Now here’s obscurity for you…

I love it when i find an album that’s so clouded in the grinding wheels of time that it makes you wonder if it existed. Well this one apparently does. I admit freely and without hesitation that these days having an actual copy of a record rather than a digital copy is somewhat on the backburner, so what i write about this recording is based upon listening to it, and bits and pieces that the great Interweb throws up, added to the fact that I am no authority on Mr. Shaw by any stretch of the imagination.
‘In The Beginning’, as the name suggests, is Woody Shaw’s first recordings as a leader, towards the end of 1965, before that he spent time in Paris, and also recorded with Horace Silver. Apparently it was done as a record contract demo session, with Joe Henderson on tenor sax, Herbie Hancock and Larry Young on piano (you don’t hear Young on piano very often, nor Hancock on organ, but it did occur), Joe Chambers on battery and our man Paul and Ron Carter on Double Bass. This to me suggests that the session is split in two parts rather than one. The tracks ‘Baloo Baloo ’, ‘Tetragon’ and ‘Three Muses’ being one, with Hancock and Chambers present. ‘Cassandranite’ and ‘Obsequious’ (meaning servility or bootlicking) including Young and Carter the second.
The Chambers involvement is fairly straight forward hard bop as you would expect but he certainly holds his own here. It’s the first and only time with Shaw and Joe Chambers. Hearing Chambers outside of the Wynton Kelly setting is a treat, if you look at his other engagements around this time it’s predominantly with Kelly. I know very little about what live engagements Chambers had, if any, but the recording sessions had been on a downwards spiral throughout the 60’s. To illustrate this, to my knowledge the next recording Chambers did was Lee Morgan’s ‘Charisma’ nine-ten months later.
The two tracks with Ron Carter is more free flowing, with Henderson getting into his Coltraneish groove. On the whole though there’s ample space for all involved to be creative.
What with this album being a demo session it’s obscure almost by definition. Its only release as an LP came in 1983 (Muse 5298). It was put out as a cd called ‘Cassandranite’ (Muse MCD 6007) including the completely unrelated Joe Chambers track ‘Medina’. Since then the music from the original session has been released on a number of other Shaw records including ‘Last Of The Line’ from 1997.

1. Cassandranite (Shaw) - 6:49
2. Obsequious (Young) - 7:40
3. Baloo Baloo (Johnson) - 6:05
4. Three Muses (Shaw) - 6:26
5. Tetragon (Henderson) - 6:40

Recorded in New York City late 1965

Woody Shaw, Trumpet
Joe Henderson, Tenor Sax
Larry Young, Piano (tr 1 and 2)
Herbie Hancock, Piano (tr 3-5)
Ron Carter, Bass (tr 1 and 2)
Paul Chambers, Bass (tr 3-5)
Joe Chambers, Drums

Be my guest and have a listen to Baloo Baloo in the player to the left.

This release in a way concludes Cannonball Adderley’s very swift rise from an unknown to recording artist in a matter of weeks during the summer of 1955.

Adderley came to New York initially to work on his graduation, went down to Cafe Bohemia one night for an Oscar Pettiford gig, was asked to lend his horn out but offered to sit in, and blew the room away.

‘Discoveries’ put together the alternate takes from Adderley’s two very first recording session in New York. The first was drummer Kenny Clarke’s ‘Bohemia After Dark’ session about two weeks after his first live appearance, later rebranded and released in Cannonball’s name because of his stature. The second is from Adderley’s debut as a leader from the 14. July 1955, resulting in the album ‘Presenting Cannonball Adderley’

The material on those sessions showcases Adderley’s writing skills as they are all his originals except of course Oscar Pettiford’s superb ‘Bohemia After Dark’, executed by Paul Chambers with a higher tempo but otherwise in the same style as Miles Davis’ ‘So What’. A coincidence? Certainly not.

There’s a ‘live’ feel to these tracks, and that’s why, to me, they sound very fresh, even today. It’s high tempo hard bop, utilised by a tight group of players, The Adderley Brothers, Kenny Clarke and Paul Chambers in particular. Definitely worth acquiring for its historical value.

1. With Apologies to Oscar [Take 1] (Adderley, Adderley) 5:44
2. Bohemia After Dark [Take 1] (Pettiford) 5:45
3. Chasm [Take 3] (Adderley, Adderley) 4:09
4. Late Entry [Take 4] (Adderley, Adderley) 3:15
5. A Little Taste [Take 1] (Adderley, Adderley) 5:00
6. Caribbean Cutie [Take 1] (Adderley) 5:18
7. Spontaneous Combustion [Take 4]  0:39
8. With Apologies to Oscar [Take 2] (Adderley, Adderley) 5:44

Recorded at the Van Gelder Recording Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey on June 28 and July 14, 1955

Cannonball Adderley, Alto Sax
Nat Adderley, Cornet
Donald Byrd, Trumpet (tracks 1-3 & 8)
Jerome Richardson, Tenor Sax, Flute (tracks 1-4 & 8)
Horace Silver, Piano (tracks 1-4 & 8)
Hank Jones, Piano (tracks 5-7)
Kenny Clarke, Drums
Paul Chambers, Bass

I’ve included Bohemia After Dark (take 1) for your listening pleasure!

1959 was not a bad year for Curtis Fuller.

Meeting Benny Golson at the end of 1958 opened a few avenues for him, together they recorded around 8 albums in the span of a year, starting with ‘The Other Side of Benny Golson’ and culminating with Fuller’s ‘Sliding Easy’. Those two hit it off on more than one memorable album that year and laid the foundation for The Jazztet, commonly associated with Art Farmer and Benny Golson, but the title of this album suggests otherwise. His Savoy album Blues-ette is considered his masterpiece, and ‘The Curtis Fuller Jazztet with Benny Golson’ follows suit. It’s highly swinging hard bop with an on-fire Lee Morgan very aptly backed by Wynton Kelly, Chambers and Charlie Persip on drums. Chambers and Fuller knew each other very well, featuring on each others albums frequently.

I rate this on a par with ‘Blues-ette’, Fuller’s strength as a composer shows here, ‘Arabia’, which Fuller brought with him to Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers two years later has quite a resemblance to Miles Davis’s ‘Freddie Freeloader’ recorded a few months earlier and featuring of course Kelly and Chambers.

1. It's Alright With Me - 7:39 (Porter)
2. Wheatleith Hall - 14:05 (Gillespie)
3. I'll Walk Alone - 6:57 (Cahn, Styne)
4. Arabia - 6:35 (Fuller)
5. Judy's Dilemma - 5:51 (Fuller)

Recorded at the Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs New Jersey on 25. August 1959

Lee Morgan, Trumpet
Curtis Fuller, Trombone
Benny Golson, Tenor Sax
Wynton Kelly, Piano
Paul Chambers, Bass
Charlie Persip, Drums

Please feast your ears on Arabia in the player.