DOBBIN’S DEN

By Len Dobbin

Posted Wednesday, March 19, 1997

Contents

• Lavern Baker (1929-1997)
• Last Week in Montreal
• This Week in Montreal
• Upcoming in March
• Local CD News
• Dobbin`s Den (on Radio)
• New Releases
• CD News

LAVERN BAKER (1929-1997)

Lavern Baker died of heart complications on Monday, March 10 in Manhattan. Born Dolores Williams in Chicago, Illinois on November 11, 1929, Baker was 67. She was a very popular and influential singer, particularly in the rhythm & blues field, whose style on recordings done in the 50s had a great influence on early rock 'n' roll.

Baker grew up in Chicago surrounded by the music she heard and sang in the Baptist churches. At 17, she began her career in r&b (in clubs in the Chicago area) as Little Miss Sharecropper. She was later a featured singer with one of the most unsung jump bands of the 50s led by pianist Todd Rhodes. Before her big break began when she signed a solo artist contract, as Lavern Baker, with Atlantic in 1954, she had recorded for National, King, Columbia and RCA with bands like Rhodes and Eddie Penigar. She was an immediate success with hits like Tweedle Dee and Georgia Gibbs was among those assigned to do covers of her material. Gibbs’ version of Tweedle Dee hit Number 2 on the charts in 1955, while Baker's original version never made it higher than 14. After headlining in the 50s, her career declined in the 60s after she left Atlantic in 1963 for the Brunswick label. Later, while entertaining the troops in Korea, she developed pneumonia. She went to the Philippines for treatment, settling there for almost twenty years. She was, for a time, entertainment director at Subic Bay military base.

After a period of inactivity she appeared at Madison Square Garden in 1988 as part of an Atlantic Records 40th anniversary concert. She made a comeback when she replaced Ruth Brown in the Broadway hit musical Black and Blues in 1990. The following year she was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. Among her Atlantic recordings was a tribute to Bessie Smith. Her latest recordings were done in 1991 and 1992 for the DRG label.

LAST WEEK IN MONTREAL

Things started off on the right foot with the superb Jefferson-Grant Quintet at Isart. A first set of pieces by people like Thelonious Monk, Woody Shaw and J.J. Johnson (a beautiful Kelsley Grant feature on Lament) was followed by a set of originals by members of the group.

Wednesday night marked a great evening of big band jazz by the Chuck Dotas band at Pollack Hall. Following a reading of Bob Brookmeyer's complete rewrite of King Porter Stomp, "bizarre!" was a comment from a member of the audience. Dotas always comes up with a most interesting program and this was no exception. Later that night Mike Milligan launched his solo bass CD to a packed house at Jazzons.

On Friday, despite the worst storm of the winter, over 300 people turned up at Salle Marie-Gerin-Lajoie to hear a concert of Jan Jarczyk's music played by Jarczyk, Tim Hagans, Mike Sim, Eric Lagacé and Andre White. Watch for them on an upcoming Jazz Beat show on CBC Stereo.

Later that night Sim, Michel Lambert and Martin Auguste were among those sitting in with pianist Joey Calderazzo at L'Air du Temps. The crowds for this top-notch player were sparse but then so was the publicity surrounding what should have been an major event. [Editor’s note: Why did Calderazzo go back to New York on Saturday?]

At Upstairs the new piano got a proper christening by pianist Wray Downes, who along with Dave Young and Wali Muhammad, was positively awesome on Saturday night.

The tribute to Réal Mathieu scheduled for March 20 has been postponed to May 8.

THE musician to hear is pianist Steve Amirault. He’s at Boomers (197 Lakeshore Road, Pointe Claire) on Friday and Saturday March 21 and 22. He’ll be joined by bassist Ron Séguin and drummer Michel Lambert. An event not to be missed!

Steve's brother, guitarist Greg Amirault with Séguin and drummer Dave Laing hosts the new Sunday night jam sessions at Upstairs (1254 Mackay). These have met with great success and the club has now installed a grand piano. The Joshua Ell group, featuring Kim Richardson, are becoming a Thursday night habit here. On Friday and Saturday of this week, March 21 and 22, a group led by veteran drummer Pete Magadini will be featured. I first heard Magadini in the early 70s at ln Concert on Le Moyne Street in Old Montreal when he was travelling with Mose Allison's trio.

Another important figure on the Montreal jazz scene is trumpeter/composer/teacher Charles Ellison. Charles will be leading a sextet of Glen Bradley, alto sax; Joel Miller, tenor; Tilden Webb, piano; George Mitchell, bass; and Claude Lavergne, drums. That's on Saturday, March 22 at Concordia Concert Hall (7141 Sherbrooke Street West).

Another more recent, but no less important addition (via Ottawa) to the jazz community, is guitarist/teacher Roddy Ellias, who is working on a long overdue new recording. He makes an appearance at Isart (263 St. Antoine West) on Sunday, March 23 with a trio of bassist Alec Walkington and drummer Dave Laing.

With jazz heard on a nightly basis at Biddles, Upstairs, and Jazzons plus spots like Boomers, L'Autre Bar, L'Air du Temps, Bobards, The No Name Deli Bar, Cafe Thélème, Isart, Koji's Kitchen and the Jello Bar where jazz is also featured on a less frequent basis, there is certainly no lack of jazz in the Montreal area. For traditional jazz fans, the Jazz Knights Dixieland Band can be heard at the Cock 'n' Bull (1944 St. Catherine Street West near Fort) beginning at 4 PM on Sunday afternoons.

U.S. visitors due in town include David Sanchez at Salle Gesù (March 25) and trombonist Conrad Herwig at Upstairs (March 28 and 29).

The scheduled appearance of the Steve Amirault trio at Upstairs on April 25 and 26 has been cancelled.

You might also want to check out Opera McGill presentations from March 20 through 23. On March 21 they are doing Jacques Ibert's Angelique and Kurt Weill's Happy End and Mahagonny on March 23. It’s free, but passes are required. They’re available at the Pollack Hall Box Office from noon to 6:00 PM on Thursday and Friday or at the door, one hour prior to the show. The presentations take place at Theatre P Scene (3449 ruelle Aylmer).

UPCOMING IN MARCH

Thursday, March 20

NB- THIS CONCERT POSTPONED T0 MAY 8.

Concordia Concert Hall

A Tribute to professor/trumpeter Réal Mathieu

with Michel Lambert, Ron DiLauro, Charles

Ellison, Jocelyn Lapointe, Gilles LaFlamme and

Jocelyn Couture.

Tuesday, March 25

Salle Gesù

Saison Jazz Montréal Series

David Sanchez with Edsel Gomez, piano; John Benitez, bass; Adam Cruz; drums; and Pemell Satumino, percussion.

Wednesday, March 26

Pollack Hall

McGill Jazz Ensemble II

under Chuck Dotas

Friday, March 28 and Saturday March 29

Upstairs

American trombonist Conrad Herwig

LOCAL CD NEWS

Mike Milligan's daring solo bass CD Solo Flights is now in release on Transit Records. Its nine compositions were recorded in January in Église St. François des Salles in Terrebonne, Quebec. The striking cover photograph is by Nelly Dahan.

Also recorded in January is Live At Boomers, a long-overdue session as a leader for guitarist Greg Clayton. He's joined by bassist Dave Young and drummer Jerry Fuller who trekked up from Toronto for the gig. It's an Ostinato Records release consisting of Kurt Weill's This Is New and six other delightful standards, plus the leader's Misdemeanor, described as essentially a blues with a bridge. Fuller, originally from out west, was an important part of the jazz scene here in the early 60s when he played with people like Maury Kaye and P.J. Perry. His 1963 wedding reception here was sparked by a jam session which included Perry and the late Wimp Henstridge, a world-class tenor saxophonist who died in 1965. Wimp's son Miles is an excellent photographer, who you can find weekdays at York Photo on St. Catherine near Crescent.

Reg Schwager, a Dutch-born guitarist whose family settled in Ontario in 1969 (when he was seven), is currently touring with the George Shearing Quintet (along with another Canadian, bassist Neil Swainson). On December 2 and 3, 1985, Schwager was in Victor Studios in St. Henri recording a trio session with bassist Dave Piltch (now well known as a third of the Holly Cole trio) and drummer Michel Lambert. The latter is now a welcome part of the Montreal jazz community. He's also married to singer Jeannette Schwager, Reg's sister. The results of that 1985 session, Resonance, have just been reissued on the Justin Time label. There are two bonus cuts on the new issue, Schwager's Sadik and the bebop classic on "HHTM" changes, Ornithology. My original 1985 liner notes are included, a sort of Canada-wide survey of the guitar scene of the time. Reg Schwager will be at Boomers on May 9 and 10 with Dave Young and Michel Lambert.

NEW RELEASES

The Evidence label has been particularly busy of late. Another parcel consisting of five new releases arrived this week.

The Fo'tet Plays Monk is by drummer Ralph Peterson Jr.'s quartet (Fo'tet) of Steve Wilson, soprano; Bryan Carrott, vibes; and Belden Bullock, bass. It's a program of Peterson's Monkin' Around, Carrott's Spherically Speaking, the early Monk-Kenny Clarke collaboration that was to become Monk's theme, Epistrophy, and eight Monk compositions- Criss Cross, Four In One, Jackie-ing, Played Twice, Light Blue, Well You Needn't, Brilliant Corners and the lesser known Skippy. Recorded in December of 1995, this is another excellent outing from the Fo'tet.

Tenor Conclave is a March 1995 session by Grand Central, a group made up of reedmen Ravi Coltrane and Craig Handy, pianist Billy Childs, bassist Dwayne Burno and drummer Cindy Blackman. Handy is the tenorman who duels with Joshua Redman in Robert Altman's film, Kansas City. This one is a tribute to the late Hank Mobley, an overlooked saxophone giant. Except for the standard, If I Should Lose You, and Handy's Hanksville, the compositions are Mobley's and include Hank's Symphony, which he recorded with Art Blakey's Messengers for Columbia, and his I Got Rhythm variant, Tenor Conclave, which he wrote for a Prestige session of the same name, which featured Mobley, John Coltrane, Zoot Sims and Al Cohn.

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, a dedication to brother Cannonball, is by a Nat Adderley quintet of Antonio Hart, alto and soprano saxes; Rob Bargad, piano; Walter Booker, bass; and Jimmy Cobb, drums. Nat plays cornet and also sings on a pair, Trouble ln Mind and On The Sunny Side of the Street. Among the highlights are Spontaneous Combustion from Cannonball's N.Y. debut session as a leader, What Is This Thing Called Love and the Little Boy With The Sad Eyes, Nat's memorable composition that was first recorded for Capitol by Cannon's sextet with Charles Lloyd. Like Tenor Conclave, this CD is also from December 1995.

Souvenirs is a June 1994 recording by the poll-winning Phil Woods Quintet that then was made up of the leader on alto; Brian Lynch, trumpet; Jim McNeely, piano; Steve Gilmore, bass; and, the album's producer, Bill Goodwin, drums. Here we have Benny Carter’s Souvenirs, Lynch's Peer Pressure and C.K.’s Bossa and three by the leader- Song For Sisyphus, Ballad for Hank, for little-known clarinettist Hank D'Amico and Quill for his partner of Phil and Quill days, the late Gene Quill.

Beatitudes is an April 11, 1983 session (the same day as the seventh anniversary of my Jazz 96 show) by a hot little group co-led by altoman Bobby Watson and John Hicks' regular bassist, Curtis Lundy, with Mulgrew Miller, piano and the always steady Kenny Washington ("Mr. Taste") on drums. There are 10 tracks here (two of them additional alternate takes). All are Watson compositions, except Orange Blossom by Lundy and Minority by Basheer Quism (née Gigi Gryce). The Watson tunes include ETA and To See Her Face, which were earlier recorded by Art Blakey's Messengers. This album was originally on the New Note label and is released here on CD for the first time.

These are five excellent editions to the ever-expanding Evidence catalogue of jazz and blues.

Guitarist Mark Elf, whom I mentioned last week, has another CD worth seeking out. The Eternal Triangle (Jen Bay Jazz) has support from Hank Jones, Ray Drummond, Ben Riley and Jimmy Heath on Sonny Stitt's title track, Freddie Redd's So Samba, Tadd Dameron's Hot House, Kenny Dorham's Philly Twist, Benny Golson's Stablemates and five others.

Clark Terry just gets better and better. His 1994 Remembering The Time (Mons) is subtitled 75th Anniversary, since he was born December 14, 1920. This one has George Robert, alto; Mark Nightingale, trombone; Dado Moroni, piano; Ray Brown, bass; and Jeff Hamilton, drums. The only complaint here is that whoever researched the composer credits somehow decided that The Story of Love and The Gypsy were Clark Terry originals. A return to Terry's In Orbit is a good place to begin listening.

NB: Props for Pops by Leroy Jones mentioned here last week is on the Columbia not Verve label. Our apologies.

CD NEWS

Fo Deuk Revue is a forthcoming Justin Time release, recorded in Africa with the extraordinary cast of Americans David Murray, Craig Harris, Hugh Ragin, Robert Irving III, Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Darryl Burgee joined by Sengalese musicians Doudou N'Diaye Rose and Hamet Mall, plus Dieuf Dieul, a new band from Dakar, and Positive Black Soul, a duo described as the avant-garde of African hip-hop. It promises to be a record where "memory is aural, tradition moves to meet its children, and history returns to its sources."

Of the project David Murray says: "I truly believe that my genuine purpose in music is to be some type of conduit to fuse ancient music to the music of the future. In striving to reach this seemingly insurmountable goal, it takes a great deal of concentration, determination, humbleness, years of studying jazz, numerous hours of recording in the studio and years of appreciating the music of other cultures. Every accomplishment and step that l have made in music throughout my life has been a stairway to what I believe will be my most significant achievement: to be the leader of Fo Deuk Revue. This group, which has certain elements of all my previous bands, is also a political statement about how I perceive the world, how I see myself as a person of African descent relating to people who live in Africa and about the difficulty and problems that exist for Africans all over the planet.

My dream is similar to that of my hero Malcolm X, who gave his life trying to educate people to the fact that the world would be a better place without hatred, racism, hunger, deception and greed. Fo Deuk Revue is a way of addressing some of these problems through music, songs, poetry and rap."

Justin Time Records was busy of late recording sessions in L.A. by Ranee Lee (with Tilden Webb and Richard Ring) and Oliver Jones. Both are with Ray Brown, bass and Jeff Hamilton, drums. Also in the can are a duo session by saxophonist Michael Marcus with Jaki Byard on piano; two volumes of duets by pianist D.D. Jackson in the company of musicians like David Murray, Billy Bang, James Carter, Santi Debriano and Hamiett Bluiett; three volumes of Bluiett recorded live at Carlos in New York City in 1986 with a group made up of Don Pullen, piano; Fred Hopkins, bass; Idris Muhammad, drums; and Chief Bey, percussion; as well as new releases by Jane Bunnett and Ray Anderson; and a reissue of a Johnny O'Neal trio session with Dave Young and Terry Clarke (originally on the Parkwood label).

DOBBIN’S DEN (ON RADIO)