Better get to this while there's time, so the usual thanks and disclaimers firmly in place, let's see what we have here!
TRACK ONE - Although the setting doesn't really suggest it as typical, I gotta go with my gut and say Hamp. Nobody else plays like that (unless they're doing it on purpose). But is that a bass clarinet on the intro? Whoever/whatever it is, I like it a lot. I like Hamp a lot, and even if this isn't him, oh well. It's got a good beat and I can dance to it...or I could dance to it if I could dance. But what's that bass clarinet?
TRACK TWO - Oh, that's Don Ellis with Al Francis. I slept on that record for too long a time. My loss. Some really fine music on that one, in both concept and execution. And if you listen to the contours of some of Ellis' lines, you can hear a similarity to Don Cherry. Don't think that was conscious one way or the toher, but when stuff is "in the air", well, air goes where air goes, ya' know?
TRACK THREE - Bags, might be MJQ, but that sounds like neither Atlantic nor John Lewis. Whatever, Milt Jackson is an archetype, epitome, whatever word you want to use, nothing about him sounds like anybody but Milt Jackson. Now that might be Ron Carter, but some liner note writer back in the say made the astute observation that Percy Heath was Ron Carter before Ron Carter (or something like that), so...no matter. This is deep in the pocket. Works for me.
TRACK FOUR - Never noticed until now how much the intro to A Love Supreme & Richie Powell's intro to "Joyspring" had in common. Who knew! There for a second I was thinking it might be Eddie Palmieri, but then, no, it should be McCoy, but the deeper into it it gets, the less sure I am of that. It sounds like it could be a Bobby Hutcherson tune, and that sounds lik Bobby Hutcherson, but once the dialogue begins, it sounds less and less like McCoy, so...I am confused. But I like the piece, even if it gets a little scattershot-ish on the part of the pianist as it goes along. Is that Chick Corea?
TRACK FIVE - Straight sound, no vibrato/tremelo, interesting...no idea who it is, but again, dead in the pocket, and recorded very nicely, clean and direct. Drums might be pulled back just a tad, but they always are...c'est la vie. IT ain't gonna ruin my day.
TRACK SIX - Don't know that I'm in the mood for this right now, but if I was, I think I'd like it well enough. Not into that tenor player, though, and I do find the tempo just a tad too fast for the vibe (pun inevitable, but wholly unintended) of the chart. Slower would bring out the drama of the unexpected parts of the changes. At this tempo, it just sounds flip/coy/clever. That's what happens when all the old folks die, I suppose. Just my opinion. But now we got a return of the tenor player, and I'm wondering if that's not Ricky Ford? The vibist, though, is The Obstetrician - he's delivering!
TRACK SEVEN - Sure sounds like Gary Burton, the tone on the intro...maybe not so much once the band comes in, but I don't follow Gary Burton all that much, so maybe it is. Or maybe it isn't. so that's a solid I don't know. But listening close, I don't hear the four mallet thing going on, for whatever that might be worth. There is some really precise rapid execution, though, and the only guy I know of who's that precise is Walt Dickerson, who is definitely not Gary Burton.
TRACK EIGHT - Everything sounds like Bags except the vibrato...early Bags? Less like Bags after the piano solo (and that's an interesting piano solo, btw, almost Jimmy Rowles-like in places, but not in all places...and same thing about Ahmad Jamal-is in some/not all places)). Definitely has a Van Gelder sound to it, though, so that narrows it down...to, like, what, 250 or fewer possibilities, and makes it less likely to be early Bags? Also like the drummer, but the bass player...good time and tone, but pretty unimaginative note choices, sounds like he's reading the tune. Not a bad thing, just sayin'.
TRACK NINE - That's a pretty involved arrangement. Involved, but not fussy. Everything has its purpose, no placeholding. In that sense, it could be Teddy Charles, but that doesn't really sound like Teddy Charles to me. No matter, whoever it is, it's working.
TRACK TEN - Wow, that's tight! Is this some early Shearing thing? Yeah, that's it. Denzil Best for sure, those brushes! The other guys, I don't know who. But that head, that's some tight shit right there, yeah!
TRACK ELEVEN - Some contrafact of "Love Me Or Leave Me". Early Bags, on Savoy, w/John Lewis & Ray Brown? It's funny, this is, hearing Ray Brown almost bully John Lewis' time during his (Lewis') solo, definitely two different (and strong) concepts pushing against each other, You can hear right there that that wasn't gonna last! Of coure, if that's not who it is, then...not so funny.
TRACK TWELVE - "Tenderly"...almost Hamp. Almost. Can i guess Red Norvo & be right? Didn't think so...Pretty straight rendition, no real "improvisation", mostly embellishments, but that's not bad in and of itself. Sounds more like a set piece than anything really "digging in". Nice, for what it is.
TRACK THIRTEEN - "If You Could See Me Now"...I'd know who you were..nicely proficient and tasty, but maybe a little too "preset" for my liking, at least at this moment. And oh, bassist, uh...Rufus Reid? Or somebody else with consistently personal intonation?
TRACK FOURTEEN - I like this a lot. Kinda reminds be of the Jerry Gonzalez album on American Clave, with Hilton Ruiz, but I don't remember this being on there. But I like how the rhythm doesn't try to get "Latin-Jazz"-y by adding all the extras (especially cymbals), they keep it a quartet, and the conguero handles his business without trying to "simulate", if that makes any sense. And the pianist doesn't go all montuno-y, which is great if that's where you're at, but not the only way to do things, ok? Whoever this group is, they sound like people who have all played together enough to be familiar with the deeper aspects of each others ways. Ultimately, I think, that's what you want, a merging of individuals, not jsut a group of people playing at the same time, no matter how well they might be doing it. That composition, also, that's nice. Hell the whole thing is nice. not "nice, but nice, if you knwo what I mean. More music like this, world, please!
TRACK FIFTEEN - Sure sounds like Ron Carter & Bags on a CTI album that was never released, maybe one of the bare tracks they recorded and then had Sebesky write ex posto facto charts to accompany. But to the best of my knowledge, such a thing does not exist, so you got me. But that's gotta be Ron Carter, and on a good day...unless it's Buster Williams (the number of bassists who can thrive under that tight of a microscope on this type of tune playing like this are very, very few, and buster was next in line if it wasn't Ron), and hello, that's who it is, with Roy Ayers, no less! Geez, I've had this album since the 70s and never really dug into it that much. Just backed into this ID, but there it is! http://www.discogs.com/Buster-Williams-Crystal-Reflections/release/2060125
TRACK SIXTEEN - Geez, I should know that tune...sounds like an Eddie Harris thing played by a Grant Green/Larry Young group on a Big John Patton record...might be a contemporary retro band, or maybe some underground local group of its time. The drums sound digitally recorded, though, so my guess is a retro band. some things just don't happen until they're invented. But not before, Nothing can happen before it actually happens. Then it can happen all it wants. But that's in no way a dis or a slight - they sound good. I'd definitely catch a set or two if they were in a bar in my town. Definitely and gladly.
TRACK SEVENTEEN - Sure sounds like Shearing. If #10 is in fact Shearing, I like it more than this.I am bugged by the time on this one, perhaps most of all the bassist, who never really locks in with anybody. Or maybe it's Shearing's fault - even back in yonder days, if you exposed him too much on a swing feel, he'd get all un-pockety. But really, I think it's just a sign of the times, more detail available in recording exposes more and the less carved in stone you are, the more you risk getting magnified, flaws as well as greatness, as they happen. I've heard Shearing get a pocket going on Afro-Cuban grooves, but this calypso/swing thing is just not in his wheelhouse.
Very nice compilation, Mike. Nothing on here I already knew to any great degree, and a lot of music that is more thoughtfully arranged than just a blowing type thing. I always enjoy that when it's done with thoughtfulness, and here, it is. Thanks!
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Does he ever mention bass? Like, ok, Sonny Greer, underrated (imo), but never more driving than Braud/Taylor-Alvis/Blanton/etc. And Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I LOVE RINGO, but as comes up in these parts on occasion, Paul's bass playing was every bit as a controlling factor as was Ringo's drumming. You just don't have the type of music under discussion here w/o looking at the bass/drum hookup, acoustically it's fundamental, therefore psychologically it's unavoidable, therefore if it's not there, something's off, be it due to incapacity or perversion/manipulation. And what about the many people who swing while they march? Where is the realization that marching is yet another form of choreography, to say nothing of it being a major contributing factor to the "essence" of jazz? Rather "rock" than lead a "regimented life"? Oh good god, save me from those who view these as the choices, although it's probably too late to do anything about that by now. It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. It can't. Oh, so on the one hand we have the choice of either "rocking" or leading a "regimented life", but here we have the Fascist notion that there is Only One Meaning. The Bingo Bango Bongo Billy Drum Fetish Fascists are at it again, latching onto only the smallest corner of a grandly endless omniverse and thinking that they've therefore discovered something, therefore they MATTER because they're RIGHT, and by god, they've PROVED it. Drum Is God, yeah-ok, but who is God's God? BASS, that's who. EVEN WHEN DRUMGOD PLAYS ALONE, THERE WILL ONLY BE ONEGOD IF IT IS IN CONJUNCT WITH BASSGOD, EITHER EXPLICITLY THROUGH SONICS OR IMPLICITLY, FROM WITHIN DRUMGOD'S PLACEMENT OF NOTES. DrumGod gonna bring the attention, the flash, the crackle, but BassGod gonna be there no matter what, because BassGod is where DrumGod lives, and there is only OneGod, On The One And Of The One, so to "pick" "one" and not know the other is what RhythmSatan wants you to do, so Gopnick needs to exorcise himself immediately, if not sooner. His pocket is so full of lent he got his pocket watch on his pants leg, and no way he'll know what time it is with it dangling loose there like that, at the unknowing mercy of an inevitable gravity that can only be as benevolent as you'll let it be, and only then by acknowledging it.