Find album reviews, stream songs, credits and award information for From Left to Right - Bill Evans on AllMusic - 1970 - In the '60s the jazz pianist Bill Evans would.

Recorded in secret by a devoted fan (Mike Harris) at the Village Vanguard and now put out in this magnificent box with the approval of the Evans estate, the 104 performances that make up Bill Evans: The Secret Sessions, Recorded at the Village Vanguard, 1966-1975 [Milestone 8MCD-1-121-1] feature Bill Evans at his very best, sounding both relaxed and explorative while playing before attentive audiences. With Eddie Gomez or Teddy Kotick on bass and such drummers as Arnie Wise, Joe Hunt, Philly Joe Jones, Jack DeJohnette, John Dentz, Marty Morell, and Eliot Zigmund, Evans is heard on 26 occasions during the 1966-75 period, mixing together fresh versions of familiar songs with some selections that he performed much less often.

“Bill Evans and I were important elements in each other’s careers when we were both quite young. (Among the most celebrated of his early albums produced by me were the two that emerged from a full Sunday at the Village Vanguard in 1961.) Working closely with him back then, I soon came to realize that he was among those highly talented artists for whom recording does not come easily. Such people usually manage to overcome the self-consciousness of the studio, but it definitely adds to the stress of creativity. Recording “live” in a club or concert environment can be helpful - but if a Bill Evans (or similarly, a Sonny Rollins or a Wes Montgomery) could never cease to be very much aware of the presence of tape machines and microphones. When I first learned of a storehouse of secretly recorded Evans performances, I had a series of mixed feelings, but certainly my principal reaction was that it couldn’t have happened to a more appropriate guy!

It is a particularly intriguing concept if you keep in mind Bill's lifelong reluctance to go into the studio. I find myself inventing only mildly exaggerated advertising copy: Now you can possess permanently the kind of unselfconscious Evans performances that club audiences fleetingly held in their heads, but until now had been totally unavailable to mere record-buyers! Actually, you will find the reality slightly less melodramatic. Bill in the recording studio was not exactly a loser, and this material is not wildly different in nature. But there truly is a great deal here that none of us had previously encountered on records, a relaxation and spontaneity, an ability (indeed an eagerness) to improvise himself into and out of a variety of unrehearsed or unlooked-for situations in relation to his bass player (except for the very first night it is Eddie Gomez) and each of several drummers. And there is something wonderfully revealing about hearing, in several instances, the same repertoire under varied circumstances — the approach changing over the years, the familiar song sounding not at all the same with a different drummer.

The details of how an ardent fan turned himself into an unauthorized chronicler of Bill's performances over a decade and more are recounted in the accompanying essay by Doug Ramsey. When I first became aware of the tapes, Mike Harris was well into what turned out to be a lengthy process of making everything proper. The various parties who have an interest in this material (the Evans estate, the accompanying musicians, the club, record companies with whom Bill had contractual relationships at the time he was taped) have now been dealt with.

In particular, retroactive thanks certainly seem due to the late Max Gordon, founder and longtime operator of the Vanguard, and current appreciation to his colleague, widow, and successor, Lorraine Gordon. Philip Jenkins The Lost History Of Christianity Pdf. As for the artist himself, and how he might have felt about the release of these recordings, that's a matter on which we're obviously never going to have a first-hand opinion.

But I can presume to say that we have the next best thing. It certainly counts for something that his family has approved.

And there are also the two people who, over the years, were closest to Bill's musical output. The more important of the two by far was the late Helen Keane, who as Bill's manager guided his career from very early trio days and also served from the mid-1960s as his record producer. Helen's death, in the spring of 1996, came before she could have any active input in the preparation of this project.

But she certainly knew quite thoroughly how he had sounded in this particular club during these years, and she had approved the concept in principle by agreeing, despite her long illness, to serve the project as a consultant. Helen was going to be backing me up, and my own Bill Evans credentials as the second of the musical authorities are twofold: as already noted, I was Bill's first record producer, which was a seven-year association; after that, I was his friend and fan for the rest of his life. There is no way I could have refused the invitation to produce this compilation. It involves a responsibility that, following Helen's death, I suspect I have taken even more seriously — to select material and performances that would make the most of this unique opportunity. Somewhat to my surprise, under the circumstances, recording quality was not actually a major problem.

Obviously, what we have here is far from studio standards, but in fact the consistently high playing level keeps you, for the most part, from paying too much attention to that. Bill was very much a variable and fallible human being, but the ability to eventually rise to the occasion, which I had been strongly aware of in the recording studio, was apparently also a factor in his daily working life. The late 1960s was a frequently troubled period in his life, but you don't really find that reflected here. I'd sum up the matter of sound quality by shifting the burden back to the listener.

You must appreciate the circumstances — in this case, it's necessary to give a little to get a lot, to tolerate a less than perfect balance between instruments and a piano sound that is not optimum in order to be able to eavesdrop on the amazing creativity of a truly great jazz artist. Mike Harris, our secret benefactor, clearly had a pretty good idea of what he was doing. When a trio appeared in that room, even back in the Sixties, the piano (which clearly was kept in better condition than the average nightclub keyboard) invariably was placed at the very front of the raised bandstand. Accordingly, its bulk, interposed between the bass and the Harris equipment, helped create a reasonable balance. In this room, drums have almost always been set up in a small alcove at the rear and at the far right (from an audience perspective). This also had a suitably compensating effect, although obviously much would depend on the drummer himself. Bill's choice of percussionists was not consistent, ranging from quite light to extremely aggressive, but he was fully aware of that.

So the nights with Philly Joe Jones on hand not only offer a much more present drum sound, they also tend to display a very different level of intensity from the leader. Although a full decade is covered here, from 1966 to 75, the spread is not particularly even. There's a great deal more early material available, largely because Max Gordon was particularly fond of the pianist and during the mid and late Sixties brought him into the room with great frequency. And in those days, jazz clubs quite routinely booked a group for two and three weeks at a time. But before the end of that decade, rapidly growing public acceptance made Evans much less available to Gordon. Bill's being on tour or working other New York clubs meant that there were years when dedicated Mike Harris and his tape machine hardly got any shots at Bill in the Vanguard.

(In addition, the company for whom he recorded during his last few years, having plans of its own for final sessions taped at the Vanguard, understandably declined to waive its control over material within its time frame.). I have selected the repertoire for this compilation by keeping in mind both variety and what I think of as 'continuity.' Bill added a vast number of songs to his personal play list over the years, made you consider many of them his special property, and then eventually grew somewhat tired of them, which meant they were played more rarely, although usually not completely abandoned. Of course I haven't been able to include all of those, but I didn't miss too many, and there are quite a few deliberate encores. (Inevitably I was restricted by what actually was played on the taped evenings, and also by a quantity of mechanical problems, mishaps, and assorted recording gremlins that made it difficult or impossible to include some familiar numbers.) And wherever possible I have shamelessly used my position as producer to give preference to my personal Evans favorites — although, to my credit, there are only two performances of his Re: Person I Knew, the title of which is an anagram using all the letters in my name. On the important subject of drummers, there is one positive prejudice that Bill and I definitely shared.

We both regarded Philly Joe Jones as one of the most charming and most difficult of human beings, and also one of the most talented. It was among the unexpected pleasures of working with this material for me to find that the very brief period in 1967 when Joe was for the first time part of Bill's trio had included substantial — and well documented — time at the Vanguard. The bulk of one disc in this set and all of another are given over to some of those performances and, with due respect to several other excellent drummers, including my good friend Jack DeJohnette, these are for me the strongest moments of a very strong compilation. As a final point, one of the evenings with Philly Joe provides a striking example of the kind of decision-making that was an inevitable part of producing so unorthodox a compilation. May 28, 1967, was a high-energy night at the Vanguard; Evans and Jones were locked into a groove that seemed on a direct line from their adventures together, nine years earlier, as part of the rhythm section for the memorable Miles Davis sextet that included Coltrane and Cannonball.

They were playing numbers that I can't recall otherwise ever hearing from Bill Evans: a Charlie Parker favorite, 'Star Eyes,' and Sonny Rollins's hard-driving 'Airegin.' But the tape itself was not on their wavelength. It was the only time Mike Harris was to discover after the fact that he had been using defective tape, that several of these burning performances had 'dropouts' in the music—momentary but noticeable sound gaps.

The faulty tape contained several other one-of-a-kind numbers, the only appearance on these discs of 'Haunted Heart,' 'Little Lulu,' and Bill's composition, 'Peri's Scope.' It is only proper to inform you of these flaws, but you'd probably spot them for yourself. After young Bill Evans got out of the Army in 1954, he became an indispensable sideman and soloist on the New York jazz scene.

He recorded his first trio album late in 1956 and little more than a year later had begun to enhance his reputation through brilliant work with Miles Davis. Acting on insights gained from the music of Debussy and other impressionist composers, he enriched his chords beyond those of any other jazz pianist. Comparisons that come to mind are with harmonies that Gil Evans and Robert Farnon wrote for large orchestras and with some of the mysterious voicings of Duke Ellington. Even in his earliest trio work he stretched and displaced rhythm and melody and hinted at modes and scales as the basis for improvisation.

With the 1958 Davis sextet that also included saxophonists John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, bassist Paul Chambers, and, initially, drummer Philly Joe Jones (replaced before very long by Jimmy Cobb), Evans had enormous influence in determining the course that mainstream jazz follows to this day. Although in his own groups he was to remain within the song form all his life, at this time Evans clearly accelerated Davis's change from a repertoire of popular songs and jazz standards to pieces with fewer chord changes and greater demands on the taste, judgment, and imagination of the soloist. Davis saw ways of using the pianist's approach to open up and simplify harmonies. By applying modal changes, the two men even transformed a twelve-bar blues, already the simplest traditional jazz form. By 1959, their work together helped lead to the landmark Davis sextet recording, Kind of Blue. (It is fair to say that of important players and writers whose styles were not set before 1960, most developed in the shadow of that album.) Their modal and scalar approach to improvisation profoundly influenced John Coltrane's turn toward fewer harmonic guideposts.

Independently, at about the same time, alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman was soloing on melodic lines, which he wrote without key centers, modes, or scales. Taken together, the two methods led to Free Jazz or The New Thing, the avant-garde jazz of the 1960s. The movement did attract a fair number of poseurs enchanted by the idea of playing music without having to know anything about it.

Today, most of them are otherwise employed. Auto Shutdown Xp Crack. But Free Jazz also had the beneficial effect of opening the minds of real musicians to new possibilities. After leaving Davis, Evans invariably employed the trio format.

His 1961 recordings at the Village Vanguard in New York City, made with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian, exemplified an early pinnacle of his conception of trio playing in which the three instruments often seemed to function as one. He opened improvisational possibilities that pianists have been exploring and developing for more than three decades.

Unless a young pianist set out to recreate ragtime and stride or to play outside of harmonic guidelines, he or she is all but certain to work from the Evans legacy. More than just pianists are his inheritors. Players of virtually every melody instrument have absorbed the Bill Evans sensibility, and it can be argued that even drummers play differently because of his rhythmic influence. Critics often defined Evans's music in terms of romanticism and introspection. This evaluation was reinforced by the sight of him at work, his forehead parallel to the keyboard, seemingly intent on melding with the piano as his spirit entered the instrument.

He was the very image of a musician in the depths of concentration — withdrawn, intellectual, painfully lyrical. That is the cliche vision of Evans. It ignores an element as essential to his music as his melodic lyricism and his magical voicings. It ignores time, rhythm, swing. In the mid-1950s, the muscle, drive, and fire in a pair of performances recorded by Evans had electrified the jazz community. Both were with George Russell.

One was 'Concerto for Billy the Kid,' the other, 'All About Rosie.' They stand as two of the most intensely swinging statements ever recorded by a jazz pianist. Evans never lost the ability to galvanize audiences with his rhythmic force. In this collection you will hear the lyricist, the creator of deep pools of chords, the master of pointillistic shimmer, the harmonic genius concerned with his trio's performing as an entity — but you will also experience the drive and excitement of an avatar of rhythmic performance. In the master drummer Philly Joe Jones, his colleague from Miles Davis days, Evans had a soul mate in time. Their work together on two of these compact discs is a study in exhilaration and empathy.

Born in Manhattan in 1935, Mike Harris was educated at Cornell University and became an optical physicist. In the early Sixties, after serving in the Navy, he moved to Connecticut to work at Perkin-Elmer, a firm specializing in exotic analytical optics. There he was part of the Apollo moon program. He also helped to develop the optical guidance system for the Hubble space telescope. 'That was the part that worked,' he says, not the notorious failed mirror. He often traveled to New Mexico in the 1970s on Perkin-Elmer projects for the Air Force.

He retired in 1990. Harris is an amateur pianist who started on the instrument at the age of six and as a child studied at the Diller-Quayle School of Music in Manhattan. As a young man, he was inspired by the Emil Gilels recording of the Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto and learned to play it. Then he went on to the Rachmaninoff Second. A nine-foot concert grand occupies his living room.

He says that he did not have concert-level technique, but just kept working at the concertos until he had them down. For many years Harris has been a student of the playing of Bill Evans. He took a few lessons from John Mehegan, one of the first teachers of jazz improvisation to develop a discrete learning system. In one of the few brief conversations Harris had with Evans, the pianist had recommended Mehegan. 'I liked jazz, but I had kind of gotten away from it.

I had records by Chet Baker, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Jackson, Terry Gibbs, but I was working diligently on classical music in those days. As far as piano goes, I had just never heard anything that convinced me it was the way jazz piano should be done. One afternoon, I was driving into New York on the Cross County Parkway and listening to Billy Taylor's program on WLIB-AM. He played 'Waltz for Debby’ and I said, 'What the hell is that?'

I drove immediately to a record store and bought everything of Bill's I could find, which were his first four albums, New Jazz Conceptions, Everybody Digs Bill Evans, Portrait in Jazz, and Explorations. I said, 'Okay, that's it. It's not going to get any better than that.' ' The albums, it should be noted, were on Riverside and had been produced by Orrin Keepnews, the man who has assembled this compilation. To begin with, however, the Harrises were just ordinary weekend listeners, choosing Friday nights and Sunday afternoons for their Evans expeditions into Manhattan because the audiences, particularly for the regrettably long-vanished tradition of the Sunday matinee, were apt to be smaller, more attentive, respectful. They had quickly decided that Saturday nights were impossible; the Vanguard, Harris recalls, was full of noisy couples on the make. Quiet soon became particularly important, because by 1966 Harris had decided not to let the Evans performances get away.

'I want to communicate a qualitative thing, what I consider to be above the ordinary, outside of ordinary experience. I don't want to reflect all the frustrations or all the rottenness that surrounds us. I really want to capture something else, something very special, communicate that, prove that it exists and let that feeling have some important, maybe spiritual, quality. It has to do with a sense of beauty, but I think once somebody perceives a thing like that, it can change their lives, so that you can say, 'there's something real, and I might as well live with that.’'. Harris asked Max Gordon, the founder and longtime proprietor of the Vanguard, if it would be all right to bring in his Tandberg Model 64 reel-to-reel tape deck, a high-quality, full-sized home recorder that could not be concealed.

According to Harris, Gordon shrugged, said he didn't care, didn't think the players would mind, but guessed that the musicians' union wouldn't be too happy about it. Harris recalls Gordon commenting that many people brought in small recorders. He took that observation 'as license' and rented a Uher 4000 Report L, a small battery-operated machine used by journalists for interviews.

He packed it in an oversized carpetbag and cut a hole for a rented RCA microphone. On a Friday night in the spring of 1966, he and Evelyn arrived at 9 p.m. For the 10 o'clock set and staked out a table in. Evans's health was a constant worry to his friends because it was governed by his drug addiction.

There were several chapters to this story, beginning with a heroin habit dating back almost to the start of his career. In the mid-Sixties he finally took an active role in the rescue effort led by his longtime manager, Helen Keane, and with the help of the synthetic drug methadone accomplished a withdrawal from heroin.

There was a period of recovery and 'normalcy,' but by the mid-Seventies the pianist was increasingly involved with cocaine, which Helen considered much more destructive for him. Adding to the tragedy was Bill's awareness of the consequences of his habit and his ability to be articulate about its effects. Without question, drugs led to his early death. Through his nightmarish experiences with pushers, debt collectors, the pain of trying to stop, fear of hassles with the law—the squalid facts of a junkie's existence — his musical ability never flagged, his growth never stopped. The veteran bassist Bill Crow has a story from Bill's Vanguard days of the 1960's. 'I lived in the neighborhood and haunted the place,' Crow told me. 'Bill's group was wonderful, in all of its incarnations.

I saw him one Sunday when his right hand was paralyzed temporarily from a misguided needle. He would dangle the dead hand over the keyboard and drop his forefinger on the keys, using the weight of the hand to depress them. Everything else was played with the left hand, and if you looked away, you couldn't tell anything was wrong. Bill looked so wounded and sad in those days that I passed up a chance to be in the trio for a week in Pittsburgh. I wish he could have lasted longer he opened up all our ears so much.' The Village Vanguard is the last of the great old New York jazz places, surviving the Half Note, Eddie Condon's, Jimmy Ryan's, the Royal Roost, the original Birdland, Nick's, Minton's, the Jazz Gallery, Slug's, the Five Spot, and dozens of other clubs. The Vanguard is an underground wedge, a Greenwich Village basement below 178 Seventh Avenue South.

It can accommodate about 300 people a night. It has acoustics of unusual purity, good sight lines, and a past that has moved many to suggest that it be declared a National Historical Site.

In 1935, when he displaced a speakeasy known as the Golden Triangle, Max Gordon first presented poetry at the Vanguard. The club's Monday night jam sessions attracted major players, among them Nat Cole, Earl Hines, Cootie Williams, Charlie Shavers, Vic Dickenson, and Dizzy Gillespie, a young trumpeter who also spent a good deal of time uptown helping to develop what came to be known as bebop. For much of the Forties, the house trio was Eddie Heywood, Zutty Singleton, and Jimmy Hamilton, playing for dancing and all those visiting musicians. Still, jazz took a secondary place to comedy, cabaret, folk, and popular music until the mid-1950's, when Gordon decided to 'refresh the whole entertainment setup.' By that, he meant bringing in the greatest players in modern jazz. Through the rest of the century, the best jazz musicians in the world have performed regularly at the Village Vanguard. Because of the empathy, knowledge, and attentiveness of the audiences, Gordon's congeniality, and the club's friendly acoustics, it was an ideal place to record.

Some of the finest performances of the era were put on tape there by dozens of musicians including Sonny Rollins, the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie in a series of Sunday afternoon jam sessions — and Bill Evans with the trio that for many listeners defined his art. With Scott LaFaro and Paul Motion, Evans achieved a unified musical thinking and singleness of purpose that in many respects was never matched by his subsequent groups, which in no way minimizes Bill's later efforts or the individual achievements of several trio members. LaFaro, who died in a car crash in July of 1961 (less than two weeks after the trio's classic Vanguard recordings), was taking the jazz bass in a new direction. Working on cues from the playing of Charles Mingus, he was making the instrument an interior voice, a commentator, a Greek chorus, and a full partner, not just a member of the rhythm section. He was moving into a realm beyond timekeeping and beyond the solo role created by Jimmy Blanton and continued by Ray Brown and Oscar Pettiford. He inspired a generation of bassists, and he perfectly fit what Evans had in mind.

The pianist was devastated by his sudden death. 'Musically everything seemed to stop,' Bill told Martin Williams. 'I didn't even play at home.' When he did start performing again, it was alone. Not until months later did he hire another bassist. Chuck Israels did not have LaFaro's meteoric technique, but his solid musicianship and aggressiveness fulfilled Evans's requirement for a bassist who could participate in the essential three-way conversation. After Israels, he worked temporarily with several bassists, including Teddy Kotick, before Eddie Gomez, who is on all but the first evening represented here, joined the trio in 1966.

Eddie became the bassist who worked longest with Evans, and during his 11-year tenure, they developed a rapport that made the most of his abilities to solo and to merge into Bill's trio esthetic. Although Gomez once said it took him three years to feel comfortable working with a man he had idolized for years, his playing throughout this collection demonstrates his suitability for the most challenging bass assignment in jazz. These later trios may have lacked the synchromesh subtlety of the LaFaro-Evans-Motian group, but they had Gomez's strength, and a degree of communication between piano and bass that approached extrasensory perception. One late-arising problem came with the realization that only one set of tapes existed, with no duplicate safety reels. The material was in Connecticut; Fantasy is in California, and the company was understandably more than reluctant to entrust this cargo to any impersonal form of commercial shipping.

The eventual solution came when Keepnews volunteered to fly from San Francisco to take possession of the tapes and serve as their courier. This included the ceremonial transfer of a tape-filled metal case in a New York hotel lobby, lacking only a set of handcuffs attaching the case to the producer's arm to pass as a scene from a Hollywood spy thriller.

Back at the Fantasy studios, the combined job facing Keepnews and Fantasy engineer Joe Tarantino was formidable: listen to and evaluate countless hours of several editions of the Bill Evans trio; select eight Compact Discs worth of appropriate performances based on considerations of musical and technical quality, repertoire, personal preference, and instinct; and then apply digital technology to bring the amateur recordings up to the highest quality level possible under the circumstances. In his Producer's Note (.), Keepnews expands upon the challenges and choices involved in this arduous task and other aspects of the Secret Sessions project. Nearly all of the songs Evans performs in this collection were staples of his repertoire.

'Very Early,' 'Waltz for Debby,' 'Autumn Leaves,' 'Who Can I Turn To,' 'Come Rain or Come Shine,' 'Round Midnight,' 'Turn Out the Stars,' 'Blue in Green,' 'Time Remembered,' and the magnificent 'Nardis' were core pieces. 'Polka Dots and Moonbeams' came and went in the Evans book. There is a generous sampling of other songs he played more rarely.

Bill seems to have accommodated some selections to his special relationship with Philly Joe Jones. 'I'll Remember April' is in that category, along with 'Star Eyes,' 'Airegin,' and 'You and the Night and the Music' (which was the lead track on the unique 1962 Evans quintet album, Interplay, with Philly Joe, Jim Hall, Freddie Hubbard, and Percy Heath). 'Easy Living' was on his first Riverside LP, but he did not often play it.

'Little Lulu' and 'California Here I Come' may have been on Bill's mind in 1967 because he had just recorded them for Verve. Similarly, Herbie Hancock's 'Dolphin Dance' was a part of his 1974 MGM album Left to Right, recorded around the time of this rare live performance of the tune. 'Sugar Plum' and 'Mornin' Glory' were on 1971's The Bill Evans Album, his only trio LP for Columbia. 'We had no idea that it was being recorded, and of course the sound was not at a high level. But I'm happy about it simply because it's the only Miles recording with me and Philly Joe.

See, we had a particular thing going with Paul [Chambers] and Philly and me together as the rhythm section. I play differently with Philly. You can hear the rhythmic things that happened, the laid-back feeling and all; that I didn't get with Jimmy Cobb because he's a different kind of drummer.

So, it's interesting from that standpoint.' Quincy Jones had a band that was preparing to tour Europe in the summer of 1959. The band was rehearsing in the mezzanine of the Olympia Theatre and I somehow wrangled an invitation to attend a rehearsal.

It was a great hand with some of Quincy's friends from Seattle, like Buddy Catlett and Patti Brown. Les Spann was the guitarist and played some flute solos. Sahib Shihab was in the saxophone section and Joe Harris played drums. I listened to a number of pieces in which there were solos played by various members of the band. It would be unfair to say that those solos were perfunctory, but later, when Phil Woods stood up from the lead alto chair to play his solo feature, the atmosphere changed.

Phil played as if there were no tomorrow. The contrast was striking and I have always remembered the impression it left. If you practice rehearsing, then when the lime comes to perform, you are ready to rehearse. Phil practiced performing. © -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

I use Blogger as the platform to format and publish JazzProfiles. It’s free of charge and very compatible with other applications that Google hosts. But if you have ever tried to leave a comment about any of the features that post to the blog, you know that Blogger isn’t very accommodating in this regard. I’m not sure why this is the case as other blogging platforms such as Wordpress make it very easy for readers to interact with the blog author. For the most part, I have been satisfied with this arrangement as it allows me to dwell in relative anonymity and to focus on preparing pieces for the blog. It takes a great deal of time and effort to research and write the features that I bring up on JazzProfiles on an almost daily basis, and populate them with images, graphics and audio-visual examples of the music and the musicians under discussion. Besides, since I am not an authority on Jazz, I’ve always assumed that the readers of the blog would rather spend their time perusing its contents than corresponding with me.

However, should you like to leave a comment, ask a question or make a request, please feel free to contact me at scerra@roadrunner.com/ and I’ll do my best to provide you with a timely response. I will also negotiate the abstruse Blogger platform and nest your comment under the appropriate feature. I also plan to place a listing of “Readers Comments” in a permanent section of the blog’s sidebar and update it regularly.

All of this by way of saying that the editorial staff at JazzProfiles welcomes your communications. © -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved. Has left a new comment on your post ' ': Steven, You have done a great service by reproducing this article. Gene really created a great portrait of Miller, especially with his new (for the time) interviews. I was a great admirer of Gene's writing, and can say we were friends. If you like, I can send you a link to a memorial article I wrote for Doug Ramsey's blog Rifftides that I wrote after Gene died. He could be quite frustrating at times, but I learned a lot from him, and he definitely helped me to become a better writer.

Many thanks, Jeff has left a new comment on your post ' ': Thank you for this excellent blog post. I have listened to Tristano for years. I have Descent into the Maelstrom and other LPs of his. Konitz is in my estimation one of the most consummate improvisors in the history of recorded jazz. Doctorsientetebien has left a new comment on your post ' ': Hi. I have been visiting his blog for a few months almost daily and I have to thank him for his work, contributing interesting articles about music and Jazz musicians which is helping me discover new things, to value others that I did not appreciate at the time and to recover some that I enjoyed.

And I have forgotten. -Greetings and many thanks from Toledo Spain. Tony Agostinelli has left a new comment on your post ' ': Great write up of one helluva release by Bill Lichtenauer of Tantara Productions.

Magnificent list, great technology, and fantastic Kenton sounds. Thanks Steve.and thanks, Bill. And the liner notes were done superbly by Michael Sparke of the UK.

Tony Agostinelli Thanks Steven for making this available to a wider readership. This book was like a 'bible' to me when I first started collecting aged 16. I still have my original copy. Complete with marginalia as I filled in my collection. I had to wait until I moved to London in 1958 to acquire many of these albums on the British labels like Esquire. This brings back so many pleasant memories, but it also reminds me that time does proceed, relentlessly. This book was like a 'bible' to me when I was a serious collector, aged 16.

I still have my original copy, in excellent condition after all these years, over three continents complete with marginalia as I built my collection. Bravo to you Steve for making these early observations available for others to read. Raymond Horricks followed this book up with 'These Jazzmen Of Our Time' (Gollancz, 1959), which contained some great early portraits by Herman Leonard.

Has left a new comment on your post ' ': I met him twice. He was playing at a mall with the Westchester jazz band. That was around 97 or so. They were taking a break and I started talking to him. He was super nice. I mention my grandfather was a jazz trumpet player Bunny Berigan.

I did not know who Bill was but like the way he played bass that day. I ran across his book on jazz in the white plains library.

I was surprise at knowledge and who he played with in jazz. I seen him again at the same place a year later and got to talk to him.Very nice again to me. I asked him about Zoot Sims. And about Benny Goodman which he your with in Russian. My grandfather played with Benny too at one time.

Seems they both found him hard to deal with. What a fine man Bill is. Anonymous has left a new comment on your post ' ': I discovered Oliver Nelson in 1977 and could not believe my ears. At the time it was obviously a vinyl record and belonged to somebody else. However, thanks to the technology of today I can listen to my cd of Blues and the Abstract Truth to my heart's content.

You have told me so much more about this wonderful man's unique style. If I want to feel good, I just listen to Stolen Moments. Jim Shelton has left a new comment on your post ' ': I have been listening to 1 of greatest piece of orchestration of Stan Kenton style music I've ever listened too arranged by a young trumpet player & arranger Bill Mathieu it's Kenton it Mathieu but mostly a great music. The complexed overlays, blending, fitting in soloists at just the right moment, plus the swelling of the whole orchestra to create the Kenton sound without losing his own indemnity is outstanding. Thank Bill Thank you Stan.

Jim Shelton Peter Haslund has left a new comment on your post 'Mark Murphy: 1932-2015, R.I.P.' : Just discovered Mr. Gotta say it leaves me speechless that I listened to jazz since the 80s and never once heard his name.

All the stuff that sounded so contrived with Sinatra (who obviously knew he was really singing black people's music) is fresh and free with Mark. Hi Steven, I read with interest your recent piece about the Boss Brass. I live in Toronto, and when it comes to the Canadian jazz scene, it's hard to overstate how influential this band was. Besides the quality of McConnell's arrangements, the musicians were all top-name guys in the city (many with vigorous solo careers). What has always floored me about their playing is the tightness and especially intonation in the woodwinds -- the skill of the horn players at playing doubles (flutes and clarinets) is legendary. I feel fortunate to have been able to hear them live, on a number of occasions. From the stories I've heard, either third-hand or right from former Boss Brass members, Rob was a really hard guy to work with, but certainly pushed his group toward excellence.

I also liked your recent piece on Pat Martino. I'm a big fan of his style. If you haven't read his autobiography, I highly recommend it!

His personal story is, of course, fascinating and inspiring. Speaking of guitarists, someone you may want to profile someday is the Canadian jazz guitarist Ed Bickert. He was the guitarist for the Boss Brass for many decades. He is now quite elderly and no longer playing, but is another of those guys who was phenomenally influential, though I think he largely flew under-the-radar south of the border. Thanks for putting together such a great site, and best wishes.

Jordan Wosnick You can share your thoughts, observations and general remarks in the Readers Forum by contacting JazzProfiles via Hi Steve.I'm not a Facebook or Twitter guy so here's hoping this email reaches you. You indicated that you were not aware of published Mulligan biographies in your recent post on Gerry and I wanted to bring one to your attention that I think you will like: JERU'S JOURNEY by Sanford Josephson. It was published in 2015 by Hal Leonard Books. It's part of the Hal Leonard Biography Series which also includes bios of Cannonball Adderley, Herbie Mann & Billy Eckstine. I own the Adderley and Mann bios and also recommend them. Jeru's Journey is an easy read and covers Mulligan's life from birth to his passing.

It is a very good overview and the author--who knew Mulligan and interviewed him before his passing--tells Gerry's story completely including Mulligan's drug addiction, domestic (wives) issues, etc. Along with good musical analysis and insights both of the author's and other musicians. In addition to a good discography there are many photographs. The list price is $19.99. In closing, I would like to tell you how much I have enjoyed your blog over the years. I have recommended it to many musician friends and all have thanked me.

Thanks again for helping to keep the jazz alive. Bruce Armstrong You can share your thoughts, observations and general remarks in the Readers Forum by contacting JazzProfiles via Les Koenig was clearly a GIANT despite his obvious preference to be low-key, himself. THANK YOU, Steven Cerra!!! The world is a better place because of people like Les! Like Laurie(Pepper) & the list goes on & on forever!

Like YOU, Steven! Thanks to ALL who work behind the scenes, on or off-stage, etc.

-in support of the featured 'Player' & 'Sidemen' so that 'We the people.' Can be out in the audience having the time of our lives enjoying 'the show' or 'Artistry, Talent, Efforts' and so on! My attitude is one of gratitude!! THIS art form & ALL original American Art forms must be preserved and encouraged to not only survive, but to thrive!!!

“Unique is an inadequate word to describe Erroll Garner. He was a musical phenomenon unlike any other. One of the most appealing performers in Jazz history, he influenced almost every pianist who played in his era, and even beyond. Self-taught, he could not read music, yet he did things that trained pianists could not play or even imagine. Garner was a one-man swing band, and indeed often acknowledged that his main inspiration was the big bands of the thirties – Duke, Basie, Lunceford, et al.

He developed a self-sufficient, extremely full style that was characterized by a rock-steady left-hand that also sounded like a strumming rhythm guitar. Juxtaposed against this was a river of chordal or single note ideas, frequently stated in a lagging, behind-the-beat way that generated terrific swing.” [. “In a truly formal sense, Shelly could barely play the drums. If you gave him a pair of sticks and a snare drum and had him play rudi­ments—an open and closed roll, paradiddles, and all that kind of thing—he didn't sound like much. He never had that kind of training and wasn't inter­ested in it. For him it was a matter of playing the drums with the music.

He could play more music in four bars than almost anyone else. His drums sounded gorgeous. They recorded sensationally. All you had to hear was three or four bars and you knew it was Shelly Manne. - Larry Bunker, Jazz drummer and premier, studio percussionist. The 1954 Birdland recordings on Blue Note provided the stylistic foundation for the rest of Art Blakey's career.

His style had completely crystallized. His pulsation was undeniable, a natural force; the counter-rhythms he brought to the mix made what he played that much more affecting. There was a purity about what he did—and always motion.

He was spontaneous, free, creating every minute. That he was in the company of peers, all performing in an admirable manner, had a lot to do with making this 'on-the-spot' session such an important musical document. The band never stops burning. The exhilarating Clifford Brown moves undaunted through material, fast, slow, in between, playing fantastic, well-phrased ideas that unfold in an unbroken stream. His technique, almost perfect; his sound, burnished. He's a gift to the senses.

Lou Donaldson, an underrated alto player in the Bird tradition, offers much to think about while you're tapping your foot. Horace Silver is crucial to the effect of this music, much of it his own. Certainly the rhythms that inform his piano playing and writing make it all the more soulful. On this and other records he serves as a catalytic agent, provoking swing and engaging intensity.

Hard-hitting, unpretentious, communicative, Silver has little use for compositional elements or piano techniques that impede his message. A live-in pulse permeates his music and his playing, strongly affecting the shape, content, and level of excitement of his performances and those of his colleagues. An original and tellingly economic amalgam of Parker, the blues, shuffling dance rhythms, and a taste of the black church for flavor, Silver is quite undeniable. Listen to his delightful 'Quicksilver' on A Night at Birdland With the Art Blakey Quintet, Vol. 1 (Blue Note).

It capsulizes what he does. On this album, Curly Russell shows once again he can play 'up' tempos and interesting changes. He ties in well with Blakey.

But Silver and Blakey, in combination, determine the rhythmic disposition of the music. Blakey's natural time and fire raise the heat to an explosive level before the listener realizes how hot the fire has become. Perhaps more than other recordings Blakey has made, the Birdland session documents his great strengths and technical failings. At almost every turn, he shows what an enviably well coordinated, buoyantly confident, rhythmically discerning player he is. “It is difficult for young musicians and jazz devotees to fully comprehend the tumultuous effect that the advent of bop had on drummers.

The new music demanded new, relevant, trigger-fast, musical, well-placed reactions from the person behind the drum set—an entirely revamped view of time and rhythm, techniques, and musical attitudes. How well did drummers deal with bop? The innovators, like Kenny Clarke and Max Roach, opened the path and showed how it was done. Young disciples—if they had talent, sensitivity, and the necessary instincts— caught on and made contributions.

Other drummers stylistically modified the way they played, trying to combine the old with the new. This was tricky at best. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it was a matter of apples and oranges. Still others fought change and what it implied. Not welcomed by many swing drummers and their more traditional predecessors, the new wave was looked upon as the enemy, sources of disruption and unnecessary noise. Those stuck in the past could not accept breaking time, using the drum set as both color resource and time center. The structural and emotional differences essential to bebop, the need for virtuosity, and the ability to think quickly and perform appropriately intimidated them.

The demands of the music were strange and often devastating; a feeling of hostility built up in them. The basic reasons were quite clear. The new music could ultimately challenge their earning ability and position in the drum hierarchy.' “Rhythmically, Rollins is as imaginative and strong as in his melodic concepts. The two are really inseparable, or at least should be. In his recordings as well as during several evenings at Birdland recently [Fall/1958] Rollins indicated that he can probably take any rhythmic formation and make it swing. This ability enables him to run the gamut of extremes— from almost a whole chorus of non-syncopated quarter notes (which in other hands might be just naive and square but through Rollins' sense of humor and superb timing are transformed into a swinging line) to asymmetrical groupings of fives and sevens or between the-beat rhythms that defy notation.

As for his imagination, it is prodigiously fertile. And indeed I can think of no better and more irrefutable proof of the fact that discipline and thought do not necessarily result in cold or un-swinging music than a typical Rollins performance.

No one swings more (hard or gentle) and is more passionate in his musical expression than Sonny Rollins. It ultimately boils down to how much talent an artist has; the greater the demands of his art both emotionally and intellectually the greater the talent necessary.”. “Bill's music is profoundly expressive. It is passionate, intellectual, and without pretense.

Eleven years with his trio afforded me the opportunity to perform, record, travel, and most importantly learn. My development as an artist is largely due to his encouragement, support, and patience. He instilled confidence in me, while at the same time urging me to search for my own voice and for new ways to make the music vital and creative. And Bill believed that repertoire, both new and old, would organically flourish in repeated live performance.

In fact, there were precious few rehearsals, even before recording sessions. When Bill passed away late in 1980, it was clear that all of us in the jazz world had sustained a huge loss. I was shocked and saddened; in my heart I had always felt that some day there would be a reunion concert. Had I been able to look into a crystal ball and foresee his death, perhaps I might have stayed in the trio for a longer period. I still dream about one more set with Bill.

He closes his eyes, turns his head to one side, and every heartfelt note seems etched and bathed in gold. How I miss that sound.”. I got to play with Bobby Hutcherson at Dizzy's a few years ago, which ended up on a CD [2012's Somewhere In The Night on Kind of Blue Records]. I was four feet away from him, thinking, 'How is this man just hitting metal bars with wooden sticks with cotton on the end and making such an expressive statement?' The instrument is just like. He's imbuing it with his thoughts and feelings.

That's a miraculous thing. The instrument itself disappears when you're talking about a master on that level.