Customer Reviews

More Live at the Bee Hive

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Disc 1
1. After You've Gone 21:52 only known version
2. Blues 15:07
3. Jordu 14:07
4. The Song Is You 17:37 only existing version

Disc 2
1: Ballad Medley 10:14
a. My Funny Valentine Solo by Richie Powell
b. Darn That Dream Solo by Harold Land
c. The Song Is You Solo by Clifford Brown
2. What Am I Here For? 13:04 only alternate version
3. I'll Remember April 18:47
4. What's New? 3:53
5. Daahoud 10:28
6. Lover Man 6:32 only preserved version
7. 52nd Street Theme 6:15 only recorded version

The effort spent in preserving and improving the sound quality of this performance, which came from a non-professional private tape, is a fitting tribute to the magnitude of these artists and the music they created. The five noted compositions alone are worth the total price, and the entire set, capturing the relaxed atmosphere of the appreciative audience, is priceless.

Of the many highlights, the contrasting drum solos by Mr. Roach on "After You've Gone" and "Blues" stand out, as do the range of Mr. Brown's trumpet on "After..." and Mr. Morrow's bass on "Blues." The quintet's standards "Jordu", I'll Remember April", and "Daahoud" are as fresh as ever.

This is a collector's item, and easily enjoyable for anyone familiar with the group. The two disc The Historic California Concerts 1954 is a good place to start for someone interested in their music.

There are some technical difficulties, understandable given the undertaking involved. The quality of the recording is based on what survived, and that is what counts.

Although Sonny Rollins is with the quintet on a couple of the tracks, the only (and sufficiently compelling) reason to have this one in your collection is the quintessential, unequalled playing of Clifford Brown--AND Harold Land. In fact, the inferior quality of the audio "frees" the listener to concentrate on nothing but the sheer beauty created by these two American Masters of the art of jazz improvisation.

It's practically assured that the version of "After You've Gone" leading off this priceless recording is the best you will ever hear--the most "gone" Gone of them all. Moreover, the mic is dead center in its focus on the horns of Clifford Brown and Harold Land (a brilliant musician whose smallish tone could be drowned out by surrounding musicians when you caught him live). The solos of both are masterpieces, each acquiring complexity and excitement while remaining perfectly executed from start to finish. And though this is obviously a fairly loose, "jam session" format, the 4-bar naked stretches that Roach allows at the end of each chorus serve to foreground and magnify the artistry of each player. Notice how harmonically intricate each 4-bar break is despite the absence of rhythm sections and chords. How Land picks up his 4 on the heels of Clifford's solo, scarcely betraying a break in the music or a change in instruments. Then notice how Land doesn't merely "fill" his final four-bar break but uses it to carry on through the climactic high point of his solo. Finally, he refuses to back down an inch (I didn't count, but if anything he takes more choruses than Clifford).

Many listeners will dismiss this recording not because of the playing but the inferior audio quality. Frankly, the fidelity, which practically forces exclusive concentration on the two horns, is in some respects refreshing. On today's recordings, however "high" the "fi," a digital sameness often pervades the proceedings. There's simply no space between the performer and the listener. Try to visualize a picture and the best that comes to mind is a studio with musicians wearing earphones, engineers "punching in" the better played notes, musicians often playing with themselves--or other pre-recorded--musicians. By contrast, "More Live at the Beehive" places the listener in a time and a place, calling forth the image of musicians (neither Clifford nor Harold, despite their gigantic artistry, was physically large), and the sheer ecstasy and excitement of being a first-hand witness to sounds which, though created long ago, are irrefutably a part of history, of finite experience--beauty created (not always understood) by a flash of brilliance that Bird brought to those who would hear. Clifford and Harold heard, and obviously reflected the radiance of music's singular skylark.

The previous reviewer made the right call concerning this date. The audio is subpar, the mix and / or mastering occasionally grating (especially the boosted bass tones), the balance makes listening for extended stretches an extra challenge. But this is music that tests the listener rather than the other way around: it doesn't require the likes of you or me to pass judgment on it. All the same, the fidelity is often better than might be expected. In no time at all, Brownie's passionate, alternately light and fiery choruses have you caught up in the heat of creation, thinking of little else but the music. And an added attraction is the opportunity to hear both Harold Land (who was on all of the "commercial" albums made by the group except one) and Sonny Rollins (just breaking in and preparing for "At Basin Street").

If nothing else, a recording such as this can only enhance the reputation of the highly underrated Harold Land who, like Hank Mobley, is a player capable of reaching the listener in ways thatTrane, Rollins, even Dexter do not. There's no gimmick, no pose, no extraneous "devices," no physical "presentation" (he was a diminutive player with a hard and edgy but relatively non-muscular sound). His ideas and execution are both lightning fast, he "shades" his tones, contouring them to the requirements of the music and the ensemble sound, he sees the entire field before him and proceeds to work his architectural wonders on land that he's carefully staked out. Perhaps the relative lack of interest that this remarkable player has attracted can be taken as further testimony to the singular genius of Brownie, but it need not detract from the pleasure of listening to the tenor great (his marathon solo on Duke's "What Am I Hear For" is a non-stop treasury of inspired lyric flights.

Sonny Rollins is heard on the next tune--"I Remember April"--taken at one of those whirlwind, break-the-speed-limit tempos that Max so frequently favored over tempos that would afford the soloists more opportunity for expression. Brownie nonetheless excites and engages the mind, getting himself in jams and then working himself out of them, not for a moment allowing himself to be coerced by Roach's relentless thunder. Then it's Rollins' turn. The evidence speaks for itself. Not to diminish Rollins' stature, but the playing cannot begin to approach the exquisite artistry of Harold Land, a musician belonging on the same consummate level as Clifford's. Although it must be conceded that Land's constructions and elocution of them evidenced deterioration beginning in the 1970s and continuing into the 1980s, his playing with the Roach-Brown ensemble and then with various groups on the West Coast (some, like the Curtis Counce Quintet, more musically compelling than the Roach power plant) is of a sublime order of beauty that is rarely heard in this or any other music. In sum, Harold Land should be acknowledged, at least on the basis of his recorded work 1950-1970, as one of the music's indisputable giants. He's a player virtually without peer--Brownie, in fact, was one of the very few musicians capable of playing on Land's unreachable level.

Even among musicians like Roach and Brown, presentation (and making a living) counted for something--which may help explain why Land was replaced by the more imposing (bigger sound, bigger physique) Rollins in the group, or why Joe Henderson, whose newer, harsher phrasing but less melodic playing, received attention from Blue Note recording artists who previously had gone to Mobley. Regardless, comparisons are always welcome, though no doubt they will lead to different conclusions among listeners. There was a time I scarcely thought about either Hank Mobley or Harold Land; now a day scarcely goes by that I don't listen to one or the other. (Admittedly, it's easiest to recommend the music of both of these supreme players before the mid-1960s, Mobley even more so than Land.)