1998 Jazzpar Winner: Guitarist Jim Hall

courtesy of Naxos of America

The latest Storyville Records release of a live performance associated with the awarding of the Danish Jazzpar Prize featured the 1998 winner, guitarist Jim Hall. The original CD of this performance was released on February 17, 2011. However, earlier this year the entire album was remastered; and that version was released two weeks ago both in CD form and for both MP3 download and real-time streaming.

The title of the album is Quartet + 4, which is also the title of one of the album’s seven tracks and one of the three of those tracks composed by Hall. For most of the album Hall leads a quartet whose other members are Chris Potter on tenor saxophone, Thomas Ovesen on bass, and Terry Clarke on drums. The “+ 4” refers to the addition of the Zapolski String Quartet led by Russian violinist Alexander Zapolski. The other members of the quartet are violinist Jacob Soelberg, violist Iben Bramsnæs Teilmann, and cellist Vanja Louro. All four of the members also played in the Danish National Symphony Orchestra at the time when this album was recorded.

In the absence of any useful background material, it is difficult to say whether or not “Quartet + 4” allowed for any improvisation. My (educated?) guess is that the quartet parts were written out in detail, providing a “context” in which Hall and his quartet colleagues could improvise when the situation seemed suitable. This is certainly the case in the following octet track, an arrangement of Jimi Hendrix’ “Purple Haze,” whose quartet parts owe a good deal (but not necessarily the entirety) to the arrangement that Steve Riffkin prepared from the Kronos Quartet. On the other hand “Thesis” was composed for guitar and string quartet in 1953 when Hall was a student at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and it would not surprise me if none of the five parts allowed for improvisation.

Both Potter and Ovesen have more opportunities to contribute to the overall mix in the “jazz quartet” tracks. This is most evident in an extended take on Billy Strayhorn’s “Chelsea Bridge.” That track is preceded by Victor Young’s “Stella by Starlight,” one of those ingenious interpretations in which the tune never really reveals itself until the conclusion. At “the other end of the album” (so to speak), Strayhorn’s tune is complemented by Duke Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood,” which provides just the right platform for duo exchanges between Hall and Potter.

All of the tracks were recorded at the beginning of April in 1998 at two different jazz clubs in Copenhagen.