Mal Waldron: Stardust & Starlight: At The Jazz Showcase
A previously unissued recording by enigmatic pianist and composer Mal Waldron (1925-2003). It was recorded at Joe Segal’s Jazz Showcase in Chicago in 1979, and also features bassist Steve Rodby, drummer Wilbur Campbell and saxophonist Sonny Stitt on the two final tracks. The leader is on excellent form – he’s a strong signature stylist, whose style informs a song from the opening theme statement. Like Monk, Waldron makes a standard song sound like his own composition – notably a beautifully lugubrious solo interpretation of the Monk composition ’Round Midnight.
Bass and drums are not prominent in the mix. All Alone is a deeply moving interpretation – one of the pianist’s finest – that begins solo, then with bass and drums added. Fire Waltz is also an excellent performance, of one of Waldron’s most well-known compositions – this one is trio throughout. Bronisław Kaper’s All God’s Chillun Got Rhythm gets an unaccustomed lyrical, mid-tempo interpretation.
I’ve not heard Waldron with Sonny Stitt before, and it proves an unlikely but fruitful partnership. The two final tracks, Old Folks and Stardust, form a showcase for the saxophonist, and he solos fluently and impressively on alto throughout. This is a generally well-recorded live date on a good piano – one of the finest of Waldron’s prolific later career.
Discography
All Alone; All God’s Chillun Got Rhythm; Fire Waltz; I Thought About You; It Could Happen To You; ’Round Midnight; Stella By Starlight; Old Folks; Stardust (68.00)
Waldron (p); Steve Rodby (b); Wilbur Campbell (d); Sonny Stitt (as, on two tracks). Chicago, 1979.
Resonance Records HLP 9087
Yusef Lateef: Alight Upon The Lake: Live At The Jazz Showcase
Reeds multi-instrumentalist Yusef Lateef is an intriguing figure. This previously unissued recording features his excellent quartet with Kenny Barron (piano), Bob Cunningham (bass) and Albert “Tootie” Heath (drums), live at Joe Segal’s Jazz Showcase in Chicago in 1975. Lateef (1920-2013) was born William Huddleston, and grew up in Detroit. He worked with Hot Lips Page and Roy Eldridge before spending two years with Dizzy Gillespie’s Orchestra (1948–9).
In the late 1940s he converted to Islam and adopted the name Yusef Lateef. He spent much of the 50s in Detroit, studying composition and flute at Wayne State University. At the end of the decade he recorded as leader, moving to New York in 1960 to work with Charles Mingus, Cannonball Adderley and Grant Green. Lateef is known primarily for his work on tenor saxophone and flute, but he also performed on oboe and on non-Western instruments.
This three-CD set begins furiously uptempo, with the Coltrane-ish The Untitled featuring the leader on tenor saxophone. The composition turns slower and meditative, also in Coltrane-ish vein. Mutually Exclusive is also Coltrane-ish, but in Giant Steps idiom – though not as beautifully ingenious. Eboness is a beautiful theme, in loose Latin feel, with Lateef on flute, but marred by Cunningham’s long arco bass solo with pronounced vocal affinities. I prefer Lateef’s sound on flute to tenor, and it’s also heard to beautiful effect on Opus 1 & 2 – accompanied of course by arco bass… Yusef’s Mood is a bar-room blues featuring Lateef on tenor; the normally urbane Kenny Barron is almost unrecognisable. A generally excellent addition to the discography of an immensely fertile musical thinker.
Discography
CD1: The Untitled; Mutually Exclusive; Eboness (58.02)
CD2: Inside Atlantis; I Remember Webster; Opus 1 & 2 (57.57)
CD3: Golden Goddess; Straighten Up And Fly Right; Yusef’s Mood (53.42)
Lateef (ts); Kenny Barron (p); Bob Cunningham (b); Albert “Tootie” Heath (d). Chicago, June 1975.
Resonance Records HLP 9088
Marilyn Crispell, Anders Jormin: Memento
Born Philadelphia in 1947, Marilyn Crispell studied piano and composition at Peabody Music School in Baltimore, and at New England Conservatory. She joined Karl Berger’s Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, New York, where she met Anthony Braxton; she toured with his ensemble the Creative Music Orchestra in 1978. The 1980s witnessed an explosion of recording from Crispell, both solo and in small groups; she worked with Braxton, Reggie Workman and Barry Guy’s New Orchestra. She combines the free jazz of Cecil Taylor with the spiritual lyricism of Coltrane.
Anders Jormin was born in Sweden in 1957. In the 1980s and 90s he worked with Elvin Jones, Bobo Stenson, Don Cherry and Tomasz Stańko. He has a long association with Marilyn Crispell, most recently on his cycle of sacred songs, In Winds, In Light (ECM, 2004). But Memento is their first duo recording.
It has nothing at uptempo, or even mid-tempo. The album begins with four duo improvisations, before moving to compositions by each player. It’s an interesting question how far one can tell apart the improvisations and the compositions – I’m not sure I can. Jormin is an arco specialist, and Embracing The Otherness is a paradigm example – contrasting favourably with the work of Bob Cunningham on Yusef Lateef’s set reviewed here.
Three Shades Of A House is a piece that Jormin featured with Bobo Stenson. Here it’s interpreted in Morning and Evening versions – the first a pellucid exploration of the theme, the second a meditation for bass. Crispell’s The Beach At Newquay – Newquay, Cornwall – features Jormin’s high-register arco, evoking seagull cries. The album concludes with Dragonfly, dedicated to the late Gary Peacock. In contrast to the astringency of other tracks, this is beautifully lyrical. A superb album.
Discography
Dialogue; Embracing The Otherness; Contemplation in D; Three Shades Of A House; Song; Memento; Beach At Newquay; The Dark Light; Dragonfly (33.00)
Crispell (p); Jormin (b). Lugano, July 2025.
ECM 2867
