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Beat Street

This week at Planet M

Django Reinhardt:

Swing 48

Verve/Universal, CD, Rs. 445

The Belgian gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt discovered jazz in the early 1930s, was charmed by it, and in turn charmed jazz critics by his enthusiastic adoption of its rhythms, melodies and most of all its solo improvisation techniques. In the process he became the first great European jazz master. Swing 48, the title of this album recorded in 1947, jumps the gun a bit but is a declaration of what one of the essential qualities of jazz is going to be like in the year to come.

On most of the 12 tracks Reinhardt leads the Quintet of the Hot Club of France, the famous Paris venue of much of his performing career. The other four musicians are a rhythm guitarist, bassist, drummer and Michel de Villers or Hubert Rostaing on either alto saxophone or, more often, clarinet. One track has in addition several trumpeters, trombones and a tenor saxophonist, while on the last two tracks the rhythm guitarist is replaced by guest Rex Stewart, a famous American trumpeter.

Most of the tracks are fast or medium-paced, with the lion's share of the work on the basic melody and the solo improvisations in the hands of Reinhardt and the clarinetist/alto saxophonist or trumpeter. Reinhardt characteristically strong strumming style, so strong that he usually didn't need amplification, comes through very well, as does the facility and inventiveness of his solos. Reinhardt and Rostaing improvising separately and then together on two takes of "Blues for Barclay", Reinhardt's scorching solo on "Swing 48", and "Night and Day", with its beautiful improvisations by Rostaing, Reinhardt and Stewart (including a passage when they improvise together), make these tracks the pick of a uniformly satisfying album.

Deep Groove! The Best Of Cannonball Adderley

EMI/Virgin, CD, Rs. 295

Julian `Cannonball' Adderley was the greatest alto saxophonist in modern jazz after Charlie Parker and the first to adopt a style distinct from Parker's. His work in hard bop and funk jazz (the former most often in the company and under the leadership of Miles Davis) flowered in the springtimes of these genres, the mid-'50s and -'60s, respectively.

This compilation, taken from the latter period, is very funky, bordering on jazz-rock fusion but not leaning far enough over the line to deter this reviewer. The jazz-rock fusion element is heard in the work of Joe Zawinul on piano, keyboards and electric piano, Zawinul mostly using, especially in his solos, the electric instrument. There is also some more obvious heavy rock guitar work on the last two tracks, "Aries" and "Taurus".

The mainstream jazz anchor is provided by Adderley himself, his brother Nat on cornet, and Roy McCurdy or others on drums and bass. (Some information on the personnel was extracted from the Internet, the liner notes here having only provided the names of the original albums from which the tracks were selected.) Incidentally, the lack of information on the personnel on this and other budget albums convinces me that the most expensive part of a CD is the inlay card!)

Both Adderleys and Zawinul are in good form right through on the themes and solos. African percussion instruments on "Up and at It" and the Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira on "Happy People" add a touch of colour to the uniformly excellent jazz drum work.

JAZZEBEL

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