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Chords & Notes
Sidney Bechet:
Up a Lazy River
Fantasy/Virgin, CD, Rs. 400
A TEENAGER in its birthplace New Orleans when the genre was in its infancy, Sidney Bechet (1897-1959) was a pioneer of jazz. He was a virtuoso on the clarinet, one of the instruments regularly used for solos. When he moved to New York in the '20s, he also helped educate the great Duke Ellington about the new musical idiom.
Although identified with the clarinet, he soon discovered he liked the soprano saxophone better. This instrument is identical to the clarinet in construction except for a brass instead of wooden body and also identical in register to it but has a rough full-bodied sound.
Almost all of Bechet's best remembered performances were played on the soprano sax. But as this album, compiled from 1940-49, shows, Bechet didn't quite give up the clarinet. The first eight tracks (all 1940) and two from 1947 feature him on the instrument, although he also plays soprano sax on the former, besides wielding it exclusively on the remaining 11. Some of these latter feature another clarinettist, always showing the influence of Bechet, whose own solos on clarinet, bass clarinet, and soprano saxophone dominate the album.
Other soloists who make notable contributions are Muggsy Spanier (cornet), Wilber de Paris (trombone) and the great James P. Johnson on piano. Johnson's solo on "September Song" is outstanding, while on "I Got Rhythm" Albert Snaer (trumpet), Johnson, de Paris, Buster Bailey (clarinet), and Bechet run off a series of solos in a fast-paced number that shows what classic jazz was all about.
Blue Dex: Dexter Gordon Plays the Blues
Prestige/Virgin, CD, Rs 400
WHEN DEXTER Gordon (1923-1990) won his musical spurs in Billy Eckstine's big band in the early '40s, his colleagues included the alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, who spent their off-duty hours developing be-bop. Gordon was thus the first tenor saxophonist to hear the exciting sounds of the new jazz genre, of which he became a leading exponent.
The seven tracks offered here are taken from 1969-1973 and show him playing in small groups that include, besides piano, bass and drums, James Moody and Gene Ammons, both tenor saxophonists, on one track each and, on another, Thad Jones on trumpet and flugelhorn. Although, in the style of be-bop and hard bop, all tracks feature a series of solos by the various instruments, Gordon's stand out for their number and quality. On the opening track, "Sticky Wicket", his solo precedes a series of exchanges with James Moody's tenor sax, while on "Lonesome Lover Blues", the contrast in successive solos between his sound, controlled, and Ammons's, booming, is striking. An enthused audience starts clapping hands and after solos by Jodie Christian on piano and again by Gordon, he and Ammons duel their way through an improvisation session before they reprise the theme.
This track, recorded at a Chicago hotel, pips two taken from separate visits to the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland for honours on a superlative album. The later of these two is notable for the use of the electric piano and the influence of jazz-rock.
JAZZEBEL
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