Search - Clifford Brown, Max Roach, Harold Land :: Clifford Brown & Max Roach: Vme Series

Clifford Brown, Max Roach, Harold Land
Clifford Brown & Max Roach: Vme Series
Genres: Jazz, Pop

Track Listings (11) - Disc #1
1. Delilah
2. Parisian Thoroughfare
3. Daahoud
4. Joy Spring
5. Jordu
6. Blues Walk, The
7. What Am I Here For?
8. These Foolish Things
9. Blues Walk (alternative take), The
10. Daahoud (alternative take)
11. Joy Spring (alternative take)

CD Details

All Artists: Clifford Brown, Max Roach, Harold Land
Title: Clifford Brown & Max Roach: Vme Series
Members Wishing: 3
Total Copies: 0
Label: Polygram Records
Original Release Date: 1/1/1954
Re-Release Date: 2/29/2000
Album Type: Extra tracks, Original recording remastered
Genres: Jazz, Pop
Styles: Modern Postbebop, Bebop
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 731454330626

Synopsis

Amazon.com

Many a young musician has been sabotaged by his own considerable abilities. So caught up are they in technical execution that they give elements such as emotion and taste short shrift. Trumpeter Clifford Brown was a musical dynamo, a man who was capable of playing many instruments well and who possessed supreme natural instincts and boundless energy. Brown painstakingly practiced and perfected his technique, but when practice time gave way to playing time--there was no other time for him--Brown's command was so deeply ingrained that he was free to concentrate on those other elements: emotion and taste. This reissue of the 1954 recorded debut of the Brown-Roach quintet stands as one of the most exciting works in all of jazz, and it plays as if the ensemble knew it at the time. Brown's trumpet work is fiery, confident, and nimble, tempered slightly by Miles Davis's lyricism; his tone is bright and bold, but the icing on the cake is the joy and tenderness that surface. Drummer Max Roach was already a bop veteran when he formed this groundbreaking hard-bop band and he prances like a dancer throughout. Harold Land's grounded, relaxed, grainy tenor is the perfect yin to Brown's yang. Brown emerges here as the crucial link between Dizzy Gillespie and basically all hot trumpeters to follow, even though he was not yet 24 when he made these recordings. Among the four extra cuts on this remastered reissue are alternate versions of "Daahoud" and "Joy Spring," two Brown compositions that have become hard-bop cornerstones. --Marc Greilsamer

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CD Reviews

Bebop At It's Finest!!!

J. Rich | 10/11/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I'm not going to talk to much about this album other than, if you're a jazz fan, then you need this album. If you ever want to know where Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan got their inspiration, then look no further than this album. That's all I've got to say about this album!

Highly recommended for the jazz fan."

Awesome drum solos in a great cd

Neil B. Donavan | LAGUNA BEACH, CA | 09/24/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"IF YOU ARE A DRUMMER, THIS CD REVEALS THE EARLY MASTERY OF THE DRUMKIT BY MAX ROACH. THE SOLOS ARE INVENTIVE AN MELODIC, NO SOUNDS OF FALLING DOWN THE STAIRS HERE AT ALL."

Nothing to add....

D. Alder | Michigan | 09/29/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The best of the best is on this cd. A true classis in this genre of jazz......Listen and see how it is supposed to be done!!!"

Great choice for a first jazz album; especially for those wh

souldrummer | Washington, DC United States | 12/23/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This album is really at the center of the jazz tradition and is a great choice for someone interested in exploring what sounds they dig. This is one of the most tuneful and hard swinging jazz albums in the tradition and has a polish to it that puts it up there with the best of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Clifford Brown's solos are standard listening for anyone who wants to understand trumpet but his tone is warm, homey and inviting if you want to just let this marinate in the background instead of trying to hear every note that runs by. Harold Land complements him well with an airier tone and they interact well on the classic trading figures on the burning "Blues Walk."

As a drummer, I'm partial to Max Roach and along with the album "Drums Unlimited", which features some of his solo pieces like "The Drum Also Waltzes", this is one of the best ways to hear what Max is up to in conventional group. He's very tasteful in his accompaniment with dynamics and his solos make a lot of logical sense and have lots of space. For beginning drummers, it's a more accessible path to workable solos than starting out with Elvin Jones or Tony Williams but no less deep in its own away.

All of the tunes are great and the arrangements make these definitive versions of the these tunes. "Joyspring" is a favorite. If you like chord changes like this tune or "Daahoud", consider it an encouragement to go deeper into jazz harmonically and head towards the Wayne Shorter arranged stuff like Speak No Evil and the deeper Blue Note sound. "Parisian Thoroughfare" is a Bud Powell standard and that points toward more Parker influenced bebop like his Dial sessions or Complete Bud Powell on Blue Note. "Blues Walk" is just fun and points toward some of the big band or swing era stuff where folks just blow. Duke Ellington's Newport '56 is a great album if you want to hear another famous blues solo.

There's other great stuff here as well and it's nice to have the ballad bass feature of "These Foolish Things" added on.

It's tragic that Brownie's life was cut short but this and the rest of the music by this quintet is a testimony to a spiritual joy that can accompany disciplined mastery of jazz. This is music that speaks to both head and heart."