A Night at Birdland

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A Night at Birdland (Vol. 1, 2, 3)
Live album by Art Blakey Quintet

Publication
(s)

1954

admission

February 21, 1954

Label (s) Blue note

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

jazz

Title (number)

10 or 15

occupation

production

Alfred Lion

Studio (s)

Live in Birdland

chronology
New Sounds
(1952) 		A Night at Birdland (Vol. 1, 2, 3) Blakey
(1954)

A Night at Birdland is the live recording of a jazz concert on February 21, 1954 with Art Blakey and his newly founded quintet Art Blakey Quintet . The concert took place at New York's famous Birdland nightclub and consisted of five sets. It was released by the Blue Note Records label that same year on three consecutive 10-inch records. As early as 1956, the compilation, supplemented by the recording of another title from the same concert, was published on two separate 12-inch records.

background

After Richard Cook , it was one of the most important sessions documented by Blue Note in the 1950s. It marks the transition to long-playing records at Blue Note , marked the breakthrough for Rudy Van Gelder as a recording technician at Blue Note and the beginning of Blakey's work as the head of a kind of house band at Blue Note (in which he was often heard as the "house drummer" since 1952) ) with regularly changing young musicians (his later Jazz Messengers groups). According to Cook, they express both Alfred Lion's idea of ​​a "Blue Note school" - in the liner notes Leonard Feather speaks of the "Blue Note family" - and Blakey's philosophy, which he also expresses on the original recording ( "... I have to stick to the young, when they get too old, I take younger ones again, that keeps the mind awake"). The effect as a live recording also had something to do with van Gelder's skill as a recording technician, in a way that, according to Cook, had not been unparalleled in terms of immediacy and fidelity in the live recordings in jazz. The inclusion also marks a further expansion of the collaboration between Blakey and Silver. They were the first live recordings in Birdland for album release, and many more in Birdland and other clubs were to follow the example of these recordings. With the album-length recordings, it was also possible for the first time to adequately absorb the intense hardbop sound that was emerging.

The real surprise, however, according to Horace Silver in his memoirs, was Clifford Brown, of whom the jazz scene in New York had heard, but very few had seen him live. Lion had him come to New York especially for the session. Silver summarized his impression as follows: "When we heard Clifford play, we were blown away." ("When we heard Clifford, it knocked us over.") Miles Davis , who came to one of the rehearsals at Birdland, said jokingly as he left that he hoped Clifford would fall on his face, a token of his appreciation. The group played for two weeks at Birdland and a week after that in Philadelphia, home of Clifford Brown. After that, it disintegrated because they didn't get any follow-up appearances (Brown went to California with Max Roach).

Backgrounds of individual titles

Announcements

The announcement of the concert at the beginning of the recording is a track of its own, lasting just under a minute. The address was given by William Crayton Marquette, alias Pee Wee Marquette , the Birdland Master of Ceremonies . Marquette introduces the band and informs the audience that the performance will be recorded live for Blue Note and that the applause from the audience will also be recorded:

“Ladies and gentleman, as you know we have something special down here at Birdland this evening… a recording for Blue Note Records. When you applaud for the different passages, your hands go right out over the records there. So when they play them over and over, throughout over the country, you may be some place and say, well, uh, that's my hand on those records there, that I dug down at Birdland. We're bringing back to the bandstand at this time, ladies and gentlemen, the great Art Blakey and his wonderful group featuring the new trumpet sensation Clifford Brown, Horace Silver on piano, Lou Donaldson on alto, Curley Russell is on bass. Let's get together and bring Art Blakey to the bandstand with a great big round of applause here! How about a big hand here for Art Blakey! Thank you!"

- Pee Wee Marquette

Marquette's announcement was sampled by Us3 and introduces their title Cantaloop from 1992 in an abbreviated form .

A night in Tunisia

In his announcement of A Night in Tunisia (on the CD for technical reasons in the credits of the previous track Quicksilver ) Art Blakey says that he feels very attached to the next track. He was there when Dizzy Gillespie wrote the title in Texas sitting on an upside-down garbage can ("on the bottom of a garbage can"). When the audience laughs, Blakey replies, "Seriously."

Mayreh

This is the first recording of the title Mayreh , which Art Blakey was to record again three months later with a completely different quintet. The title comes from the pen of Horace Silver, but is based on the changes from All God's Children Got Rhythm . The title came about as follows: Mayreh onomatopoeically reproduces how Lou Donaldson pronounces the name "Mary" as a resident of the state of North Carolina . At the end, the recording is transferred to Lullabye of Birdland for reference to the club.

Lou's blues

In Lou's Blues is not about the same melody as the eponymous opening track on Lou Donaldson's debut album of the 1,952th

Track list

10 "record

A Night at Birdland, Vol. 1 (July 1954; BLP 5037; 21.58 min)
  1. Announcement (Pee Wee Marquette)
  2. Split Kick (Horace Silver)
  3. Once in a While (Michael Edwards; Bud Green)
  4. Quicksilver (Horace Silver)
A Night at Birdland, Vol. 2 (October 1954; BLP 5038; 22.58 min)
  1. Wee-Dot ( JJ Johnson , Leo Parker )
  2. Mayreh (Horace Silver)
  3. A Night in Tunisia (Dizzy Gillespie)
A Night at Birdland, Vol. 3 (November 1954; BLP 5039; 21.45 min)
  1. Now's the Time ( Charlie Parker )
  2. If I Had You (Ted Shapiro; Jimmy Campbell and Reg Connelly)
  3. Confirmation (Charlie Parker)

CD reissue

In 2001 a revised digital version of the live recording was released. Rudy Van Gelder , the original recording technician for A Night at Birdland , re-remastered the recordings as part of his RVG edition for Blue Note Records.

A Night at Birdland, Vol. 1 (BLP 1521; CD 46519)
  1. Announcement (Pee Wee Marquette)
  2. Split Kick (Horace Silver)
  3. Once in a While (Michael Edwards; Bud Green)
  4. Quicksilver (Horace Silver)
  5. A Night in Tunisia (Dizzy Gillespie)
  6. Mayreh (Horace Silver)
  7. Wee-Dot (Alternate Take) ( JJ Johnson , Leo Parker )
  8. Blues (improvisation) (traditional)
A Night at Birdland, Vol. 2 (BLP 1522; CD 46520)
  1. Wee-Dot (Leo Parker, JJ Johnson)
  2. If I Had You (Ted Shapiro; Jimmy Campbell and Reg Connelly)
  3. Quicksilver (Alternate Take) (Horace Silver)
  4. Now's the Time (Charlie Parker)
  5. Confirmation (Charlie Parker)
  6. The Way You Look Tonight (Bonus) ( Jerome Kern ; Dorothy Fields )
  7. Lou's Blues (Bonus) (Lou Donaldson)

production

reception

Michael G. Nastos gave the album four (out of five) stars in Allmusic and said that the "Pre-Messengers-Quintet" provided numerous indications of the implementation of an ensemble format that would lead to the Miles Davis Quintet of the 1960s. According to Nastos, this recording (Vol. 1) prepared the breakthrough for Art Blakey and modern jazz in general and defined the way in which jazz music should be heard in the following decades. The following records (Vol. 2 & 3), which documented the live recording, also contained some high points after Nastos, but also some low points, whether due to exhaustion or lack of preparation. With trumpeter Clifford Brown, who replaced Donald Byrd briefly, and alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson, the band would have a completely different sound, although Horace Silver, Blakey, Curly Russell (as a short-term replacement for Doug Watkins ) were solid as a rock. Although there is also outstanding bop and hard bop in this set, inspired and strong, as one might assume, the Latin touch of the original band is gone. With Donaldson's soft spot for Charlie Parker , “the pure bebop sound inexorably comes into the music” of the messengers. In titles like Now's the Time , Confirmation, Wee-Dot or The Way You Look Tonight , Donaldson is clearly the dominant player, with Clifford Brown surprisingly fading into the background, as in the impressive ballad If I Had You . The interaction between Brown and Donaldson on Silvers Quicksilver is very good .

Richard Cook and Brian Morton rated the album in the Penguin Guide with the highest rating of four stars. Blakey played loud and hard on the recordings, accentuating the off-beat, with a hi-hat hit that was extremely harsh and a dramatic snare roll. Just as much as he dominates the music, he also plays for the band, and his inspired leadership of his band becomes just as evident here as in his later recordings.

According to Cook, the recording is an all-round success, Lou Donaldson and Clifford Brown would go together wonderfully and Donaldson with his Parkerisms would form a wonderful contrast to Brown's lyrical tone. Although some of the material is pretty old-fashioned ( A night in Tunisia, Now's the Time, Confirmation ) and belongs to the 1940s, they capture a mood that is somewhere between a normal club appearance and a jam session.

Ira Gitler said: Horace plays the blues in an inimitable way. I can almost hear Alfred Lion standing at the bar and saying with the hard R that is typical for a native of Berlin: Yeah, that's funky-grroovy .

Horace Silver said in his 2006 memoirs: Clifford did a lot of recordings with Max (Roach), but the Night at Birdland recordings will always be classics. They sound as great today as they did when we made them. I am proud to have been part of it .

Awards

In 2005, Art Blakey received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award as band leader for A Night at Birdland .

In 2013, A Night At Birdland was added to its National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Art Blakey Discography
  2. ↑ Cook, Blue Note, Argon, pp. 86f
  3. ↑ Adapted from Cook, Blue Note, p. 88
  4. ↑ Bootleg releases from the club's radio broadcasts had already appeared, including one of Blakey's appearances with Donaldson, Silver, Kenny Dorham , Gene Ramey three months before the Night at Birdland recordings. Bob Blumenthal, Liner Notes to the re-release of A night at birdland , 2001
  5. ↑ Blumenthal, Liner Notes, 2001
  6. ^ Silver, Let's get to the nitty gritty, University of California Press 2006, pp. 61f
  7. ↑ Clifford I hope you bust your chops . According to Curly Russell, however, he meant it seriously. Silver, Nitty Gritty p. 61
  8. ↑ Jochen Scheytt: Pop songs and their backgrounds - Cantaloop .
  9. ↑ Liner Notes by Bob Blumenthal on the RVG Edition, Vol. 1, 2001.
  10. ↑ Liner Notes by Bob Blumenthal on the RVG Edition, Vol. 2, 2001.
  11. ↑ Review of the album A Night at Birdland, Vol. 1 by Michael G. Nastos on Allmusic (English). Retrieved August 11, 2015.
  12. ↑ Review of the album A Night at Birdland, Vol. 2 by Michael G. Nastos on Allmusic (English). Retrieved August 11, 2015.
  13. ^ Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD. 6th edition. Penguin, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-051521-6 .
  14. ^ Cook, Blue Note, p. 88
  15. ↑ Liner Notes for Live Messengers
  16. ^ Clifford made a lot of records with Max, but those Night at Birdland records will always remain classics. They sound as great today as they sounded years ago when we made them. I am proud to have been part of it all . Silver, The nitty gritty, p. 62
  17. ↑ ArtBlakey.com Awards
  18. ↑ Jazz Echo: Back To Black: LPs for the Library and Doomsday, May 22, 2015.