I’m struck by the similarity of these two pieces of music, both ideal for those of us who prefer to linger in the last outreaches of the holiday period, instead of fully embracing the new year with all of its unfulfilled potential (or for those with especially hard-to-get-rid of hangovers).
First up Joe Henderson performs an achingly lyrical Lazy Afternoon on drummer Pete la Roca’s album Basra, accompanied by Steve Swallow and Steve Kuhn and recorded in May, 1965.
Bobby Wellins takes on a similar role during the iconic ‘Spill favourite Starless and Bible Black, recorded two months earlier by Stan Tracey’s quartet.
Each of the tenor saxophonists has an exquisite, gossamer tone, while the pianists add washes of colour in water-drop quantities. The bassists drop languid tones in the manner of Paul Chambers’ playing on Flamenco Sketches, and the drummers link the bars with barely visible spiders webs on brushes and cymbals (though Tracey’s drummer Jackie Dougan does darken the mood at the end).
Take a load off and relax. The year hasn’t really started yet.
Both beautiful, Nilpferd. And beautifully described. Thank you.
Nilpferd, I had a dream last night that I lived in a huge apartment building, and you and your family lived in a huge apartment building just around the corner. We could almost see you from our window. And your family came over, and all I remember from the dream was that you all (your whole family) wanted to learn the chords to play an Elvis song on the guitar, and I spent a bit of time searching on the computer for the chords. And then I must have woken up.
David keeps telling me to stop cooking with moldy sage, because it gives us crazy dreams. (It’s not moldy, I swear!)
Ah, ever since Mara got Memphis Karaoke Hour for her Wii we’ve all been hooked… and I have to get some of that sage. (Meet you mid-Atlantic and I’ll bring 6 sacks of beluga lentils)
do beluga lentils sing like canaries? –
‘songs of the soup’ or something –
(beluga whales – being the canaries of the sea)
Where is beluga anyway? is it Eastern European or somewhere in Italy? Mouldy sage you say.. I might have a mouldy Head.
After a quick dose of moldy sage I can reveal the following:
Beluga is in Alaska.
Beluga lentils are wasted in soups.
Don’t expect an underwater canary to sing. I’m afraid all you’ll get is a desperate sounding gurgle.
Help! The sage fumes have dissolved my avatar!
Excellent! We’ll make a meal of it shall we? I have a recipe I’ve been dying to try that calls for fermented belugas and moldy sage, topped with a dollop of creme-not-so-fraiche. And served with bread made from rye fungus (guaranteed to probably not give you hallucinations). And washed down with a nice dry Chateau Mal de Tete, aged in fiberglass barrels.
Oh, yeah, and if you carnivores want to make Canary a la Ancient Roman, that’s fine, too, but I obviously won’t be helping you with that.
I’ll bring my fishing rod. (I only eat long-line canaries)
I absolutely loved them both. You’ll make a jazz fan of me yet. Thanks, Nilpf, just perfect. (More, please?)
(And unlike Miles, i can work to it too!)
Glad you liked, Amy! I discovered the Stan Tracey track myself via RR and Mnemonic/Abahachi, it’s a legendary recording.
I’m having a bit of a jazz revival period at the moment so I’ll probably be putting up the odd post here and there whenever something fits.
Not sure about this, let’s see if it works.
[http://dl.dropbox.com/u/531886/lazy%20afternoon%20-%20joe%20henderson.mp3]
I was going to offer a different version on Joe Henderson playing ‘Lazy’, but we’re not there yet.
Thanks people! GF, very nice version, new to me. Who’s in the band? I’d hazard a guess at Herbie Hancock, sounds like an album I need.
‘Tis indeed, Herbie, Ron Carter, Mike Lawrence, deJohnette – Power to the people.
Thanks, I’ll track it down.
both beautiful tracks Nilpferd, thanks.
And your description is a wake-up call that I really do need to get a decent stereo system, with the current patched together effort, I just can’t hear the wonderful details that you describe so eloquently.
Cheers PS! It could also just be the Youtube clips which aren’t of the best quality, so I’ve boxed the tracks.
thanks for that, now I can keep ‘em!
It’s not just these tracks, it’s my system. My audiophile friend came round for dinner over the new year and was so appalled by the poor quality of my stereo system that he offered to give me (for free!) the reasonably high-end pair of speakers he had recently been trying to sell on the condition that I put the money towards a decent amp to go with them!
is your audiophile friend a fan of your ‘Enthusiasm – Loudness – and shirt Buttons (how much they spend on recording)’ record collection?
I played him Slint’s “Spiderland” and Pocahunated and he really loved both of them, wrote down the names and everything!
he also sat through half of Japanese black metal ladies Gallhammer and nearly all of everyone’s favourite murderer and original Norwegian black metal bloke and his extremely lo-fi and recorded for sixpence albums without complaint!
When I put on John Coltrane as we sat down to eat, he said he could only hear two instruments and offered me the speakers!
Sounds good.. (he’s welcome to come and sample my poor quality stereo system any time..)
nice, but i prefer Stan