The week between Christmas Day and New Year's is usually rather fun. You're not yet tired of leftover turkey, there are still plenty of chocolates to munch on, presents are still fresh and you may have even hit the malls to get some more stuff with all your Christmas money. There was even the chance you might have received tickets to a play or a hockey game and late-December is always a good time for a night on the town. Back in the day people would even get dressed up and go to a steak house or a Chinese restaurant and finish the night off with drinks at a swank hotel bar. It was called an evening out.
If you happened to be in New York in the autumn of 1974 you might have had the chance to enjoy an evening out at Avery Fisher Hall to see the Modern Jazz Quartet's swansong show. Held three days prior to Thanksgiving and a month before Christmas Day, it would have been an appropriate way of getting the American holidays started for anyone lucky enough to have been in attendance. Doing a Christmas carol, as well as "Skating in Central Park", would have been a nice way to get everyone in the seasonal spirit (even if they're countered by hothouse scorchers "Summertime", "A Night in Tunisia" and "Concierto de Aranjuez").
If you happened to be in New York in the autumn of 1974 you might have had the chance to enjoy an evening out at Avery Fisher Hall to see the Modern Jazz Quartet's swansong show. Held three days prior to Thanksgiving and a month before Christmas Day, it would have been an appropriate way of getting the American holidays started for anyone lucky enough to have been in attendance. Doing a Christmas carol, as well as "Skating in Central Park", would have been a nice way to get everyone in the seasonal spirit (even if they're countered by hothouse scorchers "Summertime", "A Night in Tunisia" and "Concierto de Aranjuez").
John Lewis, Milt "Bags" Jackson, Percy Heath and Connie Kay had been recording and touring as the Modern Jazz Quartet for close to a quarter of a century when they decided to disband in 1974. During their time together they released dozens of outstanding albums, pioneered third stream jazz (the merging of jazz with classical music), took small groups out of the clubs and into concert halls and even got signed up to Apple. But it was on this night that they drew the curtain on their association (for the next seven years, at least) and recorded the greatest live album of all time.
There are a lot of seasonal jazz albums out there. Obviously there's the famed soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas by the Vince Guaraldi Trio and my personal favourite Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas. There are also many various artists compilations available, which, for some reason, all feature "Deck the Halls with Boston Charlie" by Lambert, Hendricks & Ross but exclude the MJQ's exquisite rearrangement of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", which they retitled "England's Carol". Now, the MJQ aren't as highly thought of today as they were forty-five years ago and have a dull name with members who aren't badasses like Miles Davis or tortured artistes like John Coltrane or playful mavericks like Thelonious Monk but there must be more to why they've been consistently spurned by compilers (and it's not as if the above mentioned L,H & R or Pony Poindexter are especially big names in among current jazz listeners either).
Perhaps it's too perfect and far too serious for the masses. Jackson's vibraphone playing is as thrilling as ever and he ought to be ranked alongside Monk and Charlie Parker and Bud Powell as a pre-eminent bebop soloist but it may sound precious and staid compared with the wails and squeaks and squaks of a tenor sax great. Similarly, Lewis, always a highly respected composer, tended to be overlooked on the keys and his classic, bluesy style must have seemed old hat even by the mid-seventies. (An MJQ novice a decade ago, I often wondered what was so 'modern' about them since they seemed as old fashioned as they come)
Yet, "England's Carol" deserves to be a holiday classic in its own right and they never bettered the version from The Complete Last Concert. Their interplay is exceptional, with these four gentlemen in their fifties responding to one another and pushing each other to greater heights. The fact that this is just some trifling old English folk song is irrelevant as they tackle it as if it were a Duke Ellington or a George Gershwin composition. Their standards being so high, they weren't about to settle for treating it like a novelty. The perfect sound of an evening out at Christmastime or, failing that, a night in with lights on the tree, the fireplace going and plenty of mulled wine. A perfect Christmas, at least for those five minutes.
There are a lot of seasonal jazz albums out there. Obviously there's the famed soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas by the Vince Guaraldi Trio and my personal favourite Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas. There are also many various artists compilations available, which, for some reason, all feature "Deck the Halls with Boston Charlie" by Lambert, Hendricks & Ross but exclude the MJQ's exquisite rearrangement of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", which they retitled "England's Carol". Now, the MJQ aren't as highly thought of today as they were forty-five years ago and have a dull name with members who aren't badasses like Miles Davis or tortured artistes like John Coltrane or playful mavericks like Thelonious Monk but there must be more to why they've been consistently spurned by compilers (and it's not as if the above mentioned L,H & R or Pony Poindexter are especially big names in among current jazz listeners either).
Perhaps it's too perfect and far too serious for the masses. Jackson's vibraphone playing is as thrilling as ever and he ought to be ranked alongside Monk and Charlie Parker and Bud Powell as a pre-eminent bebop soloist but it may sound precious and staid compared with the wails and squeaks and squaks of a tenor sax great. Similarly, Lewis, always a highly respected composer, tended to be overlooked on the keys and his classic, bluesy style must have seemed old hat even by the mid-seventies. (An MJQ novice a decade ago, I often wondered what was so 'modern' about them since they seemed as old fashioned as they come)
Yet, "England's Carol" deserves to be a holiday classic in its own right and they never bettered the version from The Complete Last Concert. Their interplay is exceptional, with these four gentlemen in their fifties responding to one another and pushing each other to greater heights. The fact that this is just some trifling old English folk song is irrelevant as they tackle it as if it were a Duke Ellington or a George Gershwin composition. Their standards being so high, they weren't about to settle for treating it like a novelty. The perfect sound of an evening out at Christmastime or, failing that, a night in with lights on the tree, the fireplace going and plenty of mulled wine. A perfect Christmas, at least for those five minutes.
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