Charlie Haden and the vinyl mindset

Charlie Haden
Quartet West, 1987

After a long break, I'm back blogging again. Among a million other changes to my life, I recently moved into a new place, with room for a real stereo. And that means being able to play actual records for the first time in a number of years. Funny how listening to something I haven't heard in a while can instantly forge connections to my past, and funny how having all this "new" music around mutes my consumer impulse to go out and buy new stuff.

[On a side note - I really wish I could go back in time and spend just a little more money in the Greenwich Village Tower Records in 2002. Basement chock full of vinyl that was being liquidated. Von Karajan's complete Beethoven symphonies: $3. Pristine copy of Ornette's Free Jazz: $1.50. Die Walküre: $4. White Album: $2. Obscure King Sunny Ade recording: $1. It was kind of crazy and unreal to browse down there, where Adam Smith's invisible hand created a record-collector's paradise.]

Anyway, I'm quite enjoying all the rituals of the vinyl record - carefully lifting and lowering the needle, listening to the hiss and pop (which adds texture and constantly reminds your ears that it's a recording), appreciating or cringing at the big cover art, reading the lyrics sometimes written on sleeves, smiling at the duality in the structure of a two-sided album, which some exploited and some didn't. It's a load of fun.

Which brings me to this album by Charlie Haden. One of my favorites, bought when I was a senior in high school, I believe. An avid jazz fan at that point, I really didn't listen to any other style of music for a couple of years. And since I was a bassist, this was a natural record to want. But even if I didn't, there's a serious selling point here: "Hermitage."

This track is, simply put, radiant. The tune is by Pat Metheny, about whom I can be hot and cold, but this recording really makes a case for "Hermitage" as a jazz standard. As played by the quartet (including Haden on bass and the great Billy Higgins on drums), it's atmospheric, sweet-and-sour, seemingly in constant motion yet standing still at the same time. The players explore emotional places that you wouldn't think the tune could go, especially true in Ernie Watts' sax solo, pushing at the seams of a composition that wants to be understated, and dragging the rest of the ensemble with him. It's hard to put my finger on just what makes it so memorable and great, so I suggest you listen to it yourself, and let the mood of the piece settle over you and pull you along, maybe break your heart just a tiny bit and rescue it again right after.

Other great stuff on the album - a version of "Body and Soul" wherein the main melody is never quite played, but hinted at. "Taney County" is one of Haden's countryfied jazz compositions, ridiculously simple yet so compelling, and it's just him alone with his bass. There's quite a range of approaches in this album that is nominally a mainstream straight-ahead jazz disc. There's warmth and heart in the more "out" playing, as if the players are remembering a moment in time together, or having a conversation about a shared emotional experience.

On the liner notes for one of the Quartet West albums (not sure if it's this one or "Haunted Heart"), Haden talks about evoking the spirit of Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles. Some of that spirit really does come through - the feeling that everyone is widespread and disconnected for the most part, and human attachments form on the basis of unexpected things, leading to unforseen places. Quite remarkable to be able to say things like that with sound.

Get it on itunes:

Miles Davis Tribute

Traveling Miles
Cassandra Wilson, 1999

So this is one of those albums that sort of creates a world unto itself. Something like how a good novel can pull you into its universe, a place that's textured and deep. Actually, maybe more like a collection of connected short stories by the same storyteller - Cassandra Wilson as Sheherazade, perhaps?

Not that these are narrative songs, really, but they all generally travel through emotional spaces over time. If you've heard Cassandra Wilson before, you know about her expressive smoky alto, her understated and studied interpretations of songs. The arrangements are stars right alongside her voice, and they are quite varied on this album, though all growing from a soil that I tend to think of as an "M-Base sound." Tempos are generally slow, as befits her voice.

The album is conceived as a tribute to Miles Davis, and I think it's far and away the best such tribute I've heard. It works well because she chooses songs that she likes from the Davis canon, without trying to be particularly comprehensive or trying to provide a profile of one of his stylistic periods. She freely adds her own lyrics to instrumental tunes; in fact, a number of the songs are her originals.

My favorite of the original songs is "Right Here, Right Now," which is expansive, meditative, and groovy all at once. "Run the Voodoo Down" is a great funk workout for the band (much shorter than Miles' original), anchored by Dave Holland's inhumanly in-the-pocket bass and her lyrics are a perfect homage to the spirit of the tune - there's even a second version of this song at the end of the album, with Anjelique Kidjo guesting. When the two singers hold those tight major seconds, letting them stretch out over the contrapuntal percolating rhythm section, it's one of the most intensely sexy things. Makes the corners of my eyes scrunch up.

"Seven Steps to Heaven" is just a bebop party, plain and simple. "Never Broken," her interpretation of "E.S.P.," retains that off-kilter unease of the original, in a very different context, which is an amazing achievement in itself.

"Time After Time" is in many ways my favorite on the album. Yep, it's that Cyndi Lauper song, covered by lots of people in the last 20 years (including Miles Davis, which is why it's here). This is the best one, hands down. I rarely essentialize, but there ya go - the best. Heartbreaking. Adding about 60 layers of meaning that you didn't think the song could possibly carry. I caught Cassandra Wilson on tour in NY once and she brought Ms. Lauper out to sing it as a duet with her- it's one of my top concert memories. Wish the song could have been twice as long, if not three times.

One of the gems in my vocal jazz collection, for sure.

itunes link:

Spillane

Spillane
John Zorn, 1986

Well this was the first John Zorn music I ever heard - think I bought the album my first year in college. Definitely a great one for me to start with, I have to say, for lots of reasons. The album has three pieces of music on it, but I'm just going to talk about the title track.

First and foremost, Spillane is a musical exploration of the milieu, dynamics, and themes of Mickey Spillane's hardboiled detective stories. I have to say that I've never been a big fan of Spillane's writing, but obviously Zorn is. He takes what's basically tawdry derivative prose and uses it as a jumping off point for his prodigious sonic imagination.

It's one of Zorn's pastiche-style pieces, made up of a few dozen small vignettes, stitched together. Some bits are purely atmospheric soundscapes, setting a scene (rain and windshield wipers, footsteps echoing in an alley). Some are genre music of one kind or another (roadhouse blues, 50s West Coast jazz). Some are soundtrack cues in the 70s-80s Hollywood style (think synthesizer arpeggios). There are also a handful of recitations of lines from Spillane novels. More often than not, several of these things are happening simultaneously.

There seems to be an overall direction to the piece that I can only describe as dramatic. Trying to find a plot in it doesn't seem fruitful, but as a representation of fluid emotional states, or perhaps memories of emotional states, it really works for me. There are a number of musical elements that help it hang together as a whole as well, which is one reason that I think it's more successful (for me) than alot of Zorn's other work in this vein.

Really fun and beautiful piece of work, with top-notch downtown NY players, I might add. It's something to listen to with no other distractions, to let it pull you into its world for a little while. Like film that way.

itunes link:

Pithecanthropus Erectus

Pithecanthropus Erectus
Charles Mingus, 1956

I've been a Mingus fan since I was a teenager. Partly it's because I'm a bassist and composer, so really your choices are Mingus or Bottesini if you want to idolize someone. But beyond that, Mingus is a looming inescapable figure because he travelled his own path (to put it mildly) in his life and in his art. I won't get into biographical details here - got to save something for when I write about the other records I own, right? - but suffice it to say that he was known for being a difficult personality, and he had his own set of musical priorities that didn't always coincide with the "mainstream" of the jazz world.

Mingus wrote and played music that spoke quite directly about how he lived in the world, and that is a pretty extraordinary thing. He found innovative and startling ways to express ideas/themes from sociology, politics, and psychology through music. Not to say that there's a secret hidden message in everything, but he was someone who wasn't afraid to imbue extramusical meaning in his work, overtly or covertly. I really dig that.

And really there's no better example than the title track of this album. "Pithecanthropus Erectus" is about the evolution and the self-destruction of our species, according to Mingus' own liner notes, but it's so much more than that too - a musical essay on race, on hubris, on xenophobia. I know it sounds ridiculous to assign that much connotation to 10 minutes of music played by a jazz quintet, but I swear to you it's all in there. The opening of the piece has sudden changes of dynamics from soft to loud and back again, and these relentless repeated tones in the bass. Always makes me feel like Mingus is trying to foment revolution (or at least thumb his nose at the establishment) in those repeated notes: "Oh, did you want me to play a slick, polished walking bass line for you? Well fuck you, I'm sitting here pounding away on this one pitch till I'm good and ready to switch to the next one!" The musical ideas get opened up and turned inside out by the players. The pianist Mal Waldron, a brilliant player, is in fine form on this tune, in no small way responsible for the overall tone of the piece.

The version of "A Foggy Day" is lovely, emerging out of "street noise" re-created by the players, and subsumed by the sounds again at the end. Really nicely done, especially when you hear the main melody of the tune and bits and pieces will remind you of the foghorns, sirens, and car horns that opened the track.

And I want to talk about "Love Chant" just a little, though maybe I should put this into another separate post. This piece has always been mysterious to me. It's big and sprawling, covering a lot of ideas, and in many ways it seems the most loosely constructed of the pieces on the record. I can't say that I have a real handle on what it's up to, but one thing that comes across pretty strongly is that it really is about love. In particular, the two saxophonists (Jackie McLean on alto and J.R. Monterose on tenor) play lines that slither and slide around each other quite frequently. The mood changes on a dime, the harmony becoming very diffuse for long stretches, then starting to coalesce for a while, then dispersing again. It's really amazing stuff, sometimes keeping me on the edge of my seat with tension and anticipation, and sometimes beguiling me with pure beauty (beauty of the groove or of the moment). There is some really incredible playing on this tune, and even if I don't always know quite what they're up to, the sense that the players are all in the same headspace, working together to communicate some concept or dynamic through shared improvisation, is evident in every note. Even when only one instrument is playing for a while, I feel like the whole ensemble is part of what's happening.

There is wisdom and grace and humor and pain here. Music to listen to deeply, to enjoy on its surface, and to reflect upon in quiet moments afterward.

itunes link:

Maiden Voyage

Maiden Voyage
Herbie Hancock, 1965

One of the nicer things about this project of listening to all my records is that I get to do some deep listening to music that I know quite well already. That's certainly the case with this classic album, which I listened to incessantly about 20 years ago, to the point of having it almost memorized note for note. I tried to listen with a "blank slate" mentality as much as possible, and found it very rewarding.

This is just a lovely album in a thousand ways. Sort of a "concept album," but in the loosest way, the titles of the five cuts all related to a sea voyage. There is amazing playing from everyone throughout (and what a line-up it is, too), but this is Herbie's album and he is definitely the most sublime, whether soloing or ensemble playing or comping. Just the different harmonizations that he gives "Little One" each time the main tune comes back are brilliant.

Herbie Hancock shows himself to be a really great composer here. People talk alot about the "sustained chords" in the music on this album, and it's true that they contribute a lot to the mood, but there's so much more going on as well. For one thing, the counterpoint is so smartly and beautifully worked out - obviously this was something which was talked about among the players too, because the rhythmic relationships unravel and restitch effortlessly during solos.

There are masterful shifts of mood in "Eye of the Hurricane" and "Survival of the Fittest," again showing what makes jazz composition different from what we normally think of as a classical composition process. It's not just writing a head and playing through the changes - there's a certain amount of control over just how the group improvises together as well. This isn't so easy to put into words or notate on paper, but when you listen for it, it's definitely there.

There are dozens of beautiful moments scattered throughout the album ... the melting of Herbie's solo into Tony Williams' on "Survival of the Fittest," the opening flourish of George Coleman's solo on "Maiden Voyage," and that rock-solid rhythm-section groove on "Dolphin Dance," just for starters. Gems all the way through.

itunes link:

Just one of over a hundred albums

Royal T
Tito Puente, 1993

Ah Tito Puente ... where to even start? The man gave James Brown a run for his money as "hardest working man in show business," and the number of albums he recorded is the stuff of legend (I'm sure there's an exact count somewhere online, but that's one thing I'd rather keep a mystery). On two different occasions, I was lucky enough to hear him and his band perform live - even got splashed with some of his sweat, a.k.a. "agua de Puente," while dancing.

This album was the first of his that I bought, and probably for sentimental reasons it's still my favorite to listen to. This was the one I listened to over and over until I figured out and internalized the tumbao rhythm of the bass, something that has fascinated me for a long time. I dissected several of the arrangements, and learned so much from them.

The album starts off with a kick-ass screaming-fast version of "Donna Lee," the lead melody carried by a piccolo, and it just smokes from beginning to end. The arrangement of Mingus' "Moanin'" is a favorite of mine too - starts off with a baritone sax line that's begging to be sampled into a hip hop track. I knew the Mingus version of this tune fairly well before I ever heard this one, but the Puente version is definitely the one that's taken over my aural imagination now. The album is really all gems, with graet soloing and ensemble work. Another stand-out for me is "Mambo Gallego," which fuses flamenco harmonies and melodic ideas with the Afro-cuban rhythmic drive. I used to use that one to teach music students to take rhythmic dictation.

Anyway, it's just a blast, stem to stern. If you like Latin Jazz, it's an excellent one to have.

itunes doesn't have it, but they have this nice greatest hits:

Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie

Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie!
Ella Fitzgerald, 1961

I could spend weeks just reviewing the Ella Fitzgerald albums I have, but why not start with my all-time favorite? What a gorgeous and well-conceived album, not a clunker in the whole bunch of songs.

Just jazz standards here, tending towards the ballads and downtempo numbers, which suits me well most of the time. It's just a small jazz quartet as the backing band, too, including Herb Ellis on guitar. Every song is just a gem, her voice soars and floats and dips effortlessly.

"Night in Tunisia" grooves along, forgoing the Afrocuban feel for some alternating 6/8 and 4/4 meters. "You're My Thrill" is perhaps the most purely emotive track - an interpretation that gets me every time. She takes "Born to Be Blue" from a rich deep blues to angelsong and back again. On "Spring Can Really Hang You up the Most," she delivers a performance so wantonly gorgeous that it is the closest thing to a proof of the existence of god. And "This Could Be the Start of Something Big," Steve Allen's novelty theme song, just swings like fuck.

Those are just a few of the tracks that are standing out for me at the moment - this is an album to live your life to. Yes it's hard for me to pile up enough superlatives to do this album justice. I've been listening to this one constantly ever since I bought it about 15 years ago, and it's always been there for me when I needed it. I remember listen to "'Round Midnight" in the car as I drove through one of her old neighborhoods in Yonkers (where there was an excellent Salvadoran restaurant at the time), late in a cool autumn evening, and feeling that little frisson that you get when you realize that your life is connected to everyone else's and there's a common rhythm to the world.

Not all music can do that.

itunes link: