live in Moers 1978
Blakey in Moers?? In MOERS???
Oh yes.
"Along Came Betty" and "I Can't Get Started" mixed with improvised music? Hardbopper amongst free spirits such as Cecil Taylor, Paul Rutherford, Misha Mengelberg, Yosuke Yamashita, Han Bennink, Evan Parker, Anthony Braxton and the Globe Unity Orchestra?
Why not?
LIVE IN COLOGNE 1974
In 1958 the Cologne sports hall opened its gates for the first time. From then on until its demolition four decades later it was the city's most important event location – not only for sports but also for music, ranging from swaying carnival parties to Frank Zappa concerts. Probably the most historic evening was the 13th of November 1976, when Wolf Biermann was on stage for four hours. A performance which caused his expatriation from the German Democratic Republic three days later. However, also celebrities from the world of jazz paid a visit from time to time – such as Ella Fitzgerald on the 1st of February 1974.
Live in Berlin 1969
The connotation of jazz and alcohol is as old as the music itself. However, it does not always have to be the almost unavoidable stigma. Maybe it is just a lack of words - but sometimes spirits make surprisingly suitable paraphrases for tone colours. While alto saxophonist Paul Desmond compared his own sound to a dry martini, it was said about baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan that he sounded like beer and schnapps. And a biographer of Sarah Vaughan diagnosed that her voice has changed from that of an elegant wine to a velvety cognac.
BUDDY DEFRANCO QUARTET
LIVE IN COLOGNE 1954
1954 had quite some jazz celebrities in stock for Germany: Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Oscar Peterson, Illinois Jacquet, Coleman Hawkins as well as the big bands of Woody Herman and Count Basie, among others. The year had already started promisingly.
In January twelve US-American musicians travelled to Europe together. An "intimate" alternative to Jazz at the Philharmonic with its sporty battles of rivalling soloists. The title of the tour: Jazz Club USA, named after an identically titled show of Leonard Feather at radio station Voice of America.
MUSIC FOR TWO PIANOS
The dramaturgical sequence of today’s programme takes us deep into the realms of Austrian tradition, right back to a popular old pilgrims‘ song written by Joseph Haydn and modified by Johannes Brahms. But why this as a duet with Josef Zawinul, the star of the international rock-jazz scene? Because he, just like myself, is ingrained in the ancient Austrian tradition. He is an archetypal Viennese musician through and through, who did and does things similar to my own in a style that only he can produce: This means that he opened himself up to international music - not in order to deliver himself up to it, but rather to master it and yet never forget what he owes to his own musical roots.
LIVE IN DÜSSELDORF 1960
Impresario Norman Granz had moved to Switzerland in 1959. He coordinated his JATP-tours from there, which at that time were only successful in Europe anymore. In the following year he even sent off two all-star casts under the slogan Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic Presents Jazz Winners of 1960. The first cast was made up by Ella Fitzgerald, Roy Eldridge, the Jimmy Giuffre Trio and the Shelly Manne Quintet. The second cast brought the Miles Davis Quintet, the Oscar Peterson Trio and the Stan Getz Quartet together.
1960 ESSEN, GRUGAHALLE
In the 50s and 60s, more and more Americans are driven to Europe by racism and the contempt of improvised music in the "motherland of jazz”. The more pleasant cultural climate and better terms of employment are only one side of European exile. The other: a gradual loss of importance; slowly but surely the American scene forgets the protagonists who have run away. The newcomers pay a high price for their acceptance as artists: For years, operating far from the epicenter of jazz music: New York, the international public loses track of them.
1969 DUESSELDORF
The John Coltrane Quartet. An accurate description, as long as one regards a saxophonist as a quasi "natural" leader of a group with an accompanying piano trio. But a band of this name only arose the following year with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones, all of whom changed the course of jazz history.
1961 COLOGNE, GÜRZENICH CONCERT HALL
Especially in the early years of the modern jazz quartet Europe offered a grateful public. It was here that the band celebrated its first successes while in the USA it was still greeted with a certain reservation. On the occasion of the 1000th edition of Joachim-Ernst Berendt's concert series Jazztime Baden-Baden they performed alongside Kurt Edelhagen and Miles Davis in 1956. A Birdland All Stars – Tour brought the MJQ to other German cities as well – sharing a stage with Davis, Lester Young and Bud Powell. Performing right after the tarnished bebop-pianist maximised the audience's enthusiasm for the cultivated quartet.
BENNY CARTER SEXTET
LIVE IN COLOGNE 1961
In September 1959 Julian Adderley left Miles Davis' band and established a quintet together with his brother Net, which turned out to be way more successful than his first one. In November 1960 they set off for their first European tour. The band travelled the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, England and France – as part of Norman Granz’s JATP (Jazz at the Philharmonic) with Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Don Byas, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Lalo Schifrin and J.J. Johnson. The Adderley quintet was assigned the task of opening the shows. However, their contract only assigned them 20 to 30 minutes every evening, which again and again led to criticism during the course of the tour.
1961 COLOGNE, GÜRZENICH CONCERT HALL
In the 1950s Oscar Peterson managed to form the best paid jazz trio without percussion instruments. The resignation of his guitarist and the growing demand for concerts in large halls made him and his future manager Norman Granz think about a new instrumentation: Instead of a chamber musical orchestration with piano, basso and guitar they opted for the classical piano trio - and therefore in favour of acoustically way more prominent drums.
1959 BONN, BEETHOVENHALLE
“I replied, slowly getting concerned that, after five years of drawing room jazz from the 18th Century, I no longer would be able to play the drums again the way I wanted to.“
This was the reaction of the first MJQ's drummer, Kenny Clarke, to the request of John Lewis to stay in the band. He increasingly regarded this discreetly swinging chamber ensemble as a corset, which only strengthened his long cherished wish to leave America. Lewis tried to hold him with luring fees - in vain. With Connie Kay as a successor the group would be constituted, without further personnel changes, and would survive for a quarter of a century.
Live in Berlin 1963
The last event in the history of the Berlin Sportpalast was a jazz concert. Benny Goodman was sounding the conclusive finale. Also in 1958, when "Beatniks dismantled the Sportpalast" (opinion of the press at that time), jazz could be heard on stage: The Kurt Edelhagen orchestra was the opening act of Bill Haley's rock'n'roll-show. Five years later there was another big band on stage, the Count Basie orchestra.
LIVE IN COLOGNE 1963
Fast auf den Tag genau zwei Jahre zuvor hatte das Oscar Peterson Trio an gleicher Stelle gastiert (ebenfalls ein WDR-Mitschnitt, dokumentiert auf Jazzline N 78004). Und ein Großteil der damals Anwesenden kehrte am 27. April 1963 in Erinnerung an ein großartiges Konzert in den Gürzenich zurück. Nicht, um in erster Linie ein neues Repertoire zu hören (auch wenn das Anfang 1963 veröffentlichte Blues-lastige Night Train, das zu Petersons populärstem Album avancieren sollte, den einen oder anderen zusätzlich motiviert haben dürfte), Tourneen standen in jenen Tagen weit weniger als heute unter der Prämisse, aktuell aufgenommenes Material im Anschluss live zu präsentieren.
feat. Charlie Rouse, John Ore & Frankie Dunlop
LIVE IN BERLIN 1961
MARTIAL SOLAL TRIO
feat. Oscar Pettiford & Kenny Clarke
LIVE IN ESSEN 1959
Thelonious Monk and Martial Solal. At a first glance these two men have very little in common.
One of them seems to interrupt the swinging flow with bulky crossbars, allegedly an awkward bull in the china shop of jazz, bouncy and stumbling, a pianistic roughneck. Already his hand position prompts piano teachers to throw their hands up in horror...
1960 ESSEN, GRUGAHALLE
The band that would go down in history as the "classic Brubeck Quartet": Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Gene Wright, Joe Morello, was formed in 1958, two years before the Essen show (once the rhythm section had been changed). The group knew how to unite intellectual with commercial success and quickly became the house band of the universities and colleges.
Live in Cologne 1970
One knew where one stood with him. A stylistically reliable factor, from whom any jazz innovation seemed to bounce off like flotsam from a rock. With his physique alone Oscar Peterson radiated dominance, let alone with his performance. A Sun King on the piano, the absolute master of the trio, who – his co-musicians positioned behind his back – hardly needed any eye contact to convey his nonverbal stage directions.
CHRISTMAS REVISITED
2007 AT STADTGARTEN, COLOGNE
Christmas Revisited is one of the last recordings of guitarist, singer and composer Hiram Bullock, who died in New York in 2008. Together with the WDR Big Band Cologne this "Christmas Concert" was recorded on December 21, 2007 at the Stadtgaten in Cologne under the direction of Michael Abene.
Live at the Opernhaus, Cologne 1969
"E as in all good things, E as in Edward, E as in excellency, E as in elegance! In short: E as in Ellington!" One of the many witticisms of the Duke.
It comes as no surprise that the grand seigneur of jazz with posh attitudes, whose aristocratic nickname seemed to be a fitting first name to many people, did hold court in a temple of high culture.