1. I'm really excited that I'm going to see vibraphone player, singer, writer, producer and all-round-legend Roy Ayers perform live tomorrow night. (edit: review in comments)
2. I just helped out the guys over at Blaxploitation Jive/Pride with their Ayers discography, so wanted to alert you to the possibility of another 37 Roy Ayers links.
3. It's really good ...
This is a great film soundtrack that Ayers made with his Ubiquity band and special guests like Cecil Bridgewaterand Dee Dee Bridgewater. Arrangements are by Ayers and his regular keyboardist Harry Whitaker (also of "Black Renaissance" fame).
Enjoy!
TRACKLIST 01 Coffy Is The Color (2:58) 02 Priscilla's Theme (3:53) 03 King George (2:55) 04 Aragon (2:52) 05 Coffy Sauna (2:13) 06 King's Last Ride (1:05) 07 Coffy Baby (2:23) 08 Brawling Broads (2:40) 09 Escape (2:14) 10 Shining Symbol (3:49) 11 Exotic Dance (3:14) 12 Making Love (2:45) 13 Vittroni's Theme - King Is Dead (1:58) 14 End Of Sugarman (1:04) MUSICIANS Vibraphone, Vocals (1 & 3) - Roy Ayers Acoustic and Electric Bass - Richard Davis Drums - Dennis Davis Flugelhorn - Cecil Bridgewater Guitar - Billy Nichols , Bob Rose Electric Piano, Organ, Harpsichord, Piano - Harry Whitaker Congas, Bongos, Percussion - William King Strings - Emanuel Vardi , Harry Lookofsky , Irving Spice , Peter Dimitriades Trombone - Garnett Brown , Wayne Andre Trumpet - Jon Faddis Vocals (1 & 7) - Dee Dee (Denise) Bridgewater Vocals (1 & 10) - Wayne Garfield PRODUCTION Producer, conductor, composer - Roy Ayers Lyrics to 1, 3, 10 by Carl Clay Lyrics to 7 by Roselle Weaver Arranged By - Harry Whitaker , Roy Ayers Recorded at Sound Ideas Studio, NYC Engineer and Mix Engineer - George Klabin
POST CREDITS
CD rip by Simon666 Link in post to "Black Renaissance" @ Blog - O - Blog.
A very different Yusef Lateef piece from the last post - a dark conceptual work for quintet and orchestra from 1993. We'll get the composer to explain :
Yusef Lateef said :
1st movement excerpt
1st Movement : The African as Non American
As this movement opens you are taken back in time, about three hundred years, to the continent of West Africa. You imagine that you are listening to the music of Yoruba, Hausa, Akan, Ewe, Senufa, Benin, Dahomey, Ebo or Ashanti people, etcetera. In other words, you are listening to a music which has its historical roots in the soil of Africa.
In the 20th measure the violins enter on the note of D flat, one octave above high C. Programmatically the violins represent the first slave ships, stealthily approaching the shore of West Africa. The high D flat continues, gradually increasing in volume and intensity. by teh 58th measure the D flat has reached an alarming medium forte. In the 59th measure the slavers land and commence to capture the Africans. At this instant the calmness, serenity and calculated capriciousness of the African music is disturbed.
Now, fright, flight, cacaphony and mayhem can be heard in the music. The rest of the movement reflects the futile efforts of the Africans desperately tying to avoid the chains and shackles of the relentless slavers, ending with the bassoon sounding the nine note motif that signals the unknown future of the captives.
2nd movement excerpt
2nd Movement: The Middle Passage and Transmutation
This movement opens with a dirge like passage which denotes the captives being stabilised in the bowels of the slave ship, with chains and unyielding leg irons. Sounds of pain are heard at intervals throughout the movement. Physical suffering and thoughts of sadness burdened with bewilderment rack the bodies and tax the minds of the captives during the middle passage, as well, tender thoughts and supplications of prayer for their families left behind pour forth from their tongues and hearts between the frequent moments of anguish and excruciating pain endured during the middle passage.
The motif, in a different context, sounds again near the end of this movement, which are followed by African exclamations, that are neither happy nor sad, at the sight of land - America - the new world, from which comes a new kind of human being (a trans-mutation), the African American.
3rd movement excerpt
3rd Movement Love For All
Since the Great Awakening of the early nineteenth century it was realized by most of the known world that the African American reflected spirituality, love and a deep sense of compassion in his/her music; therefore, the 3rd movement reflects as deeply as the composer. Conductor and musicians are able to emit through musical sounds : compassion and love for all mankind.
4th movement excerpt
4th Movement Freedom
The opening nine chords of the 4th movement, accompanied by the side-blown Chinese flute heralds the freedom of the African American academic and artistic expression, which actually began in earnest after the abolition of slavery, and has continued to blossom consistently even to this day, by the grace of God. This movement in essence, reflects this evolution beginning in the early sixties through 1993. All praise is to god.
Simon adds :
I came across a reference to an essay by David Pope, an ex-student of Lateef, called "Diverse Compositional Techniques in Yusef Lateef's African American Epic Suite "First Movement - The African as Non-American" , from a journal called ex tempore, A Journal of Compositional and Theoretical Research in Music (Vol. IX/2: Spring/Summer 1999). I didn't have any luck getting in without the correct academic passwords, but I did manage to extract the images, three pages from Lateef's score for the first movement :
TRACKLIST 01 1st Movement : The African as Non-American - 6:16 02 2nd Movement : Transmutation - 12:40 03 3rd movement : Love For All - 11:46 04 4th Movement : Freedom - 15:22
Total Playing time 46:08 MUSICIANS
Yusef Lateef - Tenor Saxaphone, Germanic Flute, Alto Flute, Indian Flute, Bamboo Flutes, Indian temple flute, moan flute, Algaita, Shannie Cologne Radio Orchestra (Kölner Rundfunkorchester) - Group
David de Villiers - Director (orchestra) Eternal Wind - Performers :
Ralph Jones - Tenor and Soprano saxaphones, Flute, Bass Clarinet, Hichiriki, Bamboo Flutes
Charles Moore - Dumbek, Flugelhorn, Shofar, Conch Shells
Frederico Ramos - Acoustic and Elecric Guitars, Gimbri
Adam Rudolph - small percussion, cymbals, drums, bells, gong, tabla, didjiridoo, whistles, udu clay drums, hand drums, kalgu, kalngu (talking drum)
PRODUCTION Recorded October 25 - November 3, 1993 at WDR Cologne.Ulrich Kurth - Producer, Liner NotesHelmut Büttner - Sound SupervisionHermann Kaldenhoff - Recording engineerGreg Calby - Digital Mastering, Sterling Sound New York. Irene Van Dreyke - Sound TechnicianGreg Calby - Digital Mastering, Sterling Sound New York.Timo Kirves - Photography MohrDesign, Köln - artwork Ein Aufnahme des West-deutschen Rundfunks Köln YUSEF LATEEF blog discography Disclaimer : These links were all live in 2009, when this blog post was written. That's a long time ago.
Busy, so occasionally trying a few shorter posts rather than an encyclopedia every time :) This is a beautiful Lee Konitz track, written by bass player Giovanni Tommaso. It comes from a 1968 album called "Stereokonitz". Have a great weekend everyone.
"Tucson" excerpt More info and downloads for this album further down ...
****** ELECTRIC JAMAL ******
Steve Huey's bio of Ahmad Jamal at AMG contends that "Jamal's manipulations of space and silence, tension and release, and dynamics all broke new ground, and had an impact far beyond Jamal's favored piano trio format. As an arranger, Jamal made the most of his small-group settings by thinking of them in orchestral terms: using his trademark devices to create contrast and dramatic effect, and allowing the rhythm section a great deal of independence in its interplay."
In the early 1970s, Jamal began to broaden this experimentation both instrumentally and stylistically, moving beyond the trio format to include actual orchestral textures, vocal choruses and electric instrumentation, including the incorporation of a fender rhodes.
Like many jazz artists of the time who reached across the RnB and pop dividing walls and plugged in electric instruments, he faced a lot of flak from most jazz critics, many of whom continue to bypass or disparage this electric period.
These 70s albums are worth a closer look, so let's check them out ...
'Stolen moments' excerpt
Jamal started the decade with "The Awakening" in 1970. No electric keyboards here, but this acoustic piano trio album, some twenty years into his career, has the pianist wringing every edge of tonality from his instrument - he's creating denser textures than before, but simultaneously he's using silence and space to create drama as as alternately pounds and caresses the keys. It's as if he's reached some sort of epiphany as to the textures he can create with just one instrument at this time, and it's not surprising that he soon began to expand his instrumental palette.
'Effendi' excerpt
For a few tracks on his 1971 live trio album "Freeflight", recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival on June 17th of that year, Jamal establishes the main themes on acoustic piano then begins to solo on rhodes. He's somewhat enamoured with the instrument's on-board tremelo/LFO (the "pulsing" effect) and you can hear drummer Frank Gant setting complex snare drum patterns against the effect.
The dense, mid-range clouds of rhodes chords allow space for bassist Jamil Suleiman Nasser to improvise in his upper range. Jamal returns to the piano for more percussive sections and theme reprisals. The engineers are clearly not used to amplified instruments and are slightly 'off' the rhodes amp with their microphone placement.
'Bogota' excerpt
Released in 1972 but coming from the same 1971 Montreux concert, 'Outertimeinnerspace' contains two long live tracks. On the first of these, "Bogota", Jamal's increasingly utilising the individual strengths of acoustic and electric piano to widen the overall dynamic range of his compositions.Three minutes into the track, he turns away from his acoustic piano and begins to create clouds of tremelo rhodes chords, alternating with fast solo blues runs. Six minutes later, the acoustic piano returns with a percussive attack, then as the dynamics soften, he returns to the rhodes again.
Even as early as this concert, Jamal seems to have refined his "orchestration" of the two instruments to fit into the subtlety of his compositional dynamics.
'Superstition' excerpt download : WAV of "Superstition"
Jamal's 1973 move from Impulse to 20th Century Records for the album "Ahmad Jamal '73" was a radical step in many different ways. He's on rhodes throughout, and working with full orchestral arrangements and vocal chorus, courtesy of arranger Richard Evans of Soulful Strings and Marlena Shaw fame.
Like Herbie Hancock and others before him, Jamal moves on from his initial fascination with the rhodes' effects panel and begins to explore the nuances of the instrument's dynamic colours, in particular exploring bell-like tones from careful manipulation of the tines, at times producing soft tones almost like a vibraphone.
Tracks such as "Superstition", "The World is a Ghetto" and "Children of the Night" continue to live on in many a beatmaker's MPC, and the album launched Jamal into a new RnB market.
'Ghetto Child' excerpt
The commercial success of the previous album led to 1974's "Jamalca"(DOWNLOAD) another album with Richard Evans' orchestral and vocal arrangements of well-known tracks, with Jamal on both rhodes and acoustic piano.
Tracks covered include Foster Sylvers' "Misdemeanour", Gaye's "Trouble Man" and a then-popular version of the "M.A.S.H." theme. I tend to find the acoustic piano tracks a little overblown here, with the orchestral flourishes competing directly with Jamal's equivalent ornamental keyboard "sweeps" and arpeggios in the arrangements, whereas the rhodes tracks "sit" better with the orchestra. Nevertheless, there's some great stuff here and it's well worth grabbing.
'Spanish Interlude' excerpt
Both the title and the style of "Jamal Plays Jamal", his 2nd album in 1974, seem to point to Ahmad Jamal taking some control back in the overall orchestration of his sound - he's co-credited with Richard Evans for the arrangements of the six original tracks that make up the album.
This time, both the acoustic piano and rhodes sit well alongside the rich string arrangements and occasional horns, and the voices are gone. His trio partners Jamil Nasser and Frank Gant, who'd been somewhat buried on the previous two albums, are both given space to breathe in the (relatively) sparser lineup, to which percussionist Azzedin Weston is added.
Several great tracks, "Eclipse" and "Swahililand" are personal favourites.
'Chaser' excerpt
Things are smoothing out a little (too much) in the electric tracks for the last of the big Evans productions, "Genetic Walk" (recorded in '75 but released much later) and the vocal choruses are back. Nevertheless, some interesting chords and textures in the string and brass arrangements carry over from the last album. There's a lot more acoustic piano than rhodes. and there are also three piano trio tracks that hark back to his earlier work.
With clashing styles and three or four different lineups recorded over several sessions, one could conjecture that there may have been some disagreement over Jamal's direction at this stage, with the pianist obviously eager to spend more time on his original instrument. This was his last album to hit the RnB charts.
"Handicapper" excerpt
The cover of 1976's "Steppin Out With a Dream"(links in comments) looks like Ahmad's taken a few snorts from Van McCoy's drug pouch before indulging in some art director's equestrian fantasy, and we've got a ripe candidate for Greg's new crap jazz covers blog.
Nonetheless, the music is really good - three small combo tracks with rhodes and acoustic piano : "Handicapper", "Tucson" and "Crossfire" - and two piano standards with simple bass accompaniment : "My One and Only Love" and "Prelude to a Kiss".
"Tucson" excerpt
It's great to hear Jamal playing rhodes in a studio album without an orchestra, allowing more space for the instrument's full tonality. Jamal's longtime drummer Frank Gant is supported by percussionist Seldon Newton and bassist John Heard, a veteran of several solid George Duke, Cal Tjader,Joe Henderson and Moacir Santos albums, and who had appeared on a few tracks on "Genetic Walk".
"Crossfire" excerpt
The most significant new presence on this album is guitarist Calvin Keys, who'd released a few of his own albums on the Black Jazz label, such as 1971's "Shawn-Neeq", and appeared on others by Gene Russell and Doug Carn. Although he'd been buried on a few tracks on "Genetic Walk", in this smaller lineup his Grant Green-style guitar lines are the perfect soul-jazz foil for Jamal's keyboards. It's a pity that there aren't too many albums featuring the two of them.
Jamal produced the album himself, under supervision from Paul Gayten, a former New Orleans band leader who had turned to production.
sample trainspotter's alert :
Ahmad Jamal's been heavily sampled in hip hop - see the collections of originals-vs-flips in the miscellaneous section below. Anyway, the sample I noticed when listening to this album was the opening track "Handicapper". There's a few chords there that make up the body of a Marc Mac track called "Atlanta Walking" on his beats-and-civil-rights album "It's Right To Be Civil", which is worth checking out. I've also read that "Crossfire" is sampled in Dilated People's "Pay Attention".
(album credits further down )
'Bellows' excerpt
Later in 1976 Jamal recorded a live album with the same lineup, "Live at Oil Can Harry's". Jamal's just on acoustic piano, apart from some brief rhodes comping behind Calvin Key's solo in "Bellows", a track from "Genetic Walk".
There's another version of McCoy Tyner's "Effendi", an extended version of Jamal's best known song "Poinciana", and an original called "Folklore". Once again it's great to hear the chemistry between Jamal and Calvin Keys, and Seldon Newton's conga work drives this one along quite differently from Jamal's earlier live albums.
'Black Cow' excerpt
"One"(also on this blog) was recorded from May-July 1978, and has three producers : Richard Evans; 'Partridge Family' arranger/keyboardist Mike Melvoin and Sigidi(S.O.S Band) individually produce and arrange a large group that includes synthesisers (Melvoin), horn sections, vocal groups (Eloise Laws and others), and several percussionists (Paulinho da Costa, Bill Summers, Hal Blaine and others). My favourite track is a cover of Steely Dan's "Black Cow", with girl chorus vocals and Jamal on the clavinet. Check it out. Not one for the jazz purists!
'You're Welcome, Stop On By' excerpt
'Boatride' excerpt On 1979's "Intervals", now also posted on this blog. Jamal is still on rhodes and occasional synth on a few tracks, but clearly headed back towards smaller acoustic groups. Half the album's produced by Paul Gayten, the other half by "Fifth Dimension" mastermind Bones Howe. AMG's Scott Yanow hates it, which for some of us counts as a recommendation. Other tracks are 'Jordie', 'So in Love' , 'Reggae', 'The Tube' and 'Bones'. This was Jamal's last release for 20th Century Records.
With the exception of some keyboard work on 1980's "Night Song" and 1985's "Digital Works", Ahmad Jamal primarily returned to the acoustic piano after the 1970s, and has gone on to release at least another thirty albums.
AHMAD JAMAL - STEPPIN OUT WITH A DREAM (1976)
TRACKLIST
01. 'Handicapper' (7:37) - Jamal 02. 'Prelude To A Kiss' (7:50) - Ellington, Gordon, Mills 03. 'My One And Only Love' (8:48) - Mellin, Wood 04. 'Tucson' (9:10) - Jamal 05. 'Crossfire' (9:56) - Jamal MUSICIANS Bass - John Heard(misspelt "Hurd" on cover) Drums - Frank Gant Guitar - Calvin Keys Keyboards - Ahmad Jamal Percussion - Selden Newton PRODUCTION INFORMATION Released 1976 Produced by Ahmad Jamal under the supervision of Paul Gayten 20th Century Records Catalogue # T-515 Recorded & Mixed at Village Recorders, Los Angeles, California Engineer - Neil Brody Photography - Michael Paladin Art Direction - Jamico Cover & Liner Design - Michael Levy Illustration - Trici Venola
POST CREDITS "Steppin out with a Dream" vinyl rip and scans by Simon666 "Superstition" track CD rip by Simon666. The "Jamalca" rip is a 224kbps soulseek find from pre-blog days that I've re-upped for this post. Apart from the blogs noted in the discography, album links within this post go to : My Jazz World, Pharoah's Dance, Oufar Khan, Funky Disposition, Baby Grandpa, Rock Savage, My Favorite Sound, J Thyme Kind, Blak's Lair, Things and Stuff and Music, and Inconstant Sol.Thanks to Wallofsound for the series of Jamal posts at Inconstant Sol prompted by this post. Please thank and support any blogs you click through to.
DOWNLOADS (please leave a comment if you grab these)
