Woke up this morning thinking about Miles...

I woke up this morning thinking about Miles...

As I get ready to play tonight's gig at Patrick's Pub in Pittsfield (ok, say that three times fast!) I find myself aching to play a few tunes by the late, great Miles Davis. That I've been wanting to be back playing with the Jazz Ambassadors all summer after our tour to Turkey certainly contributes to this musical hunger... so tonight's reunion will be a feast or sorts! 

I've been out of the groove for a bit and started to practice again earlier this week in anticipation of the gig. I particularly love the intelligence of "So What" as well as the mellow playfulness of "All Blues."  My hope is that we can do them both sometime tonight.

There will be some guests from our Sister City in Nicaragua present tonight - and because this will be a "peace-making through music" concert - we're going to be show casing some young local musicians, too.  That is always a gas: it keeps things from becoming overly intense, gives the younger guys a shot at playing in public and brings in a lot of guests into the club to buy a beer and hear the band.  Everybody wins.

Three other tunes that I hope we get a chance to break out include Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man," Big Joe Turner's take on "Shake, Rattle and Roll" and Johnny Hodge's classic, "Night Train." 

I recently watched Herbie Hancock do the Elvis Costello show, "Spectacle" during which he spoke of writing "Watermelon Man."  He said that he had been a young pianist brought into the Miles Davis band at only 22 years old.  And after joining that band, an older musical friend arranged with Blue Note records for Hancock to put out his first album.  Back in those days it was a 50/50 thing:  the company gave you 50% of the music based on standards and the artist could contribute 50% of his/her own. 

So Hancock started to think about what would be an interesting, autobiographical and fun sound - and that brought to mind the song of the wandering watermelon vendor on the streets of his old Chicago neighborhood. The foundational riff mimics the women of his neighborhood calling out of their windows:  "heeeeeeeey, watermelon man!" What's more, the opening piano sound so authentically embraced the emerging Afro-Cuban groove that Mungo Santamarie recorded it - and made it an international hit.  This gave Hancock a real shot of encouragement at an early stage in his career that he has tried to share with other young musicians ever since.

I want to do "Shake, Rattle and Roll" both because it got such a great reception in Istanbul, but also as a tribute to Springsteen's sax man, Brother Clarence Clemmons - the BIG MAN - who died of a stroke while we were on the road.  I love the earthy and sultry way the E Street Band recreates this song - and love playing it with Charlie's sax against my voice.

And then the wildass and sweet "Night Train" - a tune our drummer, Jonnie Hadad, loves to perform.  Wikipedia notes that:

"Night Train" has a long and complicated history. The piece's opening riff was first recorded in 1940 by a small group led by Duke Ellington sideman Johnny Hodges under the title "That's the Blues, Old Man". Ellington used the same riff as the opening and closing theme of a longer-form composition, "Happy-Go-Lucky Local", that was itself one of four parts of his Deep South Suite.

Jimmy Forrest was part of Ellington's band when it performed this composition, which has a long tenor saxophone break in the middle. After leaving Ellington, Forrest recorded "Night Train" on United Records and had a major rhythm & blues hit. While "Night Train" employs the same riff as the earlier recordings, it is used in a much earthier R&B setting.  Forrest inserted his own solo over a stop-time rhythm not used in the Ellington composition. He put his own stamp on the tune, but its relation to the earlier composition is obvious.

Like Illinois Jacquet's solo on "Flying Home", Forrest's original saxophone solo on "Night Train" became a veritable part of the composition, and is usually recreated in cover versions by other performers. Buddy Morrow's trombone solo chorus from his recording of the tune is similarly incorporated into many performances.

I remember first hearing it on a Paul Revere and the Raiders album back in the mid-60s when they were breaking big on Dick Clark's "Where the Action Is." They used to be a bar band in Seattle and first recorded "Louie, Louie."  But they took James Brown's cover of "Night Train" and sanitized it and made it accessible for little boppers like me.  I have come to prefer the naughty sound of Forrest's original and hope we give it a shot, too.

Poet Jayne Cortez put it like this - and that feels right to me today - as I woke up this morning thinking about Miles...

I crisscrossed with Monk
Wailed with Bud
Counted every star with Stitt
Sang "Don’t Blame Me" with Sarah
Wore a flower like Billie
Screamed in the range of Dinah
& scatted "How High the Moon" with Ella Fitzgerald
as she blew roof off the Shrine Auditorium
                    Jazz at the Philharmonic!

I cut my hair into a permanent tam
Made my feet rebellious metronomes
Embedded record needles in paint on paper
Talked bopology talk
Laughed in high-pitched saxophone phrases
Became keeper of every Bird riff
every Lester lick
as Hawk melodicized my ear of infatuated tongues
& Blakey drummed militant messages in
soul of my applauding teeth
& Ray hit bass notes to the last love seat in my bones
I moved in triple time with Max
Grooved high with Diz
Perdidoed with Pettiford
Flew home with Hamp
Shuffled in Dexter's Deck
Squatty-rooed with Peterson
Dreamed a "52nd Street Theme" with Fats
& scatted "Lady Be Good" with Ella Fitzgerald
as she blew roof off the Shrine Auditorium
                    Jazz at the Philharmonic!