In 1978, Japan's Trio Records recorded pianist Al Haig in New York. By then, American labels had largely written off jazz greats, and Japanese record companies saw an opportunity, especially for their jazz-loving market. The album was Al Haig Plays the Music of Jerome Kern, with Jamil Nasser on bass. These two were so good together that adding a drummer was superfluous. Interestingly, the album was produced by vocalist Helen Merrill, who sang one song accompanied by Haig—They Didn't Believe Me. Like so many of Haig's leadership albums, this one reminds us how crystalline a player he was. Haig was a bebop diety who could swing with plush sensitivity. Like Bud Powell, Haig could shift effortlessly from the scramble of bop into passages of moody elegance, as if offering the listener a cup of hot chocolate as a reward.
The Kern songs on this album are The Way You Look Tonight, Dearly Beloved, Yesterdays (solo), All the Things You Are (solo), Can I Forget You? (solo), The Folks Who Live on the Hill (solo), I'm Old Fashioned, The Song Is You and They Didn't Believe Me.
Dig how Haig opens The Way You Look Tonight, as if he's stealthily slipping through the song's back window; listen to his supersonic and flawless runs up and down the keyboard on Dearly Beloved and All the Things You Are; catch how many different approaches he uses on The Folks Who Live on the Hill; or how he builds tension on I'm Old Fashioned; or how he swings The Song Is You; and the haunting, breathy quality of Helen's voice on They Didn't Believe Me. [Photo above of Helen Merrill and Al Haig]
Born in Newark, N.J., Haig was raised in Nutley, N.J. He played in bands while in the Coast Guard during World War II, from 1942 to '44. After his discharge, he gigged around Boston. Listening to the radio late one night in 1945 or '46, Haig heard someone named Dizzy Gillespie play in New York. Overwhelmed by the new music performed by the trumpeter, Haig headed there to meet him. Haig wound up on 52nd Street, which was crowded with jazz clubs at the time. There, he met Gillespie and introduced himself. [Photo above of Al Haig and Miles Davis on January 21, 1949 at a "Birth of the Cool" session ]
Haig then played the street's clubs with guitarist Tiny Grimes, meeting Charlie Parker when the alto saxophonist and Gillespie came in to hear him one night. They were starting a group and wondered if Haig wanted to join. He did, and eventually he played extensively with Parker, providing Parker with the exciting rush of notes more associated with Bud Powell. Haig then moved on to Stan Getz from 1949 to '51, Chet Baker in 1954 and Gillespie's big band from 1956 to '57. [Photo above of 52nd Street in the mid-1940s]
Today, Haig's leadership recordings remain gorgeous bridges between bop and the stylings of intermission piano. Unfortunately, he has too often been equated with the fleet bop technique of Powell, a comparison that has probably cast him unfairly as a me-too and a so-what. As a result, Haig, like Dodo Marmarosa, has been slipping from view. This album should serve as a reminder that Haig was exceptional in the 1940s, an era when the market was flooded with great pianists, and in the 1970s and beyond, when his approach sounded frighteningly beautiful. Fortunately, Japanese labels still cared. [Photo above of Bud Powell]
Al Haig died in 1982.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Al Haig Plays the Music of Jerome Kern here.
JazzWax clips: Here's the entire album (with one track followed by the next)...
