Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Meet Herbie Nichols


Herbie Nichols was a notable jazz pianist who recorded four albums between 1955-56 in trio setting with three great drummers (Art Blakey, Max Roach, and Mingus' favorite drummer, Dannie Richmond) Most importantly, Herbie Nichols was a gifted composer who mostly performed his own works.

Somehow his music evokes the kind of feelings the weather does. His right as rain compositions that have a kind of effortless flow and lilt as you would move through a day with reasonable environmental conditions. New Yorker critic Whitney Balliett referred to Nichols' music as "umbrellas of sound." "When Nichols plays, there are no rests or bare places or passages of blue sky." wrote Balliett in a mid seventies tribute to Nichols. He describes his music as "dense and vertical." To me, Nichols compositions are kind of like five minute continuous line drawings that sometimes fan out in a kind of texture. He uses his piano to sketch in the way that Crockett Johnson's protagonist uses his marker in Harold and the Purple Crayon to make paths, shapes, forms.

Nichols is often compared to Thelonious Monk, but he is without as much angularity and harmonic limit pushing of the great Monk. He has also been likened to somehow being a link between Teddy Wilson and Monk. Somehow, his lyrical style reminds me also of Billy Strayhorn at times. Baillet thinks his "sguiggly runs" have their roots in Monk and Ellington and that the broken phrasing comes from Bud Powell. Ye all in all, Nichols has originality in his voice with his melodies and improvisations like self contained short stories you can listen to closely or have in the background as environmental enhancement.

He only lived for forty four years (1919-1963) and although his music was recognized by critics and peers, it has gone largely unknown although "Lady Sings the Blues" and "House Party Starting" have kind of made their way into the extended bluebook of jazz lines and vehicles for jazz musicians for several decades.

Fortunately, because of a handful of devoted jazz musicians, Nichols music has found some new ears. Trombonist Roswell Rudd has recorded Nichols extensively and even been instrumental in publishing previously unknown work. There is also the work of The Herbie Nichols Project which puts Nichols trio recordings into a much fuller harmonic group setting led by pianist Frank Kimbrough. They have recorded three albums of Nichols' work. The only one I can speak to is their last Strange City. When I hear it my shoulders tend to shuffle and looking outside a window while an improvisation based on one of Nichols' floating statements of light emotion doesn't seem like a waste of time by any means. Strange City also gets adventurous and explores some of the darker and more minor-keyed aspects of Nichols. I am less engaged with guitarist Eric K. Johnson's Herbie Nichols Volume 1 which tends to interpret his numbers into a kind of slinky noir reminiscent of Charlie Hunter.

Maybe it is because trenchcoats and alleys don't really reflect my view of Nichols and his music. It seems lighter to me and noir seems better associated with Monk. Stefan from Paris, one of my favorite music bloggers on his Moodswings blog emphasizes the sense of fun and play of Nichols music. I agree with him that "It is not hard to imagine Herbie grinning in anticipation, wondering how the listener will react to each oddball melody or chord voicing as he plows forward, fragments of offbeat measures and angular tunefulness in his wake."
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:11 PM
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