Tag Archives: Jazz

The Soulful Strings: The Magic of Christmas

SoulfulStrings_TheMagicOfChristmas1968 Chicago soul with strings, finally on CD

The Soulful Strings are surprisingly little known, given the relative success of their first few albums. Their origin lay somewhere between Chess label owner Leonard Chess, producer Esmond Edwards, and arranger Richard Evans, but the project’s voice and artistic success lay squarely with the latter. Working with Cadet studio players, including Charles Stepney, Lenard Druss, Bunky Green, Phil Upchurch, and Ronald Steele, Evans fashioned superb, soulful music that wove together a string section and jazz players without artifice or novelty. The strings lent an orchestral weight to the solid funk of the band, broadening the tonal palette without losing the music’s essential swing.

Although the group released six studio albums and a live set, only their second album, Groovin’ with the Soulful Strings (#59 Top LPs, #6 R&B, #2 Jazz) has seen previously licensed for digital reissue, and then only in Japan. The Evans-composed single “Burning Spear” (#64 Hot 100, #36 R&B) has turned up on compilation albums and been widely sampled, but the bulk of the group’s catalog remained locked in the vault, tied up in vagaries of commercial potential, much to Evans’ frustration. Evans would continue on to arrange and produce for many other artists, and he spent twenty-five years as a much-loved professor at Berklee, but the red tape tying up Soulful Strings’ reissues vexed him to his passing in 2014; no doubt this reissue of the group’s fourth album would have made the best possible Christmas present.

The album’s song selection mixes traditional Christmas songs, classical pieces and a few jazz and R&B titles. Along with the studio regulars, Evans added vibraphonist Bobby Christian (a talented percussionist who’d been a mainstay of Dick Shory’s ensembles) and harpist Dorothy Ashby, the latter of whom Evans had signed and produced for three albums with Cadet. Ashby solos alongside flutist Lenny Druss on an arrangement of “The Little Drummer Boy” whose beat is equally stoke by the bass, drums and cellos. Ashby and Druss provide the swirling flakes for Claude Thornhill’s “Snowfall,” and Ashby’s harp takes the lead on a bluesy rendition of Charles Brown’s “Merry Christmas Baby.” The vibraphone provides mood throughout the album, but it’s turned loose for a pair of high-energy solos on Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy.”

In addition to strings, woodwinds, percussion, horns, bass and drums, Evans employed congas and even Ron Steele’s electric sitar. His arrangements span the minor key string fantasy of “Deck the Halls” to a funky take on “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” highlighted by the outstanding cello work of Cleveland Eaton. The funk continues to reign on “Jingle Bells,” with drummer Morris Jennings and guitarist Phil Upchurch joined by what’s credited as a French horn, but what sounds like an oboe (either way, most likely played by Lenny Druss, who could apparently play anything with a mouthpiece or reed). Christian’s vibes provide a suitably warm lead for Mel Torme’s “The Christmas Song,” and the album closes with flute and vibes leading the “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers.”

Richard Evans was a scholarly, studious and dedicated artist, but he also had a terrific sense of swing and a fun sense of humor (check out the melodic quote of “La Marseillaise” in “Jingle Bells”). Together with his studio crew, string section and a few talented guests, he put together a Christmas album that celebrates the season in a truly original fashion. This album plays well with holiday titles from Charles Brown, Jimmy Smith, Frank Sinatra, James Brown, Ella Fitzgerald and label sets by Atco, Motown and Verve, but these arrangements and performances have a magic all their own. For next Christmas, let’s hope Real Gone puts on the red suit again and brings the rest of the Soulful Strings’ catalog in their bag. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Tommy Emmanuel: It’s Never Too Late

TommyEmmanuel_ItsNeverTooLateExtraordinary solo fingerstyle acoustic guitar

Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel is a magician. On his first solo all-acoustic album in more than a decade, he shows off the precision, dexterity and soulfulness that earned him one of five “Certified Guitar Player” titles bestowed by Chet Atkins. Emmanuel picks lead, rhythm chords and bass so seamlessly that his solo recordings often sound like multiple guitars. Rather than reducing his original compositions and reimagined covers to fit a single set of strings, his playing expands to orchestrate the songs. He picks the R&B “One Mint Julep” as a slow blues, with his percussive chords backing surprising turns in the lead. He adds Spanish flair to “El Vaquero,” paints a Western sunset in “The Duke,” and salutes Chet Atkins with “The Bug.” Emmanuel is a virtuoso in the truest sense of the word, a skilled artist whose technical mastery never overshadows his expression. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Tommy Emmanuel’s Home Page

Vince Guaraldi Trio: Peanuts Greatest Hits

VinceGuaraldiTrio_PeanutsGreatestHitsA taste of the music that made Peanuts swing

San Franciscan Vince Guaraldi had already established himself as a pianist and composer, first with Cal Tjader and then as a leader of his own group, when producer Lee Mendelson came knocking. Mendelson had been enchanted by Guaraldi’s 1963 surprise hit single, “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” and asked him to write some original music for a documentary to be entitled A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Though the program didn’t air at the time, Guaraldi’s music so perfectly captured the mood and character of Peanuts, that he was invited to write the soundtrack for the first Peanuts special that did air, 1965’s landmark A Charlie Brown Christmas.

There were so many unlikely elements to the Christmas special (including the overt religious theme and the use of child actors to voice the characters), that Guaraldi’s literate, mirthful and sophisticated jazz score didn’t feel at all unorthodox. Bringing along key pieces from the unaired documentary, most notably “Linus & Lucy” and “Charlie Brown Theme,” Guaraldi’s music was as important in lifting the characters off the comics page as was the animation. Guaraldi continued to provide music until his passing in 1976, scoring a total of seventeen Peanuts specials and the feature film A Boy Named Charlie Brown.

Fantasy’s twelve-track collection pulls together selections from four television specials, leaning heavily on the original A Boy Named Charlie Brown (tracks 1-5) and A Charlie Brown Christmas (tracks 1 and 9-12). Also included is the gentle, piano-and-woodwinds “Great Pumpkin Waltz” from 1966’s It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, and a pair from 1973’s A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, “Thanksgiving Theme” and “Little Birdie,” the latter including a rare vocal from Guaraldi himself. At twelve tracks, this only scratches the surface of Guaraldi’s Peanuts’ canon, and though the heavy tilt towards earlier material supports the “Greatest Hits” theme, the lack of completeness might make reissued soundtracks [1 2] a better place to start. What’s here is great, but it’s not enough! [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Chris Foreman: Now is the Time

ChrisForeman_NowIsTheTimeSoul time on the Hammond B3

There are few musical sounds as deeply enveloping as the Hammond B3. Whether it’s murmuring warmly, rumbling at its bottom end or stabbing percussively with notes that sound like raw alternating current, the B3 is unmistakable. The Hammond’s variable tones contrast with the imitative voices of other organs, and require both a player’s technique and an artist’s imagination to shape sounds beyond well-defined stops. Moving from piano to organ is a leap, but moving from a standard organ to a B3 requires the player to develop a personal relationship with the instrument.

Chris Foreman is a Chicago-based organist whose style descends (as do most B3 players) from the epochal Jimmy Smith, along with Jimmy McGriff, “Brother” Jack McDuff, Shirley Scott, Richard “Groove” Holmes and others. He’s most regularly heard at his weekly gigs at the Southside’s Green Mill and St. James African Methodist Episcopal church, and on record with the Deep Blue Organ Trio. The trio’s renown expanded beyond the Windy City a few years ago with an opening slot on Steely Dan’s 2013 U.S. tour, and Foreman ventures forward now with this new album of duets.

The organ is able to stand on its own, provide the centerpoint of trios, or add muscle to larger groups. In duet settings it needs to converse, to ensure that it doesn’t overwhelm its partner. Foreman is skilled at playing both lead and accompaniment, stepping into the initial spotlight with fleet fingers and bold chords for the opening take on Charlie Parker’s “Now is the Time.” He edges slowly into “Shake a Hand,” with a late-night groove that favors Freddy Scott over Little Richard, underlining the piano with his organ and decorating the organ with the piano’s flourishes. You can catch occasional touches of Foreman’s classical training in his fingerings, but he’s never mannered; everything he plays truly swings.

Guitarist Andy Brown and saxophonist Diane Ellis guest on several tracks, providing worthy foils for Foreman’s B3. Brown kicks off a sprightly version of Doc Pomus’ “Lonely Avenue” before giving way to Foreman’s blue chords. Forman returns the favor as he vamps sympathetically behind Brown’s solo, and the two join together for a bridge that leads to Forman’s second variation on the song’s main theme. As someone who plays a weekly club gig, Foreman’s developed a wide-ranging repertoire, drawing upon tunes from Neal Hefti (the atmospheric “Li’L Darlin’”), saxophonist Hank Crawford (“The Peeper,” with Ellis as soloist) and Jimmy McGriff (“Doggone” and “Cotton Boy Blues”).

The organ can evoke memories of churches, movie theaters, county fairs, baseball parks, old-timey pizza restaurants, skating rinks, mall stores, or, perhaps most damning, you father’s den. But it can also evoke the soul of the blues like no other instrument, and in the hands of a master like Chris Foreman, the B3’s notes, chords, drones, bass and volume pedals provide otherworldly transportation to a smoky late-night club. Producers Steven Dolins and Jim Dejong, and engineer Steve Yates have done a superb job of capturing the B3’s wide range of volume and timbre, and have nicely balanced the guitar, saxophone and piano in the duets. Anyone who loves the B3 should check this out! [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Wes Montgomery: In the Beginning

WesMontgomery_InTheBeginningExtraordinary live and studio material from Montgomery’s early years

Wes Montgomery’s Riverside, Verve and A&M catalogs have been reissued over the years, but previously unreleased material has been remarkably rare. Aside from Verve’s controversial Willow Weep for Me and Resonance’s Echoes of Indiana Avenue, there hasn’t been much to fill out the well-known recorded legacy. This 2-CD (3-LP) set dramatically changes the situation with a rich cache of previously unreleased live and studio recordings from Montgomery’s formative years. Among the treasures are late ‘40s sessions with Montgomery as a sideman that had been available as extremely rare 78s on the Fresno-based Spire label, home and nightclub recordings from the mid-50s, and an entire 1955 album produced by Quincy Jones.

Disc 1 is filled primarily with Montgomery Brothers recordings made at the Turf Club in their hometown of Indianapolis. Recorded in mono by hobbyist Philip Kahl, the tapes capture Wes (guitar), Buddy (piano) and Monk (bass) with saxophonist Alonzo Johnson and drummer Sonny Johnson in August 1956, and in November with John Dale on bass and vocalist Debbie Andrews sitting in for two numbers. The restored audio is clean and of good fidelity, and though the solos aren’t always given the prominence one might like, neither are they buried. By this point, Montgomery’s Gibson had already developed its distinctive tone, though the tempos have him playing with more heat than his more famous sides of the 1960s. The disc closes with a relaxed, home recorded seven-minute jam on “Ralph’s New Blues,” featuring Buddy Montgomery on vibes.

Disc 2 finds Montgomery in the company of Melvin Rhyne (piano), Flip Stewart (bass) and Paul Parker (drums) at the Missile Lounge in 1958. The quartet strikes a bluesier nighttime groove than the 1956 Montgomery-Johnson quintet, and improvises at greater length. They pick up the tempo for Dizzy Gillespie’s “A Night in Tunisia,” providing Montgomery a showcase for his incredible technique. The set winds back to 1955 for five tracks from the shelved Quincy Jones session with the same hard-charging quintet that opened disc one. The disc’s final three pieces rewind to 1949, for a peek at Montgomery’s early years as a sideman. Across the two discs the set lists include jazz, swing and tin pan alley standards, alongside the Montgomery originals “Wes’ Tune,” “Far Wes” and “Blues.”

It’s incredible to realize that Montgomery developed his innovative style while still working a day to support his family. He played clubs at night, slept four hours and started all over again. He turned full-time pro a few years later, but it was this woodshedding in Indianapolis clubs that honed him into an international sensation. The CD edition of this release is presented in a tri-fold digipack with a generous 55-page booklet stuffed with rare photos and liners from a half-dozen writers and interview subjects, including Quincy Jones, and Monk and Buddy Montgomery. The notes set up the Indianapolis jazz scene and its players, providing valuable context for these rare tracks. It’s one thing to discover material of this magnitude, but Resonance has gone the extra 500 miles to deliver a truly deluxe release. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

The Revelers: Get Ready

Revelers_GetReadySouthern Louisiana soul

Formed from members of the Red Stick Ramblers and Pine Leaf Boys, the Revelers cover a lot of Southern musical ground. Their last release, a four-song salute to swamp pop, showed off just one of their many influences. Their latest features all original material that combines zydeco, cajun, southern soul, pop, country, jazz and blues into a wonderfully potent mash. The Revelers mingle their roots into joyful dance music that’s hard to pin down; one can point to a particular accordion, fiddle, throaty saxophone, waltz-time rhythm or Cajun French lyric, but no single element fully defines the Revelers. Think of NRBQ with a stronger Southern pull.

The album’s songs cover the entire lifecycle of love. They caution listeners to “Play it Straight,” but apologetically admit they’ve cheated (“Just When I Thought I Was Dreaming”). They feel unappreciated (“Being Your Clown”), dump ill-fitting mates (“Please Baby Please”), put their troubles behind them (“Outta Sight”), lament their decisions (“Single Jeans”), and find themselves on the receiving end of a scorned lover’s revenge (“You No Longer Want to See Me”). But no matter the subject, there’s a danceable beat, culminating in the album’s closing  “Ayou On Va Danser?” This is a band to see and dance to live, but until you can, a few turns around the living room will have to do. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

The Revelers’ Home Page

Arthur Lyman: Leis of Jazz

ArthurLyman_LeisOfJazzCocktail jazz with a Hawaiian flair on Lyman’s debut

After co-developing the exotica genre for Martin Denny’s original 1957 mono recording of Exotica, vibraphonist Arthur Lyman quickly founded his own combo. His debut as a bandleader came the same year with Leis of Jazz, kicking off a successful decade-long relationship with the Los Angeles HiFi label. Like Denny, Lyman built his catalog from a mix of island songs, world folk, jazz standards and Broadway tunes, but his arrangements often had a stronger jazz influence than Denny’s. The opening “The Lady is a Tramp” showcases Lyman’s superb vibraphone playing, as well as providing room for pianist Alan Soares, and Lyman’s rhythm section of John Kramer (bass) and Harold Chang (percussion) keeps the music moving with bouncy tempos and polite solos of their own. Like Denny’s combo, Lyman’s employed a variety of world percussion, but most often as accents that remain organic to the arrangements. The group’s later albums would adopt more of exotica’s kitschy elements, but on this first outing, the group plays as a superb supper-club jazz quartet. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Elana James: Black Beauty

ElanaJames_BlackBeautyA fiddler’s longing and guilty pleasures

James has made a name writing, singing and playing a unique combination of hot jazz and Western Swing with Austin’s Hot Club of Cowtown. Though known primarily for her virtuosity as a fiddler, her voice, much like fellow instrumental prodigy Alison Krauss, has always held special qualities. Her self-titled 2007 solo album combined the same talents she’d leveraged in Hot Club – fiddle, voice and songwriting – but in a wider context that glimpsed her influences through the selection of cover songs. Eight years later, her second album expands on the same premise, weaving together originals, instrumentals (“Eva’s Dance” and “Waltz of the Animals”), and a selection of covers that spans jazz (“All I Need is You”), folk (“Hobo’s Lullaby”), counterculture classics (“I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” and “Ripple”), ‘70s novelty (“Telephone Man”) and even ‘80s synthpop (“Only You”).

Impressively, James brings this wide range of material under one tent. Her plucked violin opens the album in place of Vince Clark’s synthesizer for Yazoo’s “Only You,” with a double-tracked vocal that’s lighter than Alison Moyet’s original. The song’s mood of longing is a fitting introduction to James’ originals, which include the unbreakable hold of “High Upon the Mountains” and the second-thoughts of “Reunion (Livin’ Your Dream).” The latter might have been the album’s most poignant moment, had James not turned a letter from a U.S. soldier into the eulogy “Hey Beautiful: Last Letter from Iraq.” Setting the words of Staff Sgt. Juan Campos to music, James evinces a longing for home that’s beyond homesickness, and in it’s true-to-life source, beyond the craft of lyric writing. It’s a touching complement to James’ original songs and the revelations she offers through her selection of covers. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Elana James’ Home Page

Mark-Almond: Mark-Almond

MarkAlmond_MarkAlmondA neglected early ‘70s British rock-jazz classic

Guitarist Jon Mark and wind player and percussionist Johnny Almond met in 1969 as members of John Mayall’s band. Upon their departure from Mayall in 1970, they formed this eponymous quartet (not to be confused with Soft Cell’s Marc Almond!) with bassist Rodger Sutton and keyboardist Tommy Eyre. As with the music they recorded with Mayall, Mark and Almond chose a drummerless configuration that continued to work surprisingly well. Eyre’s piano, Sutton’s bass and Mark’s rhythm playing each take turns holding down the beat, leaving the others free to jam and improvise.

The album’s original five tracks clocked in at forty minutes, with two suites (“City” and “Love”) stretching past eleven minutes apiece. This provided the players – all four – a lot space to stretch out and interplay. The opening “The Ghetto” is a gospel soul number with a moving lyric of desperation set to a vocal chorus and Eyre’s perfect mix of acoustic and electric piano. Almond’s superb sax solo is perfectly set in a middle section between the hushed vocals of the opening and closing.

“The City” has a short lyric of escape, but quickly gives way to a jazz-tinged instrumental that provides each player a chance to shine. Sutton’s bass flows underneath as Almond takes a sax solo and Eyre vamps on piano, the two occasionally joining one another for to riff. Sutton steps to the front for a short interlude before Almond returns on flute; a few minutes later the song turns heavy with Mark’s low twanging guitar and assorted hand percussion.

The moody “Tramp and the Young Girl” hits blue notes in both its vocal melody and the tragic disposition of its title characters. The bass, electric piano, vibraphone and flute provide superb backing for Mark’s perfectly wrought, jazz-tinged vocal. Things pick up for “Love,” a suite that opens in a renaissance style before transitioning into a percussive, bass- and vibe-led middle section. The song’s vocal is a short, blues should, which leads to an ear-clearing, calling-all-dogs sax solo and a mellower instrumental play out.

What’s truly impressive about this band – aside from the talent of the four players – is its range between songs and within suites. The compositions carry over the ballroom jam of the ‘60s, but tighten them up and expand the instrumental and musical palettes, much as did Traffic, Steely Dan and others. It’s hard to imagine how this album was allowed to fall out of print; even Line’s German reissue disappeared. Varese’s domestic issue augments the original five tracks with a pair of single edits and a four-page booklet that includes liner notes by Jerry McCulley. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Town Without Pity

Few remember – or even knew – that Gene Pitney’s breakthrough hit, “Town Without Pity,” was both the title and title song of a 1961 film. Even more surprisingly, the melody was written by Dimitri Tiomkin, who scored dozens of westerns, five films for Frank Capra (including It’s a Wonderful Life), and composed the score and theme song for Fred Zinneman’s High Noon. He not only wrote the melody for High Noon‘s “Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling,” he believed in it enough to buy the rights back and release it as a Frankie Laine single. It was recorded by Tex Ritter for the film and won Tiomkin an academy award for best song.

Tiomkin’s other enduring Western classic is the theme song to the late-50s television show Rawhide, which Frankie Laine also took up the charts. Two years later, Tiomkin wrote the score and title track for “Town Without Pity,” gaining another Oscar nomination, winning a Golden Globe, and giving Gene Pitney his first Top 20 single. Pitney’s recording is included in the film, but the song is also rendered as a jazz instrumental and as a transitional theme. Tiomkin garnered several more Oscar and Golden Globe nominations and awards, but never again cracked the pop or country charts!