Jeremy Pelt - NYC Jazz Record

Jeremy Pelt
Water & Earth

 

Trumpeter Jeremy Pelt sets the tone quickly with his

newest release. An ever-present, oscillating Rhodes

played by David Bryant slides into place alongside

Burniss Earl Travis’ sympathetic bass for half a minute.

Pelt enters gently, building up steam until a Return to

Forever-esque vocal chorus soars with him. In just

under an hour, with the aid of voices, electricity and

effects, Pelt experiments with a psychedelic soul sound

without abandoning his command of the straightahead.

 

He has written all but one of the tunes. “Mystique”

and “Meditations on a Conversation We Had” hold the

spirit of Pelt’s straightahead leanings. He gives a

confident, blaring solo over the quickly moving

changes on the former while Bryant switches to piano

on the latter, swaying gently on Pelt’s breathy ballad.

“Boom Bishop” is the most adventurous track. Pelt

plugs in, getting his wah on and getting downright

funky on the extended workout. It’s a departure but it

grooves. “Stay” quickly digs into some post-production

with effects heaped on everyone’s performances.

Bryant’s Rhodes pans rapidly from left to right in

almost nauseating fashion while Frank LoCrasto lays

down some decaying keyboard effects. Vocalist Ra-Re

Valverde grooves with herself in a swirling call-and-

response. Drummer Dana Hawkins keeps it funky as

he does throughout the record. Pelt stretches out nicely

on “Pieces of a Dream”, Travis’ low-end splat bouncing

off of the trumpeter’s streaking sound before letting

tenor saxophonist Roxy Coss wail over Hawkins’

perpetual syncopated snap.

 

The liner notes consist of a single promise from

Pelt: “This music isn’t about a change in direction as

much as it’s about strengthening my commitment to

my art at present.” There will likely be some people

caught off guard by the amount of electrical outlets

required by Pelt’s new direction and whether they’re

all necessary will probably take a couple of releases to

sort out. In the meantime, this is a promising exploration

into a new realm.

 

Jeremy Pelt @ NYC Jazz Record

Joe Lovano's Us Five - DownBeat

On Jan. 22, saxophonist Joe Lovano brought Us Five to the Mint in Los Angeles. The quintet—including pianist James Weidman, bassist Esperanza Spalding and drummers Otis Brown III and Francisco Mela—played for nearly two hours and matched the giddy enthusiasm of the standing-room-only audience of 200.

Lovano was a towering presence throughout the night. The spotlight reflected off his large silver medallion as he wordlessly gazed above the crowd. He opened with a brief solo intro before the band jumped in on “Us Five,” a track from the group’s 2009 Folk Artalbum. From there, each band member took turns introducing themselves with a fast-paced solo.

The majority of the set focused on Lovano’s compositions and Us Five’s newest release,Cross Culture. Lovano’s horn, dense and boisterous, flirted with the outer realm but always maintained a pulsating accessibility. On “PM,” Brown and Mela gave an impressive display of guttural drive, seamlessly finishing each other’s phrases. Lovano had the best spot in the house for their interplay, nodding along while nestled between both kits. Weidman started a slow solo that built into a fiery abyss before giving way to Spalding.

A remarkable part of the show was the devout attention paid to the bassist. Every time Spalding took a solo, a pin-drop silence washed over the otherwise chatty crowd.

Lovano made brief dalliances with Charlie Parker’s “Ko-Ko” before drifting away from the rapid-fire melody. He returned fully committed to Parker for “Yardbird Suite.” After a rubato intro from Lovano, Brown and Mela punctuated each other’s deft swing. It was as straightahead as things got for the set, and it didn’t last long. Lovano blew a bellowing honk before Weidman dug deep into a searching solo, while “Star Crossed Lovers,” the lone standard on Cross Culture, was a breathy ballad that lowered the pulse of the room a little. Lovano stretched out, giving a thoughtful solo that rang with an honest awareness.

Lovano returned alone for an encore. He walked into the darkness of the room without amplification and blew a heartfelt swirl for the encircling audience. He was briefly transformed into a wandering busker, capturing the intimacy of the tiny venue. It was a raw display of artistry and the perfect end to a memorable set.

Joe Lovano @ DownBeat

Howlin' Wolf & Muddy Waters - OC Weekly

Wolf and Waters enjoy a refreshing beverage.

The American blues sound overtook England in the 1960s like no other. Limey guitar slingers like John Mayall, Peter Green and Jimmy Page worked up their tolerance to whiskey, mastered the blues scale and made more money than every American blues musician that came before them. In the early 1970s, two of those American bluesmen-- Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters--came to London separately to record a couple of albums with a studio full of high-profile British appreciators. The results were worth considerably less than their parts. 

It's a story you're not likely to hear when it comes to the myths of both of these guitar gods, who are both being celebrated at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall tomorrow during Blues at the Crossroads 2. Anchored by Grammy-nominated blues band the Fabulous Thunderbirds--the backing band for the night--revered blues artists will take turns riffing on the best of Howling' Wolf and Muddy Waters. With every bent note and lighting fast riff, masters like James Cotton, Jody Williams, Bob Margolin and Tinsley Ellis will show their appreciation to these blues giants. Though there's no shortage of American players indebted to the sound these men left behind, they did have quite a hand in lighting a fire under the asses of some legendary UK musicians while they were alive.

Howlin' Wolf, born Chester Burnett, and Muddy Waters, born McKinley Morganfield, were both raised in Mississippi in the early 1910s but found success with their guttural blues in Chicago with the famed Chess Records. Between the two of them, the standard repertoire for nearly every blues band was written and recorded. Wolf wrote "Killing Floor" and "How Many More Years" while Waters, with the pen of Willie Dixon, had success in the late 1950s with "I Just Want to Make Love to You," "Mannish Boy" and "Hoochie Coochie Man."

Waters is credited with helping usher in the blues craze in England with a visit to London in 1958, inspiring thousands of bar bands, resulting in groups like the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds. Long-haired bluesmen were the opposition to baroque pop bands like the Beatles and the Hollies, but they shared plenty of airplay in America and the UK. By the 1970s, second and third generation bluesmen were bigger draws than the originators of the sound. Thankfully, they knew their obligation to the masters.

Howlin' Wolf was the first to cross the pond and he was paired with the cream of the crop: Guitarist Eric Clapton, Rolling Stones' pianist Ian Stewart, bassist Bill Wyman, drummer Charlie Watts and a Beatle, Ringo Starr. They recorded a set of blues standards from the Chess catalog that found the Wolf not so much howlin' as groanin'. The band is eager but not nearly wizened enough for the task, resulting in a overall sound that is lacking in confidence and direction. Stewart's constant trilling piano notes can drive a man insane but American teenaged harmonica player Jeffrey Carp lends a weight far beyond his years.

Waters followed a year later. He was paired with keyboardists Steve Winwood and Georgie Fame plus drummer Mitch Mitchell. Chess stuck with the same formula and got the same results. Waters was healthier and a little more playful but most of the retreads don't add anything new to the originals. Irish guitarist Rory Gallagher shines on "Walkin' Blues" mostly because it is a stripped-down duet with Waters.

There are better places to start with all of the artists involved. Howlin' Wolf's self-titled 1962 release is a masterwork that provided three of the songs for his London sessions. Waters' 1960 set at the Newport Jazz Festival is one of the best live albums ever recorded in any genre. Even Waters' psychedelic blues experiment Electric Mud, recorded in Chicago in 1967, managed to take Waters to a new place including an amusing cover of the Rolling Stones "Let's Spend the Night Together."

Regardless of the quality of the UK experiments, both records sold well, placing in the Billboard charts and introducing many rockheads, both British and American, to the roots of the blues sound. Hopefully once listeners were introduced, they sought out the real deal.

Muddy Waters & Howlin' Wolf @ OC Weekly

Definitive Guide to Music of Big Lebowski - LA Weekly

LA Weekly celebrated the 15th Anniversary of the Big Lebowski with a soundtrack breakdown...

Song: "I Got It Bad (and That Ain't Good)" (1962)
Performer: Nina Simone
Where the song is heard: "Tell me about yourself, Jeffrey," says Maude Lebowski in a post-coital haze. As all four minutes of "I Got It Bad" play out, the two lie naked between the sheets, while the Dude puffs on a roach, tells his life story, uses the bathroom, makes a White Russian, calls Walter and learns Maude's reason for seducing him: She wants a baby.

Simone's sultry tune was written by Duke Ellington and included in his Jump for Joy musical revue, which premiered at the Mayan Theater in downtown Los Angeles in 1941. The project featured an all-black cast, and was an early statement by the jazz legend addressing civil rights. Vocalist Ivie Anderson performed "I Got It Bad" 101 times during the show's run, and the sensitive ballad became an instant classic, with everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to Louis Prima to Thelonious Monk tackling it.

Twenty-one years after Anderson, Nina Simone recorded the track as part of Nina Simone Sings Ellington, a 1962 tribute album. Her label, Colpix, pulled out all the stops for the ambitious project, employing a full orchestra and the Malcolm Dodd Singers, who provided a soothing, gospel hush to the record. Simone's interpretation is a slow burn, with the glacial tempo pushed gently by the drummer's brushes while the orchestra quietly punctuates her husky vibrato. It's a masterful display of minimalism and control, which closes with a 10-second scat flourish, enough to secure Simone's place as the "High Priestess of Soul."

How does all of this tie in with the Dude and Maude? It doesn't, although their conversation shows that he, too, has undertaken a bit of activism in his day. ("I was one of the authors of the Port Huron Statement. The original Port Huron Statement. Not the compromised second draft.") Oh, and like Maude, by the time Simone shot the cover photo for Ellington, she, too, was pregnant. 

Big Lebowski @ LA Weekly

Talking #BAM with Nicholas Payton - LA Weekly

Michael Wilson

In person, the bearded and bald-headed Nicholas Payton does not look like one of the most polarizing figures in modern jazz. The 39-year-old trumpeter is a calm and quiet presence. Whether he intended to or not, however, after posting a blog entry in late 2011 entitled "On Why Jazz Isn't Cool Anymore," a blizzard of controversy descended upon him, inciting late night, off-the-record conversations that prompted twice as many questions as answers.

The rub? Payton's determination to do away with the term "jazz" in favor of the phrase "Black American Music" or as his tweets have fashionably reduced it, "#BAM."

Payton is the New Orleans-born son of bassist Walter Payton, and appeared on the scene in the early 1990s as a brash young lion, releasing a string of records on Verve and winning a Grammy at the age of 23. Right now he's in town teaching private lessons at the Monk Institute at UCLA, and hosts a master class (a lecture and discussion) this Thursday at Schoenberg Hall.

"I wasn't trying to start anything," Payton says of the incendiary post. "It wasn't even fully conceived. I was tweeting off the dome and after a certain amount of time I took all the tweets and put them in order."

Here are some examples from the piece:

Playing Jazz is like using the rear-view mirror to drive your car on the freeway.

People are too afraid to let go of a name that is killing the spirit of the music.

Payton followed by responding to detractors with open letters, addressing fellow musicians like saxophonist Marcus Strickland, trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, bassist Christian McBride and saxophonist Branford Marsalis. Through them he outlined his disappointment, and strengthened his argument.

"People always try to use European ideology to tear down Black music, to try and make the claim that Black people appropriated European harmony," says Payton. "Europeans didn't create harmony. It exists first of all in nature. We are all harmonic beings. Blacks haven't appropriated European harmony as much as those rules that govern Western thought have been used as a way of legitimatizing or discrediting the Black American aesthetic."

His only other post for November 2011 is entitled "On Meditation and Taking a Shit," while his tweets are frequently dedicated to sex or tagged with the hashtag #MFCOMN which stands for "Motherfuckers chillin' on my nutz." Perhaps that's why he's drawn so much controversy: It's not so much the message as the messenger.

He is not lacking in confidence. however, and is happy to take on those that don't agree. "What are you gonna really say?" says Payton of his critics. "You can disagree with me but it doesn't make it any less true."

He's a bit weary of speaking on the subject, but also aware of his need to continue the discussion. "I'm going to have to stand by what I said."

Of course, Payton is not just sitting at home tweeting. He is an active performer and recently released #BAM - Live at Bohemian Caverns on his BMF imprint. The album is a raucous set that features Payton not only on trumpet but grinding out a vicious electric keyboard sound -- simultaneously. The man can clearly play, and he felt it was important to remind people of that.

"I've been blacklisted to some degree. I have some promoters who won't fool with me now, but do I really want to play those venues anyway? I'm working. I don't say nearly the things cats like Miles Davis and Mingus said. Sometimes you have to deliver a message a certain way and people will hear it. That blog post for some reason -- the wording, the flow, the pace, the timing -- was meant to happen that way and for it to have the impact that it had in that moment. If I had tried to create the response, I couldn't do it."

Nicholas Payton @ LA Weekly

Nicholas Payton - BMF - NYC Jazz Record

Trumpeter Nicholas Payton has made waves lately
more on the heels of his social media prowess than
with his trumpet. His BAM (Black American Music)
movement has prompted more late-night, off-the-record
conversations than one could have ever
imagined. As the leader of a bold idea, naturally, his
recorded output has been held to higher scrutiny. His
last release, Bitches, was a foray into cathartic R&B but
for this album, his first for his BMF record label, he
returns to an instrumental sound with a stripped-down
band of bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Lenny
White. Curiously, what rises to the surface on this
record is Payton’s way with a keyboard. Throughout
the live date, the smooth but talkative leader spends as
much time seated at the Rhodes as blasting his horn.

The album kicks off with Payton in duet with
himself, his plaintive trumpet cry matched by sparse
chords. He alternates between pinched trumpet and a
plucky Rhodes solo before briefly riding Wayne
Shorter’s quartal “Witch Hunt” riff on his trumpet
with punchy electricity. On “Catlett Outta the Bag”, a
White original, Payton gets downright funky on the
Rhodes, digging into a distorted stride as White beats
the hell out of his kit. It’s an impressive display that
seems to take the audience a bit by surprise. The
applause is spacious and hesitant. They get a confident
solo from Archer to sort things out. If that surprised
them, then who knows what “The African Tinge” did.
The 14-minute jam is a non-stop barrage of screaming
Rhodes, somersaulting backbeats and rocketing
trumpet pyrotechnics. “Frankie and Johnny” closes the
set with a smooth swing. Archer takes a rumbling solo
over White’s effortless brushes as the band takes their
time with the mellow blues.

The set runs a high-energy 80 minutes over just 7
tracks with clinking silverware and Payton’s quiet
storm patter tying it all together, an engaging live date
that reminds us why Payton’s opinions are given the
weight they are in the first place.

Nicholas Payton @ NYC Jazz Record

"Out There" Creator Ryan Quincy - LA Weekly

IFC Television

Emmy-winning animator Ryan Quincy has always dreamed of having his own show. During the decade and a half he spent working his way up to animation director for South Park, he spent his hiatuses creating a world entirely his own, inhabited by hairy but harmless creatures just trying to sort out the difficulties of adolescence.

Now, following in the footsteps of primetime animators like Mike Judge and Seth MacFarlane, Quincy is having that dream fulfilled. Out There, which Quincy created, wrote, directed and produced, premiered on IFC last Friday. He spoke to us by phone to explain how a relative unknown lands his own animated TV show and manages to secure voice talent like Megan Mulally, Kate Micucci and Fred Armisen to help make it come to life.

How did you end up making a living through animation?

I was always sort of aimless in school. I liked to make movies. I liked to draw. The college I went to in Nebraska had an art program only offered one animation class. I took it and I really enjoyed it. I never had any formal animation training prior to that.

After I graduated from college I floundered in Lincoln, Nebraska for a year. There wasn't going to be anything too fulfilling there so I moved to L.A. to sleep on a friend's couch and pursue animation. When I first moved to L.A. I moved right next door to the animation director of South Park. [South Park creators] Trey Parker and Matt Stone lived across the street. It was a total coincidence. They had just started the TV show that year.

The stars were aligned there but they were fully staffed then so I didn't get a job. I kept stumbling along and dumb luck got me to this job doing the interstitials on Mad TV, parodies of Rankin/Bass stuff like a Rudolph meets Scorsese. We did a South Park parody where we actually did cut-out construction paper stuff. When the job was done, I had that on my demo reel and saw that the South Park movie was hiring. I got the job with theSouth Park movie and ended up staying with them for 14 years, but in between seasons I was working on my animated shorts.

Your shorts eventually led to you getting a TV deal. How was the process of producing your own show?

It was a lot more challenging than I thought. A lot more daunting. Once I got the call from IFC that they'd picked up ten episodes, you'd think I would be elated but I was white as a ghost. I was thinking, "What lies ahead here?" I was coming from a show that was pretty streamlined and had the system down and I had to start from scratch. There were huge challenges like expanding the world, the casting, figuring out full stories.

Who were your influences in creating Out There?

Definitely all the Charles Schulz material, the comic strips and the animated stuff. I think there is a kindred spirit with that stuff. People have asked me if this is the South Park kids in high school but I feel it's more in the Peanuts universe. Artistically, a lot of children's book authors like Dr. Seuss, Richard Scary, Maurice Sendak and William Steig. Those were big influences on my style. I like stuff where there are is frog and a monster and just weird looking characters and you don't really question it. They just are who they are.

And now you've got actors like Jason Schwartzman, Sarah Silverman and Nick Offerman guesting?

Twentieth Century Fox is the production company. They have a partnership with IFC so I had access to one of their casting directors, who had cast Futurama and King of the Hill. He already knew a lot of these folks and that was huge to have access to people like Pamela Adlon and John Dimaggio. I was amazed when they said give us your wish list and they were like, "Yeah, this person is in." Everyone was really cool to work with.

Yet you are voicing the main character.

When I did the shorts, that was very low-budget, do it yourself, get favors from your friends. I just did it out of necessity, the voice of the main character. A lot of things were autobiographical like passing out in sex ed class and working at Dairy Queen. When the show got picked up, we were talking about casting and IFC said the only voice they wanted to bring over was the main character, Chad. I was like, "You gotta be shitting me."

I'm not really doing a voice. It's just my own voice. They were very adamant. That was something that took me by surprise and I thought, "Oh man everyone is going to think this is some kind of vanity project." I was resistant and nervous at first but I got over being annoyed at how bad my voice sounds.

Ryan Quincy @ LA Weekly

Darryl Jones on Miles Davis - LA Weekly

Juan Morse

Darryl Jones (left), Ndugu Chancler (center), John Beasley (right)

Bassist Darryl Jones should be a household name. His fluid, funky low end has supported at least a dozen of the biggest concert draws of the last 30 years, starting with Miles Davis' band when he was just 21. When Sting left the Police for a solo career in the mid-'80s, Jones was the man he hired to play bass. He supported Madonna in her prime on the Blond Ambition tour and for the last 20 years he has played on every gig and album by the Rolling Stones. Now, for the first time in his career, Jones is stepping into the spotlight.

Alongside keyboardist John Beasley and famed session drummer Ndugu Chancler, Jones has launched a new project called 3 Brave Souls. All three men worked for Miles Davis but their tenures did not overlap. Beasley and Jones became close in a Miles alumni band; when Chancler became available, the trio buckled down and recorded their self-titled album of groove-slathered funk, in two weeks

See also: John Beasley Is Crazy For Putting a Big Band Together in This Day and Age

"When we were in the studio, John said, 'It'd be nice if we had one or two vocal tunes.' I chimed in and said I had a tune that might be good for that and he made me a man of my word," says a bemused Jones by phone. "That's my first real lead on a record."

Raised on a steady diet of jazz and soul in Chicago, Jones wandered from the drums to the guitar before settling on the electric bass. He started gigging and recording while still a teenager with artists like Pops Staples and regional blues star Little Oscar. Through his friend Vince Wilburn Jr, who happened to be Miles Davis' nephew, Jones landed an audition with the Prince of Darkness, lasting with him for four years during the 1980s.

"One of the most important things that I learned from working with Miles was to listen actively to the musicians around you. It's one of the things that allows the magic in music to happen," says Jones. "If you are in your house late at night and you hear an unfamiliar sound, there is a way that you listen that is very different from when you are listening to the radio in the shower. That kind of hyper vigilant listening, where you are not only listening to what the musicians are playing but are trying to tune into what the musicians intention is. That kind of attention is what allows the kind of music that Miles has been so famous for to occur."

Within 10 years of joining Miles' band, Jones found himself filling the bass chair for the Rolling Stones. After befriending Keith Richards, he aced his audition and seamlessly switched from jazz legends to rock legends. Soon he was playing in front of crowds of over one hundred thousand people, eventually peaking in 2006 in Rio de Janeiro with an audience estimated at 1.5 million. "That was kind of transcendent. I remember Keith starting 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' and the feeling from the audience...When there are that many people there, you can physically feel it."

Through it all Jones has kept his funky chops in tact. It's hard to imagine a jazz musician ever getting the chance to play before more than a few thousand people, but it doesn't seem to have fazed the low-key Jones. In his opinion, an intimate jazz venue can be just as rewarding as playing to a crowd the size of Rhode Island. Discovering a new element of expression in his early '50s seems to have really helped. "I'm excited about beginning vocals as a secondary instrument. I really do love lyrics and singing and I looking forward to get more experience doing it," he says. "And hopefully I'll get better at it."

Darryl Jones @ LA Weekly

Blue Note's Don Was interview - LA Weekly

Rick Diamond

Don Was is a frequent sight at shows around L.A. He's hard to miss: all hair, hat, sunglasses, and smiles. He made a name for himself as a bass player with Was (Not Was) as well as a producer for the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Bonnie Raitt. Last year, he became the president of Blue Note Records. Around the same time, we took the label to task for what had become a gradual dilution of a great legacy.

See also: Blue Note Records' Troubling New Direction

Blue Note released some of the most important jazz albums of the 1950s and 1960s but since the turn of the century had opted for a radio-friendly folk vibe that left jazz fans scratching their heads. One of Was' first signings was saxophonist Wayne Shorter, who plays Walt Disney Concert Hall Saturday to promote his first record with the label in over 40 years. In our interview below, Was talks about his work at the label.

What was your relationship with Blue Note before you started working there?

In the '60s, when my peers were in the throes of Jimi Hendrix, David Was and I were Blue Note fanatics. At that time there used to be record stores that were mom and pop stores. Every record store had a completely different inventory that reflected the personality of the owner. So we'd call around record stores on the other side of Detroit and see if they had a copy of something we hadn't seen before. We'd hop on a bus and ride forty-five minutes just to see the records. We didn't have the bread to buy them. Stereo copies were like $4.99. We just went to hold them and read the credits. It was more than just music. It was a lifestyle, a cultural force, especially those photographs by Francis Wolff -- the room with no walls and smoke everywhere. I wanted to be one of those guys. The way people reacted to the Beatles or the Stones or Bob Dylan when I was a teenager, Blue Note was that force. And it's something I never really lost but it was never my intention to work at a record company.

How does one become the president of Blue Note records if they aren't looking for it?

It was Dan McCarroll, who's an old friend of mine and a great musician. He is the president of Capitol Records and we met for breakfast. We weren't even talking about music. It was just a friendly breakfast and I had gone to see this singer the night before, Gregory Porter, at a club up in Harlem. He was great. I loved him. As we were leaving the restaurant I asked Dan, "Is Blue Note Records still part of the Capitol group 'cause if it is you should sign this guy I saw last night.' And that turned into, 'Maybe I should sign him.' It was an irresistible offer.

I understood it was a challenge but I kind of had a sense of what to do. It wasn't that hard to see that you can't keep recreating the 1960s and that was not what the music of the '60s was about. That was radical revolutionary music in reaction to the rules of 1950s bebop. That first Jazz Messengers album is as radical a departure as what Wayne [Shorter] and Herbie [Hancock] were doing with Speak No Evil and Maiden Voyage. Repeating things that happened 40 years ago is not the idea. It's taking the aesthetic behind that and moving it forward but we still have to be the best jazz label we can be.

How hard is it to keep the different factions happy? The artists? The executives?

Well, running a label, if you distill it down to its basics is really kind of simple. You try and make really great records that are really going to touch people. Maybe you can't touch all the people all the time with all the music but everything you put out has got to put people in touch with their feelings. There was a great interview with Bob Dylan in Rolling Stoneabout six months ago. He said some of the most profound stuff I've ever heard. He said, 'My job is not to get up on stage and tell you how I'm feeling every night. No one cares about that. It's my job to get up there and put people in touch with their own feelings.' And that's really true and it's something that is really kind of overlooked. I never heard it expressed that way. So you want to make records that make people feel something and then let as many people know about it as possible and trust that people actually do have taste and will gravitate to the music. It's not that hard.

What I was concerned about was having to read profit/loss statements and get into the financial stuff. Truth be told it's actually kind of fascinating to see how the thing works. I've been making records for 35 years and never really understood how it worked. Now I see why certain records I thought should have happened didn't happen and what could've been done to make that happen.

How have things changed with you at the helm?

There's a whole different vibe now at Blue Note. There really seems to be a return to instinct. The records that we love from years ago were all made by entrepreneurs -- Ahmet Ertegun, Chris Blackwell, Jac Holzman and Alfred Lion -- guys gambling with their own bread with really good instincts. That's what the record business is about. You can't really run it by profit/loss statements. You have to be willing to operate on instincts and that's the climate here. It's a musical climate as opposed to a financial climate and that is a huge difference.

Don Was @ LA Weekly

Dexter Gordon - NYC Jazz Record

Dexter Gordon
Satin Doll - Live in Stockholm


In June of 1967, Dexter Gordon was 44 years old. He
had been steadily blasting east from Los Angeles to
New York before hopping the Atlantic in 1962.
Copenhagen became his home base for the remainder
of the ‘60s and much of the ‘70s, with the Montmartre
Jazzhus becoming his regular office. 15 years ago Blue
Note Records unearthed recordings of Gordon backed
by pianist Kenny Drew, bassist Bo Stief and drummer
Art Taylor. This newest collection hails from that same
summer engagement, pitting Gordon against Taylor’s
popping snare for three epic battles while Kenny Drew
rows the boat for a Gordon ballad standby.

The album opens with the swinging title track,
finding Gordon working the full range of his horn in
honks and hoots as Taylor dances boisterously around
his phrases. In the liner notes, Stief speaks of his
nervousness on the gig. Only 20 and surrounded by
legends, it was understandable but none of that
apprehension is heard on “It’s You or No One”, as he
takes an extended, brisk quarter-note solo. Gordon is
especially intense, locked in with Taylor. “Darn That
Dream” gets a flowery accompaniment from Drew that
allows Gordon to stretch out, Taylor sticking to brushes
as Drew digs into his own tasteful moment in the
spotlight. “Billie’s Bounce” closes out the set with a
playful spoken intro from Gordon before the band
launches into a slightly reworked spin on Charlie
Parker’s melody. Each member gets plenty of room to
open up as Taylor closes out the solos, trading 12-bar
intervals before seemingly driving the drum kit
straight through the floor.

The playing is delightfully fierce. Gordon and
Taylor give it everything they’ve got on the bandstand,
with “It’s You or No One” and “Billie’s Bounce”
combining for a running time of over 35 minutes. How
many more of these recordings lie in the vault? And
how soon can we hear them?

Dexter Gordon @ NYC Jazz Record