Love, Gloom, Cash, Love

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Love, Gloom, Cash, Love
Studio album by Herbie Nichols

Publication
(s)

1957

Label (s) Bethlehem , Affinity (Charly)

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

jazz

Title (number)

10

running time

41:43

occupation
chronology
The Art of Herbie Nichols
(1956) 		Love, Gloom, Cash, Love -

Love, Gloom, Cash, Love is a jazz album by Herbie Nichols , recorded in New York City in November 1957 and released on Bethlehem Records . In 1989 a new edition was released under the title The Bethlehem Session on the English re-issue label Affinity .

The album

Jazz critic Brian Priestley begins his essay on the new edition of the album with the words: "The story of the misunderstood musician has been told many times, but in the case of Herbie Nichols nothing has been told often enough". The composer and pianist would have been completely forgotten had it not been for a small group of musicians such as Roswell Rudd and Archie Shepp who played with Nichols and kept his pieces in their repertoire in the 1960s . This led author AB Spellman to dedicate a chapter of his book Four Lives in Bebop Business to Herbie Nichols . Both were reasons for later generations of authors and musicians to deal with Nichols' work, such as Geri Allen or Misha Mengelberg .

The composer and pianist often had to rely on the help of musicians who were friends in order to get performance opportunities or record contracts; the pianist Ellis Larkins arranged a number of gigs at which he could play his compositions; Thelonious Monk , Randy Weston and Cecil Taylor sat in the audience . Charles Mingus took care of the one-year contract with Blue Note 1955/56. The bassist also made contact with the small record label Bethlehem Records, on which he had recently recorded his LP East Coasting . Contributing musicians were bassist George Duvivier , who was playing for Bud Powell , and young Mingus drummer Dannie Richmond .

Brian Priestley compares the Bethlehem Session recorded at the time as a documentation of Nichols' compositions with Monk's Blue Note recordings from 1946 to 1948 ( Genius of Modern Music ). In his compositions, Nichols' admiration for his colleague Monk, who is only 15 months younger, can be heard in the solo of “Beyond Recall” or in the introduction to “S'Crazy Pad”. Other influences are Duke Ellington's harmonies and Art Tatum's piano runs . Nichols showed a high degree of structural and melodic freedom and independence from these models; Brian Priestley compares it stylistically with Cecil Taylor's early pieces from the late 1950s, as heard in "Argumentative" or "45 ° Angle". The last piece was written by Monk friend Denzil Best . Other titles such as “Infatuation Eyes” or the waltz-like “Love, Gloom, Cash, Love” borrow from European modernism such as Richard Strauss or Kurt Weill . Compared to Monk, the music often appears lively during the Bethlehem session . It was Herbie Nichols' last recordings under his own name before his death.

One of his most profoundly confusing design principles is Nichol's peculiar handling of form, as with the titles “Portrait of Ucha” or “Argumentative”. His compositions are often based on common formal schemes such as the 32-bar AABA form ; however, this is alienated by the fact that at Nichols it does not consist of regular eight-bar parts. For listeners back then, and in some cases also today, even a swinging phrased improvisation on such a formal scheme has the effect of leaving out or adding parts. According to Brian Priestley, listeners at the time had the impression that Nichols "lost himself" - in this respect similar to Monk - in his playing, without recognizing the degree of freedom of phrasing , although he played within the conventional formal scheme.

Rating of the album

According to Richard Cook and Brian Morton in the second edition of the Penguin Guide to Jazz , the Bethlehem Session is an "absolute gem", they gave it the highest rating; they emphasize that Nichols, although not actually a standard player, offers amazing interpretations of well-known titles like "All the Way". You count the session - besides the Blue Note sessions 1955/56 - among the best of Nichols' narrow work and regret that no alternate takes of the recorded titles have been preserved.

The titles

  • Herbie Nichols - Love, Gloom, Cash, Love (Bethlehem BCP 81)
  1. "Too Close for Comfort" ( Jerry Bock , Larry Holofcener, George David Weiss ) 4:53
  2. "Every Cloud" (Nichols) 3:58
  3. "Argumentative" (Nichols) 3:41
  4. "Love, Gloom, Cash, Clove" (Nichols) 4:23
  5. "Portrait of Ucha" (Nichols) 3:49
  6. Beyond Recall (Nichols) 4:41
  7. "All the Way" ( Sammy Cahn , Jimmy Van Heusen ) 4:39
  8. "45 ° Angle" (Denzil Best) 4:33
  9. "Infatuation Eyes" (Nichols) 2:55 solo
  10. "S'Crazy Pad" (Nichols) 4:11

literature

Web links / sources

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ Rudd wrote a very personal essay on the new edition of The Art of Herbie Nichols on Blue Note Records .
  2. ↑ Duvivier later commented on the Nichols session: "I was there, I was playing, but I didn't know what was happening". Quoted from Priestley.
  3. ↑ In the original by B. Priestley: "It makes his playing seen especially buoyant and often more lighthearted than Monk."
  4. ↑ after Marcus A. Woelfle .