Dave Bailey: One & Two Feet In The Gutter

Dave Bailey (drums; b. 1926)
The Complete One & Two Feet In The Gutter Sessions (Lone Hill Jazz)

Curtis Fuller (trombone)
Clark Terry (trumpet)
Bill Hardman (trumpet)
Juinor Cook (sax)
Charlie Rouse (sax)
Frank Hayes (sax)

Horace Parlan (piano) / Billy Gardner (piano)
Peck Morrisson (bass) / Ben Tucker (bass)

Originally this album was only one album--One Foot In Gutter (which came out on Epic Records in 1960). This is one of those smokin' jazz dates that every music fan can enjoy. Seriously you don't need a lot of history on date. Dave Bailey has been an under-appreciated yet phenomenal drummer before he recorded this stellar sessions. He has since retired and is teaching jazz in New York, I beleive.

Dave Bailey spent his formidable years working with in the legendary Gerry Mulligan Quartet and Big Band. He went on to record first the fantastic live date One Foot In The Gutter featuring superb solo work from Curtis Fuller (trombone) and Clark Terry (trumpet). The band also included Horace Parlan (piano), Peck Morrison (bass), Junior Cook and Thelonious Monk Quartet mainstay, Charlie Rouse sitting in on sax--all in truly rich powerful form throughout. The first session features a number Clark Terry numbers that really should be play loud and louder on your stereo to get the full encompassing effect ("Evad Smurd" and "One Foot In The Gutter"). There's also a great interpretation of Monk's "Well You Needn't" spotlighting Horace Parlan, and while Parlan can't match the majesty of Monk he does demand respect for re-imagining some of the parts. Parlan does for obvious reason seem more at home on the bluesier number "Blues For J.P." --mostly because Parlan wrote it. The band also close out the evening with a killer 21 minute opus of Clifford Brown's "Sandu". Absolutely beauty stuff.


The early 1960 session went so well that later the following year Bailey reconvened with new sextet to record the sequel, Two Feet In The Gutter. This session starts of with some hard driving interplay from Bailey and Billy Hardman (trumpet) on "Come Home Baby". This sextet had a lot to match compared to future legends that were recruited for the 1960 session but they do hold their own admirably. The title track "Two Feet In The Gutter" is a little more blues-ish/soul but has some great solo work from Frank Hayes (sax) and Bill Hardman.
 
Hardman and Hayes do very well in matching the quality of Terry and Rouse. The material does suit them for this more subtle bop date. The entire band do let loose as evident of "Lady Iris B". At the end of all this hard bop magic over the course of two years you will notice that Dave Bailey while letting his band do allot of the talking he is still the driving force as to where each tune goes and he is the glue to keeps the sessions together.
 
Only in the last five years have these two session really come back into circulation (as The Complete One & Two Feet In The Gutter Sessions) and thank god they did. It also includes an addition three tracks from a late 1961 session with Grant Green (guitar) entitled Reachin' Out. The In The Gutter Sessions are one of those deep treasures that jazz fans have been looking for but its also a two disc set that is worth it for fans of any music genre.
 
So if you are looking for something out the traditional big names you should seek out Dave Bailey's Complete One & Two Feet In The Gutter Sessions. Complete 1 & 2 Feet in the Gutter Sessions is available on import,  but if you want just the first date One Foot In The Gutter check it out at Amazon and take a listen. I'm pretty sure you're gonna dig it.

Celebrating Freddie Hubbard

Freddie Hubbard (trumpet; b. 1938 - d. 2008)

This week would have been Freddie Hubbard's 72nd birthday (April 7th). Yes, I probably should have written this early but things happen...

Freddie Hubbard was one fiercest hard bop players around. As some may know he was heavily influenced by the great Clifford Brown and Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong. But Hubbard would develop his own voice very quickly and would become a major influence on a new generation of trumpeters today (Ryan Kisor, Nicholas Payton, Roy Hargrove, et el.).

Freddie Hubbard performed with a host of legendary jazz musicians including John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Herbie Hancock to name just a few. Hubbard's style was robust, exuberant and well rounded; much more so than many of his contemporaries. When he played you knew it. I was lucky enough to see one of his last concerts and while he had definitely lost allot of his chops--due to a serious lip infection/injury during the 90s--you could still feel the powerful and energy in his performance. Freddie Hubbard like many of the legends of the '50s and '60s hard bop era played in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers before branching out on his own to record some stellar work for Blue Note Records.

Freddie Hubbard's first album, Open Sesame (Blue Note; 1960) is must have for any fan of jazz. It features some fantastic phrasing from Hubbard but also incredible performances from fellow greats McCoy Tyner (piano), Sam Jones (bass), Clifford Jarvis (drums) and the highly under-rated Tina Brooks (sax) who wrote two wonderful tracks, "Open Sesame" and "Gypsy Blue". Hubbard contributed the lovely closing piece "Hub's Nub which features some exciting solo work that for me is staggering ever time I listen to it.

You could say the Blue Note years saw Hubbard at his peak--you might be wrong. In the 70's Hubbard signed with the CTI/Epic Records after a brief unsuccessful period with Atlantic Records in the late 60s. The albums he produced for CTI would become some of his most commercially successful of his career.

One of the critics and my favourites is Red Clay (CTI; 1970) is a double-edged sword. It can easily be seen as a response to the direction jazz was going in after Miles Davis' Bitches Brew and even some of the work of contemporary Donald Byrd with the collision of funk, soul and jazz. It can also been seen as the trumpeter really taking to the new sub-genre and making it his own in one session.

There's a host of killer performances on this album including the interplay between Joe Henderson (sax) and Hubbard. The album also featured a who's who of jazz greats: Herbie Hancock (piano), Stanley Turrentine (sax), Johnny Smith (organ), George Benson (guitar), Ron Carter (bass), Lenny White, Billy Cobham (drums) and Airto Moreira (percussion)--all I have to say is wow! The album is obviously highlighted by the funky almost psychedelic blues of the title track but you can solid mixture of his crisp Blue Note playing in an updated more rhythmic arena. This isn't completely a funk record by "funk/soul" standards. It's an album built on the soul of the musician with some terrific grooves laid in by his friends.

While the 80s were sporadic for recording and the injury to his lip finally took its toll on the legend, Freddie Hubbard's final two albums still show he could play in with the young cats. The albums, New Colours (Hip Bop) and On The Real Side (Four Quarters) both feature Hubbard running through some previously recorded material but with the help of a new generation which included Kenny Garrett and Javon Jackson (sax) Steve Davis (trombone), Joe Chambers (drums) and Russell Malone (guitar) among others. These two album are not essential in the canon of Freddie Hubbard but they are well worth listening to after you've experience some of his others.

His love of the trumpet and playing never die and it always should right up to his final days. Freddie Hubbard was a remarkable musician with a catalog that stands up against many of the other legends in jazz and should not be overlooked. Happy Birthday Freddie.