That's Jaaazz! Again!
Kudos go to Anonymous (easily the most prolific commenter here) for giving this must-have 1957 album a shout-out. Presented here in crystal-clear mono, and bearing the original Reid Miles artwork ("Blue Note always sent me photographs of the artist, not these guys, I got an O. Winston Link print they hadn't licensed. They never used it, I never got my forty dollars.")
While I'd stop short of claiming The Train & The River is best jazz album ever made, it's in the top two. Listening to it again, I'm struck by the airy, zen-like minimalism. Not only are there no keyboards, but there's no drummer. Bass, guitar, reed, and that's it.
Bearing in mind there was no click track back then coming over the non-existent headphones, the way these guys kept to the (often complex) beat is nothing short of telepathic. There have been other drummer-free combos (The Hot Club Of France, for one), but they've tended to compensate for the lack of percussive timekeeping with strong rhythm guitar/keyboards. Here, the musicians are continuously floating around each other, keeping that invisible beat between them. None of them is plodding away like a metronome - they're playing with the beat, dancing with it, passing it around, never nailing it down. And they're having an incredible time, reveling in each other's virtuosity. What a gorgeous sound!
ReplyDeleteMmm, nice.
Yawning Angel sez...
ReplyDeleteThanks Farq! Also, thanks Anon for the heads-up!
Thanks. I've never heard either of these.
ReplyDeleteAh, Mr Throck, you're confusing me here. My original LP has the beautiful Malcolm Walker cover design which I love so much that it's in my top 3 favourite ever LP sleeves (with Late for the Sky & It's a Beautiful Day) and also on my tee shirt. Reid Miles was a Blue Note man more than Atlantic so, have you made this cover as a trick for poor unsuspecting saps like me? A Google search just brings me back to this site!
ReplyDeleteMy LP says on the sleeve that it's the Jimmy Giuffre Trio, which it is. All my CD copies have a variety of unsatisfactory covers labelled the Jimmy Giuffre 3. I care about this stuff and that's simply wrong. So, if the unused cover and quote are real can you point me towards the source please so that I can read more.
Cheers, Peanuts (P.M.)
Peanuts! Good to see you here! The Reid Miles sleeve is, as you quickly discovered, a bubble of False Memory Foam.
DeleteBut my in-depth research (ten minutes at Discogs) has failed to turn up the recording as being by The Jimmy Giuffre Trio - the original album (Atlantic, '57) seems to have been titled simply The Jimmy Giuffre 3, with a none-too-hot cover by Marvin Israel:
https://www.discogs.com/The-Jimmy-Giuffre-3-The-Jimmy-Giuffre-3/master/299170
I think your copy may be the '67 reprocessed-for-stereo (horrors!) referred to here:
https://www.discogs.com/The-Jimmy-Giuffre-Trio-With-Jim-Hall-The-Train-And-The-River/release/3819856
- which has the toy train cover you like and is by "The Jimmy Giuffre Trio". If it is, grab this download, because the sound is exceptional.
Aargh! You're right: the cover I don't like is the correct one and the cover I love is not. And my LP is processed . . . Padgett's Disc Shop in Willow Street has a lot to answer for. What will I do with my tee shirt?
ReplyDeleteI don't understand stereo because my ears are faulty. 52 years of wrongness . . . I'm going to bed now with a headfull of broken certainty and will awake tomorrow to a readjusted world.
Sadly, Peanuts (P.M.)
Ah, I'm getting hung up on the cover here. No matter: the music is still sublime and your updated review captures it perfectly. Three musicians listening to each other as they play. It remains my favourite album.
ReplyDeleteCheers, Peanuts (P.M.)
I get hung up on covers, too, Mr Molloy, but you're right, it's the music that matters.
Delete(Note: Peanuts Molloy is currently doing nine to ten in Leavenworth - or is that ten to eleven in Twelveworth? - for his part in the gum machine hit-and-run at Possumville, Neb.)
That's my cousin. He's a wrong 'un and not a true legume. He spells peanut as two words. Sheesh.
DeleteCheers, The Real Molloy.
Very strange . . . After exhasutive (O.K., so it was about HALF of 10 minutos at Discogs...)
ReplyDeletesearching, I see NO entry there for the album with that LINK cover (the REAL choo-choo - Atlantic
1254 edition shown at the top of the page here...)
Jazzheads, trainspotters and other fanaticals will find plenty of "other variations" though. And
even some matrix number trail-off wax pics. (At Discogs).
And railroadiana nuts will surely already know all about Mr. Link. Here is the original ca. mid-'50s
image as used on that (Norfolk & Western lco on bridge) LP...
("Bridge 425, Arcadia, Virginia, 1956"):
http://images.exhibit-e.com/www_danzigerprojects_com/3304811c.jpg
Mr B., I already 'fessed up to that "Reid Miles" cover in an earlier comment. I thought the O. Winston Link image fit the album perfectly, and was taken the year before the album was made, so it seemed a natural choice for the revisionist world of False Memory Foam.
ReplyDeleteNo matter which cover, the music is exceptional, many thanks.
ReplyDeleteReid Miles . . . Huh. . . ?
ReplyDeleteSorry, don't geddit.
Is he somehow related to the infamous Art D. Reksun who did work for Rhino Rekkids in the '80s...?
(AKA a phony baloney personage... Ala Film Director "Alan Smithee"...?)
Edumicate us!
Reid Miles was possibly the greatest - certainly the most influential - album sleeve designer ever. He did a lot of work for Blue Note, which still inspires designers today. He worked with very little - Blue Note sent him a photograph to use and told him how many colors he had to play with (frequently two). He got paid fifty bucks a pop, and sold the sample albums they gave him because he didn't like jazz that much. This was all back in the days of paste-up (nothing like a computer existed, of course). Artwork was prepared in overlays on a bit of card, and sent to the origination house to make the color separations, on film, that was used to make the plates.
DeleteHe was famous for cropping the tops of heads ("nobody's interested in that stuff") so the face would have the most impact.
Anyway, he had nothing to do with the image up there, which is my attempt at a "what if", and falls a long way short of what he's have achieved, with much less!
I've tried to extract the files after downloading but it always fails.
ReplyDeleteI've downloaded many of your posts before and never had any problems.
Any ideas?
John
DeleteTry this zippy link?
Thanks Farq, that worked a treat. Looking forward to hearing this...
DeleteI've loved this album ever since a slightly older school pal introduced it into my 16 year old life in 1967. I've never found anyone to share my enthusiasm for it until this thread. Better late than never.
ReplyDeleteI always hesitate to say "if you like that, you'll like this" but I think there's a chance with the other LP I heard that day, so long ago. It’s a different style, more traditionally straight ahead rhythm section with none of Giuffre's floating approach which the absence of a drummer encouraged but, for me, it’s definitely a similar vibe.
So give it a go: "Blues For Night People" by Charlie Byrd (with Keeter Betts and Gus Johnson).
My copy is the '63 CBS Realm mono reissue of the '57 album: https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/8081047?ev=rb
Cheers, Peanuts Molloy
Oh, that link shows the wrong cover. This is mine: https://www.discogs.com/Charlie-Byrd-Blues-For-Night-People/release/1376011
DeleteDefinitely room for improvement . . .
Cheers, Peanuts Molloy.
I must concur, excellent jazz album. I think quite possibly it sounds even better with the wrong cover art, which is also excellent.
ReplyDeleteI'll feature it soon, thanks to Mr Molloy's generosity. And yep, the original cover is teeth-gratingly bad.
DeleteA very handsome addition to the Jazz corner of my Den -- thank you! I am very eager to hop on this train with your other well heeled guests so thank you for making it available to us Pinheads as well as your "Premium" guests.
ReplyDeleteThat "premium" thing kicks in after a certain period of inactivity. All new links will be on zippo.
Delete