(By Lance)
Apart from the music, the real ale and the jazz talk with friends old
and new, one of the highlights of the CJP is the CD stall. The live music may
be closer to ragtime than bebop but the record stall knows no such boundaries
and, apart from albums by the performers - Christmas is coming and we
have the perfect stocking filler for you routine (that phrase always
makes me think that they must think that our friends have funny shaped legs) -
there were albums covering eras from the past to the present and beyond. I half
expected to find a couple of cylinders by Buddy Bolden but maybe Dave Kerr beat
me to it.
Now, despite the pile of review CDs awaiting their turn (oh he's still
not harping on about that I hear you say) I found myself splashing out for
three gems that I somehow never got around to buying back in the day.
Billie Holiday's Songs
For Distingué Lovers was dismissed by some of the critics when it
first came out not long before her death but, to my ears, it's as good as
anything she did in her earlier years. The voice is stronger and more assertive
without losing that plaintive and emotional quality that was there irrespective
of the era. Super solos by Ben Webster, Sweets Edison, Barney Kessel, Jimmy
Rowles and that most underrated drummer Alvin Stoller made this the real deal
when it comes to the classic jazz vocal album.
Talking of classic line-ups, they don't
come much better than (collectively) the players on Benny Carter's Further
Definitions & Additions to Further Definitions. Carter, Bud Shank and
Phil Woods on alto saxes, Coleman Hawkins, Teddy Edwards, Buddy Collette, Bill
Perkins and Charlie Rouse on tenor, Bill Hood on baritone. Plus a rhythm
section that collectively includes Don Abney (piano); Barney Kessel, John
Collins and Mundell Lowe (guitars); Ray Brown (bass) and, once more, Alvin
Stoller (drums). Great, easily identifiable musicians, blowing on some good tunes all arranged by Benny Carter.
The final five quider that I
picked up - Charles Mingus & Friends in Concert - is another blast. How
could it not be with guys like Dizzy, Faddis, Konitz, Moody, Mulligan, Ammons,
McPherson, Randy Weston, Milt Hinton and a whole gang of others taking the roof
of Lincoln Center. I don't know where I was on February 4, 1972, but I know
where I would liked to have been!
Lance
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