theloneliestmonk

Masada: Bith Aneth
From Alef (1994)
John Zorn - alto saxophone
Dave Douglas - trumpet
Greg Cohen - double bass
Joey Baron - drums

Masada String Trio: Tahah
From The Circle Maker - Issachar (1998)
Mark Feldman – violin
Erik Friedlander – cello
Greg Cohen – double bass

---

The idea is to put Ornette Coleman and the Jewish scales together.”

~ John Zorn

I’ll probably always associate John Zorn’s Masada with Hong Kong action flicks. I guess because I discovered them at around the same time, in the early 1990’s. I should be embarrassed about how many hours I spent in half-darkened Chinatown movie theaters wishing I could fly with Brigitte Lin through some kung fu psychodrama, but I’m not. Back then Masada (and the Beastie Boys) almost always provided the soundtrack to my post double-feature daydreams of flying guillotines, evil Siamese twins and witches with mile-long tongues.

Bith Aneth is one of those Masada tunes that’s perfumed with the exoticism of the not-quite East. And even now, it’s easy for me to imagine Joey Wong and Maggie Chung as a pair of enchanted snake sisters, slithering around each other in a misty subterranean pool when I hear it. The song has everything I love about the Masada quartet: the energy, the sinewy bass line, the way the horns bump up and slide across each other. Just listen to how Zorn and Douglas slowly build tension before a tart trading of fours at 3:55 – and then the release… it’s fucking pornographic.

Of all the groups that have performed from the Masada songbook, perhaps the most popular are the chamber ensembles. “Tahah” is performed by one of those ensembles, the Masada String Trio, and they really boil the song down to its core, quickly establishing the melody and then, while Greg Cohen holds down the rhythm, Mark Feldman and Erik Friedlander whirl around each other like Wong Fei-Hung in a stick fight, improvising furiously. And when the whole thing is over – which is always way too soon – I can only sit back, slack-jawed in wonder at what I just witnessed.

“What a Rip” – Stephen Colbert on Zorn’s stealing his “genius” grant:
Comedy Central: Videos

Bill Evans & Jim Hall: Dream Gypsy
From Undercurrent (1963)
Bill Evans - piano
Jim Hall – guitar

Paul Bley Trio: Ida Lupino
From Closer (1965)
Paul Bley - piano
Barry Altschul - drums
Steve Swallow - bass

---

Miles Davis once described Bill Evans’ sound as being “like crystal notes or sparking water cascading down from some clear waterfall” and I’d say that pretty much captures the essence of his tone. But I have to admit that no matter how many jazz giants have gone apeshit over his style, and despite the fact that I’ve always admired his ability to imbue even the jauntiest of tunes with a sense of melancholy, I was never really able to get with that tinkley piano sound. I know this reflects some lack of sophistication on my part – I’ve never developed a proper appreciation of white wine either. Fortunately for me, I’m a sucker for compelling cover art, which is what initially lead me to pick up Undercurrent, the record that finally opened my ears to Mr. Evans’ sound.

Undercurrent is an album of duets with guitarist Jim Hall and it’s easy to hear why many jazzbos consider it to be the pinnacle of instrumental duet recordings. The sympathy with which the two accompany each other makes a good case for extra sensory perception. Listen to how Jim Hall makes his introduction on this tune, that quiet ringing tone followed by a subtle loping line. And then the way they seamlessly change hands, as the piano bubbles to the top and Mr. Hall lays barely perceptible chords underneath the raindrops Bill Evans sprinkles down over the tune. The whole thing coalesces into the sort of impressionistic nocturne that would make Debussy weep.

Palu Bley replaced Jim Hall in the chamber jazz ensemble The Jimmy Guifrey 3, helping to move that group further into free jazz territory. And while this track is not very typical of Paul Bley’s style, it does fit nicely alongside the Evans/Hall track; it sounds to my ears like it could have been an outtake from one of Vince Guaraldi’s Peanuts specials.

As a side note, Ida Lupino was one of the first female film directors, and the first to direct a noir, The Hitch-Hiker (1953). She also co-stared with Humphrey Bogart in the excellent heist film High Sierra.

Read more about Bill Evans:
Wikipedia: Bill Evans
John Darnielle (The Mountain Goats) waxes poetic about Mr. Evans’ “Moonbeams”:
Moonbeams MP3 Download
Pitchfork’s Mark Richardson romanticizes Mr. Evans’ depression and addiction, er… I mean reviews the pianist’s 1968 solo album “Alone”:
Column: Resonant Frequency #47
Read more about Jim Hall:
Jim Hall
Read more about Paul Bley:
Paul Bley Home Page
Read more about Ida Lupino:
TCMDB: Ida Lupino

Bert Jansch and John Renbourn: East Wind
From Bert and John (1966)
Bert Jansch - guitar
John Renbourn - guitar

Bert Jansch: Smokey River
From Bert Jansch (1965)
Bert Jansch - guitar

---

As much of a great guitar player as Jimi [Hendrix] was, Bert Jansch is the same thing for acoustic guitar…and my favorite.”

~ Neil Young

I was absolutely obsessed with Bert Jansch.”

~ Jimmy Page

Bert Jansch is perhaps best known as the innovative acoustic guitarist for the British folk-rock band Pentangle, whose playing has influenced such artists as Jimmy Page (who pinched Mr. Jansch’s arrangement of the traditional “Blackwater Side” and recorded it as “Black Mountain Side” on Led Zeppelin’s debut) and Neil Young.

Interest in Bert Jansch has been piqued since the release of his well-received recent album so I thought I’d post a few track from a couple of his earlier recordings. Jansch frequently played with guitarist John Renbourn, and “Eastern Wind” offers an excellent example of their intricate style of interplay, often referred to as Folk Baroque. And “Smokey River” is a beautiful rendition of one of my favorite Jimmy Giuffre tunes, The Train and the River.*

Read more about Bert Jansch:
Bert Jansch | Official Website
Read more about Jimmy Giuffre:
Wikipedia: Jimmy Giuffre

Horace Silver: Que Pasa?
From Song For My Father (1964)
Horace Silver - piano
Eugene Taylor - bass
Roy Brooks - drums

Horace Silver: Sayonara Blues
From The Tokyo Blues (1962)
Horace Silver - piano
Blue Mitchell - trumpet
Junior Cook - tenor sax
Gene Taylor - bass
Joe Harris (listed as John Harris, Jr.) - drums

---

Horace Silver pretty much owns the last golden era of jazz. He was the principal pioneer of Hard Bop, a form of jazz that brought greasy R&B, soul and the sanctified sounds of gospel music back into jazz. His place in that pantheon is similar to the place Ray Charles holds in soul or James Brown in funk. He’s the Godfather of what is now considered straight-ahead mainstream jazz (i.e. when people talk about the Blue Note sound, they are in essence referring to Horace Silver’s sound).

From the late nineteen fifties through the mid sixties he and his bands recorded a string of albums that are remarkable for the consistency of the top-notch song writing, sophisticated arrangements and funky playing.

“Que Pasa?” comes from Mr. Silver’s most popular album Song for My Father. This trio version beautifully illustrates his warm and accessible piano styling. Like many of his songs, it incorporates the Cape Verdean rhythms that his father introduced him to as a child and swings as effortlessly as Basie at his best.

The second tune “Sayonara Blues” comes from another gem in his discography, my personal favorite of his recordings, The Tokyo Blues. This song offers an excellent example of his ability to arrange for a small jazz ensemble — one of the things he’s most famous for. His band coaxes new variations out of Silver’s melody at each turn, brining it from simmer to boil and back repeatedly while remaining funky for the song’s entire twelve minutes.

On a closing note, I’d like to add that I first came to jazz through the post-punk filter of No Wave; reading magazines like Forced Exposure and writers like Richard Meltzer. I entered into the music at the extreme end of the avant-garde and it was many years before a record store clerk friend, Roger, introduced me to Horace Silver, and in doing so, to straight-ahead jazz. That was over fifteen years ago, that I became infected with the jazz virus, and I hope that this blog might act as a meme to help infect others as well. Enjoy!

Read more about Horace Silver:
NPR’s Jazz Profiles: Horace Silver

Ornette Coleman: Ramblin’
From Change of the Century (1959)
Ornette Coleman - alto sax
Don Cherry - pocket trumpet
Charlie Haden - bass
Billy Higgins - drums

Tina Brooks: Theme for Doris
From True Blue (1960)
Tina Brooks - tenor sax
Freddie Hubbard - trumpet
Duke Jordan - piano
Sam Jones - bass
Art Taylor - drums

---

Last week I mentioned how Ornette Coleman had been a major influence on Jackie McLean’s sound. Well, this particular song, which has Ornette playing in a sort of bouncing blues shuffle, offers what I think is a pretty good example of where their sounds overlapped. “Ramblin’” has always been one of my favorite Ornette Coleman compositions. I especially love the section, about four minutes in, where the horns lay out and Haden and Higgins trade fours.

The second song here is by Tina Brooks, who was the understudy for Jackie McLean in the Living Theater production of The Connection, a play about junkie jazz musicians copping heroin between gigs. It was a role that paralleled their lives at the time. Jackie eventually kicked drugs but Tina would be in and out of hospitals and prisons, unable to play for nearly a decade, and dead by forty-two.

True Blue was the only album released under Tina Brooks’ name in his lifetime. And, although he was a somewhat obscure character in jazz at that time, his stature has risen considerably in the years since his death, thanks in large part to the highly respected Mosaic Box set which brought to light all of his previously unreleased Blue Note sessions.

“Theme for Doris” is a fairly sunny tune for Brooks, who generally favored minor-key melodies, and it has a distinct Dexter Gordon flavor. It’s the kind of song that makes me feel like I should be lounging near the beach, playing dominoes and drinking a mojito.

Read more about Ornette Coleman at:
Wikipedia: Ornette Coleman
Read more about Tina Brooks at:
True Blue: Tribute to Tina Brooks