What got me into jazz? I’ve written about this before. But I remember the early acts most of all back in the 1980s and how exciting it was to discover this new music (to me!) when I was a teenager. I had found my music at last and have stuck will it all these years on.
The sensation that turned me on most was especially hearing people live. I discovered the music that way first, radio next, records later. So firstly it was Humphrey Lyttelton in my home town, a place then and now starved of jazz. Then about I suppose 6 years later when I was a student in Belfast I went to a place called ‘The Guinness Spot’ which was a dining hall sponsored by the St James’ Gate Dublin firm behind the black stuff and converted into a jazz club. Later John Scofield named an exuberant piece of the same name after it. Open during October/November of each year during a festival around back then I heard Betty Carter – “Betty Bebop” no less as Lionel Hampton called the Detroit singer – and her fellow American tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton.
I wasn’t a jazz writer in those days just a student. I loved both of these artists. Belfast was horrible and deeply scary back then – too many bombs and not of the bebop kind either much. And luckily I heard them again years later, even interviewing Betty Carter for a cover story that ran on a Soho published magazine called Jazz Express. She died in 1998. So many singers owe her an enormous debt.
I haven’t unfortunately got to interview Hamilton who is now in his seventies. Maybe some day. Let’s hope. Last time I heard him live was at the Pizza Express in Soho.
He recorded a few great live albums there including one for Ross Dines’ initiated label PX which was excellent and Dean Street Nights which I really loved too. They were with his British band in which Steve Brown is important.
The American here however is with a line-up of German players. They are Tizian Jost, Bernhard Pichl, Rudi Engel and Michael Keul none of whose work I knew at all. What I like most are two things: the use of vibes against sax; and the choice of tunes,
The tune was the title track of an album in the 1990s that Joshua Redman joined the great Modern Jazz Quartet vibist Bags (1923-1999) on.
In the Jackson role on this record is Tizian Jost. He was from what I read a house pianist at a club in Munich’s Maxvorstadt district in the 1980s called the Allotria.
There is a strong Modern Jazz Quartet connection in that ‘Django’ the John Lewis tune is also included.
I remember interviewing trombonist Chris Barber once and given that Barber didn’t play in the chamber jazz style at all it surprised me when he enthused about how much he liked and got to be a friend of Lewis.
Hamilton comes into his own on ‘Time on My Hands’ which is really lovely. Fundamentally he is a for the ages balladeer and proves you don’t have to be a singer.
It’s a Vincent Youmans melody that goes back to the 1930s.
Billie Holiday sang the words of Mack Gordon beautifully; Count Basie did a swinging treatment. The one I think I like best is the Ben Webster Soulville version.
Also on the album: ‘The World Awakes’ is a Lucky Thompson number that people like Michael Blake have covered. It was on a 1970s album called Soul’s Nite Out.
The Hank Jones number ‘Angel Face’ has strong rapport rippling across the band. The brushwork from drummer Keul is best heard here. And the Cole Porter title track is taken at quite a lick. It’s not a tune that I am particularly fond of although it doesn’t mercifully bring me out in a rash. But I do love Mal Waldon’s ‘Soul Eyes’ done in recent years wondrously by Kandace Springs. The vibes part here is excellent.
