Roofscape Garden Journal: Bongo in Squaresville

Showing posts with label Bongo in Squaresville. Show all posts

Thursday, November 3, 2011

November 3, 2011

Image ... Bongo in Squaresville.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Serge Chaloff | Bongo in Squaresville . 15

These tunes are primarily taken from Boston Blow-up by The Serge Chaloff Sextet ... Serge Chaloff, baritone sax. Boots Musulli, alto sax. Herb Pomeroy, trumpet. Ray Santisi, piano. Everett Evans, bass. Jimmy Zitano, drums. Recorded April 1955 in New York City for the Stan Kenton Presents imprint on Columbia. Other cuts are from Blue Serge. Enjoy this set - and Bongo in Squaresville, devoted to Boston's jazz music, every Wednesday evening - on Radio Roofscape.

Sergical
Thanks for the Memories
Bob the Robin
What's New
All the Things You Are
Susie's Blues
Body and Soul
A Handful of Stars
Stairway to the Stars

Serge Chaloff, born just a few years before Miles, in Boston on November 24, 1923, died at half his age and missed a good shot at earning the mantle of one of the most significant modern jazz masters. But the evidence is preserved in two recordings made leading his own groups during the 50's - Boston Blow-up and Blue Serge.

Chaloff parents were renowned pianists and piano teachers. His father Julius played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and his mother, known as Madame Chaloff, was an important teacher whose students included Keith Jarrett, Kenny Werner, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Steve Kuhn. And, of course, young Serge.

Image ... Serge Chaloff (lower left) in recording session.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Bongo in Squaresville . 14 | Hank Jones

Bongo in Squaresville is a weekly webcast radio show devoted to the jazz music, of every style and genre, that's gone down in Boston through the last 10 or so decades. Join us at Radio Roofscape every Wednesday night. The music starts at 9:00 and there's never a cover charge or drink minimum.

This week we're celebrating the music of the great pianist Hank Jones who died this past Sunday in Manhattan at the age of 91 (July 31, 1918 – May 16, 2010) - and still gigging. Here's the lineup ...

1. Favors - The Great Jazz Trio: Hank Jones, piano. Ron Carter, bass. Tony Williams, drums. Live at the Village Vanguard, NYC, 1977.

2. Beautiful Love - Hank Jones, piano. Dave Holland, bass. Billy Higgins, drums. From the CD The Oracle, 1989.

3. I Got Rhythm - Hank Jones and trio.

4. Performance from Norman Grantz's documentary Improvisation. Hank Jones, piano. Ray Brown, bass. Buddy Rich, drums. New York City, 1950.

4. 'Round Midnight - Hank Jones and trio.

5. Groovin' High - Hank Jones and combo.

6. Cheek to Cheek - Salena Jones singing Irving Berlin's classic with: Hank Jones, piano. Mads Vinding, bass. Billy Hart, drums. Live in Tokyo, 1990.

7. Kids - Hank Jones with Joe Lovano. June, 2007.

8. Yardbird Suite - Hank Jones with trio. Tune by Charlie Parker.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Bongo in Squaresville . 13 | Serge Chaloff

Boston Blow-up by The Serge Chaloff Sextet ... Serge Chaloff, baritone sax. Boots Musulli, alto sax. Herb Pomeroy, trumpet. Ray Santisi, piano. Everett Evans, bass. Jimmy Zitano, drums. Recorded April 1955 in New York City for the Stan Kenton Presents imprint on Columbia.

Sergical
Jr.
Bofy and Soul
Bob the Robin
What's New

Serge Chaloff, born just a few years before Miles, died at half his age and missed a good shot at earning the mantle of being one of the most significant modern jazz masters. But the evidence is preserved in two recordings made leading his own groups during the 50's - Boston Blow-up and Blue Serge.

Chaloff was born in Boston on November 24, 1923 to two pianists and piano teachers. His father Julius played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and his mother, known as Madame Chaloff, was an important teacher whose students included Keith Jarrett, Kenny Werner, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Steve Kuhn. And, of course, young Serge.

Image ... Boston Blow-up LP cover.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Bongo in Squarseville . 12 | New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival - May 2, 2010

Bongo in Squaresville is a weekly webcast radio show devoted to the jazz music, of every style and genre, that's gone down in Boston through the last 10 or so decades. Join us at Radio Roofscape every Wednesday night. The music starts at 9:00 and there's never a cover charge or drink minimum. This week we're leaving Boston and visiting the final day, May 2, of this year's New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Here's the lineup ...

Dukes of Dixieland - When the Saints Go Marching In
Clarence Carter - Slip Away
Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue - Orleans & Claiborne
John Rankin - Chicken Gumbo
Ellis Marsalis & Harry Connick, Jr. - Caravan
Irma Thomas, Dolly Parton, Dr. John, Alan Toussaint - Working In a Coal Mine
TBC Brass Band - At the Perfect Gentlemen Second Line
Delfeayo Marsalis's Future Focus - Track 13 Blues
Van Morrison - Saint James Infirmary
Preservation Hall Jazz Band - Darktown Strutters Ball
Wayne Shorter - Juju
Neville Brothers - Yellow Moon

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Bongo in Squaresville . 11 | Boston Jazz Week, April 23 - May 2, 2010: Made & played in Boston.

Bongo in Squaresville is a weekly webcast radio show devoted to the jazz music, of every style and genre, that's gone down in Boston through the last 10 or so decades. Join us at Radio Roofscape every Wednesday night. The music starts at 9:00 and there's never a cover charge or drink minimum.

Ray Santisi w/ Debby Larkin - Old Devil Moon (Been there, done that)
Gilad Barkan Band w/ Melissa Aldana - Fe
Bo Winiker & New Philharmonia Orchestra - In a Sentimental Mood
Blaque Lyte - Breakout
Al Vega - 88 Over 88 (birthday jam at Scullers)
Yoko Miwa Trio - Untitled original composition (live at WGBH FM, Boston)
Either/Orchestra w/ Mahoud Ahmed - Bemen Sebab Letlash
Rajdulari - Me and You
The Workingman''s Jazz Band - When the Saints Go Marching in Concord
Hal McIntyre & His Orchestra - Sentimental Journey
Sergio Salvatore & Antonio J. - Point of Presence 09
Wendee Glick - Baby, I'm Fine
Dominique Eade - Have I Stayed Away Too Long?
Ran Blake - Lost Highway
Ro Sham Beaux - Can't, Can't, Can't, Can't, Won't
Patrick Kunka - Live at the Lemon Tree, Aberdeen

Image ... Bongo in Squaresville. The Starlight Room, Boston.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Bongo in Squaresville . 10 | Boston Jazz Week, April 23 - May 2: Made in Boston, Played in Boston

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Bongo in Squaresville . 9

Bongo in Squaresville is a weekly webcast radio show devoted to the jazz music, of every style and genre, that's gone down in Boston through the last 10 or so decades. Join us at Radio Roofscape every Wednesday night. The music starts at 9:00 and there's never a cover charge or drink minimum.

Joe Lovano & Gunther Schuller - Angel Eyes
Roy Haynes - Afro Blue
Rebecca Parris - That Old Black Magic
Rebecca Parris - All of You
Rebecca Parris - I Wish I Knew
Donal Fox & David Murray - Ugly Beauty
Duke Ellington featuring Paul Gonsalves - Blow by Blow
Esperanza Spaulding - Live at City Hall Park, NYC (part 2)
George Russell Sextet - Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature
George Garzone, Brian Blade, Christian McBride - Chasin' the Trane
Dave McKenna - Some Other Time / A Time for Love
Serge Chaloff Sextet - Bob the Robin
Gary Burton Quartet featuring Pat Metheney - Falling Grace
Ruby Braff Trio - Mean to Me
Terri Lyne Carrington - Virtual Hornets

Image ... Rush Hour. Cover art, album by Joe Lovano & Gunther Schuller.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Bongo in Squaresville . 7 | Sort of Blue

Johnny Hodges - Duke's Blues, 1952
Terri Lyne Carrongton, Herbie Hancock - St. Louis Blues
Phil Woods, Dizzy Gillespie - Goodbye Mr. Evans
Donal Fox - In rehearsal
Rebecca Parris - That Old Black Magic
Rebecca Parriis - All of You
Charlie Mariano - Django
Dave McKenna - Serenade in Blue
Serge Chaloff - Stairway to the Stars
Herb Pomeroy, Donna Byrne - Ill Wind

Image ... Bongo in Squaresville.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Bongo in Squaresville . 6 | Hot and Cool: 40 Years of Jazz at New England Conservatory

Bongo in Squaresville is a weekly webcast radio show devoted to the jazz music, of every style and genre, that's gone down in Boston through the last 10 or so decades. Join us at Radio Roofscape every Wednesday night. The music starts at 9:00 and there's never a cover charge or drink minimum.

Check out Roofscape Journal too. Each week we'll be looking at a different aspect of the Boston jazz scene down through the years to today - digging the music, meeting the musicians, hanging out with the fans, making recording sessions and visiting the clubs. Today were celebrating the 40th anniversary of jazz at New England Conservatory.

Here's the playlist for Wednesday, March 24, 2010. Then Tal Farr takes us on a visit around NEC's four jazz decades.

George Russell Sextet
Ran Blake
Gunther Schuller - The World According to Gunther Schuller
Darcy James Argue's Secret Society - Zeno
Noah Preminger - Today is Okay
Bernie Worrell, featured - Slippery People
Marty Ehrlich Sextet
John Medeski - plays Clavinet
Gunther Schuller Orchestra with Jimmy Giuffre - Suspensions, 1957
Ran Blake & Jeanne Lee - Where Flamingos Fly
George Russell, Bill Evans, Billy Evans - The Future of Jazz

Image ... Bongo in Squaresville. he Starlight Room, Boston.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Bongo in Squaresville . 5

Charles Walker, age 87, saw Sammy Davis, Jr. at the Hi-Hat, once on the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Columbus. “You had to have money to go there,” he says of the club, which had a restaurant and lounge downstairs, while the music was upstairs.

The Hi-Hat was the first jazz club in the South End. It was established after World War II, when big bands had gone out and performers such as drummer Buddy Rich, Count Basie and Charlie Mingus were traveling with small combos.

“The Hi-Hat sort of became a symbol of jazz in Boston. It was popular; it inspired other young guys to open clubs,” says Ray Barron, who used to book the acts for the club. He started the popular Sunday jam sessions at the Hi-Hat.

Charles Walker and Ray Barron quoted in South End Jazz: An invisible tradition, by Drake Lucas.

The Hi-Hat was an example of a larger club where the bands, waiters and waitresses were black, but the audience was white. People would come from all over town. When I got out of the army in 1946 I went down there to hear Count Basie.

Thomas O’ Connor, Boston historian and Boston College Professor

Sunday afternoon jam sessions were a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Only the squares were home. No matter if it was summer, fall, winter, or spring, the Sunday afternoon jam sessions at the Hi-Hat was where you belonged if you were hip.

Ray Barron, Pick Up the Beat and Swing

Image ... Mural at the site of the old Hi-Hat CLub. Harriet Tubman House, Boston.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Bongo in Squaresville . 4

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Bongo in Squaresville . 3

Bongo in Squaresville is a weekly webcast radio show devoted to the jazz music, of every style and genre, that's gone down here in Boston through the last 10 or so decades. Join us at Radio Roofscape every Wednesday night, the music starts at 9:00 and there's never a cover or drink minimum.

Check out Roofscape Journal too. Each week we'll be looking at a different aspect of the Boston jazz scene down through the years to today - digging the music, meeting the musicians, hanging out with the fans, making recording sessions and visiting the clubs. To start off, we're going to look at the scene in the 40's and 50's when Boston was one of the great jazz mecccas.

Here's the playlist for Wednesday, March 3, 2010, then Tal Farr takes us to the Sunday afternoon jam session at Wally's, the last of the classic Boston clubs ...

Duke Ellington / Johnny Hodges - Going Up
Billie Holiday - I Cried for You
Dreaming of Your Love - Tony Williams
Charlie Mariano & KCP4 - Live TFF Rudolstadt 2007
Professor Longhair - Go to the Mardi Gras
Dave McKenna - Nobody Else But Me / I'm Old Fashioned
Leon Collins - Flight of the Bumble Bee
Kid Koala - Basin Street Blues
Serge Chaloff Sextet - What's New
New Black Eagle Jazz Band - Perdido Street Blues
Louis Armstrong - Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans

Wailin' at Wally's ...

Local jazz joints like Wally's are curiously rare in Boston, home of the Berklee College of Music and the Boston and New England Conservatories, each one of them world premier schools for jazz training. But the city hosts dozens of other schools and universities as well and the kids there, like kids everywhere, are rockers. Boston is a big rock and roll town, home of some of the biggest bands of all time - the band Boston, of course, the Cars, the Pixies, New Edition, the J. Geils Band and a million others you've never heard of praticing in chilly warehouses and playing in sweaty clubs of all sizes.

Wally's lives in a time warp. Back in the day when Wally's was founded, by Joseph L. 'Wally' Walcott on January 1, 1947, Boston was a jazz-mad town. Throughout the forties and fifties the intersection of Massachusetts and Columbus Avenues was a mecca for jazz lovers with famous nightclubs like the High Hat, Savoy Cafe, Chicken Lane, the Wig Wam, Big M - and Wally's Paradise, across the street from its current loaction at 427 Massachusetts Avenue. All the hottest bands of the day played these clubs.

Then one day it was all over. My former neighbor, singer Charlotte Bartley explained the end of the era this way:

"The Weekend of a Private Secretary', my first big label solo record was about to be released in 1964. RCA had hooked me up with first class producers, songwriters, arrangers and jazz musicains, including Tito Puente's band. It was what today would be called a concept album, maybe one of the first ones in jazz. Private Secretary follws a young gal's hinjinks around Havana where she's run off on a fling for a few days with her (maybe married) boss. It was hot and naughty and the company was expecting a huge hit."

"Then the Beatles arrived in America [2/9/64 was the first Ed Sullivan show, watched by half of America - ed.] and it was all over, RCA abandoned the album. My career ended overnight. I was finished - and many other big and small band jazz musicians along with me."

Wally's survived the demise of jazz and the big bands as America's popular music through stubborn persistance and a strategy of billing less expensive local musicians, but still stellar talents, who mostly didn't have the big names and big traveling and touring expenses, but walked a few blocks with their axes from their day gigs teaching or studying at Berklee or one of the conservatories. Wally's has provided a stage for the development of countless musicians, many now famous names, and continues to do so - 365 days a year, as the sign says, with never a cover charge.

My favorite time to visit Wally's is for the weekly Sunday jam sessions between 4:00 and 7:00. There you'll see and hear a succession of the baddest cats from around the world crowding the postage stamp size stage making all kinds of music with some competitive cutting and carving contests bubbling up occasionally. The other days of the week are each devoted to a different jazz genre and the bands play from 9:00 to 12:00.

The room is small, intimate and the pure, unamplified sound is superb and envelopes you. It's the way music was meant to be heard and so seldom is these days, so it's a special treat. A long bar runs along one side of the club and tables down the other with the small stage at the back of the club. Drinks are reasonably priced and they serve a simple menu. Photos of the jazz greats who've gigged here crowd the walls. The atmosphere is very low key, friendly and often elbow-to-elbow, so you'll inevitably strike up conversations with your fellow listeners or the musicians between the sets.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Bongo in Squaresville . 2

In the jazz history books, New Orleans, Chicago, Kansas City, and the Central Avenue zone of Los Angeles are traditionally cited as the key nurturing places of jazz. But Boston - as I can attest first-hand - also merits a place as a lively center of swinging homegrown soloists and bands as well as visiting members of the jazz pantheon who often stayed for extensive gigs. -- Nat Hentoff, 2001.

Strung all together the names of the clubs sound like Ella having some fun scatting.

Savoy Café - Chicken Lane - Roseland State Ballroom
The Hi-Hat Barbecue - Storyville - Connelly's - The Pioneer
Eddie Condon's - The Stable - Big M - Wigwam - Totem Pole
Ken Club - Copley Terrace - Merry Go Round Room
Wally's Café Jazz Club

Back in the day, roughly midway through the past century, the South End was the heart of the black community and the area around the intersection Massachusetts and Columbus Avenues was the crossroads for jazz. More than a dozen clubs, large and small, flourished here in the postwar period presenting the spectrum of jazz music from the chart topping big bands to solitary piano professors.

Another spectrum reperesented in this jazz mecca of the Northeast was that of black and white. Boston at the time was essentially a segregated city, as was most of the country to differing degrees. In the liberal North, as in the Jim Crow South, African Americans were denied access to most hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, schools and housing, which were reserved for whites. The jazz clubs of the South End were one of the few places in the city where blacks and whites could meet and mingle, the first racially integrated venues in New England.

Today, thanks to the civil rights struggle of the 1960's, all that's changed. Some would say, however, that Boston's still a segregated city. Be that as it may, time moves on to a tireless drummer and the old customs, along with all those pioneering jazz clubs, have been swept away. Except one - Wally's Café Jazz Club at 427 Mass. Ave. In the next Bongo in Squaresville we'll drop in on a Sunday afternoon jam session at this famed Boston institution.

February 24, 2010 Bongo in Squaresville playlist ...

Sonny Stitt - All God's Chillun Got Rhythm
Dave McKenna - Lulu's Back in Town
Terri Lynn Carrington - Sherwood Forest
Serge Chaloff Sextet - What's New
Donal Fox & David Murray - Vamping with T.T.
Tony Williams Quintet - Juicy Fruit
Bo Winiker - In a Sentimental Mood
Phil Woods - Caravan
Ruby Braff - Ghost of a Chance
Herb Pomeroy - Dear Old Stockholm
Rebecca Parris - Darn That Dream
Johnny Hodges & Wild Bill Davis - The Nearness of You

The show was inspired by a comment from Nat Hentoff.

There ought to be a Boston jazz series - from Johnny Hodges and Harry Carney, to Roy Haynes, Herb Pomeroy, Ruby Braff, and the players continuing the heritage in the clubs right now.

From The Shape of Jazz That Was - A native son's look back at jazz in Boston at midcentury. Boston Magazine, October 2001.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Bongo in Squaresville . 1

Bongo in Squaresville is a weekly show devoted to jazz music, of every style, that's gone down here in Boston through the decades. Join us on Radio Roofscape every Wednesday night. Here's the playlist for the February 17 show.

Duke Ellington with Paul Gonsalves - Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue. Newport, 1956.
Dave McKenna - Rodgers and Hart Medley.
Ruby Braff - You're a Lucky Guy.
George Wein and his Newport All Stars - Lady Be Good. Newport, 1974.
Johnny Hodges - A Few Minutes with Johnny Hodges.
Earl Hines and Jackie Byard - Piano Duet.
Roy Haynes - A Life in Time: The Roy Haynes Story.
Sonny Stiit - Everything Happens to Me.

The show was inspired by a comment from Nat Hentoff.