The Penguin Jazz Guide (73 page)

Mingus’s association with Candid was brief (though no briefer than the label’s first existence) and highly successful. His long club residency in 1960 (interrupted only by festival appearances) gave him an unwontedly stable and played-in band to take into the studio (he recorded a fake – and uncommonly polite – night club intro for the set), and the larger-scale arrangement of ‘MDM’ negatively reflects the solidity of the core band.
Presents
is for pianoless quartet and centres on the extraordinary vocalized interplay between Dolphy and Mingus; on ‘What Love’ they carry on a long conversation in near-comprehensible dialect. ‘Folk Forms’ is wonderfully pared down and features a superb Mingus solo. ‘All The Things You Could Be By Now If Sigmund Freud’s Wife Was Your Mother’ has a wry fury (Mingus once said that it had been written in the psychiatric ward at Bellevue) which is more than incidentally suggestive of ‘harmolodic’ and ‘punk’ procedures of the ’80s. The ‘Original Faubus Fables’ was a further experiment in the use of texts, here a furious rant against what Mingus later called ‘Nazi USA’, and his later-’60s brothers ‘Amerika’. It’s powerfully felt but
less well integrated in its blend of polemic and music than Max Roach’s
Freedom Now
Suite
on the same label.

& See also
The Complete Debut Recordings
(1951–1957; p. 131),
Pithecanthropus Erectus
(1956; p. 175),
Mingus Dynasty
(1959; p. 247),
The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady
(1963; p. 291)

CLARK TERRY
^&

Born 14 December 1920, St Louis, Missouri

Trumpet, flugelhorn

Color Changes

Candid CCD 79009

Terry; Jimmy Knepper (tb); Julius Watkins (frhn); Yusef Lateef (ts, f, eng hn, ob); Seldon Powell (ts, f); Tommy Flanagan, Budd Johnson (p); Joe Benjamin (b); Ed Shaughnessy (d). November 1960.

Clark Terry says:
‘I was put in a lot of very casual situations, jam sessions, you know, so it was nice to record some of my own music and arrangements with a group that offered so many different colours, nice sound. Maybe it’s just vanity, but there weren’t too many chances to do that in 1960, not for a jazz player.’

Terry’s best record, and ample evidence that swing was still viable on the cusp of the decade that was to see its demise as anything but an exercise in nostalgia. What is immediately striking is the extraordinary, almost kaleidoscopic variation of tone-colour through the seven tracks. Given Lateef’s inventive multi-instrumentalism, Powell’s doubling on flute and Terry’s use of flugelhorn and his mutes, the permutations on horn voicings seem almost infinite. ‘Brother Terry’ opens with a deep growl from Terry, a weaving oboe theme by composer Lateef and some beautiful harmony work from Watkins, who interacts imaginatively with Knepper on Terry’s ‘Flutin’ And Fluglin’’. Again arranged by Lateef, this is a straightforward exploration of the relation between their two horns; Terry has written several ‘odes’ to his second instrument, and this is perhaps the most inventive. ‘Nahstye Blues’, written by and featuring Johnson, in for the unsuitably limpid Flanagan, comes close to Horace Silver’s funk. Terry is slightly disappointing, but Lateef turns in a majestic solo that turns his own cor anglais introduction completely on its head. The closing ‘Chat Qui Pêche’ is an all-in, solo-apiece affair that would have sounded wonderful in the Parisian
boîte
it celebrates and brings a marvellous, expertly recorded record to a powerful finish.

& See also
Serenade To A Bus Seat
(1957; p. 206),
Memories Of Duke
(1980; p. 457)

STEVE LACY
^&

Born Steven Lackritz, 23 July 1934, New York City; died 4 June 2004, Boston, Massachusetts

Soprano saxophone

The Straight Horn Of Steve Lacy

Candid 9007

Lacy; Charles Davis (bs); John Ore (b); Roy Haynes (d). November 1960.

Steve Lacy said (1983):
‘Why the soprano? Oh, Bechet, obviously. I heard Sidney Bechet and that was it.’

Soprano saxophone specialists are no longer the rarity they were in 1960. Steve Lacy was the inspiration behind John Coltrane’s decision to double on the instrument. His own early
career revolved around Dixieland playing, but he made a rapid transition to the avant-garde, working with Cecil Taylor, but obsessing about Thelonious Monk, in whose group he played briefly the same year this muted, tentative but easily underrated record was made.

Predictably, Monk and Taylor share the bulk of composition credits. Lacy sounds comfortable on ‘Introspection’, ‘Played Twice’ and ‘Criss Cross’ – he’d already made a full record of Monk themes called
Reflections –
his parched and particulate tone finding all sorts of unsuspected detail in the three pieces. It was an enthusiasm that Lacy never lost, forming an all-Monk group with trombonist Roswell Rudd for a time and returning to the Monastic oeuvre right to the end of his life. He rather boldly opens the set with Taylor’s ‘Louise’, not quite the jawbreaker one might expect, given Taylor’s reputation, but a theme that seems to trouble the group a little. They have a firmer purchase on ‘Air’ later on, but the most extended track of the set is a reading of Miles Davis’s ‘Donna Lee’ that maybe serves to show why the soprano instrument didn’t have much presence in bebop. We have been somewhat dismissive previously, but what is genuinely impressive about every one of these cuts, and the bop staple particularly, is how the group works its way not so much into a comfort zone as through any initial difficulties and ends up making a strong statement. Many of these tracks sound like first takes, even if they were not.

It’s Lacy’s first mature statement, but the others take a full share of credit. Davis’s throaty baritone fulfils the same timbral function as Roswell Rudd’s or George Lewis’s trombone on later recordings, and the pianoless rhythm section generates a nicely sympathetic, if wobbly, groove for the leader.

& See also
Weal & Woe
(1972, 1973; p. 398),
5 x Monk 5 x Lacy
(1994; p. 580)

GIL EVANS
^&

Born Ian Ernest Gilmore Green, 13 May 1912, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; died 20 May 1988, Cuernavaca, Mexico

Arranger, keyboards

Out Of The Cool

Impulse! 051186-2

Evans; Johnny Coles, Phil Sunkel (t); Keg Johnson, Jimmy Knepper (tb); Tony Studd (btb); Bill Barber (tba); Ray Beckenstein, Eddie Cane (as, f, picc); Budd Johnson (ts, ss); Bob Tricarico (f, picc, bsn); Ray Crawford (g); Ron Carter (b); Elvin Jones, Charli Persip (d). December 1960.

Gil Evans said (1998):
‘Some people hear the word “arranger” and they think that means you have the music down pat, organized to the very last detail. It isn’t like that. I prefer to think of it as controlled chaos. Someone always jumps in if it’s in danger of driving off the road, and sometimes that’s me, but I prefer to wait and see what happens. Ease and predictability are the curse of the modern world, certainly a curse on the creative spirit. When everything is already known, there’s nothing left to play.’

A gentle Svengali. His association with Miles Davis was definitive of one strain of modern jazz, but Gil went on to rewrite the musical legacy of Jimi Hendrix. Born in Canada, he was leading his own group by 1933, and already arranging. He served a tough indenture in Claude Thornhill’s band, extracting the modernism out of the Ellington legacy and foregrounding it in a striking new way; Evans’s peerless voicings are instantly recognizable.

Out Of The Cool
is Evans’s masterpiece under his own name and one of the best examples of jazz orchestration since the early Ellington bands. It’s the soloists – Coles on the eerie ‘Sunken Treasure’, a lonely-sounding Knepper on ‘Where Flamingoes Fly’ – that imme-diately catch the ear, but repeated hearings reveal the relaxed sophistication of Evans’s
settings, which gives a hefty band the immediacy and elasticity of a quintet. Evans’s sense of time allows Coles to double the metre on George Russell’s ‘Stratusphunk’, which ends with a clever inversion of the opening measures. ‘La Nevada’ is one of his best and most neglected scores, typically built up out of simple materials. The sound, already good, has been given lots more timbre by digital transfer. Be aware that
Into The Hot
, the obvious ‘sequel’, with Gil’s picture on the cover, isn’t an Evans album at all, but rightly belongs to Cecil Taylor; long story.

& See also
Plays The Music Of Jimi Hendrix
(1974, 1975; p. 414)

PAUL GONSALVES

Born 12 July 1920, Boston, Massachusetts; died 14 May 1974, London

Tenor saxophone

Gettin’ Together

Original Jazz Classics OJCCD 203

Gonsalves; Nat Adderley (t); Wynton Kelly (p); Sam Jones (p); Jimmy Cobb (d). December 1960.

Saxophonist David Murray said (1992):
‘Paul’s son showed me his father’s mouthpiece one time, and, you know, it was bitten almost through.’

‘Mex’ – so called for his Latin looks – actually started with the Basie band but joined Duke Ellington in 1950 and stayed for the rest of his life. Addiction troubled his career, but Ellington stood by him and coaxed out countless great performances. Gonsalves’s unplanned 27 blues choruses in the bridging section of ‘Diminuendo In Blue’ and ‘Crescendo In Blue’ at Newport in 1956 was his apotheosis and can be considered one of the first important extended solos in modern jazz. Gonsalves stands in a direct line with earlier masters like Chu Berry and Don Byas, and leads to Frank Lowe and David Murray. It would be absurd to compare his influence with Coltrane’s, but it’s now clear that he was experimenting early with tonalities remarkably similar to Trane’s famous ‘sheets of sound’. It’s probable that more people heard Gonsalves play at the time.

His own records are less celebrated than they ought to be. Material and personnel tend to have an Ellingtonian cast, which creates the impression that these are indulgences from the day job. A date co-led with Roy Eldridge,
Mexican Bandit Meets Pittsburgh Pirate
, had some circulation, but even so rarely figures in fans’ lists.
Gettin’ Together
is a remarkable album, beautifully played and recorded. Morton’s ‘Low Gravy’ is an unusual pick for players of this generation, but it fits in well and the ballads, too, have the feel of old-time work brought somewhat up to date. Kelly’s work on ‘Walkin’’ and ‘I Cover The Waterfront’ is blue-chip, and Adderley’s fragile, over-confident tone fits in perfectly with the leader’s spinning, effortlessly logical lines. It doesn’t happen here, where studio constraints keep durations down, but one always feels that Gonsalves could play on serenely on any of these themes. Even the opening ‘Yesterdays’ has the potential for epic.

He sojourned in London later, and passed away there, a little ahead, one suspects, of the inevitable ‘rediscovery’.

BUDD JOHNSON

Born Albert J. Johnson, 4 December 1910, Dallas, Texas; died 20 October 1984, Kansas City, Missouri

Tenor saxophone

Let’s Swing

Original Jazz Classics OJC 1720

Johnson; Keg Johnson (tb); Tommy Flanagan (p); George Duvivier (b); Charli Persip (d). December 1960.

Tommy Flanagan said (1987):
‘Thank you for asking about Budd Johnson. No one ever asks about Budd these days. He was one of the greatest players of his instrument there ever was. He could do anything in any key, but somehow he’s overlooked now and it seems a shame.’

Budd Johnson was a jazz giant for over five decades, yet made comparatively few recordings under his own leadership. Growing up in Dallas, he started on drums but became a stylist in the Hawkins mould and worked in Kansas City as a teenager, before co-leading a group with Teddy Wilson in Chicago. He subsequently worked with Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines, for whom he arranged, staying until the early years of the war, after which he had stints with Dizzy Gillespie, Boyd Raeburn and Billy Eckstine.

Johnson was already a veteran when he made this record: the tone settled, big, broad, soaked in blues feeling. ‘Blues By Budd’ is an inimitable example of Johnson at his best. There is a certain dry humour in his playing which never spills over into parody or flippancy: listen to the way he opens his solo on ‘Uptown Manhattan’, and hear how he intensifies his playing from that point. His brother Keg plays some cheerful solos, but it’s Budd’s record – try the lovely reading of ‘Someone To Watch Over Me’, in which the saxophonist composed a unison passage for himself and Duvivier.

DUTCH SWING COLLEGE BAND

Formed 1945

Band

Live In 1960

Philips 838765-2

Oscar Klein (c); Dick Kaart (tb); Peter Schilperoort (cl, bs); Jan Morks (cl); Arie Ligthart (g); Bob Van Oven (b); Martin Beenen (d). 1960.

Adrie Braat says:
‘In 1960 the band turned professional, won innumerable prizes and still performs traditional jazz, successfully and worldwide.’