Well why not a 2nd post in a day for this blog's anniversary ?
Two hours and four minutes of Herbie Hancock and his Mwandishi band, recorded live on August 4th, 1971 at NDR Studios in Hamburg, Germany as a continuous take.
1970-71 saw a seismic change in Hancock's music - after finishing the "Fat Albert Rotunda" album at the end of 1969; his major recordings during 1970 were the Miles Davis albums "A Tribute to Jack Johnson" and "Live Evil", then his studio album "Mwandishi" was recorded on December 31st, 1970. Quite a way to spend New Year's Eve! This session comes eight months later.
In searching for information about this session, I can only see that it's changed hands between traders as a tape and then a 2 CD set for many years; and that the 50 min section of "Ostinato" has sometimes been sold in some places. My version is a Soulseek find @ 192kbps; and I thought it would be good to release this into the blogosphere.
Hope you enjoy it!
... and more Hancock bootlegs here.
TRACKLIST1. Toys (46:44) 2. Speak like a child (27:13) 3. Ostinato (50:36)
MUSICIANS
Herbie Hancock - fender rhodes, acoustic piano Bennie Maupin - tenor sax, flute, bass clarinet Billy Hart - drums Buster Williams - bass Julian Priester - trombone Eddie Henderson - trumpet, flugelhorn
DETAILS
NDR Studios, Hamburg, Germany, August 4th 1971 Thanks Max for the details.
POST CREDITS
Other albums linked to here are at San Pasquale Ent., Call It Anything, Oufar Khan, Into the Rhythm. Please thank them if you click through and download.
Several great tracks on this 1978 Muse album by keyboardist Walter Bishop Jr., who's mostly on rhodes here and still has some of his Black Jazz flavors intact. "Cubicle" comes the year after his Muse album 'Soul Village' and features similar instrumentation and some similar textures. It's also a nice clean piece of vinyl.
There's still some rawness here - the album doesn't have 1978 slick arrangement/production values stamped all over it, even though the vast majority of these musicians seemed to be getting most of their work on CTI albums at the time. While then-ubiquitous pop/jazz session trumpeter Randy Breckeris here, his precision is nicely balanced with the more lyrical, loose work of trombonist Curtis Fuller, and saxophonists Rene McClean and Pepper Adams.
Over the course of his solo career, Bishop tended to re-record different versions of songs by himself and others from one album to the next. "Cubicle" is no exception, with half of the tracks having appeared on previous albums in occasionally radically different forms.
The opener "Valley Land" has rarely left my turntable since I acquired the record. Previously recorded as a piano trio instrumental on Bishop's 1974 "Valley Land" album, here it's beefed up into an energetic vocal track featuring a young Carmen Lundy in one of her first recordings.
It sounds like a Strata-East track from earlier in the decade, perhaps from Billy Parker's Fourth World, or even like a Doug Carn vocal track, with Ray Mantilla's latin percussion working upfront. Check it out on the preview. (Also, check out a few different versions of Carmen Lundy singing the classic track "Time Is Love" over at Private Press).
'Summertime' excerpt
The album features Bishop's fourth recording of the standard "Summertime". He'd given blues-infused jazz readings of the track on 1963's "Walter Bishop Trio"and the 1964 recording on "Bish-Bash", then funked it up on his 1973 Black Jazz album "Keeper of my Soul", switching from piano to a harsh hammond organ that probably demanded a heavier backline than he had there.
The "Cubicle" version of "Summertime" is his funkiest yet - Bishop switches to rhodes, and this time is ably supported by the ubiquitous Billy Hart on drums, great percussion from Ray Mantilla - who put out an excellent solo album the year before - and a nice dirty baritone solo from Pepper Adams. "Those Who Chant" receives a similar treatment to the version on 1973's 'Keeper Of My Soul', although the unison doubling of Joe Caro's guitar with Bishop's rhodes gives the melody a slight fusion edge (but thankfully not too much!). There's some nice rhodes solo work in the track as well - Bishop had just played acoustic in the earlier version. Caro's guitar work is generally in a restrained soul-jazz style, perhaps more suited to Bishop's work than Steve Khan's was on "Soul Village".
"Now, Now That You've Left Me" is a bossa-tinged piece that recalls some of the tracks on "Soul Village", or perhaps some of Kenny Barron's work from the same period. It's written by the album's producer Mitch Farber, who later released an album called "Starclimber" (1982) on Muse.
Bishop gives the rhodes treament to "My Little Suede Shoes" a favourite standard from his Charlie Parker days, and finally returns to his bop roots with an acoustic rendition of the title track "Cubicle", pre-cursing his return to a concentration on acoustic piano work that would follow this album.
1977 'Soul Village' 1978 'Cubicle' in comments here 1978 'The Trio' (with Billy Hart, George Mraz) 1988 'Just in Time' 1989 'Ode to Bird' 1990 'What's New' 1991 'Midnight Blue' 1998 'Speak Low Again' POST CREDITS
Vinyl rip by Simon666
Apart from the discography, other album links in this post go to : My Jazz World, Ile Oxumare, Orgy In Rhythm, Sic Vos Non Vobis, Pharoah's Dance, Call It Anything, Private Press and Jazz Disposition.
Please thank and support these bloggers if you download their albums.
Oh. and this is Walter reading his poem about Max Roach : "Max The Invisible Roach" :
swboy has given me permission to drop a few of his rips that were formerly on El Reza, so I'll try to add a few treats for those who have this already. This is one of my favourite Strata-East albums and a complete joy to listen to. There's something unique about Harold Vick's saxaphone sound that made me want to look deeper into his career.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF HAROLD VICK
Harold Vick emerged in the early 1960s as a saxaphonist with a distinctive, lyrical tone who retained a blues edge as the soul-jazz scene played back and forth with post-bop modernism throughout the decade, then followed the development of new forms in the 1970s.
Influenced by Gene Ammons, he played in the band of vocalist Lloyd Price from about 1958-1960 before joining Jack McDuff's band. He became a preferred tenor sax player for all the top-shelf soul-jazz organists like McDuff, John Patton and Jimmy McGriff.
In fact, he played with so many hammond organists that he has his own clickable org-hammo-gram.
'Our Miss Brooks' excerpt
His debut 1963 album "Steppin' Out"(Blue Note) sits firmly in the blues / early soul-jazz camp, with John Patton on the B3 and frequent collaborator Grant Green on guitar. The opening track "Our Miss Brooks" referred to Ellen Brooks, who had been Vick's girlfriend but was now going out with John Patton, who she married the next year. Ahh, musical tension in the studio! Listen to the above clip and imagine her sitting with a glass of wine, Yoko-like, at the back of the studio while the organ and sax face off. Nevertheless, Vick recorded another session with Patton the next year, but this was rejected by Blue Note and he moved on.
'Tiempo Medio Lento' excerpt
In 1966 he released "The Caribbean Suite" on RCA, built around an eight-part suite of the same name by British saxophonist Kenny Graham, with Vick adding some of his own tracks. Vick (on flute and soprano sax) is accompanied by Bobby Hutcherson, Albert Dailey and others, with Latin percussion by Montego Joe and Manuel Ramos. A bold change of pace and great stuff, you can almost hear Martin Denny and Bacoso drinking beers together in the jungle bushes behind, watching through binoculars. Thanks as always to Bacoso for re-upping this in relation to this post.
'A Rose for Wray' excerpt
Later in the year, he released "Straight Up", more straight-ahead than the previous album, but with the laid-back settings nonetheless giving you an opportunity to experience the subtle expressiveness of his playing against a backdrop of guitar, piano, vibes and trumpet. There's a few bossa tracks, and Vick adds soprano sax and flute to his woodwind arsenal.
'Hnic'
Vick recorded the album "Commitment" in 1967, but it wasn't released until 1974 on Muse, just before "Don't Look Back". Listen to the killer track "hnic" above, with Victor Feldman ripping it up on piano - Walter Bishop plays piano on most other tracks. The track also features Mickey Roker - drums; Herb Bushler - bass; Malcolm Riddick - guitar; and Vick on flute.
1967's "The Melody Is Here" was later re-released as "Watch What Happens" with some additional tracks. Three tracks feature a quartet with Herbie Hancock, Bob Cranshaw and Grady Tate, the rest feature "The Harold Vick Orchestra" which includes Jimmy Owens, Joe Farrell, Hancock and others with a chorus of female voices. "Ode To Trane", above, comes from the Hancock quartet sessions.
'Buzzard Feathers' excerpt
In the early 1970s, drummer Jack deJohnette formed the band Compost with Harold Vick, Jumma Santos and others, seemingly as an excuse to go crazy on the wah-wah clavinet in a party funk-rock atmosphere. Vick seems to be enjoying himself immensely on sax and flute, often grabbing Jack's wah-wah pedal. Two albums were released : "Compost" (1972) and "Life Is Round" (1973), with vocalist Lou Courtney joining for the second album.
'Peace K.D.' excerpt
In 1973 Vick released an album called "Power Of Feeling" under the pseudonym "Sir Edward" on Bernard Purdie's Encounter label.
There's still conjecture on Dusty Groove, Soul Strut and other places as to whether this actually was Harold Vick, or indeed even Sonny Stitt - but a quick look at the back cover of the "Commitment" release from the following year confirms that it's Vick, via a somewhat disparaging comment from Fred Norsworthy, who's much keener on the 1966 material :
Bad Harold, naughty Harold
Players include Joe Bonner (rhodes), Wilbur Bascomb (bass), Omar Clay (drums), and Jumma Santos (percussion). Harold's clearly stolen the wah-wah pedal from the Compost sessions for this album.
Anyway I've ordered the vinyl, so will be back properly with this one in a week or two. (EDIT : Got it, go HERE )
Vick later re-recorded the track "Keep on Moving On" from this album on Shirley Scott's fantastic 1974 Strata-East release "One for Me", which features some of his best playing.
So let's move on to today's album - 1974's "Don't Look Back" was recorded and released in the wake of Harold Vick's recovery from a heart attack, which may partially explain the passion with which he approaches his playing throughout. The title track "Don't Look Back" is a joyous melodic number that Vick himself attributes to new love experienced in his time of crisis. It was later covered on the Shirley Scott "One For Me" album (with Vick on sax), and also on Nat Adderley's same-titled album "Don't Look Back" in 1976.
His work on sax and flute has a harder, more intense edge to it than his other recordings - check out his tenor work on "Lucille" - while still displaying the subtlety of his best work - listen to his multi-tracked coda "Prayer", where Joe Bonner's rhodes mixes in with Vick's clarinet, flutes and saxaphone.
'Prayer'
Trumpeter Virgil Jones is a strong presence on this album, frequently trading solos with Vick on tracks like the latinesque "Senor Zamora" - his recent work had included a high profile arranger's role on Charles Earland's "Intensity"; and performances on albums as diverse as McCoy Tyner's "Song Of The New World" and Leon Spencer's "Where I'm Coming From".
As well as appearing on the aforementioned Tyner and Shirley Scott albums, euphonium player Kiane Zawadi had recently worked on Archie Shepp's "Attica Blues" and Dollar Brand's "African Space Program". He contributes a great solo here on "Melody For Bu", which is dedicated to organist Bu Pleasant, on whose Muse album Vick played the same year, and which also includes the track. Both Zawadi and Virgil Jones had worked with Vick almost a decade before on "Oh! Pharoah Speak" by Pharoah Sanders and the Latin Jazz Quintet.
'Melody For bu' excerpt
George Davis appears on alto flute on three tracks, as well as wah-guitar on the spiritual-flavoured "Stop and Cop" - see my "sidebar" on his career near the base of the Mike Longo post. Drummer Billy Hart now wins the "Most Labelled" award for this blog.
Vick's final album as a leader was "After The Dance" in 1977, named after the Leon Ware - Marvin Gaye penned title track. While I'm generally partial to some mixed disco-jazz albums of the period, this one suffers from some unimaginative track choices and arrangements, although I quite like the single "Things Aint Right", an Esther Marrow cover that mixes some blaxploitation-style wah-wah and orchestral textures with the disco beat, even if Vick's sax is a little incidental to the overall plot ...
Harold Vick continued to work frequently as a sideman until his death in 1987 from a heart attack. Saxaphonist Sonny Stitt composed a tribute track on his 2000 album "This Is What I Do" called "Did you Hear Harold Vick?", which is more of a funky, playful number rather than a mournful dirge.
Prayer Bass Clarinet, Alto and concert Flutes, Soprano Saxophone - Harold Vick Fender Rhodes - Joe Bonner PRODUCTION DETAILS
Arranged By, Composed By, Producer - Harold Vick All selections: (Matron Music) BMI.
Produced at Blue Rock Studio, New York City.
Mixed and mastered at Generation Sound Studio, New York City.
Engineer [Recording] - Eddie Korvin Mastered By - David Crawford Mixed By - Tony May Photography - Jim Dunn
Album Design, Art Supervision - Creative Hands, Inc.
Thanks to MsManagement and Lou Courtney for their assistance. Special thanks to the musicians for their love and cooperation in this endeavour.
God of Life / God of Love
We Praise Thy Name
Prayer of acknowledgement
and thanks to the Almighty Creator
for all things
All Praise Due to Allah
1958-60 Lloyd Price : Harold Vick played in vocalist Lloyd Price's band from about 1958-1960 alongside John Patton. Price released three albums over this period, but I have been unable to find musician's listings for these. Harold Vick is said to have played with Aretha Franklin(1970-1974); the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band (1969-70) and King Curtis (1969-70) but doesn't seem to appear on any recordings by these artists. Various obituaries and articles also refer to work with Nat Adderley, Mercer Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Billy Taylor, Donald Byrd, and Jimmy Smith - but it is not clear whether this is just live work or involved recording. Any further knowledge would be appreciated.
Ray Charles : Harold Vick is listed as a saxaphonist on two Ray Charles compilations. The only two songs appearing on both comps were "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "Ruby". These songs appear on the respective albums "The Genius Hits The Road" and "Dedicated to You". The former has listings that do not include Vick, the latter had no musician listings that I could find. Therefore, by deduction I've listed him as appearing on "Dedicated to You", but this is still open to question : I'd imagine that Charles recorded "Sweet Georgia Brown" more than once.
POST CREDITS
"Don't Look Back" vinyl rip by swboy originally posted at El Reza
Pics from Discogs
Text and research by Simon666
Also big thanks to Bacoso for the re-up of "Caribbean Suite" .
Apart from the albums in the discographies, album links within the post go to :
Strata-East Fan Club, Orgy in Rhythm, Ile Oxumaré, My Favourite Sound, My Jazz World, Pharoah’s Dance, Call It Anything, Sergio Sonico, Granazi, Oufar Khan, Musica Y Programas, Blog–O–Blog, headfonehaus, seventeen green buicks, Blue Beat in My Soul and Jazz Jupiter Variation.
As always, please thank and support these bloggers and those in the discographies if you click through and download.
This is a 1978 album with Kenny Barron on both rhodes and acoustic piano, ripped from vinyl and donated to the blog by swboy, who also gave us the Brasil : Samba Bossa MPB compilation back in July. I think this one is a first for the blogosphere ...
- THE SIDEMAN -
Kenny Barron's first 'appearance' on record was as both arranger and composer on Yusef Lateef's "The Centaur and the Phoenix" in 1960 when he was only seventeen, although he didn't actually play on the record.
He spent most of the 60s as Dizzy Gillespie's pianist, as well as recording on albums by his brother Bill Barron and saxaphonist James Moody, who also came from Gillespie's band.
After being replaced by Mike Longo in the Gillespie band in 1967, Barron formed the Jimmy Owens - Kenny Barron Quintet with trumpeter Owens, and they released the album "You Had Better Listen" the following year, featuring Bennie Maupin on sax and flute.
In 1967 he also made his first electric piano recordings on the Joe Henderson albums "The Kicker" and "Tetragon", though it was not until Freddie Hubbard's "The Black Angel" in 1970 that he began to use it as a major instrument in recordings. He rounded out the 1960s as a player on a wide variety of albums by Tyrone Washington, Booker Ervin and others.
By the time of his debut solo album "Sunset to Dawn" in 1973, it was clear that he'd absorbed the global musical visions of leaders like Gillespie and Lateef. The rhodes-led sessions are awash with latin rhythms and percussion, with occasional melodic and harmonic suggestions of Brazil and the Caribbean.
These influences continue into some of "Peruvian Blue", his second Muse release in 1974, which alternates between acoustic standards and great latin-funk rhodes workouts (particularly the title track, which to me recalls Carlos Garnett's work at the time).
1975's "Lucifer" sees Barron branching out both musically and instrumentally, adding clavinet and string synthesiser to his keyboard arsenal across a range of tracks that expand his palette into fusion, acoustic spiritual, jazz-funk and other forms. Later in the year, he also recorded the live acoustic duet album "In Tandem" with guitarist Ted Dunbar (who'd been on "Peruvian Blue") while both were teaching at Rutgers University.
- "INNOCENCE " (1978) -
1978's "Innocence" features four of Barron's own compositions and one by trumpeter Jimmy Owens. Barron himself plays rhodes, acoustic piano and minimal string synth in a sparser grouping than on "Lucifer", with the latin elements of his keyboard style back at the forefront. For the most part, he's working here with musicians that he'd begun associations with in the preceding few years.
There are essentially two sessions and lineups here. The first three tracks feature Barron trading lead lines with saxaphonist Sonny Fortune, who he'd first worked with on Buddy Rich's "Tuff Dude" in 1974.
Fortune had subsequently brought Barron on board for his albums "Awakening" (1975) and "Serengeti Minstrel" (1977), which had featured the first recordings of the Barron tracks "Sunshower"and the uptempo "Bacchanal" respectively, both of which are strongly covered here. The other track from this session is the title track "Innocence", for which Barron multi-tracks both rhodes and acoustic piano. (Fortune's album for this year was "Infinity Is", which steps texturally towards a more commercial Mizell-style production while continuing some of the samba-play evident in the rhythms here).
The bass player for these first three tracks is Buster Williams, who Baron had first worked with on the Visitors' 1974 album "Rebirth". Williams, who'd worked with Sonny Fortune on his 1975 album "Pinnacle", used Barron on his low-key 1976 album "Crystal Reflections". In 1978, the year this album was recorded, Barron also accompanied Williams on something of a schizophrenic musical journey across the more structurally experimental albums "Heartbeat" and "Tokudo"(the latter not released until 1989) and the relatively ultra-commercial "Dreams Come True".
Percussion and drums on this first session are handled respectively by Rafael Cruz and Ben Riley. Cruz had been on Sonny Fortune's aforementioned "Serengeti Minstrel" and "Infinity Is". Riley, a veteran of Thelonius Monk's band, had worked with Barron and Williams on Ron Carter's albums "Piccolo" (1977) and "Peg Leg" (1978).
Ben Riley subsequently became Barron's drummer-of-choice for the next twenty years, including eight albums by their 80s band "Sphere", initially a Monk tribute band, then later recording original material - that they formed with Charles Rouse and Buster Williams, with Gary Bartz coming on as saxophonist after Rouse's death.
The other session, comprising tracks 4 and 5, is built around Barron and trumpeter Jimmy Owens. Apart from the aforementioned 1967 quintet album that the two had co-led, they'd worked together on albums by Eric Kloss, James Moody, Curtis Amy, and Yusef Lateef, as well as Owens' 1970 solo album "No Escaping it".
Over the previous two years, Owens had made two albums that had swung harder towards the discofunk dollar than any of his compatriots' attempts : "Jimmy Owens" (1976) and "Headin' Home" (1978), both featuring Barron on keyboards. While the former has some funky, almost Headhunters-meet-the Mizells moments, the 1978 album sometimes pushes into territories of disco dross akin to Chuck Mangione on a sugar jag. Bassist Gary King and drummer Brian Brake from those albums form the backline for the remaining two tracks here.
Barron's track "Sunday Morning" is as harmonically unadventurous as that second Owens album, and seems to precurse a lot of the smooth jazz of the 80s, apart from a good latin rhodes solo that builds towards the end, with Billy Hart joining in on percussion before it once again descends into smooth jazz hell with yukky synth-string overkill. Nah, I dun like this one ... can you tell?
Mwandishi veteran Billy Hart - who's on percussion for these last two tracks - had first worked with Kenny Barron on Buddy Terry's 1972 album "Pure Dynamite", and had since joined him on "Lucifer", Fortune's "Awakening", Williams' "Crystal Reflections" and Charles Sullivan's "Why Not". He'd released his debut album "Enhance" for A&M the year before, featuring Buster Williams and others.
The album finishes with Owens' track "Nothing to Fear", which comes across initially as a less-adventurous Eddie Henderson fusion-jazz number, flipping occasionally to a disco backbeat, but is saved by a great extended rhodes solo from Barron.
- AND THEN ... -
Kenny Barron started to back away from electric keyboards after this album, and aside from his 1996 album "Swamp Sally" with percussionist Mino Cinelu, hasn't used them on his own albums since this one.
Later in 1978, Buster Williams, Jimmy Owens and Kenny Barron took part in his brother Bill Barron's album, the all-acoustic "Jazz Caper".
In 1979 Barron recorded an acoustic piano duet album with Tommy Flanagan for the Denon label called "Together". He recorded his first solo piano album "At the Piano" in 1981.
I also strongly recommend a listen to "Golden Lotus" on Muse from 1982 (recorded 1980) - Barron's exploring all sorts of eastern and spiritual textures alongside Buster Williams and John Stubblefield in a way that recalls his great early 70s Muse sides.
Since "Innocence", he's gone on to record another 37 albums as a leader, and at the age of 65 shows no sign of slowing down - in one of the links below you'll find a live bootleg of him at the Village Vanguard last month, August 27th 2008.
Wolf Records WOLF 1203 Producer - Joel Dorn for the Masked Announcer Producer's Assistant - Kathy Tufaro Engineer, remixer - Vince McGarry Recorded and remixed at Regent Sound Studios, New York, NY
KENNY ON ELECTRIC PIANO - Please add links when you come across them
Call It Anything, Vinyl4giants, Into the Rhythm, Orgy In Rhythm, The Sly Mongoose, Alainfinkielgrautrock, My Favourite Sound, Ile Oxumaré, Everything Is On the One, Pharoah's Dance, K Kao Shima, El Goog Ja, Blog o Blog, Jazzclub No Na Mo, I Sounds, The Shad Shack, Freakywax, musica que cuelga, banattan, na bula bula com, Music for my people, Singin' and Swingin', Jazz a gogo, YuYazz, seventeen green buicks, My Jazz World, Um Que Tenha, Fender Jazz Music, Where Did All this Steam Come From?, Jazzever, Casquería fina y menudillos de ocasión, and Jazzy2U.
Please thank and support these bloggers if you click through and download.
