Saturday, July 25, 2009

Elvin Jones - "New Agenda" (1975)




ELVIN JONES on VANGUARD

Regarded as one of the world's greatest drummers, with his alternately thunderous and light-skipping percussive styles, Elvin Jones will always be remembered as Coltrane's drummer from the 1960-66 period, but also has an interesting output as a leader in his own right.

His Impulse and Blue Note albums straddled both avant-garde and post-bop influences, always allowing plenty of space for his collaborators, and by the 1970s, albums like Merry Go Round were beginning to annoy purists like l'il Scotty Yanow in their eclectic grab-bag that began to explore influences like latin and brazilian styles.

He continued to explore all corners of jazz in when he moved across to Vanguard Records in 1975, in a group of albums that I'm going to present in a series of posts. I didn't have this one, so my friend WK stepped forward with a nice 320 vinyl rip.

"New Agenda" was his first release for the new company in 1975. There's a pretty heavyweight reeds section behind him here - mainstay Steve Grossman with help on different tracks from Azar Lawrence, Joe Farrell and Frank Foster. That's how many winds players you need to compete with Jones' snare drum.

As if the power of his kit wasn't enough, on this album he brings in three percussionists - Candido, Guillermo Franco and Frank Ippolito, but this doesn't result in the bombastic chaos you might expect - rather, Jones works with them in a cohesive unit, often exploring subtle cymbal work to complete the percussive textures; and really letting them have their heads on the closer "Agenda".

No review for this album on AMG, presumably because it contains the dreaded, jazz-destroying electric piano, adroitly handled here by Kenny Barron on the opening soul-jazzer "Someone's Rocking My Jazzboat" ; and by Gene Perla on the aforementioned "Agenda" and "Stefanie" (penned by producer Ed Bland and later recorded by James Moody, see file within his discography here ). Anyway, Barron's presence gets this added to the Kenny on electric piano discography.

The pianoless tracks are anchored harmonically by guitarist Roland Prince, a veteran of many fine early 70s albums like Buddy Terry's "Awareness", Larry Willis' "Inner Crisis"; Shirley Scott's "Lean On Me"; Roy Haynes' "Senyah", Pete Yellin's "It's the Right Thing" and Compost's "Life Is Round". Here he's got a restrained style that on tracks like "Haresah" that almost mimics the tonality of Barron's and Perla's rhodes on other tracks.

Hope you enjoy this one!

TRACKLIST

01 'Someone's Rocking My Jazzboat' - 6:49 - (Foster)
02 'Naima' - 6:10 - (Coltrane)
03 'Haresah' - 8:09 - (Grossman)
04 'Anti-Calypso' - 5:18 - (Prince)
05 'Stefanie' - 4:39 - (Bland)
06 'My Lover' - 3:36 - (Hito)
07 'Agenda' - 7:55 - (Jones)

MUSICIANS

Drums - Elvin Jones
Bass - Dave Williams
Guitar - Roland Prince
Percussion - Candido (5,7) , Frank Ippolito (1,2,4,5,7) , Guillermo Franco (3,4)
Piano - Gene Perla (5,7) , Kenny Barron (1)
Reeds - Azar Lawrence (3,4) , Frank Foster (1,2,5) , Steve Grossman
Saxophone - Joe Farrell (5,7)

PRODUCTION

Producer - Ed Bland
Engineer, Mixed By - David Baker
Mixed By - John Kilgore

ALSO BY ELVIN JONES at this blog :
"The Main Force" (1976)
"Summit Meeting" (1976)
"Time Capsule" (1977)

POST CREDITS

Vinyl rip @ 320 donated by WK (thanks!)

Other album links in this post go to Orgy In Rhythm, Office Naps, My Jazz World, the Shad Shack, and Oufar Khan.Please thank these folks if you visit them and download their albums, commenting keeps music blogs alive and well.


62 comments:

ish said...

Thanks Simon, don't know this one. Gene Perla worked with Elvin Jones for years and years; he's still around, an educator as well as still playing.

Thanks also for putting the evil Mr. Yanow in his place!

Simon666 said...

.. and thanks to WK for the rip!

Simon666 said...

Thanks Ish,
Thinking we should develop a Yanow repellant spray ?

charlie said...

Great stuff. Thanks a lot.

As to Yanow, if people don't like him why is he quoted so much?

pollux said...

such a great post, genius musician, thanks Simon :)

Jazzjet said...

More great music to explore. Many thanks!

Solomon said...

Thank you.

Slidewell said...

Ooh, this sounds like a real good'n!

Can't wait to hear it! thanks much!

Dr. Fusion said...

In one word FANTASTIC !!!

Thank you very much.

Regards,
Dr.Fusion

squirrels on semuta said...

thanks for this! excited to hear jones working with percussionists, i've only ever heard him together with rashied ali.

corvimax said...

well done
azar lawrence is calling
thanks

Anonymous said...

thanks for this - fabulous stuff

Anonymous said...

Thank you Simon. This is a very nice album.

Kermit.

Evil Dr.Louie said...

I have had this record for years-

Thanks for bringing this out of print masterpiece to a larger audience!

Visionless said...

Simply Beautiful Simon! Also thanks for using mediafire, a whole lot faster.

dka said...

This is a brilliant album. It got a cd release on Universe some years ago together with two other Vanguard releases The Main Force & my favourite, Time Capsule with some great playing by Bunky Green. Bunky Green also did a couple of albums for Vanguard.
You have the Time Capsule in your Kenny Barron on electric list, but there is an uncredited electric piano on New Agenda. Was this Barron also?

Simon666 said...

Hi dka -
Yes, it's Barron on the opening track (see the preview at the top of the post), and Gene Perla (who usually played bass for Jones) on some of the others.

E-mile said...

new to me 2 [:-) great! thanks...
peace, E-mile

Art Simon said...

Wow, between this and this visitors WK has hit a double! Just wonderful, thanks!

mybonnie77 said...

Thanks a lot, Elvin is always welcome.

Anonymous said...

Thank you :)

dka said...

In my earlier comment I meant to say that there is an uncredited electric piano on the Main Force album. I wondered whether this might also be Kenny Barron?

Simon666 said...

Hi dka -
Just checked the vinyl for Main Force - "Albert Dailey - keyboards, all selections".

sasha said...

What?!? Gene Perla on the keys...That makes a change from his normal bassment duties..Mid 70's Elvin sure is a change from his 60's output..Many thanks for this and all the fine work you continue to put in here on the blog.

Anonymous said...

Hi, i'm funkybebel from "RIP" rhodes-tunes.com, i asked you time ago to share our library but you did never responded. Then i closed my weebsite. Not a big problem, your database is more impressive.

Here is some stuff for your blog:

Segun Damisa & The Afro-Beat Crusaders

Cheers.

Simon666 said...

Hi funkybebel -
Sorry that I didn't get back, I get too busy with lots of mail sometimes and forget, but thanks for your offer back then ...
Now, as to this new one - did you forget to put a link for Segun Damisa?
thanks,
Simon

Simon666 said...

Thanks for all the comments guys, more Elvin up by the weekend ...

Gianni aka Cesare Barbetta said...

this is a great post.
thank you Simon!

Simon666 said...

Hi guys,
I’ve now posted Elvin Jones – “The Main Force” (1976) , vinyl rip in WAV and MP3. Come check it out ☺

Simon666 said...

and again -

Hi again guys,
I’ve now posted Elvin Jones – “Time Capsule (1977), carmen geddit ☺

Anonymous said...

Thanx for these great Elvin shares- Sometimes loose & unrehearsed,but it's Elvin!! Love it

wirraroo said...

G'day
from S E Qld. Thanks for a fantastic blog...landed here looking for Roland Prince. His Vanguard albums are excellent. Keep up the great work!

taro nombei said...

Greetings Simon,
Finally getting around to these excellent Elvin Jones shares (lack of time and hard disk space always an issue). Many thanks for all of these -- your posts always join the dots and put things together.
cheers!

taro nombei said...

PS A big TA to WK too

Simon666 said...

Hi guys –
I’ve now posted Elvin Jones – “Summit Meeting” (1976) , come check it out.

jakdolesa said...

Thanks a lot for all the Elvin Jones albums here!!!

Simon666 said...

You're welcome jakdolesa :)

Lexify said...

Absolute dope!
Rotating non-stop...
Thank you so much!

Anonymous said...

Very nice, thank you

Directional Mike said...

Thanks for all the Elvin Jones...and WELCOME back!

Anonymous said...

It disappoints me to say the link is dead, homie. Can a brother get a re-up?

Anonymous said...

please re-up!! loving so much the main force...

thnxz fr all the great stuff here, and for the really useful historic
"family tree" linkings)

Anonymous said...

dopest blog of the world.
respect to this blogger

chico picante jr said...

looking forward to hearing this one! Thanks!

bayviewsax-lostsoul.blogspot.com said...

I STILL have this one on vinyl, but my turntable is not functioning at the moment. Always dug this take on Naima. Thanks!

oui said...

hi Simon! another brother would be glad if you could re-up the FLAC (or WV or whatever lossless) of this one? cheers!

Simon666 said...

Hi Oui - a friend ripped this for me @ 320, didn't have lossless. Re-up link is is about five comments above this . Thanks for all your comments!

oui said...

well, thank YOU for all the fantastic music posts! my old memory tries to visit your blog once and a while since it exists, but the web is so large that sometimes i forget for a couple of months... maybe should i use that rss thingy, but i never did this before. is that a cool thing? unfortunately nobody told me how good or how bad it is yet :)

: ) said...

Thanks so much for all these great Elvin Jones recordings, massively appreciated!!

Anonymous said...

Hey, the link's still kickin', thanks a lot!
Sivad

jw_natural said...

Just want to express my sincere thanx for sharing the music. From you blog I have been able to get music I thought I would rarely, if ever, hear again.

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for the Elvin Jones recordings and the information and insight about the sessions! Your site is very nice in general!

Simon666 said...

Thanks for all your comments guys

Anonymous said...

thank youuuuuu

Anonymous said...

here comes thanks from a leecher ;)

Anonymous said...

Simon your blog is a treasured resource and continues to be a joyful learning experience for me; I appreciate your insightful writing too!

This isn't strictly a Rhodes album, but I wanted to throw a plug out there for Steve Grossman's album "Some Shapes to Come."

Thanks again!

Simon666 said...

Yeah that's a great album - kinda surprising that Elvin didn't drum on that, considering the lineup :)

Anonymous said...

thank you!

Anonymous said...

Thank you! Regards!
Paddy.

Anonymous said...

started looking for GENESIS, landed here.

yes!

thanks

Unknown said...

Dear Simon, I have just discovered your blog. All i can say is thank you for the music. Absolutely amazing and better than christmas and birthday rolled into one times a thousand. Very best, Luke

Simon666 said...

thanks Luke!