Welcome to "All That Jazz," a weekly (I hope) feature on brothersjudd.com where I will provide short reviews of some of my favorite jazz recordings. My goals are to introduce you to musicians and music you may not be familiar with, entice you to listen to some great music and, perhaps, spark your own quest to learn about this great and uniquely American art form.   (I know that the "uniquely American" thing is overused...but in this case, it really is true.)  I will try to make these pieces accessible to both jazz fans and casual listeners.

A few things before we get to our first installment:

·      When I say these will be "short" reviews, I mean short...ranging from a few sentences to maybe 2 paragraphs.  This will be a test for me, as I could go on and on about any of these recordings, spinning off into background on each of the players, comments about the songs and their composers and all sort of tangents and anecdotes.   But I have a real job and family, and despite OJ's predictions about the imminent demise of labor, I'm guessing most of you have jobs or other obligations, too.  So the quicker you get through my notes and start listening to the music, the better for all of us.  (This intro will be far longer than anything I write about a given recording.)

·      I will alternatively refer to the subject of my pieces as "recordings," "CD's," "albums" and, G-d help me, I may even slip sometimes and call them "records."   I do most of my listening on via iTunes over my laptop, iPad or phone...you may still have a vinyl fetish...but whatever I call them, you'll know what I mean.

·      My taste in jazz runs the gamut of the music from Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings in the 1920's through whatever was debuted by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra last night.  But the focus of most of what you see here will be "straight ahead" jazz...the mostly acoustic, mostly swing-standards-and-blues-based music that arose in the 1930's and continues to be the primary form of jazz performed today.  This music encompasses genres such as swing, bebop, hard bop, cool, West Coast and others.  I may sometimes write about earlier forms of the music, more "out" or avant garde styles, or jazz "fusion", but it won't be too often.

·      I will usually comment on albums...that is, compilations of individual songs...although sometimes I will focus on one particular recording of a song that blows me away or, perhaps, various recordings of the same composition by different players.  (For those of you who are new to this, there is a canon of standard songs familiar to all jazz musicians and most fans...many written by the great early- and mid-century pop and Broadway composers such as the Gershwin brothers, Cole Porter and Rogers & Hart and many by jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk.  In jazz these written "standards" are used as springboards for improvised solos based on the melodies and harmonies of the songs.)

·      The CD's chosen will not always be the greatest (whatever that means) or most famous examples of the music...although sometimes they will be.  What they will be are personal favorites of mine or the music I'm listening to at the time. 

·      For every recording, I will provide a link to amazon.com or other online seller and, if available, a link to a YouTube post of a tune from the album or at least a representative video of the same artist.

·      I enjoy all instruments that jazz is commonly played on...heck, the subject of my first review below is a harmonica player... but my real love is the saxophone.  So expect to see sax players over-represented here.  My all-time favorites and personal heroes are Benny Carter and Sonny Rollins.  I won't bury you with the music of these titans, but if you were to only study their output (Benny's recording career spanned from 1927 - 1990 and Sonny's started in 1949 and continues to this day), you'd have a have a deep understanding of the beauty, intelligence, humor, elegance and exuberance that can be found in great jazz performances.

·      I'm calling this feature "All That Jazz" after the Benny Carter tune of the same name (and not in honor of the lame and non-jazzy Kander & Ebb song from the musical "Chicago").  I couldn't think of anything better...although given the time of day I will write most of these, "Round Midnight" was also in the running.  If you have a better suggestion, I'm open.

·      I welcome comments, feedback, debate, opinions or whatever.  I'm not sure whether the best way to do this will be through the "comments" section or some other system the Brothers Judd will set up.  But if you write a comment, I will read it and respond (if appropriate), and if requested, will recommend other albums by the same artist or other worthwhile recordings in the same genre.

That's it.  I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I'm looking forward to writing them.

 

Jean "Toots" Thielemans, Man Bites Harmonica (1958)

YouTube: East of the Sun

Even if you've never listened to jazz, I promise you that you have heard Toots Thielemans.  It was his harmonica playing the theme songs to the TV shows Sesame Street and Sanford and Son and the film Midnight Cowboy, and his whistling (!) in commercials for Old Spice, Pinesol and other products.  But foremost, Toots is a first rate jazzman on harmonica and guitar.   Born in Brussels, he recently retired from active touring and recording at the age of 92.  

My favorite Toots' album is Man Bites Harmonica, a 1958 release featuring Toots on a front line with the great baritone sax player Pepper Adams and supported by a top-notch rhythm section of Kenny Drew (piano), Wilbur Ware (bass) and Art Taylor (drums).   The band plays a nice mix of lightly swinging standards (kicked off by my favorite tune, "East of the Sun"), ballads and blues.  Toots shows off his sax-inspired bebop-ish chops on the harmonica and a fluid technique and ringing tone (reminiscent of Herb Ellis or Kenny Burrell) on guitar, Pepper is at his gruff, discursive best, and the rhythm section cooks at just the right temperature throughout.  The YouTube clip above is the opening tune, "East of the Sun," and will give you the flavor of this album.  Another favorite of mine is their rendition of "Struttin' With Some Barbecue," a song recorded by Louis Armstrong's Hot Five in the late 20's, and not a tune usually played in more modern settings.

[originally posted : 9/19/14]