PAUL SMOKER TRIO – Come Rain Or Come Shine (1989)

Label: Sound Aspect Records –  SAS  CD 024

Format: CD, Album; Country: W.Germany - Released: 1989

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded 18-19 Aug, 1986 in Cedar Falls, Iowa

Engineer By – David Baker

Executive Producer By – Pedro de Freitas

Five years ago, Paul Smoker Trio gave his brilliant European debut in Moers. At the legendary "New Jazz Trio" with Manfred Schoof, Peter Trunk and Cee lake felt you remember, but played the Americans its Free Bop with the concentrated power of the currents of the 80s. Now, the third album by this still equally populated and the same exciting gambling trio had appeared; and yet you're looking in the latest American and West German jazz encyclopedia the name of trumpeter Paul Smoker vain. Maybe it is because he teaches away from the Media Representative peered New York in Iowa at a college. Instrumental Technically any case he needs any more than Ron Rohovit, bass, and Phil Haynes, drum kit to put his light under a bushel. In the album of humorous text is a Don Cherry, who makes on Maynard Ferguson, the speech - which also points to the crux of this music back: Paul Smoker sounds like he should be a world champion to flex its muscles in constant power play. But breaks would not have to be energetically dead moments. The excel-lent bass playing, the beneficial also in the middle and lower register he-goes to can, to appear in the rare trumpet moments without some of the worn generen energy flows; also the perfect shape consciousness of the drums then opens up new sonic spaces. These quieter periods, however, are rare; dominate the power play interactions, quite in the manner of the European new jazz of the late 60s. Pieces of you have the great joy because in the long run annoys's.

Note: Small history of composition "Come Rain Or Come Shine"

“Come Rain or Come Shine” is a wonderful composition with a fantastic melody and very challenging changes. For the jazz musician, there are many openings for altering the changes and heading in different directions harmonically.

_ By David Friesen, jazz bassist

While many of the great song composers used repeated notes as a device to build tension and emphasize their harmonies, Harold Arlen, as a rule, was not one of them. “Come Rain or Come Shine,” however, is not just a rare Arlen exception; it may very well be the repeated-notes-champion among the top jazz standards.

1. “Come Rain or Come Shine” was introduced by Ruby Hill and Harold Nicholas in the Broadway musical St. Louis Woman. Set in St. Louis in 1898, the story revolved around Della Green (Hill), a woman who wants out of her relationship with bar owner Biglow Brown (Rex Ingram) when she falls for Li’l Augie, (Nicholas), a jockey on a winning streak. The show opened on March 30, 1946, at the Martin Beck Theatre to lackluster reviews and attendance and closed after only 113 performances. 

St. Louis Woman was beset with problems before it even opened. Songwriter Harold Arlen and lyricist Yip Harburg had just scored two successes with Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s Wizard of Oz, for which they won an Academy Award for Best Song, and the long-running Broadway musical, Bloomer Girl (1944). Profiting from stakes in both productions, MGM was eager to back Arlen’s St. Louis Woman, an all-black show based on Arna Bontemps’ first published novel, God Sends Sunday (1931). MGM was further willing to provide Lena Horne as the leading lady, and Johnny Mercer signed on to write the lyrics.

2. Talented trumpet player Clifford Brown had a brilliant career cut short by his untimely death in an auto accident at age 25. However, during his four years of recording he managed to leave a large body of work with many great moments of jazz.

In Paris, as a member of the Lionel Hampton Orchestra in 1953, Brown was in the studio with a small group made up of his compatriots from the Hampton band, performing arrangements written by Quincy Jones (also a member of the Hampton group). On the CD reissue of their recording of “Come Rain and Come Shine” we have the opportunity to hear two takes of the tune, illustrating Brown’s inventive genius.

3. The 1959 recording of “Come Rain or Come Shine” by Ray Charles (The Genius of Ray Charles) is widely beloved and is a great example of the song as a vehicle for ballad singing. The tune is often played with a swing feeling as well, and the standout performance among many in this style is Art Blakey’s from 1958 (Moanin'). This performance features dramatic solos from each of Blakey’s sidemen from this incarnation of Jazz Messengers, Bobby Timmons, Lee Morgan, Benny Golson and Jymie Merritt.....etc....etc.... 

If you find it, buy this album!