Fontessa

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Fontessa
Studio album by Modern Jazz Quartet

Publication
(s)

1956

admission

January 22, 1956 and February 14, 1956

Label (s) Atlantic Records

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

jazz

Title (number)

7th

running time

36:28

occupation John Lewis (piano), Milt Jackson (vibraphone), Percy Heath (double bass) and Connie Kay (drums)

Location (s)

New York City and Hackensack, New Jersey

chronology
Django

(1956)

Fontessa The Modern Jazz Quartet at Music Inn

(1956)

Fontessa is an album by the Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ) with John Lewis (piano), Milt Jackson (vibraphone), Percy Heath (double bass) and Connie Kay (drums), which was released in 1956 on Atlantic Records .

album

Six of the total of seven tracks on the album were recorded on January 22, 1956 in New York City , one track ( Bluesology ) on February 14, 1956 in the studio of Rudy Van Gelder in Hackensack , New Jersey. It was released as a long-playing record in 1956. It was the first album by the Modern Jazz Quartet to be released on Atlantic Records and marked the beginning of a long collaboration between the Modern Jazz Quartet and this label. In the United States, it was released in a mono version with catalog number 1231 (on the black Atlantic label) and in a stereo version with catalog number SD 1231 (on the green Atlantic label). Different takes of the title Bluesology can be heard in the mono and stereo versions . The album was re-released on CD in 1989.

A good description of the music on the album is Pierre Giroux when he writes: “At this point in their musical journey the group had familiarized themselves with their new drummer Connie Kay (instead of Kenny Clarke ) and moved away from the more bop- influenced repertoire moved away to the longer, narrative compositions that conveyed a decidedly chamber music feeling. It's not that the group couldn't swing , they did. But the swing was rather reserved and refined. The sound of the MJQ was distinctive, with Milt Jackson's vibraphone showing the way as he played long-lasting notes with reverberation paired with ascending or descending triplets. John Lewis was a master of a unique 'single note' style that swung with sparse. The first two titles Versailles and Angel Eyes show these characteristics. The main piece on the album was the longer suite called Fontessa… The rest of the melodies on this album are a combination of two popular standards and two jazz melodies, each of which showcase the band's improvisational skills. In Milt Jackson's Bluesology , Jackson and Lewis use the blues structure of the composition to deliver inspired solos and a brilliant interpretation of the material. In the Arlen / Harburg standard Over The Rainbow , drummer Connie Kay quits, so Jackson and Lewis are dependent on Percy Heath's bass, which gives the melody a meditative mood. "

The pianist said the following about his two compositions Versailles and Fontessa , which John Lewis contributed to the album:

“With the little piece 'Versailles', in which a 'classical' shape - the fugue - was also used as a model, I don't think that it has much to do with the model, the most famous examples of which come from Bach . Rather, we have started to work on a new conception of play that leaves room for the improviser's creative power and still creates stricter forms than before. "

“'Fontessa' is a small suite that was inspired by the Commedia dell 'Arte of the Renaissance . I thought of these plays especially because they consisted of a roughly sketched framework within which the details, the lines, etc. were improvised. "

Modern Jazz Quartet (1961)

Track list

  • Modern Jazz Quartet: Fontessa (Atlantic - 1231)
  1. Versailles ( John Lewis ) - 3:22
  2. Angel Eyes (Earl Brent, Matt Dennis ) - 3:48
  3. Fontessa (Lewis) - 11:12
  4. Over the Rainbow ( Harold Arlen , EY Harburg ) - 3:50
  5. Bluesology ( Milt Jackson ) - 5:04
  6. Willow Weep for Me ( Ann Ronell ) - 4:47
  7. Woodyn You ( Dizzy Gillespie ) - 4:25

Contributors

Musicians and their instruments

Production staff

  • John Kraus - recording technology
  • Rudy Van Gelder - recording technology
  • Guidi - cover design
  • Norman Sunshine - illustration
  • J. Gleason - liner notes
  • Claxton - photography
  • Nesuhi Ertegun - Supervision

reception

Scott Yanow's review of the album on Allmusik gave 4.5 out of 5 stars and stated: “This LP is a particularly strong all-round compilation of the Modern Jazz Quartet. While John Lewis' Versailles' and the 11-minute 'Fontessa' show the seriousness of the group (and the influence of Western classical music), other pieces (like 'Bluesology', 'Woody' N You 'and some ballads) are a look to the roots of the group in bop and allow the band to swing strongly. "

The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide gave the album 5 out of 5 stars.

The jazz critics Joachim-Ernst Berendt and Günther Huesmann classify the music that the Modern Jazz Quartet has played since the early 1950s - including the Fontessa album - as “jazz chamber music” and the MJQ as “the most important of these 'chamber music' bands”.

Jazzwisemagazine.com has added Fontessa to its list " The 100 Jazz Albums That Shook The World " and writes:

“It's difficult at this distance, with so much noise and fury intervening, to credit the radicalism of John Lewis' brief for the Modern Jazz Quartet, but back in 1956 they were doing stunningly new things in jazz in just about every musical area - form , content, arrangement, interplay and theory. ... Fontessa was their first for Atlantic with the fully integrated line-up including Connie Kay: it delivered a perfect blueprint for the many MJQ advances of the next decade. "

“With this time lag, with so much noise and frenzy in the meantime, it's difficult to appreciate the radicalism of John Lewis' approach to the Modern Jazz Quartet, but back in 1956 they were doing amazingly new things in jazz in almost every musical field - Form, content, arrangement, interaction and theory. ... Fontessa was her first album for Atlantic with the full cast including Connie Kay: it provided a perfect blueprint for the many MJQ advances over the next decade. "

literature

  • Joachim-Ernst Behrend, Günther Huesmann: The jazz book. 7th edition. S. Fischer Verlag. Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-15964-2 .
  • J. Swenson: The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. Random House / Rolling Stone, 1985, ISBN 0-394-72643-X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Fontessa. discogs.com, accessed July 10, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Modern Jazz Quartet discography at www.jazzdisco.org. Retrieved July 17, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Fontessa. musicweb-international.com, accessed on July 10, 2017 (English): “The keynote feature of this album was the long-form suite written by John Lewis called Fontessa… The remaining tunes on this album are a combination of two popular standards and two jazz melodies each of which offers the band improvisational opportunities. On Milt Jackson's Bluesology both Jackson and Lewis take advantage of the composition's blues structure to deliver inspired solos and a brilliant reading of the material. On the Arlen / Harburg standard Over The Rainbow drummer Connie Kay drops out, leaving Jackson and Lewis reliant on the bass of Percy Heath which gives the tune a meditative air. "
  4. ↑ a b Joachim-Ernst Behrend, Günther Huesmann: Das Jazzbuch . 7th edition. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-15964-2 , p. 808 f .
  5. ↑ Fontessa at allmusic.com. Retrieved July 12, 2017 : “This LP has a particularly strong all-around set by the Modern Jazz Quartet. While John Lewis '"Versailles" and an 11-minute "Fontessa" show the seriousness of the group (and the influence of Western classical music), other pieces (such as "Bluesology," "Woody' N You" and a pair of ballads) look toward the group's roots in bop and permit the band to swing hard. "
  6. ^ J. Swenson: The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide . Random House / Rolling Stone, 1985, ISBN 0-394-72643-X , pp. 143 .
  7. ↑ Fontessa. jazzwisemagazine.com, accessed July 10, 2017 .