HERBIE NICHOLS

HERBIE NICHOLS
THE COMPLETE BLUE NOTE RECORDINGS (1997)
320 KBPS

While this innovative pianist-composer shares a fascination for disjunctive harmonies, complex rhythmic interplay, and oblique vocalized melodies with his better-known contemporary, Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols's more elongated gait and linear propulsion suggest 20th-century classicism and the polyphony of New Orleans, much as Monk's more jagged phrasing seems to extend on devices originated by icons of the Harlem stride school and the bent-note inflections of rural blues guitarists. These Blue Note sides represent the complete output of five visionary sessions Nichols recorded for producer Alfred Lion in 1955-1956, and reflect the pianist's profoundly drumlike aesthetic in which melodies derive directly from complex root syncopations. Nichols's ability to orchestrate percussive passages on the fly inspires a thrilling level of contrapuntal interplay from drummers Art Blakey and Max Roach that serves to transform his intricate song-forms into edgy, propulsive drum concertos. More significantly, Nichols eschews empty riffing in favor of a deconstructionist approach in which thematic ideas are recast in a spacious, loping, orchestral style that make medium strolls like "Lady Sings the Blues" and minor gallops such as "Riff Primitiff" so darkly romantic and hypnotically swinging, as if Nichols could keep extending and elongating his azure melodic elisions for eternity.

Disc 1
1. The Third World
2. The Third World (Alternate Take)
3. Step Tempest
4. Dance Line
5. Blue Chopsticks
6. Double Exposure (Alternate Take)
7. Double Exposure
8. Cro-Magnon Nights
9. Cro-Magnon Nights (Alternate Take)
10. It Didn't Happen (Alternate Take)
11. Amoeba's Dance
12. Brass Rings (Alternate Take)
13. Brass Rings
14. 2300 Skiddoo (Alternate Take)
15. 2300 Skiddoo

Disc 2
1. Shuffle Montgomery (Alternate Take)
2. It Didn't Happen
3. Crisp Day
4. Shuffle Montgomery
5. The Gig
6. Applejackin' (Alternate Version)
7. Hangover Triangle
8. The Lady Sings The Blues
9. Chit Chattin'
10. House Party Starting
11. The Gig (Alternate Take)
12. Furthermore (Alternate Take #1)
13. Furthermore
14. 117th Street (Alternate Take)
15. 117th Street
16. Sunday Stroll

Disc 3
1. Nick At T's
2. Furthermore (Alternate Take #2)
3. Terpischore
4. 'Orse At Safari Herbie
5. Applejackin' (Alternate Take)
6. Applejackin'
7. Wildflower
8. Mine (Alternate Take)
9. Mine
10. Trio
11. Trio (Alternate Take)
12. The Spinning Song (Alternate Take)
13. The Spinning Song
14. Riff Primitif
15. Riff Primitif (Alternate Take)
16. Query (Alternate Take)
17. Query