Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers - The Big Beat (1960)

The classic edition of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers originally took shape at the Canadian Exposition in the summer of 1959 when Wayne Shorter, then a member of Maynard Ferguson's reed section, was recruited by Lee Morgan to substitute for an absent Hank Mobley. In the six months seperating that event and the recording of The Big Beat much had transpired. Shorter, with Morgan alongside, made his recording debut on Wynton Kelly's first Vee Jay album, which in turn led both horn players to sign contracts with the Chicago-based label. Pianist Bobby Timmons took what proved to be a brief leave of absence from the Messengers to help Cannonball Adderley launch his new quintet. It was the Timmons sanctified composition "This Here" that helped turn Adderley's new unit into an instant sensation. Blakey did bring the Messengers, with Walter Davis Jr. on piano, into Rudy van Gelder's studio on November 10 (the same day on which the Vee Jay album Introducing Wayne Shorter was completed); but the resulting Africaine was initially rejected by producer Alfred Lion because it lacked a track with the crossover potential of Timmons's earlier "Moanin'". The Messengers left for Europe immediately after the Africaine date, where they taped in various performances on their own and with guests such as Bud Powell. Meanwhile, Timmons signed a recording contract with Riverside and cut his composition "Dat Dere" twice -in a trio version for his This Here Is Bobby Timmons date in January, and in his final appearance with Adderley for the Them Dirty Blues album a month later.

Lion must have been overjoyed when Timmons returned to the Messengers with "Dat Dere", for it is both the most impressive composition Timmons ever wrote and one of the greatest works to emerge during the soul-jazz craze. The melody is taken through some sophisticated development without ever losing its funky feeling, and the out chorus -perhaps a sign of former Jazz Messenger Benny Golson's residual influence- is equally inspired. The lyrics that Oscar Brown Jr. added several months later had a great deal to do with turning "Dat Dere" into a jazz classic, yet this version by the Messengers played a role as well. It is particularly enlightening to compare the solos by Morgan, whose half-valve effects and vocalized inflections could stand as a definition of soul music, and Shorter, who frets like a more contemporary, perhaps existential skeptic.

From a compositional standpoint, however, The Big Beat is best remembered for serving notive that Shorter wsa a master in the making. "The Chess Players", his version of soul music, received a lyric as well (from Joe Hendricks), while "Sakeena's Vision" manages to function as both a structural brain-twister and the kind of percussion-punctuated opus that displayed leader Blakey at his best. "Lester Left Town", Shorter's first masterpiece, had been recorded on the Africaine date, and led to a heated argument between bandleader and producer. "I think my tune was too new" Shorter explained to Conrad Silvert in 1981. "The modernity, all those chromatics were too much for Alfred". No such problems occured on the present session, which finds Blakey bringing the tempo up from the earlier version. While the opening melodic phrase is extremely Lestorian, suggesting Young's solo on the Count Basie recording "Jive at Five", Shorter has again deployed space in a manner that tailors the piece to Blakey's personality.

"It's Only a Paper Moon", the lone standard, is heard in two takes cut at the beginning of the session, and provides a fine illustration of why producers sometimes insist hat a band go back and give a piece one more try. While there is nothing fatally wrong with the alternate, it was the first performance recorded that afternoon and the musicians were taking a relatively curious approach. Still, the bonus track has its charms, including Shorter's wild quote at the top of his second chorus, Morgan sounding as if he is backing into his trumpet solo, and evidence in the first piano chorus that Timmons absorbed Bud Powell in part through the example of Red Garland. The master take is much more intense affair, and worth hearing if only for an indication of how Jymie Merritt's strength was so essential to this band.

For more comparative listening, check out composer Bill Hardman playing "Politely" on the Lou Donaldson album Sunny Side Up, recorded for Blue Note a month before the present version; Sheila Jordan's extraordinary reading of "Dat Dere" on her 1962 Blue Note album Portrait of Sheila, and Miles Davis's 1951 take on "It's Only a Paper Moon" for Prestige, which is swung at an impeccable medium tempo by Blakey.

Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers - Mosaic (1960)

Adding a sixth musician to the Jazz Messengers proved to be one of the most momentous decisions of Art Blakey's career. It was not entirely unprecedented (Leonard Feather to the contrary notwithstanding), as the Messengers did field a team of six briefly in 1957. That edition, featured on the Vik album A Night in Tunisia, featured a front line of trumpet, alto sax, and tenor sax, a three-horn blend that Blakey favored in the late 1970s and early 1980s, after economic constraints had forced him to revert to a quintet setup for roughly a decade. During the final few years of his life, the drummer even found occasion to carry trumpet, trombone, and two saxophones in the Messengers. Yet the configuration that earned the right to be considered classic, thanks to the musicians heard on the present recording, featured trumpet, trombone, and tenor sax in the front line.

At the time these tracks were recorded in 1961, one could be forgiven for believing that this particular sextet blend would become the standart across the spectrum of modern jazz ensembles. The edition of JJ Johnson's band from which Freddie Hubbard and Cedar Walton emerged employed the same lineup, as did the Art Farmer-Benny Golson Jazztet that, at seperate points, included Walton and Curtis Fuller. When Johnson disbanded his own unit, he briefly joined Miles Davis and turned that group into a trumpet/trombone/tenor outfit. It could be that this particular instrumentation, with each of a big band's three horn sections represented, particular a natural environment for scaled-down jazz writing, but a more likely factor in the sudden emergence of sextets was the availability of Johnson and Fuller, two virtuosos who could blow toe-to-toe with their trumpet and sax-playing peers.

Blakey had first used trombone as a third horn in June 1961, when Lee Morgan and Bobby Timmons were still aboard, for his Impulse album Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. In the notes to that set, Dick Katz states that Fuller "was engaged especially for this album", but the trombonist's strong soloing and his Messengers-friendly composition "Alamode" made an immediate impression upon Blakey, who brought the trombonist on as a permanent member two months later when Hubbard and Walton joined the group. The new sextet attempted to cut its first recording at the Village Gate on August the 17th, but the session was rejected (two tracks included "Arabia", did finally surface on the 1990 CD Three Blind Mice Vol 2). Less than two months later, when the band recorded Mosaic on its first visit to Rudy van Gelder's studio, the results were far superior, and the Messengers were immediately refashioned in the eyes of its fans as a six-piece band.

All five of the compositions included here became Jazz Messengers classics, yet it appears that at least three of them were not written with Blakey's band in mind. The title track, which seems custom-made for the leader's percussive fire, was actually part of the Jazztet's book when composer Walton was with that band, and had received its debut recording four months earlier on Clifford Jordan's Jazzland album, Starting Time. "Arabia", another of Fuller's modal efforts, was first heard on his August 1959 Savoy album The Curtis Fuller Jazztet with Benny Golson, which also featured a three-horn front line completed by then-Messenger Lee Morgan. Hubbard also employed a sextet, albeit with euphonium and tenor sax, when he cut a slower version of "Crisis" on 21 August 1961, date that produced his Blue Note album Ready for Freddie.

As to the other titles, Shorter has said that, "I was thinking about Bela Lugosi in Dracula when I wrote Children of the Night, but the children also became astronauts, going out into the unknown." And Hubbard's "Down Under" with its comfortable blues groove and break figures that recall Lee Morgan's "What Know", is most reminiscent of the already established Messengers tradition. It is also what may have been considered the album's soul track, at a point when something soulful was de rigueur on a jazz album. It is one measure of the expanded Messengers' success that they were able to thrive without relying on music calculated to meet some standart of ersatz sanctification. All of Blakey's music possessed soul, but this band and this album offered so much more.

Kenny Burrell - Midnight Blue (1967)

To describe Kenny Burrell as an integral part of the Blue Note story is to sell this still-thriving guitarist short. Perhaps better than any of his contemporaries, Burrell represents the level of versatility and consistent quality that transcended individual record labels and created the fertile jazz recording scene of the 12-inch LP's first decade.

He was everywhere, as a sideman and a leader, after launching his East Coast career with two Blue Note albums in 1956. And one suspects that certain excellent sessions he cut for other companies with Coleman Hawkins in place of Turrentine; or A Night at the Vanguard -classic trio Burrell- might have more substantial reputations today if they had been issued under the Blue Note logo. Consider such gems as Bluesy Burrell, cut for Prestige/Moodsville four months before the present session with Holley and Barretto aboard, Tommy Flanagan's piano added and Coleman Hawkins in place of Turrentine, or A Night at the Vanguard with Richard Davis and Roy Haynes that Argo taped in 1959 less than a month after Blue Note had documented a Burrell quintet (with Tina Brooks and Art Blakey), On View at the Five Spot Cafe.

Yet if such masterpieces from other catalogues (and others like Kenny Burrell with John Coltrane and The Tender Gender) can be imagined as Blue Note releases, no rival label could possibly have provided as fitting a home for Midnight Blue. Leonard Feather's notes report what the music so clearly reveals; that Burrell had a clear overall vision for the album, involving a program of blues and related material that might shout (but only in context) yet would also explore the feelings to be uncovered at lower volumes and slower tempos. It was a concept that must have taken producer Alfred Lion back to his earliest ensemble project with the Port of Harlem Jazzmen.

Given the particular affinity of the guitar and the blues, space was needed to allow the instrument its full expressive potential. Lion was willing to give Burrell the necessary room where other producers of the time might have insisted upon a piano or, especially given the album's theme, an organ. Taking further advantage of the textural possibilities by adding Ray Barretto's conga drums to Bill English's trap set was also within the Blue Note tradition. Candido had teamed with Kenny Clarke on the label's Introducing Kenny Burrell, and Barretto had assumed the role of house conguero for both Blue Note and Prestige since important 1958 recordings with Lou Donaldson, Red Garland and Gene Ammons. Bassist Major Holley Jr and English were Burrell regulars who worked and recorded frequently with the guitarist in these years, while Stanley Turrentine, the only Blue Note leader among the supporting artists, had first shown a penchant for making indelible music with Burrell on the 1960 session that produced Jimmy Smith's Midnight Special and Back at the Chicken Shack.

In various combinations, Burrell, Turrentine, Holley, English, and Barretto brilliantly realize the original goal. While the album is filled with great moments, like the guitarist's naked emoting on "Soul Lament" and the propulsion he generates while locking into tempo on "Midnight Blue", the overall plan and pace create one of the most subtle cumulative moods ever conjured on two sides of vinyl. Hear how the waltz tempo of "Wavy Gravy" arrives like a seismic shift in terrain, and how affirmatively things are concluded on "Saturday Night Blues". The seven original tracks form a complete statement, a considered presentation that in no way contained the spontaneity at the music's heart. The bonus track "Kenny's Sound" is particularly enlightening in this regard. It was the first piece done at the session and clearly did not enhance the aura of the final album, yet it served as a perfect muscle-flexer that allowed the musicians to loosen up and prepare for the highly focused task ahead. The other added title "K Twist", was recorded again nearly two years later on a session designed to produce material for release on 45. The later personnel is quite similar, with everyone from this session save Holley returning, but the addition of Herbie Hancock's piano creates a less fluent if more commercial veneer.

Midnight Blue did not need "K Twist" in order to generate a hit, since in "Chitlins Con Carne" it had one of the most ingratiating blues lines of the periods. "Chitlins Con Carne" might seem rather basic to some players and listeners more impressed by complex scales and harmonic substitutions, yet it holds profound lessons about telling a story through music and functioning as a collective unit missing from most texts and exercise books. It also establishes a level of music discourse that is sustained over the remainder of this timeless album.

The JazzTimes Superband (2000)

An all-star aggregation put together by Sabin and Nick Phillips of Concord Jazz, the JazzTimes Superband stands as a testament to the chemistry and high level of musicianship of all the players involved -Randy Brecker on trumpet, Bob Berg on tenor saxophone, Dennis Chambers on drums, Paul Bollenbeck on guitar and Joey DeFrancesco on Hammond B-3 organ. With virtually no rehearsal time, this abundantly talented crew gathered in the studio and tackled a set of forcefully swinging originals and two notable covers. The result was pure, unadulterated burn with plenty of virtuostic turns along the way.

The remarkable chemistry heard on this hard-swinging session comes from the longstanding relationships that some of the playeres have had with each other over the years. Berg's connection to Brecker goes back to the early 1970s, when the two used to participate in loft jam sessions with the likes of Dave Liebman and another Coltrane-inspired tenor player named Michael Brecker.

"There was an organization that Liebman started called Free Life Communications" recalls Randy. "We were born in that and played together a lot in these days. I remember playing with Bob in lofts, at a few jam sessions and on a couple of record dates. And he was pretty close to my brother too. They'd practice together. So I've known him for a long time". Berg played on Brecker's bop-inspired quintet offering from 1991, Live at Sweet Basil, and subsequently toured with Randy's band, which also featured Dave Kikoski on piano, Dieter Ilg on bass and either Dennis Chambers or Joey Baron on drums. More recently, Brecker returned the favor by guesting with Berg's group on a number of gigs. The two also played side by side on Marc Copland's 1995 recording, Stompin' With Savoy, which featured Chambers on drums.

Brecker's history with Chambers includes a 1990 solo recording, Toe to Toe and two early 1990s recordings and subsequent tours with a reunited The Brecker Brothers band. Berg and Chambers first established their intense chemistry together in the powerhouse Bob Berg/Mike Stern band from the late 1980s, one of the first vehicles in which Chambers was able to showcase his stellar swing chops on a smaller jazz kit as opposed to the thunderous funk style he was so noted for in previous stints with Parliament-Funkadelic and John Scofield's fusion of the mid-80s. The saxophonist and drummer have collaborated on a number of recordings since that first encounter, including Berg's 1993 Stretch Records debut, Enter the Spirit.

"I don't get a chance to do this kind of straight ahead playing as much anymore" says the in-demand drummer who is also a charter member of the fusion power trio Niacin. "That's why I dove at the chance of doing this Superband project. My real love is more or less into the jazz, bebop, straight ahead kind of thing. I grew up doing that. I'm mostly known for my playing on the fusion side and the funk side, which I love too. But if I had a choice, I would just play straight ahead."

This Superband recording represents the first time that either Brecker or Berg have played with organ, great Joey DeFrancesco. As Randy explains "I may have played with Joey in Philly some years ago when he was still a kid. They have an Organ Night at the annual Mellon Festival and I did that a couple of times, so I probably played with him on one of those, but it was kind of from afar, so to speak."

While Berg had never played with DeFrancesco, his own musical roots are deeply entwined with the Hammond B-3 organ. "The professional jazz gig that I ever did was with Jack McDuff in 1969" he explains. "I was 18 and had never been on the road before but I grew up fast on that gig. Playing the organ circuit back then was really an eye-opening experience. So Joey's coming from kind of a familiar place for me. He's the real McCoy, the real deal. He plays the Hammond organ in that real tradition. So for me, it was pretty natural playing with him on this session."

Yet another harmonious hookup within the JazzTimes Superband is the longstanding relationship between DeFrancesco and guitarist Paul Bollenback, who was a regular in Joey's band throughout the 1990s and appears on a string of five superbly swinging Columbia recordings from that period. Bollenback's connection to Chambers goes back even further to a trio they had together in Baltimore during the early 1980s with bassist Gary Grainger, pre-dating Dennis' higher profile work with Scofield's group. DeFrancesco and Chambers first established their rhythmic rapport back in 1993 while working together in John McLaughlin's rollicking Free Spirits trio. With Joey's agile foot pumping the bass pedals while alternately waking basslines in the left hand and Dennis providing a propulsive momentum on the kit, they make a formidable rhythm team.

The album opens on a jaunty note with Randy Brecker's "Dirty Dogs", an earthy shuffle with allusions to Benny Golson's "Blues March". As the composer explains, "That was written recently in Japan while I was in the middle of an Art Blakey tribute band tour, so it has a little of that Jazz Messengers quality in it". Everybody gets a taste here, starting with a sparkling Brecker trumpet solo and followed by an intense Bob Berg tenor solo. Guitarist Paul Bollenback adds some bluesy statements of his own before Joey enters with his signature burn.

"Silverado" is a modern sounding number that Berg had previously recorded on his 1990 Denon album, Back Roads. This highly changed version is fueled by Chambers' insistent swing factor in tandem with DeFrancesco's surging bass pulse on the pedals. After navigating the harmonically involved head, Berg launches into a heroic tenor solo that bristles with fierce conviction. Randy gets off a brilliant solo here, sounding more Woody Shaw than Jazz Messengers. The energy level spikes with Joey's wicked solo, which leans more toward Larry Young territory than the blues-based stylings of Jimmy Smith, and Dennis traverses the kit with polyrhythmic aplomb at the tag.

"Jones Street" is another swinging Brecker offering which he had originally written for saxophonist Lew Tabackin and had previously recorded on an album by Tony Lakatos, a gifted Hungarian gypsy tenor saxophonist currently living in Frankfurt, Germany. Randy's vibrant energy here is matched by Joey's B-3 sizzle and Berg's gutsy tenor wail. Bollenback also contributes a far-reaching solo that stretches into some adventurous harmonic territory while remaining rhythmically in the pocket.

The Superband collectively wails with abandon on Sonny Rollins' "Oleo", a quintessential jamming vehicle that brings out the best in all the soloists. Chambers' playing is particularly astounding here as he plays the familiar melody on his kit before heading into hyperdrive with the ride cymbal, hi-hat and snare, setting a blistering pace for a string of incandescent solos to follow. Joey unleashes at this blazing tempo, flashing the fastest right hand in the business while walking furious basslines in his left hand. Randy follows with what amounts to a hard boppish rendition of "Flight of the Bumble Bee" then Berg turns in an astounding solo of his own, summoning up an intense torrent of power at such an impossible pace. Think Booker Ervin played at 45 rpms. The exchange of eights here with Chambers is absolutely white hot.

Berg's "Friday Night at the Cadillac Club" is greasy ribs-and-greens-eating fare harkens back to the saxophonist's formative years with B-3 organ great Jack McDuff. "The title refers to a place in Newark, New Jersey called the Cadillac Club, which was the first gig I had with the band" he recalls. "There were thre clubs at that one intersection. There was a place across the street called the Key Club and there was Jimmy McGriff's, which was an organ club too. At that time, I had been mostly checking out Coltrane and Miles, and here I found myself in a situation where I'm standing on a corner and anywhere I looked there were organ clubs. So we played this place and it was so different from anything that I had ever experienced. It was a lot of gangster types hanging out there and hookers. You know, players. Just really people I had never been around in my little neighbourhood in Brooklyn that I grew up in. It made such an impression on me that years later when I was writing music for the Short Stories record, I wrote this tune. It really brought to mind the feeling of that time -that shuffle kind of dirty bluesy thing. And I knew that would be an automatic for Joey". Berg turns in an appropriately blustery, big-toned solo here. Brecker outlines the harmony with his own adventurous solo while Joey digs into this lusty vehicle with fangs bared, offering another blues-drenched show-stopping turn on the B-3.

The moody "SoHo Sole" is Berg's nod to the innovative organ style of Larry Young. "One of my favorite records of all time is Larry Young's Unity" he says. "To me, that's the icon of organ quartet records. I just love that record, I remember hearing it when it came out. Larry played so hip on it and I loved the way Joe Henderson, Woody Shaw and Elvin Jones sounded on it too. So I was kind of thinking along those lines when I wrote this tune". Berg uses the harmonic implications of his own composition to launch into his most daring solo on the record while DeFrancesco pushes the envelope as well.

Brecker turns in some of his most dynamic playing on his own Latin flavored composition, "The Ada Strut", a tune he wrote on a bus in England while on tour with his brother Michael in honor of percussionist Don Alias's 60th birthday.

DeFrancesco's rousing "Blue Goo" is an angular mid-tempo blues line that he figured out in his head on the way to the session. Guitarist Bollenback explodes out of the block on his solo here, flowing with the kind of facility, rhythmic assuredness and harmonic inventiveness that have marked him as one of the most exciting jazz guitarists on the New York scene. Randy's swaggering solo statement on this blues bristles with sparks of spontaneous invention, Berg enters by echoing tha last four notes of Brecker's solo, develops the idea, and then launches into an inspired blues-drenched solo on top of the relaxed, swinging groove. Joey ups the ante, laying back at first before busting loose and frantically double-timing the tempo on his own exhilarating solo.

Bollenback contributes the evocative "Seven A.M. Special", a minor key blues he wrote while in the throes of jet lag after a return trip home from Japan.

The collection closes on an energized note with a free-blowing extrapolation on Eddie Harris' "Freedom Jazz Dance". The Superband pulls out all the stops on this chops-busting anthem.

The results of this all-star session are purely scintillating, as one can hear by cueing up any of the ten tracks at random. Savor the burn of their studio debut.

Chick Corea - The Best of Chick Corea (1993)

Any retrospective of Chick Corea's Blue Note recordings rightly begins with his work while a member of Blue Mitchell's group of mid 1960s. Armando Anthony Corea, born in Chelsea, Massachusetts on 12 June 1941, had gravitated to New York in 1962 after establishing himself in the Boston scene. In New York, he found work with Willie Bobo, Mongo Santamaria and others before landing in the straight-ahead groove of Blue Mitchell Quintet. That soulful ensemble was actually the nucleus of Horace Silver Quintet but became Blue's group when Horace left, and after visits by Walter Bishop and Ronnie Matthews, Chick Corea was hired. He stayed on for two years and three great Blue Note albums. Corea's growing skills as a composer was recognized by Mitchell who used Corea's "Straight Up and Down" and "Tones for Joan's Bones" on his 1966 album Boss Horn.

Corea's first solo album was made for Atlantic in 1966, and his career began to accelerate as his artistic power blossomed. After recording with Stan Getz and Donald Byrd in 1967, he hired drummer Roy Haynes and bassist Miroslav Vitous for his second album, Now He Sings Now He Sobs recorded in 1968 for Solid State. Selections 3 to 8 are taken from that session which was issued in its entirety only with the release under Blue Note label in 1988. On the four originals and two cover tunes we can hear a talent that expands and reaches as the tape rolls. Already solid in assurance and confidence, Corea begins to push the artistic borders that he would later completely rearrange.

A few months after Now He was recorded. Corea replaced Herbie Hancock in the Miles Davis Quintet where he found a kindred musical spirit in bassist Dave Holland. Two years later, Corea returned to the studio to record The Song of Singing for Blue Note (Solid State, a branch of United Artists, was swallowed up by Liberty Records, who already owned Blue Note). Using Holland and the progressive eclectic drummer Barry Altschul, Corea forged into the avantgarde jazz scene of the time, reaching a peak when Anthony Braxton joined them a few months later. The three selections included here are most noteworthy for the space and expansion allowed for three players, yet the songs never lose the sense of swing that always marked Corea's best work.

In 1972 Corea formed Return to Forever and the rest is jazz history. Corea's association with Blue Note continues into the 1990s as noted by Play, the Grammy-winning album of duets with Bobby McFerrin. Always growing, forever full of surprises, Chick Corea continues to amaze and impress.