DOBBIN’S DEN

By Len Dobbin

Posted Thursday, June 12, 1997

Contents

• Montreal Jazz Festivals
• Last Week in Montreal
• This Week in Montreal
• News and Upcoming Events
• Local CD News
• New Releases
• DOBBIN’S DEN (on Radio)

THE 1962 MONTREAL JAZZ FESTIVAL

In the summer of 1962, a second Montreal jazz festival was announced, to take place August 24 through 27, and like the first one, to be held at the Comédie Canadienne. Ticket prices ranged from $1.13 to $3.38.

Miles Davis had never played Montreal, so opening night was the concert everyone had been waiting for, as evidenced by the fact that it was sold out a month in advance. From the opening, Milestones, it was clear that it surely would be quite a night. Miles was in superb form and very consistent. He hit some low notes that made one look up to see if tenorman Hank Mobley had begun playing. J.J. Johnson was his usual polished self, but Mobley seemed to have trouble getting going. The rhythm section (Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb) was what one would expect this one to be- excellent. It must have been very comforting to know that these three would be backing you night after night. Their solo prowess is not to be overlooked. It was a most musical evening with Miles easily the standout.

The last minute cancellation, due to illness, of Sonny Rollins (who hadn't played Montreal since 1953) gave people who were not able to get tickets to hear Miles on Friday night a chance to hear him the following afternoon when he substituted for his former sideman. Miles insisted on opening the concert and generally seemed to want to get the concert over with. It's not that he didn't play well, but he was by no means in the form he showed the previous evening. Mobley was a little better, but anyone familiar with his playing had to have been disappointed. J.J. was by far the best of the horns and the rhythm section again functioned well as a team and in solos.

The Al Baculis Octet (with the leader on alto and clarinet; Jack(son) Rider, tenor; Bix Belair, trumpet; Don Douglas, trombone; Bob Roby, baritone; Tony Romandini, guitar; John Lanza, bass; and Paul Lafortune, drums) was at an extreme disadvantage having to follow rather than open for Miles. Also, Roby, Douglas and Lafortune were last-minute replacements. Nearly half of the concert was given over to compositions that Baculis had written for a National Film Board movie. The main problem with the band was that although everyone could read the charts fluently, they weren't all what you could call out-and-out jazz musicians. This brought about an overall lack of jazz feel. Really only Baculis, Rider and Roby were total jazz musicians, but I'd heard them play better solos than they did at this concert. Besides, the baritone was not Roby's main instrument. There was one highlight, a reading of Ron Collier's Midsummer. It was beautiful, and so was Rider's solo. (Collier is now Baculis' brother-in-law).

Vibraphonist Yvan Landry's quartet of Armas Maiste, piano; Don Habib, bass; and Roger Simard, drums, opened with Night In Tunisia to lead off the Saturday night concert. It was a well-rehearsed band, with every member a fine musician, but despite all that, this was a very unmoving group. The spark was missing.

Veteran drummer Chico Hamilton's new group was the one most were curious about- after years of drawing room music complete with cello, I was delighted to find that this was very much a new group. Charles Lloyd, who doubled on tenor and flute, was the group's musical director. Gabor Szabo was on guitar with the then newcomer from Detroit, George Bohanon, heard on trombone and a young Albert Stinson was the bassist. The evening, except for My Funny Valentine, consisted of originals. The first number really didn't get anywhere, but Szabo's Lady Gabor was a hypnotic piece that featured very good solos from everyone. From then on the concert stayed on a high level musically. The best solos came from Lloyd and Szabo with Bohanon a definite comer. Lloyd played Coltrane-oriented tenor (Paul Bley, who knew him from California, told me that his alto playing was much more personal), and Szabo quite often showed his Hungarian roots. Hamilton had three solos, one each with sticks, mallets and brushes, all done with great taste. The group garnered a standing ovation.

By far the best local entry was the Lee Gagnon band, which opened the Sunday night concert in roaring fashion. The personnel was Gagnon, alto; Bob Roby and Richard Ferland, tenors; Alvin Pall, baritone; AI Penfold and Gilles Laflamme, trumpets; Claude Blouin, trombone; Don Habib, bass; Paul Lafortune, drums; and Vic Vogel, piano, trombone and tuba. The bulk of the arrangements came from Vogel's pen. These included George Russell's Stratusphunk (painter Juanita Odjenar, Russell's ex and Jimmy Giuffre's wife, was backstage and went to the dressing room to get Giuffre to come and hear what the band was playing), Moment's Notice (a vehicle for Pall), Maria and Nardis. It was a very swinging band, with some excellent solos from Roby, Penfold, Vogel and Pall. (This group was sort of a precursor of the Vogel band that remains in existence today).

The most experimental or cutting edge of all the concerts followed- the Jimmy Giuffre 3 with Paul Bley on piano and Steve Swallow on acoustic bass. The majority of the audience had come expecting the folksiness of the Train and the River trio (with Jim Hall and Ralph Pena), and by about the third number, half the house was on its way home. That was too bad, for the trio offered extremely rewarding listening for those who endured. A good deal of the music came close to being completely improvised. What could have become complete chaos didn't, mainly due to the amazing work of Swallow, then a 21-year-old bassist whose ears were among the best of the bass players of the time. No matter how far the other two strayed, he was right there holding it all together. All three had excellent solos, with Giuffre playing only the clarinet in this new trio. Conversations, which was exactly what the title implies, was a highpoint along with three compositions by Paul's then wife, Carla Bley - Postures, Jesus Maria and Ictus. It was both very demanding and very rewarding music for both the musicians and the members of the audience who stayed to listen. That's True, That's True, a feature for Swallow, was the encore.

Brother John Sellers, an excellent singer in the gospel tradition, was assisted by Carl Finger and Don Habib on the first half of the final night's concert. Sellers’ music was as simple as Giuffre's was difficult. The fact that he was a beautiful person came across in everything he did, and I found this part of the concert to be a delight.

Pianist Bernard Peiffer (who, five years earlier, Barry Ulanov had proclaimed to be Art Tatum's successor), with Gus Nemeth on bass, was the night's feature attraction. I made it through three numbers where I was convinced that Bernard had not lost any of his technical facility but also hadn't added much in the way of jazz feeling. Everything was just too decorated for my taste. It seemed that everything came out sounding like a rondo on this or a fugue on that. Nemeth proved to be a excellent bassist.

In summary, it was a far better festival than the previous year. The excellent attendance, I'm sure, was especially rewarding to the hard-working Laurier Herbert, who did all the planning. This turned out to be a much better way to present jazz than to have group after group appear on the same night as was the case with most festivals of the time. The Davis concerts were standouts, with Miles and Swallow the musicians who stood out. Again it was hoped that Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge could be scheduled for the following year. (In hindsight we were extremely fortunate to have heard the groups that Hamilton and Giuffre were leading at this time).

[Coming up- the festival moves to Loew's Theatre in 1963.]

LAST WEEK IN MONTREAL

Jazz of the first order by the world class trio of pianist Steve Amirault, with Ron Séguin on bass and Michel Lambert on drums, was featured at Upstairs on the weekend. If you didn't attend- shame one you! It just doesn't get much better than this locally. Upstairs was also the locale on Thursday for the launch of Joe Sullivan's second CD, Rumours For The Soul, the first release on a brand label, Nu-Jazz. Sullivan's not only a great musician and improviser but also a first-rate jazz composer.

THIS WEEK IN MONTREAL

Steve Amirault’s trio album, with Sean Conly and Tony Moreno, is also scheduled for release on Gio D'Amico's Nu-Jazz label. A launch is planned at Upstairs where pianist Jeff Johnston will be reunited with his old trio mates, bassist Jim Vivian and drummer Mike Billard, this Friday and Saturday. The same nights the trio of another pianist, François Marcaurelle is the feature at Jazzons; the Lorne EIlen Trio at Eddie G's in Hudson has Tim Jackson on piano and Éric Lagacé on bass; while at Boomers in Pointe Claire Village, it's the quartet of Billy Kerr, a superb reedman, with George Nakaidze on piano, Fraser Hollins on bass and Joel Haynes on drums. Something Else, a group made up of tenor saxophonist Kelly Jefferson, guitarist Kenny Bibace, bassist George Mitchell and drummer Martin Auguste is at L'Air du Temps through Sunday,

NEWS AND UPCOMING EVENTS

Our condolences go out to Sylvia Langdon on the loss of her father, Henry J. Langdon on June 1. Oscar Peterson will be receiving an honourary degree from Concordia. John Labelle will be unveiling his second CD on the Jazz Inspiration label come June 19. This one has big band backing, with again Steve Amirault on piano contributing much to the session. Singer Willow Quig will be in the studio this summer with Greg and Steve Amirault. Then she's off to Saudi Arabia to do ten days with Johnny Scott's quartet. Scott's replacement at Biddles has yet to be announced. Randy Cole will be bringing guitar giant Tal Farlow into the Lion d'Or in October. A jazz spot in Old Montreal is scheduled to open by festival time. It’s where Night Magic was located which was also the locale of the second Black Bottom (where Monk and Woody Herman both played). I recently heard from writer Ira Gitler in New York. Assisted by Chris Albertson, Gitler is working on a new edition of The Encyclopedia of Jazz, the first since the seventies. This one will be published by Oxford University Press, probably in 1998. Gitler, who will be 69 later this year, continues to play hockey with his team, the notorious Gitler's Gorillas.

Come jazz festival time, the dynamic duo of Skip Bey and Tim Jackson, with a series of guests, will be at Jazzons nightly from June 26 through July 6. At Upstairs, Greg Amirault and Willow Quig appear on June 26, then on the weekend of June 27 and 28 it’s the trio of American guitarist Ben Monder with Brian Hurley and Andre White and on Sunday, June 29 there's the regular jam session hosted by the Greg Amirault trio. Vocalist John Labelle hits on June 30, with the Brian Dickinson Trio scheduled for Thursday, July 3, followed on the next two nights by the trio of guitarist Ed Bickert.

LOCAL CD NEWS

Canadian trumpeter and Juno Award-winner Ingrid Jensen has just released a second CD. In Canada, in a leasing deal with Enja, it's on Justin Time. Titled Here On Earth, it has Gary Bartz on alto and soprano; George Colligan, piano and keyboards; Dwayne Burno, bass; and Bill Stewart, drums. Vocalist Jill Seifers is heard as a special guest. Music is by the leader, her Montreal-based sister Christine, Colligan, Hank Mobley, Bill and Gil Evans and the late Mercedes Rossi, who died in 1995 at the age of 33. Impressive!

Another marvellous musician from the Canadian West, reedman Seamus Blake is well featured on drummer Victor Lewis' Eeeyyess! (Enja). Recorded in the same Brooklyn studio as Jensen's date, it consists of seven compositions by the leader and one each from the pen of pianists James Williams and Stephen Scott, both of whom play concerts at the festival. Percussionist Don Alias, a one-time Montreal resident, is on this one, along with trumpeter Terell Stafford, pianist Scott and bassist Ed Howard. Alias will also be here come festival time as a member of the Herbie Hancock New Standards band.

For some time pianist Johnny O'Neal was a reason to drop by Biddles where he was featured with Charlie Biddle's trio. Back on April 5, 1985, O’Neal recorded in Elora, Ontario for Hugh Leal's Parkwood label with Dave Young and Terry Clarke. The album has just surfaced on CD on the local Just A Memory label. It's called Soulful Swinging. The seven tracks include music by Wayne Shorter, Ahmad Jamal, Bobby Troup, Fats Waller and a number of standards from the American popular song book.

NEW RELEASES

A man sometimes referred to as the father of Detroit jazz, pianist/educator Barry Harris, has a marvellous new Enja CD featuring his brand of bebop. Recorded in Tokyo on May 29, 1995, with Kunimitsu Inaba on bass and Fumio Watanabe on drums, Live At The Dug has ten cuts, including Barry's line on HHTM changes, Luminescence (not Luminescene as listed here) and Nascimento, plus Bud Powell's Oblivion and

Somebody Loves Me, Cherokee and It Could Happen To You, standards Powell liked to play. Harris, who was 67 last December 15, just gets better and better.

Also of interest to the bebop enthusiast is Live at Birdland (Concord) by guitarist Jimmy Bruno's trio (Craig Thomas, bass and Vince Ector, drums). The explosive alto sax of Bobby Watson joins in on six tracks including Bird's Segment, Au Privave and Anthropology. The trio takes off on Move, Valse Hot, Carl Perkins' Groove Yard and an original by the leader that has a connection with his interest in photography, F-8 - of particular interest to lovers of bebop guitar playing.

Ken Peplowski is a clarinetist/tenor saxophonist with one foot in the tradition. His newest is A Good Place (Concord), recorded in late January of this year with Ben Aronov, piano; Greg Cohen, bass; Chuck Redd, drums; and fellow tenorman Loren Schoenberg. The Schoenberg big band is heard on three pieces, including the three-part Homage Concerto For Clarinet and Jazz Orchestra in movements called Swing, Elegy (For John Carisi) and Driving. The late Carisi was a great composer who I happen to share a birthday with. He wrote Israel and Springsville, among others. This is a good, solid mainstream jazz outing.

Much more edgy is Ode To The Living Tree (Evidence) by that superb drummer Andrew Cyrille. His quintet has Oliver Lake on alto, David Murray on bass clarinet and tenor, Adegoke Steve Colson on keyboards and Fred Hopkins on bass. The eight-tune CD was recorded in December of 1994 in Dakar, Senegal. Mor Thiam, an African drummer, is heard in duets with Cyrille on two tracks. Included are Dakar Darkness by Murray and Coltrane's Love Supreme and Mr. P.C. (for Paul Chambers).

DOBBIN’S DEN (ON RADIO)

Wednesday, June 18, 1997

CKUT (90.3 FM) 9-11:15 AM

Music by the Steve Amirault trio and other festival previews.