| Author |
Topic: Groundbreaking moment in Jazz--Paul Bley w/ Newk and Hawk |
Mike Neer
From:
NJ
|
Posted 4 Feb 2016 11:48 am |
|
Newk being Sonny Rollins and Hawk being Coleman Hawkins.
There is a long backstory about this session, including the fact the Sonny signed a 100K deal with the same label that Hawk signed a 50K deal with. Huge competitive vie going on, and Sonny was looking for the "knockout", according to Bley.
Anyway, enter Paul Bley, who was about to turn the world on its ear on this session. Miles and Sonny had invited Herbie Hancock and Bley to Birdland, where they were on a bill together. Each pianist sat in, and at the end of the evening they each decided who was going to take which gig (they could have had either one). Paul chose Sonny because he thought Sonny needed help in "deconstructing the standards."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppAFPNpq8Iw
All The Things You Are, quite a familiar standard. Paul had an approach to soloing here that he called "harmonic improvisation", meaning that he had to get from point A to point B, and what he did in between was his option. He would move to completely unrelated tonal centers, but always pop in unexpectedly on the right chord, always knowing his place in the music. This is one of the groundbreaking solos in Jazz history that really pushed toward freedom. I am reading a book of conversations with Mr. Bley called "Time Will Tell", and it is out-of-print and worth every exorbitant penny I paid for it.
This is my goal in improvising (a mere 50+ years after it had already been done!).
By the way, if you're wondering what the heck Sonny is doing here (sounds like he is playing in a different key, different tune), Bley had commented that Sonny had failed in an attempt to play free jazz previously, and thought that deconstructing standards would keep him going for another decade (I guess it worked, he's still at it!). I think Sonny was still putting out the feelers here. Bley also said that being a pianist in the group, let alone a white pianist, he had to have something new to offer, because these cats were the best--so he had to be better than them, which was a real long shot for a jazz pianist at the time.
_________________
Links to streaming music, websites, YouTube: Links |
|
|
 |
Jonathan Lam
From:
Brooklyn, NY
|
|
|
|
John Alexander
|
Posted 4 Feb 2016 11:24 pm
|
|
| Mike, a great performance by Bley, and you gave a nice summary of the background. |
|
|
|
Charlie McDonald
From:
out of the blue
|
Posted 5 Feb 2016 2:53 am
|
|
Great, Mike; almost a battle of the saxes for a few bars and at the end, resolving nicely.
_________________
Those that say don't know; those that know don't say.--Buddy Emmons |
|
|
|
Andy Volk
From:
Boston, MA
|
Posted 5 Feb 2016 3:10 am
|
|
Great performance I hadn't heard. Maybe this is the kind of playing/thinking that sent Rollins to the bridge to woodshed.
_________________
Steel Guitar Books! Website: www.volkmediabooks.com |
|
|
|
Mike Neer
From:
NJ
|
Posted 5 Feb 2016 4:48 am
|
|
| Andy Volk wrote: |
| Great performance I hadn't heard. Maybe this is the kind of playing/thinking that sent Rollins to the bridge to woodshed. |
This is post-Jim Hall. As Paul explains, Sonny and Jim were two musicians who had mastered the art of playing standards and there was nowhere else for Sonny to go except towards free playing. He made a record with Don Cherry, which Paul stated was a failed attempt at free jazz--I take Paul's opinions incredibly highly. From there, Paul said the logical thing to do was deconstruct standards, which Paul played a big part of.
An interesting point he brings up is that there was a void in the space between playing standards and playing free--he felt it was playing free over changes, which is what the above solo by Mr. Bley exemplifies.
_________________
Links to streaming music, websites, YouTube: Links
Last edited by Mike Neer on 5 Feb 2016 8:00 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
|
|
Mike Neer
From:
NJ
|
Posted 5 Feb 2016 7:59 am
|
|
A little interview with Metheny from 2005 in the NYT mentions this solo:
"He was a young guy at the time," Mr. Metheny marveled, listening to Mr. Rollins's emphatic, darting lines in "All the Things You Are," harmonically at odds with Hawkins's, on the opening chorus. "That feeling is such a great feeling -- like 'I can play anything, and it's all good.' Not to analyze it, but Hawk was kind of like his father. And it's like Sonny's saying, "yeah, but ...."
What especially attracts Mr. Metheny to the track, though, is Paul Bley's piano solo. It is made of elegant, flowing phrases that dance in and around the tonality and the melody of the song; it builds momentum and becomes carried away with itself. Mr. Metheny calls the solo "the shot heard 'round the world," in terms of its aftereffects in subsequent jazz, especially through Keith Jarrett. He describes Mr. Bley's solo as having an "inevitability.""
_________________
Links to streaming music, websites, YouTube: Links |
|
|
|
Philip Sterk
From:
Nashville, TN
|
Posted 5 Feb 2016 8:59 am
|
|
I have never heard this before... Thanks for bringing it to our attention Mike!
Bley's solo is masterful. A real thing a beauty no doubt.
I'm gonna look for that book too! Who wrote/edited it?
_________________
"The method by which the fool arrives at his folly was as dear to him as the ultimate wisdom of the wise." |
|
|
|
Jim Robbins
From:
Ontario, Canada
|
Posted 7 Feb 2016 10:40 am
|
|
| Thanks for the clip and backstory. Very interesting moment in jazz. In an alternate universe where fusion and free didn't happen, everyone would have been playing like that for a few decades. |
|
|
|
Mike Neer
From:
NJ
|
Posted 7 Feb 2016 1:55 pm
|
|
| Jim Robbins wrote: |
| Thanks for the clip and backstory. Very interesting moment in jazz. In an alternate universe where fusion and free didn't happen, everyone would have been playing like that for a few decades. |
All the great ones do play that way still.
_________________
Links to streaming music, websites, YouTube: Links |
|
|
|
