By his 64th year, the once mighty trumpeter Roy Eldridge had lost some of his dexterity but none of his fire. On Decidedly (Pablo), he heats up a live, previously unreleased 1975 performance at Antibes surrounded by fellow jazz giants. This is a Jazz at the Philharmonic kind of date: no fancy charts or stylized arrangements, just a flat-out jam session that brings out the best in these players. It’s an interesting, if sometimes odd choice of band mates, and Norman Granz is to be credited or blamed. Pianist Ray Bryant, for example, is all about feeling and is never far from the blues, even on a ballad like “Lover Man.” Tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin eats up the changes and spins high velocity bebop lines on the opening piece, occasionally triple-timing an already brisk tempo. “Bee’s Bloos” finds Eldridge attacking notes with short phrases and a raspy tone that’s as much about timbre as chord selection. Nobody plays more guitar in this kind of setting than Joe Pass, though that can be good or bad depending on your taste. Drummer Louie Bellson and bassist Niels-Henning _rsted Pedersen fit hand in glove and play their usual jaw-dropping solos, but the big surprise is a special guest appearance by Milt Jackson playing piano, not vibes, on “Hackensack.”
Originally PublishedRelated Posts
Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee: Backwater Blues
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading

Jonathan Butler: The Simple Life
Jonathan Butler’s optimistic music belies a dirt-poor childhood growing up in a South Africa segregated by apartheid. Live in South Africa, a new CD and DVD package, presents a sense of the resulting inner turmoil, mixed with dogged resolve, that paved the way to his status as an icon in his country and successful musician outside of it. Looking back, the 46-year-old Butler says today, the driving forces that led to his overcoming apartheid-the formal policy of racial separation and economic discrimination finally dismantled in 1993-were family, faith and abundant talent.
“When we were kids, our parents never talked about the ANC [African National Congress] or Nelson Mandela,” he says. Butler was raised as the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a house patched together by corrugated tin and cardboard, in the “coloreds only” township of Athlone near Cape Town. “They never talked about struggles so we never knew what was happening.”
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Harry Connick, Jr.: Direct Hits
Two decades after his commercial breakthrough, Harry Connick Jr. taps legendary producer Clive Davis for an album of crooner roots and beloved tunes

Scott LaFaro
Previously unavailable recordings and a new bio illuminate the legend of bassist Scott LaFaro