Jazz On The Beach 106 & Blues Beach 35
Jazz On The Beach 106 & Blues Beach 35
We'll always have Paris, Yardbird Blues
Hello and welcome to the latest Jazz On The Beach newsletter, with playlists and listening links to my two radio shows, Jazz On The Beach and Blues Beach. Both are broadcast live on Deal Radio, so if you’d like to listen in real time, the details are at the bottom of the page. If you’d rather listen later when it suits you, click the Mixcloud links above the playlists.
As the audiences for both the shows are growing, I’ll be cutting back on using social networks to promote them. So if you like the music I play and this newsletter, please share with others who you think will also enjoy it.
On to the music…
This week’s Jazz On The Beach features two Jazz Americans in Paris, trumpeters Miles Davis and Donald Byrd, both finding the freedom and respect so often denied them at home.
Miles Davis performed at the Olympia on the first night of his tour in November 1957 (he arrived in France that morning) with tenor saxophonist Barney Willen, pianist René Urtreger, double bassist Pierre Michelot and US expat, the drummer Kenny Clarke. The show was recorded by promoter Marcel Romano and the results have just been released as a two record set In Concert At The Olympia, Paris 1957 (Fresh Sound). I’ve chosen Milt Jackson’s Bags’ Groove, but all the music was free flowing and joyful. Four nights later Miles and these musicians were recording the music to Louis Malle’s film Ascenseur Pour L’échafaud (Lift To The Scaffold).
A year later, Donald Byrd and his quartet - pianist Walter Davis Jr, double bassist Doug Watkins and drummer Art Taylor, were performing in Paris at Le Chat Qui Pêche (The Cat That Fishes), a basement club on the Left Bank. On 29th October 1958 that evening’s set was recorded, and although the sound quality leaves much to be desired the playing is terrific, as you can hear on this emotive version of My Funny Valentine. It’s a time machine back to a Latin Quarter jazz club, you can almost smell the Gauloises. Bobby Jaspar sits in on tenor saxophone and flute on three of the other tracks, and the results have been reissued on Au Chat Qui Pêche (Fresh Sound).
Also on the playlist this week, new releases from multi instrumentalist and producer Liam Shortall’s coro.alto with Latency from the album Bad With Names (New Soil), pianist Art Hirahara’s To The Sky from Echo Canyon (Positone), singer Kurt Elling and guitarist Charlie Hunter’s Freeman Square from Super Blue: The Iridescent Spree (Edition), the bassist and composer David Duffy Quartet’s Nearly from Where The Branches Begin (Jazzville) and Jazz Is Dead with Lonnie Liston Smith’s Love Can Be from Instrumentals JID019 (Jazz Is Dead).
There’s another track from pianist and singer Phillip Namanworth with I Apologise from Late Night Cafe (The Audiophile Society), and from his former bandmate, the great guitarist Elliott Randall there’s Manhattan Avenue from Still Reelin’. From The Fabulous Rhinestones’ album Freewheelin’ (Just Sunshine, 1973) there’s Whitecaps with guest alto saxophonist David Sanborn. And No Long ‘Tings from the first award-winning Binker and Moses album Dem Ones (Gearbox 2015) - how can that be eight years ago already?
This week’s Blues Beach features the original blues and R&B tracks covered by The Yardbirds. They’re mostly by the second lineup featuring Eric Clapton (original guitarist Top Topham left in October 1963), before they started recording their own or more contemporary pop repertoire with Jeff Beck taking over on guitar after Clapton moved on to John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in March 1965. But their excellent song choices, like those of contemporaries The Rolling Stones, helped fuel the British blues boom started by Alexis Korner and Cyril Davis just a few years before.
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Radio Times
Broadcasting live from Deal Radio, 69a High Street, Deal, Kent CT14 6EH. Just drop by if you’re passing and browse the racks in the record shop at the front.
Listen live to Jazz On The Beach every Wednesday from 10.00pm - midnight and Blues Beach every other Thursday from 6.00pm - 7.00pm via the internet on DealRadio.co.uk or the TuneIn Radio app.
Alternatively, just ask your smart device to ‘Play Deal Radio’.