CLARKE / COREA / HENDERSON / HUBBARD / WHITE – The Griffith Park Collection 2 In Concert (2LP-1983)

Label: Elektra Musician – 96-0262-1

Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: Germany / Released: 1983

Style: Hard Bop, Post Bop, Contemporary Jazz

Recorded Live April 3, 1982 at the Circle Star Theater, San Francisco

(US release: Elektra Musician ‎– 60262-1-I )

Cover [Painting] – Edward Hopper

Photography By [Back Cover] – Andrew Su

Photography By [Freddie Hubbard] – Ron Slenzak

Executive-Producer – John Smith

Produced by – Lenny White

Producer [Production Consultant] – Jeffrey Weber

Mastered By – Bruce Leek

Other [Administration] – Norva Smith

Liner Notes – Lenny White

Art Direction – Norm Ung/Design

Edited [Digital] by – Jeffrey Weber, Jim Wolvington, Tom MacClusky

Matrix / Runout (Side A Etching): EM-96-0262-1 A-2 -ST

Matrix / Runout (Side B Etching): EM-96-0262-2 B-1 -ST

Matrix / Runout (Side C Etching): EM-96-0262-3 C-1 -ST

Matrix / Runout (Side D Etching): EM-96-0262-4 D-1 -ST

A  -  Why Wait  (Stanley Clarke) .............................................................................. 18:53

B  -  Guernica  (Lenny White) .................................................................................. 19:35

C1 - Happy Times  (Freddie Hubbard) .................................................................... 12:30

C2 - October Ballad  (Chick Corea) ......................................................................... 14:36

D1 - I Mean You  (Coleman Hawkins, Thelonious Monk) ........................................ 11:51

D2 - Here's That Rainy Day  (Johnny Burke, Jimmy VanHeusen) .......................... 12:22

Personnel:

Freddie Hubbard – trumpet, flugelhorn

Joe Henderson – tenor saxophone

Chick Corea – piano

Stanley Clarke – bass

Lenny White – drums, percussion

Manufactured in Germany by Record Service GmbH. ELEKTRA MUSICIAN 96-0262-1, Stereo. Phonographic Copyright (p) – Elektra/Asylum Records.

Realizing the wealth of talent that had assembled, Bruce Lundvall at Elektra/Musician asked for an album featuring just the instrumentalists. The Griffith Park Collection opens with White's "L's Bop," a 60's Blue Note paean showcasing some vintage Hubbard hornwork that evokes those sunny days when Blue Note producer Alfred Lion was repeatedly capturing the blinding brilliance of an era. Clarke's "Why Wait" is a blues that sneaks up barefooted as the bassist strums a slow amble of a walking rhythm, White riding a cymbal step-for-step, Hubbard and Henderson blowing sweet unison notes and somehow managing to create the additional harmonic of a trombone between them, when Corea's aggressive comping style finally gives the meter a push and Henderson punches a full-throated solo with his thick, unmistakable copper-and-zinc tone. A little over a minute into it when White bounces a snare roll that introduces the chorus' arrival like the low roar of an incoming tide, the boys are swinging so hard that you can feel it in your body...

... This is a stunning live recording. Magically resurrected from a soundboard cassette of one of the shows during the group's five day California tour, Griffith Park Collection 2: In Concert starts with "Why Wait," this time at a slightly slower tempo that seems to open up the arrangement and allow the soloists room to swing even harder. Like wanderers returning to their home hearth, they play with a mounting sense of urgency and passion as the night wears on, pursuing the music like it was the source of life itself.

Stalwart rhythm aces White and Clarke could both have turned in longer and more frequent solos, but this particular night they were largely content to lay down strong-shouldered support for the incendiary energies of Hubbard, Henderson and Corea—three players bursting with energy and clearly in a mood to solo on some unrestrained bop. Especially Hubbard.

These guys were certainly ready for something. Without preamble Hubbard starts by blowing a series of runs that sound like cascades of sparks sprayed from an arc welder's torch (it's tempting to imagine the other players wearing protective goggles as they watch him intently.) No question, Hubbard's unbridled, over-the-ramparts approach might have had a daunting effect on another stage, but on this spring evening it leads the charge and sets a standard. Each player's solo invites the next until it is clear that each is ready to take full advantage of this rare opportunity. White's "Guernica" is an unforgettable, hair-raising blowing session that evokes the passionate emotional landscape of that war-torn Spanish city. Hubbard's flashy, headlong bopper "Happy Times" is followed by Corea's tone poem "October Ballade," and then it's back to the races with a hard-driving "I Mean You," and finally a gently swaying "Here's That Rainy Day" with a handful of lyrical flourishes from Hubbard to close things out.

(Review By CARL L. HAGER)

The world's greatest musicians? Who knows... What is certain is that the kind of mastery and dynamic synergism on display in these performances comes from musicians who possess that exceedingly rare ability to listen as well as they blow. As Lenny White said when asked about his composition "Guernica": "When you write for musicians like this, all you need to do is give them a few notes and let them play."

If you find it, buy this album!

ANDREW HILL (Sextet) – Point Of Departure (LP-1964)

Label: Blue Note – BLP 4167

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album  / Country: US / Released: 1964

Style: Post Bop, Free Improvisation

Recorded at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, March 21, 1964.

Design [Cover], Photography By [Cover Photo] – Reid Miles

Liner Notes – Nat Hentoff

Recorded By – Rudy Van Gelder

A1 - Refuge . . . . . . . . . . 12:18

A2 - New Monastery . . . . . . . . . . 7:05

B1 - Spectrum . . . . . . . . . . 9:48

B2 - Flight 19 . . . . . . . . . . 4:15

B3 - Dedication . . . . . . . . . . 6:45

Andrew Hill – piano, composed

Eric Dolphy – alto saxophone, flute, bass clarinet

Joe Henderson – tenor saxophone

Kenny Dorham – trumpet

Richard Davis – double bass

Anthony Williams – drums, percussion

Pianist and composer Andrew Hill is perhaps known more for this date than any other in his catalogue -- and with good reason. Hill's complex compositions straddled many lines in the early to mid-1960s and crossed over many. Point of Departure, with its all-star lineup (even then), took jazz and wrote a new book on it, excluding nothing. With Eric Dolphy and Joe Henderson on saxophones (Dolphy also played clarinet, bass clarinet, and flute), Richard Davis on bass, Tony Williams on drums, and Kenny Dorham on trumpet, this was a cast created for a jazz fire dance. From the opening moments of "Refuge," with its complex minor mode intro that moves headlong via Hill's large, open chords that flat sevenths, ninths, and even 11ths in their striding to move through the mode, into a wellspring of angular hard bop and minor-key blues. Hill's solo is first and it cooks along in the upper middle register, almost all right hand ministrations, creating with his left a virtual counterpoint for Davis and a skittering wash of notes for Williams. The horn solos in are all from the hard bop book, but Dolphy cuts his close to the bone with an edgy tone. "New Monastery," which some mistake for an avant-garde tune, is actually a rewrite of bop minimalism extended by a diminished minor mode and an intervallic sequence that, while clipped, moves very quickly. Dorham solos to connect the dots of the knotty frontline melody and, in his wake, leaves the space open for Dolphy, who blows edgy, blue, and true into the center, as Hill jumps to create a maelstrom by vamping with augmented and suspended chords. Hill chills it out with gorgeous legato phrasing and a left-hand ostinato that cuts through the murk in the harmony. When Henderson takes his break, he just glides into the chromatically elegant space created by Hill, and it's suddenly a new tune. This LP is full of moments like this. In Hill's compositional world, everything is up for grabs. It just has to be taken a piece at a time, and not by leaving your fingerprints all over everything. In "Dedication," where he takes the piano solo further out melodically than on the rest of the album combined, he does so gradually. You cannot remember his starting point, only that there has been a transformation. This is a stellar date, essential for any representative jazz collection, and a record that, in the 21st century, still points the way to the future for jazz.

_ Review by Thom Jurek

In 1964, the term avant-garde could have been applied to any number of different musical angles in jazz. The free experiments of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, with their pure emotional howling set within very limited contextual framework, are perhaps the most notorious. But there was another avenue that retained a significant structural environment with greater emphasis on composition,even if those compositions were themselves quite a stretch. Hill's third recording as a leader, the diabolically brilliant Point of Departure, may be the apex of this school.

This album includes some of the fiercest, high density writing of the era, with each track featuring tight, byzantine written statements and full-throated blending of timbres. The music includes dissonant harmonies, often employing multiple melodic ideas, and often played very fast. It would be easy to imagine the musicians scratching their heads on the first run through, struggling with music that reached for new levels of complexity. Nevertheless, and despite the very complicated, wrought compositions, the band plays rather loosely. They're all there, but a perfect precision performance does not appear to have been Hill's core demand. Instead, people come in and out slightly ahead or behind the beats, and even when they're harmonizing, cacophonous filigrees abound.

On top of all that—and that's already a lot—Point of Departure features extraordinary improvising. Eric Dolphy—on alto sax, flute and his trademark bass clarinet—pursues pathways that make perfect sense within the music, but still sound like they've arrived from another planet. Joe Henderson's tenor work is right out there with Dolphy, and Kenny Dorham's trumpet adds a bright brass blare over all of it. Hill's piano is all over the map, and he plays the way he writes: inventive, unpredictable, and fearless. Notably, although the improvising is very aggressive and forward-looking, everyone still keeps his statements within the context of the music. Nothing on this record ever veers off into free territory...

A musical masterpiece.

(_ By Greg Simmons)

If you find it, buy this album!

LARRY YOUNG – Unity (Blue Note LP-1965)

Label: Blue Note – BLP 4221

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album; Country: US - Released: 1965

Style: Avant-garde Jazz, Hard Bop, Post Bop

Recorded At Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey on November 10, 1965.

Design [Cover] – Reid Miles

Liner Notes – Nat Hentoff

Producer – Alfred Lion

Recorded By [Recording By] – Rudy Van Gelder

A1 - Zoltan (Woody Shaw) . . . 7:37

A2 - Monk's Dream (Thelonious Monk) . . . 5:45

A3 - If (Joe Henderson) . . . 6:42

B1 - The Moontrane (Woody Shaw) . . . 7:18

B2 - Softy As A Morning Sunrise (Hammerstein, Romberg) . . . 6:21

B3 - Beyond All Limits (Woody Shaw) . . . 6:02

Larry Young – organ

Woody Shaw – trumpet

Joe Henderson – tenor saxophone

Elvin Jones – drums

THE JAZZ ORGAN SHAKE-UP: LARRY YOUNG’S “UNITY”

If you happened to be a fan of the jazz organ sound in 1965, you knew exactly what to expect when you stepped into a club – greasy blues, ballads and jazz warhorses played at racecar tempos.

Unity changed that. In one elegant stroke. All by itself.

Embracing modal harmony and the freer, more open structures/language favored by the rising crew of post-bop musicians, Larry Young expanded commonly held notions of what was possible on the instrument; his brisk, restless, masterfully syncopated performances on this album brought the organ into the modern post-bop conversation.

The Newark-born Young started out like just about everyone who aspired to B3 greatness – contending with the towering presence of Jimmy Smith, the trailblazer who defined jazz organ. Young learned the basics, and developed a credible approach within the tradition – his recording debut, in 1960, shows a surprisingly individual take on the “grits and gravy” sound.

Fast forward a few years. By the time of this, his second Blue Note date, Young was determined to push beyond what had been done before, and was well-equipped, from a technique standpoint, to do that. He was conversant in free jazz, as well as the plateauing chord voicings used by John Coltrane’s pianist McCoy Tyner and the polyrhythmic roiling of Coltrane’s drummer, Elvin Jones, who is behind the kit on Unity. Young “got” the new jazz aesthetic, and used both unique chord voicings and basslines handled via footpedals to create his own sound for it. Young choreographed elaborate agitations, all by himself: Starting with a terse rhythmic motif behind a soloist, he’d knead and develop a phrase over an extended period until it sent the group’s efforts into collective frenzy. His secret weapons included perpetually oscillating, color-changing chords, and he used them with painterly precision, shaping dramatic peaks and valleys behind a soloist. Lots of organ demons dropped bombs at key moments; Young’s crisply executed devices arrived with galvanic force, their sophisticated harmonies suggesting thrilling and profoundly new pathways.

From the opening war-dance taunt of “Zoltan,” written by the trumpet player Woody Shaw, it’s clear that Young wants Unity to be more intellectually challenging than the typical Blue Note blowing session.

The melody, handled by Shaw and the tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, is a study in fits and starts. Young’s jabs land across and against the beat, hinting at – but never fully tipping into – anarchy. Henderson seizes this instantly, and within the first measures it’s clear that his notions of agitation align with Young’s; his spiraling lines fit uncannily into the terse offbeats from the organ. This isn’t solo dazzle – it’s a conversation between well-matched modernists.

Young’s own solos – particularly those on “Softly As in A Morning Sunrise” and the electrifying duet with drummer Elvin Jones on “Monk’s Dream” – contrast powerfully with the fast-talking daredevil approach popularized by Smith and emulated by every other organist. Young can do that – there are more than a few breathless extended runs here – but he mostly concentrates on wide intervallic leaps and fitful, unexpected changes in mood. And like all the great post-Coltrane soloists, he’s inclined to shift tactics at will: His choruses on “Monk’s Dream” hit outbreaks of dissonant tumult and sullen areas of introspection and points along the spectrum in between – at each stop, he executes with snapping intent, an audible sense of purpose.

Anyone who ever longed to shake up a set-in-its ways tradition can relate to Young’s attempt to update jazz organ. He started with a powerful idea, blending hard bop, Coltrane harmony and “new thing” rhythm on an instrument uniquely suited to such a mix. But that’s just the concept stage. What makes Unity such a landmark is the way Young involves these incredible players in his quest – they seize his vision, then work together (hence the title) to overhaul the status quo of the jazz organ world. It’s a shame Young died young (at 38, from complications of pneumonia), because as is unmistakable here, this bold musician had a lot of upheaval in him.

Buy this album!