NOVEMBER 11

              WARDELL GRAY
    Central Avenue Session

            Recording Date:
                November 11, 1949

            Personnel:
                Wardell Gray   TS
                Al Haig            P
                Tommy Potter  B
                Roy Haynes      D

           LINK

Revewi by Michael G. Nastos

Excellent sessions in NYC, Detroit, and Los Angeles in 1949, 1950, 1952, 1953. A handful of trio and sax sides, larger bands featuring Dexter Gordon, Art Farmer, Clark Terry, and Sonny Criss, Frank Morgan, and Sonny Clark. Gray's tenor is unmatched.

Twisted*
Easy Living*
Southside*
Sweet Lorraine*

NOVEMBER 10

            HORACE SILVER
       6 Pieces of Silver
          
           Recording Date:
               November 10, 1956

           Personnel:
               Donald Byrd    TP 
               Junior Cook    TS 
               Louis Hayes     D 
               Hank Mobley   TS 
               Horace Silver  P 
               Gene Taylor    B 
               Doug Watkins  B 

                                                                     LINK

Review by Scott Yanow
The first classic album by the Horace Silver Quintet, this CD is highlighted by "Señor Blues" (heard in three versions, including a later vocal rendition by Bill Henderson) and "Cool Eyes." The early Silver quintet was essentially the Jazz Messengers of the year before (with trumpeter Donald Byrd, tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley, and bassist Doug Watkins, while drummer Louis Hayes was in Blakey's place), but already the band was starting to develop a sound of its own. "Señor Blues" officially put Horace Silver on the map.
 

NOVEMBER 9

        JOHN HASSELL
   Last Night the Moon... 
         
         Recording Date:
              November 2008

         Personnel:
            Jon Hassell      TP,Key
            Peter Freeman B,G,Per
            Rick Cox         G
            Jon Hassell      VLN
            Eivind Aarset   G
            Helge Andreas  D
            Pete Lockett    D
           J. A. Deane      Samp
         Jan Bang          Samp
         Jamie Muhoberac Key,D
         Steve Shehan   Per

LINK

Review by Thom Jurek
The strangely beautiful title of Jon Hassell's Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street on ECM is taken from a poem by the great 13th century Sufi mystic Jalaluddin Rumi. The rest of it, in the context of the sound here, is also instructional: "Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street/I took it as a sign to start singing/Falling up into the bowl of sky." Hassell's electronically enhanced trumpet playing follows directly in a line from Miles Davis' experiments of the 1970s. It comes off more as "singing" than anything else. He sounds like no one else, but many trumpet players and sound collagists have been deeply influenced by his work. The "bowl of sky" in the poem is referent, too: it reflects the quality of Hassell's musical montages and sonic investigations. This has been true since the very beginning in the 1970s, but became his trademark "sound" while working with Brian Eno as he developed his "Fourth World" music — showcased on his EG albums from the early '80s (Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics, Fourth World, Vol. 2: Dream Theory in Malaya, Aka/Darbari/Java ) — and was acutely articulated on his last ECM release, 1985's brilliant Power Spot. Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street is Hassell's first recording since 2005's Maarifa Street: Magic Realism, Vol. 2; it's an assembled montage of sessions recorded in France and Los Angeles, and concerts are also woven into the rich fabric here. Hassell's music, even now, sounds alien, beguiling, mercurial, seemingly formless and airy but full of subtle washes, shifts of tone, and polyrhythmic strategies. The ten cuts here are mostly middle-length pieces that range between five and eight minutes, but three — "Time and Place," "Clairvoyance," and "Scintilla" — act as transitions segmenting, however seamlessly, the album into roughly thirds.

The band contains a pair of holdovers from his last outing in bassist Peter Freeman — who doubles on laptop — and guitarist Rick Cox, who has been augmented by no less than Eivind Aarset on the instrument. The other new players include Jamie Muhoberacon keyboard and laptop, drummers Helge Norbakken and Pete Lockett, Kheir Eddine M'Kachiche on violin, and Jan Bang on live sampling. Together they root and extend the aerial sound of Hassell's trumpet that flows everywhere and anywhere. Check the simple bass and guitar rhythmic attack on "Abu Gil," the album's longest track, where In a Silent Way's "It's About That Time" meets the desert blues feels of "Anouar Brahem" and the Master Musicians of Jajouka meet the noir-ish ambient funk of early Shriekback. The title track, by contrast, is a long, loping, beautiful number where moods of morning, marketplaces, and nocturnal sunsets all loosely entwine around the listener. The obvious postmodern jazz soloist's approach hovers all around the shapes and colors evoked by keyboards and trumpet in "Courtrais," as soundscape, loops, and ambiences all deepen and widen before being grounded by a subtle but unflinching backbone-slipping bassline by Freeman. Hassell moves toward everything — samples, drifting sonics, hints of melody, and, for such quiet and subtle music, an impressive harmonic palette — to create a montage that evokes the timelessness of the past with a firm grasp on the unknowable, perhaps even unspeakable, future. His jazzman's sense of time and phrasing is enhanced by his painterly sense of space and shade. This album is further proof that Jon Hassell inhabits a terrain of his own, and reflects the true vibration of poetry as it meets the human ear as something akin to pure sound.

:: Aurora
:: Time And Place
:: Abu Gil
:: Last Night The Moon Came
:: Clairvoyance
:: Courtrais
:: Scintilla
:: Northline
:: Blue Period
:: Light On Water

NOVEMBER 8

 

              STAN GETZ
            At the Shrine

              Recording Date:
                  November 8, 1954

                  Shrine Auditorium, LA 

              Personnel:
                 Bob Brookmeyer TB
                 Stan Getz      TS
                 John Williams  P
                 Bill Anthony   B
                 Art Mardigan   D

               LINK

Review by Scott Yanow
Tenor Stan Getz and valve-trombonist Bob Brookmeyer made a mutually beneficial team. Although they had not played together all that much in 1954 (Brookmeyer had left Getz's band earlier in the year to join the Gerry Mulligan Quartet), the strong musical communication between the two horns during this CD reissue is obvious. Eight of the ten selections are from a live concert (with pianist John Williams, bassist Bill Anthony and drummer Art Mardigan) while the final two numbers (on what was originally a pair of LPs) were cut in the studio the following day with the same personnel except that Frank Isola was on drums. Highlights of this cool-toned bop music (which, in addition to the solos, has many exciting ensembles) include "Lover Man," "Pernod," "Tasty Pudding" and "It Don't Mean a Thing."
 

NOVEMBER 7

      COLEMAN HAWKINS
                 Soul
       
           Recording Date: 
                November 7, 1958

           Personnel:
                Ray Bryant           P 
                Kenny Burrell       G 
                Coleman Hawkins TS 
                Osie Johnson        D 
                Wendell Marshall  B 

           LINK

Review by Scott Yanow
This is a decent but not very exciting outing. Then 52, Hawkins uses a typically young rhythm section (including guitarist Kenny Burrell and pianist Ray Bryant) and plays melodically on a variety of originals and standards. This insipid version of "Greensleeves" is difficult to sit through but the rest of this CD is enjoyable if not overly inspiring.
 

NOVEMBER 6

          SHIRLEY SCOTT
              One for Me
             
              Recording Date:
                     November 1974

              Personnel:
                    Harold Vick      AS,TS
                    Shirley Scott    O,Mll
                    Billy Higgins     D
                   Jimmy Hopps    Cow


             LINK




Reviewby Bob Rusch
The record is a beauty with Harold Vick, perhaps the most suited and sensitive horn player Ms. Scott has worked with...(a) thoroughly enjoyable album of bop stream music, and while it is nothing overly heavy or deep, it's thoughtfully and sensitively produced and of its kind an almost perfect album.

NOVEMBER 5

           JACKIE McLEAN
               Dynasty

            Recording Date: 
                November 5, 1988

            Personnel:
                Carl Allen               D
                Hotep Idris Galeta  P 
                Jackie McLean       AS 
                Rene McLean  FT,SS,TS 
                Natasha Reeves     B 

          LINK





Review by Scott Yanow

This is one of the great Jackie McLean albums. After nearly a decade away from recording, the veteran altoist teamed up with his son, René McLean (who triples on tenor, soprano, and flute), pianist Hotep Idris Galeta, bassist Nat Reeves, and drummer Carl Allen for a very passionate and high-powered live set. Whether it be originals by René (including "J. Mac's Dynasty") or Galeta, a very intense version of "A House Is Not a Home," or Jackie's "Bird Lives," this is dynamic and consistently exciting music. The go-for-broke solos (which transcend any easy categories) and Jackie's unique sharp tone make this an essential CD, one of the top recordings to be released in 1990.