Keeping In The News

October 15, 2016October 16, 2016 - Francois Leave a comment

ORRIN KEEPNEWS – Rewarding footage of producer Orrin Keepnews on YouTube. Keepnews talks us through some of the legends and landmark albums that he produced for the Riverside label. Keepnews, who passed away on March 1, 2015, ran Riverside from 1953 to 1965 together with Bill Grauer. A curmudgeon of the old school of independent record producers, the streetwise, Bronx-born Keepnews personified the ‘just do it’ mentality long before a Greek God sold shoes to the new kids on the block. With impeccable taste and a responsive spirit, Keepnews boosted the career of Thelonious Monk, produced contemporary greats like Sonny Rollins and Bill Evans, as well as released celebrated albums by a host of soulful modern jazz luminaries like Cannonball Adderley, Bobby Timmons, Johnny Griffin and Blue Mitchell.

Following the passing of Bill Grauer in 1963, Riverside went bankrupt. After freelancing for a few years, Keepnews started the Milestone label in 1966, releasing albums by Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner, Sonny Rollins and Ron Carter, among others.

Find a detailed obit in the New York Times here.

With the release of the Keepnews Collection in 2007, a series of re-issues of classic Riverside albums, Bret Primack of Concord Music Group presented a number of short features on Keepnews. Insightfully and with deadpan wit, the producer looks back upon a number of game-changing, fabled cooperations. A treat!

Here’s Thelonious Monk.
Here’s Sonny Rollins.
Here’s Bill Evans.
Here’s Cannonball Adderley.
Here’s Blue Mitchell.
Here’s Clark Terry.

The list of classic Riverside (and the Jazzland subsidiary) recordings is imposing. Here are my favorites:

The Cannonball Adderley Quintet - In San Francisco

James Clay & David "Fathead" Newman - The Sound Of The Wide Open Spaces

Randy Weston Trio with Cecil Payne - Jazz A La Bohemia

Clark Terry with Thelonious Monk - In Orbit

Cannonball Adderley with Bill Evans - Know What I Mean?

In The Dutch Mountains

October 13, 2016October 13, 2016 - Francois Leave a comment

FRANK MONTIS – Organist Frank Montis has been a staple in the Dutch jazz pop landcape for many years, contributing excellent song writing skills, vocals and top rate organ chops to many performing and recording acts, among them Gare Du Nord, Laura Vane & The Vipertones, The Soul Snatchers and Licks & Brains. Montis’ cooperation with saxophonist Rolf Delfos, Delmontis, released the acclaimed album Straighforward Fascination in 2012. In whatever setting Montis plays, his roots in classic organ jazz, if somewhat in the background, are evident. If it was in the hands of Flophouse, Montis would spend more time playing bluesy and funky organ jazz in the style of Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff, who have always been Montis’ main Hammond B3 influences. Over the years, the Hammond organist has occasionally performed with his group Organ Tonation. Just recently, Montis shacked up with guitarist Anton Goudsmit and drummer Cyril Directie, forming Montis, Goudsmit & Directie, digging deep into groovy soul jazz. Seems like Montis is answering prayers.

Check out the funky and boogaloo-y side of Frank Montis here in a recent studio cooperation with drummer Marc Schenk.

Find the website of Frank Montis here.

Montis, Goudsmit & Directie perform at JazzyTiel November 5.

Clear The Dex

September 25, 2016October 27, 2016 - Francois Leave a comment

NEW RELEASE: ERIC INEKE – Watch that ride cymbal beat. Whether it’s Cheese Cake, Sticky Wicket or Soy Califa that the Eric Ineke JazzXpress covers on the Dexter Gordon tribute album Dexternity, it’s the asset that makes this thing swing. If there’s anyone in the European jazz area well-equiped to showcase the music of Dexter Gordon, it’s Eric Ineke. The Dutch drummer worked with the modern jazz legend from 1972 till 1977. Instead of picking local European rhythm sections, the Copenhagen-based tenor saxophonist relied mainly on the highly dedicated and dependable ‘working band’ of pianist Rein de Graaff, bassist Henk Haverhoek and Eric Ineke.

Dex, clearly, is in his bones. The 69-year old Ineke showcases a hard bop sensibility that permeades the entire set of Ineke’s group, which celebrated its ten-year anniversary this year. His ride gallops frivolously but steadily and his bass kick, single strokes and fills, in responsive sync with the fat-bottomed, tasteful double bass playing of long-time Ineke associate, bassist Marius Beets, ask urgent questions that their fellow members answer with zest: Sjoerd Dijkhuizen, a strong-toned tenorist who likes to reach for fluency in Mobley/Dex-fashion and in the tradition of Dutch hard bop pioneer Ferdinand Povel, has particularly alluring moments in Fried Bananas, taking gutsy left turns away from the changes, embellishing them with an occasional edgy overtone. Meanwhile, trumpeter Rik Mol accounts for a nice contrast with a cleaner, somewhat more understated kind of swing.

Ineke freely advocates his fondness for Elvin Jones-type cross rhythm in, for instance, the only non-Gordon tune on the album, Body And Soul (that, as Gordon professed, ‘should be played every night’). Lithe cross rhythm as part of the interaction with soloist Rob van Bavel, who puts in lines of exquisite cadence and breathy voicings. Van Bavel, subsequently, provides lyrical backing on the enchanting Gordon melody Tivoli, a platform for soothing soprano sax statements from Dijkhuizen and, not least, dense, intense harmony of soprano and trumpet. Together Dijkhuizen and Mol sound like sirens luring seamen from behind the rocky mountains of the Greek coast with their ephemeral melodies. Details like these add flavor to a supurb contemporary reading of the real deal, American jazz from the fifties and sixties.

The Eric Ineke JazzXpress

Dexternity is The Eric Ineke JazzXpress’ sixth album released by Challenge/Daybreak on September 16. Find the link here. Liner notes by Maxine Gordon and Eric Ineke. Read my recent interview with Eric Ineke, who performed and recorded with a host of American legends, here.

Trane, Lee & Helen

September 12, 2016September 12, 2016 - Francois Leave a comment

It seems that nowadays every three months or so a jazz movie is released. What’s happening? Must be something in the Kentucky Bourbon. First Whiplash, then Don Cheadle’s Miles Ahead, Robert Budreau’s Chet Baker movie Born To Be Blue, and documentaries on both John Coltrane and Lee Morgan. For decades we had to make do with Bertrand Tavernier’s ‘Round Midnight (starring Dexter Gordon, who’s largely responsible for making it the best jazz movie ever) and Clint Eastwood’s Bird, now jazz pictures roll off the assembly line like chocolate letters during Santa Claus season.

Lots of talking heads crowd the Coltrane biopic, John Scheinfeld’s Chasing Trane, including the former saxophone colossus of the White House, Bill “Slightly Drawling Behind The Beat” Clinton:

Chasing Trane

A lot of unreleased studio photography and footage seems to appear in Kasper Collin’s I Called Him Morgan, tickling the senses of hard bop aficionados around the globe:

I Called Him Morgan

To this day, the story of how Lee Morgan took a slug at Slugs’ from his common-law wife Helen in 1972 has remained a dramatic, horrible and hyper-real slice of classic jazz history. Let’s go back to a revealing, detailed account from drummer Billy Hart in his interview with Ethan Iverson of 2006. (The interview itself is one of many truly fascinating, long Iverson interviews on his Do The Math blog) Scroll to about three/fourths of the page:

Billy Hart about the death of Lee Morgan

Below are listed three albums from the Flophouse vault: Coltrane and Morgan’s sole cooperation on wax, Blue Train (Blue Note 1577, 1957); Lee Morgan’s The Sidewinder (Blue Note/United Artists 84157, 1972-75, France); Coltrane Time (Solid State 7013, 1970; previously issued on United Artists in 1963 and as Cecil Taylor’s Hard Driving Jazz (United Artists, 1959)

Tonesmith

August 29, 2016October 26, 2016 - Francois Leave a comment

Trumpeter Louis Smith passed away on August 20 at the age of 85. Memphis-born Smith, who finally settled in Ann-Arbor, Michigan, was in the limelight very shortly, when Blue Note released Here Comes Louis Smith in 1958. Originally, that session was recorded for Transition. As the story goes, when Transition folded, Cannonball Adderley recommended the session to Blue Note boss Alfred Lion. Adderley, under contract to Mercury, appeared on the album as ‘Buckshot La Funke’. The album showcases a crackerjack trumpeter who played in the Clifford Brown/Fats Navarro tradition and added steaming, sizzling blues phrases, a style best likened, perhaps, to Blue Mitchell. Smith’s second album, Smithville, included pianist Sonny Clark.

Smith recorded for Steeplechase throughout his career but stayed under the radar mostly, concentrating on teaching instead. Dutch pianist Rein de Graaff, always eager to lure unsung heroes out of hiding, invited Smith to The Netherlands for a series of acclaimed performances in the eighties. Recently, De Graaff recounted to me a sojourn in Detroit, when Louis Smith took De Graaff to a gig, ‘deep in the bowels of the Afro-American community. The kind of place where white people usually do not dare thread. There was this big hall, and I was the only white person around. Honestly, I was a bit scared, there were more than a few hostile glances from the audience, you know. But once I’d sat in, the hostility disappeared. Louis was great. Jazz is the shared language, you know.”

More Than Meets The ‘Ear’

August 28, 2016September 4, 2016 - Francois Leave a comment

Engineer Rudy van Gelder passed away this week on Thursday, August the 25th. Mr. Van Gelder, not surprisingly, is a trending topic. Already during the pioneering engineer’s lifetime, Van Gelder acquired a mythic status among jazz lovers around the globe. Serious jazz collectors discuss ‘original’ pressings of Van Gelder’s Blue Note albums and the famous ‘ear’ mark in the dead wax on the world wide web on a daily basis. Van Gelder isn’t the only audio legend (For instance, Roy DuNann and Tom Dowd enjoy a dedicated following) but certainly has been the most widely revered in jazz history. Besides his brilliant, revolutionary engineering, RvG’s association with Blue Note is responsible for his status. There was a certain mystique as to how Van Gelder created the label’s poignantly warm, transparent and spacious sound. Occasional criticism – through the overuse of reverb Van Gelder recordings sometimes seem personal soundscapes instead of palettes attuned to the special features of the involved artistic personalities – seems, if justifiable serious audio geek-critique, a bit presumptuous to me in the light of Van Gelder’s countless gifts to the jazz world. It is evident that Rudy van Gelder’s role in shaping modern jazz is everlasting and paramount.

Naturally, Van Gelder didn’t work exclusively for Blue Note in his legendary Hackensack and Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey studios, but also for Prestige, Impulse, Atlantic, Verve, CTI and a few other labels. The list of albums that Van Gelder is associated with is endless. A peek through DG Mono‘s helpful Van Gelder jazz discography up to 1966 – the classic years – has a dizzying effect. To name but a few classic Van Gelder albums: John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, Sonny Rollins’ Saxophone Colossus, Lee Morgan’s The Sidewinder, Eric Dolphy’s Out To Lunch and Miles Davis’ Walkin’.

Below, I have listed a few lesser-known albums that were engineered by Rudy Van Gelder. Exceptions to the RvG rule for a number of, hardly shocking but evident, reasons:

Signal 1206, 1957

Portrait Of Sheila, Blue Note 9002

Impulse, A25, 1962

Van Gelder rarely recorded for Signal. Figures, the label was short-lived and the catalogue was taken over by Savoy in the late fifties. RvG engineered Gigi Gryce, Duke Jordan, Red Rodney… And?; Blue Note eschewed singers but made an exception for Sheila Jordan. Van Gelder rarely worked with singers – Johnny Hartman for Impulse, Etta Jones for Prestige – but captures Jordan at her spine-shivering best; Van Gelder is synonymous with quintet line-ups, the classic hard bop format. However, his job with swing giant Count Basie turned out pretty swell.

Prestige 8321, 1965

Blue Note 8297, 1963

Prestige PR 7800, 1963

Latin Soul is one of the few latin jazz recordings that Van Gelder did for Prestige. Commercial but swinging stuff; African High Life was characteristic West-African dance music, the album’s an odd Blue Note release; Must’ve been somethin’ else for RvG to check in folk singer Dave van Ronk after a few days with the front-liners of Blue Note like Andrew Hill and Grachan Monchur III! However well-prepared, it’s like eating kidney stew after a long-awaited evening at El Bulli.

God’s a kind of a less-is-more kind of guy. In fact, the penultimate silence is His trade. Which may be the best music after all. But I know RvG is gonna change that scene.

A View From The Stage

May 28, 2016September 24, 2016 - Francois Leave a comment

Bass player Henk Haverhoek put up pictures of his gigs with classic jazz men on his website. Check it out: snapshots of Dutch jazz history.

(From left clockwise: Johnny Griffin and Henk Haverhoek; guitarist Rene Thomas, Eric Ineke and Henk Haverhoek; portrait of Henk Haverhoek)

American jazz musicians have traveled and lived in Europe since the thirties. The migration was at its peak in the sixties and musicians concentrated predominantly in Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Amsterdam: visitors without rhythm sections, which made them dependent on local musicians. Not everyone was up to it, but talented journeymen or pros succeeded in combining a deep passion for the music of their American heroes with versatility and studiousness, maturing greatly from playing with these iron-willed jazz individuals.

Among them was bassist Henk Haverhoek, who has been active both in the Dutch jazz scene and internationally, as well as a studio/theatre/radio show musician and teacher since the mid-sixties. In 1968, Haverhoek joined pianist Rein de Graaff and saxophonist Dick Vennik’s hard bop/modal jazz quartet, which recorded and performed prolifically and succesfully in the late sixties and seventies. Haverhoek and the quartet supported, among others, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt, Johnny Griffin, Charlie Rouse, Clifford Jordan, Freddie Hubbard, Junior Cook, Woody Shaw and Lee Konitz. Haverhoek also played with Ben Webster, Duke Jordan, Mal Waldron, Horace Parlan, Thad Jones, Slide Hampton and Joe Henderson. Could’ve done worse.

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