Treasures From The Vault - Newly Discovered Live Jazz Recordings

If you are a jazz fan, you are surely aware of the sensation caused by the release last year of a lost studio session by tenor great John Coltrane. Called Both Directions At Once, the session was recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in 1963. At the time, the bosses at Impulse Records decided not to release the tracks from this session, so the tapes were filed away in the company's vault. By the time anyone went looking for them -- decades later -- the reels were nowhere to be found and presumed to be lost. Then, a few years ago, the family of Coltrane's first wife, Juanita Naima Coltrane, found a copy of the tape among her effects. Apparently, producer Bob Thiele had given Coltrane a copy of the session tape so he could listen to it at home. Naima's family brought the tape to the attention of the label, and the rest is history. Obviously an album of previously unreleased Coltrane sessions was always going to be a huge event for jazz fans, but the story about the rediscovery of 55-year-old lost session tapes made it compelling news even for non music lovers.

While the release of Both Directions At Once received by far the most press attention, the fact is that for a number of years now there has been a growing stream of rediscovered recordings by major jazz artists. For the most part these are live recordings of club dates or concerts. Many were taped and originally broadcast 50 or 60 years ago by European radio and TV stations. After airing, the tapes were shelved and gathered dust for the next half century.

Then, about a decade ago, some small, enterprising record labels began to realize that there was gold in them there tapes. So they began combing through the archives of places like Radio Denmark and French TV and making licensing deals to release these old recordings. 

The first of these new releases that caught my attention was Echoes Of Indiana Avenue, an album of previously unreleased live and studio takes by guitarist Wes Montgomery. It was put out in 2012 by one of the re-release pioneers, a label called Resonance Records.  Resonance was co founded by American producer Zev Feldman in 2008 in California as a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting jazz artists and preserving the art and legacy of jazz music. Resonance Records has released an impressive list of rediscovered recordings by such artists as Scott LaFaro, Gene Harris, Freddie Hubbard, and Bill Evans.

Another important player in the business of finding and releasing classic live jazz recordings is Elemental Music of Spain. Among their discoveries are fabulous live concerts by Dexter Gordon and Woody Shaw in Europe and Japan. One of Elemental's co-founders is - you guessed it -- producer Zev Feldman. Feldman has developed such a reputation for his ability to uncover lost jazz tracks that Blue Note president Don Was recently hired him to dig through the label's vast archives for buried treasures that Blue Note can release.

Lastly, I'll mention Gearbox Records of London. Founded by Darrell Shienman, Gearbox have put out a series of excellent live recordings by artists such as Yusef Lateef, British tenor great Tubby Hayes, Dexter Gordon, and many others. If you're wondering why Dexter Gordon shows up in so many of these releases, it's because he lived and toured in Europe for more than a decade. He played thousands of shows, and there are probably still hundreds of recordings of his concerts gathering dust on the shelves of radio and TV networks throughout the continent. 

However, Gearbox's biggest coup to date was the 2018 release of Mønk, a live recording of Thelonious Monk from 1963. The concert was recorded on March 5 in Copenhagen's Odd Fellow concert hall and broadcast on Danish radio a few days later. As seems to be the case for many of these recordings, it was thought to be lost, but according to the excellent liner notes accompanying the disk, a Danish record producer rescued the original broadcast tape from a dumpster(!) about 20 years ago. Gearbox records negotiated the rights, got approval from Monk's heirs, and then lovingly remastered the tape in their own studios in London. 

To my mind, Mønk is the best of the wave of live concert "rediscoveries." I'm not a die-hard Monk fan, but this is a fun, accessible concert that, as reviewer Chris May of AllAboutJazz.com writes, "Is full throated, stomping and hard swinging." May's full review is here. Gearbox use an all-analog chain to produce their LPs, and the (mono) sound on this one is "you are in-the-room" fantastic.

Overall I have about 15 of these newly discovered releases. While the sound quality varies, most are very good, and some (like Mønk), are excellent. However, the recordings don't always capture a typical performance by the headline artist, since many artists, including Dexter Gordon, usually toured solo and picked up different sidemen in each city. Even still, it is always a treat to be able to hear and compare new recordings by these great artists. 

Related but somewhat off-topic rant:  When did it become a thing to stop putting the track titles on the LP label?  I first noticed it a few years ago when I bought a couple of LPs that not only didn't list the track titles on the labels, but didn't even bother to indicate which was side 1 or side 2. I mention this because Gearbox's Mønk continues this ridiculous new trend. Here are the labels for Mønk:

Which is side 1? You tell me. I had to start the first track before I could tell. Then I had to stop the record and turn it over to start the actual side 1. What exactly is the point of not listing the track titles and side indicators? Is the art director trying to make a statement? Are they just messing with us? I don't know, but please just stop it. 

Enjoy the Music!