Duke Ellington - Caravan

ORIGINATION Classic Jazz Archive: Diminuendo In Blue CD
LAST LISTENED TO a few days ago
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT yes, there was some
RATING ★★★★★

Caravan is one of those pieces of music that most of us know, even if we don't know we know it. Co-composed by Duke Ellington and his trombonist Juan Tizol (or possibly just by Tizol himself), it has been recorded countless times since and is has come to be considered a jazz standard. The first recorded version in 1936 was by a band that seem very much to have been Ellington and co., however this, the first credited Ellington version was not released until the following year.

With its smooth, flowing melody, it has a strong middle-eastern flavour which combined with a jazzy primitive percussion sound, prefigures the exotica movement of the fifties. It begins with an opening statement of that melody, before giving way to a string of short solos. The longest of these goes to the trumpet, which rasps throughout the piece before busting in for a brief solo around the half-way point on a muted wave. The real star of the piece, though, is that haunting, exotic melody, which winds smokily in and out of almost the whole tune. It was that melody that has captured countless ears and been the impetuous behind the avalanche of versions over the past seventy-five years.

Angelo Badalamenti - Freshly Squeezed

ORIGINATION Twin Peaks
LAST LISTENED TO every day for a week
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT astronomic
RATING ★★★★★

When Twin Peaks hit the nation's television screens at the start of the last decade of the twentieth century, I was just a little young to fully appreciate the leap forward in programme making that it represented. Nonetheless I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Film director David Lynch was one of the driving forces behind the show and of all the cinematic elements he introduced, for me it was the soundtrack that made the strongest impression. Strongly jazz-influenced and scored by long-time Lynch associate Angelo Badalamenti, it was and is almost unique in its filmic approach to television. It contains several leitmotifs, not least of which is the cyclic, strolling bass line that features prominently in Freshly Squeezed.

The piece was first introduced onscreen when FBI Agent Dale Cooper, who is having breakfast at his hotel, is approached by coquettish teenager Audrey Horne. Something of the multi-level nature of that encounter is carried in the music, which is playful yet holds the sexual undertones.

The two most important elements of the piece, however, are the cycling bass and the vibraphone. The bass is the very epitome of cool, which oozed from many of the show's characters and in particular Agent Cooper. Good or bad, the inhabitants of Twin Peaks were almost all very cool and the bass line, repeated with variations across several parts of the score, reinforces that impression. In contrast, the ethereal modulation of the vibraphone represents the show's dream world, again most commonly shown in Agent Cooper. In the combination of these two sounds, Freshly Squeezed has become for me the part that most represents the whole.

Caro Emerald - Back It Up

ORIGINATION Deleted Scenes From The Cutting Room Floor CD
LAST LISTENED TO yesterday
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT pretty good
RATING ★★★★★

A few weeks ago, whilst engaging in my ongoing struggle with the snooze button, my hand paused on its way to the button. There was something playing that snapped at my half-awake brain's attention. I listened to the song, grabbed my pen and wrote the name on my hand, hit snoozed and kept on at that for a while longer. Mid afternoon, when I took my gloves off to make my lunch I found the note. After some searching, I figured out what it meant and I was excited because it was something new and fun.

Caro Emerald, the name that I found mis-spelled on my hand is a Dutch jazz singer. Her debut album spent, from which this was the first single, spent an amazing 30 weeks at number one in the Dutch charts. The song is a lovely slice of poppy jazz, with a bouncy percussive groove, some nice and fat brassy stabs and over it all Emerald's bright vocals dance. A fresh and fun meeting of old and new.

Oscar Brown, Jr. - Dat Dere

ORIGINATION 7"
LAST LISTENED TO last night
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT pretty good
RATING

It's a nice piece of vocal jazz, all about a wee boy asking his dad endless questions. Sometimes the questions get wild, like Daddy can i have that big elephant over there. It's a touching song by a father who wants to set his kid on a good path into life, with a main melody supplied by a piano. The supporting cast features a muted trumpet that underscores the vocal lines in a few sections, and some relaxed drumming and percussion. A simple song that, unusually for jazz, has vocals instead of solos, indeed they are a direct replacement here.

Count Basie & His Orchestra - Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?

ORIGINATION The RCA Blues & Rhythm Revue (v/a)
LAST LISTENED TO last week
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT quite good
RATING

It's so nice to finally have the Count here. He was one of the most important band leaders of the swing era, who played with his big band for over fifty years. This song was recorded at the tail end of the swing era, when smaller (and cheaper to run) bands were taking over. Their stripped-down and more raucous sounding, this style became known as rhythm 'n' blues and was as much a child of swing as the blues.

Count Basie And His Orchestra were clearly dipping a toe into that sound with this tune. Whilst it opens with the kind of big brassy fanfare you'd expect, what happens next comes as a surprise: a vocal. We get treated to several verses about the baseball player Jackie Robinson, interspersed with the full band singing the chorus.

The song fits into the smoother end or r'n'b, apart from the short solo section. Here the big band returns to support two short solos, the second of which is taken by a fiery trumpet and is really swinging.

This is not your every day Basie number, but none the less it's a cracker.

The Puppini Sister - Heart Of Glass

ORIGINATION Betcha Bottom Dollar
LAST LISTENED TO in bed last night
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT plenty high
RATING

These three lovely ladies seem to be making a bit of a name for themselves right now. Their album which has been out for a few weeks now revisits the swinging '40s and with nice close harmony vocals. Benôit Charest of Belleville Rendezvous is along for the ride in part, which you just know can only be a good thing.

Heart Of Glass is, of course, the Blondie number. Here it's given quite an uptempo treatment in a kinda French jazzy acoustic guitary kinda way, with some double bass and rattly percussion moving it along. Over it Marcella, Kate and Stephanie's vocals glide along deliciously. Part close harmony and part solo singing, it brings to centre stage the vocal of the tune, which was always the best part or the original. They also ad-lib many scat parts, many of which are harmonised.

Oh, and there is a musical saw. There just aren't enough of those in the world today.

Joy.

Glenn Miller - In The Mood

ORIGINATION The Best Of Glenn Miller
LAST LISTENED TO not too sure
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT quite good since i heard The Puppini Sisters' version yesterday
RATING

Smoooooth. Smooooooooooth. Such smoooooth, smooooth brass. It's all very wonderfully creamy and neat. Not one rasping note and everything played straight from charts. All the build ups, calls and response and the creamy, smooooth, smoooth brass. The final climax - steel fist in a velvet glove. This may not be my usual jazz cup of tea, but just once in a while nothing beats it. I'm floating off now…
Further Glenn Miller songs: Moonlight Serenade

Eddie Gale - Black Rhythm Happening

ORIGINATION Blue Note's Rare Grooves
LAST LISTENED TO last night
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT fairly good
RATING


Trumpeter Eddie Gale recorded this in '69 for his album of the same name. It was a rare headlining appearance for the man who had served his apprenticeship with some of the biggest names in avant garde jazz.

All of the rhythm here is panned hard left, which is a device i have always found irritating and off balance, especially when listening through headphones. Other than that, however, this is a pretty groovy tune. The bulk of the interest lies in the call and repsonse vocals of what sounds like a whole room full of people. They seem to be having a damn fine old time, chattering away and yelling inbetween bursts of singing.

Weaving under this and through the polyrhythms is a guitar line that meanders all over the place, a bit like an off-kilter Grant Green. There are also some occasional bursts of brass that are just ever so slightly atonal. It makes for an interesting fusion of soul jazz, avant garde jazz and gospel. No wonder then that it is said to have been one of the inspirations behind Archie Shepp's classic Attica Blues.

Jimmy Smith - Stay Loose

ORIGINATION Stay Loose
LAST LISTENED TO yesterday
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT higher than the sun
RATING

Jimmy sings again! Aces! Is this a dance? Damn, i think it is. I'm a sucker for those dance soul tunes. And this one has the added brilliance of Jimmy Smith and his soloing organ of delight. He even grunts along with it when he does solo. Nice brass accompaniment and groovy soul drums. It's a freedom dance, y'all.

Jimmy Smith - A Night In Tunisia

ORIGINATION Cool Blues
LAST LISTENED TO a few weeks ago
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT good
RATING

Two hours sleep would render anyones critical faculties useless and it has for me. Jimmy recorded many versions of this tune, as far as i know this '58 version was one of the first. It's was recorded live at Small's Paradise, NYC, from somewhere in the borderlands between hard bop and soul jazz. It quite good.

Grant Green - Grantstand

ORIGINATION Street Funk & Jazz Grooves: The Best Of Grant Green
LAST LISTENED TO a few days ago
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT fair
RATING

It was one of jazz guitarist Green's early signature tunes, from his initial Blue Note period when he was more bop than funk. The tune is an uptempo number of around eight minutes, featuring solos from all the main participants.

Up first is Green, who plays in his usual spare manner. It's a pretty nice example of his cool soloing and it is backed by some fine organ comping. Yusef Lateef takes a tenor sax solo next that is very much in a bop vein. It's competent but is not particularly special. Lastly, Brother Jack McDuff is up with his organ. For me his solo is the most exciting of the three, but then i always have a soft spot for some nice organ.

It's all fine if you like this sort of thing, but if you don't it'll end up as wallpaper at best.

Duke Ellington - Blue Pepper (Far East Of The Blues)

ORIGINATION The Far East Suite
LAST LISTENED TO yesterday
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT purdy good
RATING

Duke Ellington first came to fame during the swing jazz years leading up to the second world war. He recorded numerous 78s with his big band and scored many hits, several of which he wrote himself. The changes in the jazz field and in record formats in the '40s allowed him to further hone his already considerable composing talents. Whilst he never achieved the kind of chart success he had enjoyed during the swing era, he continued recording with his big bang and toured the globe many times over. Today he is regarded as the world's most important jazz composer.

In the '63 he and his band made a State Department sponsored tour of the middle east and the sub continent, where they played in such places as Bombay, Baghdad, Kabul and Tehran. Inspired by what he found on this tour, he and his long-time writing partner Billy Strayhorn wrote and suite of music that allowed their new experiences to "seep out". The following year the band made a trip to Japan and some influence from this too was woven into the tapestry. They recorded the suite with a full big band in '66.

Blue Pepper is the part of the suite and shows the band at their most swinging. This is primarily due to the large horn charts, although the drumming is full and forceful and plays a very forward roll here also. Of the two solos, the second (trumpet) is the strongest, straying high into the stratosphere as the band pushes it on into a marvellous crescendo.

It's all a pretty impressive achievement considering Ellington was 67 when this was recorded and that several members where of an age with him. It easily swings harder than band of half their age.

Buddy Rich - Sassy Strut

ORIGINATION Stick it!
LAST LISTENED TO the other week
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT low
RATING

Buddy Rich was one of the most famous drummers in jazz. He began performing at 18 months (seriously, he really did) and never gave up until his death in '87. He first experience in jazz was in '38 with a big band and it was in this format that he mostly recorded. Indeed in 1972, when Stick It! was put out, Buddy Rich was still kicking out fast and furious big bang jazz.

Sassy Strut has a hard, piano driven edge to it that is big enough to pull along its whole mountain range of wailing brass. After the opening statements of these brass alps, there are three solos. First is the soprano sax, which is fast and bluesy, if a little too quiet in the mix. Next up is a guitar solo, which to my ear sounds both out of time in parts and a touch out of tune in the whole. It's also very quiet, which is either a blessing or the main problem. Lastly is an alto sax, which is the only solo to approach a sensible track volume. It's a less colourful solo than the soprano, but it is shorter which seems much more in keeping with the pace.

The real star is, of course, Rich's drumming. He is frantic throughout the whole track throwing in fills, compressed rolls and extra parts to the rhythm, whilst never once losing pace or using one beat when ten would do. In some ways the solos are more co-solos, as throughout them Rich really stretches out.

The track ends with a giant squall of brass and one long, long compressed roll by Rich. After which you'll probably need to go and lie down.