Take 5 - Part 3 of Body and Soul.

Today is the third, and for now final, Take 5 devoted to performances of Body and Soul. Our first installment had renditions that preceded Coleman Hawkins' classic recording. last week we started with on Hawkins and then included four other tenor saxophone recordings. This week, I present five other recordings of this standard.

First up we have Billie Holiday from 1940.

Next up is Bud Powell

Hank Jones is another piano master who has recorded it.

Ella  Fitzgerald performed it on a legendary Frank Sinatra TV show.

Finally, we close with Chet Baker.

Rebirth of the Cool: Discovering the Art of Robert James Campbell

Rebirth of the Cool: Discovering the Art of Robert James Campbell
Jessica Ferber
Powerhouse Books

Robert James Campbell was a photojournalist whose work appeared in the Village Voice and DownBeat among other publications. At the height of his photographic career Campbell captured the likes of The Modern Jazz Quartet, Philly Joe Jones, Wayne Shorter, The Staple Singers, Bill Monroe, Dave Brubeck, Count Basie, Lee Morgan, Bud Powell, Richie Havens, Chuck Berry, and more. He vigorously documented New York's jazz era, and its metamorphosis into the beat and folk movements although later in his life he was wrought by mental demons, financial hardship, and health failure, had to give up his passionate work at what should have been the prime years of his career, having succumbed to his deteriorating body and mind. He died homeless in Vermont in 2002. Jessica Ferber has been curator of Robert James Campbell's life and photography since her graduation from the University of Vermont in 2002.

In 2012, I came across her Kickstarter campaign for this project and joined in after looking at her video explaining this. Marc Myers, who does the award-winning blog, Jazzwax, did an interview with her which he put on his blog and endorsed the campaign, helping her reach her goal. This was an ambitious project, and while the original date for publication was not met, the wait for publication has been worth it. Marc Myers has written the introduction for this, while Jessica  details the circumstances that led her to work on the project related to Campbell's work. There is a lengthy introduction that includes Campbell's biography including his unfortunate last years This introductory portion of "The Rebirth of the Cool" is illustrated by a variety of pictures of Campbell and early prints of his work.

The core of this book is the wonderfully reproduced photography of Campbell. There is a mix of street photography (including lovers in a park, a touch football game near Cooper Union in New York City, chess players in Washington Square Park) along with a variety of jazz and folk performers from a variety of locations. Among the images are Bud Powell at a recording session for "The Return of Bud Powell," drummers Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones and Mel Lewis at a Gretsch drum battle at Birdland, Mississippi John Hurt on the steps outside the Gaslight Cafe (and there are also two wonderful performance shots of him), Son House and John Hammond Sr. smiling broadly and clasping each other's hands (I believe when House had signed his contract with Columbia Records), Chuck Berry at the Newport Jazz Festival (likely the Festival documented in the film "Jazz on a Summer's Day"), Wayne Shorter, Cecil McBee and Roy Haynes at Birdland, comedian Dick Gregory at the Village Gate, a couple of Flip Wilson portraits, and several of Myrlie Evers, shortly after the assassination of her husband Medgar.

I reiterate that the reproduction of the black and white images is superb and reveals the eye Campbell had. Arguably the finest book of music photography (and more) to come out in 2015 and would make a terrific Holiday gift. I know this is a book I will be returning to look at the images many more times.

As mentioned I was a Kickstarter Supporter of this project. There are some sample images on amazon.com from this. It is also available from Barnes and Noble and other stores with official publication date of December 15.

Roy Haynes. Still Hip After All These Years

Roy Haynes is of course one of the greatest drummers in the history of jazz who has about played with everyone the past 60 odd years. In the March 2008 issue of Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 302) I reviewed the Dreyfus Jazz Box Set, A Life in Time: The Roy Haynes Story.  This fabulous set is still available.  My review, from three years ago, follows.

This writer can still remember that weekend in late fall 1976 in Buffalo when this publication’s editor brought Roy Haynes & the Hip Ensemble in to the original Tralfamadore Cafe, a basement jazz room that featured fine local talent as well as brought in a variety of jazz greats of the time. Haynes led a terrific band that included Marcus Fiorello on electric guitar and Hannibal Marvin Peterson on trumpet. What sticks out in my memory over three decades later was not only the sheer joyfulness of the music, but the joyfulness that Haynes played with. I have remarked over the years that if I were a young boy who had been at the gig with my parents, I would have wanted a drum kit the next day.


Dreyfus Jazz, Haynes label for the past 15 years, has just issued this box set with 37 performances (over 3 and 1/2 hours) over three discs with a bonus DVD of interview and performance. Starting with 1949 recordings with Lester Young and Bud Powell, the music on the box takes us up through his contemporary recordings with his Fountain of Youth quartets in 2006. One wonders if even a decade ago one company would have found other recording companies cooperating and licensing the material for this set. Through the musical journey we find him with nearly every major jazz performer of the past six decades including Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Sarah Vaughan, Cannonball and Nat Adderley, Jack DeJohnette, Stan Getz, Roland Kirk, Eric Dolphy, Chick Corea and Andrew Hill; as well as see him nurse such young talents as Hannibal Marvin Peterson, George Cables, Donald Harrison, and Christian McBride. It perhaps should not be surprising that when Rollins wanted a drummer to help him celebrate the 50th Anniversary of his Carnegie Hall Debut, he called on Haynes to fill that chair; or that he was John Coltrane’s drummer of choice when Elvin Jones was unavailable.


As for the music, what can one say listening to his sizzling cymbal work behind Lester Young on the opening Ding Dong, or his crisp work on the classic Bouncin’ with Bud, and the call and response type playing behind Coltrane in Newport on My Favorite Things. And while that track, like Monk’s Rhythm-A-Ning from Monk’s Live at the Five Spot (with Johnny Griffin on tenor sax), and Oliver Nelson’s Stolen Moments from The Blues and the Abstract Truth will be familiar to many, there are sure to be surprises like the marvelous 1997 reunion with Gary Burton (and Dave Holland and Chick Corea) Question and Answer, or the support behind vocalists Sarah Vaughan (How High the Moon) and Etta Jones (her original Don’t Go the Strangers). The more recent recordings include a remarkable rendition of Greensleeves by his Fountain of Youth Ensemble. The DVD includes a video from an Ashley Kahn interview of Haynes who talks about his drum sound, playing with Coltrane and other matters of interest followed by a marvelous video of Haynes and his Fountain of Youth Ensemble in performance followed by Haynes doing a drum solo from a 1973 Highlights of Jazz Concert.


Ashley Kahn provides succinct and astute commentary in the accompanying booklet. Perhaps the only negative may be the folding digipak for the CDs which feels a little flimsy, but otherwise this collection provides us with an overview of one of the premiere drummers of the past several decades and is highly recommended.

I received a review copy either from Jazz & Blues Report or a publicist for the record label.

Three Wishes is a Marvelous Look at Jazz

Today, I was at Barnes & Noble, in downtown Washington DC, and browsing the jazz and blues books section when I come across a book, Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats. I pick it up skim through it and then purchased it. It is published by Abrams Image and the credits have it compiled and photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter with a forward by Gary Giddins and an Introduction by Nadine de Koenigswarter, granddaughter of Pannonica. Pannonica is better known as Nica, the Baronness who befriended so many jazz musicians for such a long period of time. She was the person in whose apartment Charlie Parker died. Later, when she purchased a house in New Jersey, many jazz musicians visited or stayed with her. In 1957, she helped Thelonious Monk regain his caabaret license and also campaigned for its elimination which occurred when John Lindsay was elected Mayor. Monk had encouraged her to buy a house and she did ,which was named the Cathouse, and Monk himself moved there with his family in 1973, staying there until he passed. Others moved in or stayed for a period.

What the book compiles is the answers of about 300 jazz musicians to what three wishes in life they had. The text consists of their answers. Included are countless photographs of jazz legends from Monk, Barry Harris, Sonny Rollins, Coleman Hawkins, Art Blakey, Bud Powell, Sonny Clark John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Mary Lou Williams, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and countless others. Most of her photos were taken with a Polaroid camera, and several of the images are from worn photos, but the pictures, like their words, speak to us decades later. Some of informal, intimate images of them at the house, others sghow them perforing at the Cathouse. This is a book one can easily get lost with for days and hopefully should be available at your better book store or from the large internet retailers.