JazzWax

Video: Herbie Hancock in 1972

A year and a half before keyboardist Herbie Hancock recorded his seminal Headhunters album in the fall of 1973, he was in Paris performing with his Mwandishi Sextet. Mwandishi is Swahili for composer and it's a name Hancock adopted for himself in the late 1960s and early '70s. Members of his group followed suit: Mganga ("doctor," whose traditional functions include exorcism, prophecy and the removal of spells) was for flugelhornist Eddie Henderson, Pepo Mtoto ("demon baby") was for trombonist Julian Priester, Mwile ("body") was for reed player Bennie Maupin, Mchezaji ("player," someone who plays a game) was for bassist Buster Williams, Jabali ("strong as a rock") was for drummer Billy Hart, and Ndugu ("brother") was for drummer Leon Chancler. 

His sextet in Paris in '72 featured Herbie Hancock/Mwandishi (keyboards), Eddie Henderson/Mganga (flugelhorn), Bennie Maupin/Mwile (bass clarinet, alto flute, curved soprano saxophone), Julian Priester/Pepo Mtoto (trombone), Buster Williams/Mchezaji (bass) and Billy Hart/Jabali (drums).

Fortunately, this early Mwandishi group was taped on March 23, 1972 performing Toys, Water Torture and Sleeping Giant. A couple of weeks ago, the French tape was colorized and uploaded to YouTube. A special thanks to Chris Cowles for finding it and sharing the link.

Here's Herbie Hancock and his Mwandishi Sextet...

The Early Autumn Story and 10 Faves

In 1946, at the height of Stravinsky's and modern classical's influence on big band jazz, arranger Ralph Burns brought a three-part suite to bandleader Woody Herman called Summer Sequence, Parts 1-3. Herman recorded the three parts in September '46, when saxophonist Flip Phillips was the band's chief saxophone soloist. But in the 78 era, three parts of anything was doomed. Four sides of two records needed to be filled, so Columbia, Herman's label at the time, shelved the masters.

A year later, in the fall of '47, Herman formed a new band, commissioning arrangements that emphasized his reed section. The five saxophones featured Sam Marowitz (as), Stan Getz, Zoot Sims and Herbie Steward (ts) and Serge Chaloff (bs). When Marowitz left shortly after, Herman stepped in to play the alto part. Burns was commissioned to write Part IV of Summer Sequence, which the band recorded on December 27, 1947, just days before the start of the second American Federation of Musicians' recording ban.

My guess is that with a paralyzing recording ban bearing down on the music industry that fall, Columbia exhumed everything it had in the vaults and prepared it for market. This included Summer Sequence, for which Burns was asked to write a fourth part.

The big surprise in Part IV came two minutes into the recording, when Getz (above) took a beautiful, yearning eight-bar solo that was considered revelatory at the time. And the melodic reed writing by Burns that followed Getz's solo hinted at a new song waiting to be born.

By the time the recording ban ended in the fall of 1948, Herman had left Columbia for Capitol. Struck by the second portion of Summer Sequence Part IV, Herman had Burns re-arrange it as a new reed-centric song called Early Autumn. with Getz as the featured soloist.

In 1952, Herman asked Johnny Mercer to write lyrics, and Herman wound up with a co-writing credit on the vocal version. Jo Stafford was first pop vocalist to record the song on June 24th, with Ella Fitzgerald coming next, two days later, on the 26th. Herman recorded his vocal version in July. Early Autumn quickly became a jazz standard.

Here's Summer Sequence Part IV with Stan Getz's solo about two minutes in 1947...

Here's Woody Herman and Ralph Burns's Early Autumn in 1948...

Here's Johnny Mathis in 1956, with an arrangement by Percy Faith...

Here's Anita O'Day with the Marty Paich Orchestra in 1958...

Here's Stan Kenton in 1958...

Here's Bill Holman's arrangement for Charlie Barnet in 1958...

Here's Les Brown from his Swing Song Book in 1959...

Here's Sun Ra and His Intergalactic Arkestra off of his Holiday for Soul Dance album in 1960, with Ricky Murray on vocal and a tenor saxophone solo by John Gilmore...

Here's the George Shearing Quintet in 1960...

And here's the VIP Trio from their Standard Album in 1988, featuring Cedar Walton (p), Pat Senatore (b) and Billy Higgins (d)...

Bonus: Here's my favorite Stan Getz solo on Early Autumn, from the 40th anniversary Carnegie Hall Concert in 1976. Move the sound bar to 25:24. The alto solo is Woody Herman's followed by Ralph Burns's piano and then Getz...

And here's Ella's Early Autumn with Nelson Riddle from Bill Kirchner...

Here's Carol Sloane with the late Mike Renzi on piano from Peter Sokolowski...

Colorized Video: Mingus and Dolphy

In April 1964, bassist Charles Mingus was on tour in Liège, Belgium, and recorded for the Belgian TV show, Jazz Pour Tous. This 30-minute broadcast was recently colorized using Deoldify. The songs performed are So Long Eric, Carlye Goodbye and Meditations. The group featured Mingus on bass; Dolphy on alto sax, bass clarinet and flute; Clifford Jordan on tenor saxophone; Jaki Byard on piano and Dannie Richmond on drums. Two months later, Dolphy would be dead in Germany after falling into a diabetic coma. His diabetes had gone undiagnosed. [Photo above of Eric Dolphy from YouTube]

Here's the show...