Jazz in the Studio vs. Jazz Recorded Live
There's a good article up at Slate called Jazz in the studio vs. Jazz recorded live. It gives an overview of some recently-released CDs from various jazz greats that capture live performances thought long lost. It then continues to discuss the music as performed in the studio vs. live before an audience. The author discusses a newly-unearthed Dizzy Gillespie-Charlie Parker performance and then delves into the argument.
In part, this disparity between live and studio performance is a simple matter of time. On the 78-rpm recordings of the day, musicians had to keep a song to a few minutes and a solo to shorter still—eight bars, 16 at most. At a live date, there were no restrictions, so the songs could go on for at least twice as long, and so could the solos. The difference is not just the extra length but also the freedom to stretch and experiment: If the soloist gets lost in his first chorus, it doesn't matter since he can push it further and get it right in the second chorus or the third. And, of course, Parker and Gillespie never got lost, and they never played a chorus the same way twice. So we wind up with a new set of masterpieces that are more adventurous than anything we'd thought these two were playing so early on in their collaboration.
The Monk-Coltrane concert at Carnegie Hall is remarkable in a different way. The quartet had been formed in July 1957 to play at the Five Spot, a music bar on Manhattan's Lower East Side. The engagement marked Monk's return to the live jazz scene after five years and Coltrane's return to vitality after kicking heroin. The quartet was so popular that the gig was extended for six months. The band recorded just one studio session, near the start of their stay at the Five Spot. The Carnegie Hall date took place in late November, near the end. They'd been playing together almost every night for four months, and they'd become a "working band." They knew each other's moves; each of them could take wild excursions without fearing that the others would lose step.
The studio sessions, classic as they are, sound studied and stiff compared with the Carnegie concert. At Carnegie Coltrane blazes in his solo on tenor sax, Monk shuffles tempo and lays down unexpected accents on piano, while the rhythm section shifts and swings. In the first couple minutes of "Monk's Mood," the concert's opener, Monk and Coltrane float through the chords as if in meditation, opening up spaces that neither would have dreamed of indulging at an eyes-on-the-clock studio date. Or check out the opening of "Epistrophy," where drummer Shadow Wilson taps out a straightforward beat on the studio session —but clangs a Latin rhythm on his cymbals in the early set at Carnegie, then a completely different, staggered, hard-boiled rhythm in the late set.
Go check out the article and then some of the recordings. I shall have to post some more jazz here now.
In part, this disparity between live and studio performance is a simple matter of time. On the 78-rpm recordings of the day, musicians had to keep a song to a few minutes and a solo to shorter still—eight bars, 16 at most. At a live date, there were no restrictions, so the songs could go on for at least twice as long, and so could the solos. The difference is not just the extra length but also the freedom to stretch and experiment: If the soloist gets lost in his first chorus, it doesn't matter since he can push it further and get it right in the second chorus or the third. And, of course, Parker and Gillespie never got lost, and they never played a chorus the same way twice. So we wind up with a new set of masterpieces that are more adventurous than anything we'd thought these two were playing so early on in their collaboration.
The Monk-Coltrane concert at Carnegie Hall is remarkable in a different way. The quartet had been formed in July 1957 to play at the Five Spot, a music bar on Manhattan's Lower East Side. The engagement marked Monk's return to the live jazz scene after five years and Coltrane's return to vitality after kicking heroin. The quartet was so popular that the gig was extended for six months. The band recorded just one studio session, near the start of their stay at the Five Spot. The Carnegie Hall date took place in late November, near the end. They'd been playing together almost every night for four months, and they'd become a "working band." They knew each other's moves; each of them could take wild excursions without fearing that the others would lose step.
The studio sessions, classic as they are, sound studied and stiff compared with the Carnegie concert. At Carnegie Coltrane blazes in his solo on tenor sax, Monk shuffles tempo and lays down unexpected accents on piano, while the rhythm section shifts and swings. In the first couple minutes of "Monk's Mood," the concert's opener, Monk and Coltrane float through the chords as if in meditation, opening up spaces that neither would have dreamed of indulging at an eyes-on-the-clock studio date. Or check out the opening of "Epistrophy," where drummer Shadow Wilson taps out a straightforward beat on the studio session —but clangs a Latin rhythm on his cymbals in the early set at Carnegie, then a completely different, staggered, hard-boiled rhythm in the late set.
Go check out the article and then some of the recordings. I shall have to post some more jazz here now.
posted by Palmer at 3:25 PM
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