Sunday at the Vanguard
A label in Lithuania publishes Ed Hazell's history of Studio Rivbea, the loft at 24 Bond Street that Sam and Bea Rivers ran, with the fullest list of its sessions ever compiled. Today's record is the Bill Evans Trio's "Sunday At The Village Vanguard," and The Bridge goes back to the day it was cut.
LioraA label in Lithuania publishes a history of Studio Rivbea. Today's record is "Sunday At The Village Vanguard." Later, 1961, and what became of Scott LaFaro's bass. It's Tuesday. Let's go.
LioraIt's Tuesday, October 6th. This is The Daily Quintet. I'm Liora. Five stories from the world of jazz, in about ten minutes. Here we go.
One. The Lead: NoBusiness Records publishes "Energy Center," Ed Hazell's 321 page study of Studio
LioraA label in Lithuania has published a book about a living room in Lower Manhattan, and it comes with a list of everything that ever happened there.
The label is NoBusiness Records. The book is "Energy Center," by Ed Hazell. NoBusiness calls it a pioneering study of Studio Rivbea, the arts and music center run by the saxophonist and composer Sam Rivers and his wife Bea.
The address is 24 Bond Street. The label calls Rivbea perhaps the best known and most influential of the artist run venues of the 1970s New York loft era, and says it introduced wider American audiences to Julius Hemphill, David S. Ware, David Murray, Jemeel Moondoc's Muntu, the Melodic Art-tet, and the Anthony Braxton quartet with Kenny Wheeler.
LioraHere is the part you can use. The label says the book carries the most accurate and complete sessionography of events at Rivbea ever compiled, and dozens of photographs nobody has published before.
Three hundred twenty one pages, hard cover, catalog number NBBOOK one. That makes it the first book the label has ever numbered. The label prints no price and no publication day.
Two. Listen to This: Craft Recordings has the Bill Evans Trio's "Sunday At The Village Vanguard" in its
Liora"Sunday At The Village Vanguard," the Bill Evans Trio, in the relaunched Original Jazz Classics series from Craft Recordings.
Craft's own page calls it the first of two albums from the trio's legendary final appearance at the Village Vanguard, and says the recordings have long been recognized as capturing the unique interaction that characterized Evans, LaFaro and Motian. That is your listening tip: hear the three of them answer each other.
Six titles. "Gloria's Step." "My Man's Gone Now." "Solar." "Alice In Wonderland." "All Of You." "Jade Visions."
Two new ones. Greenleaf Music posted yesterday that "New Sanctuary Trio" is off the subscriber shelf and on general sale in limited quantities: Dave Douglas, Marc Ribot and Susie Ibarra, twelve short pieces, each built from a single stave of music.
LioraAnd Mack Avenue dates Joey DeFrancesco's "Live at Keystone Korner" October sixteenth, his last known recording as a leader.
Coming up in The Bridge: the last time Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian played together, on a Sunday at the Village Vanguard in 1961. And what became of LaFaro's bass. Silas has the story. Welcome, Silas.
Three. The Bridge: The last time Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian played together
LioraOne true story from this music's history, every day. Silas tells it, I ask the questions. Silas, where are we?
SilasNew York. Sunday, June 25th, 1961. The Village Vanguard, a triangular basement fifteen steps down from the street. The club has been here since 1935.
The band is the Bill Evans Trio. Evans on piano, Scott LaFaro on bass, Paul Motian on drums. The three of them came together by the end of 1959, and in the words of Evans's official site, they "developed a new and more interactive approach to trio playing."
They are not the headliners. They're the supporting act to the vocal group Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, booked for two weeks, and this Sunday is the last day of the run. The trio records live today, afternoon and evening. Five sets, by the count on Evans's official site.
It turns out to be the trio's last performance together.
LioraTheir last performance. Why?
SilasAbout four days before his death, LaFaro played the Newport Jazz Festival, accompanying Stan Getz.
On the night of July 5th, 1961, he and a friend named Frank visited a woman friend in Warsaw, New York. By one account, another guest there tried to talk him out of driving back so late, and LaFaro insisted.
At about 1:45 in the morning of July 6th, on Routes 5 and 20 between Geneva and Canandaigua, LaFaro apparently fell asleep at the wheel. He veered off the road and hit a tree. The crash killed him and his friend and passenger, Frank Ottley, instantly. One account puts the spot at Seneca, New York.
Scott LaFaro, born in Newark, New Jersey, was 25. His bass was in the car with him. The crash left it badly burned and broken.
LioraAnd Bill Evans?
SilasBy one account, Evans became "increasingly withdrawn" and did not play for several months. Another account says a few. A public radio history says he "withdrew from the jazz scene" for a time and sank deeper into a drug habit that LaFaro had tried to get him to quit. The pianist Walter Norris remembered LaFaro as a "wild fire" who "never used any stimulants to enhance life."
In the words of the critic Gene Lees, "After LaFaro's death, Bill was like a man with a lost love, always looking to find its replacement."
Evans did not stop for good. Months later, the Riverside Records producer Orrin Keepnews "finally managed to coax him back into the studio," for a session backing the singer Mark Murphy, on an album called Rah.
LioraWhat happened to the bass?
SilasIt survived. An American maker, Abraham Prescott, built it around 1825. By one account, LaFaro bought it in 1958, from a Hollywood music shop, on a friend's recommendation. Later, an instrument maker named Sam Kolstein bought it and restored it. Still later, so did his son, Barrie. It has since gone on loan to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. David Rodriguez, an executive there, described it as having "a rich, resonant sound."
LioraAnd the recordings?
SilasThe tapes from that Sunday became two albums. Sunday at the Village Vanguard was framed as a tribute to LaFaro, opening and closing with two of his compositions. Waltz for Debby drew on more popular material. The bassist Marc Johnson called those sessions "the highest measure of Scott's musical vision."
LioraTheir last performance survives on tape. So does the bass from that car.
That's The Bridge. Back to today, right after this.
Four. On the Road: Tonight's ticket is the Michael Brecker Quindectet at Birdland, with Dizzy's Club
LioraTonight, coast to coast.
Tonight's ticket is in New York.
Birdland bills "The Michael Brecker Quindectet featuring Donny McCaslin," with Meg Okura as artistic and musical director. Two sets, seven o'clock and half past nine. Fifty six oh six for the early one, plus a twenty dollar food or beverage minimum per person, per set.
The club names all sixteen players: two violins, viola, cello, oboe, French horn, bass clarinet and a conductor. Birdland says the Quindectet returns nearly two decades after Michael Brecker's death.
Now the sweep.
Across town, Dizzy's Club has what the house calls Bluesday: "Doug Wamble Blues In The Present Tense." Seven and nine. No price is printed; the minimum is twenty five dollars a set.
LioraIn Chicago, the Jazz Showcase has the Gabriel Wade Quintet, eight o'clock to eleven, and prints no cover.
In New Orleans, Snug Harbor has Kelly Love Jones, half past seven and half past nine, thirty five sixty five. Four players, three of them on congas.
And in Minneapolis, the Dakota has Rufus Wainwright at seven, from a hundred and three seventy five.
Five. One More Note: On October 6, 1927, Victor marked every take the Duke Ellington Orchestra cut in New York
LioraOctober sixth, 1927, in New York. The Duke Ellington Orchestra cut two sides for Victor. "Black and Tan Fantasie," spelled with an i-e, and "Washington Wabble."
The Discography of American Historical Recordings holds both cards, and every take from that day carries one word: destroy. The masters came three weeks later, in Camden, New Jersey.
Somebody kept the condemned ones anyway. The archive holds playable audio of both October sixth takes of "Washington Wabble."
Outro
LioraThat's the Quintet. If today's show earned it, follow The Daily Quintet wherever you listen.
The Daily Quintet is an AI-crafted production, researched and checked by humans. Every listing you heard came from the venue or the festival's own organizer.
That's your Tuesday. I'm Liora. See you tomorrow.