Confess, Fletch—Soundtrack on Blue Note

The standards for journalism have fallen so low, even Irwin Fletcher has left his old profession in disgust. However, he is still perfectly happy to defy authority and engage in some improvised deception, for a good cause. For him, an attractive Italian woman in trouble certainly qualifies as such. Of course, his new misadventures cannot compete with Michael Ritchie’s original Fletch film, but at least the soundtrack full of classic Blue Note (and Pacific Jazz) tunes keeps everything cool and jaunty in Greg Mottola’s Confess, Fletch, which releases Tuesday on DVD.

Angela de Grassi was rather surprised when her father the Count hired Fletch to track down several of the family’s valuable paintings (of semi-dubious providence), but she was pleasantly surprised by his progress—and his charm. Indeed, he will be a great comfort when the Count is kidnapped. Instead of money, his abductors demand the stolen paintings, so Fletch makes haste to Boston, to investigate Ronald Horan, the dodgy art dealer possibly fencing the stolen paintings.

Complications immediately set in when Fletch finds a murdered body in the townhouse de Grassi arranged for him. Inspector Morris “Slow-Mo” Monroe takes an instant dislike to Fletch, but he needs more evidence for an arrest. Fletch will have to clear his name while saving the Count, but the two cases are probably related anyway.

Confess, Fletch is amusing, but nobody will be quoting from it in a year’s time. It is brisk and breezy, but even more laidback than the first Chevy Chase film. As Fletch, Jon Hamm has an appropriately casual attitude, but his wisecracks do not land with the same crispness. Hamm shares some appealing chemistry with Lorenza Izzo as de Grassi (she’s Chilean, but she convincingly passes for Mediterranean). He also kvetches drolly with his old Mad Men colleague, John Slattery, playing an old newspaper crony, but it is dry chuckles rather than big laughs.

DOC NYC ’18: It Must Schwing—The Blue Note Records Story

As record labels go, Blue Note almost had it all. They had the greatest artists, the best recording sound, the most striking covers, and the most legit street cred with fans and musicians alike—everything except money. Yet, that was okay with label co-founders Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, because they were only interested in thee music. The history of the label that has consistently brought us “the finest jazz since 1939” is finally done justice in Eric Friedler’s outstanding It Must Schwing: The Blue Note Records Story (trailer here), which screens during this year’s DOC NYC.

Lion and Wolff were forged a life-long friendship in their native Germany, based on their mutual love of jazz. Swing was the style of the day, but their Blue Note recordings essentially codified the “Hard Bop” sound as we now know it. Yet, their sessions still had to swing, or “schwing,” as it sounded with Lion’s thick German accent. He was the first to arrive, with little prospects and hardly a penny to his name. Nevertheless, Lion started recording and issuing sessions in 1939, starting with the Boogie-woogie pianists, Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons. Even today, they sound like a freight train coming at you.

Even hardcore aficionados might not understand how close Wolff cut things when he finally joined Lion in New York. According to Blue Note producer and archivist Michael Cuscuna, Wolff was on the last ship that left Hamburg without Gestapo inspection. Indeed, even those who think they know the Blue Note story pretty well might be stunned (and deeply moved) by some of the revelations regarding Wolff.

On the other hand, any jazz fan worth his salt peanuts will recognize Wolff’s arresting session photography. They are a major reason why vintage Blue Note LPs are so desirable as objects in their own right. Of course, what was in the grooves was even more important—and it always sounds wonderfully warm and clear, thanks to the techniques perfected by Blue Note’s regular engineer, the legendary late Rudy Van Gelder.

Frankly, Friedler made his documentary just in the nick of time, because it represents Van Gelder’s final interview. He pretty much gets everything else right too. Whereas Sophie Huber wastes a lot of time in Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes flailing around, trying to make political statements, Friedler zeroes-in on Lion and Wolff and their relationship to musicians. We hear from nearly all the surviving greats, including Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, “Sweet Papa” Lou Donaldson, Kenny Burrell, Ron Carter, Sheila Jordan, and perhaps most memorably, Bennie Maupin (but not Dr. Lonnie Smith, which is odd, considering how photogenic he is).

Granted, Schwing is not perfect. Like Huber’s film, it largely overlooks Blue Note’s commitment to free jazz (or at least freer, more exploratory) artists, aside from a brief discussion of Jackie McLean. Friedler completely ignores the 1980s re-launch, but instead concentrates on Lion’s tenure with the label, up through the sale to Liberty Records and Wolff’s death in 1972. However, the narrower focus allows Friedler and his interview subjects (nearly all of whom knew Lion or Wolff personally) to do justice to that classic Hard Bop era.

Naturally, Schwing sounds terrific, thanks to the extensive Blue Note recordings heard throughout (including classics, like Coltrane’s “Blue Trane,” Horace Silver’s “Song for My Father,” and Sidney Bechet’s still staggering rendition of “Summertime”). It is also unusually dynamic visually, thanks to Tetyana Chernyavska and Rainer Ludwigs’ black-and-white animated sequences, recreating pivotal moment in the label’s history. Again, Friedler and company just get it right. It is a pleasure to spend time with the film and it will send you out of the theater eager to revisit all these classic recordings that really ought to be in your collection. Very highly recommended, It Must Schwing: The Blue Note Records Story screens this Saturday (11/10) at the SVA Theatre, as part of DOC NYC 2018.

Tribeca ’18: Blue Note Records—Beyond the Notes

It started with recordings of boogie woogie piano masters Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons, but Blue Note Records would become synonymous with 50s and 60s Hard Bop, exemplified by artists like Horace Silver and Lee Morgan. They might sound stylistically disparate, but everyone on the classic Blue Note label was totally authentic and swung hard. The label’s past, present, and future are celebrated in Sophie Huber’s Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes, which screens during the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival.

Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff were fans, not businessmen. Wolff presciently immigrated to America amid the rise of National Socialism in Germany, joining his boyhood friend Lion in New York. With Blue Note Records, they just started recording music they wanted to hear. Somehow, the venture became sustainable (barely), but it was never a commercial power house. Due to cash flow issues, they were forced to sell out to Liberty Records in 1965, but they were never comfortable working in a more corporate environment. Lion retired, Wolff passed away, and the new Capitol/EMI masters consigned the label to dormancy in 1979. Ordinarily, that would be the end of the story, but fan reverence for Blue Note was so deep and their backlist catalog sales were so strong, Capitol revived the label in 1985.

When an institution like Blue Note refuses to stay dead, it most definitely means something. Huber does a nice job explaining the many reasons fans have such respect and fetish-like collectors’ zeal for the label. Of course, the music is first and foremost. Lion and Wolff discovered, nurtured, and extensively recorded many great musicians, including Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Jimmy Smith (who is oddly shortchanged in the film), Herbie Hancock, Lee Morgan, Joe Henderson, and “Sweet Papa” Lou Donaldson, who consistently livens things up with his candid interview segments, as anyone who has heard him in the clubs would fully expect.

Due credit is also given to Reid Miles’ boldly modernistic cover designs and Wolff’s remarkable photographs taken at the sessions (incidentally, a few covers were designed by a cat name Andy Warhol, but he never amounted to much). (Some colleagues asked me how legit Wolff’s photography was after a press screening—does two collections published by Rizzoli and exhibitions at the Smithsonian and the Jewish Museum in Berlin answer the question?).

Huber and her interview subjects also acknowledge the mastery of Rudy Van Gelder, Blue Note’s regular engineer (who had a particularly good ear for jazz but recorded every style of music under the sun) and the respectful and productive atmosphere fostered by Lion and Wolff. Unlike other labels, they paid musicians to rehearse, allowing their artists to bring in sophisticated charts, instead of just blowing head arrangements on some impromptu blues.

Huber views this musical legacy through the prism of a studio session for Robert Glasper, one of the label’s most prominent and talented contemporary artists not named Norah Jones (who also duly appears to pay tribute). Past and present meet when Hancock and Wayne Shorter join Glasper’s group, with the label’s current president Don Was proudly looking on from the control board. That kind of says it all for a lot of Hard Bop-focused Blue Note fans—yet it still leaves much unsaid.

Frankly, Beyond the Notes could have easily been a four-hour Amazon documentary, in the tradition of Long Strange Trip. Admittedly, some editing is usually a good thing, but it is rather problematic that Huber ignores Blue Note’s avant-garde/free jazz legacy, because these jazz artists are always the most likely to be marginalized. Unless they recognize a few album covers that flash across the screen, viewers would have no indication “outside” and explorative musicians like Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Eric Dolphy, Sam Rivers, and Andrew Hill recorded for Blue Note.

Blue Note has such a rich history, distilling it down to ninety minutes would be a daunting task.  Yet, a good deal of time is devoted to arguing Blue Note is suddenly more “relevant” in the current cultural and ideological climate. However, the truth is Blue Note was never very political, especially when compared to Impulse Records or Flying Dutchman. Yes, jazz is descended from the blues, which was born out of slavery, but it is still frustrating Huber feels compelled to justify the music on the basis of some fleeting political relevancy instead of having confidence in its intrinsic and enduring value.

Blue Note is a record label. Ordinarily, those were just words on a sticker covering the dead wax of an LP, but Blue Note was, and to a considerable extent still is special. It was the artists, the look and the sound. It was the total package. Huber mostly gets at the essence, but there is so much more to the story, like Long Tall Dexter Gordon, whom many viewers who don’t know Blue Note from Blue Thumb will recognize from his Oscar-nominated performance in Round Midnight.

Even coupled with Julian Benedikt’s straight-over-the-plate Blue Note: A Story Modern Jazz, a great deal of significant Blue Note history and music is left out of the picture, but that means you are entitled to a feeling of discovery for everything you ferret out yourself (tip: start with Freddie Redd). Recommended (despite a few frustrations) for jazz fans and viewers with open ears, Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes screens again tonight (4/25) and tomorrow (4/26), as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

70 Years of Blue Note Records: The Blue Note 7

Mosaic: a Celebration of Blue Note Records
By the Blue Note 7

Blue Note Records’ longtime slogan: “The Finest in Jazz Since 1939,” is nothing more than truth in advertising for the loyal fans of the venerable jazz label. On that maiden day in 1939, co-founders Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff recorded boogie-woogie pianists Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons. During its early years Blue Note cut some excellent sessions from traditional artists, like Sidney Bechet, but it was in the 1950’s and 1960’s that the label really came into its own, as the premiere home of Hard-bop, the earthier, more soulful successor to bebop. Specially assembled to mark the 70th anniversary of Blue Note Records, the Blue Note 7 specifically honors those classic hard-bop sessions with the release of Mosaic.

As the musical director of the Blue Note 7, pianist Bill Charlap is the leader among leaders. He is also the only member of the BN7 signed to the label. However, tenor-player Ravi Coltrane has important family connections to Blue Note. His legendary father, John Coltrane, only recorded one session of his own for the label, but it was a great one: Blue Train. He also appeared as a sideman on Johnny Griffin’s aptly titled A Blowin’ Session, and Sonny Clark’s Sonny's Crib, as well as some historically significant live recordings documenting his time with Thelonious Monk, which were released posthumously, well after the Blue Note’s 1985 re-launch. With trumpeter Nicholas Payton, altoist Steve Coleman and a rhythm section of guitarist Peter Bernstein, drummer Lewis Nash, and bassist Peter Washington rounding out the seven, the BN7 is quite an accomplished group of either distinguished leaders or absolutely top-flight sidemen, all very well known to those supporting the New York club scene.

The title track, Cedar Walton’s “Mosaic,” originally recorded by Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers while Walton served as musical director, is a Hard-bop flag-waver, totally in the spirit of the original. It is a good vehicle for some blowing from just about all involved, including Charlap himself. Long associated with his interpretations of the Great American Songbook, Charlap’s bop chops are largely under-appreciated, but he has co-led a number of gigs with the fiery Parker-inspired alto-player Phil Woods. Appropriately, Nash takes it out, channeling the hard-swinging Blakey spirit.

While the BN7’s rendition of “Mosaic” has plenty of fire, they are actually more effective on tunes taken at something less than breakneck tempos. “The Search for Peace,” composed and recorded by McCoy Tyner (an alumni of both Blue Note Records and the classic John Coltrane Quartet), is an elegant meditation, giving Payton and Ravi Coltrane ample space to stretch out. Likewise, the intriguing combination of Wilson’s flute and Bernstein’s guitar perfectly fit Bobby Hutcherson’s “Little B’s Poem.” Probably the highlight of Mosaic though, is “Idle Moments,” a slow blues originally composed by pianist and Blue Note A&R man Duke Pearson for the label’s resident guitarist of the 1960’s and 1970’s, Grant Green. Bernstein is the only solo voice in his arrangement, but the rock solid rhythm section and the supportive ensemble punctuations from the horns give it that late-night vibe that made Blue Note sessions so revered by generations of jazz fans.

The BN7 also follows in the Blue Note super-group tradition begun shortly after the label’s 1980’s resurrection. Whereas Out of the Blue was conceived as a group to promote promising young talent, and New Directions showcased relatively young but innovative artists already recording for Blue Note, the BN7 appear to be recruited mostly outside the label fold, expressly for this project. They have some killer moments on Mosaic and should really lock-in as they tour the country. Their road-show is already underway, with performances in Los Angeles and Orange County this week, culminating with a week-long stand at Birdland, starting April 14th.