More Treasures From the Vaults

Jazz insiders have long been aware of the wealth of material that resides in various record company vaults. Pablo Records, now owned and distributed by Fantasy, is no exception. And these two CDs are reportedly among the first in a series of previously unreleased performances by major artists.

The material traces to Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts presented by Norman Granz (original owner of Pablo) in Europe in the 1960s. The Jazz at the Philharmonic events were initiated by Granz in 1944, receiving their name from the initial venue, the Philharmonic Auditorium at 5th and Olive streets in Los Angeles. (It was torn down in 1985 to make way for a hotel and office building complex.)

Starting out as jam sessions dominated by tenor battles and long drum solos, the J.A.T.P. programs eventually evolved into a wide variety of shows around the world featuring, among dozens of others, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Oscar Peterson, Buddy Rich, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and the bands of Duke Ellington and Count Basie.

Granz, who has lived in Switzerland since 1960, had a powerful impact on jazz, initially via the J.A.T.P. concerts, then with a number of influential record labels, beginning with Clef in 1946 and Norgran in 1953. He established Verve (now owned by PolyGram) in 1956 and Pablo in 1973.

When he sold Pablo to Fantasy in the late ‘80s, hours of J.A.T.P. concert tapes went along with the deal. According to Fantasy’s Eric Miller, who produced the albums, much of the material is virtually studio quality and benefits from the natural exuberance that musicians bring to live performances.

The Cannonball Adderley album is a valuable addition to the catalog of this gifted and not fully appreciated alto saxophonist. In fact, from the concert’s first few notes--on Duke Pearson’s jazz standard “Jeannine”--the music is filled with an irrepressible energy that belies its age.

At a time when jazz seems relentlessly focused upon a kind of virtuosic neoclassicism, it is useful to hear the music in its original expression. If anything, performances like this tell us that technique alone does not neoclassic music make; passion and joy are at least as important as fast fingers.

Which is not to say that Adderley and his players--Nat Adderley on cornet; Victor Feldman, piano; Sam Jones, bass; Louis Hayes, drums--are lacking in technical skill. Cannonball Adderley’s solos on “The Chant” and the surging “Bohemia After Dark” surpass almost anything played by his younger imitators in the last few years. And brother Nat’s soloing is fully up to the standards set by the sterling trumpeters--Lee Morgan, Blue Mitchell, Freddie Hubbard and Kenny Dorham among them--of the time.

There are bright and enthusiastic renderings of such items associated with the Adderleys as “Dis Here” and Nat’s “Work Song.” There is solid support from one of jazz’s most dependable rhythm sections and, best of all, there is a persistent sense of the music’s capacity for exhilaration and discovery.

The Ellington concerts in Berlin and Paris showcased a band that still included most of the Duke’s classic lineup--Cat Anderson, Cootie Williams, Johnny Hodges, Paul Gonsalves and Harry Carney among them. And, although there was still a great deal of music to be made, it was a band at its mature peak, soon to finish a long and legendary passage across the jazz horizon.

The 1967 numbers were recorded in March, a few months before Ellington’s composition partner, Billy Strayhorn, died and five months before the band recorded its classic tribute to him, “And His Mother Called Him Bill.” Clarinetist Jimmy Hamilton left in 1968, Hodges died in 1970 and Ellington died in 1974.

The well-known items included here--”Chelsea Bridge,” “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be,” “Rockin’ in Rhythm,” etc.--will not supersede the original versions. But they are fascinating alternatives, well worth saving as examples of the consistently extraordinary music the Ellington band could produce, even during what was, for them, another stop on a long road.

Above all, in this outing, there is the stunning alto saxophone work of Hodges, still articulated with timeless elegance in his featured solos on “Blood Count,” “Harmony in Harlem” and “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be.”

If performances such as these are typical of the previously unreleased material yet to come on Pablo’s J.A.T.P. series, one can only eagerly await the next issues.

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Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to four stars (excellent).