This week in The Wall Street Journal, I interviewed Cal Ripken Jr. for my "House Call" column on growing up the son of a baseball manager and how his disciplined childhood helped him become a Baltimore Orioles star and Hall of Famer (go here). Known as the "Iron Man" for setting the record for the most consecutive games played (2,632), Cal knew he wanted to be a ballplayer from the time he was a ball boy on one of his father's minor league teams.
Also in the WSJ this weekend, I interviewed blues guitarist and singer Robert Cray (new album above) on the soul-gospel music of O.V. Wright, who is largely unknown today (go here).
Fred Astaire digs Donovan. Rock guitarist and former member of the Bongos Richard Barone sent along a link to Fred Astaire dancing to Donovan's Mellow Yellow in 1967...
Billy Mitchell. Following my post on tenor saxophonist Billy Mitchell, Les Johnston sent along a link to a video clip of Mitchell playing with Gatemouth Brown in 1977...
Sonny Rollins Bridge? In case you missed it, Amanda Petrusich in the New Yorker magazine wrote in April about a push to rename the Williamsburg Bridge for tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins. Sonny, of course, spent nearly two years outdoors on the bridge practicing before resuming his performing and recording career in 1962 (go here). Here's Sonny, guitarist Jim Hall, bassist Ben Cranshaw and drummer Ben Riley in 1962 playing Sonny's composition The Bridge...
Harold McNair. Following my interview with arranger John Cameron on flutist Harold McNair, Weso from Liverpool sent me the following note:
"Harold McNair is one my favorite musicians. The energy and inventiveness he had, particularly on flute, have stood the test of time. In my opinion, his two finest flute solos are on Here, There and Everywhere, from The Fence...
"McNair was a regular visitor to Liverpool in the 1960s. Some of my older friends remember seeing him play here and all said he was a very nice guy. I believe he was a close friend of Joe Harriott. They went to the same school in Jamaica—the Alpha Boys School.
"Why McNair is not more widely known and respected today is indeed a shame. Along with many other Caribbean musicians arriving in the U.K. in the post-war years, he made a significant contribution to the British music scene."
Duke Ellington radio. WKCR-FM will present its annual "Duke Ellington Birthday Broadcast" on Saturday, April 29. The Dukes music will be played around the clock starting Friday night at 11:59 p.m. (EST) and then all day and night on Saturday. You can listen on your computer and smartphone from anywhere in the world by going here.
Junior Mance. The Kickstarter campaign to raise sufficient funds to finish Sunset and the Mockingbird, a documentary on the pianist's life, is nearing its target. Please help push them over the top by going here.
Leslie Pintchik. If you're in New York on Thursday May 11, head over to Kitano Jazz on Park Ave. South to hear this remarkable jazz pianist. Leslie will be performing with her trio—bassist Scott Hardy and drummer Michael Sarin. Reservations are strongly suggested. Sets are at 8 and 10 p.m. The phone number for reservations is (212) 885-7119. I plan on catching the 8 p.m. set. See you there!
What the heck. Why was Chuck Berry special? Here's the entire Belgian TV show that featured the rock 'n' roll singer-guitarist-composer in 1965...
Oddball album cover of the week.
Last week I featured Dinner in Mexico, an album with an ill-advised green-tinted cover. This week we fly to Caracas (above), where you'll dine in a restaurant where your date will provide you with her undivided attention. Courtesy of Chuck Brown.
And as it turns out, all of the dates on these album covers will be checking out the scene or wondering when the food is coming...
Back in 1982, pianist Barry Harris opened a jazz club in New York's Chelsea neighborhood, carrying on a long tradition. Musicians from Shelly Manne and Buddy Rich to Count Basie and others took stabs at running music establishments. The difference was the kind of club that Harris managed.
Harris's club was known as the Jazz Cultural Theatre, and he partnered with promoters Jim Harrison and Frank Fuentes. The club on Eighth Ave. between 28th and 29th streets wasn't fancy. The exterior looked fittingly shabby, like a neighborhood storefront. Inside, as I recall from my many visits, there was a wide, long entryway that ended in a sizable rectangular space where tables was situated along with the stage area and a grand piano. The floors were distinctive and made of worn hardwood slats. Harris taught classes there during the day, and at night superb music was performed. I remember seeing the Jaki Byard Big Band as well as Bill Hardman and Junior Cook, Vernel Fournier, Walter Bishop Jr., Michael Weiss, Chris Anderson, Barry Harris and many others. The club was forced to close in 1987 when its lease expired and the rent jumped. There was a special warmth there and intimacy. As the musicians took their breaks in that long entry corridor, they were accessible and loved chatting with audience members milling around between sets.
Now, it turns out, a Jazz Cultural Theatre has opened in Bilbao, Spain (go here). Harris, of course, is no longer setting up tables; he's 87. Instead, the club in Spain was co-founded (with Harris's blessing) by pianist and Harris disciple Joshua Edelman and his wife and writer Cristina Santolaria. Yesterday I came across this wonderful video clip of the new space and Harris's involvement that the club uploaded last month. Makes me want to head over just to hang...
And here's Barry Harris and Tommy Flanagan playing Thelonious Monk's Well You Needn't at the old Jazz Cultural Theatre in New York in the mid-1980s. That's how it was...
It's a disgrace that many of Billy Mitchell's leadership albums aren't available on CD or via download. Mitchell was a tenor saxophonist of extraordinary power and skill, and yet today he's virtually unknown. Many jazz musicians like Mitchell had the misfortune of recording for labels in the 1960s and '70s that were so small that the master tapes were lost, erased or misplaced. In the case of Michell, several of his most important recordings were for Xanadu. Sadly, many of the label's master tapes were stored in New York and damaged or destroyed during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
Two of Mitchell's best albums as a soloist were A Little Juicy and The Colossus of Detroit. The former was recorded in 1963 for Smash, a subsidiary of Mercury Records founded in 1961 by Mercury executives. Where the Smash masters are is anyone's guess. The latter album was recorded for Xanadu in 1978.
A Little Juicy featured Thad Jones (tp), Billy Mitchell (ts), Richard Wyands (p), Kenny Burrell (g), Herman Wright (b) and Oliver Jackson Jr. (d). Mitchell's playing is extraordinary as he slides around fluidly, with a polished gruffness. Jones wrote four of the six tunes—A Little Juicy, Bossa Nova Ova, Brother Peabody and Kids Are Pretty People, a sophisticated ballad akin to one Horace Silver might have written. They also recorded the standard Stella by Starlight and Oliver Jr., written by Mitchell and Kenny Burrell.
The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra was still two years off, and Jones recorded frequently as a sideman during this period following his long stretch in the 1950s as a leader. When you hear Mitchell and Jones together, you're going to wish they had recorded several other albums like this. The work is that extraordinary.
The Colossus of Detroit is the edgier album of the two. By 1978, Mitchell had an more muscular tone that reminds one of Joe Henderson and Sonny Rollins—smokey, eel-like and full of force and conviction. Mitchell was backed by Barry Harris (p), Sam Jones (b) and Walter Bolden (d).
Interestingly, the first song on Colossus is Recorda-Me by Henderson. Four standards follow—I Had the Craziest Dream, I Should Care, Unforgettable and How Am I to Know. The final song is Fats Domino's blues Be My Guest. Mitchell approached the standards like a singer, fully conscious of the lyric and eager to tell you a story with his saxophone. The album, in many ways, belongs to Mitchell and Harris, since the bop pianist is given plenty of room to solo.
Hopefully, after this post, someone here or abroad will reissue Billy Mitchell's leadership dates, including the two covered in this post along with This Is Billy Mitchell, Warming Up (a Dave Burns leadership session), De Lawd's Blues and Night Flight to Dakar and Xanadu in Africa, with Al Cohn. They're all exceptional.
JazzWax tracks: Both of the albums in this post are extremely rare. I found a Japanese pressing of A Little Juicy on eBay for $60 and a sealed Xanadu original pressing of Colossus of Detroit for $29 (attention Zev Feldman).
JazzWax clips:Here'sA Little Juicy in its entirety...
Joe Newman doesn't get nearly enough credit for being a juicy jazz trumpeter. Usually, he's merely thought of as a member of Count Basie's post-1952 orchestra or as a sideman. But from 1954 to 1984, Newman recorded nearly 30 albums as a leader, with several others arriving after his passing in 1992. Many of these albums are superb, particularly the ones recorded in the 1950s with Basie-ite Frank Wess on tenor saxophone and flute.
One of these gems is The Happy Cats recorded for Coral in January 1957. The sextet featured Joe Newman (tp), Frank Rehak (tb), Frank Wess (fl,ts), Johnny Acea (p), Eddie Jones (b) and Connie Kay (d). In addition to spectacularly warm playing by this compact unit, the arrangers were top shelf: Ernie Wilkins scored Cocktails for Two, Robbins' Nest, Feather's Nest, I Never Knew and Joe's Tune. Al Cohn handled They Can't Take That Away From Me, Mean to Me and Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Quincy Jones arranged Buttercup, while the arranger on The Happy Cats and Later for the Happenings isn't known.
Newman's playing, with a sizzling mute or without, is tap-dancer tight throughout. He never played more than necessary to charm the ear and he had his own sound that was neither hot or cool. It was just there. Wess offsets him with bird-like grace on flute and with arm-wrestling brawn on tenor sax. Rehak adds a mellow tone on trombone without overshadowing Newman, reminding the listener how gorgeous a player he was back then.
The sleeper star on the album is Johnny Acea (above), who came up in the 1930s on trumpet and saxophone before switching to piano after his military service in World War II. Surprisingly, he never recorded as a leader and he died in 1963 at age 45. He provides rich chord voicings and a Basie simplicity behind the three horns.
The wonderful thing about these guys is that they were band players who carried with them to Newman's small group the high level of sight reading and tightness that wraps around your ear. The music is like a perfect shoe shine, new chrome or a triple play in baseball. The art of their swing is remarkable while the complex arrangements have a spacious but tough Basie feel. The execution is exquisite. Own one Newman-Wess album and you'll wind up owning them all.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find the Joe Newman Sextet's The Happy Cats on Fresh Sound here on CD or download, with three tracks from Joe Newman Plays in Paris from 1956 and one issued on Jazz Cornucopia, from The Happy Cats session.
JazzWax clips:Here's Ernie Wilkins' arrangement of Robbins' Nest...
And here's Quincy Jones's arrangement of Buttercup...
Ella Fitzgerald was born 100 years ago today and she died on June 15, 1996. By any measure, she was the most important jazz-pop singer of the 20th century. By the time she was 21 in 1938, she had completely transformed pop singing, dragging the vocal into the Swing Era by giving it a more relaxed, jazz-influenced, finger-popping feel. In the 1940s, following the death of drummer and bandleader Chick Webb in 1939, she took over his band and became the Swing Era's first important female big-band leader. By the early 1950s, she was considered the first lady of jazz-pop, on par with Louis Armstrong. In the 12-inch album era beginning mid-decade, Ella worked harder than any other singer, male or female, undertaking a massive songbook album series, recording many other LPs and touring worldwide relentlessly. In the 1960s and beyond, she was a larger-than-life figure on TV variety shows and considered a legend by black and white audiences in awe of her vocal skills. No other jazz artist held this elevated mass-market status except Armstrong and Duke Ellington.
On Ella Fitzgerald's centenary, I've selected nine video clips—all of them duets—to show off her singing style, note choices, playful competitive nature and warm power:
Back in March, I posted about Flute & Nut, a marvelous album by the late flutist and saxophonist Harold McNair. The orchestral album with McNair soloing was arranged by John Cameron, whom I had the honor of interviewing for my recent "Anatomy of a Song" column for The Wall Street Journal on Donovan's Sunshine Superman (1966). John arranged that #1 hit and album as well. [Photo above of John Cameron courtesy of John Cameron]
John is a jazz, pop and classical keyboardist and arranger who has worked on TV shows and has scored films in the U.K. and the U.S. In addition to working with Donovan on tour, John has arranged a wide range of recordings, from Ella Fitzgerald's Ella in 1969 to three albums by Heatwave. He also formed the Collective Consciousness Society (CCS) in 1970 that was led by guitarist Alexis Korner.
John and I spent some e-time chatting about McNair...
JazzWax: You were performing cabaret in London in 1965 when you were hired as an co-arranger with jazz bassist Spike Heatley for Donovan’s Sunshine Superman album. You toured with Donovan, and the stage band included Harold McNair, yes? John Cameron: We toured for quite a few years, mainly in Europe, usually with Tony Carr on drums and Spike on bass, with Freddy Logan on bass and latter Danny Thompson. We also featured Harold on flute and sax, plus either Ronnie Ross or Danny Moss handling clarinet, bass clarinet and sax. We'd pick up a string quartet in each city for concerts, and I played piano, harpsichord and organ. It was a pretty loose jazz-based folk sound spiced up with the string quartet and harpsichord vibe. And of course, Don was dressed in full kaftan and beads while we wore black tie. I also was starting to do TV work then with Julie Felix and Bobbie Gentry, and eventually Stan Dorfman’s In Concert series. So when Don went off to the U.S., he took Harold, Tony Carr and Danny Thompson. I stayed to look after Julie and the rest of the TV work. Some years after Don had moved to the U.S., I was scoring a movie in L.A., and one of the musicians invited me to a concert at the Hollywood Bowl and then to a party afterward in the Calabasas in the San Fernando Valley. The directions to the party looked labyrinthine, so I set out early and wound up arriving way before any of the musicians. To kill time, I found a cantina in Calabasas, sat down outside in the sun and ordered a beer. The waitress came over and said “‘You're English? Do you know Donovan? He’s inside” And there he was, with Gypsy Dave and a crew of musicians. I had to travel 5,000 miles and then 50 miles outside of L.A. to hook up with him again!
JW: When and where did you first meet Harold McNair? And who realized he was a perfect fit for Donovan? JC: Harold was introduced to me by Stanley Myers, the film composer. I can’t remember the circumstances but I remember Harold lived with a bunch of musicians in an apartment in Maida Vale in London, near the BBC radio studios. Funny enough, it was about three streets away from where I’d lived as a small child. I remember that one of Harold's flatmates was bassist Freddy Logan. Spike Heatley was very busy doing studio and TV work, and Freddy did quite a few gigs with Donovan and sessions with me.
Harold had a particularly sympathetic way of weaving delicate phrases around Don’s quite simple melodies and making them something special. On recording sessions, Harold fit what I wanted to do perfectly. Though his sight-reading wasn't as quick as some of the more seasoned session guys, once he got the feel of a chart, his interpretation and resonance were magic. And I loved the different sounds he got on the flute—the spitting, growling and singing vibe. We used it extensively on the CCS version of Whole Lotta Love, which was the Top of the Pops theme for years. For the movie Kes (1969), Harold actually went out and bought an alto flute just for the date. The sound and texture he added to the movie still resonates enormously.
JW: What was McNair like as a person? So little is known about him or his personality and temperament. JC: Harold was a gentle, reserved guy. He kept to himself, and it wasn’t until pretty late that we learned he was so ill. One beautiful memory I have is from one of our tours. We were in Stockholm for a concert and nothing much was happening. Finally on the night of the concert, all the musicians were invited to a party. We had no idea where we were going. We piled into a taxi, gave the driver the address, and an hour later we arrived at this big house 40 miles out of Stockholm, in the snow. There was no way we were going to get back before dawn. When we arrived back at the hotel, we trooped in just as Don and his manager and roadie were about to leave for the airport for out flight to Copenhagen. Not a great move on our part.
Anyway, we got to the airport on no sleep and found that the airline had upgraded all of us to first class with Don and his manager, and that we were the only ones in the section. So on no sleep and, of course, champagne for breakfast, Harold decided to get out his alto sax. He started playing at 30,000 feet. It was sublime—like something in a movie. We didn't need any chemicals to get that wonderful “float,” just no sleep, champagne and Harold’s sax.
When we eventually played the concert in Copenhagen, all went fine until just before the interval, when the audience started to slow-hand-clap. We thought we had totally blown it and that no sleep had finally taken its toll. Then during the intermission, the promoter told us that this was the best compliment we could receive from a notoriously staid Danish audience. This was one of a few gigs when we never bothered to change but flew home to London in our dinner jackets.
JW: How did your magnificent album Flute & Nut come about? What did the title mean and how did the arrangements and session come together? JC: The title was a play on a very popular U.K. chocolate bar—Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut. I don’t recall how the album came about—things just happened in the 1960s and early '70s. Like almost all sessions at the time, it was all live. There was very little overdubbing then. I had sat in with Harold at the famous jazz club at the Bulls Head in Barnes on Thames, so I had a pretty good idea what his approach would be. He came up with some originals for the album as did I, plus the odd standard. By then I had a real neat string section led by Pat Halling, who had played on the Beatles' All You Need Is Love.
The quartet was made up of the guys who solved the notorious London parking problem by turning up to recording sessions on motorbikes with their “strads” in cases on their backs. The usual suspects were there on the brass and reeds, including Ronnie Ross, Danny Moss, Les Condon, et al., with Bill Le Sage, Spike Heatley and Tony Carr in the rhythm section. My personal hero at the time was Quincy Jones, so for the arrangements I wanted to catch the vibe of his work for artists like Roland Kirk, Ray Charles and others—plus a splash of Quincy's cinematic writing.
JW: Why do you suppose McNair was not better known in the U.K. and in the States? It seemed he could have done a ton of studio dates in Hollywood and in London. JC: I don’t know why Harold didn’t become a huge star globally. His saxophone playing was really something, but his flute playing was the best jazz flute I had ever heard. I still rate it the best ever in jazz. At the Bulls Head, he would take chorus after chorus totally unaccompanied, and his lines swung as hard as any rhythm section could. He was really starting to get a lot of very varied studio and crossover work when he became ill in '71. Also in those days, the US and the U.K. were still somewhat separated, and reputations didn’t always travel. When Donovan had a hit in the U.S. with Sunshine Superman in 1966, its release in the U.K. was delayed by a lawsuit with Pye, his British label.
Consequently, I didn’t profit from any of the reflected glory for four to five months and had to go back to conducting pantomime at the local (Watford Palace) theater. And, of course, Harold died so damn young. I don’t know whether he was a heavy smoker—I seem to remember almost everyone was then. It was only in the early '70s that I and a lot of others stopped. But right to the end, he stopped the show. The benefit we did for him with the Collective Consciousness Society at Ronnie Scott’s to send him off to recuperate after his operation blew all the electrics in the club. [Photo of John Cameron above courtesy of John Cameron]
JazzWax clips:Here's John's arrangement of Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love for Britain's Top of the Pops TV show in the 1970s by his group, the Collective Consciousness Society...
Here's John's arrangement of Boogie Nights for Heatwave in 1976...
Here's John's arrangement of Sunshine Superman in 1965, widely considered to be the first psychedelic rock hit...
Here's Harold McNair's entire Flute & Nut album arranged by John Cameron in 1970...
And here's Donovan with Harold McNair on flute and John Cameron on keyboard in 1968...
In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed John Oates of Hall & Oates for my "House Call" column on growing up in New York and North Wales, Pa. (go here). John talked about a medical complication at 13 months that nearly killed him and the steps his parents took to ensure the doctor spared his throat. Hall & Oates are touring this summer beginning in May with Tears for Fears. Here's Hall & Oates' One on One (1982)...
Also in the WSJ, I interviewed chef Michael Symon for my "Playlist" column on Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven and the injury that cut short a career and forced him to explore another—the one that made him a success (go here). [Photo above of Michael Symon courtesy of MichaelSymon.com]
Prez and the gang. In 1944, Life magazine photographer Gjon Mili teamed up with jazz producer Norman Granz to produce a short film called Jammin' the Blues,, featuring jazz greats of the day. The film was nominated for an Oscar in 1945 but failed to win. Mili and Granz decided to take another shot in 1950 by filming leading jazz artists.
Sadly, a lack of funding caused production to halt, and the reels were shelved for 50 years. In past years, they've surfaced on YouTube. I'm not sure if the following clip shows these artists in action or they are merely syncing to prerecorded music. This was common then (and now) to avoid the high expense of re-dos if performances weren't perfect on camera. To view this amazing clip featuring Lester "Prez" Young (ts) with Bill Harris (tb), Hank Jones (p), Ray Brown (b) and Buddy Rich (d), go here. Unfortunately, I'm unable to embed the video.
Ella Fitzgerald at 100. On Sunday, April 23, at 9 a.m. (EDT), Danny O'Bryan, host of "Jazz Insights" on WFPK in Louisville, Ky., will celebrate Ella Fitzgerald's 100th birthday two days early by rebroadcasting his 1978 interview with the singer. You can access the show on your computer or smartphone from anywhere in the world by going here.
More Ella radio. Next Tuesday, April 25, on the centennial of Ella's birth, WKCR-FM in New York will present a special commemorative radio program, playing Ella's music for 24 hours around the clock. This means from Monday night at 11:59 PM to the end of Tuesday at midnight. To listen on your computer or smart phone from anywhere in the world, go here.
Billie Holiday at Sugar Hill (Thames & Hudson) is a handsome and remarkable coffee table-sized book (144 pages) featuring penetrating images of the singer. In April 1957, photojournalist Jerry Dantzic was sent to the Sugar Hill club in Newark, N.J., by Decca Records to document Holiday for a solid week. It was one month after her wedding and a year after her memoir, Lady Sings the Blues, was published. She also was photographed in color by Dantzic at the Second New York Jazz Festival on New York's Randall's Island in August of that year. There are performance images here and candids. Through these photographs we wind up with a new perspective of Holiday—as a warm, lonely artist enjoying babies, families and everyday life. This is Holiday before the great slide, while she was still beautiful, cheerful and full of hope. To buy, go here.
Jimmy Heath. Passing the Torch, Bret Primack's documentary on the tenor saxophonist, is now available on demand and for rental and purchase. You'll find it at YouTube and Vimeo.
Cuba Gooding Sr. (1944-2017). With the April 20th passing of Cuba Gooding Sr., lead singer of the Main Ingredient and father of the actor, here he is singing Just Don't Want to Be Lonely...
And here's Gooding Sr. singing lead on Everybody Plays the Fool...
Oddball album cover of the week.
Probably not the best tint for an album about dining anywhere.
Yesterday, JazzWax and I were nominated in three categories by the Jazz Journalists Association for its 2017 JJA Jazz Awards, to be announced on May 15. JazzWax was nominated for "Blog of the Year" while my book, Anatomy of a Song, is a contender for "Book of the Year." Though the book centers on pop, it also looks at the history of how jazz splintered in the late 1940s to become R&B and ultimately rock 'n' roll. And finally, I was nominated for "The Helen Dance-Robert Palmer Award for Excellence in Writing in 2016." For more information, go here. Fingers crossed.
To celebrate, let's listen to pianist Herbie Hancock play his composition Dolphin Dance with George Coleman (ts), Ron Carter (b) and Billy Higgins (d) from a concert in Spain in 1985. Bret Primack uploaded the video to YouTube two days ago...
Jazz From Sixty-One was a CBS show taped at the network's Studio 61 in New York and hosted by Robert Herridge. It aired in September 1960 and was part of the network's Herridge-produced Robert Herridge Theater series. For this half-hour jazz program, Herridge brought together two groups—one led by tenor saxophonist Ben Webster and the other by pianist Ahmad Jamal. In the past, I've only found this show chopped up into milky segments on YouTube. Now it looks like Don Kaart recently uploaded a top-quality print of the entire show.
Webster's group featured Webster (ts), Buck Clayton (tp), Vic Dickenson (tb), Hank Jones (p), George Duvivier (b) and Jo Jones (d).
Jamal's trio consisted of Jamal (p), Israel Crosby (b) and Vernell Fournier (d). That's jazz critic Nat Hentoff with the pipe and his wife at the time.
Yesterday, I posted about a marvelous and rare Jimmy Rowles album called Profile: The Music of Henri Renaud (French Columbia), which was produced by Renaud in 1981. The reaction to my post was so strong, I decided to look way back at Renaud's discography to see how the French pianist's optimistic bop was shaped and influenced in the early 1950s. Two albums stuck out: Henri Renaud Plays the Music of Gigi Gryce (Vogue), recorded in November 1953, and Bobby Jaspar Plays Henri Renaud (Vogue), recorded in November 1954.
Both sessions are of the same variety as the Rowles album—a thematic exploration of a single composer's works. The first featured eight songs by Gryce and appeared on a 10-inch LP in France. The session featured Bobby Jaspar (ts), Henri Renaud (p), Jimmy Gourley (g), Jean-Marie Ingrand (b), Jean-Louis Viale (d) and Gigi Gryce (comp,arr). Renaud's tribute to Gryce had everything to do with his multiple recording sessions with Gryce and Clifford Brown from Sept. 26, 1953 to Oct. 9. You can hear the influence of Gryce's arrangements of Tadd Dameron's songs during this period as well as Clifford Brown's compositions, including Dameron's Theme of No Repeat and Brown's All Weird.
Bobby Jaspar also was a major influence on Renaud. The pair played together on many sessions in the early 1950s. Renaud admired Jaspar's ability to improvise warmly and fluidly on saxophone and flute. Jaspar certainly admired Renaud's firm, lyrical support in the rhythm section and his arranging. In November 1954, they recorded only four sides for an album called Bobby Jaspar Plays Henri Renaud, which was a released as a double 45 in France. What a shame more weren't recorded by this group. The four sides that we have are shrewdly arranged and spryly executed. The nonet featured Roger Guerin (tp), Buzz Gardner (flhrn), Nat Peck (tb), Christian Kellens (tu), Bobby Jaspar (ts) William Boucaya (bar) Henri Renaud (p,comp), Pierre Michelot (b), Jean-Louis Viale (d) and Christian Chevallier (arr). In many ways, these recordings are the birth of French hard bop.
And now a word about availability. Over the past six months, I've come to believe that jazz isn't dying. It's disappearing. A growing number of albums documenting the historical greats both here and abroad are falling out of print. With CDs increasingly taking a backseat to downloads and streaming services, jazz is once again dropping through the cracks, just as the music's history did during the early rise of the CD era. My advice to you is if you love this music, archive it on external hard-drives and back up those drives. There will soon come a day when the music you wished you had bought will no longer be available on CD or won't make it it to listening platforms such as Spotify. I raise this because you'll find all of the material I discuss above only on Bobby Jaspar and Henri Renaud(Vogue), which you can buy used for around $20. Prices rise steeply from there. It's time to start hoarding and filling out the discographies of your favorite artists. It's also time to thank your lucky stars for tireless legacy producers such as Jordi Pujol (Fresh Sound), Zev Feldman (Resonance) and Bob Sunenblick (Uptown) among others who are heroically keeping the fires burning by re-issuing important albums or unearthing previously unreleased tapes.
JazzWax tracks: Here's Gigi Gryse's Capri from Henri Renaud Plays Gigi Gryce...
Marc Myers writes regularly for The Wall Street Journal and is author of "Anatomy of 55 More Songs," "Anatomy of a Song," "Rock Concert: An Oral History" and "Why Jazz Happened." Founded in 2007, JazzWax has won three Jazz Journalists Association awards.
