When most jazz fans think of Wayne Shorter, they are likely to conjure up one or more of his Blue Note albums (e.g., Juju), and/or one or more of his Miles Davis albums (e.g., Miles Smiles), and/or one or more of his Weather Report albums (e.g., Heavy Weather). My first thoughts, however, run to Native Dancer, that hybridized, outlier collaboration with musicians from Brazil. When the LP came out in 1975, I bought six copies and gave five to friends—I loved it that much.

Wayne had featured several Brazilian rhythm tracks on previous albums. Still, as Shorter biographer Michelle Mercer wrote,

Having first learned of Nascimento from jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, Wayne covered one of the singer/songwriter’s tunes on a Blue Note album in 1970. Inevitability, one often realizes, dictated a shared recording date. With his Portugese wife Ana Maria’s encouragement, Wayne arranged to have Milton and two musical associates stay at his house in Malibu where they lived, and worked for two weeks, going to the studio to record Native Dancer on September 12, 1974.

Shorter recognized that if you have a one-of-a-kind singer, one who had assimilated the bossa nova of his fellow countrymen, along with the Gregorian chants of his remote Catholic church in the hinterlands, into a self-styled alto yodel (some called it) or his female voice (Milton called it), then a hybrid album—not a jazz album, not a Brazilian album—but a hybrid should be made. And that’s what Wayne did.

Along with him and Herbie Hancock, there were three Brazilians:

The album opens with “Ponta De Areia,” a singsong, nursery school melody over an unusual 9/8-meter sung by Milton in his liquid, instrumental-like wordless falsetto voice. Heard underneath is a shadow piano melody by Herbie. The other singer on the date, Wayne, enters smoothly on his soprano saxophone, repeating the childlike melody before he joins Milton in a duet. “Ponta” ends as it begins except for Waynish obligatos underneath.

Perhaps fearing the first-track exotica might be a bit much for first-time listeners, Wayne follows “Ponta” with his own composition, “Beauty and the Beast.” A solid toe-tapper that begins with hesitant, funky block chords by Herbie that segues into a strong, melodic statement by Wayne, then alternates back and forth between the two as the tune continues; ostensibly one is “Beauty,” the other, Beast.” At song’s end they are one in the same.

Nascimento sings “Tarde” clearly, softly, yet another display of his tremendous vocal range. For this luxurious mood piece, Wayne pulls out his first instrument—tenor sax—and plays a romantic solo over a Hammond organ cushion. Milton reenters with a sweeping, wordless falsetto behind Wayne’s tenor excursions, pauses for a spell, then returns with an even higher-pitched falsetto.

Hancock later remarked, “After Wayne soloed, when Milton would come back in, you couldn’t even tell it was a voice. Because when Wayne played, it sang, and Milton’s singing has an instrumental quality to it.” (3)

Milton begins “Miracle of the Fishes” wordlessly, wailing away, then slips in some lyrics along with the wail as Wayne, on tenor again, joins in with gusto. The free-spirited pair soar off together, not so much as an energetic vocal/sax duo, but more like a saxophone cutting contest that might take place on the fringes of avant jazz. The backup musicians (organ, guitar, drums, percussion) are exceptional in this unrestrained, up-tempo romp.

Shorter is back on soprano for the lovely ballad “Diana,” named for the newborn daughter of Flora Purim and Airto, ably supported by pianist Hancock.

Nascimento wrongly titled “From the Lonely Afternoons”—should have been “Lovely” or “Happy.” The singer-songwriter sails a wordless vocal over the band’s jumping, finger-snapping groove that compels Wayne on tenor to spread a Coltraneish flurry of notes over the head-bobbing musical stew. At the close, other voices (members of the band?) join Milton before Wayne declares “Good Afternoon.”
​
Critic Howard Mandel, who awarded Native Dancer five stars in DownBeat magazine, was especially enamored by the saxist’s homage to his wife “Ana Maria,” writing, "A lovely line is offered again and again with the slightest embellishment, gradually blossoming into a large, encompassing circle that Hancock laces with sweeping and graceful runs.” (4)
   
As revealed by Shorter biographer Mercer:

And did he ever on “Lilia.” A trebly “LaLaLaAyeAyeAyeYa-eeea” wail over a bouncy organ-piano-guitar broken 5/4 meter rhythm–his “alto yodel almost indistinguishable from Shorter’s airily ethereal soprano sound, which draws the song to a climax by ringing out one tone against a shifting rhythm bed.” (6) Whew!

​Wayne’s soprano settles into a gentler approach on Hancock’s introspective “Joanna’s Theme,” which closes the album. The four non-Nascimento tunes on the recording—this one, plus “Diana,” “Ana Maria,” and “Beauty and the Beast”—are collectively gorgeous and belong on this intriguing album, largely because of the uncanny similarity between the principal soloists’ voices.

This album has little precedent (that I can think of). Jazz musicians have worked with vocalists from the very beginning, but mostly in a backup role, and either way, too. Instrumentalists backing up the vocalist, or the opposite, singers backing up the front line instruments. For example, choral groups have backed up trumpeter Donald Byrd, pianist Andrew Hill, and guitarist Kenny Burrell.

As for the other way around, we can turn to, of course, Duke Ellington and “Creole Love Call,” the Ellington composition best known for its vocal by singer Adelaide Hall. It was the first 100 percent nonverbal scat vocal in jazz. (7) Duke followed up on the use of the human voice as an instrument, especially on “Mood Indigo,” with its famed tri-part opening. In recent times, soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy would often use the voice of wife, Irene Aebi, along with the other frontline instruments.

Simply put, Native Dancer is one of the greatest albums of the late 20th century; and for this alone, Wayne Shorter deserves to be a Kennedy Center honoree.

1. Michelle Mercer, Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter (New York: Jeremy Tarcher/Penquin, 2007), 164. 
   
2. Mercer, Footprints, 169.
   
3. Mercer, Footprints, 173.
   
4. Howard Mandel, Wayne Shorter, Native Dancer review, DownBeat magazine, 1965.
   
5. Mercer, Footprints, 171.
   
6. Mandel, Native Dancer Review, DownBeat.
7. Ann Powers, Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black & White, Body and Soul In American Music (New York: Dey Street Books, 2017), 27.

​

As we learned in Serendipity Doo-Dah, Book Two, record industry officials are more often wrong than right when it comes to picking a hit single off an album.

Here’s another instance: a Doobie Brothers single, somewhat early on, from their fourth album, What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits. The songs include “Another Park, Another Sunday” and “Black Water.”[1]

Highly qualified and very experienced producer Ted Templeman put “Another Park” on the A-side of the single figuring it would do well—gangbusters, actually—and placed “Black Water” on the B-side just to get Doobie brother Pat Simmons some songwriting royalties off the A-side action, which Templeman believed would be immense.

Brother Tom Johnson, author of “Another Park,” had, after all, been the brothers’ more prolific and successful songwriter.

But not this time. The hoped-for “Another Park” action did not happen.

Sales tanked.

But then—surprise, surprise—something started to happen with flip-side “Black Water.” There was a little radio station in Roanoke, Virginia, and not too far away was an actual river called Black Water River.

The station started playing the B-side over and over, and the local folks loved it. Soon, other stations followed suit and slowly build, build, build. Eventually stations all over the country joined in, and “Black Water” caught fire, as they say.

Did it matter? You bet.

​“Black Water” was the first number one hit the Doobie Brothers ever had!

With all due respect to Mr. Templeman and his company, Warner Brothers, when you have a song title that is a person’s name, a place name, a monument name, or something similar, you’ve got a winner.

One example: Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer changed their “Blue River” to “Moon River,” and we all know how that turned out.

1. ​Tom Johnston and Pat Simmons with Chris Epting, Long Train Runnin’: Our Story of the Doobie Brothers (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2022), 163–66.

​

In the fall of 2019, I profiled my jazz LP collection (see October / November blogs) and in the summer of 2022, my jazz CD collection (see May / June / July blogs).

​Hence, it is only logical and reasonable that I do the same for my music book collection: 709 books strong, with 441 jazz books and 268 non-jazz books (pop, rock, Broadway, other).

Here I present the jazz books, the first of which I purchased in 1965, and the bulk of them I acquired during the 1970–2000 time frame. My acquisition strategy, I hasten to add, was not based on any predetermined notion that focused on, for example, a specific jazz artist or style. Nope, if it was a jazz book, I bought it, pure and simple.

To convey a sense of my overall jazz collection, I list books below in several categories. For the most part, these books center on the life and music of the titular artist, as opposed to a period in jazz (like the ’30s) or a specific sub genre (like hard bop) or a region in jazz (like Kansas City).

What three artists topped the most-books list?

Duke Ellington     15
Miles Davis           13
Louis Armstrong  11

​Not much of a surprise there. But how about those artists who played the instrument most symbolic of jazz—the saxophone?

​James S. Hirsch opened his Washington Post review of Glenn Frankel’s book Shooting Midnight Cowboy[1] with the following:
​

​After reading the above, you could easily conclude that Midnight Cowboy was a happy movie accident. Indeed, it was. But what about “Everybody’s Talkin’,” the memorable Grammy-winning theme song not mentioned in Hirsch’s review? Did it come about in an improbable fashion like everything else in the movie? Was “Talkin’” a happy musical accident? Read on.

Director Schlesinger liked to edit his film dailies to music. From a pile of new albums, he selected Aerial Ballet by obscure LA singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson. One song, “Everybody’s Talkin’,” caught Schlesinger’s ear. An ideal track, he thought, to guide and pace his edits.
​

“Talkin’” was the only cut on the album that hadn’t been written by Nilsson. The song had been authored by yet another obscure singer-songwriter and recorded for his self-named album Fred Neil, interestingly, the last song recorded for the album.[3] This fact foretold a glorious future for the song, albeit unknown to everyone at the time and quite frankly to many even today.

​Turns out, more often than not, the last-recorded track is usually the album’s biggest hit. Think not? Check out these chart-topping caboose hits:

Coleman Hawkins “Body and Soul”
Frank Sinatra “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”
Deep Purple “Smoke on the Water”
Jerome Kern “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”
Booker T. and the M. G. “Green Onions”
Rupert Homes “The Pina Colada Song”
John Lee Hooker “Boogie Chillun”
Bill Haley and the Comets “Rock Around the Clock”
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer “Lucky Man”

In the fall of 1969, “Talkin’” came to Nilsson’s attention from his recording producer at RCA, Rick Jarrard, who had heard it on his car radio while driving to the studio. Rick quickly purchased the Fred Neil album and played it for Harry, who gave it a thumbs-down; he wasn’t about to add someone else’s work to his Aerial Ballet album. Jarrard doubled down and argued vigorously for its inclusion. Harry finally capitulated, as a favor to his record producer.[4]

As a matter of interest, “Talkin’” was not the first song heard on the radio by a producer that eventually worked its way into a film and subsequent widespread fame. Say hello to “What a Wonderful World” and “Unchained Melody.”[5]

Moreover, talk about serendipity or synchronicity—this very same record producer, Rick Jarrard, working with Jefferson Airplane on their Surrealistic Pillow album, convinced reluctant guitarist Jorma Kaukonen to include his finger-picking acoustic solo “Embryonic Journey” on Airplane’s psychedelic-rock Surrealistic Pillow album. Jorma’s folky “Journey” would be as much a fan favorite as the group’s well-known surreal hits “Someone to Love” and “White Rabbit.” 

​“Talkin’” was not a shoe-in to be the picture’s theme song, despite Schlesinger’s intentions. Top-flight artists—Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Donavan, Bob Dylan—had submitted songs for consideration. Schlesinger stuck by his daily editing song. United Artist objected. They wanted an original song, one they could own and copyright, release as a single, and on the film soundtrack album. Harry Nilsson wanted UA to use a song of his, not one by Fred Neil! Still, the director tenaciously clung to his choice as the main theme and introduction to the film.

As for United Artists, the matter was finally resolved when producer Hellman and Director Schlesinger showed the nearly finished film to UA executives. Hearing the music as an integral part of the movie did the trick. Ownership rights be damned, what’s perfect is perfect.[6]

As for the question asked at the outset, “Talkin’” is indeed a happy musical accident, despite director Schlesinger’s unwavering devotion to the rightness of his choice, fighting off all attempts to replace it with something else.

The song came to him in an accidental fashion. An aide brought him a stack of new albums for him to use in his film-editing process. He selected Aerial Ballet at random and became enamored with its last track. He loved the sweetness of the melody and the wistful rebellious spirit of the lyrics that perfectly aligned with the Joe Buck character played by Jon Voight.

Imagine if he had selected any other 1967 release, like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or the Monkees' Headquarters or the Grateful Dead or the Moody Blues or Procol Harum or the Who?

Hard to imagine anything better than Aerial Ballet’s last track. When contemplating this, keep in mind that in 2004, “Everybody’s Talkin’” was listed number 20 in AFI’s top 100 movie songs of all time!

1. ​​Glenn Frankel, Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2021).
2. James S. Hirsch, “‘Midnight Cowboy’ Was a Masterpiece Made of Desperation,” Washington Post, Sunday, April 4, 2021.
3. Frankel, Shooting Midnight Cowboy, 246–48.
4. Frankel, Shooting Midnight Cowboy, 249.
5. Edward Allan Faine, Serendipity Doo-Dah: True Stories of Happy Musical Accidents, Book One (Takoma Park, MD: IM Press, 2017), 107; Ray Padgett, Cover Me: The Stories Behind the Greatest Songs of All Time (New York: Sterling, 2007), 42–43.
6. Frankel, Shooting Midnight Cowboy, 250–51.

The Faine jazz CD collection. 

Continuing from part 3, here are five more personal favorites from my collection of jazz CDs.

​

Charles Lloyd | Passin’ Thru | Blue Note

Saxophone/flute player Charles Lloyd burst onto the California jazz scene in the mid-1960s on the strength of (1) albums Dreamweaver (1966) and Forest Flower (1967) featuring his first great quartet Keith Jarrett (piano), Cecil McBee (bass), and Jack DeJohnette (drums), and (2) the group’s appearances at Bill Graham's youth-filled Fillmore clubs.

After several years of pop adulation Lloyd entered into a period of (what should we call it) semi-retirement.


​Lloyd’s real resurgence began in the 1990s when he signed onto the ECM label, recording sixteen albums with them followed by a stint with Blue Note into 2020, recording five albums.

The bulk of these albums feature Lloyd’s second great quartet (also known as the new quartet) Jason Moran (piano), Reuben Rogers (bass), and Eric Harland (drums). The best of which, in my opinion, is the highly entertaining Passin’ Thru (2017).

The album opens with Lloyd’s composition “Dreamweaver,” also recorded by his first quartet. The second quartet’s take is longer (by six minutes) and more complex, as Tom Jurek wrote:

​The following tracks reflect the various genres and styles mentioned above, singularly and collectively.

“Nu Blues” is a be-boppin’ swinger by the Jason Moran Bop Trio. Moran is rollin’ the keys like Bud Powell, Rogers is Ray Brown or Oscar Pettiford walkin’ the bass, and Harland is bebop originator Kenny Clarke keepin’ time on his ride cymbal, kickin’ the bass drum, and adding his own polyrhythmic textures. Tenorman Lloyd joins the Trio and its throwback time to a 1950s Norman Granz Jazz at the Philharmonic concert battlin’ it out with Flip Phillips and Illinois Jacquet.

Well, that’s the way I heard it.

“How Can I Tell You” is about as close the new quartet could get to a late-night slow dance dreamy ballad. Moran’s (almost) cocktail piano and the drummer’s use of brushes sets the mood for the leader’s lyrical saxophone offering to the song’s inspiration, singer Billie Holiday.

On “Tagor” Lloyd stirs the bluesy stew prepared by his rhythm mates with his Eastern sounding flute. At the start Moran strums the piano strings like a guitar, Rogers adds a Motown melodic bass line, and the drummer drives “Tagor” forward with a snare and hi-hat attack.

At the mid-point, with no loss of drive, Moran moves to the keyboard to pound out a funky chording interval over a rock-and-roll backbeat. Start to finish this is a hand-clapper.

The title track opens with unaccompanied bass and then, boom!, the band takes off with a high energy up-tempo dance-like excursion into bop. Moran’s piano and Lloyd’s tenor solo engage Roger’s and Harland’s rhythms with startling athletic lyricism.

Bordering on playful and/or novelty, “Passin’ Thru” is a crowd pleasin’ groove.

The album closes on a respectful note with “Shiva’s Prayer.” A beautiful unaccompanied piano piece by Moran, with lovely arco bass playing by Rogers, and soft drums by Harland.

Then quiet.

Sonny Sharrock | Ask the Ages | Axiom

Scott Yanow in his ultimate guide to the great jazz guitarists opined, "Sonny Sharrock was the first truly avant-garde guitarist in jazz. . . When Sharrock burst on the scene in the mid-1960s, he was not only free in his choice of notes but in . . . his use of feedback and distorted sounds. He preceded Derek Bailey and Jimi Hendrix. During an era when few jazz guitarists even acknowledged rock, Sharrock was playing explosive solos that made him the Pharoah Sanders of the guitar.”

Interesting, then, that he would pair up with saxophonist Sanders, along with bass player Charrette Moffet and drummer Elvin Jones in 1991 to record Ask the Ages, the consensus definitive and most essential album of Sharrock’s career.

This is unquestionably a free jazz album, how could it not be with Sonny Sharrock, Pharoah Sanders, and Elvin Jones ripping it up as if it was 1965.

Yet it is something else again, appealing and accessible to a wide range of music fans. Proof of this can be found on google: type in “rateyourmusic.com Ask the Ages,” select the top entry, and read the 45 reviews, and you’ll see what I mean.

Ask the Ages has six original Sharrock compositions: two scorchers “Promises Kept” and “Many Mansions,” two mellow and melodic “Who Does She Hope to Be” and “Once Upon a Time,” and two in-betweeners, “Little Rock” and “As We Used to Sing.” It is the mellow tunes (and secondarily the in-betweeners) that make this album so appealing with “Who Does She Hope to Be” generally favored over “Once Upon a Time.”

But for my money, the latter is the exceptional track. 
           
While each instrument is heard in “Once Upon a Time,” it is the collective daresay “symphonic” — like sound that matters.

Sonny’s guitar, chording Hendrix-like and soloing at the same time (dubbing may have been involved); Pharoah’s tenor sax, offering a repetitive hummable figure; and Elvin’s non-stop striking of his drums with mallets, yes, with mallets not sticks or hands, creating a rhythmically throbbing pattern. Occasionally, Sonny spices the group’s malleting stew with a memorable Santana-like guitar line.

​Overall, a never-to-be forgotten, compelling track.

Frank Sinatra | Live in Australia 1959 | Blue Note

While Sinatra’s time capsule albums are Wee Small Hours in the Morning, Songs for Swinging Lovers, Only the Lonely, and a few others, the “Jazziest” is Frank Sinatra with the Red Norvo Quintet Live In Australia 1959.

A rare album where Frank sings his well-known fan favorites, not as originally recorded with a large studio orchestra, mind you, but backed by a small jazz combo live.


​From Will Friedwall’s liner notes:

Some might argue that Sinatra’s performance with Count Basie’s band captured live in Las Vegas tops that in Australia 1959.

​For me, Ol’ Blue Eyes' best live album is Australia 1959.

Frank Sinatra | The Concert Sinatra | Reprise

In the entire recording oeuvre of Frank Sinatra there is nothing like The Concert Sinatra, an album of extended performances by Frank and a 73-piece symphony orchestra arranged and conducted by Nelson Riddle.

The recording features eight tunes (lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein on all but one.) These are not the vocal offerings of familiar Sinatra poses, the finger-snappin’ swingin’ bachelor or the down-and-out sad sack propped against the lamppost.

No, this is the full-voiced light classicist in the manner of contemporaries Todd Duncan, Howard Keel, Gordan McRae, or (almost) Paul Robeson.
​
In other words, Frank gets as close as an American pop singer can to the bel canto style.

On no other album does Sinatra reveal such strength in his lower register and overall dynamic range. This album is in a class by itself. Discussions of what category it belongs to: jazz, pop jazz, pop, or Broadway — are irrelevant.

​It’s simply incandescent.

No male interpretive singer of the 20th century other than Frank Sinatra could have pulled this off.

Wilson and Adderley | Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley | Capitol

I bought this CD for two reasons: one, my fondness for the classic Adderley Quintet (Cannonball (Alto), brother Nat (Cornet), Sam Jones (Bass), and Louis Hayes (Drums) with Joe Zawinal (Piano); and two, my piqued curiosity after I read an article in Downbeat magazine in 2004, listing the best jazz vocalist albums chosen by 73 jazz singers (21 male, 52 female).[1] At the top, number one, was the album Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley originally recorded in 1961.

After multiple listenings, I came around to understanding the record’s appeal to the Downbeat singers, helped along by Nancy Wilson’s statement in the album’s liner notes that she considered her vocals on the album “as a sort of easy-going third horn.”[2]

Jazz singers (all singers?) in particular desperately want to be a thoroughly integrated member of the band — not off to the side or out front, but in the mix. And that, in fact, was what Nancy was in this instance and what the DownBeat singers heard and no doubt wished for themselves.

The album is doubly interesting because it is not entirely a vocal album, five of the 12 tracks are instrumentals by the quintet (every one outstanding) especially Cannon’s alto solo on the trumpet warhorse “I Can’t Get Started” and the brothers cookin’ on “Teaneck,” but it is the seven Wilson tracks that caught the ears of the DownBeaters.

Highlights for me are the gentle cornet playing by Nat behind Wilson on “Save Your Love for Me” and Nat’s tune “The Old Country;” and Cannon’s bopish swinging sax duet with Nancy (and Nat) on “Never Will I Marry” and “Happy Talk.”

Sam Jones bass is superb, especially on “A Sleeping Bee.”

1. “Singers” All-Time Favorite Vocal Jazz Albums, DownBeat, June 2004, 48.
2. Ron Grevatt, original liner notes, Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley, Capitol Records, 2004, Compact Disc, CDP 077778120421.

Continuing from part 2, here are more personal favorites from my collection of 440 jazz CDs. 

​

Ella Fitzgerald | Ella in Berlin/Mack The Knife | Verve
​
​William F. Lee’s Jazz Singers Biographical Dictionary claims Fitzgerald was considered by many to be the finest female jazz singer of all time.

Taken at face value (ignoring those who considered her a pop singer) evidence for “the finest female jazz singer ever” can be found in her famous “Song Book” albums where she recorded definitive studio orchestra versions of the American Songbook composers Berlin, Gershwin, Arlen, Ellington, Kern, Mercer, Porter, and Rodgers and Hart. But even more important are the many concert/nightclub stage recordings where her highness is backed by a small jazz combo.

In this regard, one only has to look no further than the best of the lot, Grammy-winning Ella in Berlin backed by the Paul Smith Quartet. Ella’s assured sense of rhythm and close rapport with the musicians is evident throughout, on the slow ballads as well as the virtuoso scat numbers. The program is superbly varied.

Thirteen songs equally divided between slow, medium, and up-tempo numbers.

​Gershwin’s “Summertime” is sung straight with minimum vibrato, while his “Lorelie” is a slow tempo swinger.

On “Our Love Is Here to Stay” (Gershwin again) and personal favorite “Gone with the Wind” her instrumental phrasing comes to the fore, leaving little doubt that she is an ambrosial class singer; at times stuttering a word into three or four syllables, speeding up or slowing down a line, creating new interesting melodies while still paying homage to the source.

But it is “Mack the Knife” and “How High the Moon” that elevate this album to precious metal status, and likely entry into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry someday. Ella’s “Mack” surpasses both the Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darin versions. Hard to believe because she forgets the lyrics at the outset but continues by making up her own whimsical lyrics as she goes along, picking them out of the air — wonderin’ what’s the next chorus to this song now, somethin’ ‘bout cash, trash, you won’t recognize it, it’s a surprise it — even mentioning the prior Darin and Armstrong recordings, scatting a delightful imitation of Satch.

This four-minute lighthearted musical improvisation, believe it or not, won best song by a female at the 1960 Grammy Award.

And to think, the next song, the last one in the concert, topped Ella’s rendition of “Mack.” Her take on “High the Moon” is a masterclass in scatting. Few jazz singers, male or female, have come this close to perfection, considering that the racehorse tempo of “Moon” is sustained over seven minutes.

The Paul Smith Quartet deserves high praise for the stellar support throughout, especially pianist Smith and drummer Gus Johnson.

Keith Jarrett Trio | Somewhere | ECM
​
Keith Jarrett is one of the most widely admired jazz pianists on the planet — primarily known for his Koln Concert album, the best-selling solo album in jazz history.

The Koln did the trick for most, but for me, it was his Standards Trio albums with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette.

Beyond reproach are the trio’s renditions of songs from the Great American Songbook (like “Blame It On My Youth,” “Body and Soul,” and “I Thought About You”) and the jazz repertory (“Woody ‘n You,” “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be,” and “Oleo”).

Especially beyond reproach are the occasional compositions of their own, typically mesmerizing trance-inducing vamps that for me were always an album highlight (like “The Cure,” on the The Cure, “Sunprayer” on Tribute One, and “U Dance” on Tribute Two). Perhaps the best of these  appears on the 2013 album Somewhere.

​Jarrett’s reading of the Leonard Bernstein–Stephen Sondheim “Somewhere/Everywhere” theme appropriately begins gentle and sublime, then at the five-minute mark of the 19-minute extravaganza, it gets “reconstructed and reshaped . . . into the driving, hypnotic improvisational ostinato coda Jarrett calls ‘Everywhere,’ with breathtaking chord voicings, forceful middle-register bass flourishes, and awe-inspiring tom-tom and cymbal work by DeJohnette; the track’s conclusion is drenched in royal gospel and regal blues” that fades into the distance, a chance for the audience to catch its breath before erupting into a rush of explosive shouts and applause.

The stage mic captures a round of laughter from the trio, as if to say, “How the hell did we pull this one off!”

Chico Freeman | Spirit Sensitive |
​India Navigation

On Spirit Sensitive saxophonist Chico Freeman lends his pure sound and articulate relatable improvisations to 10 memorable songs composed by the following:

Great American Song Book composers Vernon Duke “Autumn In New York,” and Rodgers and Hart “It Never Entered My Mind,” as well as seven jazz musician composers: Thad Jones “A Child Is Born,” pianists Duke Ellington “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” and Horace Silver “Peace,” bassist Cecil McBee “Closer to You Alone,” guitarist Luis Bonfa “Carnival,” singer Patti Austin “You Don’t Have to Say You’re Sorry,” and tenor saxophonist John Coltrane “Lonnie’s Lament” and “Wise One.”

All the jazz songs (save for those by Coltrane) have lyrics and are a testimony if you will, to their euphoniousness.

Freeman plays tenor on all of the above, except for “You Don’t Have to Say.” Chico is sensitively supported by bassist Cecil McBee, pianist John Hicks, and drummer Billy Hart, although the drums appear to be improperly recorded, the only flaw on the album.

Drum issue aside, this is one of the most beautifully realized albums. It starts with quality material and proceeds with masterful interpretations.

Perhaps I am overly biased in my opinion here, largely because (truth be told) my absolute favorite song is Patti Austin’s “You Don’t Have to Say You're Sorry,” and my favorite instrumental version is by Chico Freeman.

I first took notice of Austin in 1976 upon the release of her first album, End of the Rainbow, with the self-composed “You don’t have to say you’re sorry / but I sure do wish you would.”

​I have played the song numerous times over the years and bought the album for friends. Chico plays it on soprano saxophone with minimal but perfectly placed jazz flourishes.

​Tearfully gorgeous. Ms. Austin, I’m certain, would agree.                 

Darcy James Argue | Infernal Machines |
​New Amsterdam

Spring 2009 saw the release of Infernal Machines by Darcy James Argue, composer/conductor of an 18-person swing-size big band called Secret Society (five winds, five trumpets/fluegelhorns, four trombones and four rhythm — drums along with acoustic and electric piano, guitar and bass.)

​But Glen Miller, Tommy Dorsey it was not, nor was it ’50s Stan Kenton, ’60s Don Ellis, or even ’90s Maria Schneider. But what was it?

No ordinary big band album, that’s for sure. But critics loved it, though some struggled a bit to describe it.

To me, Machines offered a cornucopia of sounds, some familiar, some not, some loud, some soft, floating above shifting rhythms with an overall steady pulse.

Karl Ackerman (All About Jazz) said it more succinctly: “The sound is both complex and nuanced at the same time.” He also said, “Each influence blends seamlessly into the next without disrupting the content of the piece” — in effect, “a blending of new classical, indie rock and jazz.”

Larry Blumenthal (Wall Street Journal) described the band as “elegant in its combination of disparate influences from distorted electric guitar to magisterial wind instrument arrangements to minimalist rhythms.”

I concluded that Argue’s writing reflected the whole of contemporary music, as he sees it, into big band music for today.

Machines is art music created by an exceptionally talented composer/arranger executed by extraordinary competent musicians that remains as fresh and revolutionary today as when it was recorded. Argue’s debut album therefore belongs in every jazz fan's collection.

​It telleth the future.

I profiled my collection of 640 jazz LPs in my blog “Portrait of an LP-Era Jazz Fan: Part 1.”

Below is my collection of 440 CDs (early 2022). 

​As with my LP collection, I fell in love with the music of an eclectic mix of jazz musicians. Similarly, I purchased multiple albums by my jazz favorites as shown below: 

Interestingly, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Henry Threadgill, Andrew Hill, Abdullah Ibrahim, and Chico Freeman also ranked highly on the LP album list. Frank Sinatra and Duke Ellington CDs got an additional boost in support of books I authored, namely Duke Ellington at the White House, 1969, and The Best Gig In Town: Jazz Artists at the White House, 1969–1974.
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Twenty-eight percent of my CD collection consists of multiple buys from the 16 artists above.

The remaining 72 percent consists of four, three, or fewer CDs per artist and include a number of singular, transcendent, one-of-a- kind albums, some of which I’ll examine in detail in my next blog.

​On the basis of the John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman album (Impulse!, 1963), music historian Will Friedwald concluded:
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In Serendipity Doo-Dah Book One, I discussed how the “My One and Only Love” track from the above album came about as an accidental lapse by Hartman on the first run-through. The singer was so transfixed by Coltrane’s tenor sax solo that he completely forgot to come back in for his vocal at the close of the recording, which necessitated a do-over, resulting in the classic performance now known by everyone.[2]

​Another happy accident took place on that date as well. On the ride out from Manhattan to Rudy Van Gelder’s studios in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, to record the six planned selections, the driver turned the car radio on, and there was the voice of Nat King Cole singing Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life.” 

Upon hearing the song, Hartman exclaimed, “Man! This is one of the great tunes of all time.”

Coltrane responded, “Do you know it?”

He did. 

“Lush Life” was the second tune recorded that day, and not surprisingly, it was a classic, an archetypical reading that used the Cole version as a template in terms of tempo and overall format.[3]

John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman became the one recording that exposed the most people to Strayhorn’s lovely song, all because the car radio was tuned to the right station.

CODA
Coltrane certainly knew “Lush Life”—he had recorded an instrumental version for Prestige in January, 1958, released on his album Lush Life three years later.
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1. Will Frieidwald, The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums (New York: Pantheon Books, 2017), 163.
2. Edward Allan Faine, Serendipity Doo-Dah: True Stories of Happy Musical Accidents (Takoma Park, MD: IM Press, 2017), 75–6.
3. Will Friedwald, The Great Albums, 166–7.

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1958 CLASSIC RECORD ALBUMS 

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