ONE LP

EDUCATION | EXHIBITIONS: ONE LP@DOCUMENTING JAZZ_2020

Documenting Jazz: Birmingham City University 16 - 18 January 2020 

Birmingham City University is pleased to host the second edition of the conference.  

Focused on this year’s theme, ways of documenting, it brings together delegates from across the academic, archive, library, and museum sectors to explore and discuss proposals on jazz as visual culture, and its distinct representations: photography, press, cinema, television, and web. 

The conference is hosting two exhibitions of photographs. Jazz Journeys: Everyday Life Exhibition - a collaborative pilot research project by Brian Homer and Dr. Pedro Cravinho on contemporary jazz musicians living in Birmingham.  

The One LP Project: Re-imagining the music based photographic portrait 

Re-imagining the jazz photographic portrait is part of a wider practice-based research project that explores the ways we can use the photographic image and words to capture something of the place of recorded music in our cultural identity. This collaborative is led by William Ellis – a professional photographer specialising in images of jazz performance and Prof Tim Wall – a popular music studies academic whose work ranges across jazz and other forms of black popular music, their mediation and their reception by British audiences. 

At the heart of the larger project are a series of 350 photographic portraits of individuals who play significant roles in popular music culture.  

Re-imagining the jazz photographic portrait is the latest iteration of Ellis and Wall’s research, built around an exhibition of photographs presented at the second Documenting Jazz conference held at BCU in January 2020 as part of an exploration of the conference’s focus on ways of documenting jazz through visual culture. The project seeks to capture the inspirational qualities of jazz recordings and the impact that they have on people’s lives. Each portrait features the subject holding a recording that is of fundamental importance to them. The photograph is accompanied by a short interview that explores the meaning and value of the selected album. 

The decade-long collaboration between Ellis and Wall has focused on a continuing discussion about how we represent jazz culture through the visual image, and the possibilities of reimagining jazz portraiture in ways that capture new ways of seeing our relationship with recorded music and its place in our lives. William Ellis first exhibited his One LP Project at ARChive of Contemporary Music, Tribeca, New York in September 2014, and Ellis and Wall have furthered Ellis’ initial ideas through a series of parallel projects, including One 45, which looked at the British northern soul scene, and One Love, a collaboration with the University of West Indies in Kingston exploring reggae culture in Jamaica, Britain and the USA.  

This work has been disseminated to academics and creative practitioners across arrange of fields’ and to the popular music communities with whom we have worked, through six exhibitions, five conferences and a dedicated academic publication hosted by Research Catalogue. 

Using a ‘pop-up’ exhibition format the Re-imagining the jazz photographic portrait invites conference attendees to explore what a single jazz record has meant to them through a portrait which captures their place in jazz culture and an interview which articulates the place of the record in their lives. Two of the exhibition portraits are reproduced in this manifesto, and the whole exhibition, and all images and interviews in the wider project can be found at onelp.org The rest of this short exhibition sets out a distilled manifesto which has guided the ongoing research and the many exhibitions. 

Re-imagining the jazz photographic portrait: a manifesto for documenting the place of recorded music in our cultural identity 

The theme of this year’s Documenting Jazz conference, ‘Ways of Documenting’, draws upon the ideas of John Berger that he disseminated through his essays, books and creative works. From the late 1960s and early 1970s, Berger engaged in a critical analysis and radical rethink of the visual culture of western societies. Berger’s most influential contribution is to be found in the 1972 television series and book, Ways of Seeing. Our act of re-imagining the jazz photographic portrait builds on the analysis Tim presented in the conference welcome address, which applied the issues generated by Berger’s approach more broadly to documenting jazz (2020). Our practice-based research focuses on alternative ways in which we can document jazz through photography. We seek to present musicians and their relationship to recorded music in new relationships, and in doing so we re-engineering the dominant ways of documenting jazz and jazz musicians, emphasising their agency, giving voice to the way they relate to records, and reposition our gaze when we look. We take Berger’s statement in Ways of Seeing that “the relation between what we see and what we know is never settled” (1972, 7), and seek to ‘unsettle’ what we see in, and know about, jazz through portrait photography.  In our Re-imagining the Jazz Photographic Portrait exhibition, we invite you to ask questions about the way that jazz photography has established a formal relationship between an objectified musician and a romanticised representation of jazz culture. These are core questions about the way the documents of jazz culture invite us to interpret jazz of the past and present, the way that musicians articulate that relationship of past and present, and the way that our gaze as the onlooker meets their gaze as the subject and object of the photograph. 

Jazz, but beautiful? 

Geoff Dyer dedicates his 1996 monograph, But Beautiful: a book about jazz, to John Berger and opens the book with ‘A Note on Photographs’ in which he explicitly talks about an image created by the celebrated jazz photographer Milt Hinton, and he later cites the work of Carole Reiff. This was noteworthy in 1996 and remains pertinent today because photographs as documents of jazz culture continue to evade our critical attention. Because of its brevity, Dyer’s points in But Beautiful make a relatively modest contribution to our understanding of jazz photography. Nevertheless, in linking theorist Berger to jazz photographers Hinton and Reiff, Dyer offers a first attempt to bring together cultural criticism with the images created through photographic practice. 

It remains remarkable that so little has been done to critique and build upon Dyer’s ‘first attempt’, especially as our collective understanding of jazz photography has increased so much in the last twenty-five years. Put another way, while we now understand so much more about ‘some’ jazz photographs, the domains of jazz studies and visual communication have provided very little insight into the dominant modes of that photography, how these modes fit within jazz culture and how we could understand these images as a document of jazz. Additionally, while jazz studies as a field has become increasingly successful at integrating the cultural study of jazz with creative performance practice, it has not yet started to embrace the possibility of integrating the cultural study of jazz and jazz creative performance practice with the creative practice of those who document jazz culture. This project is an exploration of how that could be done. 

Our collaboration started in another practice-based project aimed at putting the experience of the 2009 Scarborough Jazz Festival online (see Wall and Dubber, 2010). The idea of a long-term exploratory project began to emerge at the Jazz and the Media symposia held at BCU in October 2010 (see Wall and Barber, 2010), and at an exhibition of Ellis’ first One LP portraits at  Rhythm Changes II: Rethinking Jazz Cultures in April 2013, University of Salford. Since then we have presented iterations of the work at the 2016 Rhythm Changes: Jazz Utopia conference at BCU. It is entirely appropriate, then, that this next iteration of our collaboration should be at Documenting Jazz II. 

Our manifesto statement 

Re-imagining the jazz photographic portrait aim to move from existing documents of jazz to new ways of documenting jazz; from seeing jazz to new ways of seeing jazz. In creating the images Ellis was guided by our joint manifesto: 

1.     photography should be a reflexive process to document jazz through its creators – the images were produced by emphasising the human relationships between photographer and photographed, and being aware of the mediating and editing functions of the photographer and exhibition curator; 

2.     image and words are equals in documenting jazz – we exhibit both a single shot from each photographic session, but also words derived from an interview with the subject that explains their choice of LP; 

3.     we should move beyond the rhetoric, affect and art of photographic image-making – creating personal, direct and context-appropriate images which and avoid the mythologies of jazz and their photographic tropes; 

4.     we will give voice to musicians – by treating the photographed as agents, not objects and capturing their words as a way of explaining their images;  

5.     we will construct jazz as a lived experience  determined by the individual subject and the places we encounter them, avoiding any romanticised essentialism that dominates jazz photography. 

In articulating his approach to the photographer process, Ellis emphasises a commitment to producing a body of work that is “completely personal”, that “captures the ‘personality' of the person by bringing the photograph out of a personal relationship that generates “a unique and intimate interaction between photographer and musician”.  

He describes the process as an “opening of the heart” and talks about encouraging his photographic subjects to “revisit their inspirations”, “to see them go back in time; to reconnect and re-view the album that means so much to them”. 

Download manifesto statement (PDF) 

Documenting Jazz 2020 

 

  • “Double Six - when I was in college in my first year I had formed a singing group patterned along the lines of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross - and Double Six.Double Six changed my life - I listened to them instead of going to class - I think they almost sent me home!Very important music to me, I became friends with Michel Legrand - his sister sang in the group then and Mimi Perrin - thank you Mimi! we’ll all see you soon.So Double Six - very important, lots of people important - but a special place for them.”Al Jarreau: Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, 26th July 2011Les Double Six - released 1962Al Jarreau
  • {quote}It is so special because, as many people know, that Abbey Lincoln passed away earlier this year [August 2010] and I have always been really inspired by her.   From a very early age, she was one of the – you know, after Ella Fitzgerald – she was the next person I really got into.  So I am a massive fan of her and I’ve got all her albums.  	The reason I chose this is because I think this is one of the lesser-known ones but there’s beautiful tracks on here and the one that I really love is “Exactly Like You” because I listened to another version of this by Carmen McRae, which I love, and when I heard this version I loved this equally.  You know, it’s the way her sentiment, the way she gets the lyrics across, are so different to a lot of other singers.  She is very deep when she sings and you can really hear a lot of emotion.  Not in the same way that you can with Billie Holiday but you know it’s coming from a real spiritual sort of place, when she plays and that’s why I love her.{quote}Anita Wardell: The Spa, Scarborough, 26th September 2010Abbey Lincoln: It's Magic - released 1958Anita Wardell
  • {quote}She was my hero, she was my mentor, she was my idol.I got to know her very very well and I was very proud that I did, because she was a real buddy of mine.I think there's a whole life in this voice for her to sing the songs that she sings - I mean you could cry listening to her and I just think she was like a beautiful ebony statue.Great songs.{quote}Annie Ross: At home, New York City, May 2013Billie Holiday: Lady in Satin  released 1958Annie Ross
  • {quote}My One LP - yes, it’s the Eric Dolphy album he did on Blue Note called Out to Lunch!And the album has Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, Richard Davis and Tony Williams. And it is such a phenomenal shift from anything that had been done on Blue Note Records. The compositions and the playing and the quality from Blue Note was always good because of Rudy Van Gelder. And he captured this in such a wonderful way. It just resonated with me, you know? It’s one of those things you want to listen to over and over. And that’s why itbecame one of my favourites. There are many things that I’ve heard but I don’t think anything I’ve heard resonated with me the way Eric’s music did on this particular recording. He seems to have been at a very fine peak in his development and this really made me want to go and be better. Eric Dolphy.{quote}Bennie Maupin: Hollywood CA, 11th April 2014Eric Dolphy: Out To Lunch! released 1964Bennie Maupin
  • Dizzy Gillespie and Dexter Gordon: Blue 'N' Boogie{quote}Well - I've been around for a long time, and during the time when I got started there were no such things as albums so there were no covers!Cause there was a time of the 78 recording with 3 minute at tops for each recording, so whatever the person was going to present they had to present it within the 3 minute framework.Sometimes you didn't get the bridge of the song and they went out and things like that so they had to gear it for the 3 minutes and that's what I grew up with when I started that's what was going and later the 33 1/3 records came into existence - and they weren't 12 inch LPs they were10 inch LPs! And then later the 12 inch LPs came, yeah.And then later the albums came with the album covers at was much later though - it wasn't in the beginning!I had many heroes in the beginning, my first one was probably Coleman Hawkins and then Don Byas, Ben Webster, Lucky Thompson but then one that really got me down the line was a fella named Dexter Gordon.And he made a recording with Dizzy Gillespie and when I heard that my life changed again - it changed when I first heard the saxophone but when I heard that recording Dizzy Gillespie and Dexter Gordon it opened up something else for me cos his style was different from Coleman Hawkins and Don Byas and Ben Webster, it was another sound - even different from Lester Young.Like I said it opened my ears up when I heard that and I started trying to do other things because at that time I didn't have my own interpretation or concept - like money in the bank to reach in and do what you want to do, I had nothing in to reach in to get. So I was eclectic, imitating everyone - piano players, guitar players trying to understand what this thing called jazz is all about.Especially improvisation cos that's what jazz is all about. Nobody comes to hear the melody over and over again - after the first run of the melody they want to know what you've got on your mind musically!And you have to have something to say: you should have - and it takes a while to get to that point.Dexter had something to say in a little different way than the others, and to me, at that time - it's a long time ago - it was pretty hip, pretty hip.And from there you continue keep reaching - reaching then eventually you develop your own sound - whatever that is, and even when you develop your own sound and after a while maybe you even want to modify your own sound maybe wanna hear something else.Then you go through periods like Picasso did you know, like Cezanne came in: with the Cubism - then he went to pointillism and he went through many things.I saw some of the things that he did he did as a student and the anatomy was almost like a photograph - and then later he had one eye up here and one below and the nose over on the side and you maybe ths guy doesn't know anything about anatomy - he did - but he had a different perception as time went on.He went to pointillism which looked like little vertical scratches - I mean incredible what he did!And musically that's what we sort of do as we continue to reach.We think - while we're striving 'at this point' - whatever this point is, 'I'll be satisfied.'But when we get to that point somehow we're not satisfied - we're always striving to best ourselves - to get better at what we do, and to understand our selves better.Because what jazz is all about is improvisation and when you improvise you're bringing into existence things that had no prior existence - it didn't exist.Whether it's 2 notes or whether it's a whole series of notes  - your playing them that particular way did not exist.So you have to have - imagination. If you are going to create something that had no prior existence you have to imagine things - because they don't exist!And that's like an adventure I fancy it's like a big game hunting like a safari but we're only we're not hunting live game - we're hunting new concepts - new ways of doing the old things, new ways of expressing yourself.These extrapolations sometimes are just as important as the new discoveries, because you're bringing new life to it and you're presenting it in another way, Dizzy Gillespie during that time when he was coming up, that's what he was doing - he took the old tunes like 'Whisperin' and putting another melody on the chords and calling it 'Groovin' High'.Tadd Dameron took 'What Is This Thing Called Love' put another melody on the chords and called it 'Hothouse'.So this is an exciting time - 'Ornithology' was 'How High The Moon' and then it went on from that to total different concepts, different titles and different melodies.In the beginning we used the old structures 'What Is This Thing Called Love?', 'Whispering' as time went on we did away with those and came up with our own concepts, that's how I came up with 'Whispering' - 'Stabemates' and whatnot.It wasn't 'What is Thing called Love?' any more - It was something entirely different, but we had to graduate to that point because we were going into areas that didn't exist - and we were like the pioneers goin’ into - opening doors along the corridor to see what's behind these doors.It was like an adventure everyday, couldn't wait to wake up to try again.What can I do today better than I did yesterday?Where am I going?You ask yourself all those questions - what is it I want ? What am I trying to achieve?And sometimes we didn't even know that.Everything was so new - so all those early days were like an adventure.And still today - I'm an old guy today - but I've still have my ears open and I still think there are things I would like to that I haven't done yet even in my old age you know And it's still has that sense of adventure to it - yeah.It's creating things - improvising - what you're doing on an instrument or pen on paper - which is a form of improvising. It's exciting and it's adventurous and I think I'm still a part of that because it still awakens certain things within me creatively and I don't want that to die - I don't want to lose that - if I lose that I might as well get a job as a wash room attendant or selling groceries.Yeah - I love this music called Jazz.And as Sonny Rollins said {quote}There's no end to it.{quote}Nobody says - 'well I'm at the end of it and I don't need to study any more - I know all there is to know.'There is no such thing -and no one person knows everything,so we keep going ahead.Some of it's good, sometimes some of it's bad - stinko, and we reject it start over again but it's a great thing trying to arrive at these things.Oh yeah - and when you achieve it - oh it's like giving birth all over again, we wait in that maternity room and wait for the slap on the butt - it's alive!Yeah - it's an adventure of sorts - yeah - and I'm committed, I really am, and I guess like Sonny Rollins said {quote}There's no end to it.{quote}They ask me a lot of times - {quote}Mr.Golson - what is the favourite tune that you have written.{quote}And my answer's always the same {quote}I haven't written it yet.{quote}There's always something to do.{quote}Benny Golson: The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow, 17th September 2015Mr Golson cited a recording of Dizzy Gillespie with Dexter Gordon, I deduced Watson that it's Blue 'N' Boogie.The Dizzy Gillespie Sextet with Dexter Gordon  released 1945Benny GolsonSpecial thanks to Tommy Smith for kindly arranging the session.
  • “So my album of choice - it's a tough one - always a tough one! But if it has to be one then it would be an album called 'Sunlight' by Herbie Hancock which I first heard when I was 13 years old, on the way to Italy actually.  I was in a car and I'd just bought this record on CD and I put it in my little CD player and I remember being sat next to my dad listening to it on my headphones and it was just a kind of epiphany.  I felt like I was finally hearing a sound that I'd kind of always been looking for almost.  There's something about this album, it basically bridges the gap between instrumental groove and improvisation and then full symphonic classical arrangements and orchestrations.  So it's kind of bridging the gap of these two worlds in the most eloquent and groovy and original way I'd ever heard, you know.  And so, yeah, it was kind of like a very significant moment of inspiration.  I felt like this was my kind of template for a sound when I was like 13...14.  It's something I've, ever since, been striving to kind of recreate my own version of (laughs).WE     And were you playing at the time Bill'? were you playing keyboards then already?“¥eah, yes. I'd pretty much been writing since I was really young and trying to find a sound that kind of satisfied me but I was always, you know, trying to categorize myself whether I was like .. jazz - whether I was making a jazz album or a pop album or, you know, an electronic album.  And hearing this kind of made me realize that actually you know you can have all these genres together, they can work side by side and actually that's really exciting when they do you know.  Actually rather than thinking - categorizing yourself is a constructive thing - I think it can actually be limiting, you know... to kind of disregard genre as such and just sort of embrace all the music that I've come to love anyway is what I've started to do and I feel like this album was the initial inspiration of that.The other thing is, just the visual, the kind of artwork itself is just legendary because it's just him and his kind of, you know, 70's attire with a gold chain and looking like really for disco times with his sort of semi Afro on the cover and then on the back you have this kind of laboratory of keyboards.  I remember just seeing it and just like. looking like the end of the rainbow for me.. just all these incredible analogue synthesizers and a Clavinet and just.. I just think it's such a cool way of kind of identifying where all these sounds came from and it's just him in the middle of this little kind of keyboard laboratory ... yeah great stuff.”Bill Laurance: Band on the Wall, Manchester, 8th March 2016Herbie Hancock: Sunshine released 1978Bill Laurance
  • Bob Koester talks about Hoodoo Man Blues, his life in music, the ins and outs of running the longest established independent American jazz and blues label.BK:	That’s paradise.  It’s freezing. We had a lot of snow a couple of days ago.WE:	I was here actually. I got in on Sunday night from Los Angeles…BK:	Oh I see. So you saw a little bit.WE:	..and it was chucking it down when I landed.BK:	Maybe the last of the year [knocking sound]. That’s not wood though, that’s plastic, so that doesn’t count.WE:	That’s wood.BK:	Good to have a wood desk, that’s true.WE:	I love all these as well. These are amazing. (rare 78s)BK:	That’s a bunch of stuff we just bought. We keep them naked until a couple of regular customers see it so they know that there are new arrivals.WE:	To check the condition.BK:	Sure.WE:	How long has this shop been here, Bob?BK:	I’ve been here for 10 years.  I was upstairs for 5 years.  I was a block and a half away from 1962 and I have been in the business 61 years.WE:	Wow.  BK:	I started in St Louis. Actually a little before I had a shop, I sold records out of my dormitory room at St Louis University for a year, mostly by mail. And then we opened a store, me and a friend.  My friend collected Ellington and Billie Holliday and didn’t like any other jazz. He liked sweet bands so we only had to fight over two artists’ records.WE:	Which jazz do you prefer, Bob?BK:	Well, I like everything from early New Orleans jazz up through swing. Bebop I can understand now. The avant-garde, I record a lot of avant-garde on Delmark but it’s not my favourite music and I can’t say I understand it all but jazz changes over the years. As it goes from place to place it changes. Even in the traditional jazz era there was Chicago style, New Orleans style. Almost every major city had its own style of trad. I call it trad, I don’t like the word Dixieland. It’s basically…it’s seems vaguely racist somehow, I don’t know. Maybe a putdown, you know. But the south has done a better job of recovering from segregation than some major cities in the north so Dixie is not so bad maybe anymore. The record you have photographed – Hoodoo Man Blues by Junior Wells – was, well, I started recording blues back in St Louis in early ‘60s and we’re best known as a blues label. We have a little over 500 titles in our catalogue and a little less than half of them are blues – around 225 blues records.  Bunch of trad. Bunch of modern. A few big band records.  Quite a bit of avant-garde lately.  The Hoodoo Man Blues was the first time a Chicago Blues Band went in the studio to make an LP, to not be confined to 2 minutes and 45 seconds or 3 minutes and 45 and I didn’t even realise that until about 20 years ago that we had a first, I have to say, Chicago working blues band because Muddy Waters did a few LPs with studio groups prior to that. There might have been some others that I can’t think of right now. It has been a major seller for Delmark. It won a Grammy as a classic blues record. Memphis Blues Organisation gave it an award. Quite a lot of good reviews. Sold…I don’t really know I think we’re approaching a third of a million, maybe half a million since 1965.  That’s 40, almost 50 years. More than 50 years. Like the year before last, we sold 2000 LPs and 4000 CDs but that was a little more than usual. Usually, it’s 4 and a half, or 5 thousand but that year we did an expanded CD version of it, and raised the price a little bit.  That’s about all I can say is that I can’t take much credit for how good it is because I just watched while Junior Wells produced it. It’s got Buddy Guy on it, by the way, who was Junior’s guitar player at the time although he had made records on his own. But that’s not unusual for sidemen in bands to have records on their own. And the story I sometime like to tell is Buddy didn’t wanted to ruin a little relationship he had with Leonard Chess at Chess Records so he said “maybe I should call Chess and see if it’s ok for him to be on the record”.  Chess said [imitates voice] “OK. But he does his thing and you don’t use his motherfucking name” or maybe “the motherfucker better sing but don’t use his name”. So the first 7000 copies which covers the first 4 or 5 years, he is referred to… Well, there was a British chap working for me. A British guy, I should say, working for me.  And I said, “what’s a good pseudonym for Buddy Guy?”. I thought I’d let him come up with a pseudonym and he said [British accent] “Well, a buddy is a friend and a guy is a chap so why don’t you call him Friendly Chap”, which we did.  His name was Peter Brown. He later put out some reissued records in Englend, when he went back to England.  Worked for me for a year or two, I think.  Good man. Really good man. In fact, we had three Brits in a row, one of whom was somehow in the royalty. They had some deal over here where they didn’t have to pay income tax for a year and they took full advantage of that. Wait a minute, was there another one? Yes. Another guy. Man, I had a stroke 8 years ago and I fucked up my memory. He’s an active musician in New Orleans. Oh no, he’s from Sweden! But we’ve had several guys from other countries work here.  So Junior was not as well-known then. He was known to blues collectors but in 1965 most of the interest in blues was in country blues. It started in New York where they didn’t have very many blues artists. They had Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry. They had Lead Belly until he died. They had Reverend [Gary] Davis, who was a street-singing gospeller, and they had Champion Jack Dupree, a piano player, and that was about the whole blues scene they had there. Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry dominated and most of the criticism and most of the writing about music did not pay much attention to blues. A few enlightened, mostly traditional jazz people, were into blues and people like Hugues Panassié were into blues in the late ‘30s and between Panassié and the British just about everybody I recorded, and anybody you can name, went to England. Chris Barber had a lot to do with that. He would take a blues artist and tour him in England for a month and several of the guys he pulled over there, piano players, Jack Dupree and Eddie Boyd and I can’t think who else right now but several of them moved to Europe. They couldn’t move to England because it’s very hard for musicians to move there from any other country but Chris deserves a lot of credit for that blues revival. He was bringing blues artists over, I think, just about as soon as he split from the guy whose band he was with. I forget the other guy’s name, but he was a member of the band and the whole band pulled away.Anyway, there was this relationship between traditional jazz bands and blues and it gradually built up. In the early ‘60s, there was a big rock thing here. I’m sorry, not rock, folk music and Peter Seeger had all kinds of groups, some of them pretty terrible. Groups of more than two people tended to be pretty showbizzy but that developed an interest in blues on the part of a lot of young Americans. They could go from Peter Seeger to Brownie McGhee to Big Bill Broonzy and once it got to Broonzy they were in the Chicago thing because he was the king of the Chicago blues back in the ‘30s and ‘40s. Then pretty soon, it was like Muddy Waters. Well, Muddy would bring his band to gigs and well, we don’t want the band we want just Buddy and a harmonica player, you know, but they got the band and until Dylan used a blues band in one of his appearances at Newport and they put him down for that.  It was a white blues band, the Paul Butterfield Band with Mike Bloomfield. They put him down for that. It’s sort of interesting when Muddy Waters first went to Europe the Europeans hadn’t quite got into the city blues bands to the extent that they did pretty quickly. But Muddy went to Europe and he played acoustic guitar. He didn’t like it but that’s what they wanted. Then the next year he went over and he had a nice acoustic guitar instead of borrowing one which he did the first time and they said “Where’s the band?”. They had changed that much in one year.WE:	I guess it’s kind of the whole, like the Yardbirds, John Mayall, the British bands.BK:	All that came out of…the Beatles started…Well, there’s a thing. Chris Barber in between sets would switch from trombone to bass. The drummer would switch to washboard and the guitar player, who had a major hit here and you know his name better than I do because I can’t recall it, would play guitar and they would do blues and call it skiffle. And as you probably already know, the Beatles began as a skiffle band, influenced by Chris Barber. Chris would do that between sets at gigs and concerts and then he would bring on the blues artists and then they would play with the blues artists. Chris had a hit over here and doesn’t play trombone on it, he plays bass. And I can’t exactly remember his name now. Very embarrassed, because he had a bigger hit.Bob Koester: Jazz Record Mart, Chicago, April 2014Junior Wells: Hoodoo Man Blues, released 1965Junior Wellls performs Hoodoo Man BluesBob Koester: Founder and record producer, DelmarkJazz Record Mart - the world's largest jazz and blues record store.
  • {quote}This album is special because of one thing - the time.  This is during the time that Bennie Maupin and I were with Herbie Hancock and his Sextet and the music was evolving nightly and so when we did this CD – in those days it wasn’t a CD, it was an album, an LP – with Bennie who we finally called Mwile. That’s his Swahili name.Mwile.  The music was an expression of the daringness that was happening in our lives and the way the music was controlling us rather than us controlling the music and we were willing servants to the music.  This album was done with no rehearsal.  We went in the studio, we had sketches of things, and the blending, the richness of the colours and the blending of the harmonies was just amazing and to this day I haven’t heard anything that warms me more than this.{quote}Buster Williams: Birdland, New York City, 2nd May 2013Bennie Maupin: The Jewel in The Lotus released 1974Buster Williams
  • “Everything (every LP)  I think of .. I would think 'Well I'm leaving that other one’.”“I know, but don't worry about that.” - WE“I do!” (laughs) - CBI think I've picked one.. yeah..., yeah..  it's an album by Brownie McGhee.  Brownie McGhee - great Blues artist. He toured Britain and Europe with us and his working partner Sonny Terry played the harmonica, Brownie played the guitar, wrote the songs, and they toured with us, it's a wonderful memory. We've worked with a lot of Blues people.  When they went back to America Brownie McGhee was scheduled to make a recording with a label called Folkways - very important label at that time which now belongs to the Library Of Congress.  And he made a recording called 'Memories of My Trip‘ - it was a song about my band! It was very funny because the people who actually put the record together Folkways were used to dealing with people with all kinds of voices ... they got all our names wrong.  The text - it was printed, and it didn't make any sense .. they had the names all wrong. For me it's a great souvenir because it's the only one of the Americans, and we've played with all kinds of people, who really kind of were interested totally in what we did. But then Brownie McGhee was unusual you see. He also came from the South and Brownie went to college, Brownie did English literature and his favourite author .... what's the poem .. Kipling... 'If'.  Now Kipling was not a left winger (laughs) I mean he wasn't a bad man really but he was part of the establishment you know - the colonies and so on but Brownie could recite and he actually wrote a song which is based on the principle on rhyming in the way that  'If' does.... see? It was so nice because we'd played with Muddy Waters and all kinds of people who were very very important and who were very nice and we enjoyed playing with him.  Back in America one time I played as a member of his band, he invited me as a member of his band at some gigs and I worked with Dr. John on recording I've done a lot of things with some very talented people, but Brownie was very special because he actually was thinking about it in a nice way - you know.”Chris Barber: The Sage, Gateshead, 6th April 2018
  • “Well, this is an album of Louis Armstrong's called 'Rare Items' which I had something to do with putting together, and they are mostly things from the 1930's, a period that, at least at the time. was not considered by critics to be as significant    as 'The Hot Five, Hot Sevens' or the later 'All Stars' things ,but this was music that was very significant to me because I, so to speak, grew up with it.   I discovered things about Louis - these are wonderful records. Among them numbers like 'Swing That Music', which was also the title of his first autobiography, published in 1936 and released, coincidentally, simultaneously in England and the USA.   On that he displays his amazing facility - I could count 42 consecutive high C's and an F and a G at the end (laughs).   And beautiful things like Hoagy Carmichael's 'Ev'ntide', which is a very pretty tune that oddly enough has not been recorded by many people; Bob Wilber did it many years later. Anyway,  this was a kind of statement about Armstrong that was important to me because I felt that period had been underestimated and I still love all those things. I did the notes for it as well. Milt Gabler, at the time, was in charge of reissues at Decca. Milt was a wonderful man, he was the founder of Commodore Records and a great friend, a personal friend, to jazz musicians. It was special to me, and I was very happy that it was well received.{quote} William - And it stayed with you Dan obviously. After all the records, all the music you've played, listened to and reviewed perhaps.... that record’s just stuck with you all this time. Dan - {quote}Well, you know, it was something that was very personal to me,  because these were things that I'd learned to love.... as you know, in the 78 stage, when you had to work for your music.  When I started out I had a wind up phonograph! ( laughs). I was very lucky to get to know Armstrong, I met him in 1950 and I had the great pleasure of spending time with him in his very busy life, a little bit on the band bus and a few times at his home and backstage at various places.   So, he was such a unique person, as a human being and an artist, and there won't ever be anyone like him again -- ever!Dan Morgenstern: At home, New York City, 29th September 2016Louis Armstrong: Rare Items (1935 - 1944) released 1967Dan MorgensternDirector Emeritus, Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies, NEA Jazz Master, author, {quote}Living With Jazz{quote}. Note: All the {quote}Rare Items{quote} plus all others from this period were later issued by Mosaic Records as {quote}The Complete Louis Armstrong Decca Sessions (1935-1946){quote}, a 7 CD set, with notes by Mr. Morgenstern.
  • {quote}Well actually when you introduced the project, I thought - 'I could really work at this - and that would be too much of a challenge!' Or I could just go with what popped into my head, and a very interesting one did. It's 'Out There' by Eric Dolphy. And the reason I think it was a very influential album for me was the instrumentation really. The unusual sonority of cello, bass, bass clarinet - when he played bass clarinet or flute, when he played flute and a little bit of alto but, you know, the changing around - and the cello.So no chord playing instruments as such but just the way those instruments resonated with each other and the way of playing in the kind of post BeBop style - but nothing very formal . You now when I talk about the instruments you might think of it as sounding more like one of the more formally arranged West Coast jazz things that were kind of in that third stream pocket or something - but it wasn't at all. It was actually very New York, it was a bit odd, a bit scratchy - Ron Carter on cello - playing and so forth. But it had tremendous time and feel and it created a sound Universe for me beyond what I thought of as the instrumentarium - the sound universe of straight ahead jazz and yet it didn't sound like a classical cross over kind of thing - like the things that you know - my father was doing with Leonard Bernstein or even Gunther Schuller. It was its own space. 'Out There'  really influenced me to try and find those spaces myself.{quote}Darius Brubeck: The Spa, Scarborough, 27th September 2015Eric Dolphy: Out There  released 1960Darius Brubeck
  • “The album is “Sketches of Spain” - Miles Davis in collaboration with Gil Evans, and the reason that I love it so much is because it goes beyond music, beyond idiom, beyond style - and even beyond Spain even though it’s dedicated to the culture of Spain in a certain way.There’s just a feeling on that record between the writing and the way Miles plays that’s just the universal cry of blues, of joy, of humanity and everything .. I mean I get a feeling from that record beyond category and beyond vernacular .. it’s not even jazz it’s art at it’s highest level.I’ve recorded “Sketches of Spain” and played it many times and its a very challenging piece of music, Miles just handles it with such grace and so much class the way he plays the music that .. if itwas only that it would have been a great piece - but the writing is great and Gil Evens .. I mean they surpassed themselves on that record for me.”David Liebman: Jazz Standard, New York City, 5th October 2018Miles Davis/Gil Evans: Sketches of Spain released 1960David Liebman
  • {quote}Ok, I've thought long and hard about this and I thought to myself actually it would be Courtney Pine's 'Journey to the Urge Within', which was his first album that came out when I was at school. I'd been dabbling with a little bit of jazz at the time, I hadn't really had any idea about being a jazz musician and I think on hearing that album and hearing him playing that music live was the thing that kind of inspired me.  The thought 'You know actually I could do that too'.  So it holds a very special place in my heart as an album that kind of made me make the difference between deciding to be an engineer or being a musician.{quote}Denys Baptiste: The Spa Scarborough, 26th September 2015Courtney Pine: Journey To The Urge Within released 1986Denys Baptiste
  • “Well this is {quote}A Love Supreme{quote} by John Coltrane. And I just remember being so taken with this record when I heard it.There’s just a deep sense of expression coming from him and the whole group, you know ..its .. they’re kind of at their zenith in terms of their inter play and there’s the depth of his playing ... is just stunning. The combination of emotion and sophistication and soulfulness and rhythm. I mean it’s just everything that’s so compelling about music you know and the message of this record being, you know, so connected to the Devine. Such a passion filled record but also there's so much contemplation in it. I just sort of hear the sort of yearning and the reaching out to The Almighty. So it’s just one that I’ve listened to over and over and over again. It never fails to inspire me.”Donny McCaslin: Band on the Wall, Manchester 30th October 2018John Coltrane: {quote}A Love Supreme{quote} - released 1965Donny McCaslin
  • {quote}Well, that record is the world-famous Kind of Blue album by Miles Davis, which was the most-sold jazz record in history.  The reason it’s dear to my heart is because Miles Davis was staying at my parents’ house when he made that album.   I was in high school and my stepfather was his doctor and I was playing trumpet and going to the conservatory and Miles gave my stepfather the test pressing – you know with no grooves on one side – and so I became enthralled with Miles Davis and then just the music on there is just so classic, you know, with Coltrane on it, you know, and Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb…Wynton Kelly, Bill Evans.Yeah, Bill Evans and Cannonball.  It was just like the quintessential music of that era, almost of all time.  I mean, it really changed the face of quote-unquote jazz music and really changed my life, because seeing him in person - and he took me to a gig when I was 17, 18 years.  He stayed at the house.  So that album and just that experience is dear to my heart, you know.WE:	Beautiful.  Beautiful.  That is so special.  Thank you.EH:	Yeah. Yeah.  You know, I could go on and on for hours.WE:	I’ll bet.  EH:	But, you know, I think everybody... with that album and that music.WE:	Your experience of Miles staying at your house is so unique.EH:	Absolutely….and me playing the trumpet too.  It made it ever so much more significant to me.WE:	When you were very young at that time, did you talk to Miles about the trumpet, and did he talk to you?EH:	Well, he wouldn’t just come by like a normal person and say this is this and this is that, it’s just by observation.  In fact I may have played one of his records, you know, and he just smiled and said - 'you sound good but that’s me'  [laughs]  That was an eye-opener right there, you know.{quote}Eddie Henderson: Universal Rehearsal Studios, New York City, April 2013Miles Davis: Kind of Blue released 1959Eddie Henderson
  • {quote}It’s the best playing of Duke Ellington I ever heard in my life. It’s really beautiful.  You can hear him humming on “Sophisticated Lady” in the background and it’s heart wrenching - it’s so beautiful.  On something like “I’ve Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good” he starts off with some real slow playing of it in free time just by himself and then the band pulls it in after he plays the first verse and it feels like somebody’s just taking a romp through the park on a warm summer day.  And then “Caravan”, which has that Latin beat to it, he just really grooves on it and leaves a couple of measures out and then comes back in.  And those measures he leaves out are so important and so strong – he just did the right thing all the time – he was totally intuitive.  He’s a real hero.  You see, I don’t play that kind of music; I come from the slow blues of Jimmy Yancey .  I accompanied Jimmy’s wife, Mama Yancey, after he died.  I learned on the streets first and then I took a couple of degrees in music later.  I love classical music but it kicks my ass in so badly when I try to play it so I memorise stuff.  So I am more wired to play improvised music so this is the kind of stuff I play- but I don’t play like Monk but I just love what he plays.  Most of the stuff I love is what I can’t do!{quote} [laughs].Erwin Helfer: Katerina's, Chicago, 14th May, 2013Thelonious Monk: Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington released 1955Erwin Helfer
  • {quote}Well, I had a short list of four - five actually, five.One is 'Glenn Gould Plays Bach' and you can see from the rather beat up condition of it. It was a gift to me when it new and I can look at the year, but I was probably not more than six or seven years old when I received that - and it's probably scratched to shit. But it really awakened my love of counterpoint and moving voices - and just Glenn Gould's sense of rhythm is so astonishing and you can't say that about certain classical pianists, they don't really. There's just a joy in his playing.And then Miles Davis 'Friday Night at The Blackhawk. When I listened to that record - that's when I decided I wanted to become a jazz pianist. I loved the fact that it was live, the way Wynton accompanies Miles is incredible - the sense of swing, the fact that it's a live album and wasn't edited in the studio - you really hear the whole performance. I love that it was Miles's debut with this band it's the first time they'd ever done a gig and he had the balls to record it and put it out. You know - that's the kind of person he was.Other album? Sonny Rollins Trio - 'Live at The Village Vanguard' with Elvin Jones and Wilbur Ware which I think is kind of the definition of what modern jazz is, and I've listened to that - I think there's two volumes, I've listened to them I don't know how many times - I tell every student I have 'You have to listen to these - this is what jazz improvisation is.'Joni Mitchell's 'Blue' album. You know, that in a weird way led me toward jazz trying to figure out what the chords she was playing were because they weren't major, they weren't really minor. To a high school ear they were very mysterious. Just the way she tells stories and I've set a lot of text and she's kind of my guru for how to take a complicated text and make it understandable - set text.  The other album was 'Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus' which is, to me, - I've sort of talked about it as kind of like Duke Ellington on acid. It's kind of a mid sized ensemble and the way Mingus and Dannie Richmond play together is kind of miraculous, and Jaki Byard is on it and I eventually studied with Jaki Byard.  So these were the five.I will probably pick ‘Glenn Gould plays Bach’ in the end.  You know Bach is the composer that everybody loves - first of all.- you can’t not love Bach. There’s not only the most sublime craftsmanship but, as they say, he wrote for the glory of God. Nobody commissioned him to write these piano pieces he just did this because this is what he did. And he had twenty two children and he wrote with a quill and ink and no copying machines and no music notation software - and candles ... and he created all this universe.I think probably a distinctive feature of my jazz playing is its contrapuntal nature and it was really launched by not only listening to these albums, this three disc set I think, but by playing those pieces and understanding how three independent voices can be a whole universe.  The other reason that musicians love Bach is there are no dynamic markings, there are no tempo markings, very rarely there is a slur or an articulation marking but pretty much you have to do it all yourself and there’s no one correct way to do it.  When you’re playing Bach you decide how you’re going to articulate the theme if it’s a fugue. Nobody can tell you that’s right or wrong, and as long as you make a case for it - that this is the way you hear it and you’ve really thought about it and you can execute and sell your performance. It’s like there’s no perfect Hamlet or there’s no perfect version of 'Autumn Leaves'. There are many possible versions, it’s just - they’re templates for whoever inhabits them and I think Bach’s music is universal in that way. It’s the music that I always come back to. So I think that’s what I’m gonna pick.{quote}Fred Hesrch: At home, New York City, 3rd October 2018Glenn Gould Plays Bach: The Six Partitas, The Two and Three Part InventionsFred Hersch
  • “Well, you know, I've got to tell you that when I started playing this music, when I (first) wanted to be involved with this music, the most important thing to me was just being in the music, being able to play in a band. Not necessarily being a band leader or anything like that but being able to be a part and have an influence on the direction of the music as a pianist as a rhythm section player. And this record is really indicative of that. The guys playing together - Miles Davis who's the captain of this ship - but everybody has a strong role and it's not like ... you don't get the feeling that Miles is there and the other guys are just kind of back up - backing musicians kind of doing their job period.But everyone has an important role and a strong influence on the direction of the music. For me that's the big picture for this record and what happens in there is the way everybody uses colours, uses the harmonies. You know they're the same but they're different. A different way of approaching harmonies, a way approaching chords that kind of allow the chords to blossom and the music to really take another direction.When I listen to Miles’ band, especially that band, I just felt that Miles was - that it was like watching magic being made right in front of you. And this record gave me ideas about how to use chords, how to approach chords, how to try to create colours or discover colours in the music and try to make those things blossom.”George Cables: Village Vanguard, New York City, 7th February 2019Miles Davis: “My Funny Valentine” / Miles Davis In Concert - released 1965George Cables
  • {quote}One LP - absolutely Oscar Peterson. He was a very dear friend of mine. He played for us at Birdland on a number of occasions. We became very close and I visited him manytimes at his home at Mississauga in Toronto. And one visit, we were in his studio and he said, ‘I wanna play you a disc.’ So we went into his little room and he had a wall of discs. He actually had recorded perhaps 250 discs, whether they were just a trio or with others. And he always kept a copy, a beautiful library. And he pulled one out and started playing it and he said, ‘What do you think?’ And I said, ‘Nat sounds great.’ It was a Nat King Cole song. And he said, ‘That’s not Nat.’ And I said, ‘Well, who is it?’ He said, ‘That’s me.’ And I says, ‘You’re kidding me.’ And he says, ‘No, this is an album I did after Nat passed away, With Respect To Nat, in 1965, on Verve Records.’ With his trio, with Herbie Ellis, Ray Brown and of course Old P at the piano. And the album is fascinating for me because I get to hear him not only as genius at the keyboard but hear him sing. And when you hear this album, you have to say, ‘That can’t be Oscar Peterson singing.’ You think it’s Nat King Cole. His voice and Nat’s were so similar. And he told me the story behind it, why he did that album. There was a running thing that the two of ‘em had. Cos Nat was an excellent piano player. Whenever Nat would show up at one of Oscar’s gigs, he would invite him up to play and Nat would go wild at the piano. And then Oscar would get up and he would play and he would sing. So one day after the gig, he told Nat, he said, ‘Let’s make a deal. You stop playing the piano that way and I’ll stop singing this way.’ That was it. So they were brothers, they loved each other dearly. And unfortunately when Nat passed away, Oscar was really taken aback. He was hurt to lose a friend like Nat. And this was a way to pay his respects to one of his dear friends, and of course the album is titled With Respect To Nat. And to this day, like I said, to hear Old P singing and playing at the same time, I couldn’t have chosen a more loving and dear album to me.{quote}Gianni Valenti: Birdland, New York City, 2nd April 2014Oscar Peterson Trio: With Respect To Nat released 1965Birdland
  • “The ‘Donny Hathaway Live’ album is so special because it captures - with full concentration the thing that’s special in live performance. That communication, that exchange of audience and artist.There’s back and forth conversation, the women and the men in the audience are screaming things back to Donny and Donny’s of course responding musically - and responding incredibly musically.You can feel the emotion in the room as soon as the needle hits the record.That communication - it’s not just jazz, it’s not just soul, it’s human to human.That exchange between humanity is just beautiful to see. It happens on Donny Hathaway LIve.”Gregory Porter: Band on the Wall, Manchester, 13th June 2012Donny Hathaway: Live - released 1972Gregory Porter
  • “I pondered over many albums - I was going to bring Aladdin Sane for you by David Bowie ‘cos I wore it out when I was a kid.But it’s got to be Aretha ‘Lady Soul’ 'cos I bought it from Flint market, and I think it was like a quid or something and I’ve still got the original copy, and it’s just great.It’s got all the best songs that she recorded like Chain of Fools, Natural Women, Ain’t No Way - with her sister singing backing vocals.Aretha – Lady Soul.{quote}Ian Shaw: Cinnamon Club, Bowdon, 20th March 2015Aretha Franklin: Lady Soul  released 1968Ian Shaw
  • {quote}It's called L'ascension by Olivier Messiaen who was a French composer I have loved for most of my life. Why I love his composiitions is he shows that music has always existed. Humans only stole it. We borrowed it - but it's in nature, It holds the universe together, ask any skylark or ask any blackbird they'll tell you.{quote}Jack Bruce: Band on the Wall, Manchester, 24th March, 2011L'ascension was composed in 1932-33Jack Bruce
  • JACOB-COLLIERw-WILLIAM-ELLIS
  • {quote}Well it was the first time I'd heard big band that sounded orchestral - he seemed to cross all genres - it was jazz no doubt about it, but suddenly it was bigger!Apart from that of course - being a trumpeter and loving that instrument - Cootie Williams on there does that great piece 'El Gato' that Ellington wrote for him and I just used to listen to that over and over - sort of saying now that's how I want to sound on the trumpet.So it's one of those albums you grow up with and it's part of who you are musically.{quote}James Morrison: Wigan Jazz Festival, July 2012Duke Ellington: 70th Birthday Concert (Free Trade Hall Manchester, England) 1969James Morrison
  • {quote}It's Coltrane - 'Live at the Village Vanguard'  - the one from '61.  And, you know, it's special because when it came out I think he was constantly blowing everybody's mind but when he brought this out he blew everybody's mind!And you know - and their mother and father and grandmother, you know (laughs).  He just rewrote the whole thing - playing the saxophone like that and leading the band like that was never done until that record.  That was the template for like hot modern jazz from the 60's, you know, and up until now.  It's for me that's the height of the music you know and nobody has gotten that kind of playing to that level as yet, in my opinion you know. that's just - it's all - you know - it's one persons opinion - so a lot of people might disagree you know.  So, but that's it - that's why.  And it's what he's doing with the blues - what he's doing with the modal thing that he got from Miles - it's where he was taking it.  He was taking it elsewhere you know.  He was just going into all the different places that we who followed is attempting to continue and develop and go into there, you know, but him, Elvin, Jimmy Garrison and McCoy Tyner they were doing that in 1961 you know.  They started that ball rollin' for me, you know, and that's why I love it.{quote}Jean Toussaint, The Spa. Scarborough, 26th September 2015John Coltrane: Coltrane {quote}Live{quote} at the Village Vanguard  released 1962Jean Toussaint
  • {quote}This is Thad Jones Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra 'Central Park North' - this record totally changed my life.I was listening to Blood, Sweat & Tears, Hendrix, The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, Earth Wind & Fire - bands like this and my dad brought home this one day for my birthday. I was playing in bands. I was really into music but, you know, he brought this and I just stared at the front of this and just listened and read these liner notes over and over again.  And it set me on the road to want to become an arranger and a jazz musician.I would play to the record - at that time I was playing saxophone, a little guitar and drums and I would pretend in my bedroom - pretend like I was in this band. Just totally make believe. Yeah ... that’s this record for me. I wouldn’t be here right now without this record.{quote}John Beasley: The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage, Santa Monica CA, 12th October 2018 Thad Jones - Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra: Central Park North - released 1969John Beasley
  • “ I remember getting this as a present from my sister on my 11th birthday.And I just remember how excited I was - and I listened to that record thousands of times.It wasn’t my first Dizzy Gillespie record but I think it was one of the most important because I couldn’t stop listening to it.Dizzy - Roy back and forth, Dizzy - Roy back and forth.So - there you have it!”Jon Faddis: Wigan Arena, July, 2014Dizzy Gillespie and Roy Eldridge: Soul Mates released 1954Jon Faddis
  • {quote}Miles Ahead - the title says it all - Miles was ahead of everybody else!  {quote}Blues for Pablo’ - there's depth in that you know. The treatment that Spain received from Franco is awful.So we can tell the story in that album and then tell whatever Miles did.Miles got into it himself - he said 'it sounds as if like I'm Spanish' you know. He's into it, he’s really into it.I told Judith that people are gonna think that those lyrics* wrote themselves - cos they come from nowhere, but they cover a whole lot.WE - {quote}Your current project with Pete Churchill based on Miles Ahead - so that record has inspired you both to discover and create your own response to the album.{quote}Jon - I like those things that open.Jon starts to sing, laughs and says - “Now after that you gotta have somethin’! You and me are gonna work! Soon as I find out how to write!!”Judith enters the room. Jon  “What you got?” Judith - “I have some albums – the Miles Ahead, Freddie Freeloader, Evolution of the Blues Song, Thelonious Monk, the first Hendricks, Lambert and Ross, another Miles Davis Porgy and Bess then I have Basie from ’41 to ’51.”WE - “The cover (Miles Ahead) matches your jacket Jon!!”Judith – “Yes the colours are right!”Jon laughs – “Oh man!”After the photographs were taken Jon spoke warmly about two of his close friends Kurt Elling and Erroll Garner.How Kurt seized a great opportunity at one of Jon's vocal workshops when Jon asked for a volunteer to come onto the rehearsal room stage. Kurt sprang up and their friendship began. Jon thought about 'His brother' - Erroll Garner.“When Erroll Garner came back home from tour he would call me up to sing. When we met we'd embrace and say {quote}I love you man.{quote}'Concert by the Sea'  is a great favourite of Jon's, he asked his Judith to play the recording - he was moved to mime Erroll playing an invisible piano, his heart was with his great friend.On the wall hangs the powerful poetic picture of another old friend. John Coltrane playing soprano sax signed by one of my favourite photographers - the peerless Roy DeCarava.It's a masterpiece in a moment. Jon talked about it how DeCarava seemed to have made the notes visible - they were {quote}flying from the horn.{quote}Jon Hendricks: At home, New York City, 26th March 2015Miles Davis: Miles Ahead  released 1957Jon Hendricks*Jon Hendricks and Pete Churchill have been working on a major piece based on Miles Ahead which will be performed by the London Vocal Project in New York and London. MoreRoy DeCarava
  • Kenny Burrell: Distinguished Professor Of Ethnomusicology, Director of Jazz Studies, UCLA{quote}The record the maestro recorded in Paris in 1963 there are many great things on this recording.It starts off with Rockin'n Rhythm which we all know has gotten it's own wings after Ellington.Written in 1929 - hello! - Zawinul and those guys were do it later.Star Crossed Lovers from the Suite,the Theme from the Asphalt Jungle movie,couple of pieces featuring Cootie Williams, Concerto for Cootie, Tutti For Cootie and The Suite Thursday another suite by Ellington and Strayhorn.One that I particularly like - well I have to say it's one of favourite pieces in all of Ellingtonia - and all music is Tone Parrallel To Harlem known as  Harlem Suite.This was commissioned in 1950 by Arturo Toscanini of The NBC Symphony Orchestra of New York. Ellington at that point was pretty popular and also gaining recognition as a serious composer so that's why he got the commission - at the time he was fifty one.That piece has been recorded in many formats including symphony orchestras both here and in Europe and on various occasions by Ellington himself with his band - this happens to be one of my favourite versions of it.First of all I love the composition, I think it's one of the most outstanding musical compositions ever written, certainly (ever written) by Ellington.It's a through composed piece of material - and it is jazz, not a lot of improvisation in this piece because it's through composed.But the main thing about this - it is a great extended composition of jazz music - that only Ellington could do.I would encourage anyone to listen this, it happens to be my favourite version of it - and this a live performance in Paris in 1963.One of the things you should listen to this piece of music is the huge variety of time changes - the huge variety of harmonic changes - the huge variety of tonal colour - of shifting around.It's amazing how he could get such variety with fifteen musicians - it's unbelievable, but he managed to do that and that's why he's considered many the greatest - not only the greatest jazz composer of the twentieth century but the greatest composer of the twentieth century and this is coming from some serious classical musicians who feel that way - let alone jazz musicians who feel that way.The classical people are starting to say this is some new - material done in a highly sophisticated way that has never been done before - so that's why I wanted to talk about this record!It's like all great art - the more you listen, the more you look - the more you hear, the more you see - I never tire of hearing this.Listen closely and something else reveals itself.{quote}Kenny Burrell: University of California, Los Angeles, 7th May, 2013Duke Ellington: The Great Paris Concert released 1973Kenny Burrell
  • “Well, its called “Wings” and its by Michel Colombier he was a movie (score composer)… he did a few jazz records too and Herbie Hancock and those guys played on it …but he did a lot of movie sound tracks but he and Herb Albert became tight and Herb wanted him to do a record that was like .. expressed the whole world ..and it is. I’s a blend of pop feeling of the time …1970 but Stravinsky, Brazil '66, The Beatles ..but none of that at the same time. It’s just one surprise after another. It’s very dramatic and it is my favourite record. It’s a flow of ideas from different types of sounds but he almost outdoes everybody that it’s derivative of ..it’s amazing.”Kenny Werner: Jazz Standard, New York City, 5th October 2018Michel Colombier: Wings released 1971Kenny Werner
  • “I know if Roy Eldridge is on it I'm going to like it. Every record that I've heard Roy really stretch out and I like very much he always very special, but not thinking of a special album cover.{quote}WE - “Thank you. I wonder if - maybe the first time you played with a particular musician that went on to become a great friend, perhaps you might have something like that in mind too?”Mr. Konitz  “Well, I have a few of those. Not able to just repeat them offhand. But I I have been going through all my albums, and small records and find a lot of them that I like very much - the covers and the substance..”Lee Konitz: Blue Note, New York City, 9th October 2018 The session took place prior to Mr. Konitz' 90th Birthday Celebration performance. Roy Eldridge:'Swingin' on the Town' released 1960Lee Konitz
  • “This LP was recorded in 1956 with Horace Silver (I chose it)  because it was my first. When I first came to New York I had the opportunity to record this album and I enjoyed all the music that he had written for it so it will always be one of the most special albums I’ve ever recorded - Horace Silver and all the musicians that participated on the album.”Louis Hayes: Ronnie Scott's, London, 9th February 2017Horace Silver: 6 Pieces Of Silverreleased 1957Louis Hayes
  • {quote}This is fantastic because…the first thing, you know, my father was in gospel music so we always grew up in that and then, you know, the church music and then we started playing, I guess back then we’d call it rhythm and blues or doo-wop.  But then one day I was over at somebody’s house and I heard Charlie Parker playing “Just Friends” and he was just flying through the air on his beautiful music and I say “What is that?!” and they say “That’s jazz and he’s on improvisation” and  I said “Wow!  I’ve gotta learn how to do that” and that was the beginning of it.{quote}  Lonnie Liston Smith: Richard Goodall Gallery, Manchester, 7th October 2010Charlie Parker with Strings: 1949,1950Lonnie Liston Smith
  • “Miles at his height in the 50's before jazz took another turn - this album, along with the other Miles' of this period was really at the height of the elegant era of jazz: Then it went somewhere else that was equally amazing.But I really love how the combination of soulfulness and intelligence that these guys played with - 'Trane and Red Garland, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe, Cannonball and Miles - just an unbelievable group and this record is just - Philly Joe - Paul Chambers - they're just killin’ on this record.{quote}Marcus Miller: Band on the Wall, Manchester, November 2011Miles Davis: {quote}Milestones{quote} released 1958Marcus Miller
  • Martin Taylor: Floral Pavilion, New Brighton, 19th November 2010Django Reinhardt: Djangology - released 2005Martin Taylor
  • Full title - The Night Has A Thousand Eyes{quote}Well, it’s a recording of Ronnie and Sonny Stitt that was done in 1965 in the old place in Gerrard Street. And it was a spontaneous union. They were having quite an argument in the office at the back of the club prior to Sonny going onstage. It was a musical dispute. And it was time for Sonny to go on the stand, so he turned around to Ronnie and said, ‘You wanna take it on the bandstand?’ And Ronnie said, ‘Absolutely!’ And the two of them stormed onto the bandstand and what ensued after that was one of the most electrifying evenings that any of us had heard probably ever, because of course they were nuts mad at each other and they were trying to outdo the other and it was amazing. The whole evening was absolutely incredible. And the irony is none of us realised it was being recorded, we were so wrapped up in the music. And I remember saying to Ronnie afterwards, ‘If ever there was a night that should have been recorded, this was it! It’s an absolute sin that this...(laughs)...isn’t there for people to listen to. ‘ And we were lucky. It was recorded. And it was a memorable evening that I don’t think anyone who was there will ever forget. And the other extraordinary thing is that when this was released, actually after Ronnie had passed away, cos of course the 50 years thing had gone by... But Valerie Wilmer was there that night and she took the photograph that was...is...on the cover of the CD. It never was an LP cos it wasn’t released during the time when it would have been an LP. And the picture is completely remarkable because she captured Ronnie playing some quite exquisite changes and Sonny Stitt looking at his fingering and looking completely mystified and perturbed which was such a wonderful summary of what actually was happening that night.So that’s... It’s my favourite CD. Clearly, I was mesmerised when it came out and very grateful that it had been recorded.{quote}Mary Scott: Hotel Pennsylvania, New York Cit, 3rd April 2014Ronnie Scott and Sonny Stitt: The Night Has A Thousand Eyes recorded at Ronnie Scott's, Gerrard StreetReleased 1997 Mary Scott Global Music
  • “Well, it's Miles Davis “Kind of Blue”, I'm sure loads of people chose this one - I had to chose it because it had a profound effect on me. I don't know how many other albums I'd bought before then but I think the first one that I ever bought and I saved up for when I was at school was “Ella and Louis with the Oscar Peterson Trio.” And I was also very affected by Dave Brubeck’s quartet with Paul Desmond and I found that I was listening to the solos, I was learning the solos, I didn't realise they were improvised because Paul Desmond was so clear in the way he played and you could actually copy it. But, I think I joined a club and we saved up so much a week and then this guy would come round and he'd say 'Well this albums new ... and this ones new .. and I can order it for you' , and he said 'there's a new one by Miles Davis, John Coltrane “Kind of Blue” and I thought 'Oh have to have that!'{quote}.Norma Winstone: Midland Hotel, Manchester 26th July 2018Image Courstesy of the Royal Northern College of Music One LP SeriesMiles Davis: {quote}Kind of Blue{quote} released 1959Norma Winstone
  • Orbert Davis, co-founder and Artistic Director of Chicago Jazz Philharmonic.{quote}This is Clifford Brown with strings, I was a teenager when I first heard this incredible album - the depth is in it's subtleties - and Clifford is so perfect with the string writing of Neal Hefti.It's a true blending of classical and jazz.The first thing I knew - this is funny – I recognised the name Neal Hefti from the Batman theme!For me as a trumpet player I study Clifford Brown - as an arranger I study Neal Hefti, so this brings both those worlds together - and it did so when I was back in high school when I discovered this recording- this is my One LP!{quote}Orbert Davis: Symphony Centre, Buntrock Hall, Chicago. 15th May, 2013Clifford Brown with Strings: arranged and conducted by Neal Hefti released 1955Orbert DavisChicago Jazz Philharmonic
  • {quote}My favourite recorded series of works - it's an extensive collection of beautiful beautiful music that was written in the 11th century.It was written by a woman by the name of Hildegard Von Bingen and the greatest performance of those particular works is by a vocal group called Sequentia.These are Gregorian chants and it's just  some of the most beautiful spiritual music you've ever heard.{quote}Pat Martino: Band on the Wall, Manchester, 23rd May 2013Hildegard Von BingenSequentiaPat Martino
  • {quote}Actually all that matters about Walter is the huge influence he had on all harmonica players that followed him, including me.There are other important harmonica players in that era of Chicago Blues, notably the other Walter, Big Walter Horton and Sonny Boy Williamson.   There are lots of others as well – James Cotton, Junior Wells.  I love them all but Walter is the one who exerts the most influence.  He’s the person who really broke modern harmonica through from how it had been before.  He was, in a sense, the Charlie Parker of harmonica. Not because he took it into bebop, he didn’t understand the bebop changes and all that sort of stuff.   But what I mean by it is that before him it was completely different from how it was after him.  We all play the way we do, and are all able to experiment in the way we experiment, because of the changes that he made in playing modern electric blues harmonica.The other thing about Walter is he’s a very underrated singer.  Interestingly in an interview once, John Lee Hooker was asked who his favourite Blues singer was - apart from himself and he said Little Walter.  When he sings a song you really know what the song is about. Now that ought to be the case with everybody but it’s not.  A lot of time you know what the singers about, what his life is about, what his attitude to women is or what his attitude to this or that political or social situation is.  (with) Walter - you know what that song is about, he gets inside the song. He sounds really sincere and when he sings ‘Last Night’, as he does on this album ‘I lost the best friend I ever had’ you can almost hear the heartbreak in his voice.  It’s beautiful.{quote}Paul Jone: The Cinnamon Club, Bowdon, 26th September 2014Little Walter: Best of Little Walter released 1958Paul Jones
  • “Johnny Richards’ writing has always struck me as being bold, exciting, brash, tender AND noble. ‘Cuban Fire’ is his masterpiece, and the Kenton orchestra of the 1950’s with Mel Lewis propelling a stellar group of horn players and soloists and percussionists— including my teacher George Gaber who played timpani on 2 cuts — is the height of big band ecstasy for me. I’ve treasured this album ever since I was young, and listening to it still gives me goosebumps, inspiring me and reminding me of why I’ve always wanted to play the drums. Choosing ‘Cuban Fire’ as my One LP disc was an easy and natural choice.”Peter Erskine: Stage right, The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, 20th November 2015Stan Kenton: Cuban Fire! released 1956Peter Erskine
  • “It’s not so much with a particular album - although there are things on certain albums – I mean I can choose from a whole bunch of things.  Sue suggested I recommend the  Samba Con Salsa album from The Bass Clef, it’s lively – yeah that’s good.  But then what I think the contributions of Lennie (Tristano) and what Bird did – you know.Bird recorded with strings and it was unheard of in those days. That was the commercial guy saying ‘Look, lets put this guy with a string section’ - the album ‘Bird With Strings’ is just incredible.  And a lot of musicians at the time thought ‘Aww …Birds copped out…..it’s commercial’.  But his playing was so great on that you know.  And what it did it enabled people to hear the melody  - which was played by the strings – and hear what Bird did with it , you know. Then It was like a new thing that hadn’t happened before.Created a wider awareness, I think so.  But the point is, at the time when it came out, jazz was at a peak and the following was quite huge in America you know. So that as jazz musicians we were inclined to see the rock scene as kind of ‘Oh did it matter – it didn’t really count’. All that’s gone and now it’s like ‘Oh jazz – what is that’? ( laughs )So again if I am successful, as a writer or an influence, to get people to reappraise the music  - because yeah you can have in the Classical world you can have the Strauss Waltz’s and all that, which is lovely music, or Tchaikovsky which is even greater – but there’s also Bach, Mozart, Beethoven.  Out of those three Beethoven seemed the least creative to me – to my ears – but maybe it’s because it’s straightforward harmony. I mean Bach, who was before any of them was so melodic and so incredibly aware of music and how it could be described.WE  And it is so rhythmic as well isn’t  it PI that’s right yeah.. yeahSo, if I could have an influence in helping people to realise the truth, that underlying, they’d get out of this commercial vein. Not to eliminate but to say ‘Hang on, there’s more to it than that’  you know.  So that’s what I … one of the things I’m working on you know.  The other thing, which is aside from that is the book I’ve just written. It ostensibly has a jazz context but it came out of the influence of the Parliamentary Jazz committee, cos the Labour and Tories they love the music – so they’re all on the stair together and if only they could apply to politics (laughs) it would be wonderful you know.So where do we go?  But the arts, the music and especially jazz has a hope to it and that’s what drives me on you know.  So here I am at 86 and what do I do next. (laughs)The recent book I’ve written is ‘I am, therefore I think’.  And it’s about where science has avoided the truth.  And the science that is lauded is, in the main, that boosts the world economy.  And there were scientists who added so much to knowledge whose work has been ignored.  I wrote one book about it – about the scientist Wilhelm Reich – you know about this man?WE No I don’t.I’ll leave one with you before I go.   And really it was when I was in New York – Reich had been a student of Freud the early part of the twentieth century and he was very perceptive and he understood the psychology beyond Freud.  And out of that he showed how it’s not just psychology – it’s to do with biological energy and it’s the underlying biological energy that forms our opinions.  So his research was into that.  Eventually he realised that this energy is everywhere, things that a lot of cultures have known – always known – but which the West ignored you know.  Bio energies – well it’s just within us.”Peter Ind: Photographed at home, Shepperton, 19th May 2015Mr. Ind is holding his album 'Looking Out'  released in 1961. This was my suggestion.Charlie Parker: Charlie Parker with Strings recorded 1949 and 1950Peter IndLennie Tristano
  • {quote}The reason this album is special to me is because the producer of the album - J Dilla is my favourite hip hop producer and I got the privilige to actually work with him before he passed away in 2006. To work with him - watch him make music - watch him in ‘the lab’ and see how he works.J Dilla is probably the only producer I know that changed the way musicians actually play their instruments. Normally a producer will just take from the musicians and do their thing  - but J Dilla actually changed the way musicians play music.So this particular album Fantastic Volume 2 - when it came out, was to me the first time a record that made people start playing in that hip hop way behind the beat - kind of sloppy hip hop way - all that stuff started with Dilla - you know what I mean.This record has all of my favourite people on it -    D'Angelo’s on there -  Common - a lot of people on this record. It also means alot because of the time period it came out, and how it influenced the way I play doing my Trio and my Experiment band - just the way we feel the beat, his drum patterns, drum sounds, the way he samples piano and where he decides to put it - it's placement is what makes it just very very special. So I've kind of patterned alot of the stuff - especially when we play J Dilla beats we pattern alot of our stuff around his idea of where the beat is - so I think he was definitely ahead of his time and a genius of his time. So that's why I chose this record.”Robert Glasper: Hilton Garden Inn, Glasgow 28th June 2012Slum Village Fantastic, Vol. 2 - released 2000Robert Glasper
  • “My record of import is one I heard in 1962 when I heard the melody played by Yusef Lateef on oboe.I later found out the record he made on this disc was called ‘Going Home’ which is one of the movements from a Dvorak Symphony.So I went out and bought the disc – that would have to be done by Leonard Bernstein and The New York Philharmonic when they do the four movements of the Dvorak New World Symphony - and among these four movements is that melody called Going HomeThe story is that Antonin Dvorak came to the States - to New York, heard some blues people and went back to his hometown in Europe and wrote this melody – we call it ‘Gong Home’I’ve since recorded it on a record of mine called Orfeu with Bill Frisell on guitar, Houston Person on saxophone and my working quartet.It’s a great view of a classical melody interpreted by jazz musicians who are always, going home.”Ron Carter: At home New York City, 1st April 2014Antonin Dvorak: New World Symphony composed 1893Ron CarterLeonard Bernstein
  • Ruth Price is Founder and Artistic Director of the Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles.{quote}I think I respect this album more than any other, it's called Peggy Lee Mirrors - it was done a while back I don't know exactly when - not recently that's for sure!When you think of Leiber and Stoller you think of Yakety Yak - really famous songs, the only song on this album anyone would know would be Is That All There Is? - which sounds really Brechtian.These are trunk songs that nobody ever heard - they're wonderful. Johnny Mandel did the orchestration - it's the perfect marriage.If I had done this album I would consider my life well spent, I really do respect it - it's gorgeous. But I have a lot of singers I love - and a lot of musicians I love.{quote}Ruth Price: At home, Beverly Hills CA. April 2014Peggy Lee: Mirrors released 1975Ruth PriceThe Jazz Bakery
  • {quote}Back in the 1970s there was a record store near my home. One day I saw a copy of the four LP box set {quote}The Fletcher Henderson Story – A Study In Frustration.{quote} I was so excited that I literally ran home to get the money to buy it. It has since been reissued as a three-CD set. It's 64 recordings, dating from 1923-38, feature the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra at its best. Nearly every major young African-American jazz musician of that era was part of the band at one time or another including Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins (he was with Henderson for ten years), Benny Carter, Red Allen, Roy Eldridge and countless others. The music - by what was really the first swing big band is quite exciting, especially the recordings from 1925-29, and this has long been a real favourite of mine.{quote}Scott Yanow: At home, Lake Hughes, CA, 8th October 2016Fletcher Henderson: {quote}A Study In Frustration{quote} recorded 1923 to 1938 released 1961Scott Yanow
  • “This is the first jazz recording I ever heard, it’s not even bebop! It’s a rebopper! ‘Charlie Parker’s Reboppers.'There’s a whole story behind this record.Charlie Parker alto, Miles Davis, trumpet, Curley Russell bass  and - who’s on piano? Hen Gates that was Dizzy – he couldn’t give his real name – and Max Roach on drums.So it was Curly (Russell), oh my God – can you believe that?So on the other side is {quote}Bille’s Bounce{quote}, same personnel.I always sang as a little kid, I never knew what kind of music I wanted to sing and then after I moved back to Detroit to be with my mother and go to high school, there was a jukebox downstairs from my school.I was always playing music there, you know, putting nickels in.So I knew most of the artists and their songs that made them famous – not that I was tired of hearing – but I was looking for something else and I saw this. I saw this and I said ‘Oh – Charlie Parker and His ReBoppers, I wonder what that is?’So I put my nickel in – four or five notes and I thought – and oh my God, this is the music I’ll dedicate my life to.Whether I sing it, teach it, support it – whatever, it doesn’t matter, I’ll just dedicate my life to that music.I’d finally found the music that I wanted to do where I felt I could get into and really mean it.And I’ll tell you, I got goose bumps when I first heard the first four notes, I was like whoa – it was almost like being elevated you know.That was ‘Now’s The Time’.And the funny thing about this record that’s so beautifully framed now is I was doing a concert maybe two summers ago and there was a wonderful poet on before us, his name is Billy Collins.He recited his poetry and afterwards it was going to be me and Cameron Brown the bass player, that’s a duo I have.I’ve been doing bass and voice since the fifties.I’m the originator of bass and voice – not to brag – but to say hey to singers and bass players ‘you know can do music this way too. And there are people doing it now – which is great.This was an outdoor concert and so we were in this big house where we got dressed, got ready and relaxed until we went on.It was just Billy Collins reciting his poetry and me and Cam.So my friend, (Peter) - this drummer and a wonderful artist, he knows I’m a Bird freak - and he draws birds – all kinds of birds he’s done - they’re beautiful he sends them to me or gives them to me.It was Peter, I said ‘Peter it’s good to see you man’He said ‘ Yeah I have a present for you – I said really? I said ‘what is it?’ He said ‘yeah open it up’And so I opened it up – it was this, all framed beautifully.I got so emotional and I thought oh my God - I don’t think I can go up there and sing right now!But I waited a few minutes, I hugged him and kissed him and thanked him.I said ‘Oh my God this is the most wonderful gift I’ve ever been given - except of course the music and my daughter (laughs).So that’s the story of that record!”Sheila Jordan: At home, New York City, 11th February 2014Charlie Parkers Reboppers - The Koko Sessions by Devon {quote}Doc{quote} WendellSheila Jordan
  • “I have done many live recordings but I have never done a live recording of my own as a band leader and this is on my label which is entitled Sound Reason and that emblem has a significance.  As you can see, it’s kind of a play on words because when you look at it, it’s a sun in the background with gold bars in front of it, so - Sonny Fortune [laughs]- the boy ought to be ashamed of himself but I’m not! So, you know, it’s all my compositions and it’s with a band that I feel very, very good about.  That was the reason why I recorded it.  And it’s, like I said, my first live recording as a band leader.I tell you what - there’s a tune on there that I wrote for someone that I have the highest regard for, is Elvin Jones .  There is a tune on there called “The Joneses” and the tune consists of…it’s dedicated - and there were some reviews and people thought that I was talking about the family of Joneses, Thad and Mel, but actually I’m talking about Elvin and his wife Keiko, and she was Japanese and so the composition consists of a Japanese acknowledgement as well as an Elvin Jones acknowledgement and I feel very good about that.Coltrane told me that if I ever got the opportunity to play with Elvin Jones to take it, so I was working with Elvin the night Coltrane died.So I’m kind of locked into where I’m at because of a whole history of events and I should add that my two favourite drummers - last year when the Four Generations of Miles got together I told Jimmy Cobb - I said you ask anybody that’s known me for years and they’ll tell you I tell them that I developed my rhythmical concept from Jimmy Cobb and Elvin Jones, those were the two guys that influenced me the most.So to be working with Jimmy Cobb now is a continuation of when I was working with Elvin Jones.”Sonny Fortune: Harlem, New York City, April, 2013Sonny Fortune
  • {quote}I thought I'd select one of my more contemporary recent favourite albums.In terms of the jazz idiom this was a statement of intent really from Wynton at the point it dropped. I think as an example of all of them playing as young lions Jeff 'Tain' Watts, Kenny Kirkland, Charnet Moffat all playing really at the peak of their powers and of course Branford who's  a massive influence on me.I think it's a really good example of not just the virtuosity of their playing and writing these great compositions - but also having a kind of political conciousness that's sadly bereft from alot of modern jazz - (that is) an attempt to make people think about what the thoughts are behind the music.{quote}Soweto Kinch: Hockley Circus, Birmingham, 5th August 2011Soweto KinchWynton Marsalis: Black Codes from the Undreground released 1985Wynton Marsalis
  • “It's the Gerry Milligan and Chet Baker album. The very first one they made together in the early 1950's - it was the album that made Chet Baker the star - put him on the map. And I love it because it was really unusual. Gerry Mulligan was the ideas guy, was doing lots of arranging. He'd just been working with Miles Davis. And he didn't have a piano in his band so there was nothing in the rhythm section apart from bass and drums and then he was playing baritone sax and Chet was playing trumpet. Chet didn't really read music - he wasn't a theorist - but somehow they just instinctively just worked together. So things like Bernie's Tune and there's that solo and they were all just weaving in and out together. It's - ahh- its sublime and so, yeah, it's the thing that really does it for me. Makes me feel like a bit of a dinosaur - cos - oh I love 1950's music. But it's - yeah - it's what does it for me. It's laid back, it's quiet, it's not in your face. It's just beautiful.”Sue Richardson: The Spa Scarborough 26th September 2015Gerry Mulligan: The Original Quartet With Chet Baker released 1998Sue Richardson
  • “There’s so many of course, I guess one that just came to my mind is “JuJu” by Wayne Shorter - there are so many amazing songs on that record .. on all of his records. But for the classic Wayne Shorter records, I love that one. And ‘Infant Eyes’ (on {quote}Speak No Evil{quote}) for me, that’s one of the most beautiful songs ever written. Also love “Deluge” and “JuJu” and ”Twelve More Bars to Go”. All of them – it is such a strong collection of songs and the playing is just unbelievable. Wayne’s sound on “Infant Eyes” (on “Speak No Evil”) is so special. I mean it’s easy to fall in love with Wayne in all of his different incarnations, but the sound that he gets when he’s playing a song written for his daughter when she was very young or recently born… you can hear that in that melody. That album really captured an incredible moment in Wayne’s career, it’s just amazing.”Terri Lyne Carrington: Jazz Standard: New York City, 5th October 2018Wayne Shorter: {quote}JuJu{quote} realeased 1965Wayne Shorter: {quote}Speak No Evil{quote} released 1966Terri Lyne Carrington
  • “I’ve been thinking about {quote}Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley”. That album, which was one of Nancy’s first break out records and I think one of her finest. It had a huge impact on me. It was one of the first vocal jazz records that I really obsessed over and that’s interesting because half of the record is not vocal. Half of the record is Cannonball and Nat Adderley playing instrumental music with the band. And I of course enjoyed that every bit as much as Nancy’s vocals. So it was sort of something that brought my mind into the world of how a singer interacts with instrumentalists and how that could be something new to my way of thinking because I was raised in a world of musical theatre and classical music and Broadway where the singer is kind of the singular “star”, apart from the musicians... But Nancy is so integrated and the tone of her voice is so horn like and her phrasing is so wonderful. I mean I just memorised every lick from that record and actually in my very first recording,  the very first track was “Old Country” and its basically completely derivative - and even Carol Sloane wrote a review of that record way back when and she said .... she was very approving of it but she said - ‘it’s surprising that I’m praising it because the first track is just  derivative and just nothing new’. And the reason that it wasn’t is I can’t resist singing these songs the same way Nancy did o that record. In fact that’s true of a lot of Nancy Wilson recordings that I love ... there’s little licks that she does and I can’t go anywhere but there and so I’ve avoided recording those songs ever since. That shows how deeply it affected me.” Tierney Sutton: At home Los Angeles, 16th October 2018Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley released 1961Tierney Sutton
  • {quote}Brilliant Corners' by Thelonious Monk. Why this album is so special for me is because when I first heard it - it sounded all wrong but it pricked my conscience you know.The actual tune 'Brilliant Corners'  - I didn't understand it because it wasn't even and symmetrical like most standards are - or most compositions are. Very quirky and the strongest link all his compositions was the melodies you know; the strong sense of melody and time - and the feel - and dissonance. So, that was the album for me and that really got me into jazz and made me.... kind of like think.... this is what I want to be when I grow up.{quote}WE  So, it's through the intrigue of the album almost?TK   Yes yes - absolute intrigue. 100% total intrigue. When I first heard it I didn't like it but then when I investigated I realised that it challenged me and so I went for that challenge and start learning about Monk and studying Monk. So it was total intrigue, you know sometimes the thing that intrigues you most is the thing that grabs you, you know, the most - so Brilliant Corners is one.{quote}Tony Kofi: The Spa, Scarborough, 26th September 2015Theloniuos Monk: Brilliant Corners  released 1957Tony Kofi
  • Mr Bailey had to chose two - what can I say? I love these too.Return to Forever - Romantic WarriorWeather Report - Heavy Weather“The two favourite records I have are Heavy Weather by Weather Report and Romantic Warrior by Return to Forever, and I can’t pick one over the other. It’s not anything that complicated, those records spoke to who I really I am which is sort in between being a jazz guy and a funk guy.I love jazz but I love the groove too both those records have incredibly high level of musicianship but always nice feeling.The music after a while got real technical and a lot of guys who had a lot of technique but not the soul, the feeling and the groove.And those two bands had feeling and groove and soul. The compositions were good music – the difference between being heavy and (just) trying to be heavy.Those guys were heavy weight musicians if you look at a record like Heavy Weather none of those songs are complicated and none of them are technical - it’s just really great music.A lot of the Return to Forever music on Romantic Warrior was technically complicated but still good melodies, good music.And of course Stanley Clarke and Jaco were just phew - way beyond.I was already playing like that – playing melodically, playing solos - exploring possibilities on the instrument and Stanley and Jaco and Alphonso Johnson - who was my other favourite were doing exactly the same thing I was doing - but a thousand times better.So the combination of those guys playing bass and the great music and of course everybody else’s performances – Chick, Lenny White and Al Di Meola on the Return to Forever and then with Weather Report – Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Manolo, Alex Acuña on the drums – just great great music.I like the exploration that goes on in jazz - but still with the groove and with some feeling and some soul and those two records for me do it more than anything else – so that’s it!”Victor Bailey: Band on the Wall, Manchester, 4th November 2011Weather Report: Heavy Weather released 1977Return to Forever: Romantic Warrior released 1976Victor Bailey
  • “ And so to the point in hand. If I could narrow it down - and believe me it’s hard to narrow it down, and so I just had to say ‘Hey man - just pick one within Boom Boom within how I was feeling at the time, and I’m still feeling it.I’m gonna say “Unity” - the Larry Young record.“Unity” with Joe Henderson, Woody Shaw, Elvin Jones - it’s a quartet record and I must have listened to that - as some would say - ‘Many many Hail Marys worth.’ (laughs out loud.)It was like people read the Bible every day - I played it every day - it was healing, it was inspiring,it was (to) give me a bar to try to reach you know. And the,n I was thinking of all that other stuff who is just good to listen to you know without trying to think it too much - that it was just great to just sit back and just listen to man - you know so I would have to say - ok, if you ask me again in say six months - if it’s summertime you know - it may fluctuate - it may ephemeral but right now - where I’m at now - that’s the one I’m choosin'.”Victor Lewis: Village Vanguard, New York City, 10th February 2019Larry Young: 'Unity' released 1966Victor Lewis
  • CHARLES-MCPHERSON_wbwds-c-WILLIAM-ELLIS
  • “Well, this is certainly a challenge because as you would imagine, there's millions of records we can point to. And, you know, my usual kind of go to answer is always where I started - which is like Oscar Peterson, and there's a few records that really stand out.But I think another one that was really important to me that I would love to shout out is Freddie Hubbard “Hub -Tones.{quote} There's a track on there called “Lament for Booker” it's a really beautiful ballad and Herbie Hancock plays maybe my favourite solo ever. It's only half of the form, you know, the only place that the first of the tune, but it just has everything in it. And it's another example of just his, you know, all of the characters, the feelings, emotions all that that sort of combined when Herbie takes a solo. Like I said, it's just got everything in it. So I want to shout that out and it's really special to me.”Gerald Clayton: Jazz Standard, New York City, 13th October 2019Freddie Hubbard: {quote}Hub-Tones{quote} - released 1963Gerald Clayton
  • “The Charlie Parker with Strings record. The reason why it's so special to me is actually it brings back fond memories of hanging out with my dad, who was a huge fan of Charlie Parker, and my mom as well - but my dad was a Charlie Parker fanatic.And so that record was something he would play all the time in particular, like “April in Paris” and also of course “Just Friends” with the solo break that you know - I don't think can ever be redone again, you know?Yeah. So it brings back very special memories of being at home with him. You know, 12 years old -11 years old is listening to him sing all those different things enjoying the music on the weekends.”WE “You find that set your course as well Justin - for your incredible career?”“I think so - but I think that the music chooses you before you choose it. It's like you almost don't have a choice - it's like you're initiated before you’re even aware of it. But I think that that was my 'in' into the society of Secret Society of Music!” LaughsJustin Robinson: Django at The Roxy Hotel, New York City, 12th Octber 2019 Charlie Parker: {quote}Charlie Parker with Strings{quote} - released 1955Justin Robinson
  • “Yeah, it's a Donald Byrd record called “Off To The Races” - Blue Note release.I want to say maybe the late 50s. But for me, it was one of the first records that really exposed me to Donald Byrd’s sound and he's one of my major influences his clarity and his ideas and his shapes.And also on that record Coltrane is featured - he’s on the project as well. And you know, his sound is powerful and I'm a huge fan of Coltrane as well.So that's one of my favourite Donald Byrd records - the first one that came to mind when you asked me,yeah.”Marquis Hill: Nate Holden Performing Arts Centre, Los Angeles, 19th October 2019Donald Byrd: {quote}Off To The Races{quote} - released 1959Marquis Hill
  • “It’s very easy, actually - it's Kate Bush “Hounds of Love” which is really my favourite LP because it is conceived for for the LP format.It has two sides that are quite different. The second side - the B side has songs about all that water based on a Lord Tennyson poem. So I love the idea of really using a format like that like saying, ‘here's one thing’ and then on the other side, ‘there's another thing’.And of course, you know, I'm a big Kate Bush fan. I admire her writing. I admire her lyricism and her mysticism in her lyrics very, very much. I think this this is a sort of a breakthrough record in pop music in general because it also deals with layering of sonic space, also doing some ambient layering - Eberhard Weber is playing bass on this record and that should tell you something about what the sonic space is that in these songs. And it's a very iconic record because of where it was in my life in '85 - I graduate high school and so that record was sort of at the at the cusp of becoming a musician/artist coming from childhood. So it's a very important record to me that way I think musically It is so esoteric and weird - that as a pop record at the time, I don't know if it was received in a way that it that other records that other pop records can be received because it has so much content - and so much weird content weird - I mean, in a good way, yeah -  and not understandable on first, second, third or fourth listening. And it was only when I took on Kate Bush’ repertoire for my project in which I sort of took her on as a composer and rearranged and reshuffled her music for a jazz ensemble - for a small jazz band, that I understood some of the songs.I mean, “There's a Dream of Sheep” is one of the songs it's a very beautiful, almost lullaby kind of song and I wasat offices a lovely little, littlelullaby, but it actually is a song From the perspective of somebody who is drowning or dying in a shipwreck, or in a plane crash in the ocean, and wanting to be saved, and praying or hoping to not fall asleep, that's an incredible metaphor for life, you know, to not fall asleep and drown, but to just stay awake. And I didn't understand that as you know an 18 year old ago, ‘this is a pretty song’.So the depth and the scope of her work only became apparent or only became really clear to me when I delve into it as an arranger as an interpreter, not as a listener only. So that's why I wanted to choose this record.”Theo Bleckmann: Moss Theatre, Santa Monica CA, 20th October 2019Kate Bush: :Hounds of Love{quote} - released 1985Theo Bleckmann
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