Treasures From The Vault - Live At The Penthouse In Seattle

Nearly four years ago, I did a roundup of new vinyl releases made from rediscovered recordings of performances by the likes of Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Wes Montgomery, Dexter Gordon, Woody Shaw, and others.  Many of these lost treasures were live recordings made for broadcast on radio and TV in Europe.  Once they were aired, they were filed away in the vaults of TV France or Radio Denmark or wherever, and gathered dust for the next 50 or 60 years.

Of course, this isn't a new phenomenon.  But the financial rewards of marketing deluxe, limited-edition vinyl to high-end collectors has turned the steady trickle of "newly-discovered" releases into a deluge.  More and more producers and independent labels are combing the archives of broadcasters in Europe, Japan, and the U.S., unearthing forgotten performances on a nearly daily basis.  More and more recordings made by jazz club owners or enthusiastic amateur tapers are also turning up.  And, not surprisingly, the major record labels are getting in on the act by going through their vaults to find unused tracks or entire sessions they can market as "never-before-released" recordings.  Overall, this is fantastic news for jazz lovers.  More Bill Evans?  You betcha.  More John Coltrane?  Yes, please.

The biggest problem now is deciding which of the flood of newly-discovered gems is worth buying.  The fact is that some unreleased sessions are unreleased for a reason -- they just aren't very good.  Even great performers can have a bad day.  Other recordings might be great performances that are not well recorded or have other flaws.  While the recordings still might be worth releasing for historical reasons, I'm not likely to ever listen to them.  I find it really pays to read the reviews and listen to samples before buying.

Of course, the "newly discovered" trend isn't limited to jazz.  Recent reissues by the Beatles, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, The Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, and many, many others include previously unreleased session tracks, alternate takes, and newly-discovered recordings from live shows, sometimes amounting to multiple discs.

Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series Vol. 12 Deluxe Edition (left) from 2015 has six CDs with more than 100 outtakes from the Blonde On Blonde sessions.  It's fascinating stuff, but you have to ask yourself: How often am I going listen to the 17 different takes of "Like A Rolling Stone?"  In my case, maybe once.  Which is why I generally don't buy the multi-disc deluxe sets and just stick with the remastered original material.  And sometimes, I don't even bother with that if I'm happy with my copy of the original release.

On the other hand, a newly-discovered live set that was professionally recorded and captures a major artist in excellent form is almost always worth having.  In that regard, one of the best of the "newly-discovered" series is the collection of recordings being released under the title "Live At The Penthouse."  (Top photo group)

The entrance to the Penthouse in Seattle

The Penthouse was a Seattle jazz club opened in 1962 by Charlie Puzzo in the city's Pioneer Square district.  For the next six years (the club closed in 1968), The Penthouse was one of the hottest jazz venues on the west coast.  Along with such historic spots as The Nighthawk in San Francisco, Shelly's Manne-Hole in Los Angeles, and The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, CA, The Penthouse was a "must" stop for touring jazz performers.   

While it's not unusual for jazz clubs to host live recordings (there must be at least a dozen different "Live at the Village Vanguard" releases alone), what sets the Penthouse apart is that the club installed a dedicated line to Seattle radio station KING-FM.  Every Thursday night, KING broadcast a 30-minute live set from the Penthouse.  The shows were hosted by producer and radio personality Jim Wilke.  In the liner notes to the "Live At The Penthouse" series, Wilke describes the setup he used -- four stage microphones fed into a small mixer that he tweaked on the fly while seated at a small table near the club's stage.  The mixer's output provided the live feed to the radio station.  He says that the dedicated phone line to the station was "broadcast quality."  I'm not sure exactly what that means, but the sound of the mono recordings is very good, with punchy bass, good overall balance, and a lively presence which was aided by the sound bouncing off a brick wall behind the bandstand (visible on the cover of The Three Sounds album at top).  Based on the recordings released to date, the Penthouse audiences were amazingly well behaved, as there is almost no background noise other than polite applause.  In all, Wilke hosted more than 200 live shows, all of which survive as "air check" copies of the live feed made on the station's 1/4" Ampex reel-to-reel recorder.

Part of the tape collection from Live At The Penthouse

There is a brief but very well done documentary about the history of The Penthouse, narrated by Charlie Puzzo's son, Charlie Puzzo Jr., and featuring invaluable input from Jim Wilke.  Puzzo Jr. shares the history of the club through family photos,  while Wilke talks about his experience recording the concerts and shows the treasure trove of tapes from the live broadcasts.   

While Wilke is talking, the camera pans the shelves of the Live At The Penthouse tape archive (screen grab above).  The names of the performers on the boxes offer some tantalizing possibilities for upcoming releases, including Bill Evans, Ray Charles, Charlie Byrd, Jimmy Smith, Donald Byrd, Cal Tjader, Jack McDuff, Charles Lloyd, Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, and Gerry Mulligan, among many others.  Crikey!  The collection seems to include just about every major jazz artist of the time.  

While highlighting the six (now eight) "Live At The Penthouse" releases made to date, Puzzo Jr. says that they plan to put out one or two new recordings per year going forward.  (At that rate, you can collect the entire set in 100 years or so.  Personally, I hope they speed things up a bit.)  You can check out the film here.  

The first of the "Live At The Penthouse" releases was The Three Sounds Groovin' Hard, put out on the Resonance Records label in 2016 (all cover photos at top).  That was followed by Wynton Kelly Trio, Wes Montgomery Smokin' In Seattle in 2017; Cannonball Adderley – Swingin' In Seattle in 2018; Johnny Griffin, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis – Ow! in 2019; and then two CD-only releases: 2020's The Jack Wilson Quartet Featuring Roy Ayers - Call Me; and Bola Sete - Samba In Seattle in 2021.

Emerald City Nights volumes one and two, released in 2022.

Which brings us to the most recent releases in the series, a pair of double albums featuring pianist Ahmad Jamal called Emerald City Nights (above).  Together, the albums comprise a four-disc compilation taken from different performances during a period of slightly more than three years.  The first release is subtitled Live At The Penthouse 1963-64, while the second is Live At The Penthouse 1965-66.  Both albums are produced by Zev Feldman and are the first two releases on his brand new (and aptly named) Jazz Detective label.  

[Brief aside: Feldman is the most active and most successful of the many producers working to uncover and release forgotten jazz performances.  He has been involved with all the Live At The Penthouse releases to date, and seems to have had a hand in nearly every significant discovery of a long-lost or unknown jazz recording in the past decade.  He has produced dozens of releases for a variety of labels, including Resonance Records, Elemental Records, Reel To Real, Tompkins Square, Sam Records, Real Gone Music, Verve, and Blue Note Records.]

Back to Ahmad Jamal.  According to Wilke, he recorded "more than a dozen" live dates by Jamal's trio at The Penthouse.  The Emerald City Nights discs include tracks from seven different sets, played by four different trio line-ups (either Jamil Nasser or Richard Evans on bass, and either Chuck Lampkin, Vernel Fournier, or Frank Grant on drums).  As with the earlier releases in the series, the mono sound is clear, balanced, and conveys the excitement and feel of a great live space.  

The two Jamal releases were mastered by Bernie Grundman from "audio transferred from the original tape reels," and pressed by Optimal in Germany.  Both sets (and indeed all the Live At The Penthouse releases) are highly recommended.  The packaging is first-rate:  The vinyl is 180 grams and dead quiet, and each release includes a beautiful, glossy booklet containing photos, extensive liner notes, and insightful interviews.  The LP jackets have a hand-written, limited-edition serial number on the back.

Indeed, the only real drawback to the Live At The Penthouse series is that they are all limited-edition pressings of 1,000 to 5,000 copies.  As a result, most of them are sold out and difficult to come by.  The  Ahmad Jamal releases came out on November 25, 2022 as part of Record Store Day's Black Friday event.  By the time I noticed their release, about two weeks later, both volumes were already sold out.  Luckily, I was able to snag new copies from a seller on Discogs with only a slight markup.  Now, after only a couple more weeks, mint copies are going for a minimum of $50 each.  And that will probably seem like a bargain in a couple of years, as near mint copies of Wes Montgomery's 2017 Smokin' At The Penthouse are selling for $150, if you can find one.

[Brief rant:  I understand the appeal of limited-edition LP pressings.  Labels don't always know how well an album is going to sell, and no one wants to have thousands of unsold copies.  More importantly, a limited-edition pressing creates a sense of urgency and a fear of missing out which encourages collectors and music lovers to rush out and buy a copy before they are all gone.  Fair enough as a marketing ploy, but what a limited-edition release mostly does is drive up the price.  Rapacious resellers snap up multiple copies and immediately advertise them for sale at marked-up prices.  Of course, neither the label, nor the artist, nor the record store owner sees any of that extra profit.  So, note to artists and labels: By all means release a limited, numbered edition of your LP on splatter vinyl.  But if it sells out in about 10 minutes, then for Pete's sake press another batch (a plain black, non-numbered edition), and sell more albums!  It's a win win for you and your fans, and it helps screw over the resellers.  Which actually makes it a win win win.  End of rant.] 

If you've been snoozing on the Live At The Penthouse series, I urge you get busy and track down copies of the two recent releases by Ahmad Jamal while they're still relatively easy to find.  With a little luck, you might also score some of the previous releases in the series at prices that don't break the bank.  (Of course, you could always get the CDs, but only if things are utterly hopeless.  And for heaven's sake don't tell anyone.)

As I was researching this piece, I started to wonder if some of the recordings in the Penthouse archive weren't already available, at least in bootleg form.  Surely someone in Seattle had taped the radio shows off the air and posted the music somewhere?  After nosing around the internet, the only other Penthouse live broadcast I could find is a Bill Evans trio set from May 12, 1966.  It is available as a bootleg CD on the EU-based Jazz Do It label, and can also be heard on YouTube here.  Evans is in good form on the six-song set which includes "How My Heart Sings," "Who Can I Turn To" and "Round Midnight."  He is accompanied by Eddie Gomez on bass and Jack Hunt on drums.  It would make a perfect follow-up to the Jamal trio recordings (hint, hint).

Astute readers may be wondering about the much-ballyhooed 2021 release of a "newly discovered" live version of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme recorded at the Penthouse in October, 1965.  The set came out on the Impulse! label and is titled John Coltrane - A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle.  That set was indeed recorded at the Penthouse -- but not by KING-FM.  It was captured on a reel-to-reel deck by Coltrane's good friend and musician, Joe Brazil.  [Though long-rumored to exist, the tape was lost for more than 50 years until it turned up in Brazil's effects following his death in 2008.]  In addition, there is another Impulse! release which was recorded during Coltrane's same ten-day residency at the Penthouse in 1965, a double album called Live in Seattle which was released in 1971.  While both of these sets may also exist in the Live At The Penthouse collection, the Impulse! albums were separate recordings.

Enjoy the music!

A Portrait Of Shorty

Last week I was trolling for LPs in one of my favorite antique malls and came across a superb copy of Portrait Of Shorty (left), the 1958 release by Shorty Rogers And His Giants on the RCA label.  Except for one light paper scuff, the vinyl appears unplayed.  And except for a small rub at the bottom, the jacket looks like it just came out of the shrink wrap.  It's a solid NM/EX copy.

I'm always amazed to find albums that are almost as old as I am  in nearly new condition.  After I bought it and brought it home, I couldn't help but wonder where the album has been for the last 64 years.  Did someone buy it in 1958, play it once (or not at all), and then put it in the closet where it sat until their grandkids found it while cleaning out the house?  A possible clue is that the back of the album is stamped "Special Issue," a marking I've never seen before, but which likely indicates that it was a promotional pressing, maybe sent out to a music critic, newspaper, or other publication in the hopes of generating a favorable review or a mention in a roundup of new releases.  Alas, we'll never know.  

Although Portrait Of Shorty came out the same year (1958) that the first commercial stereo LPs were released in the U.S., there is no stereo version of this disc.  Which is no matter, because Shorty's big-band arrangements sound terrific in glorious mono.  The album appears on RCA's "white dog" label (right) and is a deep-groove pressing from RCA's plant in Rockaway, NJ.  The jacket and labels promote RCA's "New Orthophonic" High Fidelity sound.  [In case you're wondering, the term Orthophonic was first used in 1925 to indicate a record that was no longer recorded acoustically (i.e. by yelling into an inverted  megaphone), but by using electronic amplifiers and microphones.  RCA's "New" Orthophonic sound was the name for RCA's version of the RIAA curve, a process used to decrease the bass while cutting the lacquer in order to keep the groove size more uniform (and keep the stylus from jumping off the record.)  The bass was/is added back by the phono preamp during playback.]  But never mind all of that: The sound is fabulous. 

Shorty Rogers

Rogers' 18-piece big band on Portrait Of Shorty includes a Who's Who of West Coast jazz all-stars, including Herb Geller, Bill Holman, Pepper Adams, Frank Rosolino, Al Porcino, Bob Enevoldsen, Conte Candoli, Monte Budwig and Richie Kamuca.  The liner notes provide a handy list of the soloists on each track so you can follow along while listening.

The songs and arrangements on Portrait Of Shorty are an excellent representation of the sophistication and imagination of Rogers' arranging and composing skills.  The album also neatly combines both major facets of Rogers' musical career - his formative early years in some of the best big bands in the country, and the transition to small group, improvisational jazz that was taking place in the mid to late 1950s.  While Portrait is very much a swinging big band album, Rogers and most of the other musicians get plenty of room to stretch out and solo in front of a wall of sound.

Shorty's 1st release (1952)

Shorty Rogers was born Milton Rajonsky in Great Barrington, Massachusetts in 1924.  A precocious talent on trumpet, by the early 1940s he was already performing professionally with groups led by Will Bradley and Red Norvo.  After a stint in the Army, Rogers was hired by Woody Herman and in 1945 moved to California to become part of the legendary band leader's "Thundering Herd."  The various iterations of the "Herd" made up some of the finest ensembles of jazz musicians ever assembled, and helped launch the careers of such notable musicians as Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Serge Chaloff, Flip Phillips, Buddy Rich, Pete Candoli, Red Norvo, Jimmy Rowles, Gene Ammons, Oscar Pettiford, Terry Gibbs, Shelly Manne, and of course, Shorty Rogers.  In addition, the Herd was the crucible of what would later become the West Coast jazz movement. 

Playing and arranging for Herman, it wasn't long before Rogers began to attract more attention in the jazz world.  Not surprisingly, in 1950 rival band leader Stan Kenton hired Rogers away from Herman.  During the two years that Rogers was with Kenton, his compositions and arrangements further cemented his reputation as one of the jazz world's brightest young stars.  In 1952, Rogers left Kenton and put together his first group -- Shorty Rogers And His Giants -- a band that included Art Pepper, Shelley Manne, Jimmy Giuffre, and Hampton Hawes.  They recorded their first release (a 10" LP), Modern Sounds (above), for Capitol that same year.  Rogers' tight and innovative arrangements on this recording are considered by many to be as important musically as Gil Evans' arrangements for Miles Davis' Birth of the Cool.  

For the next decade, Rogers continued to perform, arrange, and release new albums, becoming one of the seminal figures in the West Coast jazz movement.  However, in the early 1960s, as jazz music was being swamped by the tidal wave of rock 'n' roll, Rogers made the prudent decision to stop performing and devote himself to the more financially secure work of writing and arranging music for television and motion pictures.  The 1962 album, Jazz Waltz (right), was his last recording with the Giants for the next 16 years.

During the 1970s and 80s, Rogers became a prolific contributor to television and to a lesser extent films.  Among the series he scored or wrote incidental music for were "The Partridge Family," "The Mod Squad," "The Rookies," "Starsky and Hutch," and "The Love Boat." He also composed and conducted the music for a number of innovative cartoons featuring the work of Dr. Seuss and Stan Freberg.

In the 1980s, Rogers returned to performing, eventually forming a combo with West Coast legend Bud Shank on alto sax and releasing a number of new albums. Sadly, Rogers was diagnosed with melanoma in the early 1990s and died in 1994.  [NB: Much of the bio info above was cribbed from Wikipedia and  Spaceagepop.com, because, how in the world would I remember all this stuff?]

I mention all this because not too long ago I was watching some old episodes of "Peter Gunn" on Amazon Prime.  "Peter Gunn" is one of the hippest TV shows of all time.  It ran for three seasons on NBC (1958-1960) and starred Craig Stevens as the sophisticated, unflappable, and impeccably-dressed private eye, Peter Gunn.

Lola Wants You (1957) and Dreamsville (1959)

The show was one of the first TV programs to prominently feature jazz music, not only in the dynamite theme song by Henry Mancini, but as a motif.  When he isn't chasing bad guys, our hero Peter Gunn hangs out in an LA jazz club called Mother's, where his girlfriend Edie Hart (played by actress Lola Albright) is the singer.  The club appears in nearly every episode, as does Edie, who gets to sing a song in about half the episodes.  Before "Peter Gunn," Lola Albright was an aspiring actress and singer who had appeared in several TV shows and movies, and who had put out an album in 1957 called Lola Wants You (above).  Following the success of the first season of "Peter Gunn," Albright released a second album in 1959 called Dreamsville (above) which was arranged and conducted by Henry Mancini, who scored all the music for "Peter Gunn."  [In 2017, the reissue label Fresh Sounds put out a two-fer CD with the Google-search friendly title of The Jazz Singer On The "Peter Gunn" TV Series that contains both albums.]

Lola Albright at left, Shorty Rogers in the middle

The neat thing about the jazz sequencies in "Peter Gunn" is that Edie's on-screen backup bands feature a rotating cast of top West Coast jazzmen, including our very own Shorty Rogers.  Rogers appears in an episode called "The Frog," which was the fifth episode of the first season.  

After the opening sequence, when our hero Peter Gunn gets roughed up and shoots a bad guy, he turns up at Mother's (with not a hair out of place) where Edie is rehearsing the classic song "How High The Moon," which includes a tasty flugelhorn solo by Rogers [watch here].  

In his 1989 biography "Did They Mention The Music?", Henry Mancini talks about how as a struggling young composer/arranger he got his first big break scoring the music for "Peter Gunn."  Mancini says that he was coming out of the barber shop on the lot of Universal Studios one day when he ran into the producer Blake Edwards.  The two knew each other from some previous work together, and after a few minutes of chit chat, Edwards asked Mancini if he would be interested in working on a new series he was producing, called "Peter Gunn."  Mancini eagerly accepted even though he initially had the impression that "Peter Gunn" was a Western.  Edwards told Mancini to meet with Lola Albright to work out an arrangement for a song that Albright would sing in the show.  Mancini and Albright got on well together, and Edwards was pleased with the arrangement, so he hired Mancini and asked him to compose a theme song for the show.  The result is the iconic music for "Peter Gunn," which, even if you think you don't know it, you do.  [Listen here.]  

Mancini goes on to say that when the producers decided to release a soundtrack album for "Peter Gunn," he immediately tried to get the much more well-known and experienced Shorty Rogers to arrange and play the music.  Rogers, however, urged Mancini to record it himself since it was his music. 

Though RCA wasn't thrilled about releasing an album by the relatively unknown Mancini, they reluctantly agreed.  The album (right), which was released in 1959, was an overnight sensation and eventually sold more than a million copies, spending two years on the Billboard charts and launching Mancini's recording career.  It also won him the first two of his 20 Grammy awards.  [Not to mention four Oscars and a Golden Globe].  

One last note.  In 1959, a year after the successful debut of "Peter Gunn," NBC thought it would be a good idea to launch yet another jazz-themed detective show, this one called "Johnny Staccato."  It stars John Cassavetes as a jazz pianist who's a private detective on the side.  He works out of a club called Waldo's (this time in Greenwich Village).  But the similarities don't end there.  "Staccato" features a driving theme song that calls to mind "Peter Gunn" (though written not by Mancini but the great film composer Elmer Bernstein).  In addition, Staccato's band features another stellar group of West Coast jazzmen.  The first episode actually opens with a nice easy jam played by Pete Candoli on trumpet, Barney Kessel on guitar, Shelly Manne on drums, Red Mitchell on bass, Red Norvo on vibes, and Cassavetes (actually Johnny Williams) on piano [watch here].  Unfortunately, "Johnny Staccato" only ran for one season.  Most, if not all of the episodes are available on YouTube.  It's don't miss TV.

Enjoy the music!

A Brief Classical Interlude

While it has become nearly impossible to find nice, clean copies of jazz and rock albums at thrift stores or in the dollar bins at used record stores, I regularly come across pristine copies of classical LPs selling for next to nothing.  Even though I don't listen to a lot of classical music these days, I often will pick up a few titles just because it's hard to resist like-new pressings on venerable labels like Deutsche Grammophon, Angel, Mercury Living Presence, ECM, or Harmonia Mundi. 

One of my recent thrift shop finds

In a recent trip to drop off some donations at our local thrift store, I stopped (as I always do) to see what LPs they had.  I rarely find anything interesting; the selection is nearly always a pile of scratched up 1960s soundtracks, along with the collected works of Barbra Streisand and Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass.  However, this time there was a pretty large cache of like-new classical titles.  Since they were only fifty cents apiece, I didn't really look too closely at the titles, but just bought the whole bunch, about 25 LPs.  

I spend about 85% of my listening time playing jazz records.  The other 15% of the time I play classic rock, vocals, and R&B, with some international music and a few soundtracks thrown in.  Many years ago, I used to listen frequently to classical music.  I have a particular fondness for Vivaldi, and have dozens of LPs of his work, including a bunch of obscure Eastern Bloc releases on the Hungaroton, Supraphon, and Electrocord labels that I picked up when we were working at the U.S. Embassy in Romania back in the 1980s. 

Though I was never a serious classical music collector, I enjoyed learning more about the major composers and their music.  Over the years, however, I pretty much stopped listening to classical music and eventually moved the 500 or so classical LPs in my collection to overflow shelves in the garage to make room for more jazz.

When I got my recent thrift shop haul home, I couldn't resist cleaning a few and having a listen.  I hadn't bothered checking all the albums at the store, but I'm happy to report that nearly all of them are in like-new condition, with clean vinyl, original poly-lined inner sleeves, and nice sharp jackets.  As a bonus, I discovered that seven of the titles are works by Vivaldi.  I assumed that the LPs all came from the same collector, and my hunch was confirmed when I saw that nearly all of the jackets had the same small sticker on the front that says "Sound Guard," (above) together with a date from 1982.  Hmmm.

Sound Guard's space-age formula

According to a vintage ad for Sound Guard that I found online, the formula behind the product was originally developed by Ball Bros. of Denver as a space-age (literally) lubricant for use on NASA satellites.  Sound Guard was a consumer off-shoot which was said to put a microscopic coating on vinyl records to protect the surface from wear and reduce static buildup.  Though Sound Guard is now defunct, other similar products that claim to protect the vinyl surface are still around, including LAST and Gruv-Glide.  I have used both LAST and Gruv-Glide from time to time, but don't have strong feelings about them.  As far as I can hear, they don't degrade the sound, but whether or not they protect the record or decrease wear, I couldn't say.

Another common thread with the classical albums I found was that nearly all of the titles are recordings of small ensembles, including such things as Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, Rossini's String Sonatas, Vivaldi's Bassoon Concerti, String Concerti by Telemann, Schumann's Works For Cello And Piano, and Quartets by Mendelssohn.  Nary a symphony in the bunch, which is fine with me as I tend to prefer smaller ensembles as well.  Finally, about half the titles were released on the Musical Heritage Society label.

MHS's familiar green and silver label

The Musical Heritage Society (MHS) was a subscription record club founded in 1962 in New York.  I was a member of the club for several years in the 1970s.  Like the major-label record clubs, they would mail out a notice promoting the new monthly release, and if you didn't want the title you had to send back a post card telling them not to send it.  I suspect that they made most of their money from people who forgot to send in the card.  The difference between MHS and the major label record clubs like RCA or Columbia, was that MHS specialized in classical music (although they did release a few jazz titles in later years).  

A major draw for MHS releases was that they were popularly priced.  As I recall, they were a dollar or two less than major-label classical titles.  MHS was able to keep costs down because they didn't record their own content (at least initially).  They licensed recordings from small European classical labels -- particularly Erato of France.  Erato (and other similar classical labels) kept their costs down by recording works for smaller ensembles (much cheaper than hiring an entire orchestra), including first-rate groups such as the Chamber Orchestra of Lausanne, I Solisti Veneti, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Munich, the Gulbenkian Orchestra of Lisbon, and the London Mozart Players.  

Despite the budget price, MHS releases were well made with quality masters from studios such as Masterdisk, and plating and pressing by high-end plants such as Europadisk.  At least to my ears, the sound quality is excellent, with flat, quiet surfaces, heavy-weight vinyl, and nice touches such as poly-lined dust sleeves.  The covers were simple -- generally black text on white cardboard stock with a period engraving or drawing as cover art (right).

Even though the European ensembles are not always household names, the performances are first-rate.  For example, one of my Vivaldi finds (Bassoon Concerti, right) was performed by the London Mozart Players (LMP).  I confess that I had never heard of the London Mozart Players.  But after a bit of research, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they have been around for more than 70 years.  The ensemble was founded in 1949 by director Harry Blech, and their debut performance that same year featured a young violinist named Neville Marriner (Sir Neville, CBE, CH to his friends).  The London Mozart Players are extremely active in musical education and outreach, and maintain a full calendar of UK and international concerts.

Regardless of the genre of the music, I always enjoy reading the liner notes and learning more about the composer or the musicians on a particularly recording.  One of the first LPs I listened to from my classical haul was a UK Decca release of Rossini's String Sonatas (top photo).  It was originally recorded in 1967 and performed by the celebrated Academy of St-Martin-in-the-Fields, conducted by Neville Marriner -- the same young whippersnapper, who, 18 years earlier, played violin in the London Mozart Players' debut concert.  Rossini is, of course, primarily known as a composer of operas, including The Barber of Seville and William Tell.  Since I'm not a big opera fan, I really didn't know much about his work.  So I was fascinated to read in the liner notes that Rossini composed the sonatas on the album in 1804, when he was twelve years old.  Yikes.

Enjoy the music!

West Coast Jazz Record Shopping

We recently returned from a trip to California to visit friends and relatives.  While there, we spent a week driving down the coast from the Monterey Penninsula to San Diego.  The last time we had driven the Pacific Coast Highway was about 35 years ago (that time from south to north), and thought it was time to give it another go.  We stopped off in Monterey, Carmel, and Big Sur, did some wine tasting in Paso Robles, and finally spent a few days exploring Santa Barbara and San Diego.  We had visited L.A. a few years ago, so just breezed through the city this time.

Regular readers will not be shocked to hear that I spent some time shopping for records along the way.  It's always interesting to see how the LP selection varies in different parts of the country.  In numerous used record stores and antique malls along the California coast, I was struck by how different the selection of jazz titles is from what I'm used to seeing on the East Coast.  Perhaps not surprisingly, on this recent trip I found tons of albums by West Coast jazzmen like Bud Shank, Shelly Manne, Shorty Rodgers, Wardell Grey, Zoot Sims, Jimmy Giuffre, and Howard Rumsey -- albums that I hardly ever see in shops on the East Coast.  As a fan of West Coast/cool jazz, I was delighted and bought just about all I could carry.

My most exciting score was a group of five 1950s original deep-groove mono pressings (above) that I found at a flea market in Santa Barbara. The albums were all in VG+ to NM condition, and were grouped together in the middle of a bunch of pop and rock albums from the 1970s and 80s.  I had been flipping through the stacks pretty quickly, not seeing much in the way of jazz albums, but when I saw these my jaw dropped.  My jaw dropped even further when I saw that they were priced way, way below market value.  It was a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of deal.  I went back through all the records in the booth hoping that I might have missed more of these collectibles, but these were literally the only five jazz albums there.

In addition to the 1950s flea market gems, other finds included a group of four Marian McPartland albums at a different Santa Barbara seller (above), and four near mint Original Jazz Classics (OJC) from a shop in San Diego.  Two of the later were still in the shrink wrap with the distinctive OJC obi hype strips. (below)

If you're not familiar with OJC, it was (is?) a reissue label begun by Fantasy Records in 1982.  After Fantasy bought up the Prestige, Riverside, Milestone, (and eventually) Pablo and Contemporary labels, they created the Original Jazz Classics series in order to reissue the hundreds of classic albums that were now in their vaults.  One nice thing about the OJC series is that the artwork and labels are excellent reproductions of the originals.  And even better, at least until about 1987, the reissues were almost all recut in analog from the original master tapes and generally sound very fine. 

Original Jazz Classics OJC-001

The first OJC reissue (OJC-001) was Milt Jackson (left), originally released in 1956 on Prestige.  A VG+ copy of the original will set you back at least $100, while the 1982 OJC reissue can be found for about $15 in near mint condition.  I routinely find OJC titles in great condition for $20 or less, which makes them a screaming bargain.  I have about 150 OJC reissues in my collection and buy just about all that I find.

The OJC vinyl reissue series lasted nine years and ended (sort of) in 1991 when cassettes and CDs had nearly killed off the LP market.  The last US vinyl release seems to be OJC-655, Portrait Of Sonny Criss.  Fantasy (or perhaps their local partners) continued to release some new OJC titles on vinyl in Germany and South Korea as late as 1993, but the US titles after OJC-655 were released on CD and cassette only.  Be aware that over the years many OJC vinyl titles have been repressed -- some in my collection are dated as late as 2018 -- but they are all titles that were originally issued by 1991.  

Miles Davis Cookin' on groovy vinyl

From 2018-2020, a distribution and marketing company called Think Indie licensed a series of OJC Prestige reissues and released them as the "Prestige 70th Anniversary series."  There appear to have been about 15 titles, pressed on 180 gram colored vinyl.  The albums include such classics as the Miles Davis quadrivium of Cookin' (right), Relaxin', Workin', and Steamin', as well as John Coltrane's Stardust and Lush Life discs.  Apparently the albums in the series were not remastered, but simply pressed using the metal from the last OJC releases.

Craft Recordings CR-387

In 2004, Fantasy Records was itself bought out and merged into what is now the Concord Music Group.  Over the last few years, Concord has begun to reissue some of their vast jazz catalog on a new small-batch subsidiary label called Craft Recordings.  But given the runaway success of the various audiophile reissue series by Blue Note, Impulse, and other labels, it would seem to be an ideal time for Concord to get serious about remastering and reissuing a lot more of the classic albums from its back catalogs -- a sort of updated, audiophile OJC series, as it were.  Earlier this year Concord/Craft dipped a toe in the water with the release of the first six albums in a Contemporary Records 70th Anniversary series (left).  The albums were cut by Bernie Grundman and pressed at Chad Kassem's Quality Record Pressings in Salina, Kansas.  The two I have (Four! and The Poll Winners) are beautifully packaged and sound terrific.  Let's hope that this is the start of a concerted effort that will eventually make available more of the thousands of great jazz recordings on Riverside, Prestige, New Jazz, Milestone, Pablo, Fantasy, Contemporary and the many other labels that Concord controls.

Enjoy the music!

What I've Been Listening To Lately

It's time for another exciting episode in the series: "What I've Been Listening To Lately."  Though I routinely discover great music and artists that I'm not familiar with, over the summer it seems I have been finding amazing new (to me) artists, labels, and music just about every day.  Here are a few of my favorite discoveries from the last few months.

First up is What Is This Thing Called Love? (right) by The Richie Beirach Trio.  This is a gorgeous, straight-ahead effort by pianist Beirach, backed by the veteran rhythm section of George Mraz on bass and Billy Hart on drums.  The album is swinging, vibrant, and completely in the pocket.  Originally issued in 1999 on the Japanese label Venus Records, it has never been released in the U.S.  [I've been a fan of Beirach since I discovered his fabulous 1976 debut album EON on the ECM label, so I was particularly happy to find this release.  As an added bonus, Beirach reprises his take on Miles Davis' classic "Nardis," which also appeared on his debut.]  

This reissue of What Is This Thing Called Love? from Venus dates from 2021 and features stunning sound and gorgeous packaging.  Venus was founded in 1992 by Japanese engineer and producer Tetsuo Hara.  He began Venus as a reissue label, but soon began traveling regularly to New York to record sessions exclusively for his label using a roster of first-rate jazz talent.  Venus is a goldmine of fabulous titles by the likes of Beirach, Phil Woods, Scott Hamilton, Eddie Higgins, Massimo Farao, and Bill Charlap that have mostly never been released in the States.  It's kind of like finding out that the Beatles released a bunch of records in Australia that you never knew existed.  Venus LPs are often hard to find and always expensive, but they're worth every penny.  [Note to fans of Bill Charlap:  You won't find him listed as leader on any of his eight Venus sessions.  Because of copyright reasons, his albums are credited to the New York Trio.]

I recently got an offer to buy a bunch of sealed "new old stock" records on the Landmark Records label from a dealer in New York.  I had never heard of Landmark, but some of the featured artists included Donald Byrd, Jimmy Heath, Jack DeJohnette, Bobby Hutcherson, and Cannonball Adderley, so naturally I agreed to take all of them.  

A bit of research revealed that Landmark was founded by legendary producer Orin Keepnews in 1985 after he sold his Milestone label to Fantasy.  I ended up with 14 Landmark albums, and every one of them is a keeper.  Perhaps my favorite is Keys To The City (left), the 1985 debut album by pianist Mulgrew Miller, who I'm pretty sure I had never heard of before.  Which is surprising, because I'm a huge fan of McCoy Tyner, and Keys To The City sounds like a long lost Tyner album, complete with his trademark percussive left hand and flashing right hand runs.  I've since picked up three other Miller releases, and I'm pleased to note that although Tyner's influence is apparent in all of them, Miller has developed into a stellar pianist with a style all his own.

Unfortunately, when Landmark Records began releasing music in 1985, demand for vinyl LPs was already sinking fast.  When the label shifted exclusively to CD and cassette releases in 1990, they had a catalog of about 50 vinyl titles.  I'm hoping to track down all of them eventually.

Bruce Forman is yet another fine jazz artist that I had never heard of before I found his 1982 release 20/20 (right).  And to be honest, it caught my eye because I recognized sidemen Billy Hart and Tom Harrell.  Well, that and the fact that nearly all of Muse Records' output is worth owning.  Founded by record executive Joe Fields in 1972, Muse had a nearly 30-year run of consistently outstanding releases by both big name artists like Grant Green, Lou Donaldson, Sonny Stitt, Kenny Burrell, and Woody Shaw, as well as talented but lesser-known artists such as Forman, Hart, Harrell, and scores of others.  20/20 was Forman's third release as a leader and his second album for Muse Records.  

20/20 is a rocket-fueled hard bop session that cooks from beginning to end.  Forman is quoted in the liner notes as saying his approach for the session was: "Turn on the tape and let's go," which is exactly what it sounds like.  Even on the ballads there is a simmering, smokey intensity that never lets up.  Naturally, I'm now on the lookout for more Forman releases.

Speaking of Muse Records, I recently picked up a sealed copy of Wallace Roney's 1988 Muse release titled Intuition, and once again I was primarily influenced by the sidemen, including Ron Carter, Kenny Garrett, and my new favorite pianist, Mulgrew Miller.  While I had certainly heard of Roney, I had no idea that he had done two stints with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers (replacing Wynton Marsalis and Terrance Blanchard, respectively), and had toured with and played on two albums with drummer Tony Williams.

Intuition is a fine hard bop date that gives all the members of the group room to stretch out.  In addition to Mulgrew Miller's fine contribution, veterans Ron Carter, Gary Thomas, and Kenny Garrett provide outstanding support.  However, for my money, drummer Cindy Blackman steals the show.  Yet another "new to me" musician, Blackman is a revelation, alternately providing a driving beat, delicate cymbal and brush work, and lots of tasty fills.  As an added bonus, the session was recorded by Rudy Van Gelder, and this is about as good as I've ever heard drums sound on a recording.  [Fun fact: Blackman is married to Carlos Santana.  Who knew?]  Sad to say, Roney died in 2020 from complications of Covid-19.  He was 59.

Last up is a Horn Of Plenty (right), a 1979 release by The Don Menza Sextet on the short-lived Discwasher Recordings label (yes, the same folks that made the record cleaning brushes).  From 1978 to 1980, Discwasher put out seven direct-to-disk jazz recordings. All the discs were pressed in Japan, and based on information in the promo booklet included in the jacket, it appears they were produced in cooperation with the Denon company of Japan.  

I'm a huge fan of direct-to-disc recordings because they sound fantastic.  You can read more about the process online, but briefly, the session is cut live directly to a lacquer, with no tape transfer and no additional edits or mixing.  By eliminating a couple of the normal steps in the recording process, the result is startlingly lifelike.  I've got 15 or so direct-to-disc recordings on labels like Sheffield Lab, Crystal Clear, Nautilus, East Wind, and Century Records, and they are some of the best-sounding albums in my collection.  

Horn Of Plenty is catalog number DR 005, the fifth of the seven titles released, and the first of the Discwasher series that I have found.  Leader Don Menza on tenor is joined by Frank Strazzeri on piano, Bill Reichenbach on trombone, Chuck Findley on trumpet, Frank De La Rosa on bass, and John Dentz on drums.  Although the members aren't household names, they were all seasoned musicians with decades of experience playing in Vegas show bands and in the recording studio, in addition to touring with stars such as Ella Fitzgerald, Barbra Streisand, Lena Horne, and Neil Diamond.  Menza played in bands led by Stan Keaton, Buddy Rich, and Maynard Ferguson, among others.  As you might expect, the group is tight, hot, and swinging as they blow through two classic tracks by Duke Ellington and four originals.  But in the end, it's the sound that floors you.  There is something magical about direct-to-disc recordings that makes it feel like you're standing in the studio.  The disk was cut by legendary mastering engineer Stan Ricker.  

I've since found one other Discwasher direct-to-disc release, DR 002, a 1978 session by drummer Louie Bellson and his big band, titled Note Smoking.  Once again, the sound is incredible -- during Belson's drum solo on the last track on side 1, "Odyssey In Rhythm," it feels like he's bashing the skins right in the room.  Interestingly enough, Don Menza and Chuck Finley also play on this session.  Only five more to go for the complete set.

Enjoy the music!

McCoy Tyner - He's The Cat

Enlightenment, 1973

As an college student in the late 70s, I wasn't much of a jazz fan.  I didn't dislike jazz, I just didn't know anything about it and didn't listen to it.  My record collection at the time was probably less than 100 albums, and exactly none of them were jazz albums.  

Instead, the records spinning in my dorm room were (among others) the Allman Brothers, Bruce Springsteen, The Band, Joni Mitchell, Elvis Costello, David Bromberg, The Who, Devo, and Leon Russell.  And because my roommate was a fan, I also got a steady diet of Led Zeppelin.  (I came to appreciate Led Zeppelin somewhat more later, but at the time I mostly just tolerated them.)  

At some point in my college career (things are a little hazy), I picked up my first jazz album.  Even though I don't remember when it was, I do remember what it was: McCoy Tyner's 1973 double album titled Enlightenment (above), recorded live on July 7, 1973 at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

Tyner ca. 1964

To be honest, when I bought the album I don't think that I even knew who McCoy Tyner was.  But one sunny day the university bookstore set up racks of used records for sale outside the student union, so I stopped to have a look.  I'm not sure what attracted me to Enlightenment.  It may have just been curiosity or the great cover photo of Tyner on stage at the Montreux Festival dripping with sweat.  Whatever the reason, I decided to give it a try. 

As it turned out, I managed to pick a pretty out there selection to start my jazz journey.  Some 40 years and more than 5,000 jazz LPs later (including 43 by McCoy Tyner), Enlightenment remains a sentimental favorite, but there are many other Tyner albums that I like better now.  I didn't know it at the time, but Enlightenment accurately reflects the two divergent styles that dominate Tyner's music.  The first is a John Coltrane-inspired, free form approach that is heavily percussive, atonal, and, frankly, hard to listen to.  The other strain features Tyner's amazing virtuosity in a more traditional, straight-ahead bop style, although usually with a twist or two.

Live at Montreux, 1973

The first track on the album, "Enlightenment Suite, Part 1," is an amalgam of Tyner's two styles.  The song leads off with a long crescendo of pounding piano chords on top of a wailing soprano sax by Azar Lawrence and shimmering cymbals played by drummer Alphonse Mouzon.  

After about a minute, when the discordant tension is nearly unbearable, Mouzon and bassist Juini Booth (left) drive the song forward until it resolves into a beautiful melodic theme that features incredible improvisations by Tyner and Lawrence.  The two swirl and soar around each other for about ten minutes.  Holy guacamole, I had never heard anything like it.  It gave me goosebumps.  Pace lovers of rock 'n' roll (of which I'm one), but this is music and musicianship on a completely different level.  After one listen, I was hooked.  [Click to hear the album track.  There is a video of the entire Montreux performance here that's worth watching to see the intensity and interplay of the band and to realize just how hard these guys are working, but the sound isn't as good.]

About half of the Coltrane albums that Tyner played on

Back in my dorm, being blown away by Enlightenment, I knew nothing about Tyner's place in the jazz world or that in the first half of the 1960s, while still in his early 20s, Tyner had anchored a string of classic John Coltrane albums that included Olé, Coltrane's Sound, Live At The Village Vanguard, Impressions, John Coltrane And Johnny Hartman, Live At Birdland, My Favorite Things, Ballads, Crescent, and A Love Supreme.  [If Tyner had retired at 25, he would still be in the Pantheon of jazz legends.]  And of course I had no idea that Enlightenment was already Tyner's 12th album as a leader at the tender age of 34.

The great Bud Powell

Tyner was born in Philadelphia in December, 1938.  He grew up in a city that was one of the true fountainheads of modern jazz, with established stars such as as Dizzy Gillespie, Red Garland, Benny Golson, Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, and Billie Holliday.  Tyner began taking piano lessons at 13, and as a young pianist, he couldn't help but be influenced by the wealth of jazz talent produced by his native city.  The great pianist Bud Powell, while not from Philadelphia, came to stay at his brother's apartment in West Philly for a brief period in 1954, when Tyner was 15.  Powell's apartment was just around the corner from the Tyner family.  Since there was no piano in the apartment, he would walk over to the Tyners' house to play their piano.  To a young, aspiring jazz pianist like Tyner, it must have felt like having Mozart stop by.  So it's no wonder that Tyner credits Bud Powell as one of his primary influences.

McCoy Tyner and John Coltrane

In addition to the established stars, in the mid 1950s Philadelphia was bursting at the seams with future jazz greats, including Albert Heath, Archie Shepp, Jimmy Smith, Philly Joe Jones, Lee Morgan, Reggie Workman, Jimmy Garrison, Kenny Barron, and Ray Bryant.  While Tyner crossed paths and played with many of these musicians, the most consequential "Philly" jazzman for him turned out to be a transplant from North Carolina named John Coltrane.

In a 2008 interview with Downbeat writer Bill Milkowski, Tyner says that he met Coltrane for the first time in October of 1956 when he (Tyner) was playing in a band led by Cal Massey at a club called the Red Rooster in Philadelphia.  At the time, Coltrane was with the Miles Davis group.  Tyner goes on to say, "But we really got acquainted with each other when he left Miles’ band the first time [in April, 1957, when Miles fired him because of his heroin addiction], and returned to Philly to live with his mother [to kick his habit].  I used to go by there and play with John.  She had an upright piano, and we’d play together at his home.  And he’d also come by my place and play with me. My piano was in my mother’s beauty shop [which was the Tyner family living room].  So, we used to have jam sessions at her beauty shop with John and guys from the neighborhood. He was 12 years older than me, so he was like a big brother to me.”

Tyner, Coltrane, Garrison, and Jones

Coltrane was clearly impressed with Tyner's ability and took the younger musician under his wing.  He promised Tyner that when he formed his own band some day, he would include Tyner on piano.  Three years later, Coltrane kept his promise.  In 1960, after Coltrane had left Miles for good, he put together his own group with Tyner on piano.  It wasn't an entirely linear process, as a few musicians came and went.  But the core members of Coltrane's legendary quartet, until it broke up in 1965, were McCoy Tyner on piano, John Coltrane on tenor and soprano sax, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums.  

In an interview with NPR correspondent Nate Chinen in 1997, Tyner spoke candidly about the lasting impact of that experience even after he had left the group.  "I was so immersed in the music when I was with John.  The influence was so great, and the roles we all played in that group were so powerful; you couldn't divorce yourself from it just because you weren't physically there. For a while there, all the horn players that were with me wanted to sound like John. So I deliberately started using alto sax instead of tenor, and other instruments, because I wanted to kind of try something different."

The early Blue Note years

While still part of Coltrane's quartet, Tyner launched what would become an incredibly successful and prolific solo career, recording five albums for Impulse Records (Coltrane's label) from 1963-65.  After leaving Coltrane's group, he also switched labels, and from 1967-72 recorded his next five albums for Blue Note:  The Real McCoy, Tender Moments, Time For Tyner, Expansions, and Extensions (above).  While Coltrane's influence is easy to hear in almost all of Tyner's music, nearly all these early solo works were much more mainstream bebop than free jazz.  It may have been just the harsh reality of the market -- free jazz may have been professionally satisfying, but it didn't sell -- and Tyner and his labels naturally wanted to make a profit.  The exceptions are Tyner's last two albums for Blue Note, Expansions and Extensions, which give away the game in their titles.  On these two albums Tyner starts to carve out his own creative space, combining elements of bebop, free jazz, modal music, and increasingly drawing on African and other international influences.  

Sahara

In 1972, Tyner once again switched labels, signing with Milestone Records, a division of the Fantasy group.  His first Milestone album was 1972's Sahara, which continues the probing experimentation of his last two Blue Note releases.  The cover photo of Sahara (left) is telling, if somewhat incongruous. It shows Tyner sitting alone on a wooden crate in a field of rubble playing a Japanese koto.  It seems to say:  "We're tearing down all the old structures of jazz and building something new."  It wasn't immediately clear what the "something new" would be, but apparently it would involve a koto.  Sahara is the last album before the release of 1973's Enlightment, and there is no question that the Montreux concert and Sahara are of a piece.  Although none of the songs overlap, Enlightenment feels like Sahara on steroids, with the added excitement and urgency of a live show. 

Sama Layuca, 1974

For the next 35 years, the only thing predictable about Tyner's output was its unpredictability.  No doubt to the detriment of his bank account -- since his audience never knew what to expect next -- Tyner's output zigged and zagged from free form to bop to big band to an assortment of small group ensembles with an ever-changing mix of styles, instruments and influences.  As pianist Brian Auger wrote in the liner notes to Tyner's 1974 release Sama Layuca (a decidedly free-form work), "Tyner is one of those rare musicians who pursues without hesitation his chosen path, without regard for whether that seems the road to personal success or gain."  Which is a polite way of saying, "This album is some weird shit and probably won't sell many copies."

Big Band, 1991

Even though I'm an avid fan, there are a number of Tyner albums (like Expansions and Sama Layuca) that I just can't abide.  I feel the same way about the later works by Miles Davis and John Coltrane.  I can appreciate that, like Miles and Coltrane, Tyner wanted to continue to evolve musically and stretch the creative boundaries of jazz.  And I can even stipulate that avant-garde and modal music were important contributions to jazz that opened up new pathways for countless other musicians.  But I don't have to listen to it.  Luckily for me, McCoy Tyner (not to mention Miles and Trane) produced so many great albums that it's easy enough to skip the ones I don't like.  And in Tyner's case, he continued to produce outstanding and accessible traditional jazz (including wonderful big band albums) up until the end of this career.

Tyner died in 2020 at the age of 81, leaving a 60 plus-year legacy as a performer and jazz iconoclast.  I'll give the last word to bassist Avery Sharpe, who often played in Tyner's trio in the 2000s.  “People always talk about McCoy’s power and the whole thing that he created with Trane, but McCoy had an incredible sense of calm.  He could play behind singers, he could play behind anybody, because he was really very sensitive . . . But at the same time, he could just run everybody off the stage if you want to bring the energy level up . . . I’ve been in all-star situations where cats have egos, but they’ll all look over at McCoy and go, ‘He’s the cat. We’re all great players, but he’s the cat.’”

Enjoy the music!