Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Duke Pearson
Sweet Honey Bee
(Blue Note, 1966)
Because it's time to stop blowing, and start playing
The music industry is full of people you have no desire to meet (Eric Clapton, Jon Bon Jovi, Sting) and those you wish you'd never met in the first place (The Beastie Boys, Brian Molko, the drummer from Dodgy) but I really wish I'd had a chance to run in to Duke Pearson. Blue Note pianist, producer and arranger, Pearson was also, from 1963 to 1970, the label's A&R man, the spirit of the label as it moved from the hard bop of repute into the warmer, beguiling post-Miles post-bop sound of Herbie Hancock, Jackie McLean, Joe Henderson and McCoy Tyner. If Pearson is on an album, whether as pianist, arranger, producer or band-leader it's usually a mark of quality and a sign that the album will, after the obligatory straight-ahead hard bop opener, have a cool, lucid, soft-cushioned summer feel, a sense that the jazz being made is about intimacy, community and enchantment rather than just bare blowing and base speed. Nat Hentoff described his approach as "non-competitive", an anathema to many blokey jazz-heads but exactly right for this time of the year when wintry isolation turns to feelings of warm affiliation. Plus, I like the look of him: that mix of studiousness, melancholy and (yes, I'm guessing here) kind-heartedness that you can hear in his music. Sweet Honey Bee is certainly the best place to start, the only jazz album I possess that perks the ears of all house guests (and I include A Kind Of Blue and Time Out in that). Dedicated to his beautiful wife Betty (who appears with Duke on the cover of the LP) it's an album made with a melodic buoyancy, by a pianist in the fine flush of romance, playing together with the stellar line-up of trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, flautist James Spaulding and sax genius Joe Henderson, softly assisted by a rhythm section of Ron Carter on bass and the never forceful Mickey Roker on drums. It's an album for romantic summer evenings, for cooking in the kitchen with the windows open or hanging out on the fire escape as the world speeds by below. It lifts the spirits. Unfortunately, it would appear that the current Blue Note edition, despite being heralded as a Rudy Van Gelder remaster, was taken from a vinyl copy, crackles and all. It deserves a decent reissue, even if Duke won't be around to see it. He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the mid-'70s and passed away in 1980. Never got to meet him. Met this guy. That's the world, sometimes.
Andrew Male
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 09/04/2009
Further Listening
Duke Pearson - Wahoo (Blue Note, 1964)
Freddie Hubbard - Ready For Freddie (Blue Note, 1961)
Joe Henderson - Inner Urge (Blue Note, 1964)
Previous Disc of the day
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Earl Brutus - Larky
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12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
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Loudon Wainwright - T-Shirt
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
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Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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What's wrong with the Beastie Boys?
Posted by Ratbasket at 1:03 AM GMT 22/04/2009 Report Abuse
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RE: Ratbasket
Hello Ratbasket. Have met/interviewed them on three separate occasions (always abide by the rule of three) and apart from Mike Myers, they may well be the most pompous, humourless, snide, self-important don't-you-know-who-I-ams I've ever met; in or out of the industry. And the only reason it still sticks is I was foolish enough to think "They seem nice." Happy to accept flames from Beastie fans but there you go.
Posted by AM at 12:25 PM GMT 23/04/2009 Report Abuse
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