redbeansandrice … Generell findet sich in den production credits von Jean-Philippe Allard viel vom besten Jazz der 90er
ich habe gestern, nachdem ich THE WORLD IS FALLING DOWN gehört habe, noch ein interview mit allard gelesen, dessen lauf in den 90ern ja auch mit diesem album anfing. darin erklärt sich auch die merkwürdige besetzung (dodgion plus mclean, aber nur mclean spielt die soli; carter plus haden, aber carter nur als arrangeur; wieso taucht da plörtlich alain jean-marie auf?):
In the late eighties, I ran Polygram in France. Because of CDs, it was a good time for jazz, and we started to do some production in France. One of my favorite artists, ever, was Abbey Lincoln. We’d had no news of her since Talking to the Sun (1984), her Enja album. My colleague, Daniel Richard, and I shared the same love for what she did. So I decided to call her, despite a lot of people telling me that she was a “difficult person.” They in fact warned me.
…..I phone her, and we got along right away. She always talked about this first call. We started to speak about what she wanted to do, what she had in mind. We talked about concepts and musicians. I said, “With whom would you like to work, if you could choose anybody?”
…..She said, “Alain Jean-Marie,” a French pianist.
…..I was very surprised and said, “Okay, great. I love Alain Jean-Marie. What about Charlie Haden?” They’d never worked together. I don’t think they really knew each other.
…..“Yeah, okay,” she said. “What about Billy Higgins?” Theh she talked about the songs, her new songs.
…..I’d found a song of Charlie Haden’s called “First Song.” I thought it would be great for her to write lyrics for it. She loved the song and wrote lyrics right away. When we thought we were ready, we booked a studio in New York. It was my first time to go to New York, and in a short time I was walking into the studio with an artist. It was a very difficult session, but Abbey and I always got along very well; so that part was easy. She was always creating, writing new songs.
…..Why was the recording not easy?
…..First reason, Jackie McLean didn’t show up. The week before the sessions, he said he was booked, couldn’t make it, and would have to record his parts later. I knew he really wanted to record. So we got Jerry Dodgion to do the alto parts which were, later, replaced by Jackie’s. It’s hard to handle that sort of situation. You can’t postpone the recording. Everything was planned. I came from France. It was complicated.
…..Then, the second reason was Abbey got really sick in the middle of the session – some kind of flu or something. She had a high fever. She was very weak and couldn’t sing. She was totally devastated by that. I remember her crying. We had to make the session work without her; then, when she could walk, we finished.
…..Also, she wanted Ron Carter to write the arrangements. I thought that was a little strange. He could do the job, obviously, but he’s more known as a bass player than an arranger. Plus, we already had Charlie. To have Charlie and Ron Carter in the same room was not great. We had some conflicts – some personality clashes – and had to handle that. For all those reasons, it wasn’t easy, but at the end everything was cool. Jacke came and did his parts. Abbey recovered, and everybody was really happy. I learned a lot from that session.
zu lincolns dritter oder vierter karriere in den 90ern muss man natürlich auch noch erwähnen, dass sie 1990 in MO‘ BETTER BLUES mitspielte. ihre version der zusammenarbeit mit allard steht bei ted panken. finde ich alles sehr anrührend.
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