Here Comes Earl „Fatha“ Hines with Elvin Jones and Richard Davis | „A man is as young as he feels“ – heute, im Zeitalter der Berufsjugendlichen, ist das nur eine peinliche Plattitüde, aber als Männer noch Brillantine oder Toupets trugen, statt an den Bosporus zu fliegen und Haartransplantationen zu machen, war das anders. Jedenfalls, als Stanley Dance den Satz zum Einstieg der Liner Notes fürs neue Album von Earl Hines schrieb, der im Januar 1966 für Contact (Bob Thiele) mit neuem Trio ins Studio ging. Auch hier nur 30 Minuten, aber auch nur sieben Stücke, Hines‘ „The Stanley Steamer“ dauert so lange wie zwei der anderen zusammen. „Save It Pretty Mama“ von Don Redman ist der Opener, dann folgen vor allem selten gehörte Songs: „By Bye Baby“ (Styne/Robin), „Smoke Rings“ (Gifford/Washington), „Shoe Shine Boy“ (Cahn/Chaplin), das erwähnte Original, „Bernie’s Tune“ und zum Abschluss aus dem Lunceford-Orbit (Sy Oliver) „Dream of You“. Im Gegensatz zum Vorgänger-Trio mit Ahmed Abdul-Malik und Oliver Jackson ist die Rhythmusgruppe hier sehr viel aktiver, der Bass springt herum, die Drums kommentieren auch mit Besen ständig das Geschehen – beide setzen ständig Akzente, was die es schon rasante, rasiermesserscharfen Läufe von Hines noch stärker hervorhebt. Das ist wirklich ganz nah an den Favoriten dran, so mitreissend wie das ist!
Ich zitiere nochmal einen Auszug aus der Rezension von Whitney Balliett, die ich in den Post zum Vorgänger-Album reinkopiert hatte, weil ich das eine echt treffende Beschreibung von Hines‘ Stil finde:
Whitney Balliett, New Yorker, March 7, 1964
His style, which has changed little, is marked by enormous rhythmic impetus, rich harmonies, total unpredictability, and a singular joyousness. (Fats Waller’s bounding spirit was deceptive; more often than not, it merely mocked ebullience. And Tatum’s energies were monolithic.) Hines did not—despite the critical cliche—invent the single-note melodic line in the right hand. He did, however, compound usually incidental methods of earlier pianists with knifelike arpeggios, on-time and double-time runs that disregarded bar measures, and octave doublings. He frequently added tremolos to the last in an attempt to shake a vibrato from a vibratoless instrument. (He is celebrated for his hornlike approach, and in this sense he should be.) At the same time, he set off his single-note patterns with chords played a little behind the beat or in rapid staccato ladders. In his equally important left hand, he occasionally commemorates the stride pianists’ oompah bass, but more frequently he uses tenths, trills, isolated chords placed everywhere around the beat, and percussive single notes. His hands seem at war. A right-hand run races ahead of a fragment of stride bass; a left-hand trill rumbles while the right hand rallies irregular octave doublings; staccato right-hand chords are poised, like an inverted pyramid, on a simple legato left-hand melody; sustained right-hand tremolos cascade toward ascending left-hand block chords. These devices constantly advance and retreat, and now and then dissolve into brief arhythmic interludes, in which the beat gives way to a whirling, suspended mass of chords and single notes. (This exciting, treading-water invention was carried to Cloud Cuckoo lengths by Art Tatum, and, possibly as a result, has been abandoned by modern pianists, which is too bad. It vibrates the mind and stirs the blood.) Hines was the first pianist to make full use of dynamics. With an infallible sense of emphasis, his volume may swell in mid-phrase or at the outset of a new idea and then fall away to a mutter, before abruptly cresting again a few measures later. He makes sound flash.
--
"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #170: Aktuelles von Jazzmusikerinnen – 19.02.2026, 20:00; #171 – 10.03.2026, 22:00; #172 – 14.04.2026, 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba