Singleversity #48

Audiversity’s weekly column, even more modified, on music we stumble across during our sonic adventures. No random numbers, just straight audio goodness.

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When digging around Blue Note’s catalogue, it’s hard to go wrong in 1964. The phenomenal session players spending evening after evening in Rudy Van Gelder’s Englewood Cliffs studio all seem to be coming into their own simultaneously as post-bop bent into the avant-garde and free jazz. So you occasionally get these unreal line-ups like that of Andrew Hill’s Andrew!!! which features Bobby Hutcherson on vibes, Richard Davis on bass, Joe Chambers on drums and Sun Ra’s saxophonist John Gilmore on tenor. Sometimes overlooked by the pianist’s other two releases in 1964, Point of Departure and Judgement!, Andrew!!! – despite it’s Sam Cooke-like cover art – is as stimulating and curious as any Hill record in the 60s. I especially enjoy "Le Serpent Qui Danse" because it bridges the outgoing and incoming fads in jazz at the time. Hill’s post-bop leaning cascades of piano harmony and Chambers’ steady rhythm eventually dissolve into freer modes as Gilmore’s fractured tenor lines counterbalance the warm pings of Hutcherson’s vibes. It’s a surprisingly prolific line-up with unsurprisingly excellent results.

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If you're like me and you've had the pressing need for a Roaring Twenties period-soundtrack set to your daily happenings to make life more bearable, this one's for you. Check out the bluesy southern stomps of piano juggernaut Jimmy Blythe: Born in Lexington, Kentucky around 1901, young Jimmy took off to Chicago for a new life on the performing front in the booming business of the bootlegged Windy City. After honing his craft under Clarence M. Jones, the 1920s were good to him and he cut a number of piano rolls with noted greats such as Louis Armstrong, Johnny Dodds and Ma Rainey (as well as providing the first example of Boogie-Woogie, "Chicago Stomp"). Blythe's Southside stylings were cut abruptly short when he died of meningitis in 1931, but thankfully, his playing has survived the years. Late last year, some of his recordings were revamped through the magic of digital processing courtesy Delmark's compilation Messin' Around Blues. From that album, "Mama's Got 'Em" makes me feel the most like I'm a character in "The Sting"... Nevermind that said movie was actually set in Chicago some five years after Blythe had passed away.