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Victor Feldman Four Classic Albums
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AVID JAZZ AMSC1395 [72:23] [79:51]
CD1
1-7: On Vibes
1. Fidelius (*)
2. Squeeze Me
3. Sweet And Lovely
4. Bass Reflex (*)
5. Chart Of My Heart
6. Wilbert’s Tune (*)
7. Evening In Paris (*)
8-16: Suite Sixteen
8. Cabaletto (*)
9. Elegy (*)
10. Suite Sixteen: a) Monody, b) Minore, c) Habanere, d) Epilogue
11. Sonar
12. Big Top (*)
13. Duffle Coat
14. Brawl For All (*)
15. Sunshine On A Dull Day
16. Maenya
CD2
1-12: Latinsville!
1. South Of The Border
2. She’s A Latin From Manhattan
3. Flying Down To Rio
4. Cuban Pete
5. The Gypsy
6. Poinciana
7. Lady Of Spain
8. Spain
9. Cuban Love Song
10. In A Little Spanish Town
11. Fiesta
12. Woody ‘n You
13-21: Merry Olde Soul
13. For Dancers Only
14. Lisa (*)
15. Serenity (*)
16.You Make Me Feel So Young
17. Come Sunday
18. The Man I Love
19. Bloke’s Blues (*)
20. I Want To Be Wanted
21. Mosey On Down (*)On Vibes . Rec. September 1957, Hollywood, California – Feldman (vibes), Carl Perkins (piano), Leroy Vinnegar (bass), Stan Levey (drums), plus Harold Land (tenor sax) and Frank Rosolino (trombone) added on tracks 5-7.
Suite Sixteen : Rec. August-September 1955, London – Collective personnel: Feldman (vibes, piano, drums, congas), Dizzy Reece, Jimmy Deuchar, Jimmy Watson (trumpet), Derek Humble (alto sax), Ronnie Scott, Tubby Hayes (tenor sax), Harry Klein (baritone sax), Ken Wray (bass trumpet, trombone), Jim Powell (tuba), Jihn Burden (French Horn), Tommy Pollard, Norman Stenfalt (piano), Lennie Bush Eric Peter (bass), Phil Seaman, Tony Crombie (drums).
Latinsville! : Rec. March-May, 1959, Los Angeles – Collective personnel: Feldman (vibes), Conte Candoli (trumpet), Frank Rosolino (tbn), Walter Benton (tenor sax), Andy Thomas, Vince Guaraldi (piano), Al McKibbon, Scott La Faro, Tony Reyes (bass), Armando Pereza (bongos), Mongo Santamaria, Ramon Rivera (congas), Frank Guerrero, Willie Bobo (timbales), Stan Levey (drums).
Merry Olde Soul : Rec. December 1960-January 1961, New York. Feldman (vibes, tracks 14, 17-18, 21; piano, 13, 15-16, 19-20), Hank Jones (piano), Sam Jones (bass, all except track 16), Andy Simpkins (bass, track 16), Louis Hayes (drums).
(*) indicates a composition by Vic Feldman.
The career of Vic Feldman (1934-1987) was distinctive in a number of ways. Firstly, because he was a child prodigy (something much rarer in the field of jazz than in the classical world). Secondly, because he was a real multi-instrumentalist (this was carried to the level of something like self-parody when, in 1967, he recorded an album called Victor Feldman Plays Everything in Sight, on which he played 20 different instruments!). Though primarily thought of as a player of the vibraphone he was also a pianist of considerable quality and a more than useful drummer. Thirdly, he was one of the relatively few British musicians who made a long and successful career in the USA and was much admired by American writers: Ted Gioia, for example, describes Feldman, en passant (The History of Jazz, 2nd edition, 2011, p.273) as a “top-tier talent”.
While only six or seven years old, Feldman was playing drums onstage – in London theatres and jazz venues. When he was just seven he and his two brothers (Robert and Monty) performed as The Feldman Trio (with Vic playing drums). Though drums was his first instrument, his desire to play a more melodic instrument led to his taking up first the piano (when 9) and then the vibraphone (at the age of 14). As soon as he heard the new sounds of bebop he was fascinated by them. He first went to New York in October 1955. Guided by pianist and arranger Nat Pierce (who worked with Woody Herman’s band from 1951 to 1955), Feldman sat in at a number of New York clubs and Pierce also took him along to a rehearsal of the Herman band; Herman was so impressed that he offered Feldman the position of drummer with his band. Feldman worked with Herman for approximately 18 months (interrupted at one point by a return to London, where he worked with Ronnie Scott. Back in London, Feldman recorded albums such as Suite Sixteen (re-issued here) and Victor Feldman in London, Vols. 1 and 2 (all three made for the Tempo label. On his return to the USA, Feldman based himself in Los Angeles, working extensively in the studios as well as in jazz settings. In 1960 Cannonball Adderley invited Feldman to record with him on an all-star session, released in 1961 asCannonball Adderley and the Poll Winners (other members of the ad hoc group included guitarist Wes Montgomery, bassist Ray Brown and drummer Louis Hayes. Adderley subsequently called Feldman into his regular band, primarily as a pianist (in which capacity he replaced Wynton Kelly). Feldman appeared on such albums asThe Cannonball Adderley Quintet at the Lighthouse (1960) and The Cannonball Adderley Quintet Plus (1961). Before this, Feldman had recorded a number of American albums as a leader: Victor Feldman on Vibes (Contemporary, recorded 1957 – re-issued here), The Arrival of Victor Feldman (Contemporary, rec. 1958, with Scott Lafaro (bass) and Stan Levey (drums), Latinsville (Contemporary, rec.1959 – re-issued here) and Merry Olde Soul (Riverside, rec. 1960-1, also reissued here). In 1963 Feldman, firmly based in Los Angeles, was invited to work with Miles Davis (who had no regular band at this time) for some dates on the West Coast. This led to his presence on some tracks of Davis’s album Seven Steps to Heaven (recorded for Columbia in 1963); Feldman and Davis share the composer credits for the title track. It seems that Davis wanted Feldman to join the new band he was forming for gigs in other parts of the USA, but Feldman did not want to give up the reliable income produced by his work in the Los Angeles studios.
There is no need to follow the rest of Feldman’s time in the States in similar detail. Plenty of additional information, for those who want it, can be found at a website devoted to Feldman: http://www.victorfeldman.com/VF_biography.html . It is enough here to observe that apart from musicians already mentioned the jazz musicians he worked with included (what follows is a far from comprehensive list!) Sonny Rollins, Freddie Hubbard, Benny Goodman, Stan Getz, Peggy Lee, Barney Kessel, J.J. Johnson, Buddy DeFranco, Shelly Manne, Chick Corea, Curtis Amy, Bob Cooper, Nat Adderley, Carmen McRae, Oliver Nelson, Pepper Adams, Bud Shank, Art Pepper, Blue Mitchell and Milt Jackson. Beyond the field of jazz itself Feldman, a session-musician supreme, recorded with (amongst many others), Tom Waits, Kenny Rogers, Lulu, Randy Newman, Frank Zappa, Liza Minelli, Neil Diamond, Jose Feliciano, Rita Coolidge and Joni Mitchell.
The four albums presented in this valuable collection from Avid belong to Feldman’s early years in the USA, though one of them ( Suite Sixteen) was recorded in London with English musicians. For listeners younger than I am (and who didn’t therefore hear this music soon after it was recorded, as I did) the convincing bop idiom heard on these tracks may come as something of a surprise. Musicians such as Tubby Hayes, Ronnie Scott, Dizzy Reece, Tommy Pollard and Feldman himself already sounded sophisticated and assured in their treatment of bop harmonies and lines. The extensive personnel on the album appears in three different configurations: a quartet (on ‘Duffle Coat’) made up of Feldman, playing vibes, pianist Norman Stenfalt, bassist Lennie Bush and drummer Phil Seaman); a Septet (on ‘Sonar’, ‘Brawl for All’ and ‘Sunshine on A Dull Day’), in which Feldman is joined by trumpeters Jimmy Deuchar and Dizzy Reece, alto saxophonist Derek Humble, pianist Tommy Pollard, Bush and drummer Tony Crombie, while the remaining tracks are by a big band including Deuchar, Reece, Humble, Ronnie Scott, Tubby Hayes, Harry Klein, Stenfalt, Bush and Seaman. Feldman largely plays vibes across the album, though he also takes a brief but interesting piano solo on ‘Brawl for All’. There is plenty of good music to be heard across the album – my own favourite tracks include ‘Cabaletto’- a hard swinging piece for big band, ‘Brawl for All’ and ‘ Maenya’ ( a composition by the too-often forgotten Dizzy Reece, who is heard to good effect on his own tune). Heard in its entirety, the album is a valuable document of the state of modern jazz in London in the mid-1950s.
Victor Feldman – On Vibes finds Feldman in Hollywood two years later, keeping very good company in the recording studio. On tracks 1-4 we hear a quartet of Feldman (vibes), Carl Perkins (piano), Leroy Vinegar (bass) and Stan Levey (drums), while on tracks 5-7 this quartet is supplemented by the tenor sax of Harold Land and the trombone of Frank Rosolino. Impressive as Feldman’s work is, the ear is often taken by the idiosyncratic piano of Carl Perkins. The individuality of Perkins’ playing owed something to the fact that his left arm and hand were badly affected by polio, and as much or more to a committed and thoughtful bluesiness in his playing. Perkins died, at the age of only 29 in 1958, and made only one album as a leader ( Introducing Carl Perkins, Dootone, 1956). His appearances as a sideman – with, amongst others, Chet Baker and Art Pepper, Buddy DeFranco, Clifford Brown and Max Roach, Dexter Gordon and Dizzy Gillespie – were more numerous; all his recordings are worth hearing. Victor Feldman – On Vibes is an engaging and consistently interesting album.
I have slightly more mixed feelings about Latinsville. The album certainly shows off Feldman’s adaptability, the ease and assurance with which he was able to play in a range of jazz-related styles, as well as his skill as an arranger. Feldman made this album relatively early in a wave of renewed fascination with Latin rhythms amongst jazz musicians – Feldman was certainly not jumping on a (relatively) commercial bandwagon. His interest in Latin music was not a new thing or a mere whim: back in London he had heard some of the Latin-influenced music of Dizzy Gillespie’s big band; in California he had listened attentively to the Latin bands of such figures as Machito and Tito Puente; there, too, he had made himself familiar with the work of musicians such as Vince Guaraldi and Cal Tjader. The musicians assembled to record Feldman’s very adroit arrangements included a number of significant West Coast jazz musicians, such as Frank Rosolino, Cante Candoli, Walter Benton, Stan Levey and bassist Scott LaFaro (who had previously appeared on one of Feldman’s very finest albums, The Arrival of Victor Feldman (recorded in January 1958.) There is also a battery (no insult intended) of Latin percussion, with contributions from specialists such as Armando Pereza, Mongo Santamaria, Ramon Rivera, Frank Guerrero and Willie Bobo. As already suggested, Feldman’s arrangements are assured and sophisticated, but there is, for me, too little compelling solo work. As a result, the album is more memorable for colour than for substance.
Merry Olde Soul , despite its whimsical title, is a more straight-ahead jazz album. With Hank Jones, Sam Jones and Louis Hayes onboard alongside Feldman in a programme including such compositions as ‘Come Sunday’, ‘The Man I Love’ and ‘You Make Me Feel So Young’ it was never likely to be anything else. We hear the leader on both piano and vibes; on the opening track, the Sy Oliver tune ‘For Dancers Only’, there is strong sustained swing, and good solos by Feldman (on piano) and Sam Jones. ‘Serenity’ (a Feldman original) is notable for the composer’s contribution at the vibes, with some beautiful sonorities produced. On ‘You Make Me Feel So Young’, it is Feldman’s piano which states the theme (very attractively), before the leader follows up with a rich improvisation on his vibraphone. Every one of the nine tracks on the album offers things of interest; this is an album I have often returned to over the years, since it is rewarding both in its variety and its underlying unity of personality.
This 2-CD set provides an excellent overview of Feldman’s early recordings (perhaps we should say ‘earlyish’ recordings, since he made his very first recording in 1944 at the age of ten!); the one absentee is The Arrival of Victor Feldman). Quite a lot of Feldman’s later recordings, though always highly competent, tend towards the bland. Perhaps his abundant studio work had robbed his jazz-playing of its bite?
Still, there is plenty of pleasure to be had from the fine jazz in these four ‘early’ albums by a rather special English jazzman.
Glyn Pursglove