Al Haig - Invitation and Un Poco Loco

Al Haig - Invitation
Spotlight 1974 

1) Holy Land
2) Invitation
3) Enigma
4) Sawbo City Blues
5) If You Could See Me Now
6) Sambalhasa
7) Day Dream
8) Linear Motion

Back in August of 2009 I first posted these two albums and set off what would be the first big flurry of reader involvement at the old Crypt that would eventually result in 25 Al Haig posts and even drew the attention of Grange 'Lady Haig' Rulan, his second wife who wrote the book about Al 'Death of a Bebop Wife'.  Seems like that was forever ago and since that time most of the albums we collected have come back into print; not all of them, however, and there are some that we never produced a lossless version of either so I am going to revisit these in hopes that this time someone out there will produce a lossless rip for us all.

Here is my review from 2009: Al Haig was certainly one of the best of the early bebop pianists; on a par even with Bud Powell. He played with Bird, Diz, Miles and Stan Getz in the bebop age and did some other fine recordings through the early part of the 50's. By 1955 and through the 60's he had to scuffle for work and was rarely recorded but he had something of a resurgence from 1969 until his death in 1982. 

His second wife Grange Rulan has labeled him an angry abuser of women and he was arrested for the strangling death of his third wife in 1968. He was later acquitted due to a lack of evidence but his second wife and one of his former band mates, swear that he admitted the killing later while drunk. While it is clear that he had some serious inner demons it is just as clear that he was a phenomenal pianist. His block chords and changes of key pressure made him an exceptionally expressive ballad player. This session is from 1974 with Gilbert 'Bibi' Rovere on bass and the great Kenny Clarke on drums is very beautiful, high level piano trio jazz. 

My mp3 copy of this only includes the 8 tracks from the LP but a little research shows that there was a Japanese CD release with 5 additional tracks! (Somethin' Else – SCJ-5525, Somethin' Else – TOCJ-5525)


Al Haig - Un Poco Loco
Spotlite 1978 [vbr mp3]

1) Confirmation
2) Naima
3) All Blues
4) Laura
5) Voices Spark Within Me
6) Never Let Me Go
7) How Deep Is The Ocean
8) Un Poco Loco
9) The Theme

Al Haig piano, Jamil Nasser bass, Tony Mann drums

This second album is, if anything, even stronger than Invitation; the addition of Jamil Nasser putting it over the top for me. I appears that beyond the original LP on Spotlite, there was also a CD issue by Proper that wasn't distributed over here in the States.

Un Poco Loco is a live club date that I would have loved to see. The set-list, as you can see, is just awesome and the interplay between Jamil and Al is a joy to hear. Tony Mann is solid, occasionally a bit too loud and busy for this setting, but not so much as to significantly mar this lovely set of music that is sounding awfully good to me this morning. Once again I mention that I am trolling for Lossless rips of both of these beauties. C'mon gang!

***AND JUST LIKE THAT, BLUEBIRD HAS PROVIDED FLAC LINKS FOR US FOR ALL NOW INCLUDING THOSE EXTRA 5 TRACKS***