MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents"
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MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents" |
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The Grim Reaper has been far too busy of late, decimating the jazz ranks at what seems like a furious pace. Just in the last few months, Milt Jackson, Art Farmer and Grover Washington Jr. have departed this mortal coil. Replacing such giants wont be an easy task. But thank goodness, these gentlemen have left behind recordings that should continue to amaze and amuse their fans for many years into the future.
Some might say that record companies which release new packaging of old material by artists only recently departed is a case of the businessmen taking advantage of the publicity received by the parting of a revered individual. And there's certainly a profit motive involved, for how else would these proud companies be able to remain in business without dipping into the vaults for material that can be remastered and packaged into a "new" album?
A new album of old music has just come out from Pablo Records and its a joy to hear. "To Bags . . . With Love: Memorial Album" contains a generous sample of Jackson's material from 1954 ("Bags' Groove") to 1983 (a delightful duet with Oscar Peterson on "Mister Basie").
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Smart idea, dumb execution. In a year or so of attempting to talk retailers into carrying my labels, I managed to gather a nice collection of jazz by the leading lights of the day. But I dont recall ever making a dime with my pitiful "business."
But the first time I heard Milt Jackson was by listening to his records that his label thought I would be able to sell.
"To Bags . . . With Love" contains the first song recorded in 1955 by the group that would become the Modern Jazz Quartet, which managed to successfully mix jazz and the classics.
Working with pianist John Lewis, drummer Connie Kay and bassist Percy Heath, the quartet achieved remarkable notoriety and pushed jazz into new avenues. "Ralph's New Blues," written by Jackson, shows the group as accomplished though they still were new to working as a unit.
Jackson worked with guitarist Wes Montgomery in 1961, represented in this album with the track, "S.K.J." Those were the initials of Jacksons wife.
In 1962, Jackson worked with an all-star big band on the album, "Milt Jackson Orchestra/Big Bags." "If You Could See Me Now" includes such famous names as Jimmy Cleveland, Melba Liston, Clark Terry, Jerome Richardson, Hank Jones, Connie Kay and Ron Carter.
Jackson recorded his famous "Bags' Groove" time and time again. Picked for this album is a version done in 1954. At eleven minutes plus, the rendition includes a long solo by Miles Davis and the familiar, exciting, one-of-a-kind piano playing by Thelonious Monk.
Also on this remarkable album are such classics as "Easy Money," with a great backing group featuring Benny Carter, Joe Pass, Tommy Flanagan, John B. Williams and the wonderful drummer Jake Hanna.
One of the first jazz performers to reach a wide audience, far beyond the addicts, was Julian Cannonball Adderley, who appears with Jackson on a 1958 session of "Things Are Getting Better." You couldn't get much better than this seven minutes of delight.
Jackson recorded with the brassy Count Basie Orchestra in 1978, on a album called "Milt Jackson + Count Basie + The Big Band, vol. 1." This was during the time when drummer Butch Miles turned the already stunning Basie band into a massive attack. The track here is the famous Basie instrumental standard "Corner Pocket," which finds Jackson and the inimitable Mr. Basie in excellent form. 
Milt Jackson realized full well the transitory nature of life, when he titled a 1981 album for Pablo, "Aint But a Few of Us Left." Jackson, arguably the greatest vibraphone player of the 20th century, died at his New York home last Oct. 9 after a bout with liver cancer.
The liner notes by Richard S. Ginell says of Jackson: " (He) was an authentic giant, the boss of the instrument over the last half of the 20th century, the man who changed the way we hear jazz played on the vibraphone by thrusting it right into the center of the developing bebop movement."
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Event # 204: THE SHAPE OF MY HEART
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Wow, but does that bring back memories. I was not long out of college, newly married and working a job I hated for a company I loathed. The idea arrived that since jazz music was a rare commodity in those days of the mid-1950s, I decided I would be the one to bring music to the forsaken, those living as I did in the mountains of West Virginia. I contacted several jazz labels and quickly got their permission to wholesale their albums.
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