Customer Reviews

Makin the Changes

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

 

 

Tr?s grand album de McLean, superbes improvisations. Cet album doit faire partie de la collection de toute personne aimant le Jazz.

like Dupree, like Kenny, like wilbur h., like little johnny C, like roy b., like jackie's pal, like WEBSTER. nuff said. you better dig it. it's a "LONG DRINK OF THE BLUES" DJ EDDIE FREEZE CLEVELAND OHIO

Sorry,but I can't give five stars to this record.If I do,how many stars should I give to McLean's outstanding Blue Note albums like "Bluesnik","Destination out","Swing,swang,swinging","let freedom ring" or "Right now"? So,this very excellent hard bop session deserves "only" four stars,even if Jackie's playing is totally amazing.

This record is made of two different recording sessions,both made in 1957;"A long drink of the blues",another McLean's New Jazz item,was made with material recorded during the same sessions.

The quartet session (and it's my favorite one,maybe because it gave MCLean an extraordinary opportunity to pay a dramatic and magnificent tribute to Billie Holiday on the "Long drink" record,made of "Embraceable you","I cover the waterfront" and "these foolish things") features McLean with the great Mal Waldron on piano,Arthur Phipps on bass and a fine Art Taylor on drums.The sextet session,recorded six months later,features Curtis Fuller,trombone,Webster Young,trumpet,Gil Coggins,piano,Paul Chambers,bass and Louis Hayes,drums.

Jackie McLean is really a miraculously healed guy.73 years old now,and still alive and playing.It seems incredible that this man could survive such a drug addiction for years and years (even if he is totally sober for many years).Remember his dramatical participation in that very difficult movie,"the connection".McLean's style is a very complex one,made of course,with strong influences of sax players (Charlie Parker,first,but also Dexter Gordon,Coleman Hawkins,Benny Carter,and some Sonny Rollins and Johnny Griffin too),but also an evident relation with Bud Powell,one of the greatest piano players,and an the shadow of Billie Holiday's singing.

His sound is violent and earthy,his playing is full of rhythmical breakings.Remember his tragical improvisation on "Melody for Melonae",remember the emotional power of his two Steeplechase albums recorded at the Left Bank Jazz Society,Baltimore,1966;McLean always played as if his life would stop the minute after.This guy had no time to loose.

You can hear that in "Jacjie's ghost",in "What's new"(the fourth part of the tribute to Lady Day),or in "Bean and the boys",the masterpiece of this album."Bean and the boys" was first recorded by its writer,Coleman Hawkins (1904-1969,who's nickname was "Bean" or "The Hawk",and who happened to be the Louis Armstrong of the tenor saxophone,the "creator" of the instrument,the greatest of them all),and the "boys" were Fats Navarro,J.J.Johnson,Milt Jackson and Max Roach.You can see that these boys became absolute stars a couple of years later.Among these boys,and even if they didn't play on the original 1946 recording,you can name Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell,who were Coleman Hawkins' protégés and became some of the most celebrated jazz heroes.

1957,the 25 years old John Lenwood McLean was on his way to glory;he was on his way to tragedy,too.They say that masterpieces often are made of pain;you can imagine what his miraculous "Melody for Melonae" was made of.And even if this CD doesn't appear into McLean's discography as one of the most essential record,even if it is an excellent one,it would be a terrible mistake to miss it,because there's great music here,and because it will help you to discover the way McLean followed to go as far as his "New and old gospel" album (Blue Note again,with...Ornette Coleman).