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Jazz by the bay

An Electrifying Evening with the Dizzy Gillespie Quintet

Verve/ Universal; CD; Rs. 395

For the second time in a couple of months I find myself having reservations about an album of Dizzy Gillespie. This time, however, it's not about the music.

This truly electrifying recording from a concert in New York in 1961 has the master trumpeter backed by Leo Wright on alto saxophone (he also plays intros on flute on two tracks), Lalo Schifrin on piano, Bob Cunningham on bass and Chuck Lampkin on drums. The quintet plays four tracks, the first three being Gillespie compositions and the last, “The Mooche”, written by Duke Ellington. The album is filled out by an 18-minute-long “interview” with Charles Schwartz, actually a question-and-answer session with the audience moderated by Schwartz, the producer of the concert.

Gillespie and Wright take the biggest share in the solo improvisations, which they get on all the four tracks. Schifrin, Cunningham and Lampkin, although not featured on every track, are also in the limelight from time to time, and get ample room to show their virtuosity. “Salt Peanuts” and “A Night in Tunisia”, both fast-paced and both famous tunes by Gillespie, are shorter than “Kush”, the opener and “The Mooche”, but are quite action-packed. Gillespie's solos on these two are searing and, well, ... dizzying.

“Kush” and “The Mooche”, brisk-paced, have quite interesting arrangements. “Kush” has alternations of soft and loud passages by Gillespie and the rhythm section. “The Mooche” has passages in which Gillespie and Cunningham, or Gillespie and the ensemble, alternate. Lampkin uses a tambourine at times on this number, and when the ensemble plays the theme, it veers tantalisingly between the actual melody and variations on it.

Schifrin was one of Gillespie's favourite pianists and he shows just why. The other musicians too pull their weight to contribute to the greatness of this show. Gillespie, of course, is superb, inventive, inspiring and full of energy. On the “interview”, Gillespie answers a range of questions, including his influences (trumpeter Roy Eldridge, his senior by a few years, and Charlie Parker, his colleague in the development of be-bop), what he thinks of some recent developments (veiled criticism of the innovator of free jazz), how his horn came to be bent (an accident), and how he got the name Dizzy. He's full of wit and insight, and the audience responds with applause and laughter in equal measure.

However, the recording seems to have been done by an amateur — there is loud tape hiss and Gillespie's voice is occasionally faint.

Dexter Gordon: Ca'Purange

Original Jazz Classics/ Universal; CD; Rs. 295

Dexter Gordon was in Billy Eckstine's band when his colleagues Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were developing the music that became known as be-bop. He was the first tenor saxophonist to take to the new music and among the greatest be-bop and hard bop exponents of the tenor sax. On this 1972 album, recorded during a visit to New York in a time when he was living in Europe, he's joined by Thad Jones on trumpet and flugelhorn, Jones's elder brother Hank (still going nicely today at the age of 91) on piano, Stanley Clarke on bass and Louis Hayes on drums.

All the music is performed in hard bop style, with a series of intricate solo improvisations, mostly by Gordon and the two Joneses, sandwiched between renditions of the theme. Intrigued by the title of the album, I Googled its composer Natalicio Lima and found out that he was half of an amazing guitar duo of brothers from an indigenous Brazilian tribe, and the piece probably means “Jungle Soul”. (Gordon's Eckstine bandmate, Gene Ammons, also a tenor saxman, recorded the tune as “Ca'Purange (Jungle Soul)”.) This fast-paced 10-minute number, sounding for all the world like a jazz standard rather than indigenous American music, is a fitting foretaste of the music to come, which includes a 12-minute-long rendition of Gordon's composition “Oh! Karen O” and two takes of “Airegin” ( Nigeria spelt backwards!), composed by Gordon's contemporary Sonny Rollins, who, at 79, is the greatest tenor saxman alive.

Gordon is in great form, and the Joneses, too, keep up with him. Hank's solos and intros are full of depth and Thad's flugelhorn solo on “Oh! Karen O” is particularly terrific. Hayes is tastefully quiet in accompaniment and comes forward with a good solo on “Airegin”.

Only Clarke gets no solos, but his accompaniment to some of the piano intros and part of Thad Jones's solo (with Hank absent) on “Oh! Karen O” highlights his contribution.

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