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LET IT BLEED — Rolling Stones — London NPS4

There’s nothing mysterious about the new Stones album and that’s as it should be. Like the Stones themselves, it’s all right there, readily accessible to all of Us (if not to Them). And, exactly because it’s so accessible, it doesn’t tell us anything new about the Stones; it merely reaffirms our knowledge and suspicions about what is probably the best rock and roll band in the world. If the Beatles are the master brain-surgeons of rock, the Stones are its genius general practitioners.

There are three songs on this record that stand out enough to be worthy of lengthy comment. Since we’ll save Gimme Shelter, Midnight Rambler and You Can’t Always Get What You Want for last; they also seem to have a few common elements. All I can hope to do for you, anyway, is to suggest some ways to look at things; the Stones (on record at least) are above criticism, but not reflection.

Love In Vain is as good a starting point as any. As I’ve already noted, it presents us with nothing new. We’ve known for a long, long time that the Stones could play blues, that Jagger could sing, that Richards is an excellent guitarist. View Love In Vain then as an artifact, a present from a supremely cultural band. And, as a cult, they get away with things. Love In Vain is no work of great inventiveness; it does happen to be one in a series of excellent presentations of white bluesmanship. The Stones aren’t vanguard, in any sense, they’re merely the best.

Both Love in Vain and Country Honk, however, reveal something more about the Stones. That is their involvement with the electric now, what is in vogue or merely in. Country Honk is no real substitute for Honky Tonk Women. Honky Tonk is the real version, the one they’ll play on the radio in ensuing eons. Yet it is natural that the Stones would present us with a country tune on this record; true, they’d done Dear Doctor on Beggars’ Banquet but country is doubly au courant this season.

It’s this very sense of what is hip NOW that makes the Stones what they are, at least to a certain extent. Their genius lies not so much in being trend-setters as trend definers. For further examples of that we can look back to both Their Satanic Majesties Request and Between The Buttons. Satanic, obviously, the prime example of late ‘67 pretentiousness (along with Bathing at Baxters)', Between The Buttons, not so obviously, an excellent example of Dylanesque folk-rock circa 1966. Thus, Mick Jagger can’t even remember where his head was at when he did that record. That time’s done with and, as much as one may love Buttons, Let It Bleed is still the problem at hand. Country Honk, by any estimation, will stand as an artifact of 1969 country rock influence, just as we can look fondly back to Something Happened To Me Yesterday.

In Country Honk, we have once again the Stones’ obstinate refusal to put their hits on lps. Rember how long it took to have an album version of Mothers’ Little Helper or Dandelion1. We haven’t yet got We Love You (though it is on the British version of Through the Past Darkly). The analogy is, however, most apt between Country/Honky Tonk and Have You Seen Your Mother Baby Standing In The Shadows. It was first presented on Got Live If You Want It, the live lp, changed to a certain extent much as Honky Tonk Woman is transformed here. And then on Flowers which, like Through The Past, consisted mostly of redone oldies. The Stones don’t care. Again, that’s old news and Honky Tonk or Country Honk is only a reaffirmation of their Teddy Boy stance.

Mick Taylor, like Brian Jones on the second side, makes his appearance only in two songs on this side. If this is to facilitate comparison, let’s just say Brian wins on points. Country Honk and Live With Me are both fine songs but neither has the totally withering effect of You Got The Silver or, obviously, Midnight Rambler. But Brian is dead and, significantly, the tour has overshadowed this album in which he makes his final appearance. Live With Me is the first Jagger sexsong of the record. “Doncha think there’s a place for you/in between the sheets” is the Dada of Jagger extended two years from “Lets spend the night together/Now I need you more than ever”. And it really isn’t impossible that he might one day sing “Come on now baby and gimme me some head”. This is one of the sleepers of the set. It has some of the same feeling of Stupid Girl, leading one to believe it may be fondly remembered and often played in the next few months.

Live With Me is only a warmup, however, for the ending of side one, Let It Bleed. It’s significant, in a way, that it is Ian Stewart, a sort of sixth Stone, who plays piano on this cut. It was Stewart who played piano on the first album {England’s Newest Hitmakers). Or isn’t significant at all really, I just thought it was nice.

If one wasn’t familiar with synchronicity, he might almost think “there’s always someone you can lean on” predicted Altamont. “You all need someone you can cream on” is predictable Jagger sexual posturing. As usual, Jagger is ice-cold, untouchable; “take my arms, take my legs/ oh baby don’t you take my head”. But “you all need someone you can bleed on” points at that something darker about the Stones that’s been blatant since Satanic Majesties and was definitely present before (the earliest familiar example being As Tears Go By though Paint It Black is much more obvious). It’s also true that it has become more and more up front since Andrew Loog Oldham left (after Aftermath) though what that means I hardly dare to guess.

Is You Got the Silver a vehicle for Keith Richards or a showcase for Brian Jones? In any case, it proves two things; in a group without Mick Jagger, Keith Richards would be as big as Eric Clapton. And in a group without Keith Richards, Brian Jones would have the acclaim, pre-humously, of a Paul McCartney. Jones’ autoharp is nearly the lead instrument in this song. And Charlie Watts is still the finest straightforward, meat-and-potatoes drummer ever.

Bill Wyman, easily the most novice vibes player ever, is also the least charismatic Rolling Stone. Monkey Man is his song as surely as was In Another Land. The vibes are ian excellent touch, reminding me, in my more mawkish moments, of Miles’ equally ethereal trumpet playing on In A Silent Way.

Lyrically, Jagger is back to being “a trifle too satanic”. If all of Mick’s friends aren’t junkies it certainly doesn’t hurt his image any to claim they are. The gibberish at the end, combined with the power of the lyrics, leaves you with the impression that rather than mere monkey-man, he’s a monkey-demon.

Now for the good stuff. Gimme Shelter doesn’t present us with any new concepts at all. It’s merely the Rolling Stones doing what they’re definably best at, hard white r’n’b. With the incredible added touch of Mary Clayton (who as it turns out is Bonnie Bramlett). Nothing hipper thanr Delaney and Bonnie, y’know.

Gimme Shelter is the most fitting possible choice for this record’s first cut. It almost makes the album seem a search for an elusive shelter, where you can’t be touched. And at times it does seem to be only a kiss or a shot away. But we all know what they decide at the end. Hard Knox and Durty Sox indeed.

And we’re about to come upon some songs where we might wish for shelter, at the very least. Midnight Rambler is a horrifying fantasy and You Can’t Always Get What You Want is more horrifying than that precisely because it destroys all of our fantasies.

Midnight Rambler is a siren call to suck us into a favorite fantasy. I’ve tossed around the notion that the reference might be to Eldridge Cleaver, the only rapist in recent memory who’s become “a proud Black Panther”. And it also might be the way in which Eldridge will return...“knife sharpened/tippy toe”. It’s certainly natural for the Stones to dig the Panthers; they’re definitely in vogue.

But Midnight Rambler says a hell of a lot more about Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones (but mostly Mick) than it does about anything else, including stxual fantasy. It’s a deadly song, done with the precision only the Rolling Stones have. The harp, the siren calling to the deadly enchantments of this peculiar rapist who is also “busy puttin’ on a rock and roll show”; Jagger, about to tell us a tale, with or without message; “Did you hear...?/ Everybody got to know”.

With the phrase “listen when you hear him moan”, Jagger starts to build a startling portrait of a totally unregenerate, vengeful and malicious back door man. A prowler with super-lust.

But he’s still a rock and roll star and here is the realization that Jagger and the Midnight Rambler are inseperable. Whether Jagger IS the Rambler is insignificant at this point; he’s assumed the identity for the moment. Then Charlie and Keith and Bill pick the music up and begin to drive it home. (A headphone revelation; Brian’s percussion is tambourine/maracas). Then Mick “Don’t do that, oh don’t do that”. Just like Going Home, the rapist gloating over his prey—totally insane, of course and the more impressive for that. Jagger is either a superb actor or really a rambler of sorts.

That’s the climax. The harp becomes a whimper, then a moan. Then dies out and comes back as strong as ever as Jagger makes his proclamation of strength. He refuses to name himself outright (“Boston...WHAP”) What is it? A beserk Charlie Manson? Who else but Mick Jagger has the nerve to come on as a boastful Rosemary’s Baby? And it’s not sympathy for the devil he’s asking on Let It Bleed', this time he wants respect and, it’s true, fear. And the whole final sequence would scare the shit out of you if you really took it seriously. It scares the shit out of me, anyway. Because he finally admits it— I’m gonna smash down your stained glass window“ and then finally, did you see ME make my midnight crawl?” And you know, at this point, with an unmistakable shudder that Mick Jagger is fully capable of sticking “his knife right down your throat baby/And it hurts”.

The absolute ending, You Can ’t Always Get What You Want. Perhaps the most remarkable song in the set, certainly the most ambitous and (surprisingly) the most successful. Each piece of the tune is in perfect context, all patterned to deliver the ultimate message, the antidote to “I can’t get no”. You can’t always get what you want but if you try sometime you just might find. Who’d have thought that Satisfaction would lead to this?

The choir, reiterating the title several times over, is desperate as Jagger on Satisfaction. Keith comes in with his guitar at exactly the same point as the choir delivers our release; “but if you try sometime you just might find you get what you NEED”. Kooper’s French horn solo is nothing short of beautiful, setting up Mick perfectly for the first verse.

If You Can’t Always Get What You Want has any comparisons available with previous Rolling Stones work, the song it matches up with is Ruby Tuesday. Dig Jagger:

“1 saw her today at the reception

A glass of wine in her hand

I knew she was gonna meet her connection

At her feet was a foot-loose man”

The same sob vocal that opened “Goodbye Ruby Tuesday”. And the band doesn’t come in til after the verse. Exactly the same as the band doesn’t come in til after the first verse of Ruby Tuesday. Mick here against Keith’s guitar, the perfect doomsayer. But the band stays, doesn’t drop out again for the next verse as in R.T.

Now we’re brought up against the Stone’s politics. Politics which can only be characterized as the most blatant cynicism, a la Street Fighting Man. Mick again:

“I went down to the demonstration

To get my fair share of abuse”

Then the chorus, this time as a chant with the able assistance of the three young lovelies. Kooper begins to play those incredible piano/organ things that he hasn’t given us since Blonde On Blond and Highway Sixty-one. And the significance of that final verse? Remember he went down to get YOUR prescription filled. Yet it is still his song he sings and the final response from Mr. Jittersjagger, who are eventually the same person (just like the Midnight Rambler)-Death. And you wonder about Altamont?

Jagger has the balls to proceed to SCREECH into the face of that oh so lovely choir. Absolute agony. And there are no illusions left:

“She was practicing the art of deception

I could tell by her bloodstained bands”

so that we are left with only the incongruity of a Jagger/Bach Choir courtship. Jagger is totally alone at the end of the song. (Note the change after the first verse to the accompaniment by the full band and from third to first person. And the change back again after the sequence with Mr. Jitters.)

A most desperate record, fully free in its creation and in the end stymied by Jagger’s recognition that he is exactly so accessible to so many of us because he is a part of our fantasies. He embodies them, just as Dylan did three years ago with Highway Sixty-one Revisited.

Without carrying that analogy too far, one might see some parallels between the two albums. Both are somewhat desperate albums, both apocalyptic in their vision. Just as You Can’t Always Get What You Want embodies 1969 so did Like A Rolling Stone appear as the summation of 1966. And the Midnight Rambler of Let It Bleed might be the Thin Man of Highway Sixty-one.

Further, both albums come at the height of the artists’ careers. Another Side liberated Dylan from the strictures of folk as Satanic Majesties freed the Stones from white rhythm and blues. Thus we are presented with Bringing It All Back Home and Beggars’ Banquet, both flawed to some • extent but still remarkable. If the Stones’ next record can come up to othe perfection of Blonde On Blonde, there is ample room to rejoice.

But what they have finally left us with (and, again, the similarity to what Dylan leaves is striking) is a portrait of a very desperate situation. Jagger and Company don’t want to lead us out of the wilderness either. Which is all well and good. We may not have received quite what we wanted but then again...

“If you try sometime, you might find

You get what you need”

Dave Marsh

SWISS MOVEMENT - Les McCann and Eddie Harris - Atlantic SD 1537 Compared To What; Cold Duck Time; Kathleen’s Theme; You Got It In Your Soulness; Generation Gap. McCann piano, vocal; Harris, tenor sax; Benny Bailey, trumpet; Leroy Vinnegar, bass; Donald Dean, drums.

Les McCann’s music is pretty much a drag. I can think of no other musician whose improvisations are as consistantly lackluster (there are others but I can’t think about ‘em) No matter what song he’s playing, no matter what the changes or mood, he still manages to get in the same old funky licks. And the weird part is that he is very popular. The only explanation I can think of is that people who really dig McCann are the ones who consider music an accessory - or something to put in their drinks.

Actually, this ain’t such a bad record despite McCann. Part of the reason is Compared To What. McCann sings here and his rough edged blues styling is appealing. The song is a funky butt shaker with heavy lyrics. The contrast works - it feels good. Any song that can carry lyrics like “unreal values - crass distortion/unwed mothers need abortion” and still keep trucking has to feel good. In case you’ve heard this cut on the radio and wondered what words were bleeped out, I’ll tell you, if you promise . not to get all upset and immoral. The words were “god damn it” (bleeped on WCHD-FM and WGPR-FM). The words are essential to the feeling of frustration concerning the dwindling reality of social institutions which is implicit in the song. I don’t understand why the fuck anyone would censor it. I always thought of McCann’s audience as really earthy dudes. Dumb hypocrites.

Another part of the reason that this record isn’t unbearably obtuse is Eddie Harris. Harris is versatile. On Duck and Soulness he plays easy funk solos which are marked by his individual tone. Then on ' Theme and ‘Gap he turns around and plays nice Coltrane derived solos that leave McCann way behind. It’s a simple pleasure to hear Harris stretch out like this. But he deserves more sympathetic surroundings.

Trumpeteer Qailey’s solos on Compared consist of some fat sloppy high ’notes. But he pretty much gets himself together before the album ends. He doesn’t get much sympathy either.

The thing about McCann is that he just likes to play what he thinks feels right - which is admirable.

I used to like him when Fabian was popular and Dave Brubeck was bizarre. But it isn’t like that anymore.

Richard C. Walls

THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BANDATCO SD 33-308

Twenty Tour hours ago, I had never. heard of the Allman Brothers Band. The name isn’t a play on words, which is what I thought when I first heard it. I’ve been told that Duane Allman is a sometime lead guitarist for Aretha and a virtuoso performer in the Muscle Shoals studio band which previously produced Steve Cropper and recently backed up Boz Scaggs in his album. The group is a Blues band in the same sense that Steve Miller and Blood Sweat and Tears are blues bands. There are two lead guitarists and two drummers, all of whom play on all cuts; sometimes it works and Sometimes it doesn’t. They can blame most of the doesn’t side of it on the mixing which, unfortunately, just wasn’t up to the level on which the group itself performed.

The vocals are handled by Duane’s brother, ‘Gregory, who sings in a beltinggroaning style reminscent of BST’s David Clayton-Thomas, but lacking the latter performer’s range and polish. He comes across pretty well except on the last cut on the first side, on which he just can’t seem to get it together.

Don’t Want You No More (by Spencer Davis and Edward Hardin) is a short up-tempo intrumental which opens with a simple organ thing, goes through some nice guitar riffs, a guitar duet, and then feeds into It’s Not My Cross To Bear, which is a bluesy tune with lyrics composed of old blues-jive cliches thrown together pretty meaninglessly. In general, their lyrics for the five cuts which they wrote just ain’t very heavy. They end it with a psy-kee-del-lik false ending, a la old Hendrix or Steve Miller.

Black Hearted Woman falls victim to shitty engineering. The vocals and instrumentals just don’t stand out against the heavy background. Even so, its probably the best cut on the side.

On Trouble No More, an old Muddy Waters tune, they just don’t seem to be able to get it together. The arrangement is bad and doesn’t fit Greg Allman’s vocal style at all. Also, the background sounds too much, like the one that they used on Black Hearted Woman, and, while it worked on that tune, it doesn’t make it on this one.

One of the nicest things about side one, is that it makes you appreciate side two. Every Hungry Woman is another heavy sound blues. It has a nice guitar instrumental on which Allman and Betts exchange leads and Allman does some outasite slide guitar work.

Dreams is the best cut on the album. The style of guitar on this one is similar to Spirit’s Randy California. It’s also got the best lyrics of any of their songs, a nice use of heavy feedback which varies from an eerie wailing sound to a sound similar to an electric sax.

The last cut, Whipping Post, is another loud and heavy jazz—blues number, with a BST style arrangement. Its got guts and comes off well.

This is one of those albums that you play when you’re into something else and don’t feel like listening to the radio because they might play something that would distract you. You just can’t remember what’s on it fifteen minutes after you’ve finished listening to it. None of the cuts is really exceptional in any respect, and the arrangements are all pretty much alike. Its a decent album, it ain’t bad but it ain’t gonna knock you on your ass

Cary Gordon

STEALIN: A BOOTLEG ALBUM

Stealin’ reveals a hunger for the younger Dylan, some say the older. Can one imagine three years from now bootleg versions of songs similar to Peggy Dayl I can’t conceive of even those who like Nashville Skyline wanting more. There’s a vacuum to be filled and Dylan created it.

Let’s see...just a collection of songs, no real perspective for the future. The sound quality is improved from Great White Wonder, now equivalent to a decent 78 RPM.

Can I Please Crawl Out Your Window is respectable Highway 61 material, some good verse, tough perspective and nice backing.

Cont. Next Page

Following is an unreleased version of It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry. This time in hard rock, with Dylan shouting over the band. Bad sound here is grating, reduction of treble kills whatever recording presence there is, no way . ..

Killing Me Alive I find pretentious lyrically, good backing, reportedly Kooper and Bloomfield.

If You Gotta Go is nice, sharp lyrics, easygoing melody, describing the classic sexual situation. She Belongs To Me is no bargain. Good song, but no marked difference between this and the Columbia version.

Same with Love Minus Zero retitled here My Love Waits Like Silence, which doesn’t change much.

Side two begins with a version of It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue that is atmospheric enough for me to want a bottle of burgundy. Dylan’s voice here is more relaxed than on the Columbia, more expresssive. Almost no harp is employed and a few small word changes I don’t like.

Cough Song I liked and ends with a cough.

New Orleans is pedestrian blues, about finding a whore.

That’s All Right Mamma isn’t in a finished performance, but if stones are to be cast let them fly at the producers, whoever they are, for Dylan didn’t authorize.

Hard Times In New York I like better than Talkin’ New York, more spirited, harsher lyrics. Dylan’s guts are evident.

Stealin, a traditional, is done in his earlier, good natured style.

Wade In The Water: it is nice to hear Dylan’s older, or younger voice, as is with much of the album, but if you want a great performance, look elsewhere.

The final cut, Cocaine, is nicely performed, what there is of it, the tape runs out...

Hardly a solid album, and the price is expensive ($6.98 in Detroit) so I guess it’s up to your hunger, and love for Dylan.

Don Jennings

THROB - Gary Burton - Atlantic SD 1531 Henninger Flats; Turn of the Century; Chickens; Arise, Her Eyes; Prime Time; Throb; Doin’ the Pig; Triple Portrait; Same Echos. Burton, vibes, piano; Jerry Hahn, guitar; Richard Greene, violin; Steve Swallow, bass; Bill Goodwin, drums.

Hahn has the piercing sensuality of a good rock guitarist which makes the melody that much more attractive on Flats. The fluidity and general ethereal (but not wispy) nature of the three lead instruments makes the sound here pretty thick.

Century is a beautiful tune. This album has an unusually high number of memorable melodies. This one contrasts a gentle music box theme with a stamp rock chorus. The instrumentation remains thick and just what determines whether or not you will like it I can’t say. Burden’s solos don’t move forward--they absorb time through some gentle osmosis. He has as much, if not more, of a feeling for what the peculiar vibe sound can do, apart from prescribed musical forms, as Milt Jackson. Quite a sentence.

Chickens has an appropriate barnyard melody. Good clean fun with composer, Swallow, hogging all the solo space (get it? Barnyard? Hogging? Ha Ha!). Reviewjng records has made me flakey.

Arise, also by Swallow, is another beauty, a slow ballad with a peaceful reading by Burton. Greene sounds like a thousand and one strings supplying a lush background.

Prime is normal, how the group cooks and all that, with a violin solo which can pass on origkiality simply because it’s a violin. Which is an original thing to be in this context.

Throb is the masterpiece of the set starting out like Procol Harum’s Salty Dog and going into a melancholy bent melody with unexpected changes. This is space music, the icy dissonance of a human heart beating on the moon’s surface. Lovely.

Pig blows a promising title by not being noticeably satirical. Greene is fast on this and the violin begins to catch fire. But his solo is too short, as are most of the solos on this album.

Portrait is relaxing the new sound. The new sound that’s spreading and becoming less new every minute. The new sound which is on this record is jazz-rock or vice versa (razz-jock). It is evident on most of the cuts here. It’s not really jazz-rock, it’s just a different sound. The Fourth Way has it. Steve Marcus does it. And this song (Portrait) sounds like what they play when they don’t play the other way, the different way. I am trying to be explicit about something I normally wouldn’t try to say. Because the words, aside from the technical ones, aren’t around. Forget it.

On Echoes the main difference between Hahn and a good rock guitarist is his use of space. His attack and tone are hard-good. But the spirit of the listener begins to withdraw by the ninth cut. Too many cuts, which is the result of not taking enough time to explore the songs more. Anyway, everybody’s cool except the drummer who doesn’t make an impression.

This is a good unearthly record with imagination and originality.

Richard C. Walls

LITTLE SONNY - NEW KING OF THE BLUES HARMONICA - Enterprise ENS1005

(ED. NOTE.: Boot Hill is a legendary Ann Arbor/Chicago piano player who is presently keyboard man with Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels.)

Really great mix; good sound. Bass is

nice and strong, the band has great sound. SOUND. Harp sound is real good. Reminds me of a slightly weak little Walter. The man must be young because, though his playing is very good, it lacks the “finesse” of most of

the probably less-educated old-style Black men such as Walter (I’m guessing); the simple but more confident sound of a more simple type of person. (Not derogatory!)

I have always been under the assumption that all the good taste (appreciation of all aspects of music but leaning heavily in this case on the simpler, more basic things) that is expressed by a player is gotten by experience which explains why, though Sonny is a good player he perhaps does not know his instrument backwards and forwards like the older cats.

The record will probably appeal to most. And should. It’s a good album, Sonny’s a good player and I’m sure that this album is just a taste of things to come. Unless he gets way out in left field - I doubt it - I hope not. It’s a real good album although some of the playing gets a little monotonous at times. But I really like it. I’ll probably even buy the fuckin’ thing. And I never hardly buy any records.

Boot Hill

THE PLASTIC ONO BAND: LIVE PEACE IN TORONTO 1969 Apple SW3362

This is more historical document than rock and roll record, though the opening side is certainly worth the price (5.98; apparently the Beatles can’t find the means to charge us only as much as an “ordinary” band. And it’s especially offensive as a result of a live concert, making the expenses rrfinimal.) At any rate, there is some classic rock music presented here and presented damn well. And after all, John Lennon, despite Yoko Ono, is still a Beatle.

The set opens with announcer jive or a jive announcer; either way it’s one of the most offensive introductions ever heard. You’ll probably want to turn it down. But the opening rush into Blue Suede Shoes and quick segue to Money

are an energy orgy. Money seemingly the problem of all Lennon’s quasi-hassles with Apple/Beatles, this cut may indicate more than at first seems apparent. But I doubt it.

A short stop then the Clapton/Lennon guitars jump into one of the classic Beatle tunes ever, Dizzy Miss Lizzy. This doubles the energy of the original, with Lennon’s voice at 29 sounding as young and happy as it did at 25. And, given the changes he’s gone through, that’s about all you can ask.

Cold Turkey is easily the best song on the album, if only by virtue of being the freshest. Lennon sounds like an eerie tomcat, Yoko cutting in and out of it like a demented Oriental simian. But after that it’s all downhill.

Give Peace A Chance is certainly the most offensive song I’ve heard in.many, many months. It’s-interesting that this song was released hard upon the death of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. It’s a shame that one has to judge the song in this manner, but, on the other hand, when a song has pretensions to politics, it deserves to be judged politically. And politically Give Peace A Chance is nothing short of jive. Also about three years late.

As for Yoko’s gobbling on the second side, it may be cute and it may be avant-garde and it may be groovy, but it’s still shit. (And no one 1 know listens to that side much).

Dave Marsh

Two Out of Three Decades of Jazz

It’s a temptation to write about something I don’t know much about just to see if I can be elusive and peripheral enough to give the impression that I know more than I do. It’s a temptation I’m going to resist.

Blue Note records has released three 2-record sets under the heading Blue Notes’ Three Decades of Jazz, commemorating their thirty years of existence. Each 2-record set covers ten years and since Blue Note has been associated with an unusual amount of influential musicians, I’ll try to give you an idea of what you’ll find if you choose to pick up on this.

The first decade (1939-1949) is where I will resist temptation. There are 21 cuts on these two records going from Boogie Woogie Stomp recorded by pianist Albert Ammons in Jan., 1939 to Tin Tin Der recorded by James Moody and His Bop Men in Dec., 1948. Of the 21 cuts, 17 are of a type of music I’ve

never listened to before and which I’ve always considered hopelessly dated. (A point to be made: this is not the pop music of the ‘39 to ‘49 period, the music that mom and dad listened to-unless they were very hip.) But listening to those 17 cuts, really listening to this stuff for the first time, I found many moments of relevance among the antiquities. Like Sidney Becket’s soprano saxon Summertime (June, ‘39)-if you can accept his wide vibralto then you’ll find nothing antique about the feeling of this piece. Like Charlie Christian’s guitar on Profoundly Blue (Feb., ‘41)-really funky. Josh White singing “good morning / blues

how do you do” on Milk Cow Blues. And others. This music, old as it is, is very new to me. So I won’t pretend knowledge and tell you how interesting it is when I’m just beginning to discover that myself.

The remaining four cuts are bop types. Dameronia by the Todd Dameron Sextet (Sept., ‘47) and the James Moody piece have already been reissued on Bluenote’s 25th Anniversary Album and are of more historical interest than anything else. But two cuts by Thelonius Monk and friends, ’Round Midnight (Nov., ‘47) and Epistrophy (July, ‘48) are masterpieces. Monk’s playing hasn’t changed much in the last 20 years. He started out extremely weird and then, when the public caught up with him in the early ‘60’s, became extremely popular (made the cover of Time)-finally refusing to be anything but Monk, he was shunted into his present position, that of a highly respected anachronism. The tracks here have the dissonance and whole scale

runs, weird rythmic melodies and Milt Jackson before he settled down.

II

During 1949-1959 Bluenote was busy recording artists who, with rare exception, were to become associated with bigger labels and, more important, were to become prime movers in modern music.

Side one of the two record set from this era is tight with the hard bop of the early ‘50’s.

The Bud Powell Trio starts it withal Night In Tunisia (May, ‘51). Pianist Powell, whose life was plagued by insanities and who died in ‘66, was the major innovator of modern jazz piano (Monk was too weird to be directly imitated so his influence was less than Powell’s). Since Powell has had so many imitators over the years,many of them honest people who have started with his thing and carried it on into their own, this cut cannot possibly seem as fantastic as it once did. But Powell is still more advanced, i.e., less afraid than many pianists floating around today. Drummer Max Roach’s brush work is speedy and right on top of Powell’s imagination.

Monk makes an appearance with Criss Cross (July, ‘51), an even more bizarre song than Epistrophy with Jackson again on vibes and drummer Art Blakey keeping Monk’s rhythm pattern in perspective. Jackson, who goes through Monk’s changes with ease, should record with Monk today. It would be a healthy change for both of them.

Bag’s Groove (April, ‘52) is by the Milt Jackson Quintet, which is actually what was to become the original Modern Jazz Quartet-Jackson, vibes; John Lewis, piano; Percy Heath, bass; and Kenny Clarke, drums-here with the addition of Lou Donaldson on alto sax. This is the first of Donaldson’s four appearances on these records which

admirably charts his disintegration. This time he takes a heavy blues solo tempered by the multi-noted bop approach. It’s still'fresh. Later, we see how Donaldson’s quest for bread causes him to become embarrassingly dull (remember AlligatorBuggalooT)

The highlight of Get Happy (June, ‘53) by the Jay Jay Johnson Sextet is a beautiful trumpet solo by Clifford Brown-despite its brevity, it manages to build to a screaming climax. Brown is also featured on the last cut of the side Cherokee (Aug., ‘53). His brassy fire approach was the exact opposite of Miles’ and his influence is heard today in varying degrees, most notably in the playing of Lee Morgan. He died in a car crash in 1956.

Side two opens with It Never Entered My Mind (Mar. ’54), a ballad by the Miles Davis Quartet with Horace Silver on piano. It is impossible to imagine a combination consisting of the Silver and Davis today. Silver has modified his approach into strong but predictable funk patterns while Miles subdued lyricism has developed into a SOrt of high energy moan (and faster complex lines) played against a polyrythmic background. Here they are both quiet and lyrical and quite peaceful.

Silver, a mainstay of Bluenote records and one of the few artists who became well known and didn’t leave the label, is back on the next cut with a 1956 quintet playing Senor Blues. This was when Silver was still making inroads into a combination of blues and “modern” jazz--trumpeter Donald Byrd and tenor saxaphonist Hank Mobley play the combination in what has become standard solos. The song has a careful attractive arrangement, more elaborate than is customary in small groups with this instrumentation, but a trademark with Silver.

Everybody knows Jimmy Smith, big time organ player. Back in 1957 when hardly anyone knew him, he recorded Yardbird Suite, the old Charlie Parker line, with Lou Donaldson, alto sax, Kenny Burrell, guitar and Art Blakey, drums. The organ/guitar group has been done past death (turn on WCHD-FM, Detroit’s mainstream jazz station, at random and the chances are overwhelmingly in your favor that if the song being played isn’t a vocal it will feature an organ) but 14 years ago it was a pretty new thing. So this cut doesn’t have the usual laborious licks but rather a good solo by Donaldson, still the blues tinged bopper, and a solo by Smith that hints at the monstrous cliches to come (like held notes) but satisfies with it’s continual motion — no dubious tension through repitition or the playing exclusively of predetermined blues phrases.

Tenortitan John Coltrane dominates side three which consists of two Sept. ‘57 cuts, Speak Low by the Sonny Clark Sextet and Blue Train by the John

Coltrane Sextet. Trane had just left Monk and was heavy into his “sheets of sound”. Compared to the other soloists here, people like pianist Clark, trumpeter Lee Morgan, trombonist; Curtis Fuller, etc., Coltrane’s approach is startling in its radical handling of rhythm, chords and its ecstatic emotionalism. Especially on Blues. A very sad but agressive solo.

Lou Donaldson comes back again to close the 2-record set with Blues Walk (July ’58) performed by quartet and conga. Donaldson had begun to economize on notes by now, playing less and unfortunately saying less as he eased himself further into the blues bag. But this isn’t as boring as some of his later pieces and moves along in an easy loping style.

The value of these 13 cuts chosen to represent the 1949-1959 decade is changeable.

The variety of styles and the nuances of quality, and more important the factor of personal preference, makes it impossible to sum up a reaction to this collection in one viable sentence. So I won’t try. Except to say it would be a positive one.

Another way out of the bop thing was being sounded by tenor saxophonist, Sonny Rollins, whose quartet leads off side four with Tune Up (Sept., ‘57). His fat hard sound and contrasting medolicism are well represented. Rollins has always struck me as b£ing a great “idea” man, able to take an unspectaculamusical phrase and explore it in a series of inventive transformations. Good stuff with Wynton Kenny, piano; Doug Watkins, bass; and Philly Joe Jones, drums.

FrorH Oct., ‘58 comes an edition of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers that featured Lee Morgan, trumpet; Benny Golson, tenor sax; Bobby Timmons, piano; Jymie Merritt, bass and Blakey, drums. The song is Moanin’, one of Timmons’ popular blues pieces performed with the usual big Blakey beat and relaxed funkiness. Morgan was young, flashy and his solo has an immediate quality, but Timmons’ funky exuberance seems dated.

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Side one of the 1959-69 jams is a soul fest. But the spirit is always a little low or at least a little slow. This is the side of Bluenote that pops up most often on the radio. Very easy to take. To talk too much about it would defeat the simple good feeling that the music inspires. First is Back At The Chicken Shack (April, ‘60) with Jimmy Smith, organ; Stanley Turentine, tenor sax, Kenny Burrell, guitar; and Donald Baily, drums. The freshness was gone'but rigor mortis had yet to set in.'Then Ike Quebec on tenor leads Blue & Sentimental (Dec., ‘61) with a sensitive bluish solo by guitarist Grant Green backed by Paul Chambers, bass and Philly Joe Jones, drums. Finally, a Latin thing, Chittlins Con Came (Jan., ‘63) with the ever popular Kenny Burrell and Stanley Turrentine.

Side two features two trumpet hits, the first being Donald Byrd’s Cristo Redentor (Jan., ‘63) from his record A New Perspective. The perspective was new for Detroiter Byrd who had been mainly a small group post-bop trumpeter and was here teatured with a septet and vocal choir. The theme was religious (“Christo Redentor” means Christ the Redeemer in, I believe, Portuguese) and the mood was extravagent without being lush. A slow blues. As usual, the success of this work lead to some bad imitations, one by Byrd himself.

Sprawning even more imitations was The Sidewinder (Dec., ‘63) by trumpeter Lee Morgan. The combination of a jerky rhythm (like: to jerk) and Morgan’s blues leanings proved very popular. After its release almost all Bluenote records featuring artists out of the modern mainstream had at least one attempt at another Sidewinder. Too bad. But the original is fun and it’s weird hearing Barry Harris play funky piano.

Side three opens with a piece of the avant-garde. During the last decade Bluenote has featured some of the best new music on record and it’s a pity more of it wasn’t represented in this collection (personal tastes aside, I have to concede that this anthology does have a very fair balance of the different types of jazz featured on Bluenote). The piece of new weirdness here is Out to Lunch (Feb., ‘64) led by Eric Dolphy on alto sax with Freddie Hubbard, trumpte; Bobby Hutcherson, vibes; Richard Davis, bass; and Tony Williams, drums. The rhythm section was perfect for Dolphy’s highly personal spontaneous registrations. Anyone who has heard him on one of his European recordings and felt the frustrating struggling of Dolphy with an unsympathetic background will especially dig the flowing quality of his work here. Flexible, responsive, and inventive, floating in and out of rhythms and moods but always logical, the rhythm section (Tony Williams was only 18 then) make the trip fascinating. Colorful.

The other song on the side is Horace Silver’s hit Song For My Father (Oct., ‘64). This is good hard funk thanks to Joe Henderson’s good hard funky tenor sax solo. Henderson, who usually leans further out than this, knows how to build blues without using cliches. Silver doesn’t, but he owns most of the cliches so he comes out honest.

The final side opens with one of tenor saxophonist Stanly Turrentine’s tenor with big band bits called River’s Invitation (April, ’65). I could never understand Turrentine’s appeal. He always seems to be struggling to get the notes out, possibly a contrivance to make him sound earthier, and once the notes are out they’re always the same. Anyway, he’s helped here by Percy Mayfield’s melody, an attractive blues riff and by Oliver Nelson’s gutty arrangement.

Next, another sound from the avant-garde, the Ornette Coleman trio jdaying European Echoes (Nov., ‘65) from the live recording made in Stockholm. It starts as a simple waltz stripped of adornment and develops into one of Coleman’s high rhythm excursions with bassist David Izenzen offering complex counter rhythms and drummer Charles Moffitt’s subtle tap dancing.

The final cut is a disaster, Peepin’ (Oct., ‘67) by Lou Donaldson with guitar and organ from his Mr. Shing-A-Ling album. Real dull R ‘N B. It’s listless and doesn’t even begin to feel good. It isn’t even uptight.

That’s it. On the four records that I reviewed (with a modicum of criticism) only one cut (Peepin’) could really qualify as a bummer. If you’re into jazz even a little, your curiosity should turn you toward these reissues.

Richard C. Walls