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!

Concord Jazz -- Still Swinging After 50 Years

Downtown Concord, CA

About 30 miles east of San Francisco is the city of Concord, CA.  The photo I found online of Concord's downtown (above) makes it look quite fetching.  Since I've never been, I can't say for sure, but the next time I'm in the Bay area I'll try to stop by and report back.  For the moment, I will just say that all jazz fans owe a large debt of gratitude to Concord, CA.  Pound for pound, it's one of the most important cities in the history of jazz.  

Concord's favorite son, Dave Brubeck

First of all, Concord is the birthplace and childhood home of Dave Brubeck, one of the seminal figures in jazz music.  Brubeck was born in 1920 and lived at the family's home on Pacheco Street in Concord (where his mother gave piano lessons) until he was 12.  On the Concord Historical Society web site, there is a page dedicated to Brubeck that quotes him as saying: "I have many happy memories of life in Concord. It was an ideal place for a boy to grow up. I recall playing in Todos Santos Park on summer evenings . . . I roamed the hills surrounding Concord on my Cleveland bike and door to door peddled apples from our back yard tree."  Brubeck alone is more than enough to put Concord on the jazz map of the world.

Carl Jefferson
at the Concord Pavilion

But Concord also boasts another famous long-time resident who had an enormous impact on jazz music.  Carl Jefferson was born in 1919 (almost exactly one year before Brubeck) in Alameda, CA, a suburb of Oakland about 20 miles west of Concord.  Jefferson moved to Concord in 1958 to become the general manager of a car dealership called Montclair Motors.  Two years later, he bought out the owner and renamed the dealership Jefferson Motors.  By the end of the 60s he was one of the premier Lincoln Mercury dealers in the country.  As a big jazz fan (who apparently loathed rock 'n' roll music), Jefferson wanted to help promote jazz and give back to the community that had made him quite wealthy.  What better way than to sponsor a jazz music festival in Concord?  He contributed seed money, recruited donations from his friends in the business community, talked the city into matching their contributions, and together they launched a summer music festival in Concord.

The first edition of the festival opened on August 26, 1969, just one week after Woodstock closed in upstate New York.  According to the "Visit Concord" website: "The music showcase was called the Jazz in the Park Festival, and was held in a field near Concord High School.  More than 17,000 jazz fans showed up to hear music by Vince Guaraldi, Stan Kenton, Jean Luc Ponty, Carmen McRae, Don Ellis, Mel Torme, and the Buddy Rich Band."  Not a bad lineup to kick off a jazz music festival.  A brief report in the September 6 issue of Billboard Magazine (correctly) refers to the event as the "Concord Summer Festival" and adds that artists Bola Sete, Shelly Manne, and Cal Tjader also performed.  (By 1972 the name of the festival had changed from the Concord Summer Festival to The Concord Jazz Festival, but both names appear interchangeably in news articles for a couple of years.)

Vintage post card of the Concord Pavilion

The Jazz Festival grew so quickly and became so popular that after only a couple of years, Jefferson began to urge the city to build a performing arts center that could serve as a permanent home for the event and that would attract other cultural performances to the community throughout the year.  In 1973, a search committee (including Jefferson) made a fact-finding tour of performance sites around the country.  Based on the committee's recommendations, the city agreed to a $4.5 million bond issue to fund construction and hired architect Frank Gehry to design the Concord Pavilion, a covered, open-air venue in the hills east of the city.  The Pavilion opened in May, 1975, in time to host the 7th Festival.

If Jefferson's only contribution to the promotion of jazz had been the creation of the Concord Jazz Festival and the construction of the Concord Pavilion, that still would have been significant.  But as it turns out, Jefferson was just getting started.  As a fan of straight-ahead jazz, Jefferson lamented how rock music was changing jazz, pushing the music toward fusion, free jazz, and other non-mainstream styles.  He is quoted as saying that "The major labels are no longer making the kinds of records I like to listen to."  If you are a determined, wealthy businessman with a long list of musician friends and growing influence in the jazz music world, what do you do?  Well, if you are Carl Jefferson, you start your own label.

According to the founding lore, the light-bulb moment came during the 1973 Concord Jazz Festival.  After one of the shows, Jefferson invited some of the performers out for drinks at a local inn.  Among the musicians present were jazz greats Herb Ellis, Joe Pass, and Ray Brown.  During the conversation, the musicians expressed their sadness at how the music industry was changing and said that for the first time in a long time, they were having trouble getting a record deal.  Sources differ somewhat on Jefferson's exact response, but it was something on the order of:  "Well, hell, how much could it cost to make a record?  I’ll make a record with you.  How do you do it?"  Within a few short months, Jefferson had started his own record label and named it Concord Jazz.  [It's hard to pinpoint exactly when the label was formed.  The date the label was incorporated, January 5, 1974, is often cited as the founding date, but it seems clear that things were up and running well before the end of 1973.]

In the beginning, Jefferson ran the label out of his Lincoln Mercury showroom.  John Burk, a former producer for Concord Jazz who eventually became president of the Concord Music Group, says that "They literally ran the label out of the dealership.  The guys who washed cars would pack records.  It was a great way to start a label, because all the overhead was covered by the car dealership.” 

The 1st release on the Concord Jazz label

True to his word, the first album released on Jefferson's new label featured guitarists Joe Pass and Herb Ellis, with Ray Brown on bass and Jake Hanna on drums.  The album (left), catalog number CJS-1, is titled Jazz/Concord, and perhaps not surprisingly for a record label run out of a car dealership, it seems a bit slipshod.  

To begin with, the cover art has a home-made feel to it -- which turns out to be the case.  The drawing is credited to Jay Toffoli, who, at the time, was the teenage son of the Executive Director of the Concord Summer Festival, John Toffoli.  The fact that the references in the drawing -- a BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) train, a stage coach, a festival ticket, and the large "C" on a red flower background (the logo of the city of Concord) refer to the Summer Festival and the city and not to Herb Ellis and Joe Pass leads one to believe that Jefferson pressed the advertising agency for his car sales into service, and they recycled a poster from the festival for the album cover. 

Beyond that, there is confusion about where and when the session was actually recorded.  While the album cover art and title imply that this is a live session from the Concord Jazz Festival, the credits on the back of the jacket say: "Recorded at Wally Hyder (sic) Studios in Los Angeles on July 29, 1973."  Hmmm.  In the first place, the studio is Wally Heider's.  But regardless, it couldn't have been recorded there on July 29, 1973, because Herb Ellis, Joe Pass, Ray Brown, and Jake Hanna were the featured performers at the 4th Annual Concord Jazz Festival in Concord, CA on that date.

In his extensive liner notes on the back of the jacket, San Francisco music critic Philip Elwood doesn't provide any explanation.  Even when he comments on the track titled "Happiness Is The Concord Jazz Festival," he doesn't take the opportunity to reveal if the track was, you know, actually recorded at the festival.  

Jazz/Concord Mk. II

In his AllMusic review of the album, critic Scott Yanow states that the album "was recorded at the 1973 Concord Jazz Festival."  In my experience, Yanow knows his stuff, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.  However, the recording doesn't sound live, as there is no audience noise or applause, and no patter between the performers.    

I couldn't find the precise release date for the first album, but it appears to have come out at the beginning of 1974.  (Although a couple of sources indicate that it may have been released in late 1973.)  Interestingly, not long after the album's debut, a second version with a new cover (right) was released.  The new cover replaced the "Festival" drawing montage with a mocked-up image of ticket stubs from the 1972 Festival.  While the new cover looks more professional, it actually adds to the confusion by suggesting that the recording might have been made made at the 1972 Festival.

Herb Ellis signed copy of CJ-2

The revised version of Jazz/Concord came out around the same time as the label's second release, in February of 1974, which was titled Seven, Come Eleven.  Since a professional team (credited as Dan Buck Graphic Design on the back of the jacket) were thankfully brought on board to create the second cover, it appears that Jefferson may have taken the opportunity to have the team revamp the first cover in order to create a more uniform look for his new label.  The team from Dan Buck also came up with a new label design and a new corporate logo (below) both of which were used on the second album and subsequent releases.

The original logo (left) and revised logo (right)

There is no mystery about the source for the music on CJ-2, Concord's second release.  The subhead on Seven, Come Eleven (named for the second track on the album, a classic written by Benny Goodman and guitarist Charlie Christian) reads: "From their live performance at the Concord Summer Festival."  The lineup is the same as the first release, with Herb Ellis, Joe Pass, Ray Brown, and Jake Hanna.  The back cover of the jacket features photos of the quartet onstage at the 1973 festival.  [Fun fact: My copy of CJ-2 (above left) is signed on the front in green ink by Herb Ellis.  I bought the album online, and didn't know it was signed until it arrived.  The inscription is a little hard to make out, but says: "I Loved It - Herb Ellis."  I don't know if he's referring to the Festival or something else, but it's very neat having his signature on the album.

In his AllMusic review of Seven, Come Eleven, Scott Yanow states that "The second Concord album was recorded the day after the first with the same lineup."  Which would mean that CJ-2 was recorded at the Festival on July 30, 1973.  Once again, I'm assuming that Yanow knows what he's talking about, which means that the first two Concord Jazz releases actually make up Vols. 1 and 2 of Herb Ellis, Joe Pass, Ray Brown, and Jake Hanna live at the 1973 Concord Jazz Festival.  In contrast to the first album, Seven, Come Eleven is clearly a live recording, with lots of applause and other audience noise, as well as Carl Jefferson's welcome remarks and introduction of the band.

Jefferson may have started Concord Jazz as a sideline (or almost as a barroom boast), but it wasn't long before the label was the dominant player in straight-ahead or mainstream jazz.  While most of the major labels were promoting free jazz, fusion, or other new crossover trends, Carl Jefferson stuck with making records that he liked.  By the fall of 1978, just four and a half years after he started the label, Concord Jazz had a catalog of 69 albums, including recordings by veterans like Bud Shank, Hank Jones, Barney Kessel, Joe Venuti, Tal Farlow, and Louie Bellson, as well as newcomers like Scott Hamilton and Grant Geissman.  

In 1980, Jefferson sold his car dealership in order to devote full time to running the label.  At its peak, Concord Jazz put out 30-40 new albums each year.  By the time Jefferson died in 1995, he had supervised the release of more than 650 albums.  (The last vinyl release was CJ-397 in 1992, which featured Gene Harris And the Philip Morris Superband on an album titled Live At Town Hall, N.Y.C.)  Jefferson is listed as "Producer" on almost all Concord Jazz titles, although numerous sources say that he had little musical or creative input into the recordings, giving the artists a free hand to play what they wanted.  Like other successful independent jazz labels such as Contemporary, Pablo, and CTI, Jefferson had an in-house stable of musicians who regularly played on each other's sessions and toured together to play at music festivals around the world (not least of which, the Concord Jazz Festival).

Shortly before Jefferson's death in 1995, he sold Concord Jazz to Alliance Entertainment.  In 1999, Alliance was bought out by a group of investors that included film and TV producer Norman Lear.  In 2004, Concord Jazz bought the Fantasy Group of labels, and renamed the new, combined company the Concord Music Group.  Today, the Concord Music Group is the largest independent music organization in the world, controlling a staggering number of classic labels, including Concord Jazz, Milestone, Pablo, Prestige, Riverside, Savoy, Stax, Telarc, Vee-Jay, and many others.

Sadly, the Concord Jazz Festival folded in 2004 after 35 years.  In 2019, the Concord Music Group put together a one-time 50th anniversary festival to honor founder Carl Jefferson and his festival, which featured an all-star lineup of current and former Concord label performers (poster above).

A note about the labels on Concord Jazz albums.  The original label that first appeared in 1974 on CJ-2 (and on the revised CJS-1) is white with black text and a gray Concord logo at top (left below).  The logo is cleverly designed to be both a "c" connected to a "J" for Concord Jazz, as well as an eighth note.  Beginning with the release of CJ-80 in 1979, the redesigned label (right below) features "Concord Jazz" in a new, white font at the top on a gray/silver checkerboard background covering the entire label.  The gray squares (which can appear tan-colored in the right light) are copies of the original Concord logo that used to appear at the top in the old label.  The revised label was used from CJ-80 up until the last LP (CJ-397) in 1992.

The original 1974 label at left was used up until CJ-80 (right), which was released in 1979

Be aware that many of Concord Jazz's early titles were reissued over the years.  If you find a title with the catalog number CJ-1 through CJ-79 on the checkerboard label, then you know it is a reissue from 1979 or later.

I have about 175 of the 379 Concord Jazz releases on vinyl.  Almost without exception they are great, swinging, mainstream jazz.  You (almost) can't go wrong with any title in the catalog.  The engineering and mixing (mostly by Phil Edwards) is first-rate, as is the mastering (mostly by Leo Kulka and George Horn).  In general, Concord Jazz titles sold well and most are not difficult to find.  However, because of the high quality of the catalog and the enduring appeal of the music, they remain in demand and usually sell for $10-15 in VG+ or NM condition.  If you are a fan of mainstream jazz and run across any Concord Jazz titles, I urge you snap them up.  

Enjoy the music!

A Great Lost Album From 1975

Pop quiz!  Name the group in the photo below.  No peeking.

Give up?  Here's a hint, it's the back cover photo from one of the most neglected albums of 1975.  Despite the growing scourge of disco and punk rock, 1975 was still a pretty good year for rock music.  Among the classic releases that year were Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks, Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen, Rumors by Fleetwood Mac, Katy Lied by Steely Dan, A Night At The Opera by Queen, Still Crazy After All These Years by Paul Simon, Physical Graffiti by Led Zeppelin, One Of These Nights by the Eagles, Young Americans by David Bowie, and Patti Smith's Horses.  Alright, 1975 was no 1969, but it was no slouch either.

As happens every year, there are some really fine albums that fall through the cracks, don't find an audience, and don't sell nearly as well as they should.  Assuming you haven't guessed the group in the photo, it's the back cover from the album Change by Spanky & Our Gang (front cover photo way down below).  Not only was Change one of the best albums of 1975, I'd argue it's pretty high up on the list of all-time great neglected albums.  Yeah, yeah, just hear me out.

New Wine Singers - first album, 1963

In the early 1960s, Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane (b. 1942) left Peoria for Chicago where she hoped to make it as a singer.  Her first paying gig was in 1962 with a jazz-based vocal group called the Jamie Lyn Trio.  By 1963, she was singing in a folk group called The New Wine Singers.  The New Wine Singers had some modest success and put out two albums of folk and protest music in 1963 and 1965.  

For the purposes of our story, The New Wine Singers are important because it was here that McFarlane got the nickname "Spanky."  Reports vary as to why, but in a 2012 interview, McFarlane says that the band liked to watch reruns of Hal Roach's "Our Gang" comedy shorts, and the resemblance between the name of the child actor who played Spanky -- George "Spanky" McFarland -- and McFarlane, was too hard to resist, so she became Spanky McFarlane.  It was also during her time with The New Wine Singers that McFarlane met multi-instrumentalist Malcolm Hale, who would later join Spanky & Our Gang.

By late 1965, The New Wine Singers had split up, and McFarlane headed to Florida.  The story goes that she met musicians Oz Bach and Nigel Pickering when they were trapped for three days by a hurricane.  They apparently hit it off, and McFarlane invited the guys to come see her in Chicago sometime. 

Mother Blues nightclub in Oldtown Chicago

Some months later, in early 1966, McFarlane was living in an apartment over a Chicago club called Mother Blues.  (It's unclear, but she may also have been working at the club).  In any case, the club's co-owner, Curly Tait, knew McFarlane and knew she was a singer, and asked if she could put together a house band to open for the headliners at his club (including the likes of Jefferson Airplane and Muddy Waters).  McFarlane quickly convinced her Florida hurricane buddies, Pickering and Bach, to come up to Chicago, and together they formed an acoustic jug-band trio, with Pickering on guitar, Bach on bass, and McFarlane singing and playing kazoo and washboard.  Since they didn't have time to rehearse a lot of songs, the group mixed in silly costumes, gags and novelty bits.

The trio called themselves Spanky & Our Gang, which was originally meant to be a joke.  After (somewhat surprisingly) getting some favorable press and attracting a local following with the name, they decided to keep it.  As word spread and the group began to play bigger venues, they brought in McFarlane's old bandmate from The New Wine Singers, guitarist and percussionist Malcolm Hale, to fill out their sound.  Soon they were in demand at the hottest spots in the Windy City.  Curly Tait signed on to manage the group.

First single, 1967

Mercury Records was based in Chicago, and pretty soon the label took notice of the up-and-coming group in their backyard and offered Spanky & Our Gang a contract.  Once the group was on board, the label shipped them off to New York to give them more exposure and assigned their NYC A&R man Jerry Ross to help polish their sound and get them ready for the studio.  Their first single (which had been rejected by The Mamas And The Papas) was "Sunday Will Never Be The Same."  It was released in May, 1967 and quickly charted, reaching #9 on the Billboard Hot 100.  Two more top 40 hits, "Lazy Day" and "Making Every Minute Count" followed in short order.  By late summer, the group added drummer John Seiter to the line up, and Mercury sent them to Los Angeles to record tracks for their first LP.  

First album, 1967

The eponymous Spanky And Our Gang album was released on August 1, 1967.  Unfortunately, as Bruce Eder writes on Allmusic, "The group's debut LP demonstrates what can go wrong, even with a group enjoying a trio of hit singles.  Though those hits are here, the album is the least representative of what the group was about and a mixed bag for fans."  

Indeed, the stylistic confusion of the material -- which included everything from the spoken-word song "Trouble" (from the Broadway show The Music Man) to a make-believe "Commercial" for pot to John Denver's "Jet Plane" to the depression-era dirge "Brother Can You Spare A Dime" -- made it difficult to get a handle on the group's style.  Historically, they've been lumped into the category of bubblegum pop, but that really just applies to their hit singles and doesn't do justice to their gorgeous multi-part harmonies and McFarlane's world-class vocals.  Unfortunately, the goofy Vaudevillian patter, the novelty songs, and the collage of "old-timey" photos inside the jacket showing the male band members in turn-of-the-century costumes with stiff, high-collared shirts, straw boaters, bowler hats, leather football helmets, and handlebar mustaches, all combine to make it difficult to take the group seriously.  

1968

For their second album, Like To Get To Know You, released in 1968, the high jinks continued with a 1920s gangster theme complete with Tommy Guns, fedoras, and Keystone Cops (on the back and inside the gatefold).  Though buoyed by two top 30 hit singles "Like To Get To Know You" and "Sunday Morning," the album was once again a confusing mish-mash of slick pop singles, a novelty song about paying bills, a terrific cover version of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne," all topped off with Hoagy Carmichael's 1942 classic "Stardust."  Eclectic doesn't begin to cover it. 

1969

Spanky & Our Gang's third and final studio album, Without Rhyme Or Reason, was released in early 1969.  Although the album received more favorable critical reaction than their first two LPs, it didn't sell as well.  It featured only one charting song, a beautiful and powerful protest song called "Give A Damn."  Otherwise it was another hodge-podge of styles and genres, this time including hard rock, another Hoagy Carmichael period piece ("Hong Kong Blues"), alongside some signature pop ballads with beautiful harmonies.

Graphically, however, the album was a big departure.  The cover, with the band all in white with puffy shirts and peace chains, looks like a lost Fifth Dimension album.  Which might help explain why the album didn't sell so well.  I suspect that many of their fans, who were charmed by the nostalgic, retro style of the previous albums, may have been put off by the full-blown psychedelia of the new release.  In addition, the band didn't tour to promote the album because by the time it was released in early 1969, the group had already broken up.  Oz Bach left in early 1968, and then Malcolm Hale tragically died (either from pneumonia or carbon monoxide poisoning) on Halloween night.  Soon after, drummer John Seiter accepted an offer to join The Turtles, and then McFarlane announced she was pregnant and was quitting to raise a family.  Though Mercury would release a bootleg live set in 1970, Spanky & Our Gang phase one was over.

Change, 1975

Which (finally!) brings us back around to Spanky's great lost album.  In 1974, six years after the original group broke up, McFarlane decided to put together a new gang.  With her old friend Nigel Pickering -- the only holdover from the original band -- she recruited Bill Plummer on bass, Marc McClure on guitar, banjo, and steel guitar, and Jim Moon on drums.  After some touring to tighten up the band and compile a set list, the Gang (Mk II) went into the studio to cut their only album, Change, released in 1975 on Epic Records (right).

In his liner notes for the album, Jim Charne, who was head of marketing at CBS Records, writes: "I had instructions not to call Spanky & Our Gang "country" (even though they are - sort of), and instructions not to call Spanky & Our Gang "rock" (which they also are - sort of)."  In fact, the new group was very much in the style of a wave of mid 70s country rock artists like Marshall Tucker, The Doobie Brothers, The Eagles, The New Riders Of the Purple Sage, Loggins And Messina, and The Flying Burrito Brothers.

Nashville Cat and
Producer Chip Young

The details of the recording of the album are unclear.  Radio World (an industry trade publication) reported in their July 5, 1975 issue that the new Spanky & Our Gang "have signed a long-term contract with Epic Records" and have completed recording their first album for the label with producer (and noted Nashville Cat session guitarist) Chip Young (left) at his Young'un Sound Studio in Murfreesboro, TN, about 35 miles outside Nashville.  (Young had recently been working with Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge.)  

However, the credits on the jacket note that only track A1 ("I Won't Brand You") was produced by Chip Young.  The rest of the album is "Produced with Spanky & Our Gang."  I can't say for sure, but it sounds like the band at some point took the reins back from Young and did it their way.  Paul Grupp at the Record Plant in L.A. is given credit as Associate Producer, and the mixing was done at Mama Joe's Studio in Hollywood by Alex "The Turk" Kazanegras (who did a lot of work with Loggins And Messina and Poco, among others).  A photo of the test pressing for the album on Discogs shows that it was mastered at Allen Zentz in San Clemente, CA.  Epic Records was a subsidiary of Columbia, so the album was pressed by Columbia Records.

Regardless of the provenance, Change sounds great and delivers a first-rate selection of tracks by songwriters like Guy Clark, Ronee Blakley, Tom Waits, and Gary Busey (yeah, the actor guy).  In contrast to Spanky's first three albums, this time the songs fit together to create a coherent feel - ballads skillfully mixed with more up-tempo folk/country rockers that all flow together nicely.  

In addition to the core band, a long list of crackerjack studio pros and guest artists lent their talents, including legendary Nashville arranger Bergen White, banjo wizard Herb Peterson, Richard Thompson (from Fairport Convention) on piano, Jerry Yester (late of The Lovin' Spoonful) on backing vocals, the Tower of Power Horns, Juke Logan on harmonica, bass player Ray Neapolitan, and guitar ace Rick Vito.  Thompson and Yester also scored gorgeous string arrangements for several songs.  Gone are the sunshine and lollypops and the goofy gags.  The music on Change is sophisticated Americana, beautifully-arranged and tightly played, with Marc McClure's ethereal steel string guitar and the heavenly multi-part vocal harmonies floating over it all.  

If all you know about Spanky & Our Gang are the hit singles from the 1967-69 albums, you are in for a pleasant surprise and a musical treat.  I've listened to the LP three times in the last couple of days and it still raises the hair on the back of my neck.

The album has never been released on CD or re-released on vinyl.  If you want your own a copy of Change, your only choice is the original 1975 LP.  Luckily, copies are easy to come by and available (as of this writing) for less than $10 (plus shipping) in NM condition.  Cheap for a forgotten gem. 

Enjoy the music!