Showing posts with label Niels Henning Ørsted Pedersen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Niels Henning Ørsted Pedersen. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Bud Powell - Bouncing With Bud

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 1962
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 42:30
Size: 97,8 MB
Art: Front

(4:16) 1. Rifftide
(6:00) 2. Bouncing With Bud
(4:59) 3. Move
(6:00) 4. The Best Thing for You
(6:45) 5. Straight, No Chaser
(6:16) 6. I Remember Clifford
(5:49) 7. Hot House
(2:22) 8. 52nd Street Theme

This album has cropped up in various guises over the years. Most recently it was part of Storyville's In Copenhagen series." It's back, as part of the same label's Remastered Vinyl collection.

Powell was one of the most talented yet tragic artists in jazz history, a giant of the bebop era who translated Charlie Parker's harmonic ideas onto the piano, but whose life was blighted by mental illness, exacerbated by alcohol and drug use.

At the end of the 1950s he moved to Paris with Buttercup, an American woman who may or may not have been his wife. According to Francis Paudras, a jazz fan who befriended Powell and wrote about his life in the French capital in Dance Of The Infidels (Da Capo Press, 1998), Buttercup kept Powell sedated and took most of the money he made.

During this unhappy time, Powell visited Scandinavia, where on April 26 1962 he cut Bouncing With Bud in Copenhagen for the now defunct Sonet label. The bassist on the session was Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen, only 15 years old.

Relieved of domestic misery, Powell delved joyously into the past for his repertoire, kicking off with "Rifftide," a medium tempo bop number based on the chords of "Lady Be Good."

It's followed by "Bouncing With Bud," one of his most successful compositions. It no doubt brought back happy memories of the classic 1949 recording he made of the tune with the legendary Fats Navarro on trumpet and Sonny Rollins on tenor.

Then there's Denzil Best's "Move," recalling a 1950 session with Charlie Parker. Later Bird refused to play with Powell, telling people, "He's crazier than I am."

There are two songs by his friend Thelonious Monk, the blues-based "Straight No Chaser" and "52nd Street Theme," which Powell sometimes used as a signature tune, recording it with Kenny Clarke in 1946 and with his own quintet in 1949.

Francis Paudras wrote of Powell: "Emotion flowed out of him. There are different kinds of emotion: there is the easy, superficial kind, and there is another kind, that doesn't make you laugh or cry, that doesn't make you feel anything but a sense of perfection. That's what I felt with Bud." It can be felt here, if you listen carefully. By Chris Mosey https://www.allaboutjazz.com/bouncing-with-bud-bud-powell-storyville-records-review-by-chris-mosey

Personnel: Bud Powell: piano; Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen: bass; William Schiøpffe: drums.

Bouncing With Bud

Thursday, May 5, 2022

Didier Lockwood - Tribute to Stéphane Grappelli

Styles: Violin Jazz
Year: 2000
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 64:47
Size: 150,3 MB
Art: Front

(3:06)  1. Les valseuses
(3:20)  2. I Got Rhythm
(5:53)  3. Nuages
(4:19)  4. Barbizon Blues
(3:37)  5. All the Things You Are
(3:27)  6. My One and Only Love
(4:07)  7. The Kid
(5:37)  8. Someday My Prince Will Come
(4:15)  9. Minor Swing
(6:13) 10. Misty
(3:33) 11. Pent up House
(4:50) 12. Tears
(5:55) 13. In a Sentimental Mood
(6:30) 14. Beautiful Love

After his excursions into modal jazz, rock, fusion and bop, Didier Lockwood has come home again to revel in the music of jazz violin great Stéphane Grappelli with whom Lockwood performed early in his career. In the process, Lockwood is exposing his astounding talent on a difficult instrument seldom heard in jazz to a broader audience. That audience can't help but sit up and take notice. With the aid of just-as-astounding Biréli Lagrène on guitar (assuming the Django Reinhardt role, of course) and Niels Henning Ørsted Pedersen on bass, this percussionless trio doesn't lack for swing or dynamism. In fact, its swing and dynamism overflow, leaving the listener awash in the thrill that Le Jazz Hot generated over 60 years ago. Lockwood And Company are obviously beyond technique. They have sublimated the style of Grappelli and Reinhardt and effortlessly interpret the legends' approach to their infectious music, slightly gypsy or Gallic in its gushes of emotion and slightly American in its democracy. We can expect excellence in the tributes of "Nuages" and "Les Valseuses". But the unexpected pleasures like Lockwood's overtoned and atmospheric introduction to "Someday My Price Will Come", its timbre pure and almost flute-like, or the Brazilian rhythm expressed by the strings on "The Kid" elevate the CD with more than exceptional musicianship. These pleasures communicate joy and youthful delight and extroversion of spirit. The trio's command of their instruments truly is beyond description. Lockwood's penultimate cadenza and breath-taking final note in the highest register of the instrument on "My One And Only Love" seem to be the tune's reason for existence, the melody itself serving as its lead-in. Lagrène can back up another string musician with irresistible rhythm, but his polyphonal workout on "All The Things You Are" exhibits a free spirit reigned in by the rhythmic needs of the piece. NHØP, ever the solid foundation behind any group, provides nimble soloing, as if the bass were a guitar, before withdrawing into his role as percussive stand-in when the group congeals again as a unit. More than a mere tribute to Stéphane Grappelli, Lockwood's CD represents an infectious demonstration of the potential of the violin as an inspiring jazz instrument. ~ AAJ Staff https://www.allaboutjazz.com/tribute-to-stephane-grappelli-didier-lockwood-dreyfus-records-review-by-aaj-staff.php

Personnel: Violin, Producer – Didier Lockwood; Double Bass – Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen; Guitar – Biréli Lagrène

Tribute to Stéphane Grappelli