Label:
Blue Note – BLP 4176
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: US / Released: 1964
Style:
Contemporary Jazz, Improvisation
Recorded at the
Barclay Studios, Paris, France, on June 2, 1964.
Design
[Cover] – Reid Miles
Liner
Notes – Leonard Feather
Producer,
Photography By [Cover Photo] – Francis Wolff
Recorded
By – Jacques Lubin
A
- Tanya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
18:22
(by
– Donald Byrd)
B1
- Coppin' The Haven . . . . . . . . . 11:18
(by – Kenny Drew)
B2
- Darn That Dream . . . . . . . . . . . . 7:33
(by
– DeLange, Van Heusen)
Dexter
Gordon – tenor saxophone
Donald
Byrd – trumpet
Kenny
Drew – piano
Niels-Henning
Orsted Pedersen – bass
Art
Taylor – drums, percussion
Dexter
Gordon is often cited as a major influence on John Coltrane. He was the first
to take Charlie Parker's alto sax bebop breakthroughs and understand how to
develop them for tenor. Not that he is aiming at the same transcendent themes
as Coltrane but rather that his musical understanding is a spur to playing sax
in a more open and responsive way than heard before.
This
openness and invention is heard at its best on “One Flight Up”. The album is
remarkable for a host of reasons. It was recorded in Paris (not New Jersey) by
musicians who had established themselves outside of the United States. On its
initial release on vinyl, a single 18 minute track (“Tanya”) took up the whole
of the first side – this some two years before Bob Dylan’s “Sad Eyed Lady of
the Lowlands” amazed the pop world by taking up a whole side of the album
“Blonde on Blonde”. And “One Flight Up” marks the early and definitive
appearance of one of the few European jazz players to make it on a truly
international stage – bass player Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, unsurprisingly
known for short as NHOP.
Leonard
Feather’s original album liner notes for “One Flight Up” refer to a round table
discussion for “Down Beat” in 1964 in which Dexter Gordon and Kenny Drew (who
plays piano on the album) talk about the advantages of being expatriates.
Dexter had left the US in 1962 to take up a permanent residency at the
Montmatre Club in Copenhagen. There he had recruited NHOP (then aged just 16)
as bass player in his trio. Kenny Drew had moved to Paris in 1960, staying on
after a six week role in the play “The Connection”. Both point out the freedom
that they were able to discover in playing jazz away from the pressures of
being back home. The most obvious advantage was the absence of racism – still a
major problem for African Americans in the 1960s, as we have pointed out in
discussing John Coltrane’s music. Miles Davis had had a similar experience when
he had lived for awhile in Paris in 1957, shortly after recording ‘Kind Of
Blue”.
He
was there to make the soundtrack of Louis Malle’s film noir “Ascenseur Pour
L'Echafaud (Lift To The Scaffold)”, joining the Left Bank artistic set (which
included Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir) and, by all
accounts, having an affair with movie actress Juliette Grecco. (All this is
documented in the remarkable book by Boris Vian - "Manual of Saint
Germain-Des-Pres"). Miles has remarked on the shock of being for the first
time looked upon as a musician and a person about whom his race was not the
most important thing. Seven years later, Dexter Gordon experienced the same
freedom that could enter his music once that context of racism has been
removed: “I felt that I could breathe, and just be more or less a human being,
without being white or black….”
But
there was a second aspect of the freedom of being in Europe that was equally
important; working at the same location with continuity of employment in the
same job (Dexter at the Montmatre, Drew with long residencies in Paris) created
the space in which artistic expression could flower away from the constant
pressure of touring at home. The music of “One Flight Up” fully reflects this
newfound freedom.
“Tanya”, a Donald Byrd composition, is built around a heavy asymmetrical beat from Art Taylor and features two counterposed themes, the first modal and free flowing and the second more structured and conventional. The modal theme tends to stoke up tension, the more conventional theme serving as release, capturing that early ‘sixties jazz urban optimism. The overall feel is one of well-being, of being at peace and in harmony with whatever life brings.
As
in Lee Morgan’s “The Sidewinder” there is the feeling that for all the lack of
restriction on what each soloist will contribute, every note is somehow
necessary and that though the piece is indeed 18 minutes long, that length is
fully justified. “Coppin’ The Haven” (a Kenny Drew composition) is very
similarly structured and executed except that the pace is quicker and the sense
of well-being is infused with a sense of urgency. On both tracks the quintet is
heard in full. “On Darn That Dream” (a Dexter Gordon composition that did not
make it the original release) Donald Byrd is absent.
A
key player here is Niels-Herring Orsted Pedersen. Indeed, following his death
aged 58 in April 2005, the whole album could be taken not only as a fitting
tribute to Dexter Gordon's legacy (he died in 1990) but also to NHOP's legacy.
Barely 18 at the time of recording “One Flight Up”, NHOP already displays those
hallmarks that would lead to his long and illustrious career in jazz, most
notably his long membership of the Oscar Peterson Trio. As John Fordham notes
in his obituary for "The Guardian", where most bass players pluck the
strings with a single finger (or a single clump of fingers) NHOP has the
strength and dexterity to pluck the strings with four fingers individually,
much as a guitar player would pick the strings of that instrument. The result
is a fluency and an ability to develop bass line runs with rapidity and
complexity that is seldom heard on the instrument. This is heard to full effect
on “Tanya” and “Coppin’ The Haven” where the bass forms almost a fourth solo
instrument at the same time as it also takes up its rhythm duties. Indeed, so
strong is the rhythm taken on by bass that Art Taylor’s drumming is freed up to
launch into all sort of increasingly complex cross rhythms that build on the
feeling of openness as the song progresses.
“Darn
That Dream” is a more conventional take on the jazz standard, taken as a late
night, after hours piece. Donald Byrd is absent; there is more opportunity for
Dexter to show off his lyrical side and excellent sax technique. Richard Cook
and Brian Morton note that this track in particular shows the influence of
Dexter’s playing on John Coltrane’s harmonic development at this time.
If you find it, buy this album!
DEXTER GORDON – One Flight Up (LP-1964)
ReplyDeleteVinyl Rip/FLAC+Cover
1fichier:
https://1fichier.com/?q6tpwokxtj
"Le flirt en vacances" is just a cute image.
ReplyDeleteJust wondering if you're starting your Blue (Note) Period now - emulating Picasso, maybe? His Blue Period lasted from about 1901 to 1904.
Thanks, Vitko!
Ha, very good! I will here to expand a little story:
DeleteThis period's starting point is uncertain; it may have begun in Spain in the spring of 1901, or in Paris in the second half of the year. In choosing austere color and sometimes doleful subject matter - prostitutes, beggars and drunks are frequent subjects - Picasso was influenced by a journey through Spain and by the suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas, who took his life at the LHippodrome Cafe in Paris, France by shooting himself in the right temple on February 17, 1901. Although Picasso himself later recalled, "I started painting in blue when I learned of Casagemas's death", art historian Helene Seckel has written: "While we might be right to retain this psychologizing justification, we ought not lose sight of the chronology of events: Picasso was not there when Casagemas committed suicide in Paris ... it was only in the fall that this dramatic event emerged in his painting, with several portraits of the deceased".
All the best -Otto-.
Way more than I knew so far about Picasso's Blue Period. Thanks for the info, Vitko!
Deletewhat equipment do you make such a nice digitizing. if not a secret?
ReplyDeletecompared with CD (Remastered in 2003 by Rudy Van Gelder ) - sound crystal
These three "Blue Note" albums and FRANK LOWE (Quintet) - The Flam, LP Rip made my friend via Laser Turntable at Studio Radio Corona, in this place is made and finishing sound, everything has been transferred to the two channels, adjust the intensity of each instrument, remove noise, then made cutting on separate tapes etc ... etc ... The sound is truly remarkable.
DeleteRegards.
You can publish your LP on another site ?. dedicated to vinyl. plastinka-rip.ru
Deletebest regards sergjazz
Hi serg jazz,
Deletethank you for your generous offer, but I would not want to my presentation of the album, be published in another place. Thanks for your understanding.
Regards.
Vitko
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the gem. but is release info correct? on Discogs it say this is a MONO release but I hear STEREO (confirmed with my RME DAC)
ReplyDeletehttps://www.discogs.com/release/1183972-Dexter-Gordon-One-Flight-Up
You don't read the given information, I said everything a long time ago in the comments:
Delete"These three "Blue Note" albums and FRANK LOWE (Quintet) - The Flam, LP Rip made my friend via Laser Turntable at Studio Radio Corona, in this place is made and finishing sound, everything has been transferred to the two channels, he did the intensity adjustment of each instrument, remove noise, then made cutting on separate tapes etc ... etc ... The sound is truly remarkable".
Regards.