Blue Chopsticks: A Portrait of Herbie Nichols

Buell Neidlinger

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 27, 1995)
• Original Release Date: October 27, 1995
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: K2B2 Records
• ASIN: B000001CC6
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #177,602 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Review
The only distortions on Blue Chopsticks /Buell Neidlinger Quintet [K2B2 Records] come from the musicians. Neidlinger's cello, Richard Greene's violin, Jimbo Ross' viola, Marty Krytall's reeds and Hugh Schick's horns grunt, weep, taunt and howl at the most unexpected times. Which is disorienting until one considers that this kind of idiosyncratic, mood-shifting whimsy is what compels about the music of Herbie Nichols, to which Neidlinger is paying tribute here. Nichols, who died in 1963 of leukemia at age 44, was one of jazz's thwarted romantics. One hears a wounded quality in his compositions that both haunts and unsettles. Compared with modernist peers like Thelonious Monk, John Lewis and Horace Silver, Nichols remains as marginally known today as he was in his lifetime. (His best-known tune, "Lady Sings the Blues," became famous largely because of the thwarted romantic for whom it was written, Billie Holiday.) Still, the deeper you climb into Nichols' work, the more profound the rewards. Same goes for this album. Neidlinger travelled with Nichols along the margins of the jazz mainstream in the mid-1950s when he was playing bass behind another piano-playing rebel named Cecil Taylor. His interpretations of such Nichols tunes as "2300 Skidoo," "Love, Gloom, Cash, Love," "Portrait of Ucha" and "Cro-Magnon Nights" are attentive to the composer's impulse towards thematic subversion. The quintet's take on "The Gig," for instance, shifts into hoedown mode without harming - in fact, enhancing - the tune's droll jauntiness. Nichols, a bop-generation member who did much of his woodswhedding in dixieland bands, would have appreciated such wild juxtapositions. Neo-bop traditionalsts will probably sneer. But if they don't like their icons garlanded with bluegrass, they should mount their own Herbie Nichols tribute. Lord knows, he's got a lot more coming to him. --Gene Seymour, FI Magazine

Review
RHYTHM REVENGE Bassists and especially drummers- usually consigned to the back of thestage, their names at the bottorn of the marquee, often dismissed as mere timekeepers - can be excused somewhat if, on their own albums, they tend to overplay and overrely on their own solos. The great ones, of course, never play too much; the great ones make others sound better than they actually are, elevating themselves in the process, Like the best bassists, BUELL NEIDLINGER is capable of keeping flawless time. But this master is a seer, never a subordinate - a virtuoso whose inventive solos are the match of any horn player's (as witnessed by his playing over the years with the likes of Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor and Frank Zappa). The bearded bassist not only keeps time, he keeps his word, and with Blue Chopsticks: A Portroit Of Herbie Nichols (K2B2, 1748 Roosevelt Ave., Los Angeles, CA '90006-5219 323,732.1602), he makes good on a promise he made some 30 years ago. The titular Nichols, the late pianist/composer whom Neidlinger calls "the greatest jazz melodist after Ellington," recorded a few trio albums as a leader, bur was largly overlooked during his lifeeime, and even after his death, until Mosaic released a boxed set of his recordings. Nichok and Neidlinger gigged together in the early '50s, and frequently woodshedded, perfonning the former's craggy, rhythmically ingenious tunes and wondering what they would sound like with strings and horns. During their last conversation, before Nichols' death in 1963. the bassist promised that someday he would record the pianist's music as discussed. He makes good on Blue Chopsticks, which features 11 Nichols compositions as performed by a quintet with Neidlinger (cello), Richard Greene (violin), Jimbo Ross (viola), Marty Krystall(reeds) and Hugh Schick (brass). It is a testimonial to Nichols' compositional genius, to say nothing of Neidlinger's interpretive savy, that the tunes Nichols recorded with piano, bass, and drums are redone - beautifully, swingfully, sincerely - with none of the original instrumentation. Outstanding. Five stars. For a cool double play, cue up one of these numbers (try "2300 Skidoo") followed by a Nichols track from Blue Note's The Art Of Herbie Nichols compilation. Gene Kalbacher is editor and publisher of Hot House, the monthly jazz night-life guide for the New York metropolitan area. --Gene Kalbacher, Hot House Magazine

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent!, September 27, 2004

By	madamemusico "madamemusico" (Cincinnati, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Listening to Herbie Nichols' original piano-trio recordings, one is aware of a first class musical mind working in an original and unique way; but one is also aware that these are mere sketches, that Nichols was writing for some sort of band concept in his mind. Bassist Buell Neidlinger, who knew and worked with Herbie, promised him on his deathbed that someday he would record an album of his music using that sort of line-up. The result is this album, played by a wonderful pianoless quintet that includes two strings (violin and Neidlinger's bass) in addition to trumpet and alto sax. The rhythms and textures they achieve here are truly wonderful, especially in "Blue Chopsticks" and "Portrait of Eucha" with its loping, rambling gait.

Nichols' music sounds deceptively easy but is not. His melodies alternate between charmingly melodic and quirkily irregular, the harmonies shift with the melodic shapes, and the development sections break the phrases up into little sections rather than complete 16- or 32-bar phrases. In a sense, then, Nichols' music is related to the improvisations of the great Lester Young, which also worked in a similar manner, and with which he would have been familiar from his journeyman years playing piano during the 1940s. But Nichols was also influenced by the rhythms of his father's native Trinidad as well as the spiky harmonies and angular melodic construction of the great Hungarian composer Bela Bartok, who he greatly admired since Bartok, like him, composed music based on authentic folk melodies and harmonies. But of course Bartok's music is more complex since he wrote in extended forms; Nichols' is both less formal and more whimsical. He was, after all, a jazz composer, albeit a highly original one!

In short, then, an album not to be missed if you are a fan of challenging music that is also exciting and (occasionally) funny!