In A nostalgia trip to 1957 I posted the entire 8 December 1957 CBS special broadcast titled A Sound of Jazz. This broadcast is in the public domain, as are a number of excellent episodes from 1958's Art Ford Jazz Party broadcasts. Here is a legal source for downloading them: Archive.org, and here are the episodes that you can watch right here to determine if you want to download them:
Art Ford's Jazz Party 18 September 1958
Art Ford's Jazz Party 09 October 1958
Art Ford's Jazz Party 25 December 1958 - A Tribute to Jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden
Whole the above are free, there is another collection of TV broadcasts that are not: Ralph Gleason's series of half-hour programs for the U.S. National Education Television Network titled Jazz Casual. This series ran from 1961 to 1968. Including the pilot there were a total of 31 episodes, but only 28 of them have survived, and are offered in Jazz Casual: The Complete Series
Mark Sabbatini's review is so complete and frank that I do not feel that I can add anything to it. I will, however, provide a few clips to show what this set contains, as well as attest that I hold the set to be a treasure.
Even if the Jazz Casual: The Complete Series is outside your budget, you can still enjoy the Art Ford episodes both free and legally. There are treasures on the web!
In a recent post on 05 October 2012 titled Why Bix Mattered I was reinforcing a still earlier post titled Understanding music through critical listening. In this post I am going to provide an album recommendation that will build skills in both contrasting music styles, as well as comparing ensembles. In both cases the same songs will be used on the contrast and compare exercises.
Tracks 1 through 8, Hot Vs. Cool, pit traditional jazz against bebop. Put into context, jazz itself was on the verge of imploding during the period in which these tracks were recorded. Actually, it came to a head in the late 1940s, but the battle was still hot in the early 1950s when a group of musicians and their fans doggedly held on to the older style. They were termed 'moldy figs' by the bebop musicians who did not enjoy the same wide fan base because their music was more for musicians than average listeners. Feather was more biased toward that group.
This album, then, was meant to contrast the two styles more than compare them. The traditional musicians were led by cornetist Jimmy McPartland, and included Vic Dickenson on trombone, Edmond Hall on clarinet, Dick Cary on both piano and trumpet, Jack Lesberg on bass and George Wettling on drums.
The bebop musicians were led by Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet, multi-instrumentalist Don Elliott on mellophone and trumpet, Buddy DeFranco on clarinet, Ray Abrams on tenor saxophone, Ronnie Ball on piano, Al McKibbon on bass and Max Roach on drums.
Regretfully I do not have clips for these tracks, so I will give you my highly subjective take on this part of the album: the contrast, as expected, between the two styles on the same songs is significant. None of the tracks on either side of the musical divide are remarkable by today's standards, although as a drummer I enjoyed contrasting Max Roach's approach to George Wettling's playing. In Max you can clearly hear strong influences of Kenny Clarke and a lot of Papa Jo Jones. Wettling's playing is practically a clone of Baby Dodds. I could not help thinking that Buddy DeFranco would have been better suited to McPartland's ensemble or dropped altogether from Dizzy's bebop group. Buddy was one of the great clarinetists, but his style was more traditional than bebop.
While the first eight tracks contrasted two approaches to the came songs, tracks 9-14 compared the musical skills of male and female ensembles playing the same songs. These tracks are from Leonard Feather Presents Cats Vs Chicks: A Jazz Battle of the Sexes. The male group was comprised of some of the biggest names both then and now: Clark Terry on trumpet, Urbie Green on trombone, Lucky Thompson on tenor sax, Horace Silver on piano, Tal Farlow on guitar, Oscar Pettiford and Percy Heath swapping off on bass, and Kenny Clarke on drums.
At first glance one would think this was a lopsided comparison that pitted world class male musicians against a group of unknown women. That would be a mistake because Mary Osborne was a renowned, world class guitarist. Terry Pollard was easily the equal of any male pianist or vibraphonist (she was a master of both instruments), who bested the great Terry Gibbs in many vibraphone duels when she was with his band as a pianist. See this post for Terry in action. Norma Carson was no slouch on trumpet either, giving Terry Clark a run for his money on every track.
Hot vs. Cool tracks were interesting. Cats vs. Chicks tracks, though, were white hot and full of energy and amazing musicianship on both sides of the divide. The final track - Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better - is the highlight of this entire album and my personal favorite track. Here is a clip of that track to show why I say this:
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It pits Norma Carson against Clark Terry, Mary Osborne against Tal Farlow, and Terry Pollard against Horace Silver. Personally, I think the women smoked the guys here and I am not saying this to be politically correct. I honestly believe that assertion.
Granted, this is a niche compilation that is comprised of albums that were probably intended to be novelties when first released. However, it is also an excellent contrast of two musical styles in the first eight tracks, and a comparison of world class musicians of both genders on the remaining tracks.
On 31 May 2012 I posted a piece titled Some fun that opened with a blurb about Al "Jazzbo" Collins, but was really about vibraphonists. In fact, had vibraphonists been the subject of Mount Rushmore the four I discussed in that post would have been the faces carved in granite. One of those four is Milt Jackson.
The main theme of this post is the fact that a comprehensive, ten-disc set of Milt's music has been released: Kind of Jackson:
If you are strictly a drum kit player instead of a percussionist you are probably wondering what possible benefit studying this album will accrue.
For one thing, like the importance of studying piano-centric music (or any music for that matter), you will find rhythmic ideas that you may not discover if you focus only on drums. And, since the vibraphone is a percussion instrument, many drum kit players do have some proficiency with it, and most vibraphonists are accomplished drummers. An example is Lionel Hampton who was considered to be as great on a drum kit as he was on vibraphones.
Milt Jackson is mostly associated with the Modern Jazz Quartet, which started out with the great Kenny Clarke on drums (see this post for recent information), and culminated with the great Connie Kay taking the drum chair in 1955 and holding it full time until 1974. That alone guarantees that this box set will have examples of some great drumming along with Milt's virtuoso vibes. Not that all of this set is the Modern Jazz Quartet recordings because it isn't. He played with Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane to name but a few.
The following clips give a taste of what this box set contains:
One parting shot: while Milt clearly demonstrates how a percussion instrument like a vibraphone can provide both melody and rhythm, you as a drummer can as well. See More quick tips: fills, dynamics and melody in my other blog, Snare Drum Addict, for examples.
