Birk’s Works – Kenny Burrell
from the album On View At The Five Spot on Blue Note (1959).

Scotch Blues – Kenny Burrell
from the double album Blue Lights Volumes 1 & 2 on Blue Note (1958).

My obsession with all thing Tina Brooks continues. I got into Brooks’s backstory in my post on his albums as a leader, but today let’s start to look at his career as a sideman. Burrell’s first recorded sessions as a jazz artist were both on Blue Note dates lead by guitarist Kenny Burrell. Prior to this, Brooks had worked extensively with a few different R&B bands, but I’ll stick with his jazz work for now. As I’ve stated before, I think Brooks’s greatest strength is his composition, but unfortunately, no Brooks original material appear on these dates.

“Birk’s Works” is from the August 1959 live date at the Five Spot featuring Art Blakey on drums for the whole set and Brooks on tenor for half of the tracks. I’ve never really been much of one of jazz guitar (and Burrell in particular), but KB really gets loose on this Gillespie composition with beautiful mimicry of Charlie Parker’s note bending style. Brooks counters with an ultra smooth solo that owes far more to Lester Young’s influence than The Bird. And throughout the rock-solid backing of Blakey and Bobby Timmons (piano) make for a stellar be-bop track even if our hero Tina isn’t lighting the roof on fire. (additional note: Timmons’s bookending solos are not to be ignored.)

“Scotch Blues” is from an earlier session (May 1958) and is Brooks’s first jazz recording. It is again a Burrell lead session with Blakey providing the backbeat and is one of those studio dates that is essentially a live recording with no audience. Throughout the day of recording the band shifted between a quartet and a septet and everything in between, but for this extremely playful tune we have a quintet with Brooks playing his tenor against the trumpet of Louis Smith. Again, my fascination with Brooks began with the fact that such a talent could have his albums shelved for an extensive period of time, but it has grown largely because of his composing and ability to play and interplay with other horns so well. I think Brooks has some of his best solos on the Blue Lights albums.

Still more I want to say about Tina Brooks…his ability to play well with others is best highlighted in his albums with Freddie Redd and Jackie McLean and we’ll be getting to those soon.

Clifton Anderson – P.G. (From Whom All Blessings Flow)
from the album Landmarks on Milestone (1995).

Sonny Rollins – Where or When
from the album Without A Song: The 9/11 Concert on Milestone (2005).

There are few absolutes in life, rules that have no gray area or wavering. One of mine is no matter what whenever Sonny Rollins is performing within 100 miles of me, I’ll go see it. Rollins has provided me with the single greatest concert experience of my life (SF Jazz Festival 2004) and a few others in the top ten. He is immediately arrestingly different live than in studio recordings (NOTE: he is wonderful in both), which is a relatively unique and amazing thing. Typically Rollins is way out in front of his wonderful band, blowing everyone off stage, but the last time I followed my rule (a few months ago in Berkeley) he was definitely matched by trombonist Clifton Anderson.

Anderson has been playing with Rollins for years, and I’ve heard him many times and always been impressed. But this night he went to a different level and matched Sonny (an amazing accomplishment). The Rollins band has played numerous Anderson compositions, so it was surprising to me to find that Clifton only had one album as a leader – from back in 1995. It is a very nice album and Anderson has one of the richest trombone’s I’ve ever heard. The album features 5 Anderson originals, 2 standards, and a calypso penned by his mother. Today I’ve put up one of Anderson’s compositions “P.G. (From Whom All Blessings Flow)” a God praising religious interpretation of the old hymn. Mainly I chose it because of the variation in tone you get to hear from Anderson’s trombone as he moves between somber classical phrases and the more bop-oriented sections. Monty Alexander on piano and Bob Cranshaw on bass work beautifully with Anderson, as can be expected since they were also playing with Sonny around this time.

I’ve also included a track off the live album the Rollins group did 4 days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This was in Boston and just days after Rollins had to be evacuated from his lower Manhattan apartment carrying only his sax. Obviously the background story is amazing, but the concert (like all of Rollins’s) stands on its own merits outside of any non-musical context. Again I chose a track that exemplifies Anderson’s virtuosity with his opening solo. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Stephen Scott’s brilliant, Keith-Jarrett-esque extended solo from the middle of the piece. Of course, Sonny kills it to with extended, reference filled sax runs both before and Scott.

Maybe you’ll considering making my rule one of your own.
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In a totally unrelated item…I wrote something for this great new website JamsBio (full disclosure: one of my best friends works there, but regardless it is great). It is one of those web 2.1 community interfacing sites like facebook or the like, but is entirely built around music and the shared memories of music. Anyways, here’s an article I wrote about hip hop album cover sampling that I think Ear Fuzz folks might like.