Notable Jazz and Blues of 2012 - Part 2

This is the second blog recapping some of the finer jazz and blues releases that came out recently. Today I focus on recordings I reviewed in the second half of 2012.

New Jazz Recordings

Our Thing (Motéma Music) is the first time studio collaboration between Israeli-born guitarist/composer Roni Ben-Hur and Panamanian-born bassist/composer Santi Debraino. The musical delights of this trio is captured in a beautifully engineered recording which is also one of the better jazz guitar recordings this listener has heard recently.

Cassandra Wilson's, Another Country (eOne Music), is a collaboration with the Italian guitarist and producer, Fabrizio Sotti. From the opening moments of Red Guitar, to the closingOlumutoro, Wilson's sultry and intimate vocals benefits from the backing.

Brazilian born drummer Duduka Da Fonseca bridged the world of samba and jazz on Samba Jazz - Jazz Samba (Anzic Records). With a band of well-regarded players (and bandleaders): Anat Cohen - clarinet and tenor saxophone; Helio Alves - piano; Guilherme Monteiro - guitar; and Leonardo Cioglia on bass, he produced an appealing album with strong ensemble playing on a varied set of compositions. 

Ernest Dawkins Afro-Straight (Delmark) is a terrific recording of straight-ahead jazz from an ensemble led by Dawkins, who is most associated with free jazz, as they tackle tunes from Coltrane, Shorter, Gillespie as well as an original blues from the leader. This is an excellent recording that easily refutes the stereotype that free jazz players can’t play straight-ahead.

Cornetist Josh Berman & His Gang, There Now (Delmark) is an imaginative free-bop release that includes very original interpretations of songs associated with the Chicago Jazz of the thirties. I found it a most imaginative and fascinating recording, full of surprises and passion.

Five members of Brooklyn Jazz Underground, a cooperative association of jazz artists from Brooklyn, NY, collaborated on a new recording A Portrait of Brooklyn on the association’s sister company, Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records. It is an excellent collection of first-rate original compositions and terrific playing.

New Blues Recordings

Vicksburg Blues (Red House Records) is the first collaboration between pianist and clarinetist Butch Thompson and singer-guitarist Pat Donohue and mostly explores classic blues in the vein of Leroy Carr, Tampa Red and Big Bill. "This is simply the finest album of blues piano and guitar duets in a number of years and certainly one of the finest new blues albums I have heard in 2012."

Johnnie Bassett had a new release on Sly Dog Records, I Can Make That Happen. This was another well produced and enjoyable recording. He died not long after this was released but was still making it happen with his soulful and sophisticated blues.

There are several songs on Linsey Alexander's Delmark debut Been There Done Thatthat if were recorded thirty years ago would be viewed as blues classics. This was one of the finer blues albums I heard in 2012. 

Michael Burks, Show of Strength (Alligator). What turned out to be a posthumous release was a stunning display of his fiery fretwork and soulful singing performing some fine material. 

Omar and the Howlers, Too Much Is Not Enough (Big Guitar). There is the second album of JimmY Reed's music Omar Dykes has put together and this includes the alte harmonica master Gary Primich about others. These are wonderfully paced performances and many ‘blues players’ would do well to see how one can take familiar material and make it sound fresh and vital

The Lioness of the Blues, Sista Monica, most recent recording on her Mo Muscle Records label is Living In The Danger Zone. A singer that combines the power of an Etta James with the nuanced delivery of Ruth brown, Sista Monica has produced another strong release.

Willie Buck with The Rockin’ Johnny Band had a new album on Delmark, Cell Phone Man. Evoking Muddy Waters, His vocals exhibit some of the same expressive qualities and with the strong backing here (which at times suggests some of the outstanding Delmark albums of the late sixties and seventies) Buck produced an outstanding recording of real-deal Chicago blues.

Fourteen Stories is the self-released recording by the Red Lotus Revue, a band rooted in fifties’ Chicago blues. They produced a strong collection of Chicago styled blues.

Vintage Jazz and Blues Recordings

Magic Sam, Live 1969 - Raw Blues (Rock Beat label). Exceptional previously unissued club recordings by legendary Magic Sam backed by Bruce Barlow (later with Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen) on bass and Sam Lay on drums. Soul may not be quite hi-fi, but the performances are searing.

Don Sebesky’s Giant Box was part of the CTI Masterworks reissues of classic CTI albums marking the label’s 40th Anniversary. The performances onGiant Box display how his ambitious synthesis of classical, jazz and popular music was realized. His orchestrations frame the featured players here and enhance the solos that exhibit the skill and imagination of some of the greatest jazz musicians of four decades ago.

Celebrating a half century of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band is a new box set on Columbia/Legacy, The 50th Anniversary Collection. It spans there recordings and includes some previously unreleased material. This is a joy and soulfulness of all of the performances here on this celebration of 50 years of what is truly a cornerstone of American culture, not simply music.

Labor Records issued a new Louisiana Red CD, When My Mama Was Living, bringing together 16 tracks comprised of one track on CD for first time and the rest previously unissued selections or unissued alternate takes. This new release of unissued songs and alternate takes is welcome as. Louisiana Red was in quite fine form during this period.

Grant Green, The Holy Barbarian/ St. Louis 1959 (Uptown Records). This is first release of live recording of nearly 70 minutes of what was a strong performance of blues and hard-bop organ jazz in St. Louis at a short-lived pioneering venue.  Beautifully packaged this is as exciting release as Resonance Records recent Wes Montgomery CD.

Louis Armstrong & the Allstars, Satchmo at Symphony Hall - 65th Anniversary: The Complete Recordings (Hip-O-Select). A double CD reissue that includes previously unissued music that is one of the classic traditional jazz recordings and one of the most legendary performances of Armstrong’s career which thankfully is finally available in a complete issue.

Grant Green at The Holy Barbarian in St. Louis

While not being released with the fanfare accorded a recent release of the recent Resonance release of Wes Montgomery Echoes of Indiana Avenue, Uptown Records has released a similar live recording of another legendary guitarist Grant Green, The Holy Barbarian/ St. Louis 1959. Like the Montgomery recording, this issues a live recording of Green from before he would receive national prominence. He is heard with an organ trio of organist Sam Lazar and Chauncey Williams augmented by the white tenor saxophonist Bob Graf at a short-lived coffee house that was pioneering in bringing together black and white musicians and audiences together at a time when the authorities frowned on such mingling (to say it mildly). Bob Blumenthal’s essay that is part of the accompanying booklet discusses the club and the harassment that led to its eventual closing not long after these recordings were made. There are some press clippings in the booklet describing the harassment that led to its close.

At the time of these performances, Green was on a cusp of his national career. His participation in after-hours jamming with members of Harry Edison’s band in St. Louis led him to make his first recordings with members of Edison’s band that appeared under Jimmy Forrest’s name for Delmark (All the Gin Is Gone and Black Forrest). Green was the best known of the artists but the others had interesting careers including Graf who was a veteran of Woody Herman’s Band and having returned to St. Louis was recorded by Bob Koester for an album issued on Delmar (which would become Delmark). Sam Lazar took up organ after hearing Jimmy Smith, and was signed to Chess’ Argo subsidiary where he recorded three albums between 1960 and 1962, the first of which included Green and Williams. 

This live date was from Christmas, 1959 with the exception of one track from February, 1960, and is really nice album of straight-ahead organ jazz with Green and Graf shining. Graf’s playing illustrates why labels such as East Coast and West Coast sometimes are meaningless. Listening to the blues titled for this release as The Holy Barbarian Blues, I was struck by how much his playing reminded me of Dexter Gordon and Teddy Edwards while Green is sizzling with his driving single note runs. Lazar may have had limitations with his use of the bass pedal, but he really gets things greasy on this on which everyone takes a solo. This is a pretty hot blues performance that fades to an end.

Another bluesy performance taken at a medium tempo is Caramu (Blue Caribou), that Blumenthal speculates which gain opens with more bluesy tenor followed by Green who makes his initial statement and crafts his solo before Graf taking the lead out. Groovin‘ High, is one of the standards the group performed that night with Green displaying some of the musical imagination as well as chops that would lead to his greater recognition (By the end of 1960 he would begin his Blue Note association). Lazar’s Deep is another lengthy blues that is attacked by the group with considerable fervor. 

A driving rendition of Blue Train, includes some poetry from Pete Simpson who was also the MC that night which was included to illustrate the atmosphere of the club which presented poetry as well as music. Green is really strong here before Lazar takes the tempo down as Simpson delivers his poetry that Blumenthal observes“ is not likely to be included in any anthologies of twentieth-century verse.” Simpson is riffing on lines from lyrics in classic blues and American popular songs in his poetry, although few would disagree with Blumenthal's assessment of the poetry’s quality. 

Blue Train concludes nearly 70 minutes of what was a strong performance of blues and hard-bop organ jazz. It is another one of Uptown Records Flashback Series that also included an excellent Dexter Gordon in Montreal CD. The sound is quite good given the source material and the accompanying booklet is superb. This terrific release will be essential to fans of Grant Green and certainly one that fans of hard bop will certainly want to give a listen to.

I purchased this recording.

John Stein's Journey Down (Grant) Green Street

A blurb from Michael Cuscuna on the back of John Stein’s Green Street (Whaling City Sound), a reissue of a late nineties recording, notes that it acts as a homage to Grant Green, as well as the classic sixties’ organ jazz combo and the Rudy Van Gelder sound. While Stein’s album shares its title with one of Grant Green’s Blue Note discs, the title track is derived from the location of the 1359 Jazz Club that was home for Stein’s organ trio at the time and while Grant Green was an influence and inspiration on Stein, this disc is comprised mostly of Stein’s funky and bluesy originals backed by organist Ken Clark and drummer Dave Hurst with David ‘Fathead’ Newman adding sax and flute to five of the twelve tracks.

The mood is set with the opening Booga Lou, with Newman’s tenor the frosting on the danceable groove, while Hotcakes, has a bit of a movie soundtrack flavor with Newman’s flute alluding to Theme From the Pink Panther as Stein comps behind him. Jack’s Back is a jaunty blues which appears built on a riff from the Louis Jordan classic Choo Choo Ch’Boogie, and features some crisp playing from Stein, while Newman returns on tenor for the ballad, Our Love is Here to Stay, with Newman’s warm vibrato adding to the feeling and followed by some splendid playing from Stein.

Sultry features the trio again with a somewhat exotic, middle eastern flavor, before Newman returns for the title track, which sounds like a spinoff of Jimmy Smith’s Chicken Shack, with the tempo slowed down slightly. Newman is on alto sax for the Ellington classic, Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me, with Stein’s guitar responding to Newman’s statement of the theme, then taking a short chorus before Newman launches into his solo and later soloing some more. The last two tracks, Be Ooo Ba and You Stepped Out Of A Dream, featuring the trio, were from a live radio broadcast and further showcase Stein’s fleet, swinging and thoughtful playing along with that of his trio.

Stein has added his own thoughts along with Ed Hazell’s original liner notes to this marvelous release that is certain to delight fans of organ jazz trios and jazz guitar.

I believe I received a review copy from Jazz & Blues Report for whom this review was written, but not published. Here is a video of John Stein (not with organ).