60636

Donald Byrd - Live At Montreux

Released - 2022

Recording and Session Information

"Montreux Jazz Festival", "Casino De Montreux", Switzerland, July 5, 1973
Fonce Mizell, trumpet; Donald Byrd, trumpet, flugelhorn; Allan Barnes, tenor sax, flute; Nathan Davis, tenor, soprano sax; Kevin Toney, electric piano; Larry Mizell, synthesizer; Barney Perry, electric guitar; Henry Franklin, electric bass; Keith Killgo, drums, vocals; Ray Armando, congas, percussion.

Poco-Mania 

You've Got It Bad, Girl 

Untitled No. 3 

Black Byrd 

Flight-Time 

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Black Byrd	Laurence C Mizell	July 5 1973
You've Got It Bad Girl	Stevie Wonder	July 5 1973
The East	Donald Byrd	July 5 1973
Side Two
Title	Author	Recording Date
Introductions
Kwame	Donald Byrd	July 5 1973
Poco-Mania	Donald Byrd	July 5 1973

Liner Notes

As teenagers in Detroit during the 1960s, my friends and I regarded Donald Byrd with the same lofty respect reserved for other hometown musical heroes like Smokey Robinson, the MC5, Elvin Jones. Mitch Ryder, Aretha Franklin and John Lee Hooker...they were all amazing artists who were changing the face of music by exporting the sounds of our city to the rest of the world.  

The music of Donald Byrd was ubiquitous back then...cats like the legendary Motor City jazz disc jockey, Ed Love, would hit tracks like "Nai Nai" from Free Form and "Cristo Redentor" from A New Perspective on a nightly basis...Later on, in the 1970s, Mr. Byrd started adding a healthy dose of Detroit-style funk to his records and his innovative music could be heard blasting out of dashboard mounted 8 track players and back seat subwoofers all over town...He was a Motor City Trumpet Revolutionary and his timeless music will never be forgotten.  

Shortly after Mr. Byrd's passing in 2013, we got an email from the noted British music icon, Gilles Peterson, inquiring about a legendary performance from 1973's Montreux Jazz Festival. Inexplicably, the tapes had been tucked away in the Blue Note vaults. When we listened, we were knocked out: the 16-track, 2" analog master tapes revealed a more raw and gritty side of Donald Byrd's 70's music.  

As a special tribute to this Jazz Immortal and as a gift to the legions of aficionados who, like all of us at Blue Note Records, treasure the music he's left behind, we are honored to present - on vinyl and CD for the first time - Donald Byrd, Live at Montreux from July 5, 1973.  

Don Was  

President, Blue Note Records 

 

My brother Fonce and I were invited by Blue Note Records (President George Butler & Donald Byrd) to travel with the Blue Note artist roster to attend and perform at the 1973 Montreux Jazz Festival. At the time, Donald Byrd's "Black Byrd" album was a big success for Blue Note, along with Bobbi Humphrey's "Blacks and Blues". The American Airlines plane was playing various cuts from "Black Byrd" as part of the cabin music. We flew from NYC to Boston to change planes and while waiting, saw Bobby Hutcherson (wearing a denim suit with a red scarf) walk up to an airport security guard and told him to watch out for a weird guy walking around the airport wearing a denim suit with a red scarf, and then Bobby walked away. We knew this flight would be quite the experience.  
 
The plane ride over was fun, energetic, and wild. The stewardesses were pleading for the passengers to go back to their seats as the aisle was packed with non-stop exuberance.  Byrd poured a packet of salt into the open mouth of a sleeping (unnamed) horn player. Woody Shaw was holding court throughout the flight. We stopped in London and bought the latest wooden clogs and stumbled around throughout the city. Byrd took us up to a friend's house in the mountains above Montreux. There we played tennis and Stan Smith was on the adjoining court. We saw drummer Kenny Clarke (Klook) on the streets and waved, he was living over there. We stopped in to watch McCoy Tyner warming up in one of the Piano rooms. We visited the well-known Chateau de Chillon Castle on Lake Geneva - beautiful. Fonce and I bought these Bulbul Tarang (Indian Banjo) keyboards with typewriter keys and jammed in the hotel room 'til late at night until someone complained to the front desk.  
 
Afterwards Byrd gave us the keys to his apartment Paris. There we spotted a clothing store in the city named "The Jackson 5" and Fonce took pictures with the owners. We & a friend took the train over to the University of Paris and listened to Weather Report's latest album in a dorm room filled with students loving the music.  
 
Unforgettable moments for sure.  
 
Larry Mizell 

31875

Donald Byrd - Kofi

Released - 1995

Recording and Session Information

A&R Studios, NYC, December 16, 1969
Donald Byrd, flugelhorn; William Campbell, trombone #1; Frank Foster, tenor sax; Lew Tabackin, tenor sax, flute; Duke Pearson, electric piano; Ron Carter, bass; Bob Cranshaw, electric bass #2; Airto Moreira, drums.

4615-4 Kofi
4616-4 Fufu

A&R Studios, NYC, December 4, 1970
Donald Byrd, trumpet; Frank Foster, tenor sax; Duke Pearson, electric piano; Wally Richardson, guitar; Ron Carter, bass; Mickey Roker, drums; Airto Moreira, Dom Um Romao, percussion.

6879 tk.2 Perpetual Love
6880 tk.7 Elmina

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Kofi	D. Byrd	December 16 1969
Fufu	D. Byrd	December 16 1969
Side Two
Title	Author	Recording Date
Perpetual Love	D. Byrd	December 4 1970
Elmina	D. Byrd	December 4 1970

Liner Notes

Among the more impressive things about most Of the music here is how contemporary it sounds, particularly on "Elmina" where Donald Byrd's solo is declarative and bold against a fuzzy but luscious backbeat. It is amazing that a batch of tunes cut in 1969 and 1970 has such a fresh, edgy appeal. If not exactly of the moment, the music certainly anticipates much of the innovative stylings - that synthesis of jazz and rock - eventually termed fusion.

"We were already experimenting in so-called fusion before anyone else," Byrd says in a recent interview. "If it didn't get out there ahead of the others, you can blame that on the record company. Trying to get Blue Note to release my material was always a struggle. It took me three years to talk them into recording 'A New Perspective,' which they finally did in 1963."

Now, after some twenty-five years, we can hear what Byrd was formulating just about the time Miles served his seminal "Bitches Brew." And where the tableau of sound here is not up-to-date, Byrd and flock capture the essence of the hard bop phase which by 1970 was losing its primacy in the jam sessions at the same rate it was being absorbed by Madison Avenue for background music on automobile commercials. And, of course, it is difficult to ignore those traces of Lee Morgan's seemingly ubiquitous "Sidewinder" that filters through from time to time on these recordings. Which is nothing to be ashamed Of: for me Byrd and the late Lee Morgan epitomize the wide-open trumpet sound of that vibrant, post-Clifford Brown period.

"Some of the tunes from these sessions in the late sixties and early seventies were released," Byrd adds. "Several tracks on 'Electric Byrd' came from these sessions. What I was trying to do then was to blend the James Brown sound into our music, but the folks at Blue Note tossed it aside with little interest. So, you can see the direction in which I was going at this time."

James Brown, notwithstanding, the project has an intriguing transitional feel. It seems to reprise the end of one era while exemplifying the beginning of another, although on the title tune "Kofi" and "Fufu" the mood and tempo are reflective of the Third World. Lew Tabakin's flute darts and flutters above a steady electrified pulse, then gradually surrenders the motif to an assertive Frank Foster on tenor. Byrd's opening remarks are brief but pungent. For the most part this is Tabakin's moment and he makes the most of it, providing an assortment of trills, overblowing, and octave filigree - everything but humming along with himself. In the Twi language of West Africa, Kofi means Friday, and the simple repetition of fragments by Duke Pearson on the electric piano and Ron Carter on bass invokes an alluring scene reminiscent of the market places Of Ghana or Nigeria.

In a much more lively, rapid manner this image is extended on "Fufu," (a basic African foodstuff concocted from cassava) to perhaps suggest later in the day when the market place or bazaar gathers intensity. "The scenes I had in mind on these first two tunes," Byrd explains, "was the Black Star Square in Accra, Ghana. I had the opportunity to spend time there studying with such noted African musicologists as J.H. Kwabena Nketia and Fela Sewande. In fact, the entire album was to have a focus on Africa. Even on the ballad 'Perpetual Love' which has no real tonal center and has a rather circular theme without resolution, I had in mind the mournful chants that figure so prominently in African folk and religious music." He might have also been recalling how these moans and joyful noises unto the Lord transpired in his father's methodist church. Byrd has always been at the forefront in his comprehension of world music, whether refining the techniques Of European classicist Nadia Boulanger or deciphering the cult music of Brazil.

Elements of his evenings in Bahia surface on "Elmina," where there is a judicious use of space and Byrd toys with the implied beat, tossing off a series of swift slurs and obbligatos. Foster enters with an expressively low, raucous tone that he slowly stretches until it resembles the high notes of Byrd's trumpet. These lines are fully conceived and fuel enough for Ron Carter's relentless pace, which is the consequence of Mickey Roker's furious summaries. At this stage the ensemble is tight to the point of breaking, with Duke Pearson adding an occasional shimmering vibrato to Wally Richardson's smear of chords. "One of the reasons the group has such a flawless blend is because we had rehearsed," Byrd points out.

This date marked as well the debut of Airto, the Brazilian percussionist. "Thanks to the suggestion of bassist Walter Booker's wife," Byrd notes, "I invited Airto and Other Brazilians to my various sessions. Many of them had no idea that their music was derived from Yoruban culture and that the instruments they played - like the Berimbau - came from Africa."

There is a tantalizing whiff of samba on "Elmina" and Byrd is at his best extending the lovely melody, cresting with the vivid sonorities so characteristic of his playing on the ever-popular "Cristo Redentor." But the faint bossa beat - which in Byrd's estimation is another extension of African rhythms in the diaspora - quickly fades and gives way to Foster's whining sax and a collective drone with all the earmarks of 'St. James Infirmary.' Pearson's solo is remarkably subtle and exquisite, and presages Byrd eloquent final stanzas.

For all of its historical importance, the way this music documents a former period, this album is by no means a mere artifact. Indeed, it has been rescued from oblivion, but a careful listening will disclose how favorably it compares with much of today's mainstream jazz — and how, as Byrd's music often does, it signals some genres to come. Or genres currently in vogue, such as the convergence of jazz and hip hop, where Byrd is again in the vortex of a developing form. In effect, Byrd's musical history has not been as much circular as it has been spiral, suggesting progression rather then repetition. It has taken a quarter of a century to resurrect these precious gems, and they affirm once again Byrd's wizardry and prescience.

Herb Boyd
12/1/94

LT-1096

Donald Byrd - The Creeper

Released - 1981

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, October 5, 1967
Donald Byrd, trumpet; Sonny Red, alto sax #1,2,4-7; Pepper Adams, baritone sax #1,2,4-7; Chick Corea, piano; Miroslav Vitous, bass; Mickey Roker, drums.

1959 tk.4 Blues Well Done
1960 tk.6 Early Sunday Morning
1961 tk.8 I Will Wait For You
1962 tk.15 Chico-San
1957 tk.18 The Creeper
1963 tk.21 Samba Yantra
1964 tk.25 Blues Medium Rare

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Samba Yantra	Chick Corea	October 5 1967
I Will Wait For You	Michel Legrand-Norman Gimbel	October 5 1967
Blues Medium Rare	Donald Byrd	October 5 1967
Side Two
The Creeper	Sylvester Kyner	October 5 1967
Chico-San	Chick Corea	October 5 1967
Early Sunday Morning	Donald Byrd	October 5 1967
Blues Well Done	Donald Byrd	October 5 1967

Liner Notes

DONALD BYRD

A handsome, black 22-year-old with an authoritative, confident, yet gentle and unthreatening manner comes to New York with a trumpet sound as strong as Brownie's and yet a lyricism as sensitive as Mlles'. Right away, he's standing alongside Jackie McLean in George Wallington's quintet. A few months and a few record dates later, he replaces Kenny Dorham in the Jazz Messengers. Now he's making music nightly with Hank Mobley, Horace Silver, Doug Watkins and Art Blakey. And it that's the music you want to play, you can't do it with anyone better.

It's the mid fifties, The major cities have thriving jazz clubs. The record companies are recording the music almost daily. Jazz is the hip thing to like tor whites and blacks, for males and females.

In the Hollywood 'anguished man with a horn' formula or even in real life, this kind of 'too much too soon' can turn a lot of people around. A fast ascent liberally sprinkled with new experiences, new money. new fame and bad habits has taken many creative artists down, sometimes for good.

Donald Byrd's story is, as time has revealed, quite the opposite. What is remarkable is how immediately immune he was to the temptations of coasting on recognition, getting high, and self indulgent behavior From the start, booking agents and club owners would look to him as the strawboss to get the guys on the bandstand on time and in some sort of shape. There were even a couple of very famous bands for which he was on call in case the leader pulled a no-show or nodded out.

Byrd is a man of many interests who believes in making things happen instead of waiting, who knows that the affairs of the world around him have an impact on his existence and who has never stopped learning. In a 1966 Down Beat interview with Burt Korall, he said, "Thinking and planning are a big part of it. You have to be a human being and deal with other human beings. A lot of musicians take liberties because they are musicians. They act up in clubs, are late for appointments and record dates. Some are antisocial. Others think getting high is part of an artist's life. All they're doing is feeding a stereotype that we don't need...You have to keep moving. No one is going to take you by the hand. You have to take the future in your hands.

"Quincy Jones, Lalo Schifrin, Oliver Nelson — they've gotten into other areas like films, television without losing face or sight of the tradition from which they spring...They learned in school and on the job and kept their eyes and ears open. They have the equipment the education and, of course, the know-how with people."

Beyond this very active performing career, Donald was always studying somewhere. First Wayne University, the Manhattan School of Music, Columbia University and on and on. He holds degrees in music education and law, has been a student of composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and a student of history in more ways than one.

He has also gotten more and more into teaching with the years, at times maintaining positions at three or four colleges at once. And he is genuinely inspired by the enthusiasm and flexibility of the young talent that he encounters. His fascination with black history and music history has led him to amass an archive of documents, books, sheet music, manuscripts, photographs, tape recordings of music and interviews and video tapes that is so large that it must be warehoused. It still hasn't been completely catalogued.

All of this might seem at odds with the man who retreated from a steady diet of performing and moved into the direction of a strictly commercial recording career. Although he did discover producer-arranger Larry Mizell and influence a wave of jazz-tinged R&B that many of us would like to forget, his commercial success was impressive for its entrepreneurial foresight. For Byrd, it was a means that enabled him to pursue his many other endeavors.

He has written full orchestral works that have gone unrecorded, and he has been working on several books and a play. He always has eighteen projects going at the same time. And most of them are eventually completed. If one avenue of creativity has suffered from his multi-level existence, it is his trumpet playing. The trumpet is more demanding than most instruments. And the passage of just one day without a serious workout shows on the best of players.

This album, recorded on October 5, 1967, is a sort of swansonq to the tradition out of which Donald came as a performing artist. A year later, he would begin a series of recordings a special, R&B-textured style of fusion (although there was no such word applied to jazz at the time). He was still playing, but that would decrease drastically with his next move a couple of years later into a stone, commercial R&B format that he and Larry Mizell concocted and introduced with "Black Byrd," an album that went gold. Donald then began producing The Blackbyrds, former students and his backup band at the time, and other acts. The trumpet moved further into the background. So this session is a clear demarkation point for Donald. It is issued here for the first time. That might have been because Byrd changed direction or because there are loose edges around some of the ensembles or because the departure of Alfred Lion and the subsequent sale of Liberty (which had owned Blue Note for about 2 years) to United Artists Records created enough upheaval to let this session, among others, get lost in the confusion.

Whatever. Here Byrd brought together the two hornmen with whom he was most closely associated at different times in his life. Both are, like Donald, from Detroit. The quintet that Donald and Pepper Adams led intermittently from 1958 to 1961 was documented by a series of recordings, many for Blue Note such as The Cat Walk, Fuego, Chant and a live date from the Half Note. They both did some of their finest playing standing next to each other.

As Donald told Nat Hentoff, "Sonny and I met in the eighth grade in Detroit. He was one of the people instrumental in my starting to play jazz." Sonny Red (Sylvester Kyner) made his recording debut almost ten years before this session. For a second horn, he used Pepper Adams.

Although Red had been in and around New York since 1959, writing tunes and playing with a variety of people and making his own albums, it was not until 1966 that he began working frequently with Byrd. He appeared on the three Byrd albums leading up to this one. He possesses a rare ability to craft a tune that is attractive, but still unpredictable. That is a contradiction in the music 'industry' code of serving music to the masses via mental enemas. Two cases in point are the title tune of this album and "Bluesville" on Blue Mitchell's "Step Lightly" (Blue Note LT-1082).

Mickey Roker was one of the active, all-purpose jazz drummers on the New York scene during the mid sixties. He was a member of the Duke Pearson Big Band and was always present when Duke recorded his own music, whatever the context. In 1969, he joined Lee Morgan's band and then spent the better part of the seventies with Dizzy Gillespie's quintet.

Miroslav Vitous had arrived in the United States from his native Czechoslovakia to attend the Berklee School of Music just one year before this recording. In the summer of '67, he moved to New York and began freelancing quickly, thanks in part to the help of Walter Booker, who in fact was the bassist in the band that Donald had been leading for the past year.

Chick Corea, as much a composer as a pianist, spent the early and mid sixties in a variety of Latin jazz bands and with the Blue Mitchell quintet. In 1966, he recorded an impressive debut album for Atlantic with Woody Shaw and Joe Chambers among the players. His compositions were starting to be recorded by a variety of artists and his playing, always completely professional, was finding its own identity. In 1968, he made his first thoroughly individual statement as a pianist on a trio date with Vitous and Roy Haynes. Incidentally, they recorded a very different version of "Samba Yanta" (on "Circlin' In" Blue Note LWB 472), Also in that year, he would Join Miles Davis. In 1970, he formed the experimental band Circle with Anthony Braxton, Dave Holland and Barry Altschul. And in 1972, while Byrd was recording "Black Byrd" and Miroslav was helping to create another type of fusion with Weather Report, Chick formed Return to Forever, a band that went through many stylistic changes, all of which had a commercial bent.

Times change, and so do people. But there is music that knows no temporal barriers. The tradition in which the music on this album is conceived is just such a genre.

—Michael Cuscuna

Notes for the 2012 CD Edition

This October 1967 session, Donald Byrd's last real pure jazz date before he started experimenting with more spacial music on "Fancy Free" (4319), seems to be a look backward and a look forward at the same time.  

Byrd co-led a quintet with Pepper Adams from 1958 to 61. Sonny Red, a friend from childhood was his saxophonist of choice throughout the mid '60s. And Mickey Roker was often his drummer of choice during that same period.  

Chick Corea and Miroslav Vitous were new blood for Donald. Chick was no stranger to Blue Note thanks to his years with Blue Mitchell and, already an established jazz composer, contributes "Samba Yantra" and "Chico San" to this date. It is interesting to note that in a few short years, Donald Byrd (with "Black Byrd"), Miroslav Vitous (with Weather Report) and Chick Corea (with Return To Forever) Would all drastically alter the course of jazz.  
 
- Michael Cuscuna