Earl Hines Up To Date With Earl Hines

Louis Armstrong's counterpart at the piano was Earl Hines, one of the few early heroes of jazz who was not born in Louisiana (he was born in Pennsylvania and in 1924 moved to Chicago). His technique augmented delicate virtuoso Armstrong-style moves with a rhythmic exuberance that set him apart from the tradition of Jelly Roll Morton. He was basically trying to play the piano like a trumpet or even a trombone.

This somewhat obscure MPS LP features pianist Earl Hines' working band of 1970. Most notable is singer Marva Josie's effective version of "I Just Wanna Make Love To You" that opens the date (although musically, this Chicago electric blues classic is a bit out of place). Josie also pops up on three other songs (including Hines' "Night In Trinidad"), but makes less of an impact on those numbers. Not enough is heard from Haywood Henry (doubling on baritone and clarinet), and the pianist's solos are not as lengthy or explorative as usual. However, there are some bright moments, most notably "Second Balcony Jump" and three solo Hines features.

Earl Hines is accompanied by Ralph Carmichael's orchestra as he revisits a dozen standards and originals which he had recorded earlier in his career. In spite of the liner-note praise from both Nat King Cole and Stan Kenton (both of whom were also Capitol artists at the time), Carmichael's rather bland, unadventurous arrangements do not seem to inspire Hines very much, as his playing takes on a conservative, easy listening sound that isn't generally associated with him. Hines is in full steam tackling his landmark composition "Rosetta" and shows off a taste of his tremendous chops in "Little Girl," but these tracks ends up being the exception rather than the rule. The music is pleasant for background listening, but serious fans of Earl Hines are advised to get the pianist's own big band recordings or his solo and small-group dates as a leader, as these 1963 sessions for Capitol will doubtlessly disappoint most jazz fans.

Once called “the first modern jazz pianist,” Earl Hines differed from the stride pianists of the 1920s by breaking up the stride rhythms with unusual accents from his left hand.

Jaki Byard recorded several duo piano dates (one with Tommy Flanagan made for Prestige is unreleased and possibly lost). His meeting with Earl Hines, however, is the most successful one because of the common ground they shared. Byard's lively boogie-woogie "A-ToodleOo, Toodle-Oo" is a captivating opener, while Hines' "Rosetta" is quite unusual as the two pianists take their time gradually working their way into this classic piece. The album highlight is "Sweet Georgia Brown," a true masterpiece of improvisation on a familiar standard by both men.

Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey is tough to place. Most of their musical style falls freely into the jazz or jazz fusion arena. The problem is this instrumental band is so unique, so different and so original that they sound unlike any other group also associated with jazz or jazz fusion.

Possessor of one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century, Sarah Vaughan ranked with Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday in the very top echelon of female jazz singers. She often gave the impression that with her wide range, perfectly controlled vibrato, and wide expressive abilities, she could do anything she wanted with her voice. Although not all of her many recordings are essential (give Vaughan a weak song and she might strangle it to death), Sarah Vaughan's legacy as a performer and a recording artist will be very difficult to match in the future.

Pianist Frank Dupree, whose name looks American, is actually a German pianist who was initially trained as a jazz percussionist. That is more important than you might realize because this CD features the music of Nikolai Kapustin, the late Russian composer whose compositions are fully saturated with jazz feeling and swing. Interestingly, Dupree has also made a recording of music by avant-garde composer Peter Eötvös for the Genuin label, so his interest in modern classical music seems to be fairly wide.