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Beat Street
Count Basie: April in Paris
Verve/Universal, CD, Rs. 445
William "Count" Basie was one of those rare musicians whom diehard jazz fans appreciated as well as lovers of classic pop and dance music did. When he recorded this album in the mid '50s, his famous big band of the late '30s and '40s had been disbanded in the wake of the be-bop storm that overturned the concepts of classic jazz. But when revived with new personnel in the early '50s, its famous hard-driving swinging sound, based on the rhythm section of piano, bass, guitar and drums, had survived intact.
The 10 original tracks are joined here by seven alternative takes. The first thing that strikes you about them is why Basie ever needed alternative takes.
Being big band performances, they must have all had written arrangements, confirmed by the similarity of the pattern followed by the instrumentation, including the order of the solos, in each take of a number. (Nor are there any obvious mistakes in any of the alternative takes.) That, however, doesn't detract from the joy of listening to the same piece twice — in one case thrice — over.
Every number is different for the order and choice of solo improvisations it features.
The title track, for example, has only a trumpet solo, while "Corner Pocket", a particular favourite of Basie's, has a solo intro and solo finale by Basie on piano, with trumpet and tenor saxophone taking their turns in the spotlight in between.
In fact solo intros by Basie open several tracks, helping to dispel the reputation that he always stayed in the background.
"Mambo Inn", a fast-paced piece with a Latin beat set up by Latin percussionists, and "Midgets" are two other notable numbers. The latter, also fast-paced, is performed by a sextet that comprises the rhythm section with trumpet and flute, both of which take delectable solos.
Thelonious Monk:
Brilliant Corners
Original Jazz Classics/Universal,
CD, Rs. 395
Unlike Count Basie, Thelonious Monk, one of the leading lights of the be-bop era, is unlikely to be appreciated by anyone but diehard jazz fans. There is enough evidence of the deliberation with which he played the piano, varying the timing of the notes in the eccentric fashion that lay listeners mightn't like, on this album.
Some of that angularity is, however, smoothened by the others on this recording from 1956. Ernie Henry on alto saxophone and, especially, Sonny Rollins on tenor sax bring their rich tones to the inventive solo improvisations they contribute, which manage to sound as contemplative as Monk's without the obvious eccentricity of his piano-playing.
Monk, incidentally, switches between the piano and the celeste, a keyboard instrument with a sound like the vibraphone but softer, on "Pannonica", and the facility with which he makes the switch even in the middle of a phrase is surprising when one thinks of the apparent deliberation of his playing. His celeste and the tenor sax take alternate phrases on the theme in a call-and-response fashion, while his piano and the sax take turns at solo improvisation.
Max Roach, the most famous drummer of the be-bop period and after, is one of the delights of this album with his complex rhythms during his solos on the opening (and title) track as well as the 13-minute "Ba-lue Bolivar Ba-lues-are". The latter also has a solo by the quiet Oscar Pettiford on bass, as does "Bemsha Swing" (this time by Paul Chambers), closing the album. The latter also features, in place of Henry, Clark Terry on trumpet.
Terry, still around, 85 years old, swinging hard, and now a legend, was then a member of Duke Ellington's big band but already headed for greatness in many genres of jazz at that time, as his work here shows.
JAZZEBEL
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