Customer Reviews

Complete Blue Note Recordings

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The world seems to know Dizzy Gillespie, Clifford Brown, and Miles Davis as the ultimate bebop trumpet players, but Fats Navarro truly deserves a spot in that hall-of-fame also. The recordings represented here, mostly recorded from 1947 to 1949, show how Fats represents a link between Diz and Brownie. Though he died far too young at age 26 (tuberculosis complicated by a heroin addiction) his work still sounds fresh and exciting to this day.

Since this is a Blue Note release, you know the sound quality is first-rate. This 36 song collection (23 songs, 13 alternate takes) would make an excellent companion to the circa '46-'47 collection Goin' To Minton's. Overall, if you can only have one CD release of Fats Navarro's greatness, make it this one.

A wonderful two-disc set including performances by the legendary Tadd Dameron, Bud Powell, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, and Miles Davis corresponding with the lesser known Charlie Rouse (Monks tenor of choice), the ill-fated alto-saxophonist Ernie Henry, trombonists J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding, and transcendental RoyEldridge/DizzyGillespie hybrid Howard Mcghee. And, ofcourse, the illimitable Fats Navarro featured on 32 of the 36 tracks. A fine collection in every aspect highlighted by Dameron and Powell originals, however, the first six songs on the second disc are all-solid Mcghee-Navarro collaborations. Lots of Fats through and through and through...a classic record. P.S.....intrestingly the four tunes minus Navarro include a young Miles Davis as the ninth piece in Damerons' band.

was tadd dameron one of the greatest jazz composers of all time? one run through this wonderful blue note compilation serves as heavy evidence that he was. several of his standards are here played by the composer with some great icons of the be-bop era. a 22 year old miles davis appears on the last four tracks of disc 1 and a young sonny rollins appears on the navarro tracks with bud powell (disc 2, tracks 7-14). the music is a glimpse of the revolution happening on 52nd street and at minton's playhouse in the 1940s as jazz suddenly had swing infused with bop. mr. navarro may not be all that familiar to audiences today (he died in the late 40s), but his influence has been heard through jazz from the trumpet voices of clifford brown, miles davis,lee morgan, and younger voices like roy hargrove. mr. navarro was a follower of dizzy gillespie, but soon developed his own sound. listen to the tracks with bud powell and you will know that jazz lost a great innovator just as he was coming into his prime. this is a great set, especially for those wanting to hear bebop in its purest form.

Tadd Dameron and Fats Navarro were very important figures in bebop, and these tracks demonstrate why...

Dameron came up with a lot of interesting chord progressions, and he was a fine melodist and small group arranger. Thelonius Monk gets more attention as the great composer to come out of the beboppers, but Damerson certainly could hold his own. Check out Heavens Doors Are Open Wide.. Like Gil Evans, he was great at arranging for a small group taking a few horns voicing them to sound much larger.

Fats plays does some great (if short - many of the tracks run under 3:00) soloing on this, and you also get a snapshot of Sonny Rollins early style too. Fats Navarro was the link between Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown. While he had great technique and was harmonically advanced, he was also a very melodic player.

If you're a bebop fan, you'll want this.

Shawn

I've owned this set for about five years and have listened to it dozens of times. And each time I have, it has been with renewed delight. For the awe-inspiring artistry of a virtual Who's Who of bebop's (no, these folks are beyond genre pigeonholes, so make that jazz's) greatest players under the direction of the peerless arranger/composer Tadd Dameron, but also in the recognition that though every one of the contributors is gone (most for decades) their genius endures in the glorious music captured in this two-disc Blue Note compilation.

Of the many giants represented on this disc, I would personally single out for special mention Fats Navarro, Ernie Henry and John Collins.

Although I can't claim a infallible ear when it comes to blind I-D'ing one marquee musician from another, I don't believe I have never mistaken Fats Navarro for any other trumpet player. It is not in disrespect to any of those mentioned in earlier reviews, all of whom are represented in my own library, that I consider Navarro the most effortless player I have ever heard. To be sure, in their collaboration McGhee comes close to him for sheer instumental fluency (another case of the greatest players making great players even greater?), but in my opinion over the course of his too brief career no one has ever matched Navarro's always smoothly flowing, never strained style. And this on an intrument that seems to this ear notably sensitive to forced tempi, particularly in the upper registers. Over the course of these two discs, his brilliance is abundantly evident, never more so than when he trades breaks with McGhee on the two takes each of "Boperation" and "Double Talk."

Two tunes, by the way, to which altoist Ernie Henry made the solo contributions that led me to seek out as much more of his recorded output as I could find, further leading me to the opinion that his early death (like Fats a combination of TB and smack) robbed us certainly of a superb instrumentalist and on the evidence of music penned for his few albums as a leader ("Meet Ernie Henry", "Last Chorus") almost as certainly of a potentially fine composer as well.

Finally there's John Collins, a largely uncelebrated but excellent (I believe mostly west coast) studio player and sideman who shared stages or recorded with many of the greatest artists of the swing and bop eras and whose hallmark for me is the understated elegance of his playing, always a complement to whoever he supports. "John's Delight" offers a rare opportunity for him to display his soloing talents front and center. With the very "delightful" results composer Dameron doubtless anticipated when (I believe) writing the piece expressly for him.

The additional presences of Bud Powell, Milt Jackson, JJ Johnson, Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray, Sonny Rollins and drummers Roy Haines and Kenny Clarke, not to mention a young, yet to evolve Miles Davis (especially on one of my favorite Dameron compositions, "Focus"), contribute to creating two-plus hours of the most consistently absorbing and timelessly fresh music it is possible to hear. Unreservedly recommended.

My discovery of Fats Navarro was through my school's music library's list of "available boxed sets." "Complete Blue Note" is enough to get any jazz fan worked up in excitement. Upon listening, I was blown away by Navarro's virtuosity, melodic beauty, and harmonic fertility. Also, when I realized that Tadd Dameron composed and arranged almost everything on these two discs, I was even more impressed by these two unheralded masters of bebop.

This extremely crucial set issues all of the recordings by Fats on the Blue Note label: recordings with him and Tadd as co-leader, some recordings of Dameron and young Miles Davis, some extremely impressive recordings of Fats and Bud Powell, and the only recorded encounter between Fats and Benny Goodman (which appears on at least thirty different compilations). It is a profound relief to have such vital and scrambled recordings on one set.

There's a reason that Navarro was Clifford Brown's main (only?) influence: each improvisation tells a story, starting out with a beautifully executed line that continues to build upon itself. His vibrato was sparkling like a faint breeze and his trumpet excellence gave him the ability to take flight on short notice. Tadd Dameron's striking compositions, with classics such as Our Delight, The Chase, and Lady Bird, have the warm radiance of the sun and always sound exuberant (Dameron rarely ever composed in the minor key). The partnership between Navarro and Dameron combined two musicians whose eyes saw much further than their contemporaries - imagine how far their combined ability would have taken them in the 50's and beyond.

Since this was before the LP era, the listener is still treated to short songs, around three minutes each. It's a pity that Navarro doesn't have longer time to stretch out and wail, or that Dameron's compositions and arrangements can't expand beyond the three minute mark and become even more symphonic in their microcosmic complexity. Many of the songs consist of a quick melody statement followed by a few one-chorus or half-chorus solos. Frustrating and tantalizing glimpses of the musicians' collective ability are shown.

Many of the musicians on this compilation are heard in their earliest form, one of the blessings of 40's bebop recordings. Listen to altoist Ernie Henry blowing some of his earliest golden notes on record, his melodic statements slipping among glades of Dameron's chords, sleeping in the listener's ear and dreaming until Henry's next idea. Charlie Rouse is featured well before his Monk days, but doesn't take many solos. The recordings with Bud Powell speak for themselves - they announced a bright new star on the tenor saxophone, Sonny Rollins, and swiftly established Powell as a masterful composer of bebop melodies. Even Howard McGhee's battles with Navarro are included in the set.

My favorite track from the compilation is the riveting "I Think I'll Go Away." Kenny Pancho Hagood makes his sole appearance, and to this reviewer, has one of the most gorgeous voices in jazz to ever exist. I'm not sure why critics call his voice an "acquired taste," but it adds grace to this recording in addition to The Birth of the Cool and Thelonious Monk's Blue Note recordings. Hagood does not dream alone, as he has a septet backing him. Imagine taking an incredible jazz voice and combining it with a septet arrangement by Tadd Dameron, including the beautiful counter-lines and vibrato of Navarro. It's surreal.

Navarro's hour was short, seeing the man die at age 26 from pointless tuberculosis sped up by pointless heroin abuse. Even if you don't know his name, hearing his serene sound will give your soul ease. Tadd Dameron was an arranger of such fairness, his musical charts breezing of such good savor. Partner the two men, and the music holds many secrets and undiscovered moments, old, wonderful, and beautiful things in its treasuries, noble notes from the hearts of those that created it.

Navarro was a supreme trumpet player. He had the facility of a Dizzy Gillespie. He could play nearly anything. He did not have significant limitations on his technical ability, but he had a soft attack much like Miles Davis or Chet Baker. His music is really pretty direct. He did not adopt a very specific style like Miles Davis or Chet Baker to distinguish himself from the other trumpet players of his day. He could play at very fast speeds.

You are better off getting his Blue Note and Savoy sessions from the original label like this issue. I have the Savoy recordings and the Blue Note recordings in both lp's and from the compact discs listed on Amazon. The sound is really much better than some of the cheap reissues that do not have access to the original tapes. It is worth paying a little extra to get sound that includes crisp sound. You will know what I mean if you listen to the set from Proper Box. It is an English company that must be relying on old lp's and 78's which seem to be filtered through computerized noise reduction software. I have done some of this kind of engineering myself from live tapes. It is extremely hard to balance the tasks of removing extraneous noise, but not take out any of the high end signal or make the sound "muddy". I do not believe that Proper Box was successful in that endeavor. This is not to say that all of the Proper Box sets are bad, but if you can get discs from the original tapes at reasonable prices, you owe it to yourself to do it. I will not get on my soap box and tell you that you must purchase from the original jazz labels. While I admire their work and am glad that they put out so much jazz on record, it is clear that with the exception of Blue Note, many of the labels paid the musicians peanuts.

I first heard first Fats Navarro on The Amazing Bud Powell Volume 1, and I remember thinking, man I've got to buy some of Fats' records. It was about that time that I learned a little about Tadd Dameron, and with the great reputation of Blue Note, I jumped at the chance to have them both on a 2-CD set. And this set really sparkles. I like the arrangement on the first disk of having the alternate and master takes come one right after the other. It makes it easier to appreciate the subtle differences in the takes and allows the music to sink in. Plus all the songs really shake. There's even a couple with vocals, and Kenny Hagood and Kay Penton do a great job of bringing special meaning to the songs they sing on. (Penton's "What's New" especially.) The other thing this set has going for it is the great line-up of musicians, including Miles Davis, J.J. Johnson, Benny Goodman, and Bud Powell. (All of Bud's songs from this compilation also appear on the CD mentioned above.) The impressive licks come hard and fast, and it is not exaggerating to say that some of these recordings are not only the trend setters of their time, but are vital pieces of jazz history. There isn't a dull moment during the almost two hours of music, and the historic nature of this set, make this a standout. The Blue Note production quality is as high as always, and there are plenty of liner notes to cover all the different groups and sessions (six, I think) that make up the 2-CD's. No fan of jazz will be disappointed with this set, and anyone thinking of branching out into jazz could do a lot worse than buy this set. This one is definitely a keeper.