Concord Music Group to Release 6 New Jazz Classics on June 14th, 2011
LOS
ANGELES, Calif. — Concord Music Group will release six new titles in
the Original Jazz Classics Remasters series on June 14, 2011. Enhanced
by 24-bit remastering by Joe Tarantino, generous helpings of bonus
tracks (many of them previously unreleased), and new liner notes that
provide historical and technical context, the series showcases some of
the most pivotal recordings of the past several decades by artists whose
influences on the jazz tradition is beyond measure.
The six new titles in the series are:
Chet Baker: In New York
Ornette Coleman: Something Else!!!
Thelonious Monk: Thelonious Alone in San Francisco
Cannonball Adderley with Bill Evans: Know What I Mean?
Bill Evans Trio: Explorations
Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass: Easy Living
“These
six releases bring us to 20 titles altogether since the launch of the
series in March 2010, ” says Nick Phillips, Vice President of Catalog
and Jazz A&R at Concord Music Group and producer of the series.
“Each occupies an important place in any quality jazz collection.”
Chet Baker: In New York
Recorded
in September 1958 for Riverside, Chet Baker’s In New York features
saxophonist Johnny Griffin, pianist Al Haig, bassist Paul Chambers and
drummer Philly Joe Jones. In addition to the half-dozen tracks from the
original album, the reissue includes a bonus seventh track — “Soft
Winds, ” a blues composition written by Benny Goodman and Fletcher
Henderson.
The recording provides a glimpse of the trumpeter
“coming off a run of popularity, critical praise, and commercial success
the likes of which few musicians have known, ” according to the new
liner notes by Doug Ramsey. By the late ’50s, Baker had won numerous
awards throughout the decade for his instrumental work, and was even
regarded as a romantic idol for his singing.
“Baker had been
somewhat pigeonholed as a West Coast cool jazz artist, “ says Phillips,
“but this recording illustrates that he was right at home playing with
New York musicians — who dealt with their own stereotype of being harder
edged and more aggressive. On this recording, they all seem to meet
effortlessly somewhere in the middle.”
Of the ongoing tug-of-war
between Baker’s artistic successes and his personal battles with
substance abuse, Ramsey adds: “It will be a long time before Chet’s
struggles with his demon are forgotten, but one day when the headlines
have finally disappeared, the beauty of his music will still be
shimmering in the air.”
Ornette Coleman: Something Else!!!
Recorded
at Contemporary’s studios in Los Angeles in February and March 1958,
Ornette Coleman’s Something Else!!! features Don Cherry on pocket
trumpet, Walter Norris on piano, Don Payne on bass, and Billy Higgins on
drums. The first of two albums that Coleman recorded for Contemporary,
Something Else!!! marks the saxophonist’s debut as a leader. “He was a
very influential but at times controversial artist, ” says Phillips.
“Right out of the gate he was doing something that was just so different
from what people were used to hearing, ” says Phillips. ”Although
structurally-speaking, the music in this recording is based on
established song forms, you can hear very clearly that Coleman is
starting to break free of the limitations of conventional harmony.”
Neil
Tesser writes in his new liner notes that Coleman traced jazz back to
its roots to rid the music of its increasingly elaborate harmonic
structures and other constraints. “Without the limitations imposed by
such harmonic patterns, his band would freely travel into, out of, and
between musical keys, ” says Tesser. “As Ornette said in the original
notes, ‘I think one day music will be a lot freer. The pattern for a
tune, for instance, will be forgotten and the tune itself will be the
pattern . . .’ When he recorded Something Else!!! that day was still a
little ways off. In these performances, you hear him in the last throes
of unshackling the past.”
Thelonious Monk: Thelonious Alone in San Francisco
Recorded
on Riverside in October 1959, Thelonious Alone in San Francisco was a
sequel of sorts to Thelonious Himself, recorded two years earlier. In
addition to the album’s 10 original tracks, the reissue includes an
alternate take of “There’s Danger in Your Eyes, Cherie.”
“With
Thelonious Alone in San Francisco, Monk proved that his earlier success
as a solo artist was not a fluke, ” says Tesser in his liner notes for
the reissue. “And in rejecting all the ‘rules’ for playing without
accompaniment — as he’d rejected so many rules before — Monk expanded
the entire concept of the solo piano idiom. Without Monk’s recordings as
bedrock, it’s hard to imagine similarly intimate (though otherwise
quite different) solo albums that would eventually come from Bill Evans,
Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea or even McCoy Tyner.”
For
as unique as Monk’s style was, “he stayed pretty consistently within
that style throughout the remainder of his career, ” says Phillips.
“That’s not to imply that there was any lack of creativity on his part.
Within the unique style that he established, there was so much to
explore and develop. But he still sounds unmistakably like Thelonious
Monk, no matter what chapter of his career you listen to.”
Cannonball Adderley with Bill Evans: Know What I Mean?
Know
What I Mean? was recorded between January and March 1961, with bassist
Percy Heath and drummer Connie Kay supporting the saxophonist and
pianist. The reissue includes three bonus tracks that are alternate
takes of “Who Cares?, ” “Toy” (previously unreleased), and “Know What I
Mean?”.
“This album takes two artists who were part of the
legendary, historic 1958 Miles Davis Sextet and pairs them together, ”
says Phillips. “The modal approach that Evans was pioneering in the
context of that 1958 group reveals itself in some of the material that
he and Cannonball are playing on this album.”
Orrin Keepnews,
who produced the original recording sessions, writes in his new liner
notes for this OJC Remasters reissue, “One of the many advantages of
working with a man like Julian Adderley was that he was totally stubborn
about pursuing an idea he believed in. And, quite simply, he thoroughly
believed in the validity of an album based on his moving very much in a
Bill Evans–influenced direction.”
In his liner notes to the
original recording, Joe Goldberg observes that while not all of the
selections are ballads, an “aura of relaxation” permeates the recording.
“In this instance it can be recognized as simply a matter of four
highly skilled artists away from their usual tasks and delighting in one
another’s musical company, ” he says. “Nothing more really need be said
about the results of their meeting than that the feeling of delight
comes through.”
Bill Evans Trio: Explorations
Recorded in New
York in February 1961 for Riverside, Explorations was the last album
this version of the Evans trio would make in a recording studio. Bassist
Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian also appear on Sunday at the
Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby — both live recordings, released
later in 1961 — but LaFaro died in a car accident shortly after the live
sessions. This reissue features four bonus tracks, including previously
unreleased alternate takes of “How Deep Is the Ocean?” and “I Wish I
Knew.”
“Evans’ sound and approach was his own by ’61, ” says
Ashley Kahn in his new liner notes. “His piano style had fully matured,
as had the interplay of the trio . . . Upon entering Bell Sound’s studio
on February 2, 1961, producer Orrin Keepnews immediately noted the
three had ‘made giant strides towards the goal of becoming a three-voice
unit rather than a piano player and his accompanists.’”
What’s
more, the disparity of styles between the unreleased alternate takes and
their counterparts that made the final cut on the original record
“illustrates that jazz masters like these are real improvisers, ” says
Phillips, “and no two takes are ever going to sound the same — because
no two moments in jazz are ever the same.”
Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass: Easy Living
Recorded
in Los Angeles in 1983 and 1986, Easy Living was one of a series of
Ella Fitzgerald–Joe Pass collaborations on Pablo throughout the ’80s. In
addition to the original album’s 15 tracks, the reissue also includes
two previously unreleased bonus tracks — alternate takes of “Don’t Be
that Way” and “Love for Sale.”
Easy Living and the other
collaborations between these two veterans “worked on many levels, ” says
Tad Hershorn in his liner notes for the reissue. “As her voice aged and
deepened, Fitzgerald discovered partial remedies in her phrasing,
choices of keys and the pleasing maturity that now enveloped her still
youthful voice. Pass was the perfect foil to display her diminishing
resources to their best and most emotive advantage. Ella was known to
incessantly toy with songs in her restless artistic striving, so one can
perceive the music she made with Pass as a direct extension of her
creative method. The leanness of their music underscores that even this
late in her career, Ella Fitzgerald retained her bonafides as a singer
for whom words did matter: not every song was merely a vehicle for her
to bat notes out of the park. The allure was in the quiet majestic
intimacy that focused an audience’s attention on full absorption of the
musings of joy, wistfulness, and melody.”
The level of
confidence with which each of these two musicians performs on this
recording is hard to miss. “The fact that Ella could walk into the
studio with a bunch of lead sheets, ” says Phillips, “and they could do a
little rehearsal on the spot, figure out the best key for her, and he
could just play it in any key behind her — all of that takes some
phenomenal musicianship . . . They have a very conversational, relaxed
sensibility about them, and both musicians seem very much at ease
performing together and recording together in the studio.”