George Braith: The Complete Blue Note Sessions

Playing two saxophones at once is a gimmick, and not a very good one. It can be done, and maybe if your name is Rahsaan Roland Kirk, you can even sell a few records doing it. But it’s not a great artistic achievement, and the sound you get is mostly tinny and obnoxious.

Which brings us to George Braith.

In 1963 and ’64, Braith recorded his first three albums as a band leader, all for Blue Note: Two Souls in One, Soul Stream and Extension. Braith obviously liked Kirk’s weird gimmick of playing two saxes simultaneously. He not only copied this strange technique, he even found himself an organ player to team with, just as Kirk had done. (Kirk had Brother Jack McDuff; Braith chose Billy Gardner.)

The result? Let’s just say the tone you get from playing two saxes with one mouth is like the merger of a kazoo, a harmonica and a car horn. Yes, you can play a melody. Yes, you can improvise. Yes, you can even accompany yourself and play odd-sounding chords. But no one is ever going to stop listening to Sonny Rollins or John Coltrane to listen to George Braith wrestle with two saxophones.

Still, sometimes you take chances on unknown music just to see what it’s like. As it turns out, you can buy all three of George Braith’s Blue Note recordings on one 2-CD set called, naturally, The Complete Blue Note Sessions. If you do, you’ll learn three things:

1. A gimmick is a gimmick. Listening to Braith play an alto sax and soprano sax simultaneously does not have great appeal. Hear it once, you don’t have to hear it again. Or maybe it’s just me.
2. When Braith plays just ONE sax, he’s actually pretty good. Clearly this is something he learned as he went along. His later records had fewer two-sax songs, and they’re better for it.
3. Billy Gardner on organ and Grant Green on guitar are really, really good. And since both appear on all three of Braith’s Blue Note albums, that’s almost reason enough to get them. Almost. It turns out that no amount of crazy noodling by Braith can disguise the fact that this organ-guitar combo has soul.

One perfect example: An unlikely rendition of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Yeah, THAT song. Braith successfully mangles the tune on the first chorus, just to be original, then he drops one sax to play pure bop. Nicely done. And then Gardner and Green come roaring out of the gate and burn the place down. Even better.

Another example: “Boop Bop Bing Bash,” a Billy Gardner original that is six minutes of bop heaven. It’s no coincidence that Braith plays only one sax. Apparently Braith really could be a terrific saxman when he wasn’t trying to be avant garde and weird. This cut is a perfect example.

There are other nice tunes here, too, including a reworking of “The William Tell Overture” into something called “Billy Told.” It’s clever and lively and, yes, a real organ-guitar-sax jazz gem.

If all of George Braith’s recordings were this good, The Complete Blue Note Sessions would be a 5-star experience. Alas, it took Braith a while to learn that sometimes less really is more.

Rating: 2.5 stars (out of 5)

Availability: Only 3 used copies available on Amazon at the time of this writing

Cost: $20 (or $15 for the MP3 version)

Laid-Back Jazz Guitar: Kenny Burrell and Grant Green

When I’m in the mood for jazz guitar, I have two go-to albums: Kenny Burrell’s Midnight Blue and Grant Green’s Idle Moments.

It always surprises me. Growing up in the 1960s and ‘70s, I was a big fan of hard and fast rock guitars. Who wasn’t? Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Pete Townsend. The Clash. The Pretenders. Joan Jett. Prince. Chuck Berry and George Harrison. It’s got a backbeat you can’t lose it.

So when I slowly gravitated to jazz, I naturally sought out the “rockers.” Dizzy Gillespie. Charlie Parker. John Coltrane. Thelonious Monk. Buddy Rich. Benny Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing” was practically punk rock. Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong? Sissies. If it was brash and supersonic, I was all in.

When did that change?

A friend introduced me to Joe Pass’ Virtuoso. It was soft. It was acoustic. It was everything I detested. But wait… It was intricate! It was fast! Could Edgar Winter play licks like that? This was good stuff.

One thing led to another. Django Reinhardt. Wes Montgomery’s Boss Guitar. Stanley Jordan’s amazing “Eleanor Rigby.” Anything by John McLaughlin.

And finally: Kenny Burrell and Grant Green.

Is there a recording as blue, as gentle, as soulful and as emotional as Green’s “Idle Moments”? For 15 minutes, the album’s opening track of the same name takes you to a different place. It’s draggy and slow, and that’s the whole point. No bebop here. Instead, Green plays big, fat, gorgeous single notes. Pianist Duke Pearson, who wrote the tune, takes you to a dark, smoky midnight alley. Saxman Joe Henderson is all breath and looong, deep notes. The rest of the album is pretty terrific, too, but nothing matches the mood and drama of the opener.

Then there’s Burrell’s Midnight Blue – the entire album, every single song. No pyrotechnics here. From the opening “Chitlins Con Carne,” Burrell announces: Love the blues or leave. It starts with a mid-tempo Latin groove, backed by the ever-cool congas of Ray Baretto. Then Burrell enters with a heart full of pure soul – single-note lines of crystal clear blues.

And when that’s over, here comes “Mule,” which starts as a simple, sad, slow duet between Burrell’s guitar and Major Holley Jr.’s bass. (Holley wrote the tune.) An almost imperceptible cymbal insinuates itself into the tune, then a drum roll, then a walking bass of big, fat half-notes over tasteful soul.

The whole record is like that. “Soul Lament” is 2½ minutes of absolutely unaccompanied solo guitar. Gentle, sometimes sweet, sometimes menacing in the lower registers. “Midnight Blue,” the title cut, is a jaunty toe-tapper. “Wavy Gravy” is, as you might guess from the title, a groovy piece with a driving bass line and a big heavy wrapper of soul. Burrell takes the star turn in each piece. It’s his record all the way.

My only regret – and it’s a small one – is with the two bonus CD tracks on Midnight Blue. Each is a nice little hard bop gem, but they don’t really fit the album’s mood. They are exquisite examples of the typical Blue Note bop sound, but Burrell (or Alfred Lion, or Rudy Van Gelder) was right to leave them off.

So there you go: Two perfect guitarists on two nearly perfect records. I still love me some Jimi or Led Zep. But when the mood strikes, nothing quite captivates me like Idle Moments and Midnight Blue – a pair of deeply soulful, heartful records.

Sonny Clark: Cool Struttin’ – Blue Note 1588

Blue Note Records was many things in the 1950s and ‘60s, but it was never the home of cool jazz. Yes, it was ground zero for hard bop in the ‘50s. And yes, it was the capital of soul-jazz in the ‘60s. But to release an album in 1958 (one year after Miles Davis’ Birth of the Cool) with the word “cool” in the title was a very un-Blue Note-ish thing.

And yet Cool Struttin’ – led by pianist Sonny Clark – really is an extremely cool album.

This is not cool in the Miles Davis-Stan Getz sense. No West Coast jazz here. Cool Struttin’ is music firmly in the Blue Note tradition – hard bop with a decidedly relaxed, bluesy, cool perspective. It features an excellent band, starting with Clark, but also trumpeter Art Farmer, saxman Jackie McClean and the ubiquitous Blue Note tandem of Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums.

Are you in the mood to chill? Start right off with the title cut, a nine-minute relaxed blues with outstanding solos all around. This is Clark at his very best – emotional and laid back without being showy. Great solos follow from Farmer and McClean.

Track 2, “Blue Minor,” another Clark original, keeps up the mood. It’s a Latin-ish toe-tapper featuring a wonderful, noir-like McClean. Again, not aggressive hard bop, as you expect on Blue Note, but a showcase nonetheless.

By far the strangest number is “Lover,” a Rodgers-and-Hart tune that starts as a standard bebop number, then abruptly changes to waltz time, then back to fast 4/4 bop. Interesting, creative, but weird.

Clark is one of those pianists you hear a lot if you listen to Blue Note albums from the ‘50s and ‘60s – first as a favorite sideman, then as a leader with an incredible 14 records from 1957 to 1962. Many of them are very good, and Cool Struttin’ is arguably the best. Yet Clark never became a big name like fellow Blue Note pianists Horace Silver and Herbie Hancock.

Still, he’s worth getting.

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Availability: Plentiful

Cost: A mere $2 used