1955 - August 1

Herbie Nichols Trio – August 1 1955 

 

Herbie Nichols – Herbie Nichols Trio Liner Notes: BLP 1519 

WHEN Alfred Lion, the producer of this album, asked me to write about the logic behind my jazz style and how I create, I simply rolled up my sleeves and waded into a typewriter for a welcome change. 

First of all, I would like to state that having been born (January 3. 1919) and raised in Manhattan almost gives me a feeling of being cognizant of a type of music that might even be called New York jazz. My parents come to these shores from St. Kitts and Trinidad and were part of the large influx of British subjects who settled in Gotham during the period of the first World War. The first songs that I ever heard were "Sly Mongoose", "The West Indian Blues" and similar other chants. In the subculture of this particular environment my early diet and upbringing were quite special things. (As a matter of fact. I’ve written a couple of calypsos entitled ‘Crackup’ and ‘I Worship Delilah’ which are funny as all getout.) Perhaps that is why I’ve always particularly enjoyed the exotic styles of Denzil Best and Thelonious Monk, in whose music I can trace this influence of my youthful years. 

Photo by Francis Wolff

At nine years of age I began the study of classical piano with Mr. Charles L. Beck. These lessons continued well into my high school days at DeWitt Clinton. It was during these years that I received my introduction into the mysteries of jazz piano with the help of the late pianist, Roy Testamark. Around 1937 I was good enough to join a wild and precocious teen-age aggregation headed by a fellow named Freddie Williams. I can recall that each member of the orchestra used to write mystifying scores which had to be played — or else. 

As a jazz composer, I’ve always felt that I should paint as clear a mental picture as possible of the foundation and the future of jazz music. That is why I draw freely, at times, from early New Orleans pianist, Jelly Roll Morton, who witnessed and took part in the birth of this folk music. I have examined his scores and have had many happy moments listening to his Circle recordings from the Library of Congress Archives. Jelly was on honest extrovert who used the freedom of jazz piano to tell the story of his love of life and the historic times in which he lived. 

I guess I've always had a burning desire and compulsion to compose. Ideas come from almost anywhere. Beethoven Bach and Chopin are the strong musical pillars which I lean on whenever I find myself in a dark corner. Heitor Villa-Lobos’ many compositions under the title ‘Choros’ and Bachianas Brasileras’ are infinite fantasies which bear repealed listening. Whenever I want to become astounded, there is always his great piano work. Rude Poeme’. Among the jazz ‘greats’ Duke Ellington and Art Tatum are unfailing giants to look up to in wonder. Dimitri Mitropoulos is another one of those calm musicians who intrigues me with his catholic taste and abilities. I listen repeatedly to Bartok’s delightfully brooding sonata for violin and piano, no. 1, also to the concerto for violin and orchestra. Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird Suite’ and ‘Le Sacre du Printemps’ just about wind up the basic core of music which I can never do without. 

Sometimes I burst into laughter when I think of what the future jazzists will be able to accomplish. That is why I wrote in the February, 1956 issue of Metronome: “Think of what can be done with the sounds of the multiple counterpoint of Hindemith, the neo-classic poly-tonality of Shostakovitch and Piston and the melting of the vast musical devices which Bartok loved to use at random and which makes his kaleidoscopic style come closest to jazz." 

But jazz has come a long way since the stomp’. A lot of myths have been dispelled and we find countless master jazzists who are masters of classical music as well. Time-signatures are altered freely nowadays. For instance, I am beginning to learn that certain tunes that I write cannot become alive, even for one chorus, unless I score the drum part fittingly. Specific suspensions and inversions must be explicitly indicated or else I find that there is no ‘sound’. 

But there is nothing mystical about becoming a graduate jazzist. One should be willing to enjoy and study all of the great jazz musicians of the past and present. In addition, each one of these artists’ limitations should be pinpointed and analyzed. As a lover of chess I would predict an easy and rewording individuality as the outcome of these drudging moves. 

There are reasons why the best jazz must ‘sound’ — the same as it did in the beginning. I keep remembering that the overtones of ‘fifths’ created by the beautiful tones of any ordinary tuned drum was surely the first music, the precursor of the historic major scale, no less, which was built on the same principles. That is why the cycle of ‘fifths’ is so prevalent in elemental jazz. In other words. in a great desire to sound, the beginner at improvisation grasps at easy and fundamental aural pleasures. 

Photo by Francis Wolff

And so, after tracing this elementary history of sound’, we can readily understand why drummers started to ‘drop bombs’ to usher in the new music of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Bud Powell. Each "bomb" created a newly rich and wholly unexpected series of overtones beginning in the lower registers. These rich syncopations were fitting accompaniments to the supplemental overtones played by the horns in the higher registers. That is why the pianists became so percussive with their left hands. 

Among modern drummers, Art Blakey is considered invaluable. He astounds me when it comes to being in tune. I can hear overtones from his snare drum, cymbals. rim-shots, everything he touches. Sometimes he ‘pounds’ some of these recalcitrant instruments in tune when the atmosphere is unsteady. I've seen Denzil Best rub his bass drumheod with a damp cloth at the start of a gig. He spoke of a whoooosh’ effect which he sought. This effect which he achieves plus his musical discipline makes him one of the best tubmen around today. I’m sure that this is also one the prime reasons for Sonny Greer’s great value to the Ellington orchestra for so many years. 

The jazz ‘sound’ is surely a living thing and as a piano player I find it mostly in old ‘uprights’. Sometimes these faded pianos with muted strings, strange woodwork and uneven innards’ have a way of giving up fast and resonant overtones. Each note shoots back at you like a bass drum. In such a situation, as soon as I find that I am not financially liable, I let myself go and use any kind of unorthodox touch needed to dig out the strange ‘sounds’ which I know are in the instrument. The only respectable piano that gives up this sort of intimate ‘jazz sound’ in an easy and copious manner is the Steinway Upright. 

THE GIG is all about a happy, modern jam Session. The 67-bar chorus speaks of the ‘vonce’ and avant-garde happenings. In the first nine bars I was able to complete a fair picture of the charged and impatient proceedings. The trill leading to the excitement of the release is probably the most fitting piece of melody that I ever dreamed up. 

In HOUSE PARTY STARTING the simple, quiet triad of the tonic with neighboring notes, which is found in the very first measure, speaks of grave and silent doubts as to whether there is really going to be a party, whether there is going to be lots of fun. There is supposed to be a rising crescendo as more people enter the shindig to the accompanying noise of broken glassware and shuffling feet. 

My brother, Austin, suggested CHIT-CHATTING as a theme song after hearing the strong part given to the left hand in the release. This busy melody depicts the general buzz of voices in a crowded night club or similar gathering. The combined melody and rhythm also attempts to pick out a conversation here and there. 

THE LADY SINGS THE BLUES, originally called SERENADE, is a bluesy, rhythmical tune in which one can almost hear the legendary strumming of the heart-strings. The great Billie Holiday, upon hearing it one night, fell in love with it and immediately began to make up her own earthy, inimitable lyrics. THE LADY SINGS THE BLUES is also the title of her recently published biography by Billie Holiday with William Dufty, ‘Lady Day’ recorded the tune for Norman Granz in June 1956. 

HANGOVER TRIANGLE was composed on a park bench one weekend summer night. The site was really no more than an open triangle formed by converging streets. Everyone around me seemed determined to have a ball far into the night. Too many drank too deeply of the revelry, resulting in a lot of comical antics which. at least, inspired a very funny title. 

It was a pleasure to make these recordings with the matchless drummer, Max Roach. He is a buoyant instrumentalist of tremendous strength and discipline, one who has mastered every facet of the jazz art. Bassist Al McKibbon reminds me of Art Blakey when it comes to a ‘jazz sound’ The greatest compliment that I can pay him is to state that his bass work seems to sound like a set of tuned drums. Bassist Teddy Kotick is another profound personality whose iron musical discipline reminds me of Max Roach. He is capable of making any piece of music become alive. 

In ending I would like to state that I am in a constant race to make my ‘classical theories’ catch up to my ‘jazz theories.’ It used to be the other way around. But I am rather satisfied that I find no dearth of ideas when it comes to writing. At the piano I’m always sufficiently transported to new spiritual heights whenever I think of the beauties of any tuned drum. 

Photo by Francis Wolff

Roswell Rudd – The Third World Liner Notes: BN-LA-485-H2 

Herbie Nichols and I first crossed paths in the early Spring of 1960. It was at a jam session in Dick Rath's loft. Dick had known Herbie for some time, and along with Bobby Pratt and a whole gang of people, they were having one helluva party. By the time I got there the euphoria was well under way and everyone was pouring himself out into a wild collective thing that was starting to have its moments. In the middle of all this, Bobby, who had been playing piano all night, felt like playing some trombone. He vacated the piano bench, and with the music still going on (Yardbird Suite) a very tall and reserved gentleman took charge of the piano. I had no idea who he was, had never laid eyes on the man before, and I was busy trying to find a part for myself in the din. Playing along, I gradually became aware that the whole harmonic idiom of the music had shifted, and everyone including myself had changed up his style. The magic was in those chords coming from the piano, in the context of which I found myself thinking more carefully about each note I played and started reaching for ideas that had never occurred to me until then. The unknown pianist had since vanished into the night, and still the music continued to play on in the way that he had affected it. His was a gentle spell, cast almost imperceptibly by degrees, but all the music thereafter remained suspended in a new and unusual vein. 

The chords of the mystery pianist lingered on in my ears and I found myself searching for hours at the keyboard trying to recapture those sounds, without much success. Then toward the middle of that summer, Jack Fine, the cornetist, hired me to play bass on a trio gig out in Amagansett, Long Island. You can imagine my surprise when the other member of the threesome turned out to be that fabulous pianist from the loft session; his name of course was Herbie Nichols. Talking with him during the long drive to the gig, he impressed me as a well informed and intelligent man who dug to converse on a variety of subjects. The rap never got around to music until we set up to play; it was then I mentioned that I was still trying to figure out those combinations he had laid on the players at the loft session. With that he seated himself at the piano, and in a very calm and unassuming kind of way he coaxed a series of dense and electrically charged chords from the battered upright. While he was doing this he told me he remembered my playing from the loft session, that he thought I had a good set of ears, not to worry, just listen closely, and motioned to me to stand where I could watch his hands. Jack's and my repertoire were mainstream and that was pretty much the music that night except for what Herbie did. He played the most graceful and luxuriant stride piano in a style all his own, quite unlike anything I'd ever heard before because all those exquisite harmonies were incorporated into it. The piano held everything together; in fact I had only to sort of color what Herbie was doing and with Jack laying down a strong pneumatic line, it soon became a very spacious-sounding trio indeed. (I had had a similar experience playing a duet with Donal "The Lamb" Lambert one time: the piano becomes a kind of orchestra in the hands of these masters. You feel like the soloist in a grand concerto with a multitude of other voices leading, supporting, and responding. With Herbie it was an even further extension of this concept.) 

 

November 1956

 Down Beat 31 October 1956 Volume 23 Issue 22 

This is pianist-composer Nichols’ first 12” LP and the best of the three albums of his work thus far released by Blue Note. Again Alfred Lion deserves commendation for having this much faith in what has been an initially uncommercial product. Nichols is accompanied with sensitivity and strength by Max Roach, Al McKibbon (6) and Teddy Kotick (4). 

On this set particularly, Nichols unveils a rare ability to create personal, memorable melodic lines that are emotionally charged. All but one song are his compositions. Also, there is more breadth of range here than previously. As before, there is a drivingly honest, spontaneous intensity and passionate love for music that sometimes becomes near-hypnotic and almost exhausting for the listener. 

As a pianist, Nichols plays with as much individuality as he writes, using both hands, and making the piano his own voice, Once more, however, I would wish for a less constant relentlessly percussive approach to the piano than occurs On many of the tracks, and | would wish for more varied development in terms of tempo and dynamics change and line-expansion on several of the fine beginning lines. 

But what is important is that here is a fierce, tender, virile, acutely perceptive jazz voice with that elemental cry in it that the best jazzmen must have—with roots from Jelly Roll to now. It is a shame and a pity that so far Nichols has had so little work that for him, we are still in the midst of the depression era—but without a federal arts program. 

The notes are by Nichols, and so far as I’m concerned, they are among the most direct, illuminating for the music at hand, and stimulating of the year. I hope you buy this record. (Blue Note 12” BLP 1519) 

Session Information 

Herbie Nichols, piano; Al McKibbon, bass; Max Roach, drums. 

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, August 1, 1955 

 

tk.4, The Gig, Blue Note BLP 1519, BN-LA485-H2 

tk.5, Applejackin' (alt) 

tk.6, Hangover Triangle, Blue Note BLP 1519, BN-LA485-H2 

tk.8, Lady Sings The Blues, Blue Note BLP 1519, BN-LA485-H2 

tk.10, Chit-Chatting, Blue Note BLP 1519, BN-LA485-H2 

tk.11, House Party Starting, Blue Note BLP 1519, BN-LA485-H2 

tk.12, The Gig (alt)