can of worms time re: cool / west coast jazz

speaking of barney kessel, and shelley manne, and hampton hawes, this album is great:

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf200/f297/f29716h03d1.jpg

I'm a big fan of Jim Hall also. All the Paul Desmond recordings with him are good. I really like the Jimmy Giuffre "elevator music" stuff (as someone called it upthread) too. The Art Farmer Quartets with him are great if you can find them. Most of all, the Sonny Rollins sessions with Hall, although I don't know if those are properly called "cool jazz."

"Scott, I only have I'm All Smiles. More Hawes recommendations?"

i'm a huge fan, so i don't think you can really go wrong. the later stuff is good, the contemporary records stuff is good. the early trio albums are outstanding. lately, i've been digging the three volume quartet records he made:

http://www.freshsoundrecords.com/cp_images/c4636.jpg

yeah a lot of dudes were up in shelly's manne-hole.

xp

OMG HAWES AND HALL. WANT.

That looks tight! I wonder if those dudes had a sort of self-deprecating thing about being white guys playing jazz? I mean, that cover ... Country Club jazz! I don't know, maybe they were playing it straight. But it looks like some kinda proto Yacht Rock thing.
xp re: that golf album cover

Oh hey, emusic has volumes 2 and 3. Is Jim Hall on all the volumes?

this is a really nice west coast record:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1150/1407818970_45886f6232.jpg?v=0

damn that does look good ...

Fuk, I love Harold Land and Scott LaFaro. I didn't know about all these good Hampton Hawes records.

"Oh hey, emusic has volumes 2 and 3. Is Jim Hall on all the volumes?"

yeah. they played all night! hence the title.

Did Hampton Hawes ever release a record called Hems and Hawes?

i love harold land too

Harold is cool.

That Jimmy Giuffre thing at the beginning of Jazz On A Summer's Day is awesome.

YES

The Train and the River

again, the early trio records are also fab. hampton, red mitchell, and, um...i'm blanking....

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/ACTPOD/OJCCD-316-2~Hampton-Hawes-Trio-The-Trio-v-1-Posters.jpg

Earlier Jim Hall is probably my favorite jazz guitar. His sound got kind of cheesy later though and I don't think he chose the best people to play with.

also search the late 60's black lion stuff. awesome as well. what can i say, i'm a fan.

http://lh4.google.com/MyJazzWorld/RqpoeLdJ-lI/AAAAAAAAAVc/O5sSzZmW5Sk/s288/HamptonHawes_SpanishSteps.jpg

ever hear greg osby's invisible hand record? i haven't heard it for a long time, but it has jim hall and andrew hill on it and whatever it is, it's not cheesy.

best shelley manne cover (and not a bad record either, despite my indifference to andre previn):

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2190/2071307048_42663c04f3.jpg?v=0

Hey, I recently learned that Johnny Mercer wrote those songs!

a later record by a guy from boston who headed out west, this is very cool and worth tracking down (um, cuz it's also another example of a black bandleader making a west coast kinda sound with west coast dudes):

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2235/2064941759_c30686f3b9.jpg?v=0

Hampton Hawes' autobio, "Raise Up Off Me" is great, as is Art Pepper's "Straight Life" for depicting the LA scene of the day. I can't remember the author of "West Coast Jazz", but there's a ton of info including the perspective of the WC record label heads, ie Contemporary, Pacific Jazz etc. It's comprehensive, but the writing is less than engaging.

shelly manne and his men at the manhole is the name of an actual (good) shelly manne record fyi

charles mingus came from watts and a lot of his early recordings are 'west coast' in a sense

yeah, i mentioned mingus up top. but it's kinda like calling eric dolphy "west coast". you know? they were both from there and played there, but...

the west coast cool vibe thing was it's own thing and it could be very cool indeed. i like a lot of that stuff. not so much the desmondbrubecktjader stuff though. i have very little time for dave brubeck. blah.

skot, you wanna hate on Cal Tjader, come on over here and fite!

Would like to read Ted Gioia book, but do not want to prove his brother's theory.

i know, he was preemptive with the manhole jokes

Lot's of people seemed to have played at that club. I'm sure they are going to have five hours of Roy Haynes playing there tonight on WKCR. But wasn't it spelt the Mannhole?

Looks like it was "Shelly's Manne-hole."

love this album. sonny making the west coast dudes work for a living.

http://jazzvo.blog.ocn.ne.jp/photos/uncategorized/2008/02/01/the_contemporary_leaders.jpg

yeah a lot of dudes were up in shelly's manne-hole.

xp

― Tracy Michael Jordan Catalano (Jordan), Wednesday, January 14, 2009 1:46 PM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

OK, now I see what you were trying to say.

if you can find them - are they in print? - the Black California two volume anthology that savoy put out is friggin' GREAT if you like awesome and swingin' 40's/50's stuff. wardell gray, wild bill moore, slim gaillard, kenny clarke, etc. (um, not "cool" jazz, just great jazz.) (all the bands where dexter and chico and sonny criss and others cut their teeth.)

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drc500/c584/c58424888is.jpg

listened to this tonight. one of my fave we're all in the same gang east coast/west coast jams:

http://www.jazz.com/assets/2008/1/4/albumcoverArtPepperMeetsTheRhythmSection.jpg

when white dudes had cool names like art pepper

ZOOT SIMS

That Art Pepper record has a great version of "Tin Tin Deo." I think Art claimed in Straight Life that he hadn't picked up his horn in two years prior to making that record but somebody later debunked that.

the west coast cool vibe thing was it's own thing and it could be very cool indeed. i like a lot of that stuff. not so much the desmondbrubecktjader stuff though. i have very little time for dave brubeck. blah.

― scott seward, Wednesday, January 14, 2009 3:21 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

I don't think they deserve to be lumped together. I think Desmond is a way more legit and enjoyable musician than Brubeck. I mean Time Out is an undeniable record, but it's largely because of Desmond and Morello, and also it just SOUNDS so fucking good. I get frothy at the mouth when people swoon over Brubeck as though he's god's gift to jazz, but I'm more mad at people's tin ears and (I think) latent racism than I am at Brubeck. But he's just such a terrible, stiff pianist -- painful to listen to at times.

Cal Tjader is just fun. I have no complaints about him.

i just got smack up by art pepper on vinyl

a superb album

not all that "cool" though

i wasn't really slamming tjader and desmond as musicians. it's just that that end of things is so ubiquitous in my thrift shop world, so i blame them for their ubiquitousness. i blame it on the bossa nova.

i don't think i've ever heard anyone swoon over brubeck before! thank god. i'd hit them over the head and give them a bill evans record or something if i did.

i do hold onto a copy of brubeck's gates of justice for novelty value.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510l3VCqfTL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

Time for a new screen name.

SOOOO into Shorty Rogers right now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_SvhoMokI8

just got this book in the mail

http://www.ocma.net/img/413_Birth-of-the-Cool-Cover.JPG

it has a big chapter on the aesthetic of cool / west coast jazz album covers, maybe i'll post a couple of tidbits if it's any good

why the fuck can't I find any substantial big band cool from 1952?!

Curtis Fuller/Hampton Hawes w/ French Horns is another good one. It seems a miracle that any black jazz musicians with heroin habits managed to survive the 50's/60's. If the habit wasn't going to kill them, the cops would be more than happy to lend a hand (or a club) to the grim reaper.

was going to post "wow the 50s were fucked" but it occurred to me there are probably ppl in california currently serving longer sentences for simple possession of crack cocaine