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Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers Live at Carnegie Hall


david weiss

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Ok, I can certainly understand Blakey's...consternation with this band - Dara is not a player who ever was interested in eating up changes and spitting them out & Lawson seems to be ready to drop the backbeat schtick (as it must have seemed to him at the time, read his Down Beat interview & you'll know what I mean, that's all I'm sayin') before it starts, and in "Blues March, I can uncomfortably feel Blakey ready to fire the whole band on the spot, aplolgize the the "ladies and gentlemen", and walk out with everybody's money, but...

I like this band. No, Dara doesn't play with anything resembling hard-bop fluency, but his tone is strong, as is his rhythm. It's sort of like hearing a younger Louis Armstrong in the Messengers. Sort of. Everybody else in the band is pretty much on the same page except Blakey, who was no doubt wondering what the hell was going on in jazz that he couldn't get guys to just play the fucking book and swing, fer crissakes!

This set at Newport brings the new, opened-up Messengers sound of the three Prestige sides to a logical conclusion. I don't see how Blakey could have gone any further than this, or, really, why he should have, or even felt the need to have. Still, this is an interesting & energetic set, and it would have been alright with me if Blakey would have pulled things back just a little bit instead of a whole big lot like he ended up doing. But hell, Blakey was gonna be Blakey, so it's all good.

Edited by JSngry
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The Prestige sides are not consistent, but when they are good, they are pretty good, I think. Blakey was getting pushed by the band as much as he was pushing them, and that's an interesting (and unusual) dynamic to check out. By the time of this Newport gig, it really ssounds/feels as if he had had enough of being pushed, like hey, it's MY band, and what I do is I push YOU, not the other way around. And after all, that IS what Art Blakey ultimately "is", right? The guy who never let you get comfortable. T'was a good thing, it was.

As far as playing live goes, everything I've come to know suggests that Blakey didn't really have a consistently active band in those days. A few gigs here and there, and he had a core of players he'd call for them. Not sure how either Cedric Lawson or Olu Dara came into the mix (Lawson is introduced as "musical director", whatever that would have meant at the time, but keep in mind that this guy was fresh off of working w/Miles in the On The Corner/In Concert days), but...there they are.

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Jim, this one is from Carnegie Hall....

I was a bit surprised how strong Olu Dara was here trumpet wise.

His trumpet playing is really strong with a very full, bold, solid sound and has some impressive range as well.

It seems like the whole band is sort of in mutiny mode, sort of like this is some tired old shit old man, we're going to show you what can be done with this but some of it is just trite. To me, how they fuck with the melody in Blues March is just like some bored, hipper than thou college students acting out in class. Things do get interesting at times though......

My initial thought was that it's kind of late to go here. I mean it is 1974 already. This would have been a little more timely and shocking in the late '60s I think.

The irony is the audience seems to be eating it up. It sounds like an enthusiastic, sold out audience in Carnegie Hall.

I have a bootleg of the Messengers from 1969 with Slide Hampton, Bill Hardman and Billy Harper where they play the theme and after playing the head they go into this free, intense, all out extended group improvisation. It's killing and it works and grabbed much more than anything I heard here.....

Bertrand, I reached out tho the one person I know at Wolfgang's Vault and clarified the omission. We'll see what happens.....

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Jim, this one is from Carnegie Hall....

I was a bit surprised how strong Olu Dara was here trumpet wise.

His trumpet playing is really strong with a very full, bold, solid sound and has some impressive range as well.

It seems like the whole band is sort of in mutiny mode, sort of like this is some tired old shit old man, we're going to show you what can be done with this but some of it is just trite. To me, how they fuck with the melody in Blues March is just like some bored, hipper than thou college students acting out in class. Things do get interesting at times though......

My initial thought was that it's kind of late to go here. I mean it is 1974 already. This would have been a little more timely and shocking in the late '60s I think.

The irony is the audience seems to be eating it up. It sounds like an enthusiastic, sold out audience in Carnegie Hall.

I have a bootleg of the Messengers from 1969 with Slide Hampton, Bill Hardman and Billy Harper where they play the theme and after playing the head they go into this free, intense, all out extended group improvisation. It's killing and it works and grabbed much more than anything I heard here.....

Bertrand, I reached out tho the one person I know at Wolfgang's Vault and clarified the omission. We'll see what happens.....

Yeah, Carnegie, my bad.

Don't be surprised about Dara. The man has solid skills. I saw him in Chicago in 1980 at the debut(?) of the Henry Threadgill Sextet & the cat was a marvel, all over the horn. Particularly impressive were his mute skills. The guy worked those things to produce micro shadings of timbre of the type that you can hear in person but don't pick up so well on recordings (at least none that I've heard. Dara's current "image" as a roving, all-purpose Deltablues griot can't hide the fact that in the late 70s & early 80s, he was a pretty significant & unique voice on trumpet. Of course, most of the music he was making was in the so-called "loft scene" of the time, which was not particularly well-documented domestically, and which was the target of the Marsialisistic brand of Jazz Fascism. But yeah, don't be surprised by Olu Dara!

As far as the mutiny thing...1974 was not particularly late for that sort of thing. The whole "spiritual jazz" movement was all about not looking backwards but forwards, and the Black Nationalist movement was still gaining momentum then. Hard Bop in general and "Blues March" in particular weren't necessarily going to be something that the younger-ish African-American players of the time would look forward to playing with gusto & relish, if you know what I mean. I seriously doubt that it was anything personal against Blakey, just...you know, when "revolution" is in the air (and it still was in the jazz community in 1974) people's views of "the tradition" are different than they are when "preservation & tribute" are the driving forces. And remember -Musical Director Cedric Lawson had come straight from Electric Miles. You know his POV was not going to be "YEAH!!! let's play this like they did 15-20 years ago"...

None of this really drives the ultimate "value" of the performance under discussion, but I think some context is called for. Me myself, I always prefer heads to be played as clearly as possibly (unless specifically necessitated to not be), and then when the solos come, hey... So I was not impressed by the head fuckup on "Blues March". It just doesn't fit the gig. But once that gets out of the way, I do like the groove everybody hits and what they do with it. Certainly not anything "revelatory," but to hear Blakey tell it back in the day, he once had a band with an "avant-garde" trumpet player in it, and shit, this guy "couldn't even play the blues"! I think this recording proves otherwise, Dara & Co. don't be playing the Hard Bop Blues, to be sure, but they DO be playing their blues, and with that, it's fine by me, even though the bandleader ultimately wanted something else.

Looks like you should check out Mike Fitzgerald's Blakey Chronology HERE.

Looks like Fitzgerald's Chronology is at odds with this date..

He has them at Radio City Music Hall the night after and with Eddie Henderson, Cedar Walton and Curtis Fuller in the band.

It's possible I guess........

I think the Radio City date you cite is from 1973...this Carnegie gig is given as 7/3/74 & is not listed at all by Fitzgerald.

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Jim, this one is from Carnegie Hall....

I was a bit surprised how strong Olu Dara was here trumpet wise.

His trumpet playing is really strong with a very full, bold, solid sound and has some impressive range as well.

It seems like the whole band is sort of in mutiny mode, sort of like this is some tired old shit old man, we're going to show you what can be done with this but some of it is just trite. To me, how they fuck with the melody in Blues March is just like some bored, hipper than thou college students acting out in class. Things do get interesting at times though......

My initial thought was that it's kind of late to go here. I mean it is 1974 already. This would have been a little more timely and shocking in the late '60s I think.

The irony is the audience seems to be eating it up. It sounds like an enthusiastic, sold out audience in Carnegie Hall.

I have a bootleg of the Messengers from 1969 with Slide Hampton, Bill Hardman and Billy Harper where they play the theme and after playing the head they go into this free, intense, all out extended group improvisation. It's killing and it works and grabbed much more than anything I heard here.....

Bertrand, I reached out tho the one person I know at Wolfgang's Vault and clarified the omission. We'll see what happens.....

Yeah, Carnegie, my bad.

Don't be surprised about Dara. The man has solid skills. I saw him in Chicago in 1980 at the debut(?) of the Henry Threadgill Sextet & the cat was a marvel, all over the horn. Particularly impressive were his mute skills. The guy worked those things to produce micro shadings of timbre of the type that you can hear in person but don't pick up so well on recordings (at least none that I've heard. Dara's current "image" as a roving, all-purpose Deltablues griot can't hide the fact that in the late 70s & early 80s, he was a pretty significant & unique voice on trumpet. Of course, most of the music he was making was in the so-called "loft scene" of the time, which was not particularly well-documented domestically, and which was the target of the Marsialisistic brand of Jazz Fascism. But yeah, don't be surprised by Olu Dara!

As far as the mutiny thing...1974 was not particularly late for that sort of thing. The whole "spiritual jazz" movement was all about not looking backwards but forwards, and the Black Nationalist movement was still gaining momentum then. Hard Bop in general and "Blues March" in particular weren't necessarily going to be something that the younger-ish African-American players of the time would look forward to playing with gusto & relish, if you know what I mean. I seriously doubt that it was anything personal against Blakey, just...you know, when "revolution" is in the air (and it still was in the jazz community in 1974) people's views of "the tradition" are different than they are when "preservation & tribute" are the driving forces. And remember -Musical Director Cedric Lawson had come straight from Electric Miles. You know his POV was not going to be "YEAH!!! let's play this like they did 15-20 years ago"...

None of this really drives the ultimate "value" of the performance under discussion, but I think some context is called for. Me myself, I always prefer heads to be played as clearly as possibly (unless specifically necessitated to not be), and then when the solos come, hey... So I was not impressed by the head fuckup on "Blues March". It just doesn't fit the gig. But once that gets out of the way, I do like the groove everybody hits and what they do with it. Certainly not anything "revelatory," but to hear Blakey tell it back in the day, he once had a band with an "avant-garde" trumpet player in it, and shit, this guy "couldn't even play the blues"! I think this recording proves otherwise, Dara & Co. don't be playing the Hard Bop Blues, to be sure, but they DO be playing their blues, and with that, it's fine by me, even though the bandleader ultimately wanted something else.

Actually I saw the Threadgil numerous times in New York in 1980- 1982 before I went off to North Texas. They were by far my favorite band around at this time. I remember Dara being great but don't remember him being this strong like he is on this Carnegie gig (trumpet-wise that is). I live in the same neighborhood as Threadgill and we frequent the same local Italian cafe. I've gotten to hang out with him quite a bit because of this over the last couple of years. One day we got on the topic of the Sextett and all the places I saw the group play in the early years.......lots of loft spaces that I never knew about or went to before or ever went to again. He remembered pretty much all of them. It was quite a band. Was Joseph Bowie in the band when you saw them? By the time the band came to Caravan of Dreams a few years later Dara was gone (Rasul Siddick instead) and I guess Craig Harris was there.

As for the rest, I guess you are right that this definitely comes out of the more spiritual, modal freedom of the '70s then the '60s freedom (though they are related I suppose) and yes I agree, the melodies should be respected and executed with some meaning and correctness but then after that, all bets are off......

Edited by david weiss
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Looks like you should check out Mike Fitzgerald's Blakey Chronology HERE.

Looks like Fitzgerald's Chronology is at odds with this date..

He has them at Radio City Music Hall the night after and with Eddie Henderson, Cedar Walton and Curtis Fuller in the band.

It's possible I guess........

I think the Radio City date you cite is from 1973...this Carnegie gig is given as 7/3/74 & is not listed at all by Fitzgerald.

Oops, my bad this time.....makes more sense now....

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Back around the turn of the 80's I saw Olu's band the Okra Orchestra a couple of times. At first they had Threadgill and Craig Harris, Jean-Paul Bourrelly and Coster Mossamba, don't recall the bassist, and they played a gorgeous, lilting, down-home, Delta cum Carribean vibe, rarely going very far outside that groove. After a while he made it a louder, funkier affair, with electric bass, much more a party band. I believe I recall Greg Bandy on drums. Both versions were fantastic. If they had ever recorded I'm sure it would now be considered a classic. I've never even seen a torrented boot of the Okra Orchestra from those days, and goodness knows you can find torrented boots of just about anything at all.

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Jim, this one is from Carnegie Hall....

I was a bit surprised how strong Olu Dara was here trumpet wise.

His trumpet playing is really strong with a very full, bold, solid sound and has some impressive range as well.

It seems like the whole band is sort of in mutiny mode, sort of like this is some tired old shit old man, we're going to show you what can be done with this but some of it is just trite. To me, how they fuck with the melody in Blues March is just like some bored, hipper than thou college students acting out in class. Things do get interesting at times though......

My initial thought was that it's kind of late to go here. I mean it is 1974 already. This would have been a little more timely and shocking in the late '60s I think.

The irony is the audience seems to be eating it up. It sounds like an enthusiastic, sold out audience in Carnegie Hall.

I have a bootleg of the Messengers from 1969 with Slide Hampton, Bill Hardman and Billy Harper where they play the theme and after playing the head they go into this free, intense, all out extended group improvisation. It's killing and it works and grabbed much more than anything I heard here.....

Bertrand, I reached out tho the one person I know at Wolfgang's Vault and clarified the omission. We'll see what happens.....

Hey, David. Joel Fass here. Nice to see you here.

Wow, the 70s were a little 'looser', eh? I just heard the piano solo on Ugetsu with amusement. I remember being a kid of maybe 22---right around this concert's time---meeting Cedric Lawson outside Gerald's in Queens hanging out with Donald Blackman and my friend Bill Niccari who brought me to a gig he was on with the late Weldon Irvine. Lawson was a funny, rotund guy and he kept repeating 'I'm not gonna tolerate incompetence anymore'. Irvine himself was a trip.

Wow these guys are pretty loose in the ensembles! Wonder what Art was really thinking behind that boilerplate show-biz speech. Probably nothing he'd care to say publicly. Bizzare tenor solo, BTW---rest the dead. (I met Carter and he was a sweet cat). I always kind of liked Dara when I heard him, though admittedly I never went far to do so. But he can be somewhat straight-ahead when he wants to. Good sound. He sure likes playing behind the beat. That whole cut of Blues March is sure out to lunch, though. The leader was surely not pleased :rolleyes::excited:

I guess you'd have to say these guys were caught up in, and a product of, some---ahem---interesting times. And leave it at that.

Edited by fasstrack
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  • 11 months later...

I'm a fan of Dara the trumpeter too. I cooled off rapidly when I read the list of credits on his Atlantic cd.

I knew nothing of his career change when I heard that he was opening for Cassandra Wilson at Carnegie Hall in the late '90s, so I was really looking forward to seeing him. Then he came on and did his corny showbiz bluesman act. I was horrified.

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Love this footage so much. Love hearing the later generation players, playing in the tension between changes and modal freedom. As a listener it almost feels like a secret history. A time that went undocumented and overshadowed by early fusion. Probably it wasn't so much, and I should just do some more research. Anyway, I could listen to this band all day long.

I just watched the 1966 Messengers footage with Lee Morgan and John Gilmore as well. It's a nice counterpoint to these clips.

At some point, just before this 1974 footage, James Blood Ulmer and Woody Shaw were in the band. I would love to hear that.

Here is a tune of Ulmer's featuring some fine Olu Dara.

I remember reading the Downbeat review of this. It read something like "Dara blows a fat and sassy tribute to Miles on the tune Hijack".

Interestingly, Miles Davis apparently refused to play any festivals that included Ulmer's bands around this time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSJja-IrtbU&feature=related

Edited by freelancer
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