Selection: Abscretions

Track List:

A1 Ruthie’s Heart 6:12
A2 Brilliant Circles 4:48
A3 Abscretions 6:58
B1 Household Of Saud 6:38
B2 On The Nile 9:48
B3 Departure 5:00

Artists: Music Inc.,15 piece jazz orchestra

Clifford Jordan, Jimmy Heath, Wilbur Brown, reeds; Howard Johnson, tuba, baritone saxophone; Charles Tolliver, Danny Moore, Larry Greenwich, Richard Williams, Virgil Jones, trumpet; Curtis Fuller, Dick Griffin, Garnett Brown, John Gordon, trombone; Bobby Brown, flute; Stanley Cowell piano; Cecil McBee, bass; Jimmy Hopps, drums.

The line up features some leading players, Clifford Jordan, Curtis Fuller, but mostly submerged into the ensemble.

Recorded November 11, 1970, engineer [mix] – George Klabin, engineer [recording], Joe Jorgensen.

George Klabin’s Resonance Records continues to put out “previously unissued” vinyl from historically interesting original tapes, many through Record Store Day distribution. Unfortunately despite best efforts and fancy artwork, often of “borderline” passable sound quality, due to enthusiasts use of domestic quality recorders (speed 33⁄4 ips, limited microphone quality, numbers and placement). At least you can find an RSD release, once the scalpers have put them up on Discogs. Or you could queue up from six am outside your local Record Store, hoping to bag one copy from the tiny allocation of each title made to each store.

Music

Rollicking urban big band sound that would fit perfectly behind a 1960s TV series, adventures of a street-wise private eye who’s also an emergency room surgeon and a high-flying lawyer. In the pilot episode our hero hunts down a criminal mastermind, corners him in a warehouse deadly shoot out, tends his bullet wounds, then successfully defends him in court after realizing he failed to read him his rights.

All Music awarded Music Inc. a remarkable 4½ stars

“The Music Inc. big band remains the apotheosis of trumpeter Charles Tolliver’s singular creative vision. Rarely if ever has a big band exhibited so much freedom or finesse, while at the same time never overwhelming the virtuoso soloists on whom the performances pivots”

“Tolliver in particular plays like a man possessed, summoning an energy and clarity that slice through the big, bold arrangements”

Well there you go, today’s new word is “apotheosis“, reaching the highest point in the development of something, derived from Greek/Latin “god-like, divine”, as in: LJC is the apotheosis in vinyl jazz blogs.

According to Tolliver and Cowell’s liner notes, “The music speaks for itself“” Well that saves paying someone to write about it. The main text is simply Stan and Charles praising the rest of the band. Not really the apotheosis in album covers, or liner notes.

Vinyl: SES-1971

Original edition, white label – not a promo, but predecessor to the more familiar black and white Strata East design.

Art Director holds head in despair, white unlaminated paper cover art designed to show show dirt, ring-wear, and yellowing with age. Not great LP cover art.

Collectors Corner

Music Inc. was not very expensive for an original Strata East. Big band obviously doesn’t have the same caché as their more afro-centric titles. Strata East reissues – Pure Pleasure, Superfly, and others – are more affordable but don’t match up to the originals, a bit wishy washy in comparison, lacking excitement.

The Jazz Beach-comber update

One of my favourite record stores in Soho has added a “Japanese Jazz” section in its Jazz shelves. Just a handful of records but nice to see some recognition of this niche in the second-hand market. Anther store across the road has a most unusual Blue Note on the wall, one which I have never seen in the flesh: Palo Congo, Sabu Martinez (1957), Blue Note BLP 1561, asking a modest £800. Bongo-driven Latin jazz, another specialist niche. Ay, Caramba!

For some reason, this all quite cheered me up.

Footnote: “Abscretions” – doesn’t seem to be a proper word, though it might just get you out of a tight spot in Scrabble. The word’s only known usage is a song title by Music Inc.

Selection: Kuri Monga Nuie (Big Black Dog)

Track List

A1 L.A. Trajectory 4:53
A2 Black On White 5:40
A3 Lauri Ann 6:34
A4 Rolling Thunder 4:42
B1 Kuri Monga Nuie (Big Black Dog) 6:28
B2 Red Bean 5:29
B3 Spectrophone 5:48
B4 Massachusetts Blues 4:10

Artists

Bruce Cale, acoustic bass, Alan Turnbull, drums; Bob Bertles, flute, tenor saxophone; Paul McNamara, piano;

Producer Horst Liepolt; Engineer, Max Harding

Berlin-born Horst Liepolt migrated to Australia in the early ’50s, working as a jazz producer, impresario and founder of the 44 Record label, a number chosen apparently for the year Liepolt first heard jazz in wartime Germany. He moved to the US in the early ’80s, where he managed artist bookings at New York’s Sweet Basil and Lush Life jazz clubs, and organised Greenwich Village Jazz Festivals. He later retired from jazz production to follow his artistic interest in painting.

Bruce Cale, bass player, one of several Australian jazz musicians who moved to London and the British jazz scene in the 60s. Cale played with Tubby Hayes and was a founding member of John Stevens’s Spontaneous Music Ensemble. From England, Cale moved to the U.S,  recording with prominent artists including Zoot Sims, Phil Woods, John Handy and Ernie Watts. He subsequently returned to Sydney to lead a small ensemble which included Bob Bertles, and recorded this album live at the Sydney Opera House. Bruce Cale is so far still with us.

Bob Bertles – Australian saxophone player who emigrated to the UK and joined Ian Carr’s Nucleus (1970-4). He recorded in a number of other settings, including his own group Bob Bertles Moontrane, quartet, quintet and big band. Bertles departed only recently in 2024 age 75.

Music

Cale’s session At The Opera House was recorded while his band was supporting Ella Fitzgerald’s grand world tour. His repertoire consisted mostly of original compositions with an emphasis on melody, lending it a European rather than American jazz flavour.

Australia has Discogs sellers, and Cale’s records are found almost only in Australia, on account of problematic shipping time and cost. Australia’s main musical exports have been in the pop world, songbird Kylie Minogue and falsetto-on-the-dance floor, The BeeGees, now mostly deceased. Their small band of dedicated jazz players have left behind a worthy legacy.

Vinyl: 44 Records 6357 724

44 Records – an Australian jazz record label in the 1970’s, founded by Horst Liepolt

Back Cover:

Collector’s Corner

Australia has Discogs sellers, and Cale’s records are found almost only in Australia, on account of low artist familiarity, problematic shipping time and cost. This record turned up out of the blue from a UK seller, a “blimey, look what’s suddenly turned up on Discogs!” moment, Bruce Cale Live at the Opera House! I expect the seller was as surprised to suddenly find a buyer as I was to find a seller.

The “Big Black Dog” track was featured on the Pyramid Pieces Compendium of Australian Jazz 60s-70s a couple of years ago, which showcased what excellent music our friends from down under had produced, of whom we had never heard.

However I remember with some fondness the invasion of England by Aussies in the ’70s, over-land by camper-van via Afghanistan, domiciled in London’s Earls Court area. I spied from my passing motorcycle a wag had mounted a large signboard on the A4 expressway, with an arrow pointing in towards Aussie bed-sit land, bearing the legend “FREE SHEILAS”.

Their high mileage campervans would be parked each day across from the Australian Embassy on The Strand, with the asking price steadily dropping as the flight home drew nearer. What became of the free Sheilas remains to this day unknown, hopefully they found their own free Bruces, now all Professors of Philosophy at the University of Woolloomooloo, Melbourne (reference Monty Python)

More jazz next week.

Selection 1: Down In The Depths

Selection 2: Mack The Knife

Track List

A1 Blues A La Carte 5:35
A2 Harry’s Last Stand 5:25
A3 Down In The Depths 10:00
B1 Pug Nose 6:50
B2 Black Diamond 6:02
B3 Mack The Knife (Weill, Blitzstein) 6:15

All compositions Wayne Shorter (except B3) – the one standard, Mack The Knife, is given a feisty reading. Sample lyric, sing along if you like

Oh the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear, and he shows them pearly white . .

.. .You know when that shark bites with his teeth, babe
Scarlet billows start to spread…

.. . Now on a sidewalk, ooh Sunday mornin’, uh-huh, Lies a body just oozin’ life. And someone’s sneakin’ ’round a corner
Could that someone be Mack the Knife? . . .

The Three Penny Opera (Weill, 1928)

This sort of lyric nowadays requires a Parental Advisory trigger warning – predatory fish threat, knife violence, injury detail . . .

Artists

Wayne Shorter, tenor saxophone; Lee Morgan, trumpet; Wynton Kelly, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Jimmy Cobb, drums

Recorded at Bell Sound Studios, New York City, November 9 and 10, 1959. Recording supervision: Sid McCoy, jazz A & R director for Vee Jay Records.

Bell Sound was at the time New York’s largest independent recording studio, home to countless R&B and popular song hits. It operated three recording rooms with various engineers, including the best known, Sam Feldman (signature sf). No-one is credited with this particular recording. Whoever it was they did a fine job, the recording quality is outstanding.

Day Two of the Introducing Wayne Shorter session, Tuesday November 10, saw Shorter and Morgan moving on to join the front line of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers at Englewood Cliffs, recording the album Africaine (later released in 1981 as LT1088). Busy busy boys.

A reminder: Wayne Shorter passed away in 2023, at the ripe old age of 89.

Music

Surrounded by the Kind of Blue rhythm section (LJC reader’s improved description), and the dazzling Lee Morgan, Shorter was gifted a stellar team. His bitter-sour tone and downbeat phrasing is instantly recognisable.

The compositions mostly follow the usual formula, an opening theme, followed by a sequence of solos, so the album offers a generous helping of Lee Morgan and Wynton Kelly, as well as introducing Wayne.

In his early recordings, Shorter seemed to focus on speed, almost as if it were the standard for measuring up against other tenor players. As he progressed through the Blue Note years, growing more confident, his playing became sparser, notes placed more dramatically and carrying a darker hue.

A description of Shorter’s voice is borrowed here from Wiki:

“Wayne Shorter’s tenor saxophone style is characterized by its concise, questioning, and dramatic approach. He often suggests more than he states, using unexpected harmonic motion, memorable fragments, and a sense of narrative mystery.” (Wiki).

The UK Guardian newspaper, home of the best jazz obituaries (often by John Fordham), delivered a more evocative description of Shorter’s tenor voice:

“a restrained and epigrammatic style based on oblique melodic angles, a porous tone and an instinct for dramatic understatement”

Shorter’s discography marks out a Jazz Messengers phase, kicking off with VeeJay and then into the limelight with Blue Note (1960-64). Miles Davis Second Quintet saw a move to Columbia, defining post-bop, then ’70s fusion, to Weather Report, from where I moved on. Jazz moved in a different direction, I have more than enough 60’s Shorter on my shelves today.

Vinyl: Craft CR00958 (released 2025)

Stereo mastered and lacquer cut by Kevin Gray . The rip histogram shows a forward sound with fast attack and decay, forceful left and right channel source, crisp articulation of each instrument on the soundstage, a pleasure to listen.

Collector’s Corner

Original 1960 mono release by VeeJay:

The Shorter VeeJay albums:

Oddly enough, I had not come across the other two VeeJay titles, Second Genesis, or Wayning Moments, so can’t comment on the music here, but I have a high opinion of the engineering based on the Craft Reissue. Until now, the main US labels have simply ignored these VeeJay titles. Welcome any comments from readers who have any of these other early Shorter titles.

Wayning Moments has been reissued a half dozen times – in Japan, of course.

Second Genesis has seen a similar number of vinyl reissues – likewise, in Japan

Introducing Wayne Shorter was repackaged in the ’80s under the title Blues a la Carte, though the edition below appears only in Spain, and a niche UK reissue label Affinity.

Capitalising on the presence giants Shorter and Lee Morgan with Wynton Kelly, we are introduced now to the Wayne Shorter Quintet. The evil silver disk even crammed in a complete bonus album, Wynton Kelly’s Kelly Great:

The recovery of original tapes from the golden Blue Note years is gift, all kudos to Craft, rivalling Tone Poet quality.

Sadly a lot of poor quality “enthusiastic amateur” tape recordings of important sessions are also finding their way to market. I have had some real disappointments recently. It’s all down to the quality of the original recording. 180gm is just a lump of plastic, however much “restoration” work is applied. More thoughts on that at a future date.

Selection: Nostalgia

Track List

A1 Hank’s Shout (Mobley) 7:03
A2 Nostalgia (Navarro) 8:53
B1 Bet (Watkins) 7:56
B2 Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise (Hammerstein, Romberg) 2:29
B3 P.S. I Love You (Jenkins, Mercer) 4:22
B4 Easy Living (Rainger, Robin) 2:49
B5 That’s All (Alan Brandt, Haymes) 2:43

Artists: The Hank Mobley Quintet

Hank Mobley, tenor saxophone; Lee Morgan, trumpet; Hank Jones, piano; Doug Watkins, bass; Art Taylor, drums; recorded by Rudy Van Gelder, November 5 and 7, 1956.

Music

Morgan had a couple of “debut ” albums for jazz labels, Introducing Lee Morgan for Savoy (1956) and Here’s Lee Morgan for Veejay (1960), during which interval Blue Note catapulted him into the leader position.

On this Savoy debut, an impossibly young Lee Morgan, age 18, climbed on board the well-seasoned Hank Mobley Quintet. Hank has the measure as leader, but the fledgling Lee Morgan already shows star quality, launching complex rapid-fire triple-tonguing excursions that take your breath away. It’s still Hank’s album, but only just.

I have read comments that Lee’s early playing shows the influence of Clifford Brown, though I am not as well versed in Brownie as I probably should be. Fats Navarro is another trumpet I should know better. Apparently its all in the embouchure, buzzing the lips around the instrument mouthpiece and engaging the facial muscles. I think it’s a miracle getting any sound at all out of a bent brass tube, let alone the rapid articulation achieved by Lee Morgan. Truly analogue sound, with dynamic high volume output, which must be a challenge to record.

The 1956 repertoire is solidly bop, with an emphasis on light breezy swing tunes taken from show tunes and standards, just the one Mobley composition. Introducing is not as strong as the Here’s Veejay album, on which Morgan was given more space for his own compositions, which stand tall and memorable.

(Still in Lee Morgan mode, I recently acquired the 12xLP Live at the Lighthouse box set, something for a future date.)

Vinyl: Savoy MG 12091 (1956) reissued Craft CR00967 (2026}

Collector’s Corner

The original 1956 Savoy release, a beautiful artefact, a collector’s trophy. Open the sleeve and smell 1956 New York- cigarette smoke, car exhaust, back-alley garbage, Eau de Cologne, and somewhere in the distance, fried onion from a hot dog stand.

Ebay auctions have reached a quite modest sum, of a little over $1,000, no where near the stratospheric prices of Morgan’s trophy-status Blue Note 1500 series titles. (Pictured, 2nd pressing, later maroon Savoy labels)

In the years that followed, the record collector was not so well served…

The Art Director interrupts…

A ’60s music industry entrepreneur specializing in sound-a-like copy records, Ed Chalpin, offered this art work for the complete “Introducing Lee Morgan Sessions” retitled “Hank’s Shout”, issued on the evil silver disc in 1989. Lee Morgan was shot dead by his partner Helen in 1972. Note the typography, the “O” in mOrgan and mObley, bullet-holes on theme. What possessed the Art Director to choose a handgun, with what looks like a police evidence tag attached, to represent jazz’s greatest trumpet player.

Is this a Mel Brooks’ The Producers Spring Time for Hitler, moment?

The French BYG jazz label licensed the Savoy Jazz catalog, and repackaged the recording in 1969 as Hank’s Shout, Lee having been “Introduced” a long time previously.

Discogs has 42 entries for the Introducing Lee Morgan album, many reissues in Japan, most if not all of which are faithful to the original art work. Faithful and respectful, as I would expect of our jazz-loving friends in Japan.

In Other News – Blue Note London announced

As a source for all things Blue Note, I note the forthcoming opening in September of Blue Note London, an addition to the international chain of Blue Note Entertainment Group jazz venues. Opening night Robert Glasper is already sold out. Blue Note London will put on performances from contemporary artists, sadly, none of whom listed appeal to me. It’s hard enough trying to keep up with the legacy of the deceased giants, but who knows, one day Blue Note London might rival the historic home of visiting jazz greats, Ronnie Scotts of Soho. But they will have to hurry as we are rapidly running out of Giants.

By way of background, the Blue Note Entertainment Company was established in Greenwich Village NY in 1981 by David Bensusan, and is run today by his son Steven. The now international business operates jazz clubs in major cities around the world (NY, LA, Tokyo, Beijing, São Paulo, Milan among others), a record label – “Half Note Records” – (no connection with Blue Note Records), travel/management services, and Blue Note branded concert programs. The Blue Note name is a merely a marketing wrapper, which makes just two common words – Blue and Note – work very hard. Legally, simple words can not be copyrighted.

Personally, I’ll stick to spinning vintage vinyl, but I wish them well. Keep swinging! More music next week.

Selection 1: Marney (6:15)

Selection 2: Dusty Foot (6:51)

Track List

A1 Marney 6:15
A2 Dusty Foot 6:51
A3 Formidable 6:13
B1 Vertigo 8:13
B2 Cheers 4:50
B3 Yams 7:51

Artists

Jackie McLean, alto saxophone; Donald Byrd, trumpet; Herbie Hancock, piano; Butch Warren, bass; Tony Williams, drums, all tracks (except A3) recorded at Englewood Cliffs on February 11, 1963

A3 “Formidable“: Jackie McLean, alto saxophone; Donald Byrd, trumpet; Walter Davis Jr., piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Pete LaRoca, drums, recorded May 2, 1959. (Sneaked onto Jackie’s 1959 New Soil album on CD, as a bonus track)

Music

The Vertigo album combines two previously unreleased session, one recorded just a couple months before McLean’s One Step Beyond, and his avant-leaning journey to The Outside, a destination that is not ATOL protected. It seems Alfred Lion had decided on an avant-leaning direction for McLean, with a roster of like-minded musician such as Grachan Moncur III and Eddie Khan, adding Bobby Hutcherson for texture. Blue Note had many mainstream and dependable soul-jazz sellers and could afford to test the waters with more avant-garde fare.

“Ticket to Far Out please”.
One Way or Return, sir?”
“There’s no returning from Far Out. Make it one way.“

The Vertigo session was quietly shelved to make way for the new direction, but The Vertigo album nevertheless deserves a place in the mainstream Jackie McLean Blue Note catalogue. I count eighteen Jackie albums posted at LJC, now 19.

The title track Vertigo, Jazz Times says “a relatively jarring line with no chord changes”. Not a track by which to judge the whole album. Other tracks offer greater variety including a boogaloo to rival The Sidewinder, an urban chase, and some great swingers. The golden-tone presence of Donald Byrd offers a counterweight to McLean’s sharp-tone alto, great harmonies. Herbie Hancock does his infectious masterful vamping, Anthony Williams characteristic restless hyperactivity, Butch Warren scampers up and down the bass neck. Terrific line up.

Though Van Gelder recorded the session at Englewood Cliffs, he did not go on to master the Vertigo session. The tapes remained unissued in the Blue Note archives until Cuscuna produced it for Liberty, and a UA engineer mastered it for the LT series, see etching “cx”.

Vinyl: Liberty/UA Blue Note LT 1085

Blue label white note, in transition to EMI’s Capitol ownership (1979 and beyond)

Collector’s corner

Taken as as a whole, Vertigo offers a classic McLean Blue Note album. Purchased for small change back in 2011, when I knew next to nothing, and neglected almost as long, because of my naïve and mistaken notion that blue label white note Liberty/UA albums and the LT Series were somehow inferior to “original Blue Notes”, overlooking the fact many have direct lineage to original Van Gelder tapes and were never issued at the time. This is “the original”.

The 2026 Tone Poet reissue of Vertigo prompted me to rediscover this title, and very glad I did. Right now its giving me great enjoyment, at no cost. The most precious asset we have is our attention, which we sometimes waste chasing novelty (guilty!), or the pleasure of acquiring yet more albums which we lack time to play. But we need to talk Cover Art

The Art Director Speaks:

When the Vertigo session tape was released on CD in 2000, typographic cover art in the manner of Reid Miles was created, based heavily on another McLean title, Jacknife.

The font is from the “Shattered” family, text looking broken into pieces. A slice of each letter is offset from main body, left and right, creating a sense of impact and shock. The splinter can be horizontal or in this case, vertical. The Shattered fonts are a really clever visualisation of distress, violence and danger, that fits well with the ’50’s-’60s Hollywood psychological thrillers. Demons of the Mind: Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958) and Psycho! (1960), Fanatic (1965), Wayne Shorter’s album Schizophrenia (1967) and not forgetting that great loss of memory thriller, what was it called again, Ambrosia … Dementia …Nostalgia … yes, Amnesia!

Plagiarism in cover art? Surely not! Any resemblance is pure coincidental. This is a totally different colour for a start. Jacknife Blue Note CD 2002, Italian clear vinyl reissue 2025.

Sure, it was a steal, but who’s goin’ to snitch?

Now Blue Note have had Kevin Gray master the Vertigo session from the original Van Gelder master tapes, for the Tone Poet series 2026. Nice Francis Wolff studio portraits for the gatefold, bring the musicians back to life, if only briefly. Jackie departed twenty years ago, in 2006, and Byrd in 2013, same year as Butch Warren. Tony Williams, in cruel irony, led a band called “Lifetime”, passed away age only 51 in 1997. Of the original Vertigo session players, only Herbie is still with us, comping away, seemingly indestructible at age 86.

Looks great, nice gatefold, I would go for it if I didn’t already have the Liberty/EMI album.

LJC Afterthoughts:

May be you too have albums on the shelf un-played for some time. A brave soul once suggested to me that collectors should play every LP in their collection at least once a year. Logical but for me impractical. Personally, I give most attention to recent acquisitions, to get to know them better.

I reckon you need to play a record at least five times in order to absorb its contents, to understand the musical intent. Of course your mileage may vary. I’m often surprised how my picks change with repeated plays. Some records I took an immediate dislike to, I revisit later for a second opinion, and mostly I still dislike them. Some tunes come back to haunt me over the following weeks, earworms. Some tunes I don’t get at first, but repeated listening unpicks them for me.

It’s a funny thing, music, given we are all mostly consumers of it. Perhaps there is a science of how we listen, and could listen better. No use looking to the music industry, who need to sell us the next record. We collectors have to figure out this listening thing for ourselves. Your thoughts welcome.

LJC

Footnote: my own record archiving system.

After purchase, each record is given a fresh white paper inner sleeve, with a new archival mylar inner bag (Nagaoka-style) to protect it. On the paper sleeve I record the purchase price, source and date of purchase, and the cleaning history (ultrasonic cleaning and demagnetizing date, to be updated with subsequent cleaning history). You think you are going to remember this? I record distinguishing label and runout stamps. Hence I know today the Vertigo album was purchased in 2011 in an Ebay auction for £11, given an IPA alcohol wet clean after purchase, and none since.

I list each track on each side and, after listening, nominate my pick/s of the album. Some “listening notes” I add as comments. Everything is kept with the record itself on its inner sleeve, for future reference. I don’t grade the vinyl or cover, though I probably should, nor the dates on which I have played it, because its too much of a chore. The pick is usually the selection in any subsequent blog post.

Selection: Stretch

Track List

Drought 12:06
Stretch 10:35
Truth 6:56
Effi 10:31
‘Round Midnight 8:40

Artists:

Charles Tolliver, trumpet; Stanley Cowell, piano; Clint Houston, bass; Clifford Barbaro, drums.

Engineer [Floor] Shigehisa Nagao; Engineer [Recording] Kunio Arai Producer [Concert] Toshinari Koinuma

Recorded: 7 December, 1973 at Yubinchokin Hall Tokyo, Japan. In association with Takafumi Ohkuma and Kuniya Inaoka of Trio Records.

Charles Tolliver, trumpet. The ’60s found Tolliver playing sideman on Blue Note sessions with Andrew Hill and Jackie McLean, probing the outside canvas to which he was most suited. Blue note were obviously happy with their trumpet roster of Morgan and Byrd, no leader opportunity was offered to Tolliver. No need to hang around hoping for a recording deal, Tolliver founded his own label, Strata East, and immediately signed himself up. Tolliver was still recording up to about 2019 (“Connect”, Gearbox Records UK), and is still with us, age 84.

Music:

Discogs Reviewer:

“Masterpiece. Perfection. Don’t sleep on this performance. Cooks all the way through.“

A live session recorded in Tokyo with an all-American line-up, arguably the best of both worlds. Live recordings allow the musicians to stretch out, without the restriction of squeezing in three or four tracks per side. Uncompromising post-bop, no soul jazz or funk-leanings.

All About Jazz offers the musician’s perspective:

“Tolliver is known for a clear, powerful tone that can convey both lyrical sensitivity and fiery intensity, allowing him to navigate complex harmonic structures with precision and expressiveness. He developed highly individual phrasing that emphasizes both melodic invention and rhythmic drive, often incorporating unexpected intervals and dynamic contrasts”

Plagiarism has gotten a bad name recently, and A I is effectively plagiarism on an industrial scale. You can tell a mile away when you read A I generated text. Absolutely. However, if someone else has written an insightful commentary on my topic, better than I could, then I am happy to hand the heavy lifting over to them.

I can also then argue with them. To my ear Tolliver lacks the warmth of my Blue Note friends, Morgan and Byrd, and he doesn’t construct his lines as lyrically as say Woody Shaw. He is post-bop and in some ways post-Blue Note. However he has, as the money-quote says, a fiery intensity and a singular determination to innovate, and not imitate, without falling off the free jazz cliff.

Tolliver also had a desire to dabble in the big band oeuvre with Music Inc, give the hi-fi speakers a good work out, good music, especially in collaboration with pianist Stanley Cowell.

Labels: Strata East (original release 1974)

Gatefold

Harry’s Place

Our intrepid time-travelling paparazzi Harry has blagged his way into Montreux again, 1971, to share with LJC his Charles Tolliver shot, and Tolliver’s Strata East co-founder, Stanley Cowell.

Charles Tolliver, Montreux 1971

All photos © Harry Monty

Collector’s Corner

Simultaneously released in Japan by Trio Records (1974 )

The Art Director says:

The US gatefold back cover is wasted opportunity. The US gatefold photography is no Francis Wolf, more like family snaps.

I prefer the Japanese cover to the US gatefold, more aesthetic, great picture on the back of the band playing live in Tokyo like the album title says, and the flying bird motif links front and back covers, great.

Trio records was formed by the Japanese hi-fi manufacturer in 1969, perfect timing, and perfect natural synergy, jazz and hifi. Just add Japanese whisky (unfortunately not included)

Footnote: Little or no A I was used to generate the content of this post. Which mostly explains why it’s published a little later in the day than usual. The real stuff takes time.

Selection: One Mint Julep (Randolph Toombs)

Track List

Maiden Voyage (Herbie Hancock) 6:34
The Blues 7:11
One Mint Julep (Rudolph Toombs) 6:15
The Preacher (Horace Silver) 5:33
Sir Duke (Stevie Wonder) 4:27
Giant Steps (John Coltrane) 5:45
A Child Is Born (Thad Jones) 5:09

One Mint Julep:

Rudolph Toombs was hired by Atlantic to freshen up the Atlantic songbook with up-tempo R&B. Toombs produced the 1952 hit for The Clovers, a doo-wop vocal group. The song tells the story of a young man who falls for the charms of a young woman,and finds a few years later that he has a ring on his finger, and remembers that it all started with “One Mint Julep“. A Mint Julep, near relative of a Mohito, consists of bourbon, fresh mint leaves and crushed ice, a classic drink associated with Kentucky Derby Day.

Artists: The Tokyo Union – Leader Tatsuta Takahashi

Tokyo Union were one of a small number of Japanese jazz big bands, along with The New Herd, and the Inner Galactic Orchestra, probably others I have never encountered.

Rhythm Section:
Masahiro Kanayama, electric piano; Yoshinori Ishida, bass; Kazuhiro Ebisawa, drums; Ken-ichi Araya, Masahiro Ikumi, guitar;

Reeds
Hiroshi Yagimura, alto saxophone; Seiji Inoue, tenor saxophone; Takemi Ishikane, baritone saxophone; Hiroshi Abiko, Motoharu Suzuki,Tomokazu Saiki,Yoshifumi Tada, trumpet; Eijiro Miyazaki, Kiyotaka Uchida, Koichi Okada, trombone; Ken-ichi Sudare, bass trombone.

Recorded December 4- 5, 1976,  Epicurus Studio, Tokyo

Engineer – Yoshihiko Kannari
Producer – Takeshi Fujii

Music

All the tracks bar one are big band arrangements of classic jazz titles, some with prominent use of guitar wah-wah pedal – a sound which dated very quickly. The big band arrangements however are a delight, weaving together call and answer sections, and a fresh look at well-loved compositions, everyone already knows the tunes, Coltrane, Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock, Thad Jones.

The music is not “cover versions” of these jazz standards, but upscaling modest quartet/quintet compositions to a full nineteen piece jazz orchestra, with full-on arranging skills on display.

Vinyl: Three Blind Mice TBM 3001 (1976)

The star of the show is the recording engineer – Yoshihiko Kannari – Japan’s answer to Rudy Van Gelder, and the dynamic engineering which is the trademark of the Three Blind Mice label. The Epicurus Tokyo studio microphone setup is meticulously documented on the insert, included the latest Neuman mics (for 1976) Drums have separate mics for snare, hihat, tomtoms and bass; piano has two mics.

Studio partitioning created discrete instrument sections which can be recorded and mixed very flexibly. (Holes in the baffle-boards enabled musicians to see each other). The result is very dynamic stereo mix, sharpness and clarity in each instrument, with lots of ambient air.

Full credit due also to EMI-Toshiba for the pressing – clean flat, very quiet surface, and full frequency range reproduced. Forget the often somewhat tame Blue Note reissues of the previous decade, Toshiba show what can be done when working with 1st generation tapes rather than distribution copies (that’s my explanation anyway).

Insert

Collector’s Corner

Once again Three Blind Mice define a standard of vinyl reproduction which is near impossible to beat. I have thousands of jazz vinyl albums, including many original Van Gelder. 1970’s TBM is really the best sounding vinyl there is. The music may be artistically limited, but in terms of pure audio engineering, a constant pleasure to listen, the bar is set so high, it’s difficult to go back.

Golden Era modern jazz in Japan, 1972-77. Not to damn TBM musicianship with faint praise – there are some outstanding players, in what was a small niche field. Isao Suzuki (b), Kazumi Watanabe (g), Takeo Moriyama (d) Toshihiko Inoue (as, ts). More piano trios than I would wish, and a few to many cabaret singers, who sing nevertheless in immaculately-pronounced English/American, not a trace of Ingreesh. Two contemporary big bands – Tokyo Union and New Herd – are worthy of your attention.

LJC

Selection: Chilli Peppers

Track List

Chili Peppers 6:52
Make It Good 6:41
My Love Waits (O Meu Amor Espera) 5:56
Los Malos Hombres 6:34
Scrap Iron 5:23
Rotary 6:18

Artists

Duke Pearson, piano; Freddie Hubbard , trumpet, flugelhorn; Garnett Brown, trombone; Jerry Dodgion, alto saxophone, flute; James Spaulding, alto saxophone; Stanley Turrentine, tenor saxophone; Gene Taylor, bass; Grady Tate, drums.

Recorded Englewood Cliffs, September 13, 1967, released 1968

Music

An ambitious all-star octet line up marks Pearson’s tenth album, almost a decade since his 1959 debut on Blue Note. Pearson rises to the challenge of arranging a complex line up of horns, trombone and trumpet. The album features his top bossa-rock composition Chili Peppers, propelled by Grady Tate’s hypnotic kick snare groove (drum-speak, I made that up). Also hear the Latin fast swinger Los Malos Hombres – Hollywood Cowboy Film Translation: The Bad Guys – sends Stanley Turrentine into a tex-mex frenzy. Overall, a happy likeable album, both melodic and rhythmic.

Vinyl: Blue Note BST 84267

Liberty/UA 1971 reissue, West Coast black/teal labels, Van Gelder stamp.

With the VAN GELDER stamp, the Liberty/UA edition (1971) has direct lineage to the original Van Gelder mastering, which is what matters. You play the vinyl, not the labels. A good number of other black/teal Blue Note reissues also maintain direct lineage from Van Gelder metal: they are good to find and often undervalued.

The Art Director Speaks . . .

Liberty chose a recording studio portrait of Duke for the cover, Unfortunately, they chose a photo of Duke with a deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression, and faint smile. The thing with eyes in portraiture, the viewer instinctively follows the subject’s eyes direction of travel and object of focus, in this case, out of the frame, staring into space. I suppose it was the best option they had.

Francis Wolff making the transition to colour photography. Personally, I find Wolff’s black and white studio portraits more “authentically” jazz. Colour is more demanding, and ideally needs to be part of the story. Oh look, Duke’s wearing a red polo shirt. Is it a menswear catalogue? Colour often adds more information, but not information that is useful.

Collector’s Corner:

The original first release was on classic Blue/White Blue Note Division of Liberty labels.

Liberty also issued a cover-stickered mono edition, which is an interesting proposition, though rare:

The Right Touch was also recently reissued by Blue Note as part of the TONE POET VINYL series.

Where I have an “original”, in decent condition, I have not found upgrading to a new Tone Poet sufficiently rewarding. I decided to make do with my “almost original” reissue, good enough.

Selection 1: Tubby Hayes: Hall Hears The Blues (Harry South)

Selection 2: Dizzy Reece: Yardbird Suite (Charlie Parker)

Track List

Side 1 Tubby Hayes:
A1. Nicole
A2. Hall Hears The Blues

Hayes naming one track after his producer Tony Hall (Hall Hears The Blues) is shameless brown-nosing, or just good business sense, take your pick.

Side 2 Dizzy Reece:
B1. Blue Bird
B2. Yardbird Suite
B3. How Deep Is The Ocean
B4. Bluebird Number Two

Artists

Side 1 Tubby Hayes: Tubby Hayes, tenor saxophone: Harry South, piano: Dickie Hawdon, trumpet: Pete Elderfield, bass; Bill Eyden, drums

Side 2 Dizzy Reece: Dizzy Reece, trumpet; Terry Shannon, piano; Lenny Bush, bass, Phil Seamen, drums.

Music

Dusty Groove say:

One of the rarest records on the Savoy label — and a crack session of British jazz featuring two of England’s best players ever! The Hayes cuts are two long jammers with a laidback blowing session feel that works perfectly with his gutsy tenor The Reece material features a quartet on four tighter tunes, three of them Charlie Parker compositions. Reece’s quartet features the great Phil Seamen on drums.

The material is Anglo-American jazz, fairly conventional for its day. Much space is given over to the piano, of a fairly standard bluesy formula. The mid 50s were piano-centric times, I guess that’s what was expected. (Know your place Mr Piano, get back in the rhythm section and get comping!)

The choice of tracks was Savoy’s, and speaking as a Tubby fan, the Dizzy Reece tracks are on the whole a better choice. Dizzy Reece has a burning intensity in his tone, and this album gave me a better appreciation of his merits than some of his later works. Tubby and Dizzy were reunited on Blue Note’s Blues In Trinity (BLP 4006), recorded in 1958.

Taken as a whole, Changing The Jazz is like stepping back in time.

Vinyl:

Savoy MG 12111 mono, USA. Original Savoy blood red/silver labels with deep groove. The runout stamps include the Savoy catalogue number and the mysterious X20.

The trail-off lock-groove spiral is Rudy’s usual early Scully pre-set, the swaying tonearm groove. I can happily just sit for hours and watch the tonearm sway gracefully from side to side, therapeutic antidote to the frantic world of social media

Sonics

The US Prestige/ UK Esquire manufacturing method of distribution stands out as a exceptional if serendipitous preservative of original recording quality. Mostly mastered at Abbey Mfg. NJ, Van Gelder stampers were shipped to Decca in the UK for vinyl pressing. The Savoy process here was not quite the reverse. Instead of shipping British metal to Savoy, in order to secure Van Gelder’s place in the process (it seems Rudy rarely travelled) Decca will have sent copy tapes for mastering in the US.

It’s loud and gutsy as you might expect of Van Gelder mastering. Reece’s trumpet sound like its overloading the mic a little? The trumpet is a particularly loud instrument, it must be tough to balance.

Back Cover

The liner notes, by one A Alan Stein, introduce us to a previously unknown tenor player, Mr Tubby Hall. A relative of the Decca jazz producer, Mr Tony Hall? Or maybe Tony Hayes. Perhaps English names all look the same to him. Incarceration in the Tower of London for you Mr Stein. Igor, prepare The Rack.

The less said about the Tourist Board cover art the better. Buckingham Palace is a recognisable clue that it’s British Jazz. But no red telephone kiosks, nowadays festooned with “escort service” tart cards, or red double decker buses, nowadays all stuck in traffic. When last week I went up town, and bought this record, the whole of Central London reeked of battered fish and chips, which seems to be number one on the visitor’s to do checklist.

Collector’s Corner

Wow, this vinyl record tells a story! Original 1956 US Savoy pressing, mastered by Rudy Van Gelder ( RVG stamps), certainly from copy master tapes dispatched from Decca London, where the sessions had just been recorded for release on the UK Tempo label. Decca Double Dipping!

The source recording sessions were destined for Decca Tempo releases TAP 4 Dizzy Reece/Jimmy Deuchar Top Trumpets (recorded Tuesday July 17, 1956) and TAP 6 Tubby Hayes After Lights Out (recorded a week later, on Monday July 23, 1956). Both Tempo titles are extraordinarily rare, few copies have ever come to market and are exceedingly expensive when they do.

For the Changing The Jazz album Savoy judiciously selected two tracks from the Tubby Hayes TAP 6 album to make up Side 1, and two tracks from the Reece/Deuchar TAP 4 album to make up Side 2. Sadly, Poor Jimmy Deuchar was left out completely. Scottish trumpeter Jimmy Deuchar hailed from Dundee, Eastern Scotland, which is about half way between Edinburgh and Aberdeen. He played frequently with Tubby Hayes, later popping over to Germany with the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Big Band, before returning to Scotland. He found work in various settings, including the BBC Orchestra, finally passing in 1993, age 63.

Whatever the limitations of Changing the Jazz, I just had to have it.

LJC

REISSUE MADNESS! Last week LJC ventured out with Jazz Eyes, reissued as Star Eyes, this week it’s Angel Eyes, reissued as Bags’ Groove. LJC, however, remains the ORIGINAL.

Selection 1: Jeanine (Pearson)

Selection 2: Le Carousel (Pearson)

Track List

A1 Bags’ Groove 5:03
A2 Le Carousel 4:51
A3 Angel Eyes 2:42
A4 I’m An Old Cow Hand 4:46
B1 Jeannine 5:31
B2 Say You’re Mine 5:27
B3 Exodus 5:50

Artists:

Duke Pearson (real name: Columbus Calvin Pearson, Jr), piano; Thomas Howard, bass;  Lex Humphries, drums.

Track A3 Angel Eyes recorded January 12, 1962 (Bob Cranshaw, bass, Walter Perkins, drums). All other tracks recorded at Bell Sound Studios, NYC, August 1, 1961. From the same session, all tracks issued on companion album Duke Pearson Quintet “Hush!”/ reissued as Donald Byrd’s Child’s Play.

In the early ’60s Pearson played on numerous Donald Byrd albums (Byrd In Flight, Fuego, Cat Walk), and he joined the Art Farmer/Benny Golson Jazztet, if only briefly.

Following the death of Ike Quebec, Pearson took over Quebec’s role as A & R for Blue Note Records, and his arranging skills were used on many Blue Note sessions.

Pearson continued to record outstanding albums in the Blue Note / Liberty crossover years, titles like Wahoo!!, Sweet Honey Bee, and The Phantom. He contributed the languorous solo on the mesmerizing Blue Note track Idle Moments (Grant Green, 1963) Oh, I almost forgot, Pearson’s marvellous swinger, Chili Pepper from The Right Touch (1967). So much goodness!

By the early 70s, record label appetite for piano trios was seemingly on the wane, Pearson dabbled with big band arrangements, but failed to find favour with incoming United Artists management. Pearson turned instead to the musician’s staple Plan B: Teaching.

Duke’s final years were troubled with ill-health, and he departed only age 48 in 1980 .

Music

Duke Pearson is one of the exceptional voices of the jazz piano, alongside Wynton Kelly, McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock. Pearson’s particular gift was composition, crafting original memorable tunes with catchy melodies, delivered with confident flair and lively energy.

This album contains many strong tracks, including his most covered song title Jeannine, and Le Carousel. The standard Say You’re Mine is sympathetically interpreted. Even the dramatic theme from Exodus quickly eases into a relaxed jazzy swinger, not at all cheesy.

The stereo engineering sounds great. Pearson’s piano is crisp and full, both percussive and melodic; Lex Humphrey’s precise and steady rim-shots hit the spot, and Thomas Howard’s muscular walking bass purrs like a Camaro V8 engine.

Other contemporaneous recordings of Jeannine are to be found on:

Jeannine was also a standing item on Cannonball’s touring repertoire, so found on numerous live Cannonball’s 1960-1 European Tour albums, including performances recorded in Paris, Cologne, San Francisco, and elsewhere.

Vinyl

NLP 2008 JAZZ LINE Label (1992), Tokuma Communications, Japan, quality Japanese pressing.

This Norma vinyl re-edition (1992) restores the original UK Polydor 1968 cover, thankfully ignoring the Fred Norsworthy Bags Groove abomination.

Cover with obi in place

Collector’s Corner

Angel Eyes was one of several sessions recorded by producer Fred Norsworthy in the early ’60s. It has a tortuous history, no US edition, first released seven years later, in the UK, on the Polydor label (1968).

Pearson is quoted saying of this “Jazzline Trio” session:

 “God damned crooks, that crook let that stuff out. I think his name was Fred Norsworthy, all I know is that was some crooked stuff they did. To put music out like that, those were some outtakes and I don’t know what happened. Do you realize I never got royalties for those? Never from the company. Those were not legitimate, that’s why they’re on Polydor – whatever.”

The 1968 UK Polydor edition is scarce, and a tad expensive. A copy has been sitting in a London record store for at least two years, priced at £300 based on the few Discogs sellers’ listings, but it hasn’t found a buyer. Difficult to know what it’s worth without help. It is rare, the original first issue, but you would be unlikely to know any of that without deep research (which you find at LJC, of course).

A further seven years after the Polydor, Angel Eyes was reissued in Japan by Trio Records (1975) on the JAZZ LINE label but repackaged as “Bags Groove” ( or just “GROOVE” due to the obi masking the “BAG’S” )

You might think the alternative cover was designed to put you off buying the record. A terrible photo of Pearson, highlights burned out, a maniacal expression . His hand signal is universal language for “Stop!”: “Talk to my hand“. Is Pearson eating a hot dog? What was the Art Director thinking.

I wonder if the lack of a US release was a copyright dispute over Pearson’s use of the film score Theme from “Exodus” ( Otto Preminger film, 1960). An entire generation of US lawyers spent their whole career suing record companies over similarities between one tune and another, or failure to license use of copyrighted compositions. Whatever the reason, Angel Eyes failed to secure a US release, Pearson failed to earn anything from the recording, and he also coined a new curse word, go Polydor yourself.

The villain of the piece, Fred Norsworthy, got up to more tricks than a circus magician, with other early ’60s Pearson recordings reissued repackaged under the name of other artists.

Pearson’s Dedication! album was repackaged as Freddie Hubbard’s Groovy!. A chick in a hammock? That’s what I call insightful bachelor merchandising.

Pearson’s album Hush!, recorded at the same session as most of the Angel Eyes tracks, was then later reissued repackaged as Donald Byrd’s Child’s Play (You’ve been Polydored again).

You see the pattern with the Pearson recordings. The original album is reissued with tracks identical to the first issue. However another player from the session is elevated to leader, and a different track elevated to the album title. I expect Pearson was right, no-one knew what was going on (except Norsworthy), and no-one got paid (apart from Norsworthy). Fred Norsworthy’s business expertise was finding clever ways to not pay musicians.

To facilitate his dubious business practices, the enterprising Mr Norsworthy founded several jazz reissue labels – JAZZTIME and TRIP, and TIME IS {1990’s CD only). You may have seen the vinyl in record store racks, perhaps wondered what their provenance is. Now you know. I have actually bought a couple of TRIP albums over the years, cheap as chips, and some of the titles are interesting material. If you don’t expect much, you won’t be disappointed.

Music publishing can be a dirty business. If you lift the lid, I guess so are many others. With vinyl reissues at least, you get great music to take home.

LJC, more music adventures next week.