Rubber City Review

Sunday morning – a time of worship. And for me, that worship involves a cup of joe, the Sunday Times, and a playlist of soul-soothing music. (Hey, I did 12 years of hard time at parochial schools, so you Bible-thumpers can just back off right now!)

Now this sacred songlist is about as close as I get to much-maligned labels like Easy Listening or New Age. But don’t expect Mantovani, Enya, Celtic Women or Windham Hill. I’m trying to wake up, not go back to sleep.

On the other hand, I rarely play gospel music on Sunday morning. That’s because the best gospel music, in terms of energy level, is right up there with Metallica or the Jonas Brothers. It’s really something that should be experienced in person – preferably in an inner-city, African-American, “make you sweat, sway and swoon” church (I’m still searching for the right one, honest… I swear). But as an appropriate soundtrack for Arts and Leisure, it just doesn’t fit the bill.

Then again, Sunday morning music should not be without a certain aura of spirituality, as subtle as it might be. I’m thinking Coltrane-like spirituality, as embodied by both John and Alice. Or even the worshipful sound of Bill Evans or Ahmad Jamal on piano. And let’s stick with instrumentals for now. I’m going after an ecumenical vibe. Lyrics, like the Good Book itself, are subject to different interpretations and endless debate.

Someone suggested I should mix it up with a little Sanskrit chanting. So I gave it a shot. But I guess I’m a little too American to take that leap. Repetition’s cool when you hear it in a song by John Lee Hooker or Lightnin’ Hopkins, but kind of annoying when delivered by your yoga teacher. Besides, chanting reminds me of the Hare Krishnas I spent much of the ‘70s avoiding at airports.

With that off my chest, I’ll also admit that one of my favorite Sunday-morning albums is a musical love letter to Eastern culture and religion. John McLaughlin gained fame and notoriety with his fiery electric guitar on Miles Davis’ landmark “Bitches Brew” album (definitely not Sunday morning music). But his solo album from 1970, “My Goals Beyond,” is something altogether different. The songs were assembled as a tribute to his Indian guru Sri Chinmoy, and McLaughlin plays stunning acoustic guitar throughout in settings that range from single-note meditations to big, droning passages with soprano sax, violin, tablas and drums. It may be a product of its time, but “My Goals Beyond” is a timeless piece of work with moments of great beauty – like this one from his original composition, Follow Your Heart: Follow Your Heart/John McLaughlin

If Alice Coltrane taught us anything, it’s that spiritual music isn’t necessarily “happy” music – it can be dark and dangerous but still uplifting. And few songs prove this point better than the next one. This groove sounds ancient to me, as old as any root that feeds the blues. The bass player is jazz legend Ron Carter – another Miles Davis alumnus – and he’s laying down one of the great bottom lines of all time. Then there’s Alice, playing an instrument normally associated with heavenly bliss. But this harp sounds as deep as the dark soil beneath us. It’s powerful stuff, haunting yet hopeful… from a master who left us in 2007. Given the huge shadow cast by her husband, she remains one of the jazz world’s most underrated artists. Huntington Ashram Monastery/Alice Coltrane

With due respect to Alice, let’s move on to a song by John Coltrane – and so many great ones to choose from. In an earlier post, I confessed that I tend to bail out of Coltrane’s more manic, atonal pieces. Some would argue that those performances are his crowning achievements. I prefer the more melodic vibe of his Atlantic recordings, as well as his earlier albums for the Impulse! label, like “Crescent” and “Coltrane.” Although a jazz standard, this next song – named after Coltrane’s first wife, Juanita Naima Grubb – seems to have the more universal appeal of a simple prayer. Naima/John Coltrane

Jazz producer Orrin Keepnews clearly knew good Sunday music when he heard it, which is why he booked New York City’s fabled Village Vanguard on Sunday, June 25, 1961, to record five separate performances by pianist Bill Evans and his trio. Two years prior, Evans played a key role in what many critics consider to be the greatest jazz album ever recorded, Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” (are you noticing a theme here?). Davis loved Evan’s quietly expressive playing, and the two shared an appreciation of the empty spaces in music that can create far more drama than a flurry of notes. You can hear the same, sparse delivery on “Sunday at the Village Vanguard,” as well as near-telepathic interplay among Evans and his band mates, bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. Improvisational music of the highest order – appropriate for any day of the week: Gloria’s Step (Take 2)/Bill Evans Trio

I can’t resist including another Miles Davis favorite, pianist Ahmad Jamal… and instead of speaking for Miles again, I’ll just share the man’s own words (from “Miles: The Autobiography”): “I had gone to hear him once when I was out that way (Chicago, where the Pittsburgh native had a steady gig at the Pershing Hotel) and he knocked me out with his concept of space, his lightness of touch, his understatement, and the way he phrased notes and chords and passages… I loved his lyricism on piano, the way he played and the spacing he used in the ensemble voicing of his groups. I have always thought Ahmad Jamal was a great piano player who never got the recognition he deserved.” Jamal’s still performing and is scheduled to appear at the Newport Jazz Festival on August 7. I usually start my Sundays with this gorgeous cut from “The Awakening”: Patterns/Ahmad Jamal

Guitarist Larry Coryell is commonly associated with the band Eleventh House, which played that dreaded form of music called jazz fusion that many of us listened to back in the day. I can’t bear to hear five notes of the stuff today (which, of course, takes less than a millisecond for your typical jazz fusion band to play). But Coryell put out a fine acoustic/electric album in ’74, “The Restful Mind” – and it serves as a nice companion piece to McLaughlin’s “My Goal’s Beyond.” It has one of those “seagull and sunset” covers with classic Seventies typography… something you’d typically see on the front of a self-help book. But the music inside tells a different story, drawing from sources as diverse as French composer Maurice Ravel, American songwriter Jimmy Webb, and the Eastern-influenced band Oregon, which backs Coryell on “Mind.” Trust me, it all somehow works. Julie La Belle/Larry Coryell

The paper’s read (mostly skimmed)… coffee’s cold… time to walk the dog and pick up whatever bottles landed in my yard last night. But I’m still feeling the spirit as I listen to Astral Traveling, a cut from Pharoah Sanders’ 1971 release, “Thembi.” And although I’ve never experienced myself outside of this mortal coil, I get the sense that anything’s possible as I drift away on the heavenly sound of Pharoah’s soprano sax. My dog sits and stares, but with an ear cocked to the speaker… maybe she’s feeling the spirit too. Astral Traveling/Pharoah Sanders

All that talk about Miles and nothing to show for it. I’ll fix that. Miles Davis with John Coltrane – 4/2/59, CBS Studio 61, New York City. That sound, that look… Forget about his screwed-up personal life. The man clearly had tapped into something eternal.

So this guy sends me a couple of comments… How could you overlook this tune? Why didn’t you include this artist? And I tell him, write your own damn post. Well, he did… and I’m pleased to report it meets RCR’s high standards for thought-filled, fact-based music criticism. Here’s Kevin Swan’s take on the forgotten genius of jazz guitar – Grant Green.

When I fled the hills of Summit County, Ohio, for a small college nestled in the mountains of southeastern Vermont in the mid ’70s, I carried with me a few clothes, my Martin D-18 and three wooden produce crates full of vinyl LPs. Everyone I knew had at least one of those lettuce boxes (pre-iPod), as they were the perfect size for record albums yet barely light enough to be carried by one person.

I eventually found my way to the basement college radio station there, and after a semester of providing menial off-air intern work, I landed a late-night disc jockey spot. At 37 watts, the station’s transmitter could hardly be called a “flame-thrower,” but in that neck of the woods, it was the only station at the far left of the dial (and of the political spectrum). After sundown, it beamed a few miles west into Vermont, east into New Hampshire and barely crossed the border of Massachusetts.

I had been playing in garage bands for a few years and was nutty for modern music, especially jazz-tinged experimenters like Gary Burton, Frank Zappa and Steely Dan. They were hip, smart and geeky all at the same time, and when I played their music I often also aired their “primary sources.” I would play a song from a big-time rock band, followed by a cut from an artist that influenced them in some way. So, Steely Dan’s cover of Ellington’s East St. Louis Toodle-oo was followed by the real, original deal: Black and Tan Fantasy, a song co-written by Sir Duke and Bubber Miley.

Decades later, I heard Walter Becker, the guitarist and one-half of Steely Dan, reveal in an interview with Marian McPartland that his primary influence as a guitar player had been Grant Green. In the era of Guitar Hero and the ubiquitous, aimless noodling of gear rats at Guitar Center – drunk on Hendrix and Stevie Ray – the subtle playing style of Green can be a challenging change of pace. It is classic literature versus pulp fiction, the full complexity of a Cabernet compared with the bum’s rush of Thunderbird.

Grant Green played blues and boogie-woogie music in St. Louis in the late 1950s before transitioning to “hard bop” jazz, performing with drummer Elvin Jones. New York was the jazz magnet, though, and Green was drawn there in 1961 to record his first organ trio side for the legendary Blue Note label. He was both group leader and session man, eventually becoming the label’s most prolific recording musician.

With Baby Face Willette at the Hammond B-3 and Ben Dixon on the kit, Green’s deft touch and staccato phrasing is whimsical yet artistic on Miss Ann’s Tempo: Miss Ann’s Tempo

My heart was first stolen by Grant Green, though, in nearly 15 minutes of contemplative piano and guitar sketching on Idle Moments. (This could serve as a one-song textbook for any musician trying to play slowly, quietly and fully, all at the same time.) Less influenced by chord-based guitarists (think Wes Montgomery), Green chose horn phrasing, emulating Charley Parker’s sax and Miles’ trumpet: Idle Moments

On the Blue Note release “Up at Minton’s,” Green doubles Turrentine’s swinging sax runs with grace and wit, throws in a few countermelodies, and then launches into a tasty solo: Broadway/Stanley Turrentine with Grant Green

He grew as a composer and session player, drawing style and breadth from his mid-’60s work with diverse talents such as Herbie Hancock, Stanley Turrentine and the hugely underrated piano player Sonny Clark. Green also didn’t shy away from the obligatory reinvention of a show-tune standard – although this one, from the posthumously released “Matador,” is probably more of a tribute to Coltrane (in fact, Green stole half of the sax great’s band – pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones – to record this album). I love how Green playfully scoots around and through the melody: My Favorite Things

His choices (if indeed they were his) of material to cover on recordings weren’t always top-notch. I have to skip right past the vapid I Want to Hold Your Hand, and Ease Back falls flat on my ear as somewhat contrived. While Green’s guitar is kept high in the mix, it lacks originality and seems less interesting, especially when he throws in more repetitive riffs. Better to spend a few minutes with the groove-laden dexterity of Sookie Sookie or his live recording of Maiden Voyage: Maiden Voyage

Personal problems, not the least being heroin addiction, side-tracked Green for most of the late 1960s, and his return in 1969 as a funk and groove player reflected the changing landscape of music and recording. On The Windjammer he seems less introspective, more willing to experiment with new sounds and techniques than in his earlier and more straight-ahead recordings: The Windjammer

So how is it that Green’s name rarely comes up in a late-night Great Guitarists Discussion? Taking nothing away from the obvious artistry, my feeling is that his impassive stage presence – sitting stock still, looking at his hands while playing – didn’t click with his live audiences. Green also skipped around the style book, recording ballads, covers, gospel, Latin and groove – all in a single decade. And his style of playing, which relied on vocal- or horn-based melody, was, until recently, considered anachronistic.

In 1979, Green’s heart gave out at age 43, in part due to his heroin use. His son, Grant Green, Jr., carries on the family tradition (albeit left-handed), recording and touring with his guitar- and organ-anchored Masters of Groove. To come full circle, I should note that Steely Dan session drummer Bernard “Pretty” Purdie plays drums for Junior.

Green on Blue… Some of our favorite Grant Green album covers on the Blue Note label:

Here’s a little taste of “The Latin Bit” – muy sabroso! My Little Suede Shoes

Grant Green on video… Only one that we’re aware of on youtube. Here’s an excerpt from a jam session with fellow jazz guitarists Barney Kessel and Kenny Burrell.

Photo: Herman Leonard

I grew up listening to a lot of jazz. Not the edgy stuff. My dad mostly liked straight-ahead piano players like Oscar Peterson, Erroll Garner and Earl “Fatha” Hines. He also had those “can’t miss” soundtracks for Sixties cocktail parties – stuff like Dave Brubeck, Getz-Gilberto, Charlie Byrd… even the ubiquitous Sergio Mendes & Brazil ’66. You couldn’t mix a Manhattan back then without taking a side-trip to Rio.

Pop had a big, clunky reel-to-reel tape player so he could keep the tunes coming without having to stack LPs on a turntable with an automatic changer. That contraption was reserved for my stuff, so I could listen to two sides of Hendrix’s “Electric Ladyland” or Cream’s “Wheels of Fire” without having to get my ass out of the beanbag.

After leaving home, I began to develop my own taste in jazz – and I eventually noticed that my favorite artists were conspicuously absent from dad’s record collection. Not just lesser-known but hugely talented players like Bud Powell or Art Pepper. I’m talking about artists who are universally recognized as the absolute masters of the form – Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins… How could my father reject these giants of jazz?

I knew it wasn’t a matter of race, because he had no problem expressing his admiration for Peterson or Garner. Then I finally realized what turned my dad against the titans: they were all junkies at one point or another (or, in the case of Parker, pretty much around the clock) during their careers.

Maybe he didn’t know that Stan Getz struggled with drug addiction too. Or that Miles beat his habit with the same single-mindedness that guided his best performances (he took up boxing to strengthen his resolve). It just seemed like, no matter how great you were, your latest long-player wouldn’t get shelf space at the Quine house without passing the drug test.

And that worked out fine in the long run, because all I needed was a little taste of the hard stuff – hard jazz, that is – before moving on to the main banquet. Maybe if I grew up listening to Miles’ “Kind of Blue” I wouldn’t be so attached to it today. Maybe it has greater meaning to me because I came to it on my own.

I distinctly remember coming across Thelonious Monk for the first time. I was in my teens, hanging out with a kid down the street whose older brother was a full-blown, drug-addled hippie. We found a record in his collection with an insane photo on the cover showing Monk as a fighter for the French Resistance. He’s seated at a dusty piano with a rifle at his side… a Nazi officer is tied to a chair in the back… other guns and grenades are strewn about… What the hell is this?

We dropped the needle on it, expecting something closer to screeching, atonal free-jazz. But the music had a strange, beautiful logic to it – like hearing an extremely gifted pianist play Chopsticks… backwards… wearing oven mitts… and maybe slightly impaired.

I sort of filed that one in the memory banks and went back to my steady diet of heavy rockers, including Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. Then I went off to college, where I decided to expand my horizons by digging into the jazz bins at the local record stores. Couldn’t resist buying a used copy of “Criss-Cross” by Monk, which included the title cut and several other thorny originals. But the tune that really warmed me up to Monk was a cover of the old warhorse Tea for Two. You could easily imagine a big-band crooner named Vic serenading his favorite gal (Sal) with an especially unctuous version of this song. Thankfully, Monk took the usual detour by turning the song inside out, creating something far more mysterious than the standard treatment… Tea for Two/Thelonious Monk

So I was off and running with Monk… who was probably banned from our house due to an infamous drug bust in 1951 (he also was banned from most New York City nightclubs when his cabaret card was revoked following his conviction).

Then I picked up a two-record set of Coltrane’s best recordings on Atlantic Records. As Sam Phillips famously said about Howlin’ Wolf, “this is where the soul of man never dies.” I couldn’t believe my dad never told me about this guy. Once again, it probably had something to do with a fair amount of substance abuse early in Coltrane’s career – addictions he eventually overcame with what he described as a religious experience. Years later, it didn’t surprise me to find out that there’s a Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church in San Francisco – seemed like a perfectly appropriate way to celebrate one of the most deeply spiritual sounds in music. Here’s another radical reworking of an old standard… Summertime/John Coltrane

Some critics prefer Coltrane’s later recordings on the Impulse! label, including a few extended workouts that don’t conform to any noticeable structure… like, for example, a basic key and time signature. I don’t doubt these are important, transformative recordings – the jazz equivalent of what the Sex Pistols did to rock in the Seventies. But you won’t catch me listening to “Never Mind the Bollocks,” and I’ve rarely been able to hang with Coltrane’s manic, free-jazz excursions for more than a few minutes.

I keep going back to his best stuff on Atlantic, where Coltrane seemed to strike that perfect balance between playing inside and outside – much in the way that Miles walked the same line with his great Sixties quintet with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. Miles and Coltrane were moving away from the show tunes that stifled more than a few players in the Fifties, but they were still tethered to something… even if that “something” seemed to be floating in space too. Here’s Miles at his ethereal best on a tune from “Sorcerer,” released in 1967… Masqualero/Miles Davis

I doubt if my dad ever read “Straight Life,” Art Pepper’s harrowing account of his years as a heroin addict. But he must’ve been aware of it (no shelf space at our house for Pepper either). His book is a completely honest and unapologetic look at what addicts do to get from one fix to another… steal, rob, lie and, in Pepper’s case, even pawn his precious sax. Pepper’s rough life – including a lengthy stint in prison – stands in stark contrast to his effortless and achingly beautiful sound, which often has been identified as part of a cool, “West Coast” aesthetic. But one of his best recordings was with a tough New York rhythm section that backed Miles in the Fifties. On this cut, Pepper had to borrow someone else’s sax minutes before he entered the studio (he’d just pawned his main instrument for a quick fix)… Birks Works/Art Pepper

Outside of Parker, the ultimate jazz junkie may have been trumpeter Chet Baker, whose many years as a heroin addict nearly destroyed his playing – not to mention his once model-worthy profile. Like Pepper, Baker was associated with the West Coast sound. And he also sought out the New York jazz mafia to help legitimize his reputation as a major player. But Baker never overcame his demons and eventually fell to his death from a hotel window in Amsterdam. Ironically, he was embraced by both the cocktail set as well as fellow junkies who liked to nod off to his tender ballads. Seems fitting that we should end this post with one of those ballads, from the classic album “Chet,” recorded in 1959. Never showed up next to dad’s hi-fi, but it’s a staple at my house… You’d Be Nice To Come Home To/Chet Baker