Billy Taylor and Quincy Jones's Jazzy Take on My Fair Lady, 1957

Though perhaps he isn't as well remembered today as his achievements deserve, the career of North Carolina piano man Billy Taylor was full of milestones: in the 1950s he worked as house pianist at New York's Birdland; in the 1960s he became the first black musical director of a major network television program, on the popular David Frost Show; and in the 1970s, he earned a doctorate in music from the University of Massachusetts. Taylor was also very involved in spreading the good news about jazz on the radio and on television, but he always found time to play live and enter the studio regularly for over fifty years, recording a respectable amount of albums for labels such as Prestige, Savoy, Impulse, and Capitol, among others. Born in Greenville in 1921, Taylor moved to NYC in the early 1940s playing and sometimes recording alongside great jazzmen like Slam Stewart, Ben Webster, and violinists Stuff Smith and Eddie South. While working at Birdland, he formed his first trio, the setting in which he felt most comfortable throughout his career, and cut his first of many records as a leader. Taylor passed away in New York in 2010 at age 89, leaving behind a solid musical legacy that's in need of rediscovery.

Those who have criticized Taylor for not being innovative enough should listen closely to what I consider to be his best album—My Fair Lady Loves Jazz, recorded for Impulse in NYC over the course of three separate sessions in January and February 1957. This was at a time when the successful show by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe had been running on Broadway for about a year, and in fact, there was even a release party for the LP that was attended by most of the theatrical cast. Taylor's trio features bassist Earl May and drummer Ed Thigpen, but it's augmented for this project by several excellent horn players like trumpeter Ernie Royal, baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, altoist Tony Ortega, and trombonist Jimmy Cleveland, to mention just four. The horns, arranged by none other than Quincy Jones, are a perfect complement for the elegant sound of Taylor's trio, which they enrich greatly. This is evident from the very first bars of the opening track, "Show Me," which also features Royal on trumpet prominently, and the rest of selections always leave room for solos by Taylor and his guests—Ortega shines on the ballad "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" and Cleveland contributes a fine solo to the bouncy "Get Me to the Church on Time," for instance. Jones's charts underscore the jazz elements of great tunes like "I Could Have Danced All Night" and "On the Street Where You Live" without straying too far away from the melodies, and Taylor obviously feels extremely comfortable in the company of May and Thigpen, for whom he only has words of praise in the liner notes. The result is classic, boppish Taylor, a thoroughly satisfying album that serves as the perfect introduction to his music. Other jazz treatments of My Fair Lady, like those by Shelly Manne (for Contemporary, 1956, with André Prévin and Leroy Vinnegar) and Chet Baker (his 1959 Lerner & Loewe songbook for Riverside), may be better known, but Taylor's approach to that memorable musical is one of the most interesting ever recorded.

Two-Sentence Jazz Reviews, May-June 2017—Part II

Here's the second installment of the brief two-sentence reviews of jazz records that I heard during my recent European trip and that I originally published in my Facebook page.

The Modern Jazz Quartet at Music Inn, Vol. 2 (Atlantic, 1959)

Recorded live in Lenox, MA, in the summer of 1958, this date showcases the usual elegance of the forward-thinking Modern Jazz Quartet along with tenorist Sonny Rollins on two tracks (on Vol. 1, recorded two years earlier at the same place, it's Jimmy Giuffre that guests). The carefully chosen set list works perfectly, mixing standards with tunes by John Lewis, Milt Jackson, and Charlie Parker, and the two tracks with Rollins ("Bags' Groove" and "Night in Tunisia") are the highlights of an album that is superb all around.

Oscar Peterson Trio + One (Mercury, 1964 / Verve, 2007)

Cut for Mercury in 1964, this is one of Oscar Peterson's most relaxed, bluesiest dates of the 1960s, featuring a special guest in trumpeter Clark Terry, who plays both flugelhorn and trumpet. Peterson's piano playing is characteristically dazzling, as usual, and the comfortable interplay between his trio (Ray Brown on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums) and Terry is a joy to hear, making this an essential entry in Peterson's vast, rich discography.

Jan Lundgren Trio—Svenska Landskap (Sittel, 2003 / Fog Arts, 2017)

This 2003 gem now available for digital download and streaming finds Jan Lundgren and his trio (Mattias Svensson on bass and Morten Lund on drums) on a musical journey around Sweden via jazz versions of traditional tunes and a couple of very appropriate Lundgren originals. The playing is swift and fresh on the uptempo tracks and lyrical and introspective on the ballads, and the album as a whole won't disappoint anyone who takes a chance on it. [You may read a more detailed Jazz Flashes review about this album here.]

Freddie Hubbard—Born to Be Blue (Pablo, 1982)

This is a lovely, very recommendable late-career album by trumpeter Freddie Hubbard in a percussion-laden sextet that also features the great Harold Land on tenor sax and flute. It features some very engaging uptempo numbers (like "Joy Spring," for instance) and some typically sensitive, lyrical ballad playing such as the beautiful title track.

Svend Asmussen's 100th Birthday

On June 28 my daughter turned three years old, and on that same day legendary Danish jazz violinist Svend Asmussen celebrated 100 years on earth, a whole century devoted to his first love—jazz, particularly of the swing variety. Though not very well known in the U.S., Asmussen, who was born in Copenhagen into a wealthy family in 1916, is one of a handful of stellar jazz violinists, a group that also includes Joe Venuti, Stuff Smith, and Stephane Grappelli (incidentally, Asmussen recorded with the latter two). Perhaps one of the reasons why Asmussen is largely overlooked this side of the pond is that he didn't appear in the States too often, but even so, he did earn the respect and admiration of jazz greats like Duke Ellington, John Lewis, and Benny Goodman, with all of whom he worked at some point in his long career. Asmussen showed an interest in music as a kid, and Venuti was actually an early influence on the violin. Yet a career in show business wasn't what his affluent parents had planned for him; however, the lure of the stage was too strong, and Asmussen decided to quit the dentistry degree he'd half-heartedly begun in order to concentrate on playing jazz professionally.  He made his first recordings in the 1930s, and in the sixty years that followed, he never looked back, recording regularly and steadily until health problems related to his advanced age forced him into retirement early in the new century.

To commemorate his 100th anniversary, Storyville Records has just released a 5-CD box set entitled The Incomparable Fiddler Svend Asmussen: 100 Years, which offers a panoramic view of his astounding career, from his earliest sides of the '30s, '40s, and '50s to recordings he made in 1996 in a quartet setting. The set showcases Asmussen's dazzling virtuosity on the violin, his unique sense of swing, and his elegant delivery, and finds him in the company of talented confrères like Ulrik Neumann, Svend Hauberg, Georges Arvanitas, and of course, Stuff and Stephane. The 1964-65 sessions with Grappelli are among the many highlights of the box, and four rare recordings with Smith from 1966 show the two of them jamming together and really having a blast. Also included is a DVD that features a 1986 live date at Copenhagen's Jazzhus Montmartre with Kenny Drew on piano, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen on bass, and Ed Thigpen on drums, which offers us a chance to see Asmussen in action. This new box set is definitely the perfect place to get an introduction to the incomparable legacy of Svend Asmussen, a man whose passion—and business, as the title of one of his classic sides states—is rhythm. Thanks for all the great music and happy century, Mr. Asmussen!

Jutta Hipp and Zoot Sims, 1956

German pianist Jutta Hipp met versatile saxophonist Zoot Sims sometime in the 1950s in Germany, precisely during a European tour of the Stan Kenton band, of which Sims was a member at the time. Born in Leipzig in 1925, Hipp had been playing in her native country and recording only occasionally since the end of WWII. That is, until she met Sims and critic Leonard Feather, who persuaded her to move to New York City. Upon her arrival stateside in 1955, she encountered harsh criticism from both jazz fans and critics who believed that her playing style was too close to that of Lennie Tristano and, particularly, that of Horace Silver. But by 1956, when she appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival and cut this impressive session with Sims at Rudy Van Gelder's New Jersey studio, she seems to have set out to prove her critics wrong.

Zoot and Jutta

Indeed, on Jutta Hipp with Zoot Sims, released on Blue Note in 1956, Hipp stays away from the influence of Tristano and Silver, and her sound is full of swing on uptempo numbers ("Wee Dot," "Almost Like Being in Love," "Too Close for Comfort") and of restrained melancholy on "Violets for Your Furs," the only ballad of the session. The group is rounded out by Jerry Lloyd on trumpet, Ahmed Abdul-Malik on bass, and Ed Thigpen on drums, and this quintet setting is perfect to showcase Hipp's delicate playing. Lloyd provides an original composition ("Down Home") and Sims another one ("Just Blues"), and even though Sims's tenor saxophone is accorded more space than Hipp's piano, it is Hipp that creates the wistful, easy-going atmosphere that makes this album a winner. The 2008 CD reissue adds two tracks from the session that never made it onto the original LP ("These Foolish Things" and "'S Wonderful"), thus offering everything that Hipp and Sims recorded together. Hipp, who was also a talented painter, would inexplicably retire from the New York jazz scene shortly after leading this session, and this very recommendable quintet album is definitely the highlight of her meager, though very interesting, discography. Anyone who enjoys her collaboration with Sims should definitely look up her live cuts At the Hickory House (Blue Note, two volumes), as well as the recordings she made in Germany before moving to the U.S., which can be found on Frankfurt Special (Fresh Sound) and Lost Tapes: The German Recordings 1952-1955 (Jazzhaus).