PRODUCED BY SONNY LESTER
Whatever happened to that time-honored Jazz institution, the jam session? As old as the
music itself, indeed, the informal get-together of improvising musicians must have been the
chief originating group to first produce a music that could be ca//ed jazz, along with the im-
provisation within stricter limits produced by the more disciplined parade and dance bands of
New Orleans. Invaluable for the participating jazzman as an exchange agency for improvisa-
tional ideas and, at times, a red hot pressure cooker of competition among soloists (the “cut-
ting’’ session). By the mid-50s or so (at least in New York) it had become a scarce, then prac-
tically non-existent, affair for the jazzman ready and eager to blow for kicks—no loot involved.
There were various reasons, none of them very convincing, for this decline of wail-for-fun
activity. The American Federation of Musicians’ tougher policy on “free’’ music in clubs — no
pay, no play—and the discouraging of the casual practice of “sitting in” with established or,
at least, organized bands by visiting jazzmen both contributed to the silencing of the jam-
mers. Oddly, even private sessions, subject to no restrictions except threats of violence by
neighbors, became as rare as greetings between strangers in the big city.
Whatever the explanation, the jam session has been moribund, if not downright dead, for
a decade. Even Norman Granz, the titan of the planned, public jam sessions (for pay), whose
Jazz at the Philharmonic troupes toured the U.S. and Europe again and again in the ’40s and
’50s, complained he was unable to stir up any real interest in the prospective presentation
of major soloists massed on stage to blow up a jam storm when he was arranging his recent
revival tour of the JATP.
Well, despair not. A Modest revival is under way. Solid State is planning an extensive series
of sessions in clubs (certainly more intimate a setting and less susceptible to flashy show-
manship than the concert auditorium) to be recorded and issued on a continuing basis.
This first LP in the series contains the best performances by one of two groups especially
assembled for one of the Village Vanguard’s Sunday jazz matinees. The greatest of modern
trumpeters, Dizzy Gillespie, is at the helm, setting up the solo order, opening and closing
themes, etc., and, of course, inspiring everybody. Ray Nance, a sadly neglected and greatly
gifted musical individualist (in or out of the Ellington band), confines himself to violin — no
limitation for this expressive musician—leaving the trumpet work to the eminent John Birks G.
Pepper Adams, a strong and imaginative baritone saxophonist, puts the bottom on the front
line, and the rhythm section is first-rate, with the talented and charging Chick Corea on piano,
the massively versatile Richard Davis on bass and the percussion department fully covered by
Mel Lewis and Elvin Jones (Mel on two tracks and Elvin on “Lullaby” only).
The other group heard at this same session featured Garnett Brown’s trombone, Joe Far-
rell’s tenor and that day’s ubiquitous horn, Pepper Adams, and can be heard on Volume II of
this “Jazz for a Sunday Afternoon” series.
Side One
1. BLUES FOR MAX
This “Max” is not the great modern drummer, Roach, but Max Gordon, the Vanguard's im-
presario and a faithful friend of jazz. Dizzy opens the jamfest appropriately with a solo trum-
pet “call,’’ squeezed tones abounding and much down-home flavor to announce that the ses-
sion is to begin basic, with a blues, which is about as basic in jazz as you can get. He starts
a simple blues riff and everyone falls in behind him, the rhythm section bouncing off it, Ray
and Pepper adding some counterpoint. That elementary “theme” out of the way, it’s Nance
for three choruses of soulful fiddling, his unique blend of impassioned Gypsy-like lyricism
and jazz ideas and attack. Diz plunges in and the rhythm section’s beat becomes complex,
based on a doubled tempo. (Listen to the fine unity of bassist Davis and drummer Lewis be-
hind Gillespie here.) Dizzy very hot and earthy-sophisticated for his solo, with only a few of
his characteristic cascades of notes—a ‘down’ blues man on this track. The rhythm backs
down to straight time for Pepper’s baritone, whose thrusting pair of choruses are typically
gutsy. Diz then sails into the upper reaches over Adams, everybody goes for 8 bars, and the
trumpeter retards the last 4 bars of this blues into a summing-up coda. The band planted
its jazz roots with this one, deep in Max Gordon’s basement performing arts garden.
STEREO
5S 1a027
2. LULLABY OF THE LEAVES
Corea and the rhythm (Elvin Jones on drums for this one) set it up loosely with 8 bars of
introduction, and it’s Ray’s turn to lead the pack. He rhapsodizes a melodic fragment or two of
this fine old standard opening his two choruses, and the rest is Ray’s own. Some beautiful
lyric jazz fiddling here. Then Diz flows all over it on A/s pair. Dig the carpet of rhythmic color
Chick, Richard and Elvin lay down under him. And listen closely, too, to Dizzy’s solo—wildly
varied streams of double-tempo lines alternating with subtle, sparse passages. The master of
dramatic color and complexity. Then it’s Pepper, busy and shoving with the rhythm stomp-
ing straight down the middle in support. Corea follows, displaying his excellent pianistic toucn
in scintillating long lines on his first chorus, then stirring some chordal spice into his second.
Dizzy crashes in again, this time for a half-chorus of 4-bar exchanges with Richard’s bass—
Davis fast and cello-like—Elvin bolsters the bridge with bustling energy, and the ensemble,
with the boss’s trumpet way up and over, climaxes it, adding a lingering vamp. Note on this
track the exemplary work by the rhythm section, changing its tone and feeling for each solo-
ist, maintaining a strong rhythmic tension event at this relatively easy medium tempo.
Side Two
LOVER COME BACK TO ME
You may recall Dizzy’s 1948 recording of this Romberg standard, in his own adventurous ar-
rangement. If you do you'll catch the echo as Diz opens out of tempo, but this time with
some tongue-in-cheek humor, along with an amusing array of laconic comments from the
other participants in this love feast. The trumpeter’s theme statement makes great use of
pauses and sly suspensions and, though the bridge is in tempo, we don’t really get to that
swing thing until the end of the chorus when Diz stabs a beat at everybody within hearing
to set it up for Ray. The violinist takes it for only one chorus (like to have heard more, but
he’ll be back). The rhythm walks on and Pepper moves in on the second 16 bars of the third
chorus charging on for an extended and robust outing. Nance returns with bowing arm driv-
ing hard. Again that Nancian mixture of the rhapsodic and the gutty-swing. Ray stays up for
two, relents, and Dizzy shouts him on to a third. Then it’s Mr. G., flashing in to strut, shout
and. dance lightly (yeh, all three) over Richard’s bass walk, with piano and drums laying out
for two full choruses. When Corea and Lewis re-join for Dizzy’s third the effect is electric.
Dizzy plays some wonderfully original, complex and dashing lines throughout his solo, espe-
cially on the second half...the two choruses with full rhythm backing. Corea’s piano next to
step very high over the crackling beat, all three rhythm men eating up this killing tempo.
(Chick is unquestionably a young comer of a jazz pianist, soon, incidentally, to be heard on
his own Solid State LP.) Then it’s time for two choruses of 8-bar exchanges, going through the
front-line horns and fiddle with Mel’s drums making it a fourth. Dizzy resurrects some of
Sigmund’s melody, everybody pitches in, and through the bridge it’s a fine madness. Then,
Diz interrupts the wild race, deliberately and firmly pulling it down to the opening out-of-
tempo trumpet solo lead for a brief repeat, and capping it with companions falling in for
some fun, not funny, take-it-on-home stomp.
The jazz-faithful (including this solo bar-stool percher) lucky enough to make the Vanguard
for this first day and Sunday in October, 1967, had themselves a ball; the joyful noise pressed
into these grooves makes it overwhelmingly clear that the musicians did too. Brothers, let us
all hail that jumping foundation stone of jazz, the jam session. It ain’t dead yet.
Ed Beach—“‘Just Jazz”
WRVR, New York
Brecon ee
Baritone Sax Trumpet
Pepper Adams Dizzy Gillespie
Piano Drums
Chick Corea Elvin Jones
Bass Mel Lewis
Richard Davis Violin
Ray Nance PRODUCED BY SONNY LESTER
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
© 1968 UNITED ARTISTS RECORDS, INC.
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