Playing Favorites: Reflections on Jazz of the Later 1940's

[sidewinder]

Benedetti Mosaic vinyl geek box set will be dug out today. 

[Big Beat Steve]

@BillF:
Sure, Bird towered high above the "rest" of most others but above the rest of many, many hack US jazzmen too.
Anyway ... Greenberg, Theselius and Ericson cerainly weren't "relatively minor" players overall. Not any more minor than many UK jazzmen from the Club 11 and Ronnie Scott club stable of that time too anyway. Still these "minor" players all made their welcome contributions.
And documented jazz ought to present the whole picture to the extent that it exists.

Edited March 15, 2020 by Big Beat Steve

[JSngry]

"Au Private" is/was pretty much a standard call for at least three decades!

As for KC Blues,...one of Bird's most memorable solos, I think, and although in now way a "composition" (or even a head), still, fedrtile ground for further engagement.

 

[Peter Friedman]

7 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

But Benedetti was an extreme case. Regrettably ...Solos without context are for geeks or maybe for extremely zealous musicologists but elsewhere ...?

I have a Storyville LP pressing of the concert and jam session recordings Bird made during his tour in Sweden in 1950. It wasn't edited THAT heavily but anoyingly anyway I am no sure if I am to consider this a favor for the listener or an insult, but liner notes scribe Lars Werner (a musician himself, and not the least figure in Swedish jazz of the 60s) explicitly stated that he cut out all the piano solos - by Gösta Theselius - no less (allegedly because the piano was too poorly recorded), and in "Body and Soul" he cut out solos by Rowland Greenberg (tp), Gösta Theselius (ts) - who certainly were no slouches either - and Lennart Nilsson (p). And besides Nilsson, Rolf Ericson (tp) had his solo cut out from "fine and Dandy" too. OTOH the INTERACTION between Bird and all these musicians would have been fascinating too (particularly considering the contemporary jazz paper reports of the jam sessions and how they propelled all the participants to creative heights in the company of Bird). Not a very satisfactory approach, particularly since the original recordings DID included everthing as it seems ... Even Bird idolatry can go too far ...

I am in agreement with Steve. For certain specific musical purposes, cutting out the soloists other than Bird may have been ok.. It may even have been a way to save money by conserving tape.

However at  the basic level, I do not find much pleasure in listening to those entire albums of Bird solos separate from the entire tune. 

[Gheorghe]

That´s why I like the "Bird at Savoy" material , and the CBS Albums "A Night at Birdland" "Summit at Birdland" and "Bird with Strings" so much….because they have the whole Thing, all the solos by so fanstastic musicians like Miles, Kenny Dorham, Fats, Al Haig, Bud and so on. 

And Maybe that´s why I didn´t buy that Dean Benedetti Mosaic set. Sometimes I regret I didn´t buy it since I have not seen it any more on the Mosaic catalog, but Maybe I would have listened to it one time and no more after that. 

About "Bird in Sweden". I have the Spotlite Double LP, I have not listened to it for a Long time. But @Big Beat Steve mentioned Body and Soul. I remember in the liner notes this is praised as being particularly fine, but as much as I remember it is one of the weakest and lousiest Things, I don´t know which local musicians they picked up, (since those on the other concert tracks Sound really fine), but here  on Body and Soul I have the Impression that from the beginning to the end they can´t decide what tempo to Play. Everybody is somewhere else…….at some Point they try double time but it doesn´t help it makes Things worse…….

[Big Beat Steve]

I have a single LP of these Swedish recordings (bought way back in 1983) so maybe your double LP includes the full tracks without any parts missing? (Must check that out eventually ...) As for the soloists, I mentioned those that liner note scribe Lars Werner indicated as having been edited out (he described these solos as "good but too long") but I haven't listend to the LP in a while so cannot say offhand to what extent the musicians ALL are "together". And as a simple listener I may inadvertently cut them more slack for this kind of jam session than a musician would.

[JSngry]

Alamac again!

[Gheorghe]

32 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Alamac again!

I have the Spotlite double LP. About my opinion that the Body & Soul is a mess, other opinions ? At least I have the impression that they are not together rhythmically at all. It´s the longest track on the album, the first side with the quintet with Rolf Ericson sounds good, Ericson somehow sounds similar to Red Rodney.....

[JSngry]

I just like the cover photo on the Alamac.

As far as who's together or not, hey, it's Sweeden, 1950. Just do the math. My expectations are different. What I'm listening for on stuff like this is not how well they play as much as it is what they're trying to play. What are they hearing? What does it appear that they THINK they are hearing?

Of course that's true at some level for most all music, but for stuff like this it seems to be more germane to the core of the experience.

[Big Beat Steve]

43 minutes ago, JSngry said:

As far as who's together or not, hey, it's Sweeden, 1950. Just do the math. My expectations are different. What I'm listening for on stuff like this is not how well they play as much as it is what they're trying to play. What are they hearing? What does it appear that they THINK they are hearing?

True enough and a fair criterion to be taken into account (that needs to be pointed out to many who approach such historical discussions with the blindness of hindsight ) , but at any rate the Swedish (modern) jazz scene of c. 1950 was second to none in Europe. On the whole the UK most certainly was not more inventive/original/creative/accomplished.

[BillF]

Now listening.

You can't get much better than this!

Hope there's room on that desert island for yet another!

[jazzcorner]

1 hour ago, BillF said:

 

Hope there's room on that desert island for yet another!

 

Here they are:

 

 

and...

1 hour ago, BillF said:

 

 

 

 

Edited March 17, 2020 by jazzcorner

[Gheorghe]

On 16.3.2020 at 10:39 AM, JSngry said:

Alamac again!

 

 

..great picture

[Big Beat Steve]

16 minutes ago, Gheorghe said:

..great picture

OK, so here are a couple more from that tour:

A nice pic from the reception at Bromma airport where Charlie Parker was welcomed with a bouquet of flowers which touched him very much. From left: Charlie Parker, Roy Eldridge, and Rolf Ericson behind the two.

The initial idea was to have the entire Arne Domnérus-Rolf Ericson band accompany Parker but in the end he just wanted to use Rolf Ericson - who did not have an easy job keeping up with the terribly high tempos.

Parker did not get many moments of rest as the Swedish musicans kept asking him lots of questions. Here is a snapshot from the hotel room with Gunnar Räjarn Nyberg, Rolf Ericson and Yngve Akerberg.

 

 

[JSngry]

That bottom picture is rather, uh...unsettling. Especially since it looks like there are electric cords connected to the chair.

[Gheorghe]

@Big Beat Steve: Thanks for sharing those Wonderful pictures with us ! 

I Always thought I have a lot of Parker pics, since I have the very rare "Chan Parker-Francis Paudras" book "To Bird with Love", but those photos were completely unknown to me. 

About Rolf Ericson and his hard Job playing the fast tempos: He really mastered it very well. 

I remember how this feeling is , since when I was 18 and attended a live Show at some fine club,  I asked to "sit in" with some really fast company (or someone joked and said "want to sit in, kid?" ) and oh Boy, they did "Move" at the really fast tempo and I was afraid that I might get lost, but somehow I got thru……. some of my first memories on stage…...

[Gheorghe]

Here´s a ´pic of the photo-documents book I have mentioned

[Peter Friedman]

This is a book I have.

[BillF]

21 minutes ago, Peter Friedman said:

This is a book I have.

Do you recommend it, Peter?

[Peter Friedman]

1 hour ago, BillF said:

Do you recommend it, Peter?

Yes definitely. It is a book that any serious fan of Bird ought to have. It is a large size book 128 pages long.

The text by Gary Giddens is well written and gives a good picture of Bird from when he was a child through his death.

The book is filled with countless photos, mainly of Bird, but also of many othermusicians.

[Chuck Nessa]

8 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

Here´s a ´pic of the photo-documents book I have mentioned

I have one of those in mint condition - except - the glue binding dried, cracked and freed a bunch of the pages. I ordered it when issued and it was mailed from France. It cracked upon opening. I have been afraid to explore the contents and put it back in the box. It is even in the shipping box.

Edited March 19, 2020 by Chuck Nessa

[BillF]

Thanx for the prompt, David!

And those titles! "Tonsillectomy", "Dalvatore Sally", "Boyd Meets Stravinsky", "Little Boyd Blue" 

[Gheorghe]

One of my alltime favourites Billy Eckstine .......does he get some love here too ? 

This one is incredible and other than the National Sides you don´t have "only" the focus on Eckstine´s wonderful baritone voice, but really have a chance to hear the band blowin some hot stuff. And it´s great for Fats Navarro fans since you have some great solos he does, like let´s say "Airmail Special". 

We spinned this LP very often as soon as it came out. 

[sidewinder]

23 minutes ago, Gheorghe said:

One of my alltime favourites Billy Eckstine .......does he get some love here too ? 

This one is incredible and other than the National Sides you don´t have "only" the focus on Eckstine´s wonderful baritone voice, but really have a chance to hear the band blowin some hot stuff. And it´s great for Fats Navarro fans since you have some great solos he does, like let´s say "Airmail Special". 

We spinned this LP very often as soon as it came out. 

Is that ‘Airmail Special’ the one with the Ernie ‘Bubbles’ Whitman intro? Some great Navarro on that one.

[Big Beat Steve]

15 minutes ago, sidewinder said:

Is that ‘Airmail Special’ the one with the Ernie ‘Bubbles’ Whitman intro? Some great Navarro on that one.

Unless there are several surviving versions with an intro talk by "The Stomach That Walks Like A Man" - yes.