#jazzlegends

Bob Brookmeyer – trombone

Happy heavenly birthday to Bll Evans (August 16, 1929 – September 15, 1980) THE BILL EVANS TRIO – SINCE WE MET http://projazz.net/the-bill-evans-trio-since-we-met-full-album/ Since We Met is a live album by jazz pianist Bill Evans with Eddie Gómez and Marty Morell, recorded at the Village Vanguard in New York City in 1974 and released on the Fantasy label in 1976. Reception “Thirteen years after his legendary Village Vanguard recordings, Bill Evans recorded Since We Met at the famous New York establishment again. Using his trio of the era (which includes bassist Eddie Gómez and drummer Marty Morell), Evans explores both familiar (“Time Remembered,” “Turn Out the Stars” and “But Beautiful”) and new (Joe Zawinul’s “Midnight Mood,” “See-Saw” and “Sareen Jurer”) material. This CD reissue gives listeners a good example of Bill Evans’ early-’70s trio as it typically sounded in clubs.” – Scott Yanow/AllMusic. Personnel: Bill Evans – piano Eddie Gómez – bass Marty Morell – drums

Photo by Tom Marcello, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Possibly inspired by Count Basie’s renewed activity at Verve Records in the mid-’50s, Columbia raided its vaults to assemble this thematic album, consisting of a dozen blues cuts dating between 1939 and 1950. The mix of late-’30s/early-’40s big-band swing and 1950-era small group sides makes this a fascinating document of two phases of Basie’s career. The album opens with a bang, with “Tootie,” a fast and lean small group track that offers hot solo spots by Basie at the piano, Buddy De Franco on clarinet, tenor man Charlie Rouse, and drummer Gus Johnson. The album then jumps back 11 years to the band’s cover of Leroy Carr’s “How Long Blues,” featuring a great vocal by Jimmy Rushing and a nice trade-off of riffs between the trumpets (featuring Harry “Sweets” Edison and Buck Clayton) and the trombones. “Way Back Blues,” “Bugle Blues,” and “Royal Garden Blues” are cuts originally credited to the “All-American Rhythm Section” in 1942, prominently featuring Basie in a smaller group setting. Rushing reappears on the rollicking “Blues (I Still Think of Her),” from 1941, which owes a little bit of its structure to “One O’Clock Jump”; “Harvard Blues,” a slow, swinging blues that offers a beautiful extended opening baritone sax solo by Jack Washington; the group’s swing rendition of Casey Bill Weldon’s “I’m Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town”; “Take Me Back Baby,” which offers the trumpets and tenor saxes a chance to shine; and the mournful “Nobody Knows,” the latter dating from 1939 and featuring Basie on the organ. The producers save the most interesting cut, “Bluebeard Blues,” for last — recorded in 1950, it shows Basie in some of the most involved playing of this period, and the group (including Buddy Rich at the drums) pushing their considerable inventiveness (AllMusic /Bruce Eder).

Photo by William P. Gottlieb, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

“I realized by using the high notes of the chords as a melodic line, and by the right harmonic progression, I could play what I heard inside me. That's when I was born.” ~ Charlie Parker Photo by William P. Gottlieb, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Personnel: Johnny Hodges – alto saxophone Leon Thomas – vocals Oliver Nelson – arranger, conductor Randy Brecker, Ernie Royal, Marvin Stamm, Snooky Young – trumpet Al Grey, Quentin Jackson, Garnett Brown, Thomas Mitchell – trombone Bob Ashton, Danny Bank, Jerry Dodgion, Joe Farrell, Jerome Richardson, Frank Wess – reeds Earl Hines Hank Jones – piano David Spinozza – guitar Ron Carter – bass Grady Tate – drums

📷by Chris Hakkens, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons