Customer Reviews

At the Manne Hole 2

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's next to impossible to surpass Shelly Manne's seminal live jazz recordings "At The Blackhawk," but the two volumes of "At The Manne-Hole" come remarkably close. These 1961 recordings feature Conte Candoli on trumpet, Richie Kamuca on tenor sax (the lone holdover from the Blackhawk band), Russ Freeman on piano, and Chuck Berghofer on bass at Shelly's club in Hollywood. "Volume Two" begins with "On Green Dolphin Street," which is one of the best performances in Manne's entire discography. The song begins with the drums, bass and piano all playing the perfect balance of off-tempo, staggered rhythms, only to have Candoli and Kamuca enter with their smooth, heartfelt opening statements. It cools down a bit on the next track -- this version of "What's New?" is clearly not as good as the one on Volume 2 of the Blackhawk set, but it is still enjoyable. Manne adds his own signature to "If I Were A Bell" by playing the opening notes on the bells of his cymbals (usually the piano starts this standard). "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" is a smooth ballad and becomes a vehicle for a superb solo by Kamuca. The band closes out in "Blackhawk" fashion with their theme, "A Gem From Tiffany." And speaking of the "Blackhawk" sessions, the recording quality for the "Manne-Hole" volumes is similarly stupendous. I do recommend buying the "At The Blackhawk" albums first (feel free to read my reviews for volumes 2-5), but after you fall in love with them (and you will), make the "Manne-Hole" sets your next affair.

In the early 1960s when I first started listening to jazz I received the vinyl 2 record set as a gift from my sister and wore those records out a long time ago. When the CDs became available I quickly bought them and after all of these years discovered that this music is still some of my favorite. I like the Blackhawk recordings, too, but in my opinion this recording and volume one from the Manne Hole are just a little bit better. I like the selection of standards and I like Russ Freeman's and Conti Candoli's playing a little better than Victor Feldman and Joe Gordon on the Blackhawk recordings. I just get the feeling that these guys were having a great time. Listen to the samples and then buy. This is great stuff.

I have no argument with giving Shelly's "Live at the Blackhawk" series a collective 5 stars. It is the ultimate West Coast "hard bop" recording of the 1950s. On the other hand, "At the Manne-Hole" gives listeners a nice taste of what the audience was hearing when "The Men" were playing on their home turf--Shelly's club in Hollywood. The personnel was a bit different and even the "vibe" of the club was different, but make no mistake--this group was no "cover band!" I was a young musician attending college in L.A. during the early and mid-1960s and was at the Manne-Hole on many occasions. Over the years I heard all of these musicians a lot, not only with Shelly but in other small groups and exciting big bands and these guys always delivered the jazz "goods" like the world-class players they were. Richie Kamuca was one of my all-time favorite tenor players---I loved his playing, hot or cool. As for repertoire, hey this was recorded in 1961--EVERYONE was playing Miles' book! I never made a session during the 60s where "Green Dolphin Street" (or "Bye Bye Blackbird") wasn't called up. I also happen to like this version of "What's New?" I particularly like Richie's solo and Russ Freeman's comping. Again, it's all personal taste. Long live Shelly Manne and The Men!

The Shelly Manne sets recorded at San Francisco's Black Hawk a year earlier (and released on five CDs) are so monumental, such a seminal document of straight-ahead small group jazz at a point of its highest evolution, that these otherwise fine sets taped at Hollywood's Manne-Hole (possibly the most unfortunately named jazz club of all time) were bound to disappoint. Among Manne's men, the only holdover from the year before is tenor Richie Kamuca, who really joined the big leagues on the Black Hawk sets, where he was clearly driven to new heights by the energy and creativity of compatriots like Joe Gordon and Vic Feldman. Here, with the much cooler Conte Condoli and Russ Freeman respectively filling the trumpet and piano duties, Kamuca returns to his Stan Getz style, and he just isn't in Getz' league. The music still works, all-in-all, but Volume 2 of the Manne-Hole set suffers in particular for its choice of programme: two of the tunes here ("On Green Dolphin Street" and "If I Were Bell") were staples of the Miles Davis Quintet of the period, which reduces Manne's men to a sort of jazz covers band. Their versions aren't altogether terrible, but they're not good enough to erase the strong association of these tunes with Davis' versions of them.