May 2002

From the Inside Out
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By Chris M. Slawecki

Though you might not know it from the attendant hullabaloo, Ken Burns’ Jazz, the expansive PBS series by the acclaimed documentary filmmaker, was hardly the first celluloid foray into the history and artistry of jazz. In the 1980s, several jazz giants were the subjects of well-received film biographies; Columbia / Legacy has recently digitally enhanced and re-released their soundtracks, introducing them to a new audience. These films featured one fictional giant and two factual giants -- and, as you might expect, all three subjects seem larger than life.

Thelonious Monk: Original Soundtrack: Straight No Chaser (Columbia / Legacy)
This is only one person’s opinion (mine), but Straight No Chaser, originally released in 1989, is simply the greatest jazz documentary / biography ever. It never attempts to explain the inexplicable, unique genius of “The only-est” Monk. It presents the simple facts of Monk’s life and music, including his sad illness, in perfectly unadorned black and white, and allows viewers to draw their own conclusions. Straight, no chaser.

Straight is the only one of these three soundtracks to include snippets from the film, including several voiceovers: In the first, Monk’s childhood, his musical development in NYC, and subsequent place in the be-bop revolution are recounted over a fleeting quartet reading of "Straight, No Chaser"; in the last, Monk’s benefactor Countess Nica de Koenigswarter and his son recount Monk's death over an equally brief version of "'Round Midnight." Monk’s dialogue with the control room that glues together these two versions of “Ugly Beauty” clearly reveal his sadly tortured genius; frustrated by producer Teo Macero (who, with all due respect to the magnificent music he has helped create, comes across as a shucking and jiving, patronizing, complete dick in the film), Monk can only sputter in audible pain, “Why nobody just don’t wanna do what I ask them to do?!” Plus it opens with a soundbite from its subject that seems equal parts incredulity and bemusement: “I’m famous. Ain’t that a bitch?”

This soundtrack serves as a companion to the documentary, presenting complete versions of tunes that could appear only in abbreviated form in the film due to time constraints. Its mixture of solo, quartet and octet performances constructs in total a “best of Monk” set, which is to say that this is some of the most inventive and ROCKIN’ music the jazz community ever heard. The quartet tracks feature “Trinkle Trinkle” from Monk’s famous 1957 Coltrane quartet and Monk’s later, longstanding band with saxophonist Charlie Rouse, including their robust reading of the title track as a bonus cut to end this set. The octet tracks (“Epistrophy,” “Evidence,” and “I Mean You”) augment the Rouse quartet with four additional horns, including Phil Woods on alto and Johnny Griffin on tenor sax. Monk’s playing in “Evidence” is extremely fractured, with off-color single notes crashing in and stumbling out at odd times; the sound, perhaps, of psychosis.

But, oh, how glorious is Monk’s solo piano playing, especially in the heavily striding “Lulu’s Back In Town” and “Pannonica,” written for his benefactor and with his own hesitant, labored spoken introduction to the piece explaining its origin.

Dexter Gordon: Round Midnight (Columbia / Legacy)
Originally released in 1986, Round Midnight tells the tale of Dale Turner, a fictional American jazz expatriate living in Paris; Turner is widely understood to be an amalgam of be-boppers Lester Young and Bud Powell, who both left the States to live in Paris for considerable portions of their careers. Casting tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon as Turner was simply brilliant, since Gordon also relocated to Europe in the early 1960s and generally returned to the U.S. thereafter only to record.

Herbie Hancock’s fingerprints are everywhere on this soundtrack: He served as musical director for the film, and in trio with drummer Billy Higgins and bassist Pierre Michelot (the “rigorous bassist who had played with Bud Powell and Miles Davis,” writes co-writer and director Bertrand Tavernier in the original liner notes), played as Turner’s backup band throughout the film. This film also occasioned something of a Miles Davis alumna reunion with Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, John McLaughlin, and Ron Carter joining Hancock on the soundtrack, to which Bobby McFerrin, Bobby Hutcherson, Freddie Hubbard, and Chet Baker also contribute.

The real Midnight star is be-bop. McFerrin’s eerie and uncanny impression of a trumpet on the opening version of the title track is pure Miles Kind of Blue coool. A great rainy day tune of sadness and longing, Kenny Dorham’s “Fair Weather” is perfectly suited for Baker’s vocal style. On Monk’s “Rhythm-A-Ning,” the set’s hardest bop, Gordon matches Freddie Hubbard’s scalding trumpet strength-for-strength; Gordon also explores the sound of classic bop in Bud Powell’s "Una Noche Con Francis," in a sextet that includes Shorter and Bobby Hutcherson, and on the timeless “Body and Soul.” This reissued package includes a bonus track: An epic live version of “Round Midnight” from Gordon’s Homecoming: Live at the Village Vanguard, recorded at the famous NYC nightspot in 1976 during the saxophonist’s first return to the U.S. in years.

Charlie Parker: Original Soundtrack: Bird (Columbia / Legacy)
A 1989 retelling of the life of the original American bad-ass, Bird conceptually falls somewhere between these first two films. Forest Whitaker portrays Parker the man but, thanks to technology (and the love for jazz held by Lennie Niehaus, producer and musical supervisor of the original soundtrack, and the biopic’s executive producer Clint Eastwood), Parker the saxophonist represents himself.

Eastwood and Niehaus began with prime Parker performances from the 1940s and ‘50s: Three titles from sessions for Savoy in and around 1945, “April in Paris” from the Charlie Parker with Strings sessions for Verve, live tracks recorded at the legendary Rockland Palace in Harlem, and two live jams recorded at pianist Lennie Tristano’s house in the early 1950s (“All of Me” and “I Can’t Believe That You’re In Love With Me,” with drummer Kenny Clarke playing brushes on a telephone book). They digitally extracted Parker’s solo flights from these recordings, then recast them like jewels in the company of modern jazz players who must have felt like their musical dreams had come true.

You really can’t tell that these rhythm sections and other soloists are playing “to” Parker and not “with” him (though, in an attempt to create a crowded small club atmosphere, the taped-in audience noise is often intrusive). Jon Faddis plays white-hot and razor sharp for what would have been Dizzy Gillespie’s trumpet parts on “Ko Ko” and “Orinthology,” and Red Rodney, who was in Parker’s quintet from 1949 to ‘51 (and who also, unfortunately, actively participated in some of Parker’s more self-destructive personal habits), guests on “Now’s the Time.” The shifting rhythm sections include pianists Monty Alexander, Walter Davis and Barry Harris, and bassists Ron Carter and veteran Ray Brown, another Parker alumni.

Parker finds his place within the jazz tradition on “Laura,” a beautiful ballad with strings where he almost cushions the melody with his softer than usual tone and approach. But Bird the iconoclast is off and flying from the opening track, “Lester Leaps In,” a showcase of almost unbearable intensity. Its tempo is boiling, almost frantic. At the beginning of a chorus, Parker pauses for just that small, almost imperceptible moment to heighten the drama of almost every entrance, then he unleashes notes as in a torrent, blowing down every reasonable harmonic, rhythmic and melodic stop sign, resting in odd places but hardly resting at all. His tone cuts but is never harsh, clearly articulate yet somehow very street-sharp (Likewise, dig his first verse to “Koko”).