#2 The Joint Is Jumpin'

I played this back on February 6, and had an email about it. Here it is again, because I like it. It might even become an alternate theme for these programs.

#3 Have You Met Miss Jones?

My favorite pianist, Mr. Art Tatum, assisted by one of my favorite tenor sax men, Ben Webster, supported by the able Bill Douglas and Red Callendar, doing a tune by Lorenz Hart & Richard Rodgers, from the 1937 Broadway musical "I'd Rather Be Right." This recording is included in the 1987 compilation album, "The Best of Art Tatum."

#4 Easy Living

Billie Holiday singing a L. Robin - R. Rainger song, recorded June 1, 1937 for Brunswick, in NYC. Buck Clayton, trumpet; Buster Bailey, clarinet; Lester Young, tenor saxophone; Teddy Wilson, piano; Freddie Green, guitar; Walter Page, string bass; Jo Jones, drums. From the 1996 Columbia compilation "Love Songs."

#5 Rosalie

Errol Garner doing a Cole Porter tune, with Wyatt Ruther on bass and Eugene "Fats" Heard on drums. Recorded July 27, 1954 in Chicago. From the Compact Jazz: Erroll Garner compilation.

Bonsoir, paulsc!

#6 This Can't Be Love

Gerry Mulligan and Stan Getz playing a Rodgers and Hart song, with Lou Levy on piano, Ray Brown on bass, and Stan Levy on drums. Recorded October 12, 1957. From the album Getz Meets Mulligan in Hi-Fi. On this number, at the suggestion of Gerry Mulligan, he and Stan Getz traded their usual horns, so you have Mulligan on tenor, and Getz on baritone.

Good evenin', phoenixc!

#7 The Cylinder

The 1960 concert tour of the Modern Jazz Quartet through Europe included a number of recording dates at various venues in Scandanavia during the month of April, resulting in one of their most successful albums European Concert. This tune by vibraphonist Milt "Bags" Jackson, features some fine cymbal work by drummer Connie Kay, and the kind of polished, yet free sounding improvisation by pianist John Lewis and Milt Jackson that the group was instrumental in developing. For it was their belief in their ability to offer an audience the excitement of improvised music, made in the moment, and never played exactly that way again, that truly seperated the MJQ from other touring jazz groups. In their 1957 tour, they played 88 dates in 4 months in venues of every size and type throughout Germany, and many fans actually traveled with them, to hear the improvisation and continual development of tunes by the group, in live performance, over several weeks. John Lewis once said the the intent of the group was to "constantly develop a musical idea as long as it within the repertoire of the Quartet. When we cannot further develop a composition, we drop it."

thank you so much! An evening (well, night - it's 12.30 here) spent trying in vain to do my German homework has just improved. I like jazz but am woefully ignorant.

Welcome aboard, altolinguistic! We don't stand on ceremony here, so lack of knowledge is no impediment. We're just glad you could join us.

#8 A Song for Love

McCoy Tyner and the Latin All-Stars from the eponysterically titled 1999 album, with a lovely ballad by McCoy Tyner. McCoy Tyner, piano; Johnny Almendra, timbales; Gary Bartz, saxophones; Ignacio Berroa, drums; Giovanni Hidalgo, percussion; Claudio Roditi, trumpet & flugelhorn; Avery Sharpe, bass; Steve Turre, trombone & shells; Dave Valentin, flute.

#9 You're Blase'

Ella Fitzgerald and the Frank De Vol Orchestra, with Stan Getz in for a tenor sax solo, beginning at about 1:52 into the cut. Recorded Oct 15, 1957 in L.A. for the album Ella Fitzgerald - Like Someone in Love". This recording via the 1991 Polygram compilation "The Artistry of Stan Getz - Volume 1".

#10 Sometimes I'm Happy

Oscar Peterson with his Trio members Ed Thigpen on drums and Ray Brown on bass, in a July 29, 1961 recording at the London House in Chicago of a tune by Vincent Youmans and Irving Caesar. Originally recorded for the Verve album V6-8420 "The Trio Live From Chicago" (CD Verve 314 539 063-2) this recording is via the 2000 compilation Oscar Peterson's Finest Hour.

#11 Someone to Watch over Me

George Gershwin originally wrote this "lullabye" for the character Kay in the 1926 show "Oh, Kay" but it was also recycled in the 1992 Gershwin based musical comedy "Crazy for You". Here, McCoy Tyner does it a bit faster than it is usually taken as a ballad, from his 1988 CD of piano solos "Revelations", recorded October 25-27, 1988 in NYC.

#12 Kush

Dizzy Gillispie with Rodney Jones on guitar, Benjamin Brown on bass, Mickey Roker on drums, from 1976 recording, via the The Best of the Jazz Trumpets compilation. Dizzy frequently recorded this tune, and sometimes introduced it as his "tribute to Mother Africa." This is a fairly straight forward, small group rendition of it, but Mickey Roker works to suggest the poly-rythmic ornaments added by additional percussion players in larger settings, and there is a focus on Dizzy's trumpet that is sometimes lacking in other recordings, with larger groups.

#13 A House is Not a Home

The Bill Evans Trio with Eddie Gomez on bass and Eliot Zigmund on drums, with a 1964 tune by Burt Bacharach and Hal David written for and first recorded by Dionne Warwick. From the Fantasy Records album "I Will Say Goodbye" recorded May 11-13, 1977 at Fantasy Studios, in Berkeley, CA.

#14 If I Were a Bell

The 1973 "Jazz At the Plaza" series of records by producer Irving Townsend stemmed from recordings made of the Miles Davis Sextet, Duke Ellington (and his orchestra), Billie Holliday, and Jimmy Rushing, for a jazz press party held September 9, 1958 in the Persian Room of the Plaza Hotel, NYC. The personnel of the Miles Davis Sextet on this date included Miles Davis on trumpet, John Coltrane on tenor sax, Cannonball Adderley, alto sax, Bill Evans, piano, Paul Chambers, bass, and on this session, Jimmy Cobb on drums (instead of Philly Joe Jones, who was frequently recording and playing live with the Sextet in this time frame). There are definitely some "live recording" problems with this recording, as when first Davis, and then Coltrane move off mike. But that doesn't negate either the intensity of the music, or the value of this recording as a snapshot of a fluid, powerful group that was leading jazz innovation in its day.

Bob Blumenthal's liner notes for the 2000 reissue CD for this tune are excellent:

"If I Were a Bell" illustrates the personal approach to standards that the Davis band had developed, with its alteration of 2/4 and 4/4/ time to intensify the groove, the different feeling that the rythym section generated behind each soloist, and the use of harmonically cyclical "tag" endings at the conclusion of each solo. Adderley lays out, which only helps to underscore the yin/yang contrast between the leader's surgically precise muted trumpet and Coltrane's more impulsive and unfettered tenor. Cobb brings a personal touch to the time playing that Chambers locks right into on this swift performance. Davis, who wanders off mike, delivers a solo with a bracing rhythmic edge and spry, looping phrases on the tag. Coltrane is fearless and startling, while somehow sustaining a lyric equilibrium that keeps his inventions within the arc of the melody. The solo is another sign that he had arrived as a major musical force. Evans, who would also arrive by the time of Kind of Blue, applies a tension-releasing spin as his solo uncoils. The pianist my not have been the ideal partner that hard-grooving Chambers and Cobb found once Wynton Kelly joined the band, but shows here that he could clearly stand the rhythmic heat."

#15 Miss Otis Regrets

Josh White Jr. and Robin Batteau from their 1986 CD "Jazz, Ballads and Blues" with a Cole Porter tune from the 1934 show "Hi Diddle Diddle" which opened at the Savoy in London, and was later made into a 1943 film comedy of the same name. One story regarding Porter's inspiration for the song was detailed on an Ella Fitzgerald recording:

""Miss Otis Regrets" was written by Cole Porter after being inspired by a single line he heard a waiter utter in a fellow customer's ear, as he took lunch. The waiter strolled up to the single woman at the table next to him, and uttered the immortal line "Madam, Miss Otis regrets, she's unable to lunch today". Porter was so taken by the line that the song fell into place around it. (Source: Liner notes, The complete Ella Fitzgerald Sings Cole Porter) Columbia (2000)"

#16 Original Rays

This tune, by Michael Brecker, M. Stern and Don Grolnick features saxophonist Brecker doubling on Electonic Wind Instrument, a programmable device with 8 octave range, at the opening, before switching back to tenor sax. This cut also feature Jack DeJohnette on drums, Charlie Haden on bass, Kenny Kirkland on keyboards, and Pat Metheny on guitar. From his 1986 self-titled debut CD.

What an interesting track - so blues-y and rather melancholy and a bit boppy at the same time.

#17 Tryin' to Get the Feeling Again

This 1976 recording for CTI records, of (of all things!) a Barry Manilow tune, by popular jazz flautist Hubert Laws almost succumbs to the trendy weight of the Creed Taylor CTI machine, but not quite. Despite producer Bob James' best efforts, Laws shines through with some genuine musicality and feeling, in a recording that included Barry Finnerty on acoustic guitar, Eric Gale on electric guitar, Bob James on Fender Rhodes and clavinet, Ralph McDonald on percussion, Andy Newmark on drums, a string section, a brass section, and "voices" including Kenneth Coles, Stanley Stroman, Shirley Thompson, Denise Wigfall, and Robin Wilson. All told, there are more than 34 musicians credited on this album! But Hubert Laws was making a ton of money for CTI at the time, and they threw at least some of it back into his records and studio time, which seems fitting at least.

And through it all, Laws manages to inject some personality and a kind of honest phrasing, that make him, still, a respected jazz instrumentalist.

#18 Warm Valley

Here's a Duke Ellington tune from Paul Desmond's 1975 "Pure Desmond" album, on which Creed Taylor himself is prominently credited as producer (complete with faux "Creed Taylor" facsimile signature). But it's just a quartet of guys, including Desmond on alto sax, Connie Kay on drums, Ron Carter on bass, and Ed Bickert on guitar, doing a two day studio date (September 24-26, 1974). I doubt Creed Taylor had much to do, in reality, with this album, beside being present at the sessions. Desmond said Creed had been "so busy for two weeks that the top of his head was spinning like a police car light." So, I think it was mostly a matter of engineer Rudy Van Gelder, at whose studios the album was recorded, covering the board, and rolling tape, while 4 guys who could play, did.

And that's the way a lot of the best jazz has always been recorded, despite what producers sometimes say.

19 Slap That Bass

Ella Fitzgerald with an orchestra conducted by Nelson Riddle from the 1959 album "Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook", doing a Gershwin tune from the 1937 film "Shall We Dance" with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. From the liner notes for the CD:

"A basic ingredient of every Fred Astaire picture of the Thirties was a prolonged dance sequence which had perhaps nothing to do with the film's plot but was presumably why the customers had come in the first place. And if screen writers and songwriting teams found it increasingly difficult to be imaginative as the series of Astaire-Rogers films went on and on, ( Shall We Dance was the team's seventh and by no means the last), Astaire himself had to rely on unfailing imagination to make each of these routine's individual and, if possible, more successful than its predecessors. Shall We Dance's book concerned, among other embroilments, a trans-Atlantic voyage; it was a simple matter to drop the dapper Astaire into the ship's boiler room and there allow him to cavort against a background of pulsating machinery. And for this rhythmic scene the Gershwins concocted "Slap That Bass," a number in the tradition of - and making sly reference to - "I Got Rhythm."

#20 Ray Brown's In Town

Here's a little "vanity" tune by Red Holloway for his friend Ray Brown (who we've heard from already a couple of time in this program, with other groups), from the 1983 Delos album "nothin' but the blues" by Joe Williams with Red Holloway & His Blues All-Stars, with Ray Brown on bass. Because after "Slap That Bass," I thought we ought to hear from someone who could!

#21 I Will Say Goodbye

As usual, The Bill Evans Trio, with Eddie Gomez on bass and Eliot Zigmund on drums, takes us out with the title track from the 1977 album of the same name. To recap, in this set, we heard:

1. McCoy Tyner - The Greeting (2:27)
2. Fats Waller - The Joint Is Jumpin' (Fats Waller and his Rhythm) (2:49)
3. Art Tatum/Ben Webster/Bill Douglass/Red Callender - Have You Met Miss Jones? (4:47)
4. Billie Holiday - Easy Living (3:03)
5. Erroll Garner - Rosalie (2:37)
6. Gerry Mulligan & Stan Getz - This Can't Be Love (8:48)
7. The Modern Jazz Quartet - The Cylinder (6:28)
8. McCoy Tyner - A Song for Love (10:33)
9. Stan Getz - You're Blase' (3:57)
10. Oscar Peterson - Sometimes I'm Happy (11:49)
11. McCoy Tyner - Someone to Watch over Me (3:43)
12. Dizzy Gillespie - Kush (Gillespie) (9:13)
13. Bill Evans Trio - A House is Not a Home (4:39)
14. Miles Davis - If I Were a Bell (8:31)
15. White, Josh Jr., with Robin Batteau - Miss Otis Regrets (4:21)
16. Michael Brecker - Original Rays (9:05)
17. Hubert Laws - Tryin' to Get the Feeling Again (8:21)
18. Paul Desmond - Warm Valley (4:28)
19. Ella Fitzgerald - Slap That Bass (3:21)
20. Joe Williams - Ray Brown's In Town (3:55)
21. Bill Evans Trio - I Will Say Goodbye (3:30)

Until next time, kids, be swell, do well, don't yell and sit a spell!