BFT 144 Discussion

[JSngry]

Gilmore is one of those guys who has his own voice, no matter what he plays, he sounds like John Gilmore, distinctively and, once you know it, unmistakably.

[Hot Ptah]

25 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Gilmore is one of those guys who has his own voice, no matter what he plays, he sounds like John Gilmore, distinctively and, once you know it, unmistakably.

Oh yes! I definitely agree with that!  Now we just need a song title and album identification from the vast Gilmore discography.

Edited March 7, 2016 by Hot Ptah

[JSngry]

#1 is weird, not until the trumpet solo does the drummer go to eights, and then only for a bit...the bridge plays meter-games that coupled with the piano style could get me guessing Brubeck from the days with Bergonzi (that tenor is SO Trane-referential), but then who's the trumpeter?

Or wait, is this Horace? Later Horace. Yeah, that seems a little more likely.

Either way, it's weird, in, I believe, an intentional way. Is it "good"? Sure, I guess.

 

Yeah, that "High Society" quote on the first piano solo, sure sounds like Horace to me.

[Hot Ptah]

23 minutes ago, JSngry said:

#1 is weird, not until the trumpet solo does the drummer go to eights, and then only for a bit...the bridge plays meter-games that coupled with the piano style could get me guessing Brubeck from the days with Bergonzi (that tenor is SO Trane-referential), but then who's the trumpeter?

Or wait, is this Horace? Later Horace. Yeah, that seems a little more likely.

Either way, it's weird, in, I believe, an intentional way. Is it "good"? Sure, I guess.

 

Track #1 comes from a different place than what you are thinking about.

[JSngry]

South African?

[Hot Ptah]

31 minutes ago, JSngry said:

South African?

No, wrong continent.

[JSngry]

I dunno man, that drum part is weird...it puts me in mind of "Let The Good Times Roll" the way he hits on four all the time, but the band is playing double over that, so...I dunno, maybe it's some crazy New Orleans thing. It doesn't really settle in except in a way which I don't know is what is intended, it doesn't really lock into a groove...but maybe that's the point? Or if it is a groove, it's a really esoteric groove, some reference to some "roots-y" thing that is too far removed from time to have any viscerality left in it, so the players play "modern" over it to attempt to hide/counter that. If it's not that or some South African thing, I'm out of impressions, and if it's some modern thing, I'm a little pissed, because who's going to play like that today on purpose? And if it really is somebody "significant", well, ok, they did that, and I'm sure they had their reasons for doing it. But...program notes please, because that drum part just throws everything out of whack for me, just what is being attempted here by that?

[Hot Ptah]

33 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I dunno man, that drum part is weird...it puts me in mind of "Let The Good Times Roll" the way he hits on four all the time, but the band is playing double over that, so...I dunno, maybe it's some crazy New Orleans thing. It doesn't really settle in except in a way which I don't know is what is intended, it doesn't really lock into a groove...but maybe that's the point? Or if it is a groove, it's a really esoteric groove, some reference to some "roots-y" thing that is too far removed from time to have any viscerality left in it, so the players play "modern" over it to attempt to hide/counter that. If it's not that or some South African thing, I'm out of impressions, and if it's some modern thing, I'm a little pissed, because who's going to play like that today on purpose? And if it really is somebody "significant", well, ok, they did that, and I'm sure they had their reasons for doing it. But...program notes please, because that drum part just throws everything out of whack for me, just what is being attempted here by that?

It is a New Orleans thing. I am not sure that the musicians intended it to be crazy. I have already stated in response to other members' guesses that the song was released in the 1960s. It was recorded in the late 1950s and released later.

Edited March 7, 2016 by Hot Ptah

[JSngry]

Ah, well, that makes a little more sense then...is it from around the Adderley/NO axis, Nat Perrilliat on tenor? Maybe Ellis M. on piano? The whole thing is definitely post-Miles/Trane informed, that tenor solo is too full of Trane-isms for it to not be, the whole "Well, You Needn't" solo. And the pianist had certainly heard Horace to get that combination of ingredients to come out that way. If that's not the case, then there's a whole 'nother level of curiosity to it for me.

What's "weird" about it is how everything is "boogaloo" excpet the drummer. He(?) is playing in straight 4/4 while everybody else is playing with an eight-note feel. If it's Ed Blackwell on drums (don't even think that James Black would have done that, but who knows?), then I can almost get it, but even at that, it seems like the two feels are at odds with each other.

Wildest guess of all - Allan Toussaint, early, RCA days? That would be too weird!

[Hot Ptah]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Ah, well, that makes a little more sense then...is it from around the Adderley/NO axis, Nat Perrilliat on tenor? Maybe Ellis M. on piano? The whole thing is definitely post-Miles/Trane informed, that tenor solo is too full of Trane-isms for it to not be, the whole "Well, You Needn't" solo. And the pianist had certainly heard Horace to get that combination of ingredients to come out that way. If that's not the case, then there's a whole 'nother level of curiosity to it for me.

What's "weird" about it is how everything is "boogaloo" excpet the drummer. He(?) is playing in straight 4/4 while everybody else is playing with an eight-note feel. If it's Ed Blackwell on drums (don't even think that James Black would have done that, but who knows?), then I can almost get it, but even at that, it seems like the two feels are at odds with each other.

Wildest guess of all - Allan Toussaint, early, RCA days? That would be too weird!

Well, you ARE good, Jim!

It IS Nat Perrilliat on the tenor saxophone solo. It is not Ellis Marsalis on piano. It is not Ed Blackwell or James Black on drums.

But it IS Allen Toussaint, from the time of his early RCA days but not on RCA! You hit a massive grand slam home run with that guess!

Digging deeper into the liner notes of my Bear Family CD release from 1992, I see that actually this track was recorded in 1959 and never released at all, until the Bear Family release in 1992. Allen Toussaint recorded a number of tracks for RCA in 1958, then went on to the Seville label in 1959.

Our Track #1 comes from the 1959 Seville sessions. There were several singles released from 1960--1963 from these 1959 Seville sessions. But our Track #1 was not one of them.

Since other members expressed an interest in knowing about this track, such as The Magnificent Goldberg, I will give a full identification of it now: 

 

Allen Toussaint, from The Complete 'Tousan' Sessions,  (recorded 1958 for RCA and 1959 for Seville). Released on CD by Bear Family, BCD 15641 AH.

You Didn't Know, Did You (composed by Allen Toussaint)

Allen Toussaint--piano, Nat Perrilliat--tenor saxophone (solo), Alvin "Red" Tyler--baritone saxophone, Melvin Lastie-cornet, Justin Adams-guitar, Frank Fields-bass, Charles "Hungry" Williams-drums.

Charles "Hungry" Williams was one of the most active and prominent New Orleans drummers of the era, adding a lot to many New Orleans R&B classics. I think that possibly this was not one of his better recorded moments. He could swing, and play different rhythms. He may have just not felt this jazz groove, I don't know.

Edited March 7, 2016 by Hot Ptah

[felser]

2 hours ago, Hot Ptah said:

 

Yes! Track 13 is Song 1 on Disc 1 (of 3) from Kamasi Washington's 2015 album, "The Epic." The name of the song is "Change of the Guard".

We have a thread about this album in the Jazz in Print section of the board.

That CD set just arrived in my mailbox today, and I now look more forward than ever to hearing it, for better and/or for worse.

[Hot Ptah]

On ‎3‎/‎6‎/‎2016 at 1:49 PM, The Magnificent Goldberg said:

Yeah, but hot in a cool way. Don't want to wait for the end of the month to find out about it - someone get it right quick please!

MG

And I STILL think #13 is Don Sebesky, even though it isn't.

MG

We now have complete identifications  of Tracks 1 and 13, thanks to JSngry.

[JSngry]

29 minutes ago, Hot Ptah said:

Well, you ARE good, Jim!

It IS Nat Perrilliat on the tenor saxophone solo. It is not Ellis Marsalis on piano. It is not Ed Blackwell or James Black on drums.

But it IS Allen Toussaint, from the time of his early RCA days but not on RCA! You hit a massive grand slam home run with that guess!

Digging deeper into the liner notes of my Bear Family CD release from 1992, I see that actually this track was recorded in 1959 and never released at all, until the Bear Family release in 1992. Allen Toussaint recorded a number of tracks for RCA in 1958, then went on to the Seville label in 1959.

Our Track #1 comes from the 1959 Seville sessions. There were several singles released from 1960--1963 from these 1959 Seville sessions. But our Track #1 was not one of them.

Since other members expressed an interest in knowing about this track, such as The Magnificent Goldberg, I will give a full identification of it now: 

Allen Toussaint, from The Complete 'Toussan' Sessions,  (recorded 1958 for RCA and 1959 for Seville). Released on CD by Bear Family, BCD 15641 AH.

You Didn't Know, Did You (composed by Allen Toussaint)

Allen Toussaint--piano, Nat Perrilliat--tenor saxophone (solo), Alvin "Red" Tyler--baritone saxophone, Melvin Lastie-cornet, Justin Adams-guitar, Frank Fields-bass, Charles "Hungry" Williams-drums.

Charles "Hungry" Williams was one of the most active and prominent New Orleans drummers of the era, adding a lot to many New Orleans R&B classics. I think that possibly this was not one of his better recorded moments. He could swing, and play different rhythms. He may have just not felt this jazz groove, I don't know.

Not really "good", just know enough about different rhythmic bags (and even then, just some, not all) to get that this one was coming from someplace "unusual". There was just enough of the 1-2-3-4 to the drum beat to kick it back to the 4-1-2-3 4-1-2-3 of "Let The Good Times Roll" to get me to open the New Orleans door. Once you confirmed that, hey, start looking for dots to connect. Tenor player did not sound like Red Tyler, Lee Allen, or any of the usual suspects, definitely sounded like a hard-bop-first guy, and that was either gonna be Perrilliat or else a HUGE surprise.

As for the drums, hey - Hungry was a MONSTER, but he really doesn't sound like he knows quite what to do here...which seems really weird to me, because that cat could make an anesthesia-free appendectomy feel good, but...maybe Toussaint wasn't quite sure either, maybe he wasn't sure about that either...maybe "boogaloo" as such had not been invented yet, 1958? We had Gospel-Jazz, which involved eighth notes, but in a shuffle kind of way, not the straight-eighths of boogaloo...were we there yet?

The title, too, that seems reflective of Monk...so they knew what they where responding to, no doubt. But maybe not sure about the how, though?

And to give Hungry the fullest love, this is him on here, and this is just about my favorite NO R&B record ever. There is definitely none that I love more!

 

[Hot Ptah]

26 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Not really "good", just know enough about different rhythmic bags (and even then, just some, not all) to get that this one was coming from someplace "unusual". There was just enough of the 1-2-3-4 to the drum beat to kick it back to the 4-1-2-3 4-1-2-3 of "Let The Good Times Roll" to get me to open the New Orleans door. Once you confirmed that, hey, start looking for dots to connect. Tenor player did not sound like Red Tyler, Lee Allen, or any of the usual suspects, definitely sounded like a hard-bop-first guy, and that was either gonna be Perrilliat or else a HUGE surprise.

As for the drums, hey - Hungry was a MONSTER, but he really doesn't sound like he knows quite what to do here...which seems really weird to me, because that cat could make an anesthesia-free appendectomy feel good, but...maybe Toussaint wasn't quite sure either, maybe he wasn't sure about that either...maybe "boogaloo" as such had not been invented yet, 1958? We had Gospel-Jazz, which involved eighth notes, but in a shuffle kind of way, not the straight-eighths of boogaloo...were we there yet?

The title, too, that seems reflective of Monk...so they knew what they where responding to, no doubt. But maybe not sure about the how, though?

And to give Hungry the fullest love, this is him on here, and this is just about my favorite NO R&B record ever. There is definitely none that I love more!

 

That is a great record! I love Charles' own "What Can I Do", on which he sings and plays drums, on the Chess New Orleans CD collection. "What Can I Do" was unreleased until this CD set came out:

Edited March 7, 2016 by Hot Ptah

[JSngry]

That is a great collection indeed!

[JSngry]

Ah, I think I get what Hungry was going for now...the "Philly Joe" beat, rim-click on four. What throws it off so much is that the band, especially Toussaint, is not phrasing/playing with a similar pocket. Not even. It's very much a When Worlds Collide thing in terms of pocket.

I can see why it remained unreleased, but I'm glad it was. It's a fascinating glimpse into something we might not really see otherwise.

[Hot Ptah]

34 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Ah, I think I get what Hungry was going for now...the "Philly Joe" beat, rim-click on four. What throws it off so much is that the band, especially Toussaint, is not phrasing/playing with a similar pocket. Not even. It's very much a When Worlds Collide thing in terms of pocket.

I can see why it remained unreleased, but I'm glad it was. It's a fascinating glimpse into something we might not really see otherwise.

Thank Bear Family for releasing it over thirty years later! That Bear Family Allen Toussaint release is a single CD, and not difficult to buy at a reasonable price.

It contains the original recording of "Java", among other highlights. "Java" was covered six years later by Al Hirt, who had a big hit single with it in 1964. But every track on this Toussaint collection ranges from very strong, to at least very interesting.

Edited March 7, 2016 by Hot Ptah

[JSngry]

I used to hate "Java", when it was a hit. Seemed corny as hell to me. But the only context I had was my Top 40 input at the time, which, as was the nature of the beat, relatively broad but in no ways deep. And 1964, right into the storm of Beatlemania...so not wanting to hear that, ya' know?

However, years later, I was on a gig with a bunch of people who had no idea who Alan Toussaint was, and I mentioned "Java", and the trumpet player was all, oh god, that garbage, and, you know red flag to a bull, I just reflexively started rebutting, and it came to me that that's one of those songs that you really can reduce to a drum solo, just play the tune on just a snare drum if you had to, really, and it works. A good drummer could play that and you'd have a better than even chance of recognizing it as "Java". So...extrapolate that out to all the records Toussaint made later on with The Meters and Zig, and it all falls into place, how his music gets constructed, so much of it comes down to drums, either literally or extrapolated (if you want to go to the Summusic Soundcloud and check out our Down Went The Canary song, that's an improv very specifically based on/extrapolated from "Working In A Coal Mine", meant as a tribute to Toussaint shorty after he passed. Didn't want to pimp it as such becuase I hate that kind of explicit Tribute Coat-Tailing, but enough time has passed, so as long as the subject is Toussaint, hey) .

Just to say, building music around drums and/or drum patterns is central to so much of the music we love or otherwise engage with.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Goodness me! Thanks for putting this REALLY interesting bit of music in, Bill. And thank you, too, Jim, for bring this all ON, including TV Slim, who I've not heard before.

MG

[JSngry]

Flat Foot Sam changed my life. Let him into your heart and he will do the same for you.

[Hot Ptah]

I am glad that you liked it, Allan!

[Spontooneous]

OK, here goes, focusing mainly on the things that haven't been identified...

1. Pleasantly surprised by the ID here. I was thinking that the groove pointed to a Ramsey Lewis record, or at least to Chicago and Argo. The first part of the changes could be borrowed from "Well You Needn't," but the rest is obviously not. The pianist's second bridge made me think of Barry Harris. For tenor I was guessing Harold Land, Frank Foster, Jimmy Heath. But that's all moot now.

2. When the piano solo starts, it's pretty clear this is a McCoy Tyner record, probably a Milestone. It's the title cut here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_House People forget how many chances McCoy took with instrumentation and texture over the years, and how it almost always worked smashingly.

 

4. It's Django's tune – that's "Nuages," isn't it? -- but since it's stereo, obviously it isn't Django. Nice, but a little too chopsy for me, or maybe I'm guitarred out today.

 

6. The trumpet makes me think of Bill Coleman, or Buck Clayton. Dicky Wells on trombone? Nat Pierce on piano, maybe even Ellis Larkins? If I keep guessing, I might hit something sooner or later...

 

10. Sounds like John Hicks to me. It's that firm left hand while the right floats all over the time. On about the third listen, I'm starting to think the song is "I'll Keep Loving You."

 

12. OK, this is fun. A snatch of melody in the opening section makes me think it might be a fantasy on "I Loves You Porgy," but halfway through it turns into "Come Sunday." Wonderful chops. I give up, but I'll throw out a guess of Dave Burrell, just because.

 

13. Kamasi's album reminds me of a nasty remark someone made about Richard Strauss (it might have been Stravinsky) – to the effect that Strauss creates a beautiful painting, then when you think it's done, he keeps painting over it because he still has some paint left.

 

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

57 minutes ago, Spontooneous said:

 

13. Kamasi's album reminds me of a nasty remark someone made about Richard Strauss (it might have been Stravinsky) – to the effect that Strauss creates a beautiful painting, then when you think it's done, he keeps painting over it because he still has some paint left.

 

What a brilliant remark!

MG

[felser]

42 minutes ago, The Magnificent Goldberg said:

42 minutes ago, The Magnificent Goldberg said:

13. Kamasi's album reminds me of a nasty remark someone made about Richard Strauss (it might have been Stravinsky) – to the effect that Strauss creates a beautiful painting, then when you think it's done, he keeps painting over it because he still has some paint left.

 

What a brilliant remark!

MG

True that on the Washington album, and I could have  edited into a strong single CD, but I did enjoy it.  Does not surprise me to see his spiritual source, or that he is from the L.A. scene.  That scene has been the only place that seems to generate the type of spiritual recordings that moved me in the 70's.  From the Tapscott/UMGAA/Nimbus West musicians to the Build An Ark collective, to this.  If I really like (but don't love) the Washington, and really don't like hip-hop, what do I want to explore next?  I've pretty well exhausted the recordings by the other L.A. people I mentioned.

[JSngry]

What do you mean by "hip-hop", that's the question that will drive the answer, I suppose.

Not being snarky, but that term means so many things to so many different people. If you mean "loud rap music that goes booming out of cars driving by my house at all hours", that's one thing, but there are other people who look at it waaaay past that into an entire cultural aesthetic, Afro-Centric (but not exclusively in an exclusionary way), self-aware, users of samples and other appropriations of the past as signifiers of current awarenesses and understandings, etcetcetc. Definitely organic, not learned, with the whole notion of cut-and-paste at all levels.

There are, of course, no wrong answers because you know what you mean, but like I said, depending on what you mean, different answers.

I'm tempted to suggest Ursula Rucker, but that's very much "hip-hop" in ALL sorts of ways, yet it's got the righteous political-spiritual powerpunch of the best 70s stuff, only current.

And she's a Philly product (and still resident?), so there's that as well. From what I can tell, generally more effective as a recording artist than as a live performing artist, but the nature of her backings almost guarantees that, until she has a hit and gets that money going to get past that. And the beauty of her is that I don't see that happening any time soon, nor of her going for that.

At Times NSFW Language Alert: