One Track Mind: John Coltrane with the Red Garland Trio "Traneing In" (1957)

by Pico

Just because I haven't written a whole lot about John Coltrane up to this point doesn't mean I don't seriously revere the man's music. But what is there left to be said about Coltrane that hasn't already been said with much more eloquent words than I can muster?

There are, however, a few Trane tunes I love that I rarely see get much mention. His rendition of the Billy Strayhorn classic composition "Lush Life," for instance, is perhaps the best version I've ever heard. "Central Park West" is a lovely tune in its original form even if Joe Lovano later topped it. And then there's the title cut from that 1957 session he co-headlined with pianist Red Garland called "Traneing In."

Both John Coltrane and Red Garland were in Miles Davis' quintet in the mid-fifties but 'Trane at the time was temporarily out of it and woodshedding under Thelonius Monk. Meanwhile, Red was still in it but heading up his own little trio on the side. And what a trio it was: Paul Chambers and Art Taylor, both of whom were also recent members of Davis' combo.

"Traneing In" is a simple, straight blues number concocted by JC, and it's perfectly suited for not just him, but perhaps even more so for Garland. Red's traditional sounding mixture of single line and block chords was always heavily blues-based. He starts soloing around the blues figures almost as soon as the song starts and playfully dances around it with his right hand while the left occasionally throws in reference chords. After a while, he's playing full chords with both hands, grooving with a nice sense of rhythm.

Trane makes his grand entrance at the 3:36 mark and starts out blowing long notes before launching into his unmatched ability to play several notes at the same time (still a newly acquired trait at that time). Still several years away from his avant garde tendencies, Trane's notes don't stray often from a pretty tight range, but they're all the right notes and played flawlessly and clarity, despite the speed at which he's playing them at times. After several minutes of sizzling "sheets of sound" he finally gives way to Paul Chambers.

Coming on the heels of a John Coltrane solo makes this probably one of the rare times you're bound to be disappointed to hear Paul Chambers do his thing on acoustic bass. But Chambers is clearly playing as loose as the others, even throwing in a reference to "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" for unsuspecting listeners.

Both Red and Trane return for shorter solos before the legendary saxman take the proceedings to the end.

You can point to a truckload of tracks where John Coltrane reached greater heights than on this early-career recording but the appeal of this song lies in its groove and how the players milk it for all its worth. For all the high-falutin' flights of fancy Coltrane became known for later, he could always appeal to listeners at a gut level when he wanted to. As on a pleasing finger-snapper like "Traneing In."

Listen: John Coltrane with the Red Garland Trio "Traneing In"

Purchase: John Coltrane with the Red Garland Trio - Traneing In


"One Track Mind" is a more-or-less weekly drool over a single song selected on a whim and a short thesis on why you should be drooling over it, too.

Sleeper picks: Danny Gatton, "88 Elmira St." (1991)

NICK DERISO: The late, and unjustly obscure Washington D.C. guitar guru Danny Gatton -- known, quite simply, as The Humbler -- finally got his splashy major-label debut with this one, and it sparkles in the white-hot spotlight.

Good thing, too. By 1994, one of music's most versatile, talented and electric performers had committed suicide. In the interim, Gatton's recordings more often included guest vocalists, with uneven results. "88 Elmira St." is all-instrumental, and better for it.

You'll hear blues, deep-fried swing, rockabilly (expected, perhaps, since Gatton had spent time with both Roger Miller and Robert Gordon), Les Paul, Dick Dale, the theme from "The Simpsons," Chet Atkins, Jimi Hendrix, bluegrass, some kind of garage-band noise that sounded like spot-welding, Wes Montgomery, the works. (This was a guy, after all, who once was in a band called Redneck Jazz Explosion.) Gatton was so good he could put down his Telecaster in the middle of a song then switch over for a blazing turn on the banjo. So, he does.

Highlights include "Elmira Street Boogie," nominated for a 1990 Grammy as Best Rock Instrumental Performance; the fun roadhouse shuffle "Funky Mama"; and a deeply emotional version of Brian Wilson's mythic rumination on lonliness "In My Room."

In that quiet moment, his ferocious talent is laid bare. Gatton absorbed every significant element of the guitar, and made them his own.

Purchase: Danny Gatton - 88 Elmira Street

Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Jack DeJohnette - Setting Standards (2008)

by Pico

Here's where it all started...

Pianist Keith Jarrett, double-bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette make up the threesome that today is the gold standard of trio jazz. You've might have even seen me effuse about them in the past a time or two. And this month marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first recordings by Jarrett's "Standards" Trio. (Note: this lineup previously recorded Tales of Another in 1977, but it was collection of Peacock originals, not standards).

To mark the event, ECM Records has re-issued the entire contents of the January, 1983 sessions at New York's famed Power Station studio. These sessions spun off not only the single standards album that was originally intended (Standards, Vol. 1), but also another one (Standards, Vol. 2) and a third containing two Jarrett originals (Changes). For the first time, these three albums are combined into a single box set attractively packaged with informative liner notes and vintage photos from the recording sessions. ECM appropriately titled this collection Setting Standards.

How Jarrett got the idea to do this in an era where everyone was writing and playing their own material is easier to understand when you look at his history of being a bit of a rebel. He rebelled against acoustic bop in the early seventies when he joined Miles Davis' electric fusion band and toured with it for about eighteen months. Not long afterwards, he rebelled against electric jazz itself and played unplugged exclusively from that point on. He rebelled against structured jazz and ensemble jazz by holding solo concerts where he made up extended pieces on the spot. And in early 1983, he decided to rebel against the growing notion that in order to be creative, you must play melodies that no one has heard before.

It's on these recordings that Jarrett reintroduced and reinforced the idea that standards are vehicles for limitless invention. Moreover, it can be done without emptying out the heart of the tune. If you know these songs, you can locate the themes of them in any interpretation made by this group. At the same time, you'll also find that these guys play them in such a way that transcends these standards.

In each of the covers, Keith & Co. do something a little bit out of the ordinary that set their presentation of these well-worn classics apart from everyone else's. On "Meaning Of The Blues" it's the way Peacock makes his bass sing like a bird. On "All The Things You Are" it's Jarrett and DeJohnette sync-locked into a groove in the lively middle section. On "God Bless The Child" it's the extended insistent, mid-tempo rock shuffle that makes one wonder what is all the fuss about The Bad Plus.

While there was probably nothing intended to distinguish Vol. 1 from Vol. 2, the first volume's strong suit is the imaginative arrangements of the songs, while the second volume showcases Jarrett's considerable piano playing prowess better. It might be because the material on the second volume presents more challenges to him.

The lyrical samba "So Tender" is actually an old, obscure Jarrett piece that he introduced on Airto's 1972 debut album. He and Peacock alternate turns locking down the main melodic line and squeezing all the possibilities out of it. "Moon and Sand" showcases Jarrett's single-line supremacy followed by Peacock's beautifully melancholy performance on his solo turn. Jarrett is having so much fun cutting loose on "If I Should Lose You" his familiar vocalizing turns into outright joyful shouts in the middle of the improvising.

Since the two song collection Changes contains just Jarrett compositions, it can be considered the "bonus disc" of the box set even though it was released as a standalone album. But its inclusion still makes sense as it was recorded in the same sessions as Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, and provides contrast to the standards while at the same time showing continuity. Here, we get to listen to the same crew tackle more abstract compositions that take longer to reveal itself.

The first part of "Flying" is almost a free-flowing stream of modal consciousness, while the second part is a funky shuffle that dissolves into a terrific DeJohnette drum solo. It's almost as if Jarrett made up the tune on the spot and maybe he did, just as he's done so without accompaniment for audiences around the globe in the prior decade to much acclaim. But to add Peacock and DeJohnette to the mix and to hear them being able to follow and even anticipate Jarrett's next moves is something far out of the ordinary for a combo. It's magical.

All told, Changes is not much unlike the music the Jarrett was playing with his European quartet of the seventies. Indeed, "Prism" is a remake of a Jarrett song from that quartet. Thus, Changes provides a vital link back to his accompanied works of the seventies using his trio of the eighties and beyond.

When comparing these first standards recordings to, say, last year's release My Foolish Heart, you can sense a great deal of growth in the chemistry among these three over the years. This despite them only getting together for a couple of weeks each year, but each time they do, it's a special event (and often results in a special live album). However, that chemistry was strong even at the beginning.

Most importantly, Jarrett and his uber-talented cohorts proved that you can play overly familiar tunes with only a piano trio and still create something fresh and exciting at a very high level. A quarter of a century later, they are still wowing audiences from Montreaux to Montreal using this same idea.

And here, on Setting Standards, is where it all started.


Purchase: Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Jack DeJohnette - Setting Standards

Preservation Hall Jazz Band, "Made in New Orleans: The Hurricane Sessions" (2007)

NICK DERISO: The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, perhaps the very face of New Orleans music, shoulders a heavy burden on “The Hurricane Sessions” in trying to convey the sweeping emotions surrounding Katrina.

So much happened away from those familiar wooden benches at 726 St. Peter St. in the dusty room known as Preservation Hall.

In fact, that’s why this record almost never got made.

Producer Ben Jaffe, son of the big band’s founder Allan Jaffe, saved the tapes from an on-going project halted by the storm, then completed “The Hurricane Sessions” with select new takes as well as older compositions in the same vein.

The results, included in a boxed set released last summer called “Made in New Orleans,” are at once tender, funny and sad. Capturing all of that is the group’s -- and the younger Jaffe’s -- towering achievement.

They put out the perfect Mardi Gras record for the post-Katrina era. It acknowledges everything that came before, even while leading the way into happier times.

“The Hurricane Sessions” CD gets underway with a crying cornet from DeDe Pierce, followed by Billie Pierce’s languid, rolling river rhythms at the piano -- instantly setting a feeling of deep sorrow, though it’s quietly resolute.

“I thought about my sweet baby, just to keep from crying,” Billie Pierce sings in this 1972 performance. “I’m worried now -- though I won’t be worried long.”

And, as is the way of New Orleans, that’s true: “Eh La Ba” (also from 1972, in a concert at Stanford University) comes crashing in next.

Willie Humphrey’s clarinet makes a clarion call for Mardi Gras revelry, followed by a call-and-response chorus that is straight from the slanted streets of the French Quarter.

A trio of songs from 2005-06, all recorded in that historic Crescent City district, follows -- beginning with the simply swinging “Apple Tree.” John Brunious plays it straight Satchmo (that’s a good thing) on trumpet and vocals.

He subsequently steps back into the rollicking, then yelping collective for “Complicated Life,” a rag that includes driving turns by tenor man Ernest “Doc” Watson and vocalist Clint Maedgen -- who leads a booming hi-hee-hi chorus.

That sets up well for Brunious’ inevitable rendition of “Do You Know What It Means Miss New Orleans,” a staple both in Preservation Hall Jazz Band shows -- but also on any Katrina-themed recording, it seems.

Put down in a spare arrangement, with Rickie Monie on piano, it’s like red beans: Elegant in its simplicity, and of no time.

A searing 1959 version of “Lord, I Don’t Want To Be Buried,” featuring Sister Gertrude Morgan, provides the counterbalance to such niceties. It’s a reminder of the stark realities that so many faced down in the wake of the storm.

“Over in the Gloryland,” an interesting project, then features new Carl LeBlanc vocals laid over a driving Dixieland performance from 30 years before.

Humphrey, this inventive, emotional player, is captured in full flight. He’s followed by rumbling turns from trombonist Frank Demond and pianist Sing Miller. Narvin Kimball’s sprite banjo solo is appropriately heavenly.

The idea is executed even more successfully later when Morgan returns, in a 1959 recording, to add emotional heft to this breezy 2005 rendition of “Blow Wind Blow.”

LeBlanc, playing banjo too, is also featured on a scatty new “Heebie Jeebies” -- part of five recordings in a row done in 2005-06. Each is a smaller-band performance, including “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” -- from their aptly named subgroup, the Preservation Hall Hot Four -- and this sweet and bawdy blues called “Who Threw The Whiskey in the Well.”

“The Hurricane Sessions” closes with another delicious dichotomy: Miller’s slow, grieving take on “Precious Lord,” from 1970, then the new and aptly placed “Last Chance to Dance” -- where we have Brunious merrily promising to the “tear the roof off the sucker.”

Even at the end, we find that brilliant ebb and flow. This was a delicate balance, and hard to do well. Like the curious commingling of smells in the Quarter, “The Hurricane Sessions” could have been as inviting as au jus but then just as quickly smack of something left out too long.

In a time when almost nothing else was, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band -- a group of savvy vets given a boost here by brilliant sequencing -- made it look easy.

Nick’s note: There’s some neat stuff included with “Made In New Orleans,” a memorabilia-filled 2007 boxed set by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band -- and not just the 17 tracks chronicling decades of collective brilliance that make up “The Hurricane Sessions.”

Inside, you’ll find a treasure trove of old postcards, a set list, a Preservation Hall lanyard, reproductions of archival photos, and some cool inserts from older CDs, among other things. This is a pricey package, retailing at upwards of $70, but the extras make it worthwhile.



Purchase: Preservation Hall Jazz Band - Made in New Orleans: The Hurricane Sessions

Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark (2008)

photo by Jason Thrasher

by Pico

No band today epitomizes Southern rock more precisely than Athens, Georgia's Drive-By Truckers. Sometimes they sound even more Dixie than Skynard, The Marshall Tucker Band or the Allman Brothers. Not only do they possess the rough and tumble sound of their forebears but they'll often co-opt country, punk and folk in creating a sound that is as deep fried as poultry on a Sunday afternoon in rural Mississippi.

The band is the brainchild of lead songwriters, guitarists and vocalists
Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, who both came from musical families and both hail from the Muscle Shoals region of Northern Alabama. Most of the rest of the band has been changed out at one time or another; until 2006 there was even a third guitarist, Lynard Skynard-style. But the sound and vision has stayed pretty consistent.

Throughout all of their eight proper releases, the DBT's have doggedly stuck to a single theme: what they once explained on the song "The Three Great Alabama Icons" as "the duality of the Southern Thing." That means blowing up some Southern stereotypes and explaining the meaning behind others. But mostly, they mean to show that blue collar Southerners (or rednecks, as is often the case here) live more complex and often contradictory lives than what might be commonly believed. Today's release is no different in that regard. It follows much of that same template established early on for all of their records.

But after being seemingly stuck on cruise control following the tour de force Southern Rock Opera (2001), Brighter Than Creation's Dark reveals in many discreet ways that the Truckers are expanding their craft again. Hood and Cooley have long been masters at spinning tales of flawed Southern figures who are portrayed with neither much sympathy nor scorn, but something in-between. Their songwriting styles have always complemented each other and both have honed their craft further on Brighter, with Hood the plain-spoken sketcher of characters with little or no hope ("You And Your Crystal Meth," "That Man I Shot") and Cooley the clever storyteller ("Self-Destructive Zones," "Lisa's Birthday").

However, the band's principals have added more nuances in their songcraft and less heavy-handedness just for the sake of being heavy-handed. That is, they're now mastering the nuances of setting the right tempo to match the subject matter. The Truckers still rock out Crazy Horse style when the need arises, but they're understanding better the impact that lower-key songs in getting a point across, too. For example, compare the scowling, raucous "Why Henry Drinks" from their debut album Gangstabilly to Brighter's tender portrait of a family man needing a wind-down libation to deal with the stress of everyday life in "Daddy Needs A Drink."

They're also a little more serious minded; the days of blatant parody from the early days like "The President's Penis Is Missing" and "Too Much Sex (Too Little Jesus)" are far behind. Cooley's two minute account of a middle-aged hetero man who never married in "Bob" has plenty enough wit for the whole album, though.

The other area of growth is the emergence of a third significant songwriting voice. Bassist Shonna Tucker, who replaced Earl Hicks around 2003, contributes "I'm Sorry Huston," "Home Field Advantage," "The Purgatory Line" and " and provides the lead vocals to them. And her harmony of proves to be the perfect companion to Hood's hoarse, high-pitched voice. As it turns out, Tucker's drawl is also just as heavy as Hood's, sounding a lot like another Tucker: Tanya.

The Truckers often wear their influences on their sleeves and it's easy to imagine "3 Dimes Down" as a Faces tune sung by Mick Jagger, or "Righteous Path" and "That Man I Shot" as lost Tom Petty songs or "Perfect Timing" a forgotten Johnny Cash track. But these are songs that would rank among the better ones of these legends if it came from them instead.

The album also gets a lift from the guest appearance of legendary Muscle Shoals keyboardist Spooner Oldham, to whom this CD is dedicated. Spooner provides a delicate, precise counterweight to the band's often rough edges, as in the warm electric piano he provides to "Daddy..." or the trademark Nashville piano tinkling along the edges in the quietly surreal "Two Daughters And A Beautiful Wife."

There are nineteen songs in all on Brighter Than Creation's Dark. That's enough to fit on two vinyl platters, and the double-vinyl version of this record will roll out in a couple of weeks. Hood has noted that a dozen of these songs were introduced during 2007's The Dirt Underneath tour, and while there's nary a clunker in this entire lot, the album might have been consistently better without the extra six or seven tracks. It's hard to hold listeners' interest for this long and about two thirds through the CD starts to sounds tired and redundant. But there are more good-to-excellent songs on this release than any other DBT album save for Southern Rock Opera. The Drive-By Truckers is an already really good rock band that ten years after their first record are still getting better.


Purchase: Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark