Liner
note by Tim Perlich
While assembling the first volume of Ready Or Not, it soon became apparent
that the vast CBC radio archives held many more exceptional recordings by
vital yet underappreciated jazz artists living in Canada during the 60s and
70s than could possibly fit on one disc. Just the fantastic sessions led by
Ready Or Not, Volume 1 stars Nick Ayoub, Fred Stone, Billy Robinson and
Emile Normand had too many stunning moments to be adequately represented by a single track apiece so by popular demand, they each make an encore appearance on Volume 2.
Montreal-based percussionist "Cisco" Normand, who kicked off Volume 1 by
revitalizing Horace Silver's soul-jazz standard Señor Blues with swinging
savoir-faire shows off more of his vibes virtuosity by making the Brazilian
feel good classic Mas Que Nada sound like Jorge Ben wrote it with mallets in
mind. Although forward-looking Toronto flugelhorn player and teacher Fred Stone
was a superb arranger, he was also a gifted composer, inspired by Igor
Stravinsky as much as Duke Ellington whose orchestra Stone would join
briefly in 1970. Stone's tune Maiera impressed Ellington enough to record it
with Stone as soloist but here we get to hear the writer's own dazzling version. It's clearly a song which continues to fascinate as adventurous Toronto jazz trio Nehring, Koller & Braid offer an intriguing take on Maiera with their excellent Set In Stone (Effendie) tribute album.
It required some deep digging to come up with a Nick Ayoub track that could
top the sensuous Saphir but we eventually came across the strangely contemporary sounding song Perception on an ultra-rare four song seven inch
EP his sextet recorded for the CBC in 1974. Even though the track lasts just
over two minutes it still ranks among Ayoub's finest.
When Montreal-based R&B singer, Trevor Payne -- who had studied
alto-saxophone with Ayoub -- was asked by a group of high school teachers to
conduct a class in black music history as part of a summer school curriculum,
Payne thought that forming a choir might be instructive. So a notice announcing choir try-outs was posted in the local church and to his surprise, 65 aspiring singers appeared at the first rehearsal of the Montreal Black Community Youth Choir which would later give rise to the celebrated Montreal Jubilation Choir. Among the young hopefuls was the15-year Lynda Niles who showed a little more promise than the rest. "For an audition," recalls Payne, "I gave her a copy of Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace double LP to see if she could learn Oh Mary, Don't You Weep. That was a Friday. She showed up a choir practice Sunday to do the song but Lynda didn't just sing it, she killed it! I mean she had down every twist, turn, bend and slide as if she'd written it herself and all of this while accompanying herself on piano!”
Payne wanted to feature Niles on the Montreal Black Community Youth Choir's
CBC recording and the song Tryin' Times which Donny Hathaway and Leroy
Hutson wrote for Roberta Flack's debut album First Take (Atlantic) seemed to suit the teenager's abilities. And sure enough, Niles delivers an emotionally charged performance which rivals Flack's own. "She was definitely the most gifted of that first group," says Payne, "and I'd say she's still among the most naturally talented choir members I've ever had the pleasure of working with."
Billy Robinson's brief but potent Quebec On My Mind has a head-nodding thump which has made it a sought-after favourite of sussed
beat junkies the world over, including UK
producer/DJ Will Holland. Robinson seemed bemused with all the fuss about his homage to the Montreal music scene since he recorded it as an after thought.
"When we found out there was a little tape left at the end of our session,” remembered Robinson, “I asked Jim (drummer Jim Norman) to come up with a beat and I just played of that. I think we recorded it in one take and it sounded alright so we kept it. Now that's the track that everybody seems to want to know about."
Sadly, Robinson's performance of Quebec On My Mind during the Ready Or Not
release party at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre on July 16, 2005 would be his
last. The Fort Worth-born tenor saxophonist with the room-filling sound died
of a heart attack at home in Ottawa less than a month later. He'll be missed.
The wonderfully warm sound of Robinson's saxophone is elegantly employed on Sadik Hakim's Greek Street which the ground-floor bop pianist composed as part of his strikingly modern London Suite inspired by a trip to Merry Olde England. Who would've thought the Charlie Parker and Lester Young sideman
could get down like that on a Fender Rhodes?
When Hakim first made the Montreal scene in the early 60s, young vibraphonist Yvan Landry was one of the city's leading exponents of an impressionist approach to modern jazz, based more on the work of Ravel and Debussy than John Cage and Ornette Coleman. Landry's beard-stroking third stream inclinations aside, his ass-kicking crew weren't against breaking a sweat on the bandstand as indicated by their seriously swinging live overhaul of Jean-Pierre Ferland's romantic ballad Ton Visage from 1962 which kicks off this collection.
By contrast, the beautifully tender rendition of Ferland's classic by Toronto singer/pianist Elizabeth Shepherd (which we've included as a bonus
track) is much closer to the tone and tempo that the Celebrated Canadian
composer had in mind when he wrote it. Sheppard's version not only shows why Ton Visage remains among Ferland's most beloved songs, it also gives notice of a very promising young jazz artist on the verge of breaking big. Watch
for her Do Right! debut to hit the streets in July.
From one of Toronto's hottest new piano talents we go next to an elder statesmen of the city's downtown scene, Bernie Senensky who has been a
fixture in Toronto clubs and hotel lounges since moving from his Winnipeg
hometown in September 1968. The exquisitely ebullient Beloved Gift written by
Senensky after the birth of his son Doron captures the somewhat staid piano
man grooving hard on an electric keyboard like never before or since.
Montreal-born saxophonist Alvinn Pall was also living and working in Toronto
with his sextet in 1974 when he recorded Melancholy as part of his Trudeau
Suite in honor of then Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Although the
downbeat Melancholy might seem out oddly out-of-step with the tenor of the
time since Trudeau had just led his Liberal party to a majority victory in
74, history would show that of Pall's moody evocation may have been a more
accurate reading of Trudeau than anyone might've imagined.
It was around that same time that pianist Ted Moses, who'd come to Toronto
from Oklahoma along with then partner Kathryn Moses a few years earlier, was
engaging in jam sessions with musicians like bassist Rick Homme and drummer Terry Clarke. Before the rock solid rhythm section of Homme and Clarke backed Kathryn on her scat sizzler Ready Or Not, they provided the muscle behind the Ted Moses Quintet's dynamic Hidden Strength.
Meanwhile, out on the West Coast, Vancouver guitarist Alan Sharpe and his
Sunship Ensemble were throwing down with Japan's Electric Ninja Group for
the CBC's fabulous Pacific Rim split LP that's become the most pricey collectible of the RCI series. It was those heady sessions in 74 that produced Sunship's awesome Atlantis Rising which stands as one of their high-water marks.
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