and what words are capitalized, what I think of as Emily Dickinson's Bix poem: I would not talk, like Cornets— I'd rather be the One Raised softly to the Ceilings— And out, and easy on— Through Villages of Ether— Myself endued Balloon By but a lip of Metal— The pier to my Pontoon— I would not paint—a picture— I'd rather be the One Its bright impossibility To dwell—delicious—on— And wonder how the fingers feel Whose rare—celestial—stir— Evokes so sweet a Torment— Such sumptuous—Despair— Nor would I be a Poet— It's finer—own the Ear— Enamored—impotent—content— The License to revere, A privilege so awful What would the Dower be, Had I the Art to stun myself With Bolts of Melody!

If you mean Yusef Lateef, the net is being cast pretty wide. Why not throw in Lockjaw?

I mentioned Ammons and Wardell. I would disagree that the guys who followed the so-called "light" side of Pres and also were just-plain good were not in touch with the nuances/inflections as well as the tone. Yes, there were ways to get a lot more muscular with it than, say, "Long Island Sound" Getz did, but to take Jacquet for example, what he did was meld Pres and Herschel Evans. Likewise, Von Freeman has stated that he tried to amalgamate (or whatever) Pres and Hawkins, which is hard not to hear in him. Ammons, I would guess, might have dug him some Chu Berry. Hey, has anyone mentioned Stitt? Lots of Pres in him. In any case, I think what the "light" guys got (at least for a while) was kind of Pres to the exclusion of a whole lot else in music or even in life -- as though Pres were a form of enlightenment, a new religion. He was, right? The thing was, to perhaps touch upon what Jim is saying, a lot of these guys were in need of enlightenment (as in relief/release).