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This one, as the Brits would say, is a bit of a curate’s egg – good in parts. The set takes its title from music inspired by the 1962 canonization of St. Martin de Porres, a sixteenth century Peruvian of partly African descent. I don’t think anyone would question Ms. Williams’ sincerity, but the results fail to stir this listener. Part of the problem I think lies with the choirs she’s had to use. They make the music sound so terribly white.

But the CD is still worthy of your attention. The remaining selections show off Mary Lou Williams in all her glory. Never one to rest on her swing era laurels, the pianist demonstrates her mastery of a wide variety of modernist tendencies. This shouldn’t be the least bit surprising. After all, even such masters as Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonius Monk never hesitated to seek out Mary Lou for advice and guidance back in the forties when they were designing the new architecture of jazz.

Among the set’s highlights are an extremely sly reading of It Ain’t Necessarily So, a rocking workout on Billy Taylor’s A Grand Night For Swinging, and a dazzling solo performance of Mary Lou’s own bi-tonal composition, A Fungus A Mungus. On these and the remaining six trio selections – one by drummer Denzil Best, the rest by Mary Lou – one hears the full range of modern jazz piano. The one-of-a-kind Mary Lou Williams was truly beyond category.

Don Brown

Travelling Lights
François Carrier; Paul Bley; Michel Lambert; Gary Peacock
Justin Time JUST 203-2

High ambitions, and a corresponding ‘mission achieved’, distinguish reedman François Carrier’s “Traveling Lights”. Two icons, Paul Bley and Gary Peacock were invited to join the younger Carrier and his frequent musical partner, drummer Michel Lambert, in a recording session of freely improvised music. Starting out as a supremely lyrical bop pianist in Montreal, Bley created an avant-garde pianism that is a polar contrast to Cecil Taylor’s percussive keyboard. Bley’s spare, contemplative playing is simultaneously radical and outright gorgeous. The same statement applies to Peacock’s bass. Both musicians are supremely versatile across the spectrum of jazz styles, and have played with a corresponding spectrum of top international talent.

Phil Woods’ distinctively clean and clear alto sax first attracted a teenaged Carrier in to jazz. He set a trajectory from outlying Chicoutimi to the Conservatoire de Québec, the Vancouver jazz scene and then testing his mettle by playing alongside top New York and European talent. Carrier has done Woods proud by taking this spare and beautiful reed style into the avant-garde. Bley and Peacock are logical partners.

The eight tracks are relatively short for free improvisation, especially for a collaboration of two dynamic duos that have not played together before. The fact that the musicians find each other so efficiently is testament both to their skills and the shared international language of jazz. The music proceeds mostly at a stately but intense pace, with periodic rapid clips that remind us that the tiger is there but voluntarily restrained at this time and place. Highly, highly recommended.

Phil Ehrensaft

Phat Hed
Tom Walsh/N.O.M.A.;
Steve Swell
OMBU OMBU1004

This new release features Canadian trombonist Tom Walsh in concert with two different bands recorded live in 2003 at the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal and at the Hermes Ear Festival in Nitra, Slovakia.

Six of the eight tracks are from the Montreal concert, with Walsh joined by Miles Perkin on bass, Thom Gossage on drums/percussion and guest Steve Swell on trombone. The duets between Walsh and Swell are so connected that were there no liner notes indicating who was on ‘left’ and ‘right’ trombone, it would have been close to impossible to distinguish the players. Dave Holland’s Backwoods Song and Benny Carter’s A Walking Thing have this strong band playing jazz really well. The Walsh/Cram composition 1958 begins with Walsh’s sampling of a small child’s vocalizations which lead to a smooth slow melody that suddenly opens up to a faster paced and more open improvisation section. This fluctuating type of composition allows all performers to excel. Walsh’ Waltz Leger is on three tracks and moves from sampled sounds through more free and dissonant sections to the Main Theme, a joyous and playful waltz.

The other two tracks from the Slovakian concert have Walsh joined by Szandai Matyas on bass and Balazs Elemer on drums in more free improvisational works which feature Walsh’s versatile playing.

Tom Walsh’s music makes me laugh. His musical statements are well thought through and serious, yet there is this underlying humour which sets his music apart. His work here with trombonist Steve Swell is superlative.

Tiina Kiik

Concert note: Tom Walsh’s NOMA will perform at the Guelph Jazz Festival in a late night concert at St. George’s Anglican Church on September 9.

Wild for You
Karrin Allyson
Concord Jazz CCD-2220-2

Karrin Allyson has presented us with a CD whose theme is long overdue, in my estimation. Namely, a collection of tunes that draws on (relatively) modern songwriting talent as opposed to the music of the 30’s and 40’s, which is the fallback for most jazz singers. Although some singers have ventured into the modern pop songbook – Ella Fitzgerald covering the Theme from the Loveboat springs horrifically to mind – no one, to my knowledge, has produced a whole collection from the 70’s and 80’s.

The Grammy award-nominated Ms. Allyson and the band have successfully balanced the addition of jazz harmonies and rhythms with a respect for the material, to bring interest and complexity to the songs without obscuring the qualities that made us love these songs in the first place. “Wild for You” is a personal collection that resonated with me, but whether all listeners will find the same connection as I did will depend very much on personal taste and experience. In any event, Ms. Allyson demonstrates considerable skill, good taste and affection on covers of Joni Mitchell’s All I Want and Help Me, James Taylor’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight and Roberta Flack’s Feel Like Makin’ Love & The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, making “Wild for You” an essential for boomer-jazzers.

Cathy Riches

Shave ‘Em Dry
The Best of Lucille Bogan
Columbia Legacy CK 6705

Crazy Blues
The Best of Mamie Smith
Columbia Legacy CK 65712

Whiskey is My Habit, Good Women is all I Crave
The Best of Leroy Carr
Columbia Legacy CK 86989

Following a lengthy hiatus, Sony has revived its excellent Roots N’ Blues series. Martin Scorsese’s PBS series, The Blues, seems to have inspired a rash of blues reissues. It should be noted though that these latest from Sony – all on the Columbia/Legacy label – are not complete editions but ‘best of’ compilations. That caveat aside, the music is presented in beautifully remastered form with authoritative notes and excellent production.

Lucille Bogan’s Shave ‘Em Dry is probably the first CD carrying a parental adviser sticker to be reviewed in this magazine. The music – aside from its ‘explicit content’ - sounds a little old-fashioned for the 1933-1935 period. But, although Bogan and pianist/accompanist Walter Roland work in an earlier style, they are convincing performers whose recordings continue to entertain. Three of the set’s performances were never commercially issued – and it’s not difficult to see why. They are very explicit. Not for the easily offended.

Mamie Smith is principally famous being the first African-American woman to sing on a commercial American record. The title tune, recorded in 1920, marked the beginning of the classic blues era. Its huge success paved the way for artists such as Ida Cox, Bessie Smith and Alberta Hunter. Although Mamie Smith was not in the same league as those singers, her recordings still merit a listen. Her style owed as much to vaudeville as it did to the blues but she certainly knew how to sell a song. Her back-up players include such soon-to-be famous jazzmen as Johnny Dunn, Buster Bailey, Coleman Hawkins, and Bubber Miley.

The jewel in the crown among these Columbia/Legacy reissues is the two-CD set by pianist/vocalist/composer Leroy Carr. During his short life – he was only thirty when he died – Carr wrote and recorded many deathless blues classics. On all forty of this set’s selections he accompanies himself on piano with either

Scrapper Blackwell or Josh White backing him on guitar. From the opening title, Carr’s very first recording (and biggest hit), How Long - How Long Blues, to the closing Six Cold Feet in the Ground, there’s not a weak performance to be heard. His plaintive voice and understated way with a lyric are utterly captivating. And Scrapper Blackwell’s contributions are priceless. This one’s a must.

Don Brown

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The two-tenor sax group has long been a tradition in jazz, and now you can add Scott Hamilton and Harry Allen to the distinguished list. There’s no new ground broken on “Heavy Juice” (nor need there be), but the enjoyment level is high with a tidy mix of blues, ballads and jazz standards. A compatible rhythm section features the elegant pianist John Bunch, with Dennis Irwin and Chuck Riggs on bass and drums.

The material at hand comes stylistically from the border-time of swing to bop, when new ideas were in the air. There was no rejection of older ways, just evolutionary changes.

The disc gets right to the business at hand (swinging!) with the title track, a Tiny Bradshaw blues from 1953. From the same era, Blues Up And Down (from predecessors Ammons and Stitt) romps from its call-to-order opening through stop-time tradeoffs. Up-tempo items include If Dreams Come True and a bright version of If I Should Lose You. From the bop side of the border are two by Dizzy Gillespie, Groovin’ High and Ow!.

More romantically, Duke Ellington’s 65-year-old Warm Valley shows no sign of aging, and Did You Call Her Today? Ben Webster’s variation on Duke’s variation (In A Mellotone) on Rose Room shows the influence of Ben on both Scott and Harry. They have drawn from similar wellsprings - Pres, Hawk, Jacquet, Cobb, etc. - but the decade-younger Allen also musters up the lighter sounds of Stan Getz. Harry has also said that Scott himself was an influence!

Ted O’Reilly

Happy Birthday Newport - 50 Swinging Years
Various Artists
Columbia Legacy C3K 89076

The Newport Jazz Festival is undoubtedly the world’s best known, but not the first jazz festival, not even in the U.S. Its notable success is due to the efforts of founder/producer George Wein, still at the head of the NJF and about two-dozen others around the world. This past summer he made a return to the event’s roots by actually presenting real acoustic jazz exclusively. No fusion, no worldbeat, nothing (supposedly) jazz-influenced. Rather like the sounds on this handsome three CD package which is also visually interesting, featuring many unpublished photos.

In the CD booklet Wein offers his welcome personal comments on the 27 tracks, not shying away from remarking on the racial and societal situations the music faced, and leapt over. A competent pianist himself, Wein has wide and discerning taste in jazz, and that’s represented by his choices of these performances, all taped at Newport between 1955 and 1970. (Was nothing worthwhile in the last 35 years, one wonders?)

The compilers were not restricted to Columbia’s vaults, but drew on recordings from RCA, Verve, Pablo and even radio recordings from Voice Of America, the source of the only previously-unavailable selection, a ’55 Miles Davis reading of ‘Round About Midnight with Thelonious Monk at the piano. Wein notes “Miles came off and whispered ‘Tell Monk he played the wrong changes.’ I said ‘Tell him yourself. He wrote the song.’” While this is the only new item, some tracks have not been on CD before, including a lovely Ben Webster/Billy Strayhorn version of Chelsea Bridge.

Of course, every major jazz star has played Newport, and they’re represented here, at varying lengths: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane (My Favorite Things runs 17’24”), Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Muddy Waters, Dave Brubeck (who has appeared at NJF more than any other artist), Buck Clayton, Coleman Hawkins, Herbie Hancock and on and on. Singers include Billie Holiday (just 2’05”), Ella, Sarah, Dinah Washington and Mahalia Jackson.

Happy Birthday Newport! is a celebration of the Festival primarily, but as you’d expect, and Wein would no doubt want, it’s the musical talent that ends up demanding your attention. This release should be on your stereo…

Ted O’Reilly

Highlights from the Blue
Classic Line
Various Artists
Blue Classic Line (Brilliant Classics)

This series of budget-priced recordings comes from the EEC, where copyright laws allow release of 50-year-old material as public domain. Each CD is simply titled “Portrait”, with the artist’s name. While discographical info is included, source labels are not. As a general rule the sound transfers are very good, if a little ‘boxy’ sounding, and on some CDs the endings sound a little clipped, with no ring-off. We’ll look at eight of the forty or so available.

Dizzy Gillespie (BCL7257) has the bop trumpeter’s important 1946 to 1948 big band recordings done for the Musicraft and RCA Victor labels. Titles include Cubano Be and Cubano Bop, Manteca, Ool Ya Cool, Good Bait and others, together with my favourite, Lover Come Back To Me, which shows just how great a trumpet player Dizzy was. His sidemen in this period include rhythm men John Lewis, Ray Brown, Chano Pozo (this was the beginning of Afro-Cuban jazz), Sonny Stitt, Milt Jackson and James Moody.

The first modern jazz piano player was Earl ‘Fatha’ Hines (BCL7263) and his Portrait release includes his very first solo recordings for the QRS company in 1928 when he laid down classics like Caution Blues and A Monday Date, as well as later solos for Okeh and Victor. There’s a trio with Sidney Bechet and Baby Dodds (Blues In Thirds) and seven selections with Hines’ Chicago big band from the ‘30s into the ‘40s. Given his importance in jazz, it’s a shame he has been so overlooked lately. Perhaps this 23-track release will put him into a few more homes.

Little need be said, especially in Canada, about the masterful pianist Oscar Peterson (BCL7264). All but one track of this material is home-grown: Montreal transcriptions by the pianist for CBC radio, with bassist Auston (the label has it as Austin) Roberts. From two 1951 sessions come 20 short versions of standards like Tea For Two, I’ve Got Rhythm, Yesterdays and Rose Room. From Clef comes a single 1950 track with Ray Brown, Oscar’s Blues. Peterson is at his youthful best here, all exuberant and joyful and full of chops.

Coleman Hawkins (BCL7265) is one of the most important figures in jazz. I’ve always thought that the tenor sax is the jazz instrument, and as Jon Hendricks said, “Coleman Hawkins is the man for whom Adolph Sax invented the instrument”. Hawkins certainly created the way to use it in jazz and popular music, and that’s not hyperbole. With a career that lasted 50 years, there were remarkably few less productive periods. Sessions on this release come from the late ‘40s and early ‘50s with orchestral accompaniments, and small swinging groups, from Paris and New York. His mastery of ballads shows on cinema themes like Ruby and Where Is Your Heart (theme from Moulin Rouge). Five tracks with drummer/leader Cozy Cole from 1950 are most welcome, with players like Rex Stewart, Tyree Glenn and Claude Hopkins featured. Kudos to Blue Classic Line for digging out these less-often heard sessions, rather than another release of ‘greatest hit’ material.

Miles Davis (BCL7266) had a hard time of it in the first half of the 1950s, what with his drug problems and general lack of a distinctive musical direction. He was still finding his original voice, and these 1951 and 1953 Prestige sessions show his sometimes-faltering bebop sound with little of the mystique that was to be merchandized by Columbia. This is not “Kind Of Blue” stuff but more ebullient, if a bit generic, late bop material. His sidemen are first rank, including Zoot Sims and Al Cohn together, a young Sonny Rollins, John Lewis and Art Blakey. This is an interesting release, as it helps put Davis’ later success in perspective.

Charlie Parker (BCL7268) is the man who gave Miles Davis his start, and the trumpeter is heard on the earliest four of the sixteen Savoy tracks here, a complete session dating from 1948 with John Lewis and Max Roach. A later quintet with Kenny Dorham turns up from the next year, as does the Metronome All Star band with Overtime and Victory Ball. Dizzy and Bird, along with Monk, are on all 6 tunes from a 1950 Clef session with Buddy Rich on drums. This CD is a good cross section of fine work by Parker, with the other artists as a bonus.

He may not have been one of the finest people around, but Stan Getz (BCL7269) was one of the great stylists of the tenor sax. This Portrait finds him in his early twenties with his fully-developed ‘cool’ style on show with fine pianists such as Al Haig, Horace Silver and drummers Roy Haynes (still active) and Walter Bolden. Getz had the best sound of any of his contemporaries, and it was to be better heard later, when recording techniques were to improve, but it is still easy to appreciate on these 17 standards originally on 78s for Prestige/New Jazz or Roost in 1949 and 1950. The three-minute barrier is deeply felt on many tracks, when Getz seems to be just getting started as the track ends.

Fats Waller (BCL7270) on the other hand was the master of the 78: complete little packages with vocals, piano and horn solos that swung from beginning to end. Irreverent, joyful and always musical, Fats offered a welcome remedy to the economic depression of the 1930s. Waller’s talent extended in all directions: pianist, composer, vocalist, leader and salesman of small group swing. He had a personality that leapt off the disc and out of the radio, but was too rarely seen on screen. His last appearance in a feature, “Stormy Weather” (1943) featured a 4 minute all star version of one of his hit tunes Ain’t Misbehavin which is included here along with ’20s and ’30s group gems like Honeysuckle Rose, The Minor Drag, Dinah and Sweet Sue and the solo masterpiece Handful of Keys. Too bad he wasn’t around for television…

Ted O’Reilly

Generations
Gary Burton; Julian Lage
Concord Jazz CCD-2217-2

There must be something of a born educator in vibraphonist Gary Burton. Over the years he has introduced such guitar talents as Larry Coryell, Pat Metheny and John Scofield - and he has come up with another in the form of Julian Lage, a teenager who plays with an astonishing level of maturity. His contributions to this CD, including three original compositions already begin to point to a place among the significant guitarists in jazz. In addition, Burton has assembled the talents of pianist Makoto Ozone, who adds a couple of compositions of his own to the mix, James Genus on bass and drummer Clarence Penn. The music sustains the level of creativity that we have come to expect from Gary Burton and it is a varied programme including Oscar Peterson’s Wheatland and a standout version of Carla Bley’s Syndrome. First Impression, one of the three Lage contributions sounds as if it might well have been written for Gary Burton. Test Of Time is a moody excursion into the blues penned by Ozone. James Genus gets chance to stretch out a little on The Title Will Follow as does drummer Clarence Penn on Steve Swallow’s Ladies In Mercedes, but for the most part, the solo space is shared by the three main instrumentalists. There is a certain gentle quality to much of the music on this CD, partly brought about by the instrumentation, but by no means is there any lack of colour and intensity.

Jim Galloway

Black Christ of the Andes
Mary Lou Williams
Smithsonian Folkways
Recordings SFWCD 40816

This one, as the Brits would say, is a bit of a curate’s egg – good in parts. The set takes its title from music inspired by the 1962 canonization of St. Martin de Porres, a sixteenth century Peruvian of partly African descent. I don’t think anyone would question Ms. Williams’ sincerity, but the results fail to stir this listener. Part of the problem I think lies with the choirs she’s had to use. They make the music sound so terribly white.

But the CD is still worthy of your attention. The remaining selections show off Mary Lou Williams in all her glory. Never one to rest on her swing era laurels, the pianist demonstrates her mastery of a wide variety of modernist tendencies. This shouldn’t be the least bit surprising. After all, even such masters as Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonius Monk never hesitated to seek out Mary Lou for advice and guidance back in the forties when they were designing the new architecture of jazz.

Among the set’s highlights are an extremely sly reading of It Ain’t Necessarily So, a rocking workout on Billy Taylor’s A Grand Night For Swinging, and a dazzling solo performance of Mary Lou’s own bi-tonal composition, A Fungus A Mungus. On these and the remaining six trio selections – one by drummer Denzil Best, the rest by Mary Lou – one hears the full range of modern jazz piano. The one-of-a-kind Mary Lou Williams was truly beyond category.

Don Brown

Travelling Lights
François Carrier; Paul Bley; Michel Lambert; Gary Peacock
Justin Time JUST 203-2

Phat Hed
Tom Walsh/N.O.M.A.;
Steve Swell
OMBU OMBU1004

Wild for You
Karrin Allyson
Concord Jazz CCD-2220-2

Shave ‘Em Dry
The Best of Lucille Bogan
Columbia Legacy CK 6705

Crazy Blues
The Best of Mamie Smith
Columbia Legacy CK 65712

Whiskey is My Habit, Good Women is all I Crave
The Best of Leroy Carr
Columbia Legacy CK 86989