Tubby Hayes/Jimmy Raney-Attila Zoller Duo

[Larry Kart]

Sorting through the Tubby Hayes that's on YouTube, I came across this interesting performance that finds Hayes with a Benny Golson-led big band and that features a solo by an interesting Rene Thomas-like guitarist, David Goldberg, that I've never heard of before:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srXtl0QQaJM

But this is astonishing:

Raney, for me, is one of the best improvisers ever, regardless of instrument. Also, dig his expressions and body language here. And the last note!

[Free For All]

But this is astonishing:

Raney, for me, is one of the best improvisers ever, regardless of instrument. Also, dig his expressions and body language here. And the last note!

A real sense of collaboration and an amazing mutual sense of time. Expansive harmonic vocabulary. Some great variations on the changes to I Love You.

Masters at work. Thanks for sharing that. I've got some students who need to check this out.

[DukeCity]

Thanks for those links. Great playing from everybody.

Tubby Hayes! Where the hell have I been? Pretty sure there is no TH in my collection, and I need to remedy that, pronto.

A quick check at Amazon shows several titles. Any recommendations?

Edit: to say that a search of our fine board turned up this thread and this other thread with some Tubby recommendations. So I have plenty of info to wade through. But of course, any further recs are welcome.

Edited January 22, 2008 by DukeCity

[Chas]

Tubby Hayes! Where the hell have I been? Pretty sure there is no TH in my collection, and I need to remedy that, pronto.

A quick check at Amazon shows several titles. Any recommendations?

Haven't heard the latest CD reissue of this one , but reports are that the sound quality leaves something to be desired : http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=22777

Lots more recommendations in this thread : http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=8888

[sidewinder]

What is astonishing about this brilliant recording - and that I recently read - is that only 750 were originally pressed on vinyl !

Anyone interested with a turntable is recommended to pick up the Japanese Fontana LP reissue, which sounds fine.

Dave Goldberg - Very fine London-based jazz/studio player of the 50s/60s, sadly long since passed. That Tubby video must be from the 'Jazz 625' recorded by Benny Golson with a UK orchestra largely comprising members of the Hayes and Dankworth big bands. Recorded 1964 I think - near the start of this series on the fledgling BBC2 channel.

Edited January 22, 2008 by sidewinder

[MartyJazz]

I've had a bootleg video of that "Jazz 625" show for quite a few years which I recently converted to DVD. It's a 35 minute show in which the orchestra performs 6 titles including Golson's own "I Remember Clifford" and Evans' "Waltz for Debbie". My copy is of lesser video quality than the You tube clip. Anyone know a source for getting any of those "Jazz 625" shows on commercial DVD?

[sidewinder]

I've had a bootleg video of that "Jazz 625" show for quite a few years which I recently converted to DVD. It's a 35 minute show in which the orchestra performs 6 titles including Golson's own "I Remember Clifford" and Evans' "Waltz for Debbie". My copy is of lesser video quality than the You tube clip. Anyone know a source for getting any of those "Jazz 625" shows on commercial DVD?

Many of the 'Jazz 625' series were sold on BBC video back in the 1990s but that series didn't include the Golson. I got my copy by making a video recording off of BBC2 back in about 1986, when they broadcast a whole load of them as part of a 'Jazz Week'. The intro was done by Steve Race, who was MC for the original show. Sadly, it's never been rebroadcast since, to the best of my knowledge (wake up BBC4 !)

Some of the '625' shows seem to have been issued recently on DVD by Andorran pirates but they are missing intros by Steve Race/Humphrey Littleton and don't have the intro/outro credits. Very annoying ! The job needs to be done legit (maybe Jazz Icons should be given the job?)

Edited January 22, 2008 by sidewinder

[BillF]

Thanks for those links. Great playing from everybody.

Tubby Hayes! Where the hell have I been? Pretty sure there is no TH in my collection, and I need to remedy that, pronto.

A quick check at Amazon shows several titles. Any recommendations?

Edit: to say that a search of our fine board turned up this thread and this other thread with some Tubby recommendations. So I have plenty of info to wade through. But of course, any further recs are welcome.

I never heard Tubby play better than on his New York Sessions with Clark Terry. IMHO, American rhythm sections gave him what he needed.

[MartyJazz]

Thanks for those links. Great playing from everybody.

Tubby Hayes! Where the hell have I been? Pretty sure there is no TH in my collection, and I need to remedy that, pronto.

A quick check at Amazon shows several titles. Any recommendations?

Edit: to say that a search of our fine board turned up this thread and this other thread with some Tubby recommendations. So I have plenty of info to wade through. But of course, any further recs are welcome.

I never heard Tubby play better than on his New York Sessions with Clark Terry. IMHO, American rhythm sections gave him what he needed.

There is one wonderful exception to what you say. In May '62, Hayes fronted a British quintet including Jimmy Deuchar on trumpet, for a live date at Ronnie Scott's in London. The material recorded is spread over two CDs, "Late Spot at Scott's" and "Down in the Village" on the ReDial label. Truly fabulous music with great arrangements - the version of "Johnny One Note" is truly hair raising (what I have left of it) - the best Hayes ever recorded IMO, and the rhythm section totally cooks. I've played this music for very knowledgeable friends and no one picks up on the fact that it's a non-American rhythm section.

[sidewinder]

Indeed. Gordon Beck and Alan Ganley who are on the 'Down In The Village' and 'Late Spot at Scott's' recordings, in particular, are World-Class. Didn't Ganley also live and record for some years in the US? (recording with Jim Hall and Art Farmer, among others).

Edited January 22, 2008 by sidewinder

[BillF]

Thanks for those links. Great playing from everybody.

Tubby Hayes! Where the hell have I been? Pretty sure there is no TH in my collection, and I need to remedy that, pronto.

A quick check at Amazon shows several titles. Any recommendations?

Edit: to say that a search of our fine board turned up this thread and this other thread with some Tubby recommendations. So I have plenty of info to wade through. But of course, any further recs are welcome.

I never heard Tubby play better than on his New York Sessions with Clark Terry. IMHO, American rhythm sections gave him what he needed.

There is one wonderful exception to what you say. In May '62, Hayes fronted a British quintet including Jimmy Deuchar on trumpet, for a live date at Ronnie Scott's in London. The material recorded is spread over two CDs, "Late Spot at Scott's" and "Down in the Village" on the ReDial label. Truly fabulous music with great arrangements - the version of "Johnny One Note" is truly hair raising (what I have left of it) - the best Hayes ever recorded IMO, and the rhythm section totally cooks. I've played this music for very knowledgeable friends and no one picks up on the fact that it's a non-American rhythm section.

Agreed. I have both of those albums and like them very much. But Tubbs is on record - in interview with Les Tomkins, if I remember correctly - expressing his misgivings about some British drummers of those days.

Edited January 22, 2008 by BillF

[BillF]

P.S. The Tomkins/Tubby interview is at http:/vzone.virgin.net/davidh.taylor/tubby1.htm

[paul secor]

Larry - Thanks for posting the Raney/Zoller video. Wonderful stuff! They were obviously playing for themselves and, for them, the audience wasn't there until they finished playing.

Time to listen to my Raney/Zoller duo LP.

Edited January 23, 2008 by paul secor

[Joe G]

Sorting through the Tubby Hayes that's on YouTube, I came across this interesting performance that finds Hayes with a Benny Golson-led big band and that features a solo by an interesting Rene Thomas-like guitarist, David Goldberg, that I've never heard of before:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srXtl0QQaJM

But this is astonishing:

Raney, for me, is one of the best improvisers ever, regardless of instrument. Also, dig his expressions and body language here. And the last note!

Thanks - I needed that.

[Larry Kart]

Sorry I screwed up the name -- it's Attila Zoller. (And now I've fixed it.) And I even met him once back in 1969, a nice guy. Here's a sweet-sad interview with him, done two weeks before he died in Jan. 1999:

http://www.vtjazz.org/about/attila_interview.html

[Larry Kart]

Here's Zoller with Jim Hall, Red Mitchell and Daniel Humair:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y64nasU3XKo

Some nice music, but it's annoying how much time is spent on tight shots of faces and fingers (some of them virtually meaningless and/or not particularly coordinated with what is being played) instead of, as in the Raney-Zoller video, just letting us see the guys play and interact.

[paul secor]

Sorry I screwed up the name -- it's Attila Zoller. (And now I've fixed it.) And I even met him once back in 1969, a nice guy. Here's a sweet-sad interview with him, done two weeks before he died in Jan. 1999:

http://www.vtjazz.org/about/attila_interview.html

Thanks for the heads up on the spelling - changed it on my post. I checked this time, and Zoller is correct, but somehow Zollar seemed right and still looks right to me.

[Kalo]

Thanks, Larry. Both of those clips are amazing!

[AllenLowe]

Zoller ran a summer jazz camp up in Massachusetts back in the late 1980s, as I recall; I stopped in once to see Bob Mover when he was doing some teaching there - Zoller was a very nice man, and could really play; a few years later I was working in a "free" quartet that had Steve Goldberg on trumpet, I was on alto, Andy Shapiro on synth, this guy Gagnon on something or other (funny, I can't remember what he played) - Zoller heard us and was very interested in having us play somewhere with his group, he even talked about touring, so I called him up; he was perfectly nice in generalities, as soon as I tried to ask about specific dates he got very strange, accused me of "hustling" him, and hung up on me - I had no idea what I had said -

ahhh, I love the music business -

[JSngry]

Mr. Hayes shows his trueness by how he unfolds his solo with all due naturalness and doesn't jump in playing licks and lines and too many fines, unlike so many other people, some of whom he shares that performance with, all of whom are just dandy players, but it is his Hayesness who makes it real.

[Larry Kart]

...fines?

[JSngry]

Yeah, as in lines that are fine.

But the Hayeser, man, he's the playser.

I really, really dig how he structures that solo. Check it out, everybody else is just linelinelineline (and that guitarist is either fully aware or wholly unaware that you breathe through your nose and not your fingers), and the pianist is sorta doing the same thing, although more with "swing" than with lines. Same thing only different, ya' know? But then tubby starts to play, and it's like, got a natural pace to it, thought, pause, elaboration, very conversational in a pleasant way, like having somebody talk with you, not at you. And it's all about not just chugging it all out. It's all about...just...letting it happen.

Now, I dig some Tubby Hayes more than other Tubby Hayes (but none of it less than "pretty damn good), but hey - this is A-Grade Tubby hayes in my book, made all the more impressive by the setting. Big band tenor playing is not like small group tenor playing, the pacing is different, as is how you relate your soloing to the inevitable ensembles that will come in behind and/or around you. You gotta set that up along with playing your own solo, and then you gotta know when to pull back but still stay on top if/when the backing starts getting gonzo. Not that many players have excelled at it (hell, I don't know that that many players even think about it any more, what with all the "rehearsal bands" and shit), but Tubby Hayes here gives a lesson about how to do it, and how to do other things as well.

It's a beautiful thing, it is.

[JSngry]

Put another way, up until Tubby starts to play, I was feeling compelled to just listen, with a little toe-tapping or whatever (props to whomever that bassist is). But when The Man began to play, hey, it started getting good to me and I started getting all dance-y and shit. Which is like just listening, only in 3-D.

Which is a good thing, for the same reason that respiration is better than holding one's breath, playing catch is better than throwing a ball into open air woth nobody on the other end, and defacting is better than being constipated. Gotta keep that good stuff cycling around, ya' know?

[DukeCity]

Yep, the pacing of TH's solo is a thing of beauty. And one of the things that makes it work for me is how good the rhythm section feels (and the band as well). Sometimes, playing tenor solos with a big band, you stand up and blow just because the chart tells you to. You "fill the spot" in the chart, sit back down and everybody moves on. Other times (and not as often as one would like) the band feels so good that you want to get up and play. And when you're in that place, you're less likely to "fall back" on playing a bunch of licky stuff.

Interesting conversation here between Tubby and Sal Nistico. Among other things they talk about the role of the big band tenor soloist, getting stuck in your own "bag", etc.

[Larry Kart]

Speaking of Sal and tenormen interacting with a big band, what say you of these with Sal? The first is with Basie, the next three with Herman, the last (not a video) is a long blues with a Detroit small group. It would have been nice to hear Tubby and Sal face off:

Jumpin' at the Woodside:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CRmsW6tuH0

Four Brothers (dig Joe Romano's eyes; here and even more so on "Hallelujah Time" below, he reminds of Sid Caesar's "Progress Hornsby"):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEPrs5DkzsM

Sister Sadie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbjK9TZ3vnQ

Hallelujah Time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_5GvWEqbL8

Blues:

http://jazzaudienceadvocates.org/musicians.htm