Everybody Digs Bill Evans

Everybody Digs Bill Evans was the title of an album the pianist released in 1958.  The title is an apt summation of the career of a musician who is widely viewed as the most influential jazz pianist of the post-bop years.  Joel Simpson, in his biographical sketch of Evans at AllAboutJazz.com,  described Evans' "highly nuanced touch, the clarity of the feeling content of his music and his reform of the chord voicing system pianists used."  Miles Davis described Evans' playing as "quiet fire ... or sparkling water cascading down from some clear waterfall."  Davis dug Evans enough that he included him, along with John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, in the group that would record the immortal album Kind of Blue.  Evans, however, was much more than a sideman; as a leader he would record over 50 albums and receive 5 Grammy awards.


Evans' "quiet fire" is on display from about the three-minute mark in the recording of "All Blues" as he plays behind solos from Davis, Adderley, and Coltrane, and then adds a spare, sparkling solo of his own.



Born in New Jersey in 1929, Evans began taking piano lessons at age six.  His parents didn't want him to be limited to just one instrument, so he also took violin and flute lessons.  He would later credit the flute with helping him play with tonal expressiveness.  Evans' mother was an amateur pianist herself, and she had amassed a large library of classical sheet music, which young Bill mastered rather than practicing scales.

After college and a stint in the army, Evans recorded his first album, New Jazz Conceptions as leader in 1956.  The album was a critical, but not a commercial success; it sold only 800 copies in a year.  In between stints with Miles Davis, Evans released his second album as leader in 1958, the above-mentioned Everybody Digs Bill Evans.  The video below is "Some Other Time" from that album.  Evans is joined by Miles' drummer, Philly Joe Jones and bassist Sam Jones (no relation).


Evans was especially fond of the trio format and by giving prominence to the contributions of the drummer and bassist took a more egalitarian approach to the ensemble than was common at the time.  Among the most acclaimed of Evans' trio recordings are the recordings of live performances at the Village Vanguard in 1961.  On these dates he was joined by long-time drummer Paul Motian and bassist Scott LaFaro. The authors of the Penguin Guide described this group as one of the "finest piano trios ever documented."  Evans' composition "Waltz for Debby" featured below, was first recorded on his 1956 debut and became one of the pianist's signature songs as well as the title of one of the Vanguard albums. Unfortunately these Village Vanguard albums would be the last from this trio as LaFaro died in a car accident ten days later.
















As the '60's progressed, so did Evans' career.  He pioneered the use of overdubbing (standard practice today) and won a Grammy for his Conversations with Myself.  He would also win a Grammy for his 1968 album of piano solos, Alone.  "Never Let Me Go" from that album is presented below.







During the same period that Evans was experiencing his greatest professional success, he also experienced devastating personal tragedy.  Like so many jazz musicians of the period, Evans developed a heroin addiction that would plague him for years.  His wife, Ellaine, also an addict, committed suicide by throwing herself under a train in 1970.  Although not immediately, Evans did enter a methadone treatment program and stayed away from heroin.  He married for the second time. Although the marriage didn't last long, the union did produce a son, Evan, for whom Evans senior composed "Letter to Evan," and who became a prominent musician in his own right.



Evans' productivity and artistry remained unabated during the 1970's.  The Bill Evans Album (1971) won two Grammies.  In 1975 and 1976 Evans teamed with Tony Bennett for The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album and Together Again. Presented below is the vocal version of "Waltz for Debby," which the authors of the Penguin Guide characterize as the definitive vocal presentation of that song.
















Although Evans had been off heroin for some time, by 1980 he started using the current drug du jour, cocaine, which he thought of as "safe."  This was to be his undoing and he died in Mt. Sinai hospital on the 15th of September of that year.  Evans' influence lives on and has probably even grown since his death.  Joel Simpson ranks him, along with Oscar Peterson, as "one of the major enduring forces in jazz piano."

Bodies and Souls

If "Stardust" is the most recorded song of all time, then surely "Body and Soul" is; Gary Giddins claims it has been recorded more than 3000 times.  Composed by Johnny Green in 1930, with three lyricists credited, the song almost didn't make it into the final production of the musical, Three's a Crowd, for which it was written.  In a 1980 essay, "Fifty Years of Body and Soul," Giddins described the song as "an unusually difficult example of the 32-bar AABA song, with three key changes in the chorus (and three more in the rarely performed verse), intricate major/minor circuitry, and a wide range ... Jazz musicians favor [it] ... because they like the tune."

Louis Armstrong recorded one of the memorable renditions of the song the year it was written.




What is probably the definitive jazz version of "Body and Soul" was recorded at the end of the '30s by tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins.  Giddins described this version as "a gauntlet tossed at every other saxophonist in jazz."  Hawkins version, which was considered significant enough to be included in both the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz and Ken Burn's compilation from his Jazz video series, is almost pure improvisation.  Below are reproductions of the sheet music along with a transcription of Hawkins' solo.

Billie Holiday took several vocal liberties with the melody in her 1940 recording.  The muted trumpet solo is Roy Eldridge.



Frank Sinatra recorded a "straight" version in 1947.  The trumpet solo here is Bobby Hackett, who would later be featured soloist on many of the "make out" albums recorded by the Jackie Gleason orchestra in the 1950s and '60s. An abbreviated version of Hackett soloing from Gleason's 1960 album Music for Lover's Only follows Sinatra.





Also in 1960, a very different, but still pretty straight ahead recording, was made by John Coltrane and his quartet.
 



In the 1970s Ella Fitzgerald put her unique take on the song on a Frank Sinatra TV show.



Finally, "Body and Soul" has lived on into another century.  The next video is bass and vocal prodigy, Esperanza Spalding live in Copenhagen.  It's time for another essay: "Eighty Years of Body and Soul."

Versatility!: Charlie Haden

There is probably no one in jazz, or even the whole wide world of music,  who has recorded a greater variety of music than bassist Charlie Haden.  Born into a musical family in Iowa, Haden began his musical career as a small child in his family's well-known country and western band.  In 1957 he moved to LA where he played with many of the up-and-comers for modern jazz.  Most notably, at 22 he became a member of Ornette Coleman's revolutionary free jazz quartet (probably about as far from his C & W roots as one could go).  From the mid-'60s through the mid-'70s, Haden was associated with another musical pioneer, Keith Jarrett.  In 1969 Haden founded the Liberation Music Orchestra, which blended experimental big band jazz with politically-themed music. During the 1970s Haden began a long, intermittent collaboration with guitarist Pat Metheny.  In 1996 the duo released Beyond the Missouri Sky, an album of "contemporary impressionistic Americana."  The Penguin Guide described this album as selling "like SnoCones in the desert," and included it in their Core Collection.



Backtracking chronologically a bit, from 1996's Missouri Sky, in 1986 Haden founded the ensemble Quartet West with whom he would work regularly for some time.  In contrast to the free jazz of his early career and the "new agey" collaborations with Metheny, Quartet West's recordings were more straight ahead jazz and often leaned toward the nostalgic.  In fact, two of their albums Haunted Heart (1986) and Always Say Goodbye (1993) are unashamedly so.  Both are inspired by and evocative of the noir novels and movies of the '40s and '50s.  They both also include dubbed in music from some of that era's singers and instrumentalists, e.g., Jo Stafford, Ray Nance with the Duke Ellington Orchestra.  The video that follows is Haunted Heart's "Dance of the Infidels," composed by Bud Powell and first recorded in 1949 .


















Although Haden has continued to work regularly with Quartet West, he has by no means limited his output to his collaborations with that ensemble.  He has also recorded duet albums with pianists Hank Jones and Denny Zeitlin.  One of my favorite CDs in my collection is Night and the City, an evocative live recording with just Haden and Kenny Barron.  Below is Barron's "Twilight Song," which is ten minutes long, but my ears think it's worth every second.






If you need further proof of Haden's versatility, in the early 2000s Haden won two consecutive Latin Grammys for Nocturne (1999), a collaborative effort based on Cuban ballads or boleros with Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, and Land of the Sun (2003), again featuring Rubalcaba, this time exploring Mexican folk music.

















In 2008 Haden came full circle in musical career when he released Charlie Haden Family and Friends: Rambling Boy. This album pairs songs associated with his youthful C & W career with the younger generation of the Haden family.  Joining in are some of the biggest names in today's country and bluegrass scene, e.g., Vince Gill, Roseanne Cash, Dan Tyminski, and Ricky Skaggs.

Lady in Autumn: Bill Holiday in the '50s

When I first heard recordings of Billie Holiday back when I was in college, I didn't quite know what to think, and frankly I wasn't sure what all the fuss was about.  As time passed, however, my tastes and opinions changed and Holiday became one of my favorite singers.  Her recording career spanned approximately 25 years and almost everything, including outtakes, is available on CD and/or mp3.  Although not to everyone's taste and musically probably Holiday's most controversial period, I am partial to many of the recordings she made at the tail end of her career in the 1950s.

Most of Holiday's 1950's recordings were for Norman Granz on either his Clef or Verve label.  Much of what attracts me to these recordings are the accompanists and arrangements.  These were typically small group sessions and included some of the top instrumentalists of the day.  The repertoire consisted mostly of standards and reworkings of songs the singer had recorded before.  Scott Yanow echoed the sentiments of many critics when he wrote that during this period Holiday was "sounding beaten down by life.  Her emotional intensity had grown but her voice was slipping."  Slipping voice or not, Billie Holiday could still do wonderful things to a song that no other singer could.  If you are interested in the Verve/Clef recordings you can take your pick of how much you want.  Available are a complete 10-cd set of everything Holiday recorded during the Verve years, a 6-cd set of master takes, and a 2-cd "Best Of" set (My apologies to Verve for using the title of the 2-disc set as my title for this post). Of course several individual discs are available as well.
















The first video is Lady singing "Autumn in New York, which was recorded in her first sessions for Granz in 1952.  She was accompanied by Oscar Peterson (p), Barney Kessel (g), Ra Brown (b), & Alvin Stoller (d). This rendition was featured in Ken Burn's Jazz series with critic Gerald Early declaring that it was the most beautiful version of the song he had ever heard in his life.  I wouldn't argue.



Also included in these 1952 sessions was "Tenderly" with Holiday accompanied by the same rhythm section, plus Charlie Shavers on Trumpet and Flip Phillips on tenor.



Both of these recordings as well as several other gems are available on the Verve single-disc release Solitude.












The next video of "I Didn't Know What Time it Was" is from another of the single Verve discs that gets high marks from the critics, Songs for Distingue' Lovers, which the authors of the Penguin Guide described as "front-rank."
On this album Holiday was again accompanied by another set of heavy-weight instrumentalists: Ben Webster (tenor saxophone);
Harry "Sweets" Edison (trumpet);
Jimmie Rowles (piano);
Barney Kessel (guitar);
Red Mitchell (bass);
Larry Bunker, Alvin Stoller (drums)




Finally, here is a wonderful, mellow version of "Embraceable You."  I'm not totally sure of the lineup of instrumentalist, but I think it is the same as "I Didn't Know What Time it Was."  Her chops might not have been the same in the '50s as they were earlier, but with the right accompanists and arrangements, Billie could still bring it.

Lost: Chet Baker

Although two well-known profiles of Chet Baker take their titles from romantic ballads prominent in the Baker repertoire: James Gavin's book, Deep in a Dream, and Bruce Weber's film, Let's Get Lost, these titles can have another meaning as well.   As can be seen from the photos above showing Chet early and then late in his career-about 30-35 years apart, time was not good to the trumpeter/singer.   In addition to the natural aging process, some portion of Baker's physical transfiguration was the result of the fact that he was lost in the dreamland of heroin addiction a significant percentage of time.  After reading Gavin's biography, I think that any profile of Baker could also borrow the title of Dan Brown's thriller, Angels & Demons.  Early in his career, many considered his appearance angelic and throughout his career, even at times when he was deep in his addiction, Baker could create almost angelic music.  On the other hand,  Baker had demons aplenty to deal with and his behavior was often much more demonic than angelic.  Featured to the right are
Gavin's biography and a companion cd compilation of Baker's music.










Baker first achieved fame when he became part of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet and this group made a series of sides in 1952-53.  Baker is best known for his rendition of what at the time was a little known ballad, "My Funny Valentine."  Baker would go on to record this song many times both as an instrumentalist and as a vocalist and some would say that he came to "own" it.



Although the Mulligan quartet would come to regarded as one of the great exemplars of West Coast/Cool jazz, it would not survive Mulligan's arrest for drug possession and the clash of personalities of the two principles.  The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings includes the output of this short-lived ensemble in its "Core Collection."  A 2-cd, 42-track set with all the quartet's recordings is available, as is a "Best Of" compilation that includes 15 songs.














Baker would continue to record with many of the prominent West Coast jazz artists throughout the rest of the 1950's.  He developed an understated trumpet style comparable to Miles Davis, and which many derided as derivative of Davis.  Baker first recorded vocals were on Chet Baker Sings.  With a repertoire limited to ballads and medium tempo numbers, his singing was also laid-back and understated. While some were dismissive of his vocal efforts, others found them to be seductive.  Biographer Gavin argued that with his matinee-idol looks and distinctive style, Baker attracted both women and a strong following of gay men





By the 1960s Baker had progressed from pot head to heroin junkie.  Throughout the remainder of his career and life he would be constantly on the move searching out his next fix and often trying to stay one step ahead of the law.  In 1966 he was so severely beaten in a drug-related incident that he lost his front teeth and had to relearn to play the trumpet.  It was in this period that he also began to play the flugelhorn. Baker was much more popular in Europe than in the U.S. and he spent much of his last 25 years on that continent.  He was so rootless that he didn't even want a bank account and demanded that all payments for recordings and performances be in cash.  As would be expected his recordings from this period are wildly uneven, but even in the depth of his addiction, he could produce some highly regarded music.  In 1985, along with pianist Paul Bley, Baker released Diane, an album consisting mostly of ballads.  With just two instrumentalists, there was no place to hide your errors.  The video below demonstrates that Baker could still produce some beautiful music.
















Remarkably just a few weeks before his death, and at a time when he was in terrible health, Baker presented a concert in Germany that would produce a two-volume recording billed as The Last Great Recording.  This concert showcased Baker in a variety of ensembles ranging from quartet to big band to full orchestra and largely lived up to its billing.



Not long after this concert, Baker's body was found on an Amsterdam sidewalk outside the hotel where he was staying.  Many unanswered questions remain regarding Baker's death and it has even become the subject of a mystery novel, Looking for Chet Baker, by Bill Moody.

The Greatest Voice You've Probably Never Heard: Johnny Hartman

Despite winning accolades from folks who should know, like Tony Bennett and Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Hartman never came close to becoming a household name.  In the extensive liner notes to The Johnny Hartman Collection 1947-1972, well-respected critic Will Friedwald characterized Hartman, with his "deep and sensual" baritone as "one of the greatest interpreters of love songs that ever lived." 

Raised in Chicago, Hartman began his professional career at 17 with the Earl "Fatha" Hines big band after winning an amateur contest that offered a $25 prize and a week's engagement with Hines.  "Fatha" was impressed enough that Hartman continued with him for a year. Early in his career, Hartman also sang with Errol Garner and Dizzy Gillespie.  Known throughout his career primarily as a ballad singer, the pairing with Gillespie resulted in some "interesting" juxtapositions between singer and instrumentalists.

Hartman made his first recordings under his own name in 1947, but it would be another decade before he realized much success at all.  Two related stumbling blocks seem to have confused record company executives and interfered with his popularity.  First there was the issue of whether Hartman was a "jazz" or "pop" singer and what kind of material to have him record.  Record producers also had a hard time figuring out how to arrange and orchestrate to best showcase Hartman.  In his book, Jazz Singing (1992), Friedwald argued convincingly that Hartman needed a trio plus one master soloist to "challenge him, inspire him, and keep him on the level."  It was not until 1956 that Bethlehem presented him in this context on Songs from the Heart.  The rhythm section consisted of Ralph Sharon (who would later collaborate for many years with Tony Bennett), Jay Cave (b) and Christy Febbo (d) while Howard McGhee provided the solos on trumpet. 



The peak of Hartman's career came with the 1963 album that critic Scott Yanow claimed made Hartman immortal, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman on Impulse.  Not only is this the album for which Hartman is best know, I believe it also marks the only time that Coltrane recorded with a vocalist.  The two featured performers are joined by Coltrane's standout rhythm section: McCoy Tyner (p), Jimmy Garrison (b), Elvin Jones (d).  Although all the songs on this album are outstanding, Scott Yanow considers the renditions of Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life" and "My One and Only Love" as "definitive."




Bob Thiele produced the Coltrane collaboration and would then go on to produce four more Hartman albums: I Just Dropped by to Say Hello (1963), The Voice that Is (1964), Unforgettable Songs by Johnny Hartman and I Love Everybody (both 1966).  Presented below is "Stairway to the Stars" from the Hello album.  The tenor soloist here is Illinois Jacquet. Will Friedwald called the five albums produced by Thiele, the "most consistently excellent body of work in Hartman's career."



Despite the excellence of Hartman's mid-60s output, this was the era of the British Invasion and Rock 'n Roll was king.  Like so many other singers of standards, Hartman found recording contracts harder and harder to come by.  Also like many standard singers, Hartman spent much of his time overseas in the late '60s and the '70s.  He was in the process of making something of a comeback in the early '80s when he was diagnosed with lung cancer and was forced to quit performing.  He died in 1983 at the age of 60.

Although Hartman himself didn't live long enough to succeed with a comeback, his music received a  boost 15 years after his death when Clint Eastwood featured several Hartman numbers in the soundtrack to The Bridges of Madison County.  More recently,  jazz singer Kurt Elling released a live "re-imagining" of the Hartman-Coltrane collaboration, Dedicated to You: Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman.  For this effort Elling won the 2010 Grammy for Best Vocal Jazz Album, the first male to do so since 1993.

Round and Round About Midnight

The history of jazz is filled with unique individuals. Possibly no one was more unique than Thelonious Sphere Monk (1917-1982).  His personality and his music were like no other.  According to his biography on allaboutjazz.com, "With the arrival of Thelonious Sphere Monk, modern music-let alone modern culture-simply hasn't been the same."  Monk was a contemporary of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, and along with them, was often credited as a founder of be-bop.  Monk's style, however, was quite different from Parker's and Gillespie's.  Where they blew fast and furious, Monk's style was spare and economical.  He utilized syncopation even more than most jazz musicians; one reviewer described his playing as angular.  Monk has also been considered one of the great jazz composers.  Although many of his songs have become jazz standards, his "'Round Midnight" is probably the most recorded jazz composition ever.

Monk first wrote the song in the late 1930s or early '40s.  In 1944 Cootie Williams and his orchestra recorded a somewhat modified version of the song.  How much Williams modified the song is anybody's guess, but he was given a share of the copyright.  A few years later Bernie Hanighen added lyrics and his name is also listed as co-composer.  Although given no official credit, Dizzy Gillespie added an introduction and cadenza in 1947 and these have been included in most subsequent recordings.

Monk would record 'Round Midnight numerous times over the years.  The first video that follows is an early version, a 1947 small-group recording for Riverside.  The second video is solo Monk recorded in 1969. The video quality is not the best, but the audio allows you to experience some pure Monk piano.  So many Monk recordings are available that it hard to know where to start.  This recording of his early work with Blue Note is probably as good a place as any.





I first became aware of the song when I purchased the lp, Miles Davis' Greatest Hits, while I was in high school.  This version, based on Gillespie's variation, and showcasing John Coltrane as well as Davis, remains one of the standard versions.  Personally, Davis' muted trumpet intro and Coltrane's solo never get old.
















Two strikingly different vocal versions of 'Round Midnight appear in the next two videos.  The first is Julie London with full orchestration from 1960.  Ella Fitzgerald then appears in a live recording with the Oscar Peterson Trio in 1961.






"Round Midnight hasn't gone out of fashion.  In the 1980's Linda Ronstadt used it as the title song in one of the three albums of standards that she made with Nelson Riddle.



Also during that decade a movie named after the song was released to critical acclaim.  One of the stars of the movie was tenor man, Dexter Gordon, whose version appeared in the movie and on the soundtrack album.














Last, and maybe least, in my opinion anyway, is a recent version by Amy Winehouse, British bad girl and neo-soul singer.