Thelonious Monk Quintet feat. Steve Lacy

Reportedly, Thelonious Monk never liked his compositions recorded by other artists. One exception was Steve Lacy's Reflections, recorded in 1958 (with Mal Waldron, Buell Neidlinger and Elvin Jones which was actually the first all-Monk-composition album recorded by someone rather Mr. Monk himself.).

Whether that was the main factor or something else unbeknownst to us, Monk invited Lacy to play along his quartet in 1960.

Monk had already complimented Lacy in at least one (not very auspicious) occasion: during a gig at the UN

building in New York City, Jimmy Giuffre Quartet featuring Steve Lacy played opposite Thelonious Monk where they performed two interpretations of Monk's compositions. The composer almost instantly hated it, however he had some nice words in his sleeve for Lacy. It was after the UN gig that Monk invited Lacy to play with him in the Jazz Gallery.

One existing recording of that brief stint comes from a radio broadcast in the World Jazz Series by CBS which I present here. Monk is accompanied by Charlie Rouse (tenor saxophone), John Ore (bass) and Roy Haynes (drums). The occasion was the Quaker City Jazz Festival in Philadelphia, and the date, March 3, 1960.

Duke Ellington: Jazz Entre Amigos (1985)

Continuing with our Duke Ellington's 114th birthday celebration, here you can watch probably the most ambitious TV programme ever made about Ellington. Interestingly, this unmissable compilation of many great films of Duke is coming from Spain. (But the Spanish voice-over is not too loquacious to lessen the viewing pleasure, except when they dub Duke!)

This two-part portrait of Duke during six decades of non-stop genuine creativity is from Jazz Entre Amigos, a weekly TV programme on Spanish national television, presented by Juan Claudio Cifuentes (known to his friends as Cifu) which ran between 1984 to 1991. The Ellington entry is particularly ambitious because it's 130-minute long, and features many well-known clips (Black & Tan and other Hollywood appearances), as well as more rare and hard to find footage and backstage films from the 1960s.

Enjoy the last hours of  this 114th birth day with the images of his highness in action:

The Benny Carter-Earl Hines Quartet

The Spanish National TV, RTVE.es has generously made online a considerable number of its invaluable jazz programmes, including this treasure from 1976, set in Barcelona, with two giants, Benny Carter and Earl Hines, swinging at ease and delightfully performing classics and standards of the old days.

The majestic Palau de la Música Catalana, designed by architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, perfectly suits the elegance of two maestros on stage and their charming combination of the old and the new.

The rhythm section is composed of Hines' team of 76 with Harley White Jr. on bass and Eddie Graham on drums.

It was in the same year that Carter played along with Ray Bryant, Milt Hinton and Grady Tate at Michael's Pub in New York, where the imminent Whitney Balliett caught him live and mused: "His saxophone solos gave the effect of skywriting: each hung complete in the air before being blown away by the succeeding soloist...he was a handsome man, with intelligent, questing eyes and hundred-watt teeth."

To that add another five-hundred-watt teeth from Mr Hines and enjoy this magic show.

The concert will start after a short introduction in Spanish. Regrettably, Benny goes off-mike quite often.

Ad-Lib#4: Hepcats, Slums, Moon Maidens

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"New Orleans jazz may be considered 'mouldy fig' by the diggers of bop, but when it comes to setting a joint jumping, Dixie is still king," reads this funny piece of journalism from the 1950s, furnished with pictures of Willie "The Lion" Smith and Henry "Red" Allen. [source]


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Ignore the silly cartoons, inserted into the footage and enjoy this highly energetic performance of a Slums and Wheels [aka Slums on Wheels] written by Volker Kriegel and featuring Dave Pike on vibraphone. Resurfaced from German archives (NDR studios), this 1969 TV appearance features Volker Kriegel (g) Dave Pike (vibe), Ingfried Hoffmann (organ), Hans Rettenbacher (bass) and Peter Baumeister (drums).

22 Trumpet Players!

click on the image to enlarge

Looks like a dream, but it really happened in the summer of 1961 in Central Park, New York. For this photo session, twenty-two trumpet players from different generations have appeared in front of Herb Snitzer's camera.

From back left to right, the trumpet players are: Johnny Letman, Doc Severinsen, Max Kamisnky, Ted Curson (standing), moving to the next row, Ernie Royal is looking at the left, Booker Little, Joe Thomas, Yank Lawson is sitting next to Clark Terry behind the table. Again, starting from left, Don Ferrera, Nick Travis (with glasses), Bobby Bradford, and on the far right Jimmy Nottingham (sitting near CT). The next row: the very dark gentleman gazing at some out-of-frame point is Herman Autrey. Then moving to right we have Joe Newman, Dizzy Reece, Freddie Hubbard and Henry "Red" Allen, all sitting  tight next to each other. And finally the front row giants are Buck Clayton, Roy Eldridge fooling with Dizzy Gillespie and the beautiful Charlie Shavers.

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Dizzy Gillespie '65 by Les Blank

Les Blank, a fascinating individual and director of some remarkably personal documentaries passed away yesterday. I hardly have anything to say about him, at least worthy of his long and adventurous career, since I knew his ouvre only sporadically. However, I hope the stream of obituaries following his death would serve the purpose of shedding light on the career of  the man "whose sly, sensuous and lyrical documentaries about regional music and a host of other idiosyncratic subjects, including Mardi Gras, gaptoothed women, garlic and the filmmaker Werner Herzog, were widely admired by critics and other filmmakers if not widely known by moviegoers."

Here, I'll draw your attention to one of Blank's very early films, which happens to be one of the best jazz films produced under the umbrella of independent, ciné-vérité movement of the 1960s. Les Blank made many films about music, including The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins (1968), of course if one doesn't mention incorporating jazz and blues music in his non-musical films. During five tireless decades of film-making, the portrait of Dizzy Gillespie stands out as probably one of Blank's most accomplished cinematographic discovery of music and musical ideas.

Best Of American Jazz In Paris (Studio Recordings)

Image courtesy of Vogue Records.

25 Greatest Jazz Records by Americans in Paris

The Infinity of Lists, by Umberto Eco, is among the titles on my to-read list, though even before opening the book, and judging from the cover, I can catch the point and apply it to this list of my favorite studio recording of American jazz musicians in Paris.

The relationship between Paris and musicians has been mostly a love affair, started from the early years of jazz and continued to this day, with the post war years as the peak of interest, visits and involvement in Parisian scene. The curiosity about jazz, similar to that of African artwork revival in the early 20th century Paris, was expanding in various directions in the years between early 1950s and late 1960s. Jazz appeared in or influenced French literature and cinema, while I'm sure, the connection between this American art and France goes beyond these two primary examples.

With a profound history of hosting American jazz musicians and giving them the opportunity to play and record, the Paris-recorded albums are too important to remain unlisted and unnoticed. This is one attempt to pay a closer attention to the Parisian jazz records.

These are recordings I have listened to and mostly loved during the years, but I'm sure there are still hundreds of recordings there, waiting to be discovered. Probably you will notice the absence of more contemporary albums on the list, but that can be explained in regard to the current international status of jazz and the blurred concepts of nationality and borders in the 21th century jazz scene. Now, appearing in a Parisian studio or a concert hall is a common stage of activity for any internationally recognized artist. But I guess, back in the 1950s, it must have been a very unique experience being and recording in Paris for someone like Gerald Wiggins. This uniqueness is derived, among many other things, from the status of Afro-Americans in France and the fact that they have been cherished as artists and seen as heroes of the Existentialist and Anti-colonial movements of the post war period.

This list was initiated as a part of my short-lived jazz program, targeted for Iranian listeners, which ran between 2011 and early 2012. The episodes 22 to 24 were titled Jazz In Paris, and during three sessions I played many tracks from the albums I've listed here. If some Farsi speaking and commentary in between the tracks don't bother you, they are available here, here and here as podcast.