Oscar Peterson album for those who don't like much OP

[Joe]

 

[Milestones]

When I want to hear some really marvelous Oscar, I always put on "If You Only Knew" from the album Live (1986).  It's just beautiful, and no one will convince me otherwise.

Also, a big thumbs up to the post-stroke record The More I See You.

 

[Peter Friedman]

It is definitely interesting to see the range of opinions being expressed here. 

As a person who enjoys Oscar Peterson's playing, I find it odd how certain other piano players get high marks while i find much of what they

play rather uninteresting / boring / dull.

Though it goes against the prevailing opinions here, i much prefer to listen to Monty Alexander than Mal Waldron .

A few of Waldron's early Prestige Trio albums are ok, but his later recordings are not for me.

Also, his many sideman appearances on Prestige hard bop sessions always puzzled me. With so many other piano players

around such as Duke Jordan, Al Haig, Tommy Flanagan,Kenny Drew, Barry Harris, Ray Bryant, Hank Jones, Richard Wyands, and others, why Waldron

 was on so many records made little sense to me.

Also have to admit that while I have a lot of Red Garland's records, I never saw him as an A level jazz piano player.

His trio records are pleasant and make for good background music,  but I rarely found his solos more that ok.

I will take the ones I just listed along with Horace Silver, Cedar Walton, Kenny Barron, Lou Levy, Frank Strazzeri and John Lewis

over Mal Waldron and Red Garland every time. Just my personal opinion.

[Milestones]

Well, Maldron probably had more cache since almost from the start he was fairly prolific as a composer.  And starting around 1960 he started to show real originality.  His own album The Quest is superb, and of course one should hear his work with Dolphy and Little on the Five Spot records.   

Later Maldron, though I'm not much familiar with it, doesn't do much for me.

 

[Larry Kart]

It is definitely interesting to see the range of opinions being expressed here. 

As a person who enjoys Oscar Peterson's playing, I find it odd how certain other piano players get high marks while i find much of what they

play rather uninteresting / boring / dull.

Though it goes against the prevailing opinions here, i much prefer to listen to Monty Alexander than Mal Waldron .

A few of Waldron's early Prestige Trio albums are ok, but his later recordings are not for me.

Also, his many sideman appearances on Prestige hard bop sessions always puzzled me. With so many other piano players

around such as Duke Jordan, Al Haig, Tommy Flanagan,Kenny Drew, Barry Harris, Ray Bryant, Hank Jones, Richard Wyands, and others, why Waldron

 was on so many records made little sense to me.

Also have to admit that while I have a lot of Red Garland's records, I never saw him as an A level jazz piano player.

His trio records are pleasant and make for good background music,  but I rarely found his solos more that ok.

I will take the ones I just listed along with Horace Silver, Cedar Walton, Kenny Barron, Lou Levy, Frank Strazzeri and John Lewis

over Mal Waldron and Red Garland every time. Just my personal opinion.

Mal probably was on those Prestige hard bop dates more for his I assume level-headed organizational and "You need a line? Give me five minutes" compositional abilities (also his not being a drug user?) than for his piano work. Maybe Weinstock got along with him?

[uli]

am just listening to this inspired by this thread .

even after his prestige gig Mal Waldron got recorded a lot. with good reasons imo.

Edited August 31, 2015 by uli
intened to post in the now listening thread

[HutchFan]

Well, Maldron probably had more cache since almost from the start he was fairly prolific as a composer.  And starting around 1960 he started to show real originality.  His own album The Quest is superb, and of course one should hear his work with Dolphy and Little on the Five Spot records.   

Later Maldron, though I'm not much familiar with it, doesn't do much for me.

To me, Mal Waldron's best, most interesting work begins after his move to Europe.

IMHO, the music he recorded for Enja and Black Saint (and other Euro & Japanese labels) FAR surpasses anything he did for Prestige. And I love those Prestige sides! Not just his own stuff -- but also his backing for Jackie Mac, Gene Ammons, et al. I just think Waldron's music from the early 70s -- and onward -- is even stronger.

I think he grew artistically after he became an ex-pat. Based on the Waldron interviews I've read, it seems clear that kicking the habit had a lot to do with his maturation as an artist.

Milestone, of course you're free to hear things differently.  It's just my take.

Edited August 31, 2015 by HutchFan

[Larry Kart]

At some point in the late '70s or early '80s, I caught Waldron backing Stitt at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago. His comping was inspirational; it clearly had a big effect on Sonny. Talked to Waldron between sets, told him how glad I was that he'd returned to Europe for a visit. He couldn't have been nicer.

So, per those interviews Hutch Fan mentioned, Mal was a user in the '50s? That he wasn't was just my optimistic guess. OTOH, user though he was back then, I'd bet that his life wasn't as rampantly disordered as that of some of his colleagues.

[JSngry]

Mal Waldron is like the guy who prepares all the data, Oscar Peterson is like the guy who goes on the Today Show to chat about it with Kathie Lee & Hoda.

Oh, speaking of Monty Alexander, has anybody here heard his debut albums on Pacific Jazz from way back when? They were both in the Treasure City cutout bins back in the day, but I never got around to it. But, trios with Victor Gaskin & Paul Humphrey...time/place, maybe ok, all things considering?

[HutchFan]

At some point in the late '70s or early '80s, I caught Waldron backing Stitt at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago. His comping was inspirational; it clearly had a big effect on Sonny. Talked to Waldron between sets, told him how glad I was that he'd returned to Europe for a visit. He couldn't have been nicer.

So, per those interviews Hutch Fan mentioned, Mal was a user in the '50s? That he wasn't was just my optimistic guess. OTOH, user though he was back then, I'd bet that his life wasn't as rampantly disordered as that of some of his colleagues.

Larry,

I just did a little poking around and found one of the interviews I mentioned. This particular one is by Ted Panken. (Full text here.)

 

I would like to ask one thing, and please decline to answer if it’s too personal.  That’s the circumstances of your leaving America and the illness you had in the ’60s.  Is there anything you can say about it for the purposes of this article?

Well, I left America, because at that time every jazz musician was called a junkie, automatically, and after a while it got to the point where if you had the name you just had to have the game, too.  So I started using drugs, and I took an overdose, and I was out for about 6 or 7 months, in East Elmhurst Hospital, and they gave me shock treatments and spinal taps and all kinds of things to relieve the pressure on my mind, to get my memory back, because I couldn’t remember where I was, I couldn’t remember anything about the piano or anything.

You lost your memory from it?

Yes.  And I lost my coordination.  My hands were shaking all the time; I couldn’t keep time.  So then I got out of there, and when I got out of there, Marcel Carne asked me about writing music in Paris, and I said, “Of course!  Let’s go!  Let me get out of this.”  Then I got to Europe, and I found in Europe there was so much respect and love for me that I didn’t need any drugs.  I didn’t need any drugs at all.

So you didn’t get involved in it in the earlier years?  Did it happen later as an accumulation of being fed up?

Well, it happened when I was working with Charlie Mingus in the Bohemia, from as early as that. [1955]

Then it just built and built.

Built and built, yes.

For someone who was doing that, you were sure functioning on a pretty high level!  Not to use a pun.

I thought I had control of this horse! [LAUGHS] I would bring him out at night, and have him open in the daytime and put him away at night, and I thought I had him covered.  And all of a sudden, he snuck up on me and knocked me down!

 

In quoting this, I intend no disrespect whatsoever to Waldron. Just want to show that Europe represented an "out" for him, a kind of escape.

Happily, he thrived there. And I think you can hear it in the music.

[danasgoodstuff]

the key to understanding what's wrong with OP is found in the realization that I had while watching a program one night on Educational TV with Peterson and Andre Previn. They did a piano duet, and could not be told apart.

I think it might be a Maine / Canada rivalry.

That's funny...

[AllenLowe]

actually Maine, as a completely idiot place, cannot rival anyone.

[clifford_thornton]

Whenever I see OP, thankfully I always think of Oscar Pettiford.

[king ubu]

Later Mal Waldron is some of the deepest shit there is.

[HutchFan]

Later Mal Waldron is some of the deepest shit there is.

And the congregation said, "AMEN!!!"

[Milestones]

Coming back to Oscar, I wonder if there is a similar split on Joe Pass.  Both had chops galore, and they met up many times.  But some would regard the work by both men as too facile, too lacking in original compositions (I would say Oscar has the composition edge), too enamored of the past--working with or playing music by Duke, Count Basie, Clark Terry, Ella, Roy Eldridge, etc. 

[mjzee]

Coming back to Oscar, I wonder if there is a similar split on Joe Pass.  Both had chops galore, and they met up many times.  But some would regard the work by both men as too facile, too lacking in original compositions (I would say Oscar has the composition edge), too enamored of the past--working with or playing music by Duke, Count Basie, Clark Terry, Ella, Roy Eldridge, etc. 

I'm not sure Pass wrote much of anything other than standard blues.  Solo Pass can be trite or sleepy, but with a band he could really burn with substance.  Check out Live at Donte's.  As for the "too enamored of the past" -- I'd blame Norman Granz, who pushed most of his artists in that direction.  Sweet Georgia Brown, anyone?

[Larry Kart]

Here's a review I wrote back in 1986 of a Joe Pass solo gig:

"Endlessly fascinating to his fellow guitarists, who flock to his performances like moths to a flame, Joe Pass otherwise seems a rather strange figure: a onetime jazz improviser (and, on occasion, still a very good one) who has turned himself into a navel-gazing virtuoso.

Now virtuosity, as an end in itself, is seldom found in jazz--or at least not among the major players. While Art Tatum and Charlie Parker, to name the most obvious examples, were astonishing technicians, their music both generated and consumed their executive skills, leaving no idea or flourish that was merely decorative.

But for Pass, who again wasn`t always this way, decoration is the name of the game. Typically he picks sweet, familar pop tunes (``I`ll Remember April,`` ``Polka Dots and Moonbeams,`` ``Just the Way You Are,`` ``Satin Doll`` etc.) and proceeds to state and restate them--draping them in cobwebs of subtle chords and throwing in an occasional bluesy run.

What is missing, though, is any sense of linear invention, any feeling that the original melodic impulse of the songs Pass likes to play has stirred a new melodic idea in his own mind. (From that point of view, those bluesy licks are quite revealing, for they have much the same shape, no matter what piece Pass is performing.)

Of course that is the reaction of a nonguitarist; and it should be said that most of the crowd that gathered Tuesday night at the Jazz Showcase seemed to be awed by the octopus-like ease with which Pass flowed over his instrument.

But even from the standpoint of the instrument, one has doubts about the final value of Pass` music.

Because most of the tunes he plays were not conceived for the guitar, much of his energy seems to be wrapped up in making them sound guitaristic. An Ivan Lins bossa nova was an exception to this rule, and it may have been no accident that this was the most intense performance of the evening."

A day or two later I received a violently angry letter from one of Chicago's better guitarists, saying, in effect, "How dare you?"

 

[JSngry]

I think that Pass on PJ and Pass on Pablo were two different things, really. Something happened to his time in the interim, it seemed that he started playing more on top of the beat, at times almost rushing,

[Milestones]

Joe seemed to have so much potential, yet I would put so many other mainstream guitarists ahead of him--Kenny Burrell, Jim Hall, Wes, Grant Green, Pat Martino.

[Big Beat Steve]

But even from the standpoint of the instrument, one has doubts about the final value of Pass` music.

Because most of the tunes he plays were not conceived for the guitar, much of his energy seems to be wrapped up in making them sound guitaristic.

 

But isn't that - adapting nonguitar material to the guitar a way of covering new ground too? And who is to fault him for reworking teh source material that way? So who is anyone to blame a musician for going down that road?

 

No, I am not that much of a Joe Pass fan either, maybe for "virtuoso" reasons too (give me Tal Farlow anytime for improvising mastery of the instrument) but don't quite get what you fault him for if you admit the above. Value of the music is not only found in just making noises that nobody has consciously made before and then calling it "innovation" either.

 

 

[Larry Kart]

But even from the standpoint of the instrument, one has doubts about the final value of Pass` music.

Because most of the tunes he plays were not conceived for the guitar, much of his energy seems to be wrapped up in making them sound guitaristic.

 

But isn't that - adapting nonguitar material to the guitar a way of covering new ground too? And who is to fault him for reworking teh source material that way? So who is anyone to blame a musician for going down that road?

 

No, I am not that much of a Joe Pass fan either, maybe for "virtuoso" reasons too (give me Tal Farlow anytime for improvising mastery of the instrument) but don't quite get what you fault him for if you admit the above. Value of the music is not only found in just making noises that nobody has consciously made before and then calling it "innovation" either.

 

 

My point was that "much of his energy seems to be wrapped up in making them sound guitaristic." Perhaps I should have said "too much of his energy." As I said just before that, "What is missing [in my opinion] is any sense of linear invention, any feeling that the original melodic impulse of the songs Pass likes to play has stirred a new melodic idea in his own mind." Don't see what that has to do with 'just making noises that nobody has consciously made before and then calling it "innovation."' Rather, it is the minimum one expects/desires when listening to most jazz players.

Yet again, it was my sense that Pass had turned himself into the host of a guitar seminar. If that's what one wants, as a listener or the host, then go for it. But I found it at once odd and notable that a talented jazz musician would take that direction. It was as though (name your favorite jazz pianist) had decided to turn himself into Don Shirley.

[Big Beat Steve]

My point was that covering new ground can go into many directions, not necessarily the direction that one wants or expects as a listener but often the ones the artist sees fit to pursue. And even if his concert(s) at that time turned into a sort of guitar seminar and if (budding or active) guitarists in the audience were all fascinated, then why not ... there must be an audience for this kind of performance there after all ... One man's meat ...

Besides, MANY musicians have gone down that route, haven't they? I am not sure about Don Shirley and his pianistic chops (the name rings a bell though I can't be bothered now to check the internet to see to what extent the mentioning of this name may have a condescending undertone or not) but isn't it often the case that artists who know their instrument inside out resort to fireworks on that instrument every now and then? How many pianists (particularly in the jazz field) have been out there who have been BLAMED for being "too pianistic" and therefore not jazz-imbued enough? Knowing how to handle their instrument too WELL? Maybe that's what I was thinking of when I spoke of those "noises". Though the comparison may lead off-topic, haven't there been many free players who had nowhere near the chops that many non-free jazz musicians had on that particular instrument but were lauded for every "off" tone ("off" by non-free criteria) they produced for "charting new territory", though somehow I have a hard time believing this always was the result of someone having really exhausted (by playing) every possible non-free music to be played on his instrument and THEN moving onwards into exploring something "new" and not just as often a case of "I can't play in tune, if I do I play beeps and goof notes, so I'll go all goof and join the free crowd". (Yes I am exagerating, but not totally ...)

Edited September 1, 2015 by Big Beat Steve

[Milestones]

Any takes on Oscar Peterson the organist?  I've got some records where he plays some organ, and he seems to play it more than piano on the duo record with Roy Eldridge.  He doesn't seem determined to be showy on organ.

[Larry Kart]

My point was that covering new ground can go into many directions, not necessarily the direction that one wants or expects as a listener but often the ones the artist sees fit to pursue. And even if his concert(s) at that time turned into a sort of guitar seminar and if (budding or active) guitarists in the audience were all fascinated, then why not ... there must be an audience for this kind of performance there after all ... One man's meat ...

Besides, MANY musicians have gone down that route, haven't they? I am not sure about Don Shirley and his pianistic chops (the name rings a bell though I can't be bothered now to check the internet to see to what extent the mentioning of this name may have a condescending undertone or not) but isn't it often the case that artists who know their instrument inside out resort to fireworks on that instrument every now and then? How many pianists (particularly in the jazz field) have been out there who have been BLAMED for being "too pianistic" and therefore not jazz-imbued enough? Knowing how to handle their instrument too WELL? Maybe that's what I was thinking of when I spoke of those "noises". Though the comparison may lead off-topic, haven't there been many free players who had nowhere near the chops that many non-free jazz musicians had on that particular instrument but were lauded for every "off" tone ("off" by non-free criteria) they produced for "charting new territory", though somehow I have a hard time believing this always was the result of someone having really exhausted (by playing) every possible non-free music to be played on his instrument and THEN moving onwards into exploring something "new" and not just as often a case of "I can't play in tune, if I do I play beeps and goof notes, so I'll go all goof and join the free crowd". (Yes I am exagerating, but not totally ...)

 

Again, my point was that a jazz guitarist of some considerable stature had decided to go down the route of, for want of a better term, "instrumental embroidery." Off the top of my head, I couldn't and can't think of a comparable jazz artist on any instrument who had done something similar -- and by that I don't mean BTW had taken a "pop" route, which is not I think what Pass had done. 

Fine for him, fine for those who dug it, but worth, I thought, noting in a review and weighing in on what I thought the losses of this change in approach might be. 

Don Shirley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5c_zu86SAI&index=9&list=PL7fwS1wWjrTs5UwT7XVfkxT9wXxrz6k2S

 

 

Edited September 1, 2015 by Larry Kart