Sam Organic Grooves 18 Items

Style is not a given. Not many musicians reach the level of artistic personality where you can unmistakably recognize them. It takes character, roots, honesty, soulfulness. Nathan Davis had style.
His tone on tenor was unique. So was his soprano sound and his distinctive approach to flute. His musical world was equally original and knew no boundaries.
This concert in Paris is audible proof that as a performer, his fluid phrasing, distinct articulation, booming bottom register, growls and shrieks were fuelled by tremendous drive and furious invention - the man was on fire!
These live sessions demonstrate the limitless invention of Nathan’s solos. Holding no punches, weaving signature phrases, shouts and riffs into his solos, he was a fierce and fervid performer. With a sort of hollow resonance at the heart of his reedy and warm sound, Nathan Davis was a highly original artist, from an era when having a distinct sound on your instrument was the grail of jazz artistry. Harold Land, Jimmy Heath, John Gilmore, Paul Gonsalves, Charlie Rouse, George Coleman, Booker Ervin, Clifford Jordan ... Jazz is made of such giants and Nathan Davis was one of them.

In 1957, Miles Davis is in Paris for an engagement at the Club Saint-Germain and a wonderful concert at the Olympia Theatre. Once in Paris, Miles came into contact with many members of the modern existentialist cultural environment in the neighborhood of Saint-Germain-des-Près. These include the director Louis Malle who had just finished his first movie : "Ascenseur Pour L'échafaud". Jean-Paul Rappeneau, a Jazz fan and Louis Malle's assistant at the time, suggested asking Miles Davis to create the film's soundtrack. A private sceening has been organized.
On December 4 1957, Miles Davis brought three French Jazzmen - Barney Wilen on tenor saxophone, René Urtreger on piano, Pierre Michelot on bass and his american compatriot Kenny Clarke on drums - to the recording studio Le Poste Parisien without having them prepare anything. Miles Davis only gave the musicians a few rudimentary harmonic sequences he had assembled in his hotel room. This recording was made at night in a most informal atmosphere.
The soundtrack was not released on it's own in the USA but ten songs from this soundtrack were released as one side of the album "Jazz Track" which received a 1960 Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Performance, Solo or Small Group.
"Ascenseur Pour L'échafaud" has become a great achievement of artistic excellence.

Donald Byrd's 1958 residency in Paris to study with composer Nadia Boulanger resulted in one of the greatest groups of his career with Bobby Jaspar on tenor sax and flute, Walter Davis, Jr. on piano, Doug Watkins on bass and Art Taylor on drums. Sam Records is proud to present this previously unreleased concert by the Donald Byrd/Bobby Jaspar quintet which was recorded during the evening dedicated to 'Modern Jazz' at the first and only Cannes Jazz Festival on July 11, 1958. The initiative for this unique festival came from Yvonne Blanc, a lady of good society who played the piano and lived between Paris and Cannes. This festival was organised in partnership with the festival of Knokke-le-Zoute, in Belgium.

»They’d been living in Europe for months. They’d appeared in Cannes and at Knokke (…) yet the only thing missing was the consecration that a great concert in Paris would bring. They won that last battle with astounding brio, in front of an audience of connoisseurs. There were many there who thought modern jazz had never been so well-served in Paris.« (Jazz Magazine). Hard bop had arrived! Hallelujah! On its first French appearance, in July ‘58 at the Cannes Festival – the first and only Cannes jazz festival – the Donald Byrd Quintet had brought the house down. Yet four of its five members were relatively unknown in France … The French knew that the leader had replaced Kenny Dorham in the Jazz Messengers, that Doug Watkins was the Messengers’ bassist, and that pianist Walter Davis Jr. was still only 18 when he’d played with Charlie Parker. As for Art Taylor, even if his name meant something to fans, it was still difficult for people to have a more precise idea of his musical qualities. Only Bobby Jaspar was well-known to Paris audiences, and the tour marked the return of the prodigal son, the musician who’d decided, after setting the Club St. Germain on fire, to try his luck in the States early in 1956 – J.J. Johnson had hired him, and then Miles Davis (for a short spell) before Donald Byrd brought him into the group he was taking to Europe. This new tour would climax at the Olympia theatre during one of the “Jazz Wednesdays” that were organised there, ever since the "Jazz At Carnegie Hall” tour – Zoot Sims, JJ. Johnson, Lee Konitz, Phineas Newborn – had inaugurated the series a little earlier. Byrd and his band took pains not to disappoint a Paris audience they knew to be particularly fickle, and they astutely varied the public’s pleasures throughout the evening. The complicity that united the rhythm section – Walter Davis Jr., Doug Watkins and Art Taylor – was much in evidence on Ray’s Idea; mistrusting the traps of the spectacular at all costs, Donald Byrd, producing brilliant inventions on the trumpet, took the lion’s share of the honours on a theme that was then much in fashion, "Dear Old Stockholm", adapted from a Swedish traditional song; on "Flute Blues", Bobby Jaspar proved he was still a specialist on that instrument, and Paul’s Pal showed that, on tenor, the playing of Sonny Rollins hadn’t gone unnoticed. It must be said that it didn’t have much effect on the discreet lyricism underlying the choruses he played during his “St. Germain” period. The Olympia spectators weren’t sparing in their applause for the five musicians. How else could they have reacted, faced with the fire the band showed during a tune like "The Blues Walk"? It wouldn’t take much for us to applaud, too, even if it is fifty-five years later…

Recorded in 1957, Paris.
Original LP issue: Guilde du Jazz J-1239.
When Miles Davis heard Barney Wilen for the first time during a jam session at the Club Saint-Germain in Paris, he exclaimed: “This is the best tenor saxophone I’ve heard in Europe, he plays tenor in an authentic way, much better than many current stars in the States.”

Barney Wilen’s mother was French, his father a successful American dentist-turned-inventor. He grew up mostly on the French Riviera; the family left during World War II but returned upon its conclusion. According to Wilen himself, he was convinced to become a musician by his mother’s friend, the poet Blaise Cendrars. As a teenager he started a youth jazz club in Nice, where he played often.

He moved to Paris in the mid-’50s and worked with such American musicians as Bud Powell, Benny Golson, Miles Davis, and J.J. Johnson at the Club St. Germain. His emerging reputation received a boost in 1957 when he played with Davis on the soundtrack to the Louis Malle film Lift to the Scaffold. Two years later, he performed with Art Blakey and Thelonious Monk on the soundtrack to Roger Vadim’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1960). He’s probably the first non-US musician to play at the Newport Jazz Festival – it was in 1959.

In 1957 he made his very first album as leader, The Barney Wilen Quintet for the US label Guilde du Jazz / Jazztone at the age of 20. Unfortunately, this record was not widely distributed in France because Barney was under contract with the French label Vogue. This album reflects joy and sadness on an emotional level by the subtletly of Wilen’s musical imagination and physical releasing the essential siprit of jazz swing. On this so rare record, Barney plays with : on alto Hubert Fol, who recorded couple of times with Django Reinhardt. On Piano Nico Buninck, born in Amsterdam, is considered one of the best Young pianist in his country. Lloyd Thompson is a Young talented bassist who played with Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie and Kenny Clarke. On drums Al Levitt, 25, has already toured in the USA with Charles Mingus, Lennie Tristano, Stan Getz and Lee Konitz.

Stickly Limited Edition 3000 copies. Re-mastered from the original stereo master tapes. 180 gr vinyl pressed in Marciac, France by Garcia & Co. Deluxe flipback album jacket. Facsimile reissue using the original artwork. Double insert using an original photo by Jan Persson. Each record has been visually checked to prevent defects. Recorded August, 1965, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Original LP issue: Oktav – Oklp 111

Sahib Shihab (Edmund Gregory) played with many of jazz’s finest musicians. Shortly after he became one of the first jazz players to change their names due to an Islamic conversion, he joined Thelonious Monk for his Blue Note sessions. He also played with Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Pettiforn and Quincy Jones. A unique musician, he was at home in every musical style, from the experimentalism of Thelonious Monk to the more direct hard bop of Art Blakey. Sahib Shihab’s distinctive sound was rooted in his modernist compositions and arrangements, complemented by an intense, soulful playing style.

In 1959 he toured Europe with Quincy Jones after getting fed up with racial politics in USA and ultimately settled in Scandinavia. He worked for Copenhagen Polytechnic and wrote scores for television, cinema and theatre. He remained there until 1973. During this period, he recorded several albums as leader for European labels such as Vogue, Storyville and Futura.

In 1961 he joined The Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band and remained a key figure in the band for the 12 years it ran. He married a Danish lady and raised a family in Europe, although he remained a conscious African-American still sensitive to racial issues.

This record, on the Danish Oktav label, his second as a leader and also his rarest is a true masterpiece !!!

Personnel : Sahib Shihab (Baritone saxophone, Flute, Cowbell) Poul Hindberg (Alto saxophone, Clarinet) Ib Renard (Baritone saxophone) Bent Nielsen (Baritone saxophone, Flute, Clarinet) Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (nhop) (Bass) Alex Riel (Drums) Allan Botschinsky (Trumpet) Fritz von Bülow (Guitar) Bent Axen (Piano) Bent Jædig (Tenor saxophone, Flute) Niels Husum (Tenor saxophone) Svend Åge Nielsen (Trombone, Bass trombone) Torolf Mølgaard (Trombone, Euphonium) Palle Bolvig (Trumpet) Palle Mikkelborg (Trumpet) Poul Kjældgård (Tuba) Louis Hjulmand (Vibraphone)

Stickly Limited Edition 3000 copies. Re-mastered from the original stereo master tapes. Cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Mastering. 180g vinyl LP pressed in Marciac, France by Garcia & Co. Deluxe flipback album jacket. Artwork by Jean-Louis Duralek. Sam Records presents:

A never-before released The Heath Brothers 1976 live recordings.

First official release with the full permission and cooperation of the INA (Institut National de l’Audiovisuel).

The Heath Brothers – Paris ‘76 – Recorded live in Paris, 1976.

Sam Records is proud to presents here a live recording the band gave in Paris at Studio 104, Maison de la Radio, on April 16, 1976. In addition to a superb version of ‘One for Juan’, the band perform two tracks from the ‘Marchin’ On! album, ‘Watergate Blues’ and a wonderful version of ‘Smilin’ Billy’.

“That was the first Heath Brothers album. Stanley Cowell had started the Strata-East label with Charles Tolliver, and they engaged us to do a record. It was a family affair, and we adopted Stanley because we thought he was amazing. That was a different type of record for us. We recorded it while we were on tour in Oslo, Norway. We used to get on the train and travel around Europe, and we’d be playing in these cabins on the train. Percy played a bass with a cello body that Ray Brown created, Tootie and I played flutes, and Stanley played a chromatic African thumb piano. People would stop and listen to us on these trains going from one country to the next, and it was something that they liked. It was like a chamber-music group. So we decided to include that sound on the record”.

Source : Jimmy Heath in ‘I Walked With Giants: The Autobiography of Jimmy Heath‘

Jimmy Heath (tenor & soprano saxophone, flute) Stanley Cowell (piano & mbira) Percy Heath (bass and “baby bass”) Albert ‘Tootie’ Heath (drums, flute and African double-reed instrument)Double insert using an original photo by Thierry Trombert. Each record has been visually checked to prevent defects.

Two days after recording the first album ever issued on the Black Saint label, Billy Harper and his quintet were onstage at the Antibes Juan-Les-Pins jazz festival. Though "Black Saint" is a phenomenal album and is rightfully considered as one of the finest jazz releases of the period, "Antibes ’75" shows that Billy and his men gathered momentum to push the boundaries of their studio effort even further. That night, surrounded by stars, pine woods and a captivated audience, the quintet delivered a powerful and inspired performance. Never had Harper’s signature tunes “Cry of Hunger” and “Croquet Ballet” reached such a soulful expression, and we only wish that this moment of truth would have lasted a little longer. We are honored to present to you this concert for the first time on record, a 180g LP including a 6-page insert with previously unseen photos by Gérard Rouy and Thierry Trombert and an essay by Bernard Loupias.

Re-mastered from the original master tapes.
Limited edition 2000 copies.
180 gr vinyl pressed by Optimal in Germany.

Re-mastered from a copy of the Mono Master Tapes. Limited edition 2000 copies. 180 gr vinyl pressed by Pallas in Germany. Deluxe high-gloss flipback album jacket. Facsimile reissue using the original photo by JP Leloir. Double insert using an original photo by JP Leloir from 1959. Each record has been visually checked to prevent defects.

Recorded October 1959, Paris.

Original LP issue: Decca 153.924

Critics often complain that small-group sessions comprised of members of the Duke Ellington Orchestra are somewhat disappointing; this is definitely not the case with this session led by Clark Terry, recorded during a 1959 tour of Europe in the final month of the trumpeter’s almost eight-year tenure with the band. Fellow Ellington sidemen Paul Gonsalves, Jimmy Woode, and Sam Woodyard are present, along with Raymond Fol at the piano. Terry was one of the most gifted trumpeters to grace the Ellington band and he blossoms when he has more opportunities to solo in a small group setting like this one. Gonsalves proves to be the perfect foil for Terry as they trade lines on several of the numbers. Unlike many dates led by Ellington veterans, this one doesn’t rely heavily on songs from the vast Ellington songbook; instead, Terry includes only ‘Satin Doll’, a Monk’s tune, one by Babs Gonzales and three of his own compositions, with ‘Serenade to a Bus Seat’ (a remake of his upbeat instrumental interpretation of the hectic life of a touring musician) proving to be the most memorable.

This studio date was recorded for French Decca label and was almost impossible to find until now.

Clark Terry (Trumpet) Paul Gonsalves (Tenor saxophone) Raymond Fol (Piano) Jimmy Woode (Bass) G. T. Hogan (Drums)

Recorded at the Studio Acousti, Paris, September 23, 1965.

Original LP issue: International Polydor Production – 46.871.

This self-titled album is a testimony of the short lived-band led by New-York drummer Ron Jefferson during his stay in Paris in the mid-60s. After a first album under his name on Pacific Jazz in 1962, the founding member of The Jazz Modes and the Les McCann trio made the trip overseas.

Here, he made his living by playing with the popular pianists Errol Parker or Hazel Scott but his main drive was this trio that he formed with two other US expats, bassist Roland Haynes (the same musician who recorded an album on Black Jazz as a pianist, as confirmed by Kirk Lightsey) and guitarist Buz Saviano. After a highly successful show at ‘Palais de Chaillot’ in 1965, they were invited for a series of concerts in Dakar Sénégal. On their return, Polydor International proposed them this session. You can hear the deep impact their stay in the Motherland had on their music on the stand-out track ‘Africa the Beautiful’. On pair with the best of Yusef Lateef’s afro-eastern explorations from the time, it showcases Ron on flute and Senegalese percussion. The album release nonetheless was a commercial failure that prompted the band’s separation and Ron’s return to New-York where he performed until his passing in 2007.

Only a few copies of this record ever made it to the shops at the time and very few have had the chance to listen to it before this legit reissue remastered from the original Mono master tapes.

– Antoine Rajon –

Ron Jefferson (Drums & Flute) Buz Saviano (Guitar) Roland Haynes (Bass) Jackie Robinson (Vocal on The Speaker)

Produced by François Lê Xuan and Fred Thomas for Sam Records/Saga. Mastered from the original stereo master tapes. Limited edition 2000 copies. Cut by SST (Schallplaten Schneid Technik). 180g vinyl LP pressed by Pallas in Germany. 6-page booklet . Each record has been visually checked to prevent defects.

Sam Records and Saga present:

A never-before released Billy Harper 1975 live recordings.

First official release with the full permission and cooperation of the Billy Harper & INA (Institut National de l’Audiovisuel).

Billy Harper Quintet – Antibes ‘75

Two days after recording the first album ever issued on the Black Saint label, Billy Harper and his quintet were onstage at the Antibes Juan-Les-Pins jazz festival. Though Black Saint is a phenomenal album and is rightfully considered as one of the finest jazz releases of the period, Antibes ’75 shows that Billy and his men gathered momentum to push the boundaries of their studio effort even further.

That night, surrounded by stars, pine woods and a captivated audience, the quintet delivered a powerful and inspired performance. Never had Harper’s signature tunes “Cry of Hunger” and “Croquet Ballet” reached such a soulful expression, and we only wish that this moment of truth would have lasted a little longer.

We are honored to present to you this concert for the first time on record, a 180g LP including a 6-page insert with previously unseen photos by Gérard Rouy and Thierry Trombert and an essay by Bernard Loupias.

Virgil Jones (Trumpet) Billy Harper (Tenor saxophone) Joe Bonner (Piano, arranger) David Friesen (Double Bass) Malcolm Pinson (Drums)

‘80s funk at its best. Originally only ever available on the album ‘Just How Sweet Is Your Love’, New Jersey group Rhyze’s ‘Do Your Dance’ gets its first ever reissue as a single on 7 inch backed with the disco monster ‘Free’. A staple of some of the biggest DJs and diggers out there, this is a must have record. Your first time to grab this on 7" Official SAM release with original labels and housed in a picture sleeve.