Some seriously funky music coming up, followed by jazz legends.
Earth, Wind & Fire – All’n All – They were so great. There is this 4-3 suspension on “Fantasy” that slays me each time (“…as o-o-o-o-one”), and Phillip Bailey’s bit at the end is incredible. There are some seriously fusion moments on here, and a nice taste of “Ponte De Areia” from Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer.
Earth, Wind & Fire – That’s the Way of the World – Phew. Slammin’. Alex Henderson of the AllMusic Guide writes, “…but if a person could only own one EWF release, the logical choice would be That’s the Way of the World,” and yes, this has to do with hits, but man, the music is incredible, independent of its commercial success.
Earth, Wind & Fire – Gratitude – Man, this live record is slammin’! I was always a bit leery of live albums – except jazz records, for obvious reasons. But with pop, rock, prog, and funk albums, you often end up with Kiss Alive, which has the worst bass solo of all time on it. Or you end up with Rush’s Exit…Stage Left et al, and my issue with those records is that Rush doesn’t improvise, so the live albums are basically the same as the studio records, but with a different mix. Not interested. Or you end up with prog records that are just endless explorations of 16th notes. Blech. But man, EWF live is totally sick. I wish I played in that band, too!
Earth, Wind & Fire – The Best of – This was my introduction to their world. I wore this record out! And, anyway, is there a better use of the lyric, “Well,…” than on “That’s the Way of the world”?
Billy Eckstine – Billy Eckstine Orchestra 1945 – Lovely, fantastic, Smooth Mr. B. This is a great big band that totally swings. Fats Navarro is wonderful, as are Tommy Potter, Sarah Vaughn and Art Blakey. I especially like “I Want to Talk About You” and “Without a Song,” which I love so much, I work on this tune with NEC students. I think this record is also known as The Swinging Mr. B.”
Roy Eldridge – Little Jazz – My polite, midwestern upbringing makes it tricky to say his nickname: “Little Jazz.” But that’s where the title of this record comes from. It’s something of an ironic nickname, because although he was diminutive in stature, his sound and his ideas were gigantic. All the bebop trumpet players list Eldridge as a primary influence. On this record, he plays and does a bit of scatting also, and what’s cool about that is that is his relationship to Louis Armstrong. When Louis would sing, his ideas sounded similar to his playing, and in that record, these two are the same. But the content of the ideas so a definite break with the New Orleans tradition, even suggesting a move towards Bebeop (and that skips an entire generation of music). This is a more rhythmically active approach with melodic content that seems to be self-generated, rather than stemming from the melody itself, and the lines themselves tend to be tertiary (in thirds) rather than stepwise. It’s a big shift from Louis to Roy. This record was recorded in Paris in 1950, and stars some favorites of mine: Zoot Sims (tenor sax), Pierre Michelot (double bass – I love him!) and Kenny Clarke (drums). Dick Hyman (piano) is also on this record. That’s notable for me because one of the first books I had to buy as a student was a book of standards published by Hyman, and I always wondered what he played like.
Roy Eldridge – Montreux ’77 – It’s really hard to find a bad Pablo record (that’s the record label this is on) from the 1970s. And what’s more, this has Oscar Peterson (piano) and Niels-Henning Orsted Pederson (aka NHOP, double bass). This record is ferocious. I have to stop what I’m doing and go practice, mostly because of everything NHOP does on this record, but especially to figure out his super cool line on “Joie de Roy.”
Enjoy, Rick