JSngry

Joe's best official recording of "Invitation" was done on a Roy Haynes Galaxy album called VISTALITE. This is not my opinion, it is a fact. There's a really nice post-bop (whatever that means) Jimmy Heath version on THE GAP SEALER. What that album's called now on CD, I can't tell you. Any jazz musician who wants to take a look at the tune and take it apart for study would be well advised to check out Nelson Riddle's arrangement on Rosemary Clooney's LOVE album, readily available on Warner Brothers CD. Forget that it's Rosemary Clooney, forget that it's an "Easy Listening album" (allegedly...), forget that there's strings and stuff, forget all that crap and just listen to what Riddle wrote in terms of voicings, alterations and countermelodies. Listen and learn.

McDuff consistently led bands of the highest quality. The sidemen were never scrubs or utility players, they were always top-shelf players in their own right. Go to the Fantasy web site www.fantasyjazz.com and check out the McDuff catalog. You'll see names like George Benson, Red Holloway, Harold Vick, Pat Martino and, of course, the man who was arguably the archetypical organ drummer and was definitely ONE of them, Joe Dukes. These guys all had a sophisitcation and versatility that people who tend to turn up their noses at organ groups prefer to ignore. Sure, they could get as down and dirty as anybody, but they could also play some hip bop, some mellow swing, and some tender ballads. These guys were PROS, and McDuff never had a band that was less than excellent, at least not in his "glory days". Jump on in and check it out. Their ain't nothin' on them records except damn fine music.

That's what they do on Mother Ships. Don't you read the Weakly Werld Noose?

Yeah, but stuff like this just builds the anticipation of actually doing it. Call it chore foreplay.

Nah man. I actually prefer guitar to piano in a chordal setting unless it's a choice between a REALLY good pianist and a not so good guitarist. It's a more open sound, and I like that. Big splashy cymbal whooshes, nice open chords, and a groovin', loose bassist. That's how I like playing changes!

What's "Sangria"? Never heard of it, especially from 1974 to about mid-1976...

Sounds like something you'd use for athlete's foot, jock itch, or various other maleocentric fungosities. Hardly fitting for as civilized a bunch as THIS!

It's worth it just for the AFRO-BOSSA album. But there's more....

I've hesitated posting on this because Gladden meant a lot to me in a very non-specific way, and I'm just now finding the way to express my feelings about him. I first got hip to him on Larry Young's HEAVEN ON EARTH, where that duet with Larry that he did, "The Cradle" just totally mesmerized me for hours on end. Next up was NEVER AGAIN, a James Moody Muse side that's STILL not out on CD (and that's just wrong). Good GOD does Gladden kick it along here, a nice loose feel with the kind of cymbal splashing that just sends me straight to Nirvana. Then came Dex's MANHATTAN SYMPHONIE, a perfect album made even more perfect by Gladden's hard, HARD swing and, again, those cymbals. By then, I was sold on Eddie Gladden big time. MOTHER SHIP was just icing on the cake. Then in the summer of 1981, I got to hear him live. It was with Dexter, with the quartet that included Kirk Lightsey & the ill-fated David Eubanks. KILLER band, to my mind even a notch better than the one w/Cables & Reid, and that's saying something. The story of Dexter's late entrance and incredibly charismatic entrance that night is not releveant here, but what is relevant is that Eddie Gladden damn near literally lifted the bandstand that night. Everybody played loooonnngggg solos, and Dexter played these rubato codas that seemed to be even longer than the actual songs themselves. Gladden was just all up in everybody's ass every second of the way, playing with shadings and dynamics that were nothing but perfection. INTENSE perfection. I've never heard or played with a "straight ahead" drummer who used so much dynamics and took the group through so many changes. It was almost how I'd imagine Tony Williams would have developed if he had decided to be a "time" player - there really was that much variety and texture to Gladden's work that night. What REALLY struck me though, was those cymbals - the recordings don't do them justice. SO many colors, SO many different shading of overtones, a never ending kaliedescope of sound all night long. I wondered why jazz records didn't sound like THIS, with the cymbals alive and in your face, louder than hell but still not covering anything up or drowning anybody out. Most don't you know. The cymbals are off in a place by themselves, and you never get that in-your-face sound like I got that night. I'm sure there's a good reason, but still... Anyway, I left out of there on a freakin' heavenly cloud of cymbals, and I can still hear and feel it today. Eddie Gladden had rocked my world, and the fact that Dex and everybody else were in TOP form jsut made it all the more better. On the way out, I saw Eddie. An unassuming looking cat in a skull cap just hanging out in the crowd by himself. I walked over to him and simply said, "Thanks, man". He looked up, seemed not sure what to think at first, must have sensed my glow, grinned, and just said, "You're welcome". That was that. Eddie Gladden was not an "innovator" or anything like that. There's no Eddie Gladden "school" of drumming. What he was was a bad motherfucker who didn't play like quite like anybody else, and who gave himself over fully to the music, with no ego, and with no bullshit. The cat just PLAYED, fully, totally, and beautifully. People like that are true treasures, blessings to us all, whether they get recognized as such or not. I dug Eddie Gladden.

I like it. Lots, in fact.

I started to use the name of one of the Andrews Sisters, but could never decide whether to be Maxine, Inez, or Dana.

Some (all?) of the Moody stuff w/Strings was released in the BMG series.

Very mixed bag of an output. As a Hollywood writer, he wrote for specific occasions and settings more often than not, so if it was a hokey setting, you got hokey musc. If it was a drama, you got drama, if it was melancholy, etc. I tend to think of him more as a master craftsman than a consummate artist, but the respect for that craft is high. I've heard a few of his big band albums from the 60s, and they mix moments of really nice writing with moments of "cuteness", often in the same piece, that steer the overall impact into the realm of moderately hip EZ Listening, AKA Stop It Hank, You'll Worry The People! No doubt, though, when the guy had a chance to write a meaty song, he did it, and did it well. I'm just bugged that he didn't seem to do it except when he had to. But DAMN did he rake in the bucks, so far be it from me to begrudge him his situationality. It seems that Hollywood was where his heart was, and that he had no ambition to REALLY stretch himself as a writer, bandleader, or any other musical position. That's cool though. He did what he wanted to do apparently. He never seemed frustrated like some cats of that ilk do, you know, the "I got into film scoring for the challenge and the bread, but what I REALLY want to do is play bebop" type, so good for him! Quality Pop is quality first, and pop second, a fact worth remembering, maybe. Hey, anybody who gave heavy work to Plas Johnson gets SOME respect in my book!

The usual places - Django, Christian, Kessell, Burrell, Hall, Montgomery, Green, Benson, Martino, McLaughlin, Ulmer, Sharrock, as well as some other less "name brand" players like Atilla Zoller & Bern Nix. No doubt I'm leaving some names out. What I said was an attempt at politeness, of saying that Ellis is not one of my favorites. Nothing wrong with him, it's just that as a rule he just doesn't grab me where I like to be grabbed . We all got our special places, doncha'know.

Well like I said, not everybody dug the LT covers!

Yeah, that SEX MACHINE kills. Another example of a classic album cover too: In the late 70s, it seemed like you could find JB stuff in the used LP bins cheap and plentiful. Oh yes you could...

Well shoot my booty, Rudy and call me a cab, Calloway, some of this Hampton Vogue stuff was on Blue Note once upon a time!

Dude, one thing leads to another, and the only time labels TRULY apply is when somebody's trying to capitalize on a trend, and who cares by then? Horace is also cited by Cecil Taylor as a formative influence, and if you don't believe it, listen to some of early Cecil's barking left hand. Now, is Horace considered to be a father of the avant-garde by the label makers? Not that I know of. But there it is. Really, you can trace broad trends pretty reliably, but once you go to getting TOO specific about labeling the innovators and their first wave or two of followers, you're usually going to find a LOT of overlap. Music evolves orgainically (at least it used to), and by the time one genre gets SO clearly defined that it has practitoneers that can be placed SOLELY in that camp without any real noticable outside influences, the shit's done moved on to something else already. At least that's how it used to work. Nowadays, the labels seem to serve as columns from a combination meal menu for cats to mix and match as they find their "own" "style". I guess that gets some players excited, to make a "hard bop" album, then a "soul jazz" album, and then play in an "avant garde band". Myself, I think it's kinda silly - be who YOU are and be who YOU are NOW, not who somebody else was at some other time, which, if you're insisting on learning and playing a "style" as anything other than basic training, is exactly what you're doing. But that's another matter entirely.

I called somebody to call Bill Perkins just a few days before he died. Bad timing by all concerned, I'd say...

Then leave well enough alone! Seriously, there are differences, evolutions actually, between the hard bop of the 50s and the earlier bebop, but don't sweat looking for them like it's a Cappy Dick "Find The Differences" game or anything like that . Just dig the music, and listen closely for a long time. Listen for the commonalities of the languages but the differences in the dialects, as well as new phrases being coined along the way. Eventually you'll sense it yourself, and taht will prove to be the best education of them all in a lot of ways.

This stuff bobs and weaves rhythmically and harmonically much more than hard bop. Two examples come readily to mind - Bird's solo on "Perdido" where he constantly plays on the beat and against the beat, starting and stopping where others would be stopping and starting, his lines often curling around themselves to say hello to them saying goodbye; and Bud's comp on "All The Things..." which is just plain WACK. You'd never hear, say, Horace Silver playing like that behind a soloist. Hell, you'd not hear ANYBODY playing like that behind a soloist for that matter. But the point is, these guys were virtuosos of the very highest level, geniuses, and what they did and are doing here just could not be done by but a small handful of musicians. It's just too damn involved to make a personal style out of it without simplifying it. And that's what hard bop is, a smoothing out of the most extreme complexities of bebop, keeping the heat (well, much of it anyway), and bringing in a populist bent that bebop kinda tried to avoid, somewhat. You know, the "gospel" flavors and all that. But on the other hand, you CAN hear a change afoot here. The tempos are not nearly as up, and Max has already smoothed out his playing a big bunch from where he was in the 40s. So yeah, you can hear the change in the air in some important aspects here. Speaking of Max, try this one sometimes: Early 1953, and much more hard bop than bebop. Hank Mobley's jazz debut too, I think, so definitely a harbinger of things to come.

Thanks for the heads up! If you click on the links w/the numbers by them, you get 30 second RealAudio samples. Sounds like it's going to be really nice, even if one of the tunes seemss like it might be "The Greatest Love Of All"!!!

Should I be able to get this through Cadence?

Didn't this variation occur in the LPs too? Mine is a pre-Liberty/UA version and is brown, but now that I think about it, it seems that I've seen later LP editions that were black like that.

To claim such beauty out of such vileness, to answer the lowest depravity of human nature with the highest beauty, to not sink to the level of one's adversaries and be ensnared by it but instead rise above it and be free of it, let that be a goal for us all.