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Scott LaFaro Discography: 1960


Table of Contents

 1960 ??.??  John Handy Quintet / Bill Evans Trio  Compilation [1960 LP]
 1960 03.12  The 1960 Birdland Sessions  Bill Evans [1992 CD]
 1960 04.13  Booker Little  Booker Little
 1960 11.29  1960: Steve Kuhn Scott LaFaro Pete LaRoca  Steve Kuhn [2005 CD]
 1960 12.20  Jazz Abstractions  Gunther Schuller
 1960 12.21  Free Jazz  Ornette Coleman

 


 

John Handy Quintet / Bill Evans Trio  [New York?] : Ozone [1960] Ozone 1008. 1 sound disc : analog, 33 1/3 rpm, stereo ; 12 in.

DO NOT HAVE

On Cover:  "Stereo-Mono"  "Ozone 20"  "Rare Broadcast Performances"

Performers:  None listed.

Program:

Side 1 (1008A) -- Handy

Side 2 (1008B) -- Evans

This LP is a compilation of two separate musical groups with three tracks on side one by the John Handy Quintet and three tracks on side two by the Bill Evans Trio.

The Evans tracks were included in the CD compilation, The 1960 Birdland Sessions / The Legendary Bill Evans Trio, with the broadcast date of May 7, 1960.

Note:  This information is from photocopies of the LP jacket which has no text on its verso side, and from the "hole" labels of the vinyl record itself.  Photocopies were provided by Ms. Helene LaFaro-Fernandez.

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The 1960 Birdland Sessions  The Legendary Bill Evans Trio. [Compact Disc] [Switzerland?] Cool N' Blue Records, 1992. C&B-CD 106. 1 sound disc : digital ; 4 and 3/4 in. Compilation of previously-issued recordings of radio-broadcast `live' performances at the New York jazz club, Birdland. Master of ceremonies is Symphony Sid Torin. Recorded session dates are March 12, March 19, April 30, and May 7, 1960. Author of program notes is not identified.

Performers:

Program:

March 12, 1960

March 19, 1960

April 30, 1960

May 7, 1960

Note: Reference to previously-released analog recordings of the radio broadcast `live' performances may be found on the following recordings, per discussion with Mrs. Helene LaFaro-Fernandez, Scott LaFaro's sister:

Bill Evans Trio, Alto AL-719 (12 Mar, 19 Mar, and 30 Apr 60)

Bill Evans Trio, Session 113 (19 Mar, 20 Apr, and 07 May 60)

Bill Evans Trio and John Handy Quintet, Ozone 20 (07 May 60)

Excerpts from program notes:

“The recordings on this CD precede by more than one year the same trio's live performances at the [New York jazz club,] Birdland. Some of these tracks have been previously issued on LP with incomplete versions, but compiled here for the first time on CD, we are proud to present the complete Birdland sessions of the most legendary of all the Bill Evans Trios.”

“[Quoting Paul Motian from his 1962 comments about the formation of this particular trio] `Scott LaFaro was working at a club around the corner [from Basin Street East]. I'd first heard him some time previously, when Chet Baker was forming a group. Chet called me and Bill, and we worked out. I wasn't too impressed by Scott's playing at that time. Anyway, Scott used to come around to Basin Street East and sit in with Bill. And I WAS impressed. From Basin Street East we went to the Showplace, with Scott. That was actually the beginning.'”

“`It's hard to describe what Scott's death last year [i.e., 1961] did to us. Bill telephoned me. I was sleeping. It seemed like a dream, what he told me, and I went back to sleep. When I woke up, I was convinced it WAS a dream. I called Bill back, and he told me it was true. When it began to sink in, we ... we didn't know what to do. We didn't know if we'd still have a trio. We'd reached such a peak with Scott, such freedom. It seemed that everything was becoming possible.'”

“On learning of LaFaro's death, Evans described the bassist as `one of the most, if not the most outstanding talent in jazz.' In fact Evans' spirit was so broken by the bassist's death that he didn't play publicly for six months.”

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    Note: Image is from the CD re-release of the LP. 

Booker Little  [S.l.]: Time, [1960?] Time S/2011. (Series 2000) 1 sound disc : analog, 33 1/3 rpm, stereo ; 12 in. Recorded April 13 and 15, 1960. Artist and repertoire, Bob Shad; produced by Irving Joseph; original recording engineers, Al Weintraub and Bill MacMeekin; re-recording engineer, John Cue; mastering, Hal Diepold; liner notes, Nat Hentoff.

DO NOT HAVE (have re-issue LP and CD)

Performers:

Program:

Side 1

Side 2

Note: All selections composed by Little, except `Who Can I Turn To' by Alec Wilder.

Note: Compact Disc release, BCD1041, Van Nuys CA: Bainbridge Entertainment Co., Inc., [no date]

Note: OCLC Record #24 633 354 AZS 19911028

Excerpts from program notes:

“And also worth attention is the brilliant bass work of Scott LaFaro. The 24-year-old bassist has worked with Chet Baker, Ira Sullivan, The Lighthouse All-Stars, Barney Kessel, and more recently, with Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans. A strikingly original soloist, Scott, according to Booker, 'is technically, I feel, about the greatest bassist we have and he's still developing. In addition, he does so much more than just accompany.

'As I mentioned, some of this material is difficult harmonically, but he had no problems. I just gave him the chords. While any competent bass player can play the roots, Scotty interprets. He's much more of a conversationalist behind you than any other bassist I know.'

In 'Bee Tee's Minor Plea,' . . . LaFaro takes a stunningly original solo. `Usually,' says Booker, `the bass is a crude and rude instrument, but Scott makes it into something else.'�

In 'Life's A Little Blue,' . . . Scott's soliloquy is, like all his work, intense and powerful.�

Review:  "J.S.W" Down Beat 27:22 (October 27, 1960) pp. [39?], 40.  Rating: 2 stars.

"[Booker] Little has a warm, strong trumpet tone and, to a certain extent, a sensitive and selective way of phrasing. But he has not yet reached the stage where he can play rewardingly at great length. His solos in the six selections that make up this set usually start off promisingly. But they begin to ramble as he appears to search for something new to say and eventually they dissolve into aimless exercises. Flanagan inserts some pleasant, modest solos, but LaFaro's bass work tends to be ponderous."

TOC

1960:  Steve Kuhn Scott LaFaro Pete LaRoca[Tokyo?] Polystar Co., Ltd, 2005 (Polystar Jazz Library) MTCJ-3024. 1 sound disc : digital ; 4 and 3/4 in. in gate-fold, card stock "jewel case". Recorded 29 November 1960 at the Peter Ind Studio, New York, NY.  Total time: 29:15.  Includes 6-page program booklet in Japanese with three black and white photos of SK, SLF, PLR. Program notes dated 22 August 2005. CD released or published 19 October 2005 (rear cover of case). "Released under the legal license from Steve Kuhn" (last page of booklet).  A& R: Takashi Tannaka (Polystar Jazz library); Mastering Engineer: Seiji Kaneko for Kingrecords Sekiguchidai Studios; Designer: Takafumi Kitsuda; Coordination: Yoko Yamabe.  Alternate title:  Steve Kuhn Scott LaFaro Pete LaRoca 1960.

Performers:

Steve Kuhn, piano
Scott LaFaro, bass
Pete LaRoca (aka Peter Sims), drums

Program:

Little Old Lady (Hoagy Carmichael)   6:14
Bohemia After Dark   5:48
What's New   5:37
So What   (Miles Davis)   5:37
So What (alternate take)  5:57

Liner notes to be translated into English and excerpts will be included here.

My initial impressions after listening to this recording:

This recording at the Peter Ind Studio in New York was made nine days after a week-long gig at the Village Vanguard with the Bill Evans Trio and three weeks before the Gunther Schuller Jazz Abstractions recording (19 and 20 December) and the Ornette Coleman Free Jazz recording (21 December 1960).  LaFaro was working with some of the most experimental musicians on the scene in Schuller and Coleman. Kuhn and LaRoca were playing also with some of the advance guard in jazz, to include John Coltrane. In two months Kuhn and LaFaro along with drummer Roy Haynes would be members of the new Stan Getz Quartet and on a cross-country tour.

The music is approached carefully, each musician seeming to be feeling out the other two.  LaFaro plays most conservatively on the ballad 'What's New'.  LaFaro plays a (by then) well-recognized bass line introducing Miles's 'So What' but does not develop anything more inventive during the rest of the selection.  These three musicians have not found a way to integrate their music into the type of interplay achieved by Evans, LaFaro, and Motian a year earlier on the Bill Evans Trio Portrait in Jazz recording.

Still, this is an important recording in that it illustrates LaFaro's probing interest in working with many different musicians at a time when jazz was in one of its most creative and inventive periods.  

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Jazz Abstractions   Compositions by Gunther Schuller & Jim Hall. New York: Atlantic Recording Corp., [1961]. Atlantic 1365. 1 disc : analog, 33 1/3 rpm, mono ; 12 in. (Series: John Lewis Presents Contemporary Music, 1) [Recorded 19 and 20 December 1960 in New York.] Program notes by Gunther Schuller; engineer, Phil Ramone; supervision, John Lewis and Nesuhi Ertegun.

Program:

Side 1

Side 2

Performers:

`Abstraction'

`Piece For Guitar & Strings'

`Variants ...(Django)'

`Variants ...(Criss-Cross)'

Note: OCLC Record #4 287 751 BBH IUG 19781012

Alternate: #4 295 968 DLC LUU OCL 19781016

Excerpts from program notes:

[Sidebar entry] “This album is dedicated to the memory of Scott LaFaro, who was killed in an automobile accident a few months after performing on these record dates. Great though his talent was, Scotty, like all true artists, had an awareness of how much was yet to be accomplished.”

“The music on this record, with the exception of Jim Hall's composition, was created specifically for a concert of this writer's works May 1960 in the `Jazz Profiles' series organized by Charles Schwartz and housed at the time in the Circle In The Square in New York. The musicians performing in the concert were, with one or two exceptions, the same as appear on this record”

[On `Django' -- Variant I] “The late Scott LaFaro solos almost continuously throughout the first variant against Duvivier's walking bass, while Jim Hall weaves in and around LaFaro. (Since the latter was a very `fast' player and fond of the high register, the traditional position of these two instruments is often reversed.)”

[On `Criss-Cross' -- Variant II] “Everything is sustained, suspended and timeless, with occasional partially suppressed interjections by Ornette and Scotty.”

[On `Criss-Cross' -- Variant III] “[A]side from a few comments by guitar and string quartet, belongs exclusively to Messrs. Dolphy, LaFaro, and Evans (Sticks, that is).”

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Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation  by the Ornette Coleman Double Quartet. [New York: Atlantic Recording Company, 1960] Atlantic 1364. 1 sound disc : analog, 33 1/3 rpm, stereo ; 12 in. Recorded December 21, 1960. Program notes, Martin Williams; Recording Engineer, Tom Dowd; Supervision, Nesuhi Ertegun.

Performers:

Program:

Side 1

Side 2

Note: Factory-added label `Stereo' is on front cover.

Note: OCLC Record #26 278 709 COO 19920514 (mono)

Alternate #13 773 874 DRB 19860303 (stereo)

Alternate #25 885 933 CUY 19910111 (cassette)

Free Jazz was recorded in one uninterrupted `take' of 36 minutes 23 seconds. This performance . . . is heard exactly as it was performed in the studio, without any splicing or editing. Side One ends with a quick fade-out, and the music resumes with a minimum of interruption on Side Two.”

Note: In stereo playback --

Left speaker: Coleman, Cherry, LaFaro, and Higgins

Right speaker: Dolphy, Hubbard, Haden, and Blackwell

Note: The double-folded record jacket includes a color photo reproduction of Jackson Pollock's painting `White Light'.

TOC

 


 

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Copyright 1998-2003, Charles A. Ralston. All rights reserved.
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Last revised:  2005-11-29
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