Not So Readily Recognizable

The other night my wife and I were laying around reading and I had "Steamin' with the Miles Davis Quintet" playing and when it got to "Salt Peanuts" and the rather long drum solo, Michelle bitched about the randomness of drum solos. I considered whether or not I should argue the artistic value of drum solos in jazz, but realized that it was a futile effort and went back to my book. But in the back of my mind the seed was germinating over all of the jazz standard that we've come to appreciate, especially in the variety of interpretations of different artists. "Salt Peanuts" is great when it's done by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, but Miles brings his own unique perspective on the song. Or Bill Evans playing Thelonious Monk's "Epistrophy."

At first I considered doing a play list with various versions of just a few songs. And since it's jazz, and different versions by different artists are so vastly...well...different...it would have probably worked okay. Instead though, I decided that I would collect 10 or 12 recognizable jazz standards, but with a less-than-recognizable version. In other words, when you think of "Autumn in New York," the tendency is to think about Billie Holiday. Instead I have posted Charlie Parker's version. I also tried to stay away from jazz interpretations of pop standards, like Coltrane's "My Funny Valentine" or Miles Davis' "Some Day My Prince Will Come." (Though it was very tempting to throw in Miles playing "Surrey with the Fringe on Top.") With that said I have begun and ended the playlist with two pop standards, "Autumn in New York" and "April in Paris," just because there was some a degree of symmetry to it.

As I was saying, I started this off with "Autumn in New York," one of Billie Holiday's more beautiful numbers, and of course nobody can do this song like Billie. But I really like this Charlie Parker version. He doesn't really "bop it out" too much. The song stays melodic throughout. And I just recently got this version from a box set of The Complete Verve Recordings of Charlie Parker that my wife's uncle gave me for Christmas. The followed that up with "Salt Peanuts," originally a Gillespie and Parker collaboration (I think...but might just be Dizzy), but here I have just Miles on the "Steamin'" album. Maybe one of these days I'll post a playlist of Miles songs just from that great foursome of the "Workin'," "Steamin'," "Relaxin'," and "Cookin'" albums, but that's for another day.

On the 3rd song, I love what Grant Green does with "Django on the guitar, which is most recognizable with the MJQ version Milt Jackson's vibes. I used to not be much of a fan of jazz guitar, but now I really enjoy Green along with Montgomery, Burrell and of course Django Reinhardt...which maybe why I've put "Django" here as a guitar number.

I also threw in Thelonious Monk's version of "Just a Gigolo." Probably more of a pop standard than a jazz standard...but the song from Monk makes me smile. And "Along Came Betty" is one of my favorite jazz standards. It's just so smooth. I'm not sure who originated the song, but I have Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers doing it here because that's the first place I heard the song.

Another one that I'm not really sure where the song first came from is "Lover Man." But this particular version really gets to me. This comes off of a collection of Charlie Parker songs from his recordings with Dial Records. The story goes that Parker got stuck in K.C., I think. He was originally from there, but was back in Kansas City for some reason, broke, and without any way to score heroine. So he just stayed drunk, like all the time. For this particular song, apparently he was so drunk that two guys had to hold him up to the microphone while he was playing. And you can just feel the pain oozing from his horn on this song. I absolutely love this version of "Lover Man." If I'm getting the story wrong I'm sure someone will correct me.

And I ended it all off with Ella and Satchmo doing "April in Paris." Like I said before, I thought that it gave some symmetry to the list with "Autumn in New York" beginning the set. Maybe if I was a stickler I would have started in April and ended in Autumn, but I think it works better like this.

1. "Autumn in New York," Charlie Parker
2. "Salt Peanuts," Miles Davis
3. "Django," Grant Green
4. "Epistrophy," Eric Dolphy
5. "Just a Gigolo," Thelonious Monk
6. "Along Came Betty," Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
7. "A Night in Tunisia," Kenny Dorham
8. "Lover Man," Charlie Parker
9. "Take the 'A' Train," Clifford Brown and Max Roach
10. "On Green Dolphin Street," Bill Evans
11. "Basin Street Blues," Jimmy Smith
12. "April in Paris," Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong

Jazz Standards

About 15 years ago I yanked this little gem out of a bargain bin somewhere, and I'm so pleased with myself for grabbing this CD. I haven't seen it anywhere else, and had a bitch of a time finding the album artwork for my iTunes. The art I have below is not the cover off of the disc, but something I found on the web...maybe they've repackaged and rereleased this album. "Body and Soul" is a live Dizzy Gillespie performance from 1957. It's not a very long disk, but of course you get the full Dizzy showmanship here. AND it has 2 songs with Sarah Vaughan, really at a high point in her career. This is the same year she released the live album "At Mister Kelly's." The sound is not the best, but I thought it was well worth a post.