January 31, 2016

Candido Camero's Beautiful: Catchy Latin Funk on Blue Note

Candido Beautiful LP
One of the best commercial albums Blue Note released after the Liberty purchase of Blue Note, was 1970's Beautiful.

 Candido Camero, age 94 as of  this writing gives us an album full of catchy hooks and grooves played to the hilt, while interpreting the popular tunes of the day, infusing them with his Latin fire.

The luke-warm All Music review not withstanding, this IS one of Candido's best recordings, and should be a gold mine for beat lifters out there.

"Tic Tac Toe" is the Booker T and MG's vehicle that I swear eclipses the original, the power of those damned drums! Beautiful is one of those albums that I did not expect to like this much. So many reviews just blow it off as an overly commercial pop jazz album of the period. They hardly mention the tight rhythm playing, and those completely intoxicating drums.


January 30, 2016

Lee Morgan's Search for the New Land: Superb Hard-Bop From 1966

When someone asks me: What's the best Lee Morgan (1937-1972) album? Typically they expect The Sidewinder answer to come out of my mouth.

I can certainly agree, that album is one of the best, and perhaps even equal to my favorite:

Search For the New Land:

A sextet album recorded in 1964 but released 2 years later, and yes it does sport a stone classic jazz line up:

Lee Morgan on trumpet, Herbie Hancock on piano, Wayne Shorter on tenor sax, the underrated Reggie Workman on bass, the superb Billy Higgins on drums, and for my money, the best jazz guitarist of them all Grant Green.

I love the solo Grant takes on the title track, the track is well worth the 15 minutes. Green's solo happens at the 9:15 mark if you listen to the video below.

Hearing the solo in context with the other great solos from Morgan, Shorter, and Hancock is what drives the point home, wow the clean no-B.S. sound is what sets green apart in my opinion.

When I see a Blue Note with Grant Green as a side man, I know it will be a good session.  I know Green will contribute something worthwhile for my ears.


The centerpiece of the album is of course the title track, but believe me there are plenty of reasons to like the album. "Mr. Kenyatta" is nice tune, darned if Green doesn't kick butt again. I love the urgency of the track.

Lee delivers one of my favorite fiery solos on the track "see below", he really digs in on the track stretching the boundaries, the theme on "Mr Kenyatta" is really inventive hard-bop. This album in my opinion is the pinnacle of where hard-bop could go before going out side to the avant-garde.

The Ballad "Melancholee" seems like a Wayne Shorter vehicle, or least that Wayne was in Lee Morgan's mind when it was written. Wayne's playing and the composition has this enigmatic quality to it. I wonder if that would be the same if Joe Henderson was in the tenor spot?

"Morgan the Pirate" is another great advanced hard-bop tune, Shorter and Green do their thing again. These guys were so in the zone in 1964, they were all fresh and creative, pushing themselves beyond where anyone could have conceived the music from a contemporary perspective. I can certainly see why Shorter and Hancock went the fusion route later on by the end of the decade.

 Listen to this record, or any of Herbie, Wayne, or Lee's other records of the 63-67 period, what else can you do inside the bop/hard-bop tradition?

The logical place would be to go to other styles like world music and popular music for inspiration...and ultimately the use of electronic instruments is what they did.

Search For the New Land is certainly one of the best hard-bop records I have ever heard, and fits nicely inside the post bop sub-genre, though the music never becomes too high-brow for the less than well healed jazz aficionado.





January 26, 2016

Stanley Turrentine's 1962 Blue Note Jubilee Shout: Not Released Until 1986

Jubilee Shout review
I have never considered Stanley Turrentine (1934-2000) to be in the upper echelon of saxophonists. Why?

Well, I did not consider him to be a ground breaker as a writer or as an instrumentalist.

like anyone else, I know John Coltrane makes Turrentine seem like an afterthought when you compare the two's critical legacies.

 Other than Charlie Parker, and perhaps Lester Young, who doesn't Coltrane do that to?

I have spent the last few weeks re-accessing Stanley, and there is no doubt, I undervalued his playing and writing.  Jubilee Shout is one of those grossly overlooked records. His larger band stuff like Joy Ride is also very interesting.  I also like his 70's CTI fusion work, Sugar and Salt Song, they are very good records. The track "Minor Chant" from Back at the Chicken Shack sticks out to me as a fine example of Stanley's blues drenched soul jazz playing.


January 25, 2016

A Pair of Underrated Stanley Turrentine Blue Note Albums: Mr. Natural and Another Story

Japanese cover of Turrentine's Mr. Natural
One of the greatest things about being a vinyl crate digger is finding hidden gems in the particular genre you have a passion for.

This pair of hidden 1960's gems from Stanley Turrentine are hard to complain about:  Mr Natural from 1964, but not released until 198o with those shoddy pseudo-hipster album covers; that paid no mind to the proud Blue Note/Reid Miles designs of the 50's and 60's.

 In fact, those covers I always thought were an embarrassment. The pictured Mr. Natural cover was the Japanese reissue on CD, which does a better job at living up to the Blue Note legacy in my opinion.

Accompanying Stanley on the album are Lee Morgan on trumpet, McCoy Tyner on piano, Bob Cranshaw on bass, with Elvin Jones in the drum chair.

 Another Story was released in 1969, and features Thad Jones on flugelhorn, Cedar Walton on Piano, Mickey Roker on drums, and Buster Williams on bass.


January 12, 2016

Horace Silver's In Pursuit of the 27th Man: An Oddity From His Catalog

Horace Silver
What a bizarre record In Pursuit of the 27th Man is.

I like the record, though 4 of the 7 tracks are quartet tracks without horns and feature the vibes of David Friedman.

The 3 typical Horace funky styled tracks are fantastic as usual, funky groove tracks that Silver was known for throughout his career.

These tracks feature the Brecker Brothers, Michael and Randy on Sax and trumpet respectively.


January 4, 2016

Rollin With Leo Parker 1961: A Lost Classic From the Blue Note Catalog

Rollin' With Leo Parker Blue Note
Another sad casualty of demon addiction: Leo Parker (1925-1962) was a fine baritone saxophonist who created a pair of Blue Note records in 1961, less than 6 months before is untimely demise at the age of 36.

Rollin' With Leo Parker wasn't even released until 1980, not sure why, because it is a fine hard bop album firmly inside the best of the Blue Note Record label's tradition

 Certainly  the album is the equal of the lone Blue Note released during his brief lifetime Let Me Tell You About It .

 "Bad Girl" is worth the price of the disc alone.

Dave Burns offers support on trumpet, Bill Swindell on tenor, John Acea on piano, Stan Conover or Al Lucas on bass, and Wilbert Hogan or Purnell Rice on drums.

Nothing extraordinary happens here, but I do like the overall traditional blues vibe on the album. I kept wishing Lester Young was still around and would drop by. That says a lot, and describes this record pretty well I think; a silky smooth and easy listen.

John Acea does a nice job with tasty piano throughout, well recorded of course too, other than the leader's baritone, he stands out the most to me, Acea tickles the ivories, that's a great way to describe his playing.

 I had no idea Acea passed away so young as well, only a few month after Parker on July 23rd 1965 at the age of 45.

My thinking is, swing fans will also dig the record. It has a quality that seems to hearken back to the 30's. I do feel like Coleman Hawkins or Ben Webster are going to grab a solo at any moment. A fine record...I really enjoyed it this evening for my first post of 2016.


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