Jazz On The Beach 113
Comfort Jazz, Milt Hinton's Millionaire Meatloaf
The recent weather has been particularly cold, wet and miserable, so for this week’s show I wanted to play some comforting records that are as heartwarming as a hot bowl of chicken soup. There’s Bobby Timmons’ Moanin’ by Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers (Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, later retitled Moanin’, Blue Note 1959), the deeply grooving Funk, Inc.’s Sister Sadie (Funk, Inc. Prestige 1971), The Miles Davis Quintet’s Four (Workin’ With Miles Davis, Prestige 1960 but recorded in ‘56) and Lambert, Hendricks and Ross’ Twisted (The Hottest New Group In Jazz, Columbia 1959) with Annie Ross singing her lyrics set to Wardell Gray’s tenor solo from 1949. L, H & R also recorded a wonderful version of Moanin’ with lyrics by Jon Hendricks. And looking back to the start of this current chapter, there’s Terence Blanchard’s The Premise (Romantic Defiance, Columbia 1995) which was the opening track on the first Jazz On The Beach show broadcast in September 2021.
I wanted to hear Charlie Parker’s exhilarating Koko (Savoy 1945) with Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Max Roach, and Curly Russell, and paired it with Jack Kerouac’s recitation of Charlie Parker with pianist Steve Allen from Poetry for the Beat Generation (Dot 1959). And while we’re into spoken word territory, there’s Ken Nordine’s classic What Time Is It? from Word Jazz (Dot 1957) with The Fred Katz Group.
Also this week, there are tracks from two of the finest electric bassists: the brilliant but tragic Floridian Jaco Pastorius on Weather Report’s Barbary Coast (Heavy Weather, Columbia 1976) and Cameroonian Richard Bona on his own Ngad’a Ndutu (Reverence, Columbia 2001). Bona was certainly influenced by Pastorius (he regularly performed his trademark Teen Town) and also played with Joe Zawinul in The Zawinul Syndicate. But he also has a whole other thing going on as well as a beautiful singing voice. For more on Jaco, read this great piece from Bill Milkowski’s Substack below.
There’s new music too…the pianist and writer Ethan Iverson releases Conundrum, a tantalisingly short ‘theme song for the quiz game show of the same name’ from his upcoming trio album Technically Acceptable (Blue Note Jan ‘24). And as you may well know, his Transitional Technology is essential reading. There’s also, a new live version of Rising Mind by Aaron Parks Little Big from their ‘official bootleg’ Live In Berlin that was recorded on an iPhone (voice memo app) with proceeds going towards recording their next studio album (click here). It may not be hifi but the feeling and musicianship is all there.
Something funky in the extreme from producer and bassist Takumi Moriya and Black Nation with their version of Joe McPhee’s Shakey Jake that you may have heard on Apple TV’s dystopian drama Severance (Jazz Room Records Jan ‘24). We also have a terrific version of Landscape by alto saxophonist Art Pepper from the sumptuous 7-CD box The Complete Maiden Voyage Sessions (Omnivore Oct).
There’s pianist Abdullah Ibrahim’s Mindif from his upcoming triple vinyl release 3 (Gearbox, Jan ‘24) that was recorded at The Barbican this Summer, both at the concert and earlier that day without an audience present. Also from Gearbox there’s a new release in their Live At Ronnie Scott’s series, this time it’s tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin recorded on Les Tomkins’ Ferrograph Mark 2 tape recorder at the ‘Old Place’ in January 1964 with pianist Stan Tracey, double bassist Malcolm Cecil and drummer Jackie Dougan. Les had the nod from Ronnie to record some of the artists at the club without their knowledge ‘for posterity’, and sixty odd years later it’s great to hear not only the fine visiting soloists but also the incredible house musicians led by pianist Stan Tracey.
The photo of the great double bassist and cine enthusiast Milt Hinton at the top of this newsletter is from Jazz Cooks: Portraits and Recipes of the Greats by Bob Young and Al Stankus with photography by Deborah Feingold. It’s 30 years old but there are still copies around if you’re looking for presents.
Here’s The Judge’s recipe for Millionaire Meatloaf:
Hinton honed his cooking skills on the road with Cab Calloway's band, which is where Millionaire Meatloaf originated, a recipe best told in the bassist's own words:
"Since we often couldn't even sit in restaurants, Cab, being a very engineering man who tried to keep us out of as much of that stuff as possible, bought an electric stove, a big thing that you could put a roasted turkey in. It had three compartments. We had a case made for it and we carried plates and knives and forks. Most theaters in those days had kitchens, but if they didn't we could use our stove and cook our dinner between shows. Several guys in the band would team up to cook. Tyree Glenn, the trombone player, and I liked to cook together. We would get up early and go to the store, set up the kitchen down in the basement of the theater and cook. Tyree liked a thing called Millionaire Meatloaf. We called it that because it wasn’t cheap at all.
It had one pound of ground beef, a pound of sausage meat and a pound of veal, ground up. We mashed it all up, put in salt and pepper and powdered garlic, took five or six slices of bread, crumbled them up and mixed it in there. Then we put in one egg. For three pounds we'd use up one large onion, one large green pepper, and two sticks of celery, chopped up fine. You mixed it in, kneaded it like you knead bread, and formed it into a loaf. We'd put a slight amount of butter on the bottom, cover it and let it cook at 350 degrees for an hour during shows.
When we came off the first show, we'd put in a can of tomato purée and let it cook for another half hour or so. In the other two compartments we had some baked rice and something green. After the second show, all the guys in the band had their own plates and knives and forks and they'd come back and have a wonderful dinner. We made Cab get in line just like everybody else. He couldn't go to those restaurants either.”Radio Times
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