DIRECTIONS IN MUSIC: LIVE AT MASSEY HALL
A CD Review
First off, let me say the music on this record is first-rate. It's some of the best playing I've heard in recent years. Buy it, but let me tell you a story...
John Coltrane's "Transition" is also an excellent album. It was released post-humously, and few people know about it; even fewer people have heard it. I'm a huge Coltrane fan. I've listened to most of his recorded music, but not "Transition", because I could never find it in stores. Last month, my brother downloaded the album via an illegal file sharing service, and I heard it for the first time. It's amazing music, but the point is: most jazzers are not familiar with it.
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Massey Hall, home to most perceptive, responsive jazz audience on the planet. By no means is this caption sarcastic in any way.
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Fast-forward to 2001. Eager Torontonians flock to the legendary Massey Hall to see jazz legends Michael Brecker, Roy Hargrove, and Herbie Hancock in concert. The drummer Brian Blade starts a number with an eight-bar intro, and the horns come in. What happens next?
If you own "Directions in Music" (the recording from the Massey Hall performance), skip to Track 6 and find out. The tune is Transition, the title cut from the Coltrane record I just mentioned. No one's heard of it, right? Wrong. Less than three bars into the head, the crowd is cheering. This is bizarre, because Transition is relatively unknown, even in musician circles.
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I offer three possible explanations: 1) before the band started the tune, Herbie Hancock walked to the microphone and said, "Could you clap at the beginning of this next one? That would be super rad"; 2) Ontario declared a statutory holiday and forced everyone in the province to listen to mid-1965 Coltrane until their ears fell off; or 3) Verve Records, in a shameless attempt to impress jazz musicians (who aren't impressed by stunts like this anyway), forgot they weren't making a Hilary Duff album and inserted fake applause to make it appear like the audience recognized the tune after two measures.
I'll save you the fact checking. It's 3).
For more Verve wizardry, check out Impressions from the same record. The arrangement is hip, but deceptive; the tempo is less than half that of the original version. I've listened to Trane's recordings a lot (Newport '63 is one my favorite albums), and it still took me until the bridge to identify the tune. When I realized it, I thought, "Impressions, that's pretty neat." But not the crowd at Massey Hall. They whistled and shouted — from the very first note of the melody! Apparently, they knew the tune before the musicians did; Brecker and Hargrove were just waiting for a cue from the audience to come in.
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And I especially like how the album is one gigantic segue, because I'm sure the band played the entire concert in the exact same order as the CD, with no pauses or talking between tunes. Real subtle, Verve. Your editing job on "Directions in Music" is like working with a 2x4 at a construction site, except instead of loading the wood into a flatbed truck, you get stabbed with it in the eye.
Which reminds me: when I record my first album, every single track will be a Sonny Rollins cover. Halfway through each piano solo, I'll think the name "Coltrane", and a small hillside village will spontaneously clap, attracting a man in a straitjacket and a goat from a nearby mental asylum/petting zoo. All the clapping, moaning, and bleating will start a landslide, uprooting the village and launching it into the hungry black sea below.
Murray James Morrison
February 2005
ADDENDUM: I'm sorry for being so rough on you, Verve Records. While "Directions In Music" is over-produced, it's also great jazz. Thank you for releasing it! I have no hard feelings; it's not like if I spotted you in a grocery store, I would follow you aisle by aisle, watching you pull items off the shelf and then (when you aren't looking) take them out of your cart and put them in mine instead. And then when we get to the checkout, I would say, "Hey Verve. Can you share some of your recipes with me? I just got all these groceries, and I don't know what to make with them." And then you would be confused, and I would put on a pair of dark sunglasses and shout, "You want a piece of this?"
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