One Record
I was driving in the car the other day and listening to a playlist on my phone. A usual car playlist will have a variety of music, from the Beatles to Ella, James Taylor, 60s rock and, of course, some jazz. I was listening for about a half hour, singing along a little, but nothing that necessarily put a smile on my face. But then came this: Paul’s Pal, by Sonny Rollins. As soon as it came on, my face lit up. For me, it’s one of those songs that always puts a smile on my face. Maybe it reminds me of the first time I heard it, or perhaps because it always seemed to me like Sonny was smiling while he played it. Anyway, I started thinking about the record, Tenor Madness, and the thought popped into my head: If I could keep only one record, Tenor Madness would be one of the contenders. Now, I realize this is silly because there is so much music available everywhere in digital formats, so I could listen to pretty much anything I would want at any time. But it’s my game, and here’s how I played it out.
Tenor Madness has Coltrane and Rollins, not to mention Red Garland, Philly Joe Jones and Paul Chambers. I love every track. Paul’s Pal always puts a smile on my face. My Reverie is perhaps my favorite Rollins ballad. And then there’s the title track, Trane and Sonny together for the only time on record. I knew a sax player, Jeff Gordon, who used to wake up every day for a while and put the record on and keep score, depending on his mood or what he heard in the moment.
So I mentally went through the rest of my records and tried to come up with other contenders. There’s Kind of Blue, where you get Coltrane, Miles, Cannonball and Bill Evans. It’s another one I never get tired of hearing. Sonny Rollins Plus Four is another tip choice for me, and it’s not just Sonny and Max Roach at the top of their game, but Clifford Brown burns that record up. Then there’s Bill Evans, Waltz For Debby, which is the favorite of The Lovely Mrs. JC. And could I really live without Giant Steps, Blue Train or A Love Supreme? And what about Bird? For now, I’m still sticking with Tenor Madness, original yellow label pressing, of course, but I may change my mind. BTW, there is absolutely no connection between this weird little diversion and the post I put up last week about being open to selling off records, in case you were wondering.
Al
What a wonderful discussion. Passion will flow in all directions. Other than the usual suspects that were mentioned I will add three other contenders: Hank Mobley Soul Station, Freddie Redd Shades of Redd and Sun Ra We Travel the Spaceways. I daresay this discussion canbe as controversial as decisions from our Supreme Court, though our basic rights will not be taken away
To me it’s Azar Lawrence “Bridge Into The New Age” on Prestige Records. It’s a rich and dense sound, and Lawrence’s tenor moves me every. There’s so much warmth and pathos in his sound…
Other music may move the muscles, but jazz stirs the soul.
My first second hand record was Tenor Madness, my second Rollins album after S.R. + Four, bought at the official retail price. Of both I have fond memories, but at present I have a strong preference for the former, and just because of Paul’s Pal.
one only? sorry, mission impossible for me.
To pick one record? Pretty hard. But if I had to pick one Sonny Rollins album I would pick “saxophone colossus”.
There are some records that always seem to deliver more than you remember. One that falls into this category is Andrew Hill’s POINT OF DEPARTURE. Crammed with treasures — knotty, enigmatic, swinging.
If we are allowed a back-up choice then I think it would have to be Eric Dolphy’s OUT TO LUNCH.
Those two records offer sufficient for a listening lifetime.
Louis Armstrong’s West End Blues, the true essential Jazz Record.
I couldn’t do this. Records for me are both important and unimportant — I know people who have a special “house fire box” but I’d be much more worried about saving my cat than my library. If I was faced with needing to rebuild the collection I wouldn’t even start, rather find another hobby.
That said, for a long time the “desert island record” for me was the Aka Pygmy Music boxed set on Ocora.
i hate the idea of a house fire box, because then the records are not displayed in conjunction with the others.
Many yrs ago Rolling Stone asked some jazz critics their picks. Seem to remember Tatum/Webster in Verve, Duke at Carnegie Hall, Mingus Black Saint and Sinner Lady or Ah Um, others . . . Bird on Savoy?
Soul Station – Mobley for me, ooh but what about Roy Haynes – Crackling’ (with Booker Ervin) and then again
Charlie Mingus – Ah Um.
Harold Land “The fox” is the perfect album for me.
This question is probably as difficult as trying to undo the proverbial Gordian knot, but if I have to make a choice of one recording that delivers something inexplicably enriching and restorative for both mind and soul it has to be, “The Inflated Tear’ by Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Well, I somewhat participated in this query when Al was gracious enough to allow me to write two columns. “Dancing in your Head” and another one whose heading I forgot.
I do rather like this sort of activity, so, my one record would have been “Night and Day,” Charlie Parker on Verve, which was the very first Jazz record I bought way back when.
However, it’s all a moot point for me, because I let it go when I sold all my records. I mean, why keep just one. The music’s always in your head, in your soul, isn’t it?
Well, since we only have one record to our name for all time…. that would make me v sad. And if I’m very sad then I want good company in my mood.
It’s a cliche but I have to reach for 1959 Kind of Blue, as I have since I was a teen long ago. “Flamenco Sketches” and “Blue in Green” have Miles, Trane, and Cannonball at their most poignant, with impressionistic support from Evans. And then we get some mid-tempo swinging blues to stomp the blues away on “All Blues” and “Freddie the Freeloader” and (yes, I know it’s not a blues formally, but those solos) “So What.” I just hope my kids have a clue not to give away all my more rare and valuable albums…
On a related note, imagine that your jazz collection is complete, except for that ONE record. You’ve been waiting for decades to find a clean copy. Not only is that record rare, but it also happens to be a very cool record.
For example, “Jazz Quintet 60” on Fontana. In the last ten years I’ve only seen one or two copies. About ten years ago I bid hard on a copy and won the auction, but I never received the record. Either it was lost in the mail or the seller was a scammer.
Yeah, I used to think that I could get my jazz collection more “complete” by adding ONE heavy title. But the more I learn, the more I realize there’s always something to discover that you do not have. Also, some of those rare as hen’s teeth records aren’t even all that good!
Yes Clifford indeed…many a time over the last 30 years I’ve thought “ok now that I found this title I’m satisfied”. But then a week later you magically find out about another record you “need”. Such is our condition!
Totally agree with the “never entirely satisfied” feeling after adding that longed-for record to the collection – although Sam Rivers, A New Conception briefly made me feel complete a few months back
I’ve been at this for a long time. I believe that there are around a dozen records to complete what I set out to do. The list has not changed in several years, due to the virtual unobtainablilty of those particular records. It’s nice to have something to dream about.
The thought of just one is almost painful.
Agree w Charlie: the Fox is about perfect, as is its sister disc the Elmo Hope Trio.
great topic All, because there will never be a def answer.
And because it’s a pretty stupid idea to choose one song or one album;
here we go!
‘putting a smile on my face song’ *Not Guilty- Cliff Jordan, BN1565
Cliff Jordan – tenor saxophone
Curtis Fuller – trombone
John Jenkins – alto saxophone
Ray Bryant – piano
Paul Chambers – bass
Art Taylor – drums
(Lee Morgan is on the album but not this song)
.
.
one dessert record; it could be Basra- Pete La Roca BN4205, but in the end,
you always have to follow your heart , and then there is only one option (that, strangely enough has the same drummer):
Art Farmer – To Sweden with Love. ( Atlantic SD1430)
it’s haunting and comforting at the same time
Art Farmer – flugelhorn
Jim Hall – guitar
Steve Swallow – bass
Pete LaRoca – drums
ow ha.. just read this statement on Basra-
Pete- LaRoca bn4205 (1965!)
.
“Bassist Steve Swallow recounted that he and La Roca had taken LSD prior to traveling to recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s New Jersey studio for the session. He also said that Van Gelder threatened to end the session after pianist Steve Kuhn started manually plucking the piano strings.”
🙂
Al,I love “Paul’s Pal” by Rollins as well. Was lucky enuff to grab a copy on yellow Bergenfield 40 yrs(!) back-couldn’t afford it now,let alone yr original. Ck out a killer version of “Pal” on Three of A Kind(Minor Music)-Peter Madsen(p),Dwayne Dolphin(b),Bruce Cox(d). It’s a “feel good” go-to that never fails to lift my spirits(and who hasn’t needed that lately?)
Let’s put aside the usual KOB and Bill’s Vanguard sessions-I vote for his Portrait In Jazz date. It has some great playing by the trio and includes “Someday My Prince Will Come”,with its spiraling finish. It made me laugh out loud when I first heard it decades ago and it still brings a smile to my face.
Lastly,that Swallow/La Roca LSD tale at RVG’s made me have even more respect for Rudy’s accomplishments. A couple of knuckleheads on acid?
C’mon, man!
For me Dexter Gordon Go will always be up there, I bought it in the sixties when Dexter lived in Copenhagen, and you could hear him week after week in Montmatre, recalls so many memories, and so does Ben Webster on Fontana recorded live in 1965 in Montmatre the night I was there. These young teen age recollections and records are still among my dearest
KRistian
In this forum for Blue Note aficionados it might be frivolous to strike a blow for some af the old swing masters, e.g. Young on Aladdin and the Hawkins/Webster encounter on Verve from 1957, but they certainly deserve a desert island existence together with Rollins on Village Vanguard and Hill´s Point of Departure ( the explosive and deconstructionist drumming of Tony Williams alone paves the way to my Pantheon).
I´m Danish jazz lover who had the privilege of being able to see and enjoy and sometimes talk to jazz greats mostly from the Blue Note roster, Powell, Gordon, Griffin, Henderson, Taylor ( Cecil and Art), McCoy, Drew, Parlan, Jordan, Rollins, Gillespie, Konitz, Hawk, Webster, Chet and numerous others, who all played at Cafe Montmartre in Copenhagen in the 60`s and 70`s. The crowning glory for me, jazz wise, occurred in 1961, when I saw both Cannonball and Coltrane playing to a capacity crowd in a large concert hall in Copenhagen. Elvin Jones and his octopus drumming stole the show. Some memory to cherish in one`s old age!
I`ve enjoyed following your blog for quite some time and this is the first time I put my oar in. Thank you for incisive insights and learned instruction which contribute to keeping our beloved minority genre afloat.
I miss Al.
I’d go with “Saxophone Colossus” by Sonny Rollins. Of previous lps mentioned here, I think “Kind Of Blue” (Miles), and “The Fox” (Harold Land) are very worthy picks as well.
…The mere thought of selecting just one album is in itself one of Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell ! If trying to answer the question doesn’t lead to madness, surely listening to the same record over and over would ! Heaven forbid that the needle should ever break ? The very idea of a desert island pick always reminds me of that classic Twilight Zone episode “Time Enough at Last”…
For those that haven’t seen it (spoiler alert): “It’s the story of a man who loves books yet is surrounded by those who would prevent him from reading them. One day he takes his lunch break in the vault of a bank where he works so his reading cannot be disturbed. Moments after he sees a newspaper headline, which reads “H-Bomb Capable of Total Destruction”, an enormous explosion outside suddenly shakes the vault, knocking him unconscious. After regaining consciousness and recovering the thick glasses required for him to see, he emerges from the vault to find the bank demolished and everyone in it dead. Leaving the bank, he sees that the entire city has been destroyed, and realizes that, while a nuclear war has devastated Earth, him being in the vault has saved him.
Finding himself alone in a shattered world with canned food to last him a lifetime and no means of leaving to look for other survivors, he sees the ruins of the public library in the distance. Investigating, he finds that the books are still intact; all the books he could ever hope for are his for the reading, and time to read them without interruption.
His despair gone, Bemis contentedly sorts the books he looks forward to reading for years to come, with no obligations to get in the way. Just as he bends down to pick up the first book, he stumbles, and his glasses fall off and shatter. In shock, he picks up the broken remains of the glasses without which he is virtually blind and bursts into tears, surrounded by books he now can never read.
“That’s not fair. That’s not fair at all. There was time now. There was… was all the time I needed.”
*On a side note, was it a coincidence that the original air date for “Time Enough at Last” was November 20, 1959 ? There was definitely something in the air that year, as so many of the albums we noted as possible contenders for a desert island pick were also released in 1959. That was one hell of a year… (Pardon the pun.)