Tuesday, May 22, 2012

I remember Clifford Part 1

When I was writing Some of my favorite Jazz Messenger albums Part 1 I was drawn back into two favorite albums. Those were the two volumes of Clifford with Art Blakey at Birdland: A Night At Birdland, Vol. 1 and A Night At Birdland, Vol. 2. Those sent me off on a listening (and buying) spree of more Clifford Brown. Here is a sample track from each of the volumes:


I wanted to share those because in the previous posts I did not include any examples. In this post and subsequent ones I will not make that same mistake. Continuing, the next albums I want to share is really a value-priced four-album set called Four Classic Albums (Brown and Roach Inc. / Jam Session / Study in Brown / New Star on the Horizon). This set crams the four albums on two CDs and contains the following: Disc 1: first seven tracks are the 1954 album Brown And Roach (full title: Brown and Roach Incorporated). Personnel on this album are Clifford Brown (trumpet); Max Roach (drums); Harold Land (tenor saxophone); Richie Powell (piano); George Morrow (bass). Here is a track from that album:



The remainder of Disc 1 (tracks 8-10) and track 1 of disc 2 is Jam Session recorded in Hollywood, CA in Oct 14 1954. The entire ensemble consists of the core Brown-Roach group consisting of Clifford on trumpet, Max Roach on drums, Richie Powell on piano, George Morrow on bass and Harold Land on tenor. Other musicians in the jam included Herb Geller on alto Junior Mance on piano and Keter Betts on bass. Fellow trumpeters Maynard Ferguson and Clark Terry also sat in, and Dihah Washington handled vocals. Here are two tracks from that album:



Study in Brown is on disc 2, tracks 2-10. It was recorded on February 23-25 1955 and released later that year. Personnel on this album are Clifford Brown (trumpet); Max Roach (drums); Harold Land (tenor saxophone); Richie Powell (piano); George Morrow (bass). Here is a clip from that album:


The final tracks on disc 2 (11-16) are from New Star on the Horizon which is a subset of Memorial Album (The Rudy Van Gelder Edition). As far as I know, New Star on the Horizon - released in 1954 - has long been out of print. The personnel on these tracks are: Clifford Brown (trumpet), John Lewis (piano), Gigi Gryce, (alto saxophone and flute), Charlie Rouse(tenor saxophone), Percy Heath (bass) and Art Blakey (drums). A track from the album:

This is not the end of my remembering Clifford posts - tomorrow I will continue with Part 2 ... and beyond because I have more material than I can deal with in one of two posts.

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