Quincy Jones derangement of Stolen Moments

[sgcim]

A younger guy wrote an arr. of Stolen Moments for a big band I play in featuring me on guitar, and it felt uncomfortable due to the rushed sounding tempo.

I asked him where he got it from, and he said he copied it from a Quincy Jones Live album called The Wide World of Quincy Jones. It was recorded with the 1961 band he had on the disastrous tour of Europe, and he introduces it as an original (without mentioning Oliver Nelson!) and kicks it off at about 132bpm. It features Freddie Hubbard and Eric Dixon, with Freddie playing one of Oliver nelson's ideas from the Blues and the Abstract Truth album, then they go into a double time section that swings like a rusty gate.

I mentioned to the guy in the band that it was a much faster version that the one on BATAT, and he looked at me puzzled. He had never heard the BATAT album,(!) and had written the arr. on commission for a guitar player who wanted to record Stolen Moments.

Here's the Q version (I stopped listening after Freddiie's solo: Another strike against Q...

 

[JSngry]

I like it. Don't love it, but 

Different band, not the Fancy Free band. This band is a bit ragged, but not fatally so. Always glad to hear Eric Dixon! 

That might actually be Oliver's chart? BATAT is not the original version. Lockjaw Davis gets that honor, and on a big band record at that! 

[Teasing the Korean]

I liked it too. I have that album - and about 35 other Quincy Jones albums!

[sgcim]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

I like it. Don't love it, but 

Different band, not the Fancy Free band. This band is a bit ragged, but not fatally so. Always glad to hear Eric Dixon! 

That might actually be Oliver's chart? BATAT is not the original version. Lockjaw Davis gets that honor, and on a big band record at that! 

Yeah, but Q said to the audience it was an original, and didn't mention ON, so he left the audience with the impression  that it was HIS original!

I've heard all the other versions, and IMHO none of them come close to BATAT. And that was Bill Evans playing the blues on that album.

[JSngry]

Truthfully, it sounds like it was being used for filler, just some basic chart and then open it waaaay up for the soloists. Nothing else on the record comes close to being this long, and Quincy seems a bit frantic in getting it going, like everybody needed to regroup before getting back to the regularly scheduled programming. 

I don't know about the circumstances of that tour. They had made it back to the states in 1960, but then went out again in 1961, which is when this record is from. Only some of the same players remain, and God only knows what the logistics were in the aftermath of the previous years misadventure.

Dan Morgenstern notes here that BATAT had been "made" just a few weeks before this gig, but he too seems unaware that it had already been done on a 1960 Lockjaw record.  Only there it was called "The Stolen Moment".

Just giving the Jones record a casual listen, but other than the tempo, isn't this the same basic chart? 

Interestingly enough, Eric Dixon was on this record, as was Eric Dolphy! 

 

[sgcim]

23 hours ago, JSngry said:

Truthfully, it sounds like it was being used for filler, just some basic chart and then open it waaaay up for the soloists. Nothing else on the record comes close to being this long, and Quincy seems a bit frantic in getting it going, like everybody needed to regroup before getting back to the regularly scheduled programming. 

I don't know about the circumstances of that tour. They had made it back to the states in 1960, but then went out again in 1961, which is when this record is from. Only some of the same players remain, and God only knows what the logistics were in the aftermath of the previous years misadventure.

Dan Morgenstern notes here that BATAT had been "made" just a few weeks before this gig, but he too seems unaware that it had already been done on a 1960 Lockjaw record.  Only there it was called "The Stolen Moment".

Just giving the Jones record a casual listen, but other than the tempo, isn't this the same basic chart? 

Interestingly enough, Eric Dixon was on this record, as was Eric Dolphy! 

 

Yeah, from the personnel on the Q record, I thought it was the same band as the one that was supposed to perform the jazz musical that Q wrote, with just a few subs for the people that bailed. After the disaster of the musical and the tour, I don't know why Q would try again; he was supposedly heavily in debt from it.

The Q recording is so bad, that I can't listen to it again; besides the tempo and the playing being so bad, they swing like a freaking marching band, and the double time in the rhythm section is so bad, it sounded like it was going to be a train wreck, so I don't if it's the same chart as the Lockjaw one.

It's a pleasure to hear the Lockjaw version again, which has great players on it, the piece being played at the intended tempo (Oliver Nelson made sure of that), and it swings like a mother. I just can't figure out how to tell the guy that he chose the worst version of it to copy, and the wrong tempo to play it at without without giving him the impression that I think he's an asshat. I could have him and the leader listen to the Lockjaw version, but to expect that from either of them might be asking a bit much of them.

[JSngry]

The world is full of clueless people, many of them of their own volition. 

Anyway, Oliver evolved...

 

[sgcim]

17 hours ago, JSngry said:

The world is full of clueless people, many of them of their own volition. 

Anyway, Oliver evolved...

 

Yeah! I played that arr. with the Latin section in the middle. Even that one's at 125.bpm, and it swung like mad. Great Danny Moore and Gato.

Oliver could do no wrong!

[gvopedz]

What Oliver Nelson did for the Columbo TV show might sound a bit familiar:

 

[sgcim]

They used to have great music for TV shows in the 70s using jazz composers like Oliver Nelson and the great West Coast jazz guys. Then the digital synth came around, and they threw all those guys out, and all you hear is synthesized junk.