(Re)construction

 

A postscript, really, to the previous article: if anyone (upon listening to the Charlie Parker Project) finds themselves wondering why the leader robbed us of the chance to hear him play Parker's alto lines on "Yardbird Suite", the answer is probably that as far as B. was concerned, he had already chalked that one off. 

When pointing back to previous standards recordings made with more conventionally jazz-based musicians, I only linked to volume one of the two which B. recorded for Magenta; I'd never personally heard either of them (produced from two days of quartet sessions at the end of January 1985) - until this weekend. I haven't mentioned this much lately, but I never used to make a secret of the fact that I'm not a huge fan of standards... this of course sounds utterly heretical to most jazz listeners (who generally love that kind of thing), but then I'm not straightforwardly a jazz listener either. I do take an interest in some of the modern jazz-based player-writers, and albums which focus on works by particular composers are more likely to be of interest to me than (say) a collection full of hoary old chestnuts from the Great American Songbook - such as we find on Seven Standards 1985, Volume I. There, three modern-era pieces by Cliffords Brown and Jordan, and by B's idol Warne Marsh, are joined by four of the kind of songs which I would never go out of my way to hear, no matter who is playing them; and for that matter, I was seldom in any great rush to acquire B's own standards recordings, or even to hear them: being a completist, I will eventually try and hear everything the maestro has been involved with, assuming I live long enough, but things like this are so far down my list of priorities that it could take me a very long time to get around to them. 

Volume two is the only one which I would consider buying, and ironically it is the one which never did get issued on CD; vinyl copies are not at all difficult to come by, but I don't currently have a record player set up in the house and there would really be no point - I only buy CDs*. The track list for this one comprises bop and post-bop era compositions exclusively, and purely by chance, I found myself listening to it online yesterday. (It wasn't even nudged my way by Youtube's algorithms - I was actively searching for Comp. 174 and for some reason, this is one of the videos which came up..!) Kicking off with "Moment's Notice" (originally on Blue Train of course**), the programme consists of five harmonically-complex minefields to showcase the leader's dexterity, and two ballads for light relief to showcase his (eccentric but undoubted) melodic sense. Dizzy Gillespie's "Groovin' High" and (the original) "Milestones"*** are accompanied by two Monk numbers - a sweetly reflective "Ruby My Dear" and (with typical Braxtonian bravado) the breathlessly-rapid rip through "Trinkle Tinkle" which closes proceedings - plus Horace Silver's "Nica's Dream" and, of course, "Yardbird Suite". [It's worth adding here, particularly with regard to an observation I made about the Parker Project, that on the LP itself the credits list "John" Gillespie and "Charles" Parker, though there is no indication of who instigated this restoration of dignity.]

So... if anyone truly is (Hank) jonesing for the sound of B's alto negotiating Parker's lovely melody, this is where you can find it. It's everything you would expect, and no more than that, this being after all exactly what it says on the tin: a standards album, with a respected trio of sidemen very much from the jazz tradition# - who in this case, at least, were presumably happy enough to be playing with him. It's worth hearing just to marvel at B's facility with "Trinkle Tinkle", a horribly-difficult piece taken at a speed which seems at first to terrify the rest of the band into subdued near-silence (Jones does recover enough to grapple with Monk's unique chordal algebra in his solo, at least) - the maestro of course makes it sound easy. I've never been completely convinced that his approach is especially well-suited to standards, and I would (naturally) choose him playing his own music any day of the week; but once in a blue moon, given appropriately testing material to navigate and sympathetic sidemen for company, he can tempt me over to the "light side". I have no idea why this one never got issued on CD - did the first volume not sell, or did the label itself fold before the reissue could happen?## - but if I were looking to acquire a set of standards from this leader, this would probably be it. (Maybe I will buy the LP, one day...)

* I still own hundreds of records, but the vast majority of these were acquired before I started buying CDs, and there is hardly any jazz in there. I would never willingly part with them, and of course, one of these days we will eventually get a record player set up again and I will be able to listen to the buggers. But I can never bring myself to buy B's stuff on vinyl, simply because there is no realistic prospect of playing it for the time being; I do own one of his albums in that format, which was given to me some years ago by Atanase. (Given the number of crucial '70s releases which are still not available on CD, I am probably going to have to change my mind on this at some point...)

** Worth adding that, just 'cos I had to check it myself. Blue Train is one of those weird outlier albums, considered a "classic" by people who know nothing whatsoever about jazz - largely because of its iconic cover, the poster of which still adorned many a student wall in my day - but not really thought of as a major Coltrane release by anyone who is seriously interested in his music. (At least some of its iconic status undoubtedly stems from the fact that it was the tenor legend's only session (as a leader) for Blue Note.)

*** This is (now) the name of two entirely different compositions, both (now) credited to Miles Davis. The second, far more famous one - which kickstarted Davis' fascination with modal music - was originally just called "Miles", but as it appeared on an album called Milestones, the name change was inevitable, particularly as the earlier piece never much caught on. But it is that earlier piece which is interpreted here; it was apparently penned by John Lewis, actually, but "gifted" to Davis by way of thanks for getting Lewis the gig (with Parker) where it was recorded. It is also the source of the notorious "too hard for a country boy like me" quip from Parker, and (as noted by Ian Carr in his biography of Davis) does sound a bit overwritten, packed full of chords in a way that Davis would soon enough abandon completely. (It's the sort of challenging piece that only a leader like B. would willingly take on, in fact.)

# Hank Jones is obviously a legend and would have been a first-rank collaborator; I'm not sure that the other two quite were, but they both had extremely solid credentials. I have no idea how the sessions came about, or who approached whom - but at least this time, unlike that earlier occurrence, there is no suggestion that B. was taking some other cat's place at the last minute. 

## The Restructures entry for the album did include mention of a CD, but with no catalogue number for it - which could just have been an oversight, or might have indicated that a CD issue was planned but never happened. Given that the first volume was released on CD ten years after the original release, it seems unlikely that there was never any intention to do the same for the second volume - but I can't see any evidence that a CD ever appeared, even in Japan.