Nica's pace

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Nica's pace
Gigi Gryce's studio album

Publication
(s)

1956

Label (s) Savoy

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

jazz

Title (number)

10

running time

42:36

occupation

production

Ozzie Cadena

Studio (s)

New York City

chronology
Do It Yourself Jazz
(1955) 		Nica's pace Gigi Gryce and the Jazz Lab Quintet
(1957)
Template: Info box music album / maintenance / parameter error

Nica's Tempo is a jazz album by Gigi Gryce . It was recorded in October 1955 and released on Savoy Records .

The album

The original LP (Savoy MG 12137) was split in two. The A-side contained six tracks by the Gigi Gryce Orchestra in two overlapping formations, two of them with singer Ernestine Anderson , "Social Call" and "You'll Always Be the One I Love". The line-up with baritone saxophone ( Danny Bank / Cecil Payne ), trumpet ( Art Farmer ), trombone ( Eddie Bert / Jimmy Cleveland ), French horns ( Gunther Schuller / Julius Watkins ) and tuba ( Bill Barber ) reminded jazz critic Ira Gitler of the short-lived Miles -Davis -Nonett from 1949/50, whose collected recordings were published again around 1955 as Birth of the Cool -LP and then left a deep impression on the jazz scene for the first time. Gigi Gryce used this instrumentation to create certain moods and dynamic effects. He wanted to get away from the usual tinny sound of the larger brass groups of the time. The first track, “Speculation” by Horace Silver , features a funky piano solo by the composer and other solos by Oscar Pettiford , Art Farmer and Gigi Gryce. This describes the mood of the following title, "In a Meditating Mood": "You sit in a dark room, your thoughts wander from one idea to another". The Gryce composition "Social Call" comes from the Art Farmer / Gigi Gryce quintet. Jon Hendricks heard it and wrote a text, here sung by Ernestine Anderson. "Smoke Signal" is an up-tempo number with rhythmic variations; it changes from 4/4 to 3/4, from 4/4 to 2/4. Soloists here are Gryce, Farmer, Silver and Kenny Clarke . “You'll Always Be the One I Love” with music and lyrics by Gryce is another vocal piece with Ernestine Anderson. The last track on the A side is the Irish folk song "Kerry Dance". Gryce gives it a blues feel. The sound of the A-side is very soft (French horns, trombone and tuba!) And very well structured. It is unclear who arranged it so well.

The B-side had recorded Gigi Gryce, Thelonious Monk , piano, Percy Heath , double bass, and Art Blakey , drums, in the quartet a week before . Monk composed “Shuffle Boil”, “Brake's Sake” and “Gallop's Gallop”, Gryce the title track “Nica's Tempo”, a tribute to Pannonica de Koenigswarter , called “The Bebop Baroness”. Gryce and Monk had known each other since 1949, when they both played Hi Hat at the Boston club . The encounter with his role model Thelonious Monk challenged the saxophonist to his most creative and free solos to date, says Ira Gitler. The drummer Art Blakey appeared as a soloist in "Nica's Tempo". Gigi Gryce himself describes the session as the most relaxed one he has ever played, after Ira Gitler. Monk's solos are spontaneous and pleasantly reserved, which integrates his characteristic dissonances very nicely into the quartet work.

Rating of the album

Ira Gitler highlights the coming together of the most important musicians of this era, Art Blakey, Kenny Clarke, Horace Silver, Percy Heath and Monk on this album. In the second edition of the Penguin Guide to Jazz by Richard Cook and Brian Morton, Nica's Tempo received the second highest rating; they consider it Gryce's best album of their own and praise the careful production with the larger ensemble.

Scott Yanow emphasizes in the All Music Guide (which gave the album the highest grade), especially the title track, which has become a jazz standard. The album is also one of the better productions from Savoy Records. Peter Stedter ( Audio 7/1992) praises the quartet recordings as “crazy fireworks” and states that there is more room for solos in the larger cast than in Davis and that they are more oriented towards bebop.

Although the two recording sessions of the two sides are very different, they combine the melodious solo work by Gryce, the rhythmic precision and the pleasantly melodious arrangements in a form rare for the bebop.

Editor's note

The four Gryce / Monk titles also appeared on the Savoy album WL 70825 ( Thelonious Monk / Herbie Nichols ), the other half of which included recordings by the Herbie Nichols Quartet from 1952.

The titles

  1. "Speculation" (Silver) 4:21
  2. "In a Meditating Mood" (Gigi Gryce / Jon Hendricks) 4:29
  3. "Social Call" (Gryce) 2:43
  4. "Smoke Signal" (Gryce / Hendricks) 3:42
  5. "You'll Always Be the One I Love" (Gryce) 3:28
  6. "Kerry Dance" (traditional) 3:02
  7. "Shuffle Boil" (Thelonious Monk) 5:02
  8. "Brake's Sake" (Monk) 04:45
  9. "Gallop's Gallop" (Monk) 5:31
  10. "Nica's Tempo" (Gryce) 6:06

Tracks 1-6 were added on October 22nd, tracks 7-10 on October 15th, 1955.

literature

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ quoted from the liner notes.
  2. ↑ The title "Nica's Tempo" was u. a. interpreted by Jan Lundgren , Art Blakey , Johnny Griffin / Steve Grossman , Art Farmer .