Album of the week: The Quintet - At Massey Hall

[AfricaBrass]

The Album of the Week for May 25-31 as picked by Red is:

The Quintet - Jazz at Massey Hall (click here to buy)

The Album of the Week works this way, the person who picks the cd for this week will nominate the person who will pick the cd for next week. Red picked this week's title and will nominate someone to pick the album for June 1-7.

___________________________________

Past albums of the week:

May 18 - 24: Sonny Rollins - Sonny Meets Hawk!

May 11 - 17: John Coltrane - Olé

May 4 - 10: Andrew Hill - Grass Roots

April 26 - May 3: Weather Report - Black Market

April 13 - 26: Lee Morgan - Live at the Lighthouse

April 6 - 12: Charles Mingus - Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus

March 30 - April 5: Wayne Shorter - The All Seeing Eye

March 23 -29: Donald Byrd - Byrd in Hand

Edited March 31, 2006 by Jim Alfredson

[AfricaBrass]

Yeah, that is a great thread. Jim really said it all.

I've tried to avoid listening to the cd again until this week.

:rsmile:

[Brad]

Sheesh! After reading Jim's post, how can anything any of us say be meaningful. It'll pale in comparison.

[JSngry]

Sorry, I misread the date and thought that it was AOW when I posted. My bad...

And hey - what I say is just what I think/feel. There are no "rights" or "wrongs" or whatnots when it comes to your feelings about music. Nobody, NOBODY, can "say it all", and if you feel it and say it, it's as meaningful as anything anybody else says!

If any of my posts get somebody to think a bit harder than they might have elsewise, to dig a little deeper into themselves and maybe get a better grip on things they might have had inside all along, then good! But if my posts "intimidate" (PLEASE note the quotes) or otherwise discourage discussion, then that's a BAD thing, and definitely something I don't want to be responsible for in ANY degree.

Besides, when it comes to music the magnitude of that Massey Hall album, there are NO words that can adequately describe it - we're ALL gonna come up short! :D

[Noj]

Another AOTW whose description makes me know I'm missing out by not having it...

[Rooster_Ties]

FYI, here's Jim's post from the other thread, about this week's AOTW...

A perfect example of why Cool, Hard Bop, and their various offshoots were at once imperitave social evolutions and a step backwards musically. What you hear on Massey Hall is not "Bebop". Or maybe it is. Either way, there is so much happening in this music at all levels (intellectual, emotional, technical, whatever) that it is beyond categorization as anything other than individual and collective genius. The music as a whole had to change because, simply put, only a handful of people in the history of the world have had the genius to operate at this level, and as inspirational as genus is, it ain't going to take the world by storm in its pure form. There just ain't that big a market.

At the end of the day, genius, TRUE all-encompassing genius,  IS the real deal, with any/everything else being perhaps more comfortable, more familiar, more easily confronted, and therefore seemingly more "enjoyable", but to ignore the very real qualities of genius and try to somehow work around them as if they are the downtown home office that we, the attendants at various branch offices in the suburbs will never really need to know all that much about, much less ever visit or, God forbid, WORK at, is at the root of the modern malady of comfort without conscience.

Yes, Virginia, some people really CAN make music (and other things) that is/are virtuostic in the extreme AND is full of imagination and soul. But it takes a rare combination of intensive labor and intense imagination to do this. It takes a LOT of time and a LOT of courage, to say nothing of the luck of the genetic draw. Those of us who through no fault of our own, as well as a few faultsthat ARE our own, who fail to reach this pinacle of genius (and really, that's mostly all of us), need not feel like failures, or even console ourselves with the resignged acceptance of being "average". We are who we are. But dammit - there IS such a thing as genius, as endeavors that are of an absolutely unsurpassable level of perfection, and we sure as hell best acknowledge that if we expect to lead anything even remotely resembling an honest life.

This is not an Album Of The Week - this is an Album Of Eternal Truth And Beauty and all that other artspeak crap. More to the point, this is music that is, quite literally, As Good As It (or anything else) Gets, or CAN Get. Period. Personal taste and/or preference doesn't enter into it, not at this level. Minmize that fact at your own peril!

[reg]

don't know if someone has posted this already but BBC radio 3 are doing a program about the Massey hall concert this friday. should be able to listen online for a week after.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/jazz/jazzlegends.shtml

30 May - The Massey Hall Concert

Julian Joseph talks to author Geoffrey Haydon, who recounts the story of this famous concert, held fifty years ago this month, in which five of the most influential musicians in jazz took the stage in Toronto's Massey Hall for a one-off meeting, never to be repeated. The group consisted of Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet), Charlie Parker (alto saxophone), Bud Powell (piano), Charles Mingus (bass) and Max Roach (drums). Selections include Perdido, All the Things You Are, A Night in Tunisia and Salt Peanuts.

[Jazzmoose]

Um. I like it.

[BruceH]

Yeah, it's okay I guess.

[jazzbo]

I'm going to have to dig this one out of the Debut box and listen again soon. Quite a concert, when you factor in Bud's appearance as a leader as well. And this got me interested in the Grafton saxophone which Bird played here and in Sweden and other European companies; apparently he was not allowed to play it in public the US because of contractural reasons involving his endorsement. (But of course he did!)

[SEK]

This is a great record, thrilling. I've loved it since I first heard it long ago.

I got serious with jazz mostly around the music of Eric Dolphy, then went forward and back from there. I think the links between Dolphy's and Bird's playing can be readily heard on most of their recordings, but, for me, those links are strongest on this recording. I think that maybe it's because, on this recording, Parker played more of the phrases that Dolphy later incorporated into his playing, especially on "Wee" and "Hot House", or maybe it's Parker's tone...

I'm sure glad that Mingus recorded this performance! The sound is quite nice, all things considered.

[danasgoodstuff]

OK, but do you prefer the version with Mingus' bass overdubbed/rerecorded or without (I think I've only heard with, but the Debut box has both)?

[Brad]

Jim,

I hope I didn't give the wrong impression. Your post never "intimidate." You overwhelm (in a good way) with your ability to express your feelings, perhaps this comes from your being a musician where expression is your bread and butter. Us corporate types are taught or learn to not be that expressive.

This is obviously a must album, a meeting of the gods as probably would not happen again.

[JohnS]

What is there to say about this music? It thrilled me 45 years ago when I first heard it. It does the same now. This one would be on my desert island. It's not a major point but I prefer the undoctored version.

Everyone should have this.

[White Lightning]

I believe that initially it was OP, not Mingus, who was scheduled to play the Bass. Can someone speculate In what what, if at all, the music would have changed with OP on Bass?

[Soul Stream]

Can anybody talk about the sound quality on the new reissue from Fantasy? The sound quality of this recording has always turned me away from really getting into this very much.... Yes, I know "it's the music" that counts. But, for me, sound quality plays a big role in whether I listen to something very much. Sorry, just my shortcoming.

[jazzbo]

It's possible that if we didn't have Mingus on board, we may not have the music to listen to!

I've been curious about the new release as well, sonicwise.

[JSngry]

Did Debut ever release the NON-overdubbed version for public consumption, even briefly, before issuing the overdubbed version?

Was this first released as two 10" LPs? Seems like it was, but that was before my time and I'm wondering if that's a false impression I got.

That's wild about the missing beginning of "Perdido". I just assumed that the tape got turned on a bit late and they faded in at the earliest opportune moment. Never dreamed that 3/4 of the opening chorus was there to be had.

[pryan]

Cool, thanks couw!

[JSngry]

Dude, check it out - that "unedited" intro is HIGHLY edited - the first 2 A Sections are dupes of the third (with the last phrase being duped in from ?) - listen for the applause, Powell's chords, and the "unnatural" decay of Max's cymbal crash. Still, the bridge IS totally new to me, so my guess would be that for some reason the first 14 bars were unusable and "they" patched one together from the 3rd A Section and the lst two bars of the 2nd. Just a guess based on a quick listen, but it seems ABOUT right.

Thanks indeed - that "lost" bridge is hipper than shit!

[pryan]

Dude, check it out - that "unedited" intro is HIGHLY edited - the first 2 A Sections are dupes of the third (with the last phrase being duped in from ?) - listen for the applause, Powell's chords, and the "unnatural" decay of Max's cymbal crash. Still, the bridge IS totally new to me, so my guess would be that for some reason the first 14 bars were unusable and "they" patched one together from the 3rd A Section and the lst two bars of the 2nd. Just a guess based on a quick listen, but it seems ABOUT right.

Thanks indeed - that "lost" bridge is hipper than shit!

Man, how could I miss that (now) evident editing. Kinda subconsciously wondered (during the first listening) about that applause showing up twice in the 'opening' 16 bars and then again in the last eight. This brings a whole new meaning to the AABA form: the "A's" are, essentially, identical in this case. I wonder why the record company would even bother making such a glaringly noticeable patch-up job. You're right though, Jim, it's nice to hear the bridge section.

[Alexander Hawkins]

White Lightening,

Funny what you said about OP. I was thinking a similar thing. To me, I suppose Mingus is the 'odd one out' on this date. I don't know my jazz history well enough, but is it fair to say that he, unlike the other four, wasn't 'in' on bop right at its inception? I guess OP would be the archetypal bop bassist? (perhaps Tommy Potter or someone like that, though?)

What's always struck me about this gig is that Dizzy is really on his form. He seems to take a lot of flack for playing high and fast, high and fast; but this is masterful stuff.

Some other things that strike me about this concert:

1) Bird's opening phrase on his solo (not the bridge of the 'first' (see above..!) chorus is very adventurous and ambiguous; the sort of melodic idea that I don't really hear reappearing until Eric Dolphy (who, the more I listen to both, I hear as one of Bird's truest 'heirs', but I guess that's another topic!).

2) Bud Powell's harmonisation of 'All the Things you Are' is VERY advanced; I sometimes find it difficult to get my head around his comping to the first chorus.

3) The quoting that goes on throughout the concert is marvellous (e.g. Diz quoting 'Laura').

4) I suspect that it's me listening to it through with a rosy tint(!), but this concert has an incredibly rarified atmosphere about it. A bit like listening to Earl Hines and Louis Armstrong playing 'Weatherbird', Bix playing 'Singin' the Blues', or something like that...It's just sufficiently far back in history to have that air about it (as opposed, say, to more recent 'iconic' sessions such as 'Ascension').

[JSngry]

I wonder whether the guy who did the box made the edit?

A copy of Debut DLP-2 would answer that question, but where the hell you gonna find one of THOSE?

[Soul Stream]

just a thought. I was surprised at how "mellow" relatively speaking, Parker's solo on "Perdido" is. A textbook example of what made him so genius. It's all there in those few choruses.

[Alexander Hawkins]

I agree about him being pretty mellow on Perdido; concise, yet says it all.

By the way, what's the story on Bud being absolutely gone during this gig? For my money, he's on pretty blistering form, but I've read various accounts slating his playing, claiming he was blind drunk, etc. I don't hear it; it seems simply like a facile account for the (admittedly different) opening to 'ATTYA'.