This is from vinyl. Part of a collection recently acquired by Danair, who lacks the facilities to rip LPs so he's sending them for me to do. The first, hopefully, in a series!Born in 1912, Byas served his apprenticeship in a variety of big bands. Like most tenor players of his generation his style was heavily indebted to that of Coleman Hawkins, particularly in its fullness of tone. However, he soon developed his harmonic range and became interested in the then developing bop style. Often considered to be a bridge between the swing and bebop generations, he often anticipates Charlie Parker's solo development, stringing together whole series of tiny melodic ideas into a coherent line with a challenging harmonic profile.
He went to Europe in 1946 and spent the remainder of his life there until his death in Amsterdam in 1972. In later life he was a fine ballad player. Albert McCarthy in the book “Jazz On Record” published in 1968, suggested that he appeared to introduce elements from the playing of John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins into his style, citing the tracks “Lady Bird” and “All The Things You Are” from this album as evidence. He summarised – “At his best, Byas can be rated as one of the greatest ballad performers on his instrument”.
01 - Yesterdays
02 - All The Things You Are
03 - Lady Bird
04 - Lover Man
05 - I'll Remember April
Don Byas (ts) Bengt Axen (p) Niels Henning Orsted Pederson (b) Axel Riel (d) but see below
Café Montmartre, Copenhagen.
Thanks to Chu:
According to Lord, this was recorded on 13-14 January 1963 (one night) and the drummer is William Schiøpffe. This together with much more from the same night was once released on two Black Lion CDs entitled "A Night In Tunisia" and "Walkin'".
http://www.embedupload.com/?d=3GRWBZGDKM
ReplyDeleteVinyl>flac + scans
All thanks to danair for sharing his LP with us.
Comments are always appreciated.
I had never heard of this album before, so even before listening to it I'll say 'thanks a lot'.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this, the Byas side on Americans In Europe vol 2 on Impulse (which features another version of All the Things You Are) is one of my all time favorites.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Grumpy! Can't get enough of Don Byas.
ReplyDeleteThanks to Danair for sharing and to you for facilitating that. Don Byas, for sure I'll be listen to it soon.
ReplyDeleteByas is one of those who kept growing when the new style came in. Thanks for a listen to music I've not heard before.
ReplyDeleteGrumpy, KC what a line up, this has to be close to his last recording ?
ReplyDeleteIt would be difficult to select a better group for this session.
Muchas gracias
OOooo, thanks guys!!
ReplyDeleteThank you sir Grumpy.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Lord, this was recorded on 13-14 January 1963 (one night) and the drummer is William Schiøpffe. This together with much more from the same night was once released on two Black Lion CDs entitled "A Night In Tunisia" and "Walkin'".
ReplyDeleteDon Byas was a tenor giant, but his permanent move to Europe in 1946 meant that he became overlooked in the US and thus in the jazz world as a whole. Although he recorded profusely during his first years in Europe, he then seemed to have been taken for granted and there is far too little recorded in his later years (unlike with Ben Webster who was a much more recent arrival on the European scene).
Thanks to Danair for preserving till now this kind of jewel to Jazz.
ReplyDeletePeople like him and you, Grumpy, avoyd that such works fall in a forgotten world.