Brian Nation
Sep 25, 2006, 12:09 PM
Gavin Walker's "The Jazz Show" is heard Mondays 9PM to midnight on CITR (http://www.citr.ca/) 101.9 FM and online (http://www.citr.ca/default.asp?id=19&mnu=19). Each show features an entire album at 11PM.
Album features for October:
Oct. 2: Pianist/composer/occasional band leader Jaki (John) Byard was an extraordinary musician who at the drop of a hat could within one solo give you the whole history of jazz piano styles. Jaki was born in Worcester, Massachusetts on June 15, 2922 and died on February 11, 1999 as a result of a shooting and although his death is still a bit of a mystery fingers point to murder and nobody seems to know why. Byard played not only piano but alto and tenor saxophones, string bass (some live recordings have Charles Mingus and Byard switching instruments) and was on familiar terms with trombone and trumpet and other keyboards. Byard began playing as a pro at age fifteen and served in the army in World War II and after discharge toured in the late forties with alto saxophone virtuoso Earl Bostic. After Bostic Jaki settled in Boston and played tenor saxophone with the Herb Pomeroy Band and wrote charts for the band. Byard moved to New York in 1959 to join Maynard Ferguson’s band replacing Joe Zawinul on piano. Soon after that Byard began to appear on records. Jaki’s amazing playing on Eric Dolphy’s famous debut recording “Outward Bound” led to a long term contract with Prestige Records. All of these recordings are varied and worth looking for. Jaki’s tenure with the volatile Mr. Mingus first from 1962 to 19665 and again from 1970-71 brought out the best in Jaki. As Byard was just as old as Mingus and knew his jazz history spared him from Mingus’ occasional nastiness. Byard could hold his own against Mingus when things got rough and Mingus would also back down. the musical chemistry between them was spectacular.....Mingus knew it and was careful not to overstep his boundaries with Jaki Byard.
Tonight’s feature is a live recording from a one nighter at a club outside of Boston called “Lennie’s on the Turnpike” in West Peabody, Massachusetts with a quartet of his favourite players such as tenor saxophonist/flutist Joe Farrell. Some of Farrell’s best playing is on these discs. Bassist George Tucker is amazing with a sound as strong as Mingus’ and a great feel. Tucker died of a brain seizure later in 1965 and a powerhouse bassist was gone. Alan Dawson was a great drummer and was also as we shall hear an excellent vibraphonist as on one tune Farrell sits at the drums while Dawson plays vibes. The band is all tied together by Byard who conducts and verbally cues the men (a la Mingus) and ties everything together with his piano playing. For all the seeming randomness of the music and the “off the cuff” feeling the cohesiveness of the quartet is astounding in the hands of a musical master named Jaki Byard. “Live!” was recorded on April 15, 1965 just after a Mingus gig.
Oct. 9: Tonight we celebrate the 72nd birthday of one of the most unique musicians in jazz.....Adolf Johannes (Dollar) Brand now known after his conversion to Islam in 1968 as Abdullah Ibrahim. He was born on this day in 1934 in Cape Town South Africa of Basuto and Bushman parentage. Because of a “mixed race” grandparent on his mother’s side Ibrahim was classified under the racist “apartheid” system that existed in South Africa as a “Coloured”” one rung up the social ladder from being a “Black”. Ibrahim began piano at age seven and as a young pro became the leader of his own band called “The Epistles” with the great also saxophonist Kipp Moeketsi. Ibrahim and Moeketsi were the jazz gurus of South Africa and combined the African music of their heritage with American jazz that they heard on recordings. Ibrahim, who has an undying love for his home country moved to Europe in the early sixties and was helped along by one of his idols: Duke Ellington, who was also an influence on Ibrahim’s piano playing. By the late sixties Ibrahim was living in New York and had become not only an excellent musician but a great one. Ibrahim has returned to South Africa many times and is still playing/creating/recording his wonderfully evocative music.
Tonight we feature Ibrahim’s solo piano playing his own compositions. This session was recorded in Toronto and finds Ibrahim in inspired form. His music is heterodox, angry, hypnotic and passionate and evokes images of South Africa’s veldts and mountains and also the grime and squalor o some of the cities and villages of that sometimes unhappy and turbulent nation. “African Portraits” bring it all to you via the piano of Abdullah Ibrahim.....Happy Birthday!
Oct. 16: Pianist/composer Andrew Hill was born in Chicago on June 30, 1937 of Haitian parentage (Hille was his family’s name). Young Andrew was very talented and took to music (singing and playing the accordion) and tap dancing before taking up the piano. Andrew played and learned from every important musician in Chicago as well as visiting players. In the sixties Andrew was one of the most important and creative players on the New York scene and mostly everything he recorded for Blue Note is available in one form or another. They all exhibit Hill’s unique piano playing and his compositions. Hill’s music is implicit rather than explicit suggesting rather than stating with always mysterious and subtle shifts in unexpected places. After the productive sixti4es and early seventies Andrew moved into teaching and his recordings became few as were his personal appearances. He began recording in the late eighties again with a semi-regular group then seemed to vanish only to re-sign (for the third time) with Blue Note with a working band. Andrew has, despite his fight with lung cancer, reinvented himself again and has made some of the most creative and original recordings of the present day. “Love Lines” is his latest and has won every award in the jazz world. This album reflects Andrew’s musical vision with a quintet featuring trumpeter Charles Tolliver who was on many of Hill’s sixties Blue Note dates. Greg Tardy plays clarinet/bass clarinet and tenor saxophone. John Herbert plays bass and young drum great Eric McPherson completes the quintet. Andrew’s music and compositions and piano playing has always been on the music’s cutting edge and this album is no different. Jazz of today and tomorrow.
Oct. 23: Tonight, the Jazz Show pays tribute to one of the greatest voices of the modern alto saxophone. William (Sonny) Criss would have been 79 years old today so in honour of his birthday we celebrate his music. Criss was born in Memphis, Tennessee on this day in 1927 and shot himself to death after being diagnosed with inoperable stomach cancer on November 19, 1977 at his home in his adopted city of Los Angeles. His death was a shock to the jazz community as Criss was about to sign a recording contract and tour Japan. He had conquered his alcoholism and was playing better than ever – a sad end to a player whose greatness was never fully acknowledged. Criss was hot property in the late forties and early fifties when living in L.A. He recorded and played in many contexts including Norman Granz’ Jazz at the Philharmonic. He was so good that he was not afraid to jam with Charlie Parker and have Bird raise his eyebrow as if to say “Ok Criss you got it!” Criss with his hot and passionate style was out of place with the cool “West coast Jazz” sound but stuck it out in L.A. and in 1955-56 made a series of albums for imperial records a “rhythm and blues” label. Criss’s recordings were great but through poor distribution the albums soon became collectors items. One of them called “Go, Man!” is our feature tonight. Sonny worked with drummer Buddy Rich in the late fifties and early sixties then went to France for a couple of years and gigged, recorded and appeared in films and loved his time there but he felt he had to return to L.A. to “Beat Home Town”.
Sonny signed a contract with Prestige Records and made a whole series of fine recordings and made many trips to the East to play gigs, festivals and to record. This was Sonny’s highest profile. The only problem was that jazz was undergoing some changes that were not to Sonny’s taste and as rock had taken over the musical consciousness many of the opportunities for Sonny and his style of jazz were closing. Prestige dropped his contract and Sonny went back to L.A. and fell deeper into alcoholism. After beating booze with a twelve step program Sonny embarked on a series of gigs with a working band at schools, colleges and community centers to promote drug and alcohol awareness and Criss was reborn. Some fine recordings were made for a variety of labels and Criss toured Europe and things were looking good until his cancer hit. A sad end to a great player.
Tonight we go back to one of the imperial sessions that puts Sonny at the head of a fine quartet. The magnificent Criss alto is backed by the legendary Sonny Clark on piano, the great ‘Walker’ Leroy Vinegar on bass and Lawrence (now Larence) Marable on drums in the program of standards and blues. Sonny proves his greatness on this date.....”Go, Man!”
Oct. 30: Tonight is the 76th birthday of one of the finest of modern trumpeters whose influence is still felt today (just ask Wynton Marsalis) and one who through his style summed up all that had come before only to be cut down by a car accident at age 26. Of course the trumpeter is Clifford Brown. Brown was born on this day in Wilmington, Delaware in 1930. Clifford was a good pianist/arranger/vibist/composer/bassist as well as being not only a great stylist on the trumpet but a great trumpet player. Brown also set standards in lifestyle by not succumbing to the drug and alcohol culture that maimed so many great jazzmen. Brown proved that one didn't have to do that to be a great artist. Brown’s history is well documented but his highest musical achievement was in the group he co-led with drum giant Max Roach. The Roach-Brown quintet set the standard for small group jazz in the fifties and is still carried on today in every city with a jazz scene. Perhaps tonight’s feature is their finest recording. It’s called “Max Roach and Clifford Brown at Basin Street”. It was recorded under optimum conditions in the studio during their engagement at Basin Street in New York. They play their repertoire and it cooks. Along with Max and Clifford, Sonny Rollins is on the front line with his ground-breaking tenor. Richie Powell (Bud Powell’s younger brother) was the pianist/arranger and bassist George Morrow provided the strong bottom and was able to handle the fast tempos that were a regular feature. This is jazz at it’s best bar none!
Album features for October:
Oct. 2: Pianist/composer/occasional band leader Jaki (John) Byard was an extraordinary musician who at the drop of a hat could within one solo give you the whole history of jazz piano styles. Jaki was born in Worcester, Massachusetts on June 15, 2922 and died on February 11, 1999 as a result of a shooting and although his death is still a bit of a mystery fingers point to murder and nobody seems to know why. Byard played not only piano but alto and tenor saxophones, string bass (some live recordings have Charles Mingus and Byard switching instruments) and was on familiar terms with trombone and trumpet and other keyboards. Byard began playing as a pro at age fifteen and served in the army in World War II and after discharge toured in the late forties with alto saxophone virtuoso Earl Bostic. After Bostic Jaki settled in Boston and played tenor saxophone with the Herb Pomeroy Band and wrote charts for the band. Byard moved to New York in 1959 to join Maynard Ferguson’s band replacing Joe Zawinul on piano. Soon after that Byard began to appear on records. Jaki’s amazing playing on Eric Dolphy’s famous debut recording “Outward Bound” led to a long term contract with Prestige Records. All of these recordings are varied and worth looking for. Jaki’s tenure with the volatile Mr. Mingus first from 1962 to 19665 and again from 1970-71 brought out the best in Jaki. As Byard was just as old as Mingus and knew his jazz history spared him from Mingus’ occasional nastiness. Byard could hold his own against Mingus when things got rough and Mingus would also back down. the musical chemistry between them was spectacular.....Mingus knew it and was careful not to overstep his boundaries with Jaki Byard.
Tonight’s feature is a live recording from a one nighter at a club outside of Boston called “Lennie’s on the Turnpike” in West Peabody, Massachusetts with a quartet of his favourite players such as tenor saxophonist/flutist Joe Farrell. Some of Farrell’s best playing is on these discs. Bassist George Tucker is amazing with a sound as strong as Mingus’ and a great feel. Tucker died of a brain seizure later in 1965 and a powerhouse bassist was gone. Alan Dawson was a great drummer and was also as we shall hear an excellent vibraphonist as on one tune Farrell sits at the drums while Dawson plays vibes. The band is all tied together by Byard who conducts and verbally cues the men (a la Mingus) and ties everything together with his piano playing. For all the seeming randomness of the music and the “off the cuff” feeling the cohesiveness of the quartet is astounding in the hands of a musical master named Jaki Byard. “Live!” was recorded on April 15, 1965 just after a Mingus gig.
Oct. 9: Tonight we celebrate the 72nd birthday of one of the most unique musicians in jazz.....Adolf Johannes (Dollar) Brand now known after his conversion to Islam in 1968 as Abdullah Ibrahim. He was born on this day in 1934 in Cape Town South Africa of Basuto and Bushman parentage. Because of a “mixed race” grandparent on his mother’s side Ibrahim was classified under the racist “apartheid” system that existed in South Africa as a “Coloured”” one rung up the social ladder from being a “Black”. Ibrahim began piano at age seven and as a young pro became the leader of his own band called “The Epistles” with the great also saxophonist Kipp Moeketsi. Ibrahim and Moeketsi were the jazz gurus of South Africa and combined the African music of their heritage with American jazz that they heard on recordings. Ibrahim, who has an undying love for his home country moved to Europe in the early sixties and was helped along by one of his idols: Duke Ellington, who was also an influence on Ibrahim’s piano playing. By the late sixties Ibrahim was living in New York and had become not only an excellent musician but a great one. Ibrahim has returned to South Africa many times and is still playing/creating/recording his wonderfully evocative music.
Tonight we feature Ibrahim’s solo piano playing his own compositions. This session was recorded in Toronto and finds Ibrahim in inspired form. His music is heterodox, angry, hypnotic and passionate and evokes images of South Africa’s veldts and mountains and also the grime and squalor o some of the cities and villages of that sometimes unhappy and turbulent nation. “African Portraits” bring it all to you via the piano of Abdullah Ibrahim.....Happy Birthday!
Oct. 16: Pianist/composer Andrew Hill was born in Chicago on June 30, 1937 of Haitian parentage (Hille was his family’s name). Young Andrew was very talented and took to music (singing and playing the accordion) and tap dancing before taking up the piano. Andrew played and learned from every important musician in Chicago as well as visiting players. In the sixties Andrew was one of the most important and creative players on the New York scene and mostly everything he recorded for Blue Note is available in one form or another. They all exhibit Hill’s unique piano playing and his compositions. Hill’s music is implicit rather than explicit suggesting rather than stating with always mysterious and subtle shifts in unexpected places. After the productive sixti4es and early seventies Andrew moved into teaching and his recordings became few as were his personal appearances. He began recording in the late eighties again with a semi-regular group then seemed to vanish only to re-sign (for the third time) with Blue Note with a working band. Andrew has, despite his fight with lung cancer, reinvented himself again and has made some of the most creative and original recordings of the present day. “Love Lines” is his latest and has won every award in the jazz world. This album reflects Andrew’s musical vision with a quintet featuring trumpeter Charles Tolliver who was on many of Hill’s sixties Blue Note dates. Greg Tardy plays clarinet/bass clarinet and tenor saxophone. John Herbert plays bass and young drum great Eric McPherson completes the quintet. Andrew’s music and compositions and piano playing has always been on the music’s cutting edge and this album is no different. Jazz of today and tomorrow.
Oct. 23: Tonight, the Jazz Show pays tribute to one of the greatest voices of the modern alto saxophone. William (Sonny) Criss would have been 79 years old today so in honour of his birthday we celebrate his music. Criss was born in Memphis, Tennessee on this day in 1927 and shot himself to death after being diagnosed with inoperable stomach cancer on November 19, 1977 at his home in his adopted city of Los Angeles. His death was a shock to the jazz community as Criss was about to sign a recording contract and tour Japan. He had conquered his alcoholism and was playing better than ever – a sad end to a player whose greatness was never fully acknowledged. Criss was hot property in the late forties and early fifties when living in L.A. He recorded and played in many contexts including Norman Granz’ Jazz at the Philharmonic. He was so good that he was not afraid to jam with Charlie Parker and have Bird raise his eyebrow as if to say “Ok Criss you got it!” Criss with his hot and passionate style was out of place with the cool “West coast Jazz” sound but stuck it out in L.A. and in 1955-56 made a series of albums for imperial records a “rhythm and blues” label. Criss’s recordings were great but through poor distribution the albums soon became collectors items. One of them called “Go, Man!” is our feature tonight. Sonny worked with drummer Buddy Rich in the late fifties and early sixties then went to France for a couple of years and gigged, recorded and appeared in films and loved his time there but he felt he had to return to L.A. to “Beat Home Town”.
Sonny signed a contract with Prestige Records and made a whole series of fine recordings and made many trips to the East to play gigs, festivals and to record. This was Sonny’s highest profile. The only problem was that jazz was undergoing some changes that were not to Sonny’s taste and as rock had taken over the musical consciousness many of the opportunities for Sonny and his style of jazz were closing. Prestige dropped his contract and Sonny went back to L.A. and fell deeper into alcoholism. After beating booze with a twelve step program Sonny embarked on a series of gigs with a working band at schools, colleges and community centers to promote drug and alcohol awareness and Criss was reborn. Some fine recordings were made for a variety of labels and Criss toured Europe and things were looking good until his cancer hit. A sad end to a great player.
Tonight we go back to one of the imperial sessions that puts Sonny at the head of a fine quartet. The magnificent Criss alto is backed by the legendary Sonny Clark on piano, the great ‘Walker’ Leroy Vinegar on bass and Lawrence (now Larence) Marable on drums in the program of standards and blues. Sonny proves his greatness on this date.....”Go, Man!”
Oct. 30: Tonight is the 76th birthday of one of the finest of modern trumpeters whose influence is still felt today (just ask Wynton Marsalis) and one who through his style summed up all that had come before only to be cut down by a car accident at age 26. Of course the trumpeter is Clifford Brown. Brown was born on this day in Wilmington, Delaware in 1930. Clifford was a good pianist/arranger/vibist/composer/bassist as well as being not only a great stylist on the trumpet but a great trumpet player. Brown also set standards in lifestyle by not succumbing to the drug and alcohol culture that maimed so many great jazzmen. Brown proved that one didn't have to do that to be a great artist. Brown’s history is well documented but his highest musical achievement was in the group he co-led with drum giant Max Roach. The Roach-Brown quintet set the standard for small group jazz in the fifties and is still carried on today in every city with a jazz scene. Perhaps tonight’s feature is their finest recording. It’s called “Max Roach and Clifford Brown at Basin Street”. It was recorded under optimum conditions in the studio during their engagement at Basin Street in New York. They play their repertoire and it cooks. Along with Max and Clifford, Sonny Rollins is on the front line with his ground-breaking tenor. Richie Powell (Bud Powell’s younger brother) was the pianist/arranger and bassist George Morrow provided the strong bottom and was able to handle the fast tempos that were a regular feature. This is jazz at it’s best bar none!