So this is about a year late, but to all cliche about it: better late than never, right? So here it is the long awaited sixth link the The Jazz Chain. For people new to The Jazz Chain it’s pretty simple: I am taking a tour through Jazz through a six degrees of Kevin Bacon kind of model. I started with one of my favorite albums of all time in any genre: Art Blakey’s Orgy in Rhythm. Then I took one of the “sidemen” from that album, Sabu Martinez, and went and listened to one of his albums, one where he was the band leader: Sorcery! And that’s the pattern. For each album I listen to I pick one of the contributing players and listen to an album of their own and so on and so on. The last album in the chain was Johnny Girffin’s 1957 debut, Introducing Johnny Griffin. The drum player on that album was the legendary Max Roach and that is who we’re here to listen to today. With his album Drums Unlimited.
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The Jazz Chain – Link 5: Johnny Griffin
It’s time to forge the fifth link in our Jazz Chain. This time our musician and band leader is Johnny Griffin, the tenor sax player from the last featured album, Wilbur Ware’s The Chicago Sound, and our focus is his debut album, Introducing Johnny Griffin.1Which is actually the 2nd recording session he led, but it was published before his true first stint as leader, Johnny Griffin. That album included both Wilbur Ware and Junior Mance, who played with Griffin on The Chicago Sound. Of course, this means we have now come to our first album to use the very common titling trope of using the Band Leader’s name.2The album which originally caught my eye as a possibility for this entry was 1978’s Return of the Griffin which combines both the SFF and band leader titling tropes, but it’s not the easiest to find, unfortunately. It won’t be the last.
Introducing Johnny Griffin – Johnny Griffin – 1957
The Jazz Chain – Link 4: Wilbur Ware
Time for our fourth link in The Jazz Chain. This time we’ve got an intriguing bassist for our consideration. Wilbur Ware, had a 30+ year career and in that time he recorded with some of the best and most interesting performers of the time including Sun Ra, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey, Lee Morgan and the great Thelonious Monk.1One of the albums Ware played on for Monk, Monk’s Music, is an absolute masterpiece, it’s not the feature album this week, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t recommend you make sure to give it a listen. An absolute all star lineup including Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins and others. Not to be missed! This album though, was the only album he led himself.2Though I’ve seen Johnny Griffin given equal billing in some releases most sources seem to agree this was Ware’s album.
The Chicago Sound – Wilbur Ware – 1957
The Jazz Chain – Link 3: Cecil Payne
It’s time to forge the third link of our Jazz Chain. What’s a Jazz Chain you ask? Well, it’s still pretty new so I’ll briefly explain: I’m taking a tour through jazz history, one album at a time, and each week’s album is linked to the last by a musician. One week’s sideman is the next’s leader. We started with Art Blakey’s album Orgy in Rythym and moved on to Sabu Martinez’ Sorcery!. Now we’re taking Cecil Payne, who plays on Sorcery!, jumping ten years forward in time1Because the chain is not bound by temporal logic, only relationships. , and giving a listen to his album Zodiac.
Zodiac – Cecile Payne – 1968/1973
The Jazz Chain – Link 2: Sabu Martinez
It’s time to forge the second link in our jazz chain. What’s this ‘jazz chain’ you ask? Well, I’m taking a tour through the history of jazz, one album at a time, and each week’s album will be linked to the previous week’s selection by a common artist.
For example: last week the chain started with Art Blakey’s Orgy in Rhythm. One of the musicians from that album was Sabu Martinez who played percussion and provided the vocals for three of it’s tracks. This week we’re looking at Sabu Martinez’s album Sorcery!. Next week’s album will be lead by one of the the other musicians playing on Sorcery!.1I’ve already chosen the artist and album for next week, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Sorcery! – Sabu Martinez – 1958
The Jazz Chain – Link 1: Art Blakey
Today I’m starting a new weekly series. When I created this website I called it “Looking for a Rabbit Hole” for a reason. Along with being a place to showcase some of my writing it was also supposed to be a place for me to talk about all the various bits of entertainment I like to lose myself in. I love stories in all the forms stories take, and I love music, and I love talking about stories and music. To that end I’m working up some on-going features I’d like to have here on the blog where I talk about the “Rabbit Holes” of story and music I’m losing myself in whether new, new-to-me, or old favorites.
This series then, “The Jazz Chain”, will be the first of these projects. Continue reading