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Strolling through the aisles of one of the larger CD emporiums, it's easy to assume that every significant recording from the last century has been transferred to the digital domain. However, there are many great recordings that have fallen through the cracks, and Microgroove Music will endeavor to bring them to you. The show's host, Cliff Preiss, has been a local New York jazz disc jockey for the last quarter century; this program will feature jazz, but also other improvised music traditions as well, and every once in a while a surprise or two.
How do you get kids to be interested in jazz music? In this program, we hear records for young people produced in the 1940s and 1960s that attempted to answer that question: A "Young People's Record" from 1947 featuring legendary African-American actor Canada Lee takes the listener on a quick musical journey that begins in Africa and progresses through the Middle Passage and slave days, ending with jazz as the exuberant music of an emancipated people in New Orleans. The early 60s produced the two other featured recordings: a survey of jazz masters narrated by alto saxophone great Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, and a large-scale "Third Stream" composition by Gunther Schuller that combines symphonic music with a small jazz combo, and features narrator Skitch Henderson telling Nat Hentoff's "story of Edwin Jackson, a boy who learned about jazz."
Born in Algiers in 1927, French pianist Martial Solal was recognized early in his career as a jazzman of first rank. Although he's long been a favorite of cognoscenti, he remains an obscure figure for many jazz fans in the U.S. In 2007, celebrations of Solal's 80th birthday included a rare appearance in New York's Village Vanguard, where he performed solo piano improvisations; it was one of the great musical events of the decade. In celebration of that celebration, this edition of Microgroove Music presents examples of Solal's solo recordings from the 1970s, including a spectacular live performance from 1978 in Poland.
Edition #9: Jazz and Strings (Cannonball Adderley and Count Basie) listen |
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First broadcast December 3, 2007
This edition of Microgroove Music highlights an unlikely pairing from the 1960s: the driving hard bop of the Cannonball Adderley Quintet and the soaring strings of Ray Ellis and his Orchestra: it must be the most aggressive mood music record ever made. Also featured are selections from a more sedate affair, "String Along with Basie," featuring Count Basie's sparse but perfectly chosen notes on the piano, with the tenor saxophones of Illinois Jacquet and Ben Webster adding to the romantic mood. The blues are not ignored, however: "Blues Bittersweet," a wonderful chart by Quincy Jones, opens this program.
An audio actuality of a segment of the opening night of the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival, heard exactly as it took place that evening. All of the music performed was part of a birthday tribute to Louis Armstrong, whose performance capped off the event. What we hear here, however, is music from the event's first three sets: a musical excursion to New Orleans courtesy of clarinetist George Lewis and his ensemble, pianist Bobby Henderson playing a program of Fats Waller favorites, and selections by a hand-picked group of Armstrong alumni led by the great trumpeter Henry "Red" Allen.
The vibes player rocks the house with these exciting live performances waxed by his big band in 1954 at Chicago's Trianon ballroom. Lionel Hampton remarked in the liner notes for the initial release of this recording that the trade papers of that time were agog reporting the popularity of rhythm and blues, but that Hamp's band had been playing this type of music for years: "music that swings and has a real beat and comes out of the blues." Also heard on this program are selections from a live LP made in Vegas in 1963 with trumpeter Charlie Teagarden, including a cover of the soul-jazz classic Sermonette. (58 minutes)
Selections from two albums recorded in the summer of 1970 are featured: Purple, by Miroslav Vitous, was a precursor to the creation of the jazz fusion supergroup Weather Report, and brings the bassist together with Joe Zawinul's electric piano and Billy Cobham's drums, and includes a guest appearance by guitarist John McLaughlin. McLaughlin also makes a cameo appearance on the second album sampled here: Quartet, by reedman Joe Farrell. Farrell chose as his rhythm section a great trio combination taken from the personnel of the Miles Davis Quintet of the day: Chick Corea on piano, Dave Holland on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums. (57 minutes)
Willie "The Lion" Smith, master of the stride piano, was given his nickname after showing tremendous courage during the First World War, but Smith was also a musical hero for many, including a young Duke Ellington. Smith made his mark as one of the hottest musicians in Harlem at the turn of the 1920s, but he also paid close attention to his predecessors and contemporaries, and through his "musical memoirs" of the 1950s and 60s, he brought back to life the sounds of piano whizzes who were then just the stuff of legend, and paid homage to the then living but still obscure ragtime pioneers Luckey Roberts and Eubie Blake. In this program, we'll hear Smith in 1950 "Reminiscing the Piano Greats," as well as some remarkable duos the pianist waxed with drummer Jo Jones from 1972.
Born in 1920, pianist Dave Brubeck is still creating powerful music today, but it was more than five decades ago that he assembled the innovative quartet featuring alto saxophonist Paul Desmond that became one of the most popular ensembles in the history of jazz. This edition of Microgroove Music brings together a variety of lesser-known items from the band's discography, many of which demonstrate these musicians' mastery of the blues form. One piece was written for an opera based on a story by Gertrude Stein, another is from a bizarre concept album that tries to simulate the ambiance of an exclusive Hollywood party, and others originated from an actual live broadcast from the bandstand of a Boston nightclub. A duo by the pianist with bassist Charles Mingus rounds out this group of audio gems.
Drummer Max Roach made an indelible mark in jazz history in the 1940s as one of bebop's musical revolutionaries, but his vital contributions to music history only began at that time. A significant facet of his musical explorations emerged in the 1970s when Roach began a series of spontaneous duo performances utilizing his unparalleled technique to create captivating and intuitive musical excursions. One of his most significant partnerships was with tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp who, like Roach, was a pioneer in jazz academia. The main work featured on this program was recorded during at a time when the two were colleagues at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. An extended work in three sections, Sweet Mao was named for the then recently deceased Mao Zedong, and it gives the listener an opportunity to hear extended improvisations by Roach and Shepp at the peak of their powers.
Two settings that featured the gruff, passionate, excitable and swinging sounds of tenorman Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis were the saxophonist's own organ trios and the Count Basie Orchestra, for which Davis was one of the band's star soloists. On this program, we feature examples of both settings as well as a rare melding of those two worlds that was assembled for a 1957 record date for which Basie made a rare sideman appearance. Basie scholar Chris Sheridan notes that the pianist appeared on this date in order to thank Davis for his work with his band, "relaunching the saxophonist on his own bandleading career with the trio that he had been heading prior to joining the Count... (featuring organist) Shirley Scott and bassist George Duvivier." Basie and Scott's keyboard jousts help make this session a sheer delight.
Three former Earl Hines sidemen banded together from 1969 to 1975 to form the core of one of the best ensembles in mainstream jazz. You may have not heard of the group's musical director, Budd Johnson, but he was a master saxophonist and arranger. The group created a program named New Communications in Jazz that was meant to spread the gospel of jazz throughout the school system; here they give a great musical lesson to us all.
