Jazz / Cool, West Coast Jazz, Third Stream
Teddy Charles - Vibraphone
Curtis Counce - Bass
Dick Nivison - Bass
Ed Shaughnessy - Drums
Hall Overton Liner Notes
Ira Gitler Liner Notes
Jimmy Giuffre - Sax (Baritone), Clarinet, Sax (Tenor)
Jimmy Raney - Guitar
Phil DeLancie Remastering
Shelly Manne Drums
Shorty Rogers Performer, Trumpet
Vibraphonist Teddy Charles heads three West Coast-style sessions on this CD reissue that look a bit toward Third Stream and the avant-garde experiments of the early '60s. Although there are some swinging sections, much of the music is quite complex with difficult arrangements and some polytonality. One session has Charles (who doubles on piano) in a quartet with guitarist Jimmy Raney (those four numbers were not on the original LP) while the other originals feature trumpeter Shorty Rogers, bassist Curtis Counce, drummer Shelly Manne and sometimes Jimmy Giuffre on tenor and baritone. The music is thought-provoking if a bit cold and clinical, easier to respect than to love. ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide
Teddy Charles
Active Decades: '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s
Born: Apr 13, 1928 in Chicopee Falls, MA
Genre: Jazz
Styles: Cool, Mainstream Jazz, Post-Bop, Third Stream, West Coast Jazz
Teddy Charles is a true rarity: a jazz musician who largely retired from the business. A skillful if not overly distinctive vibraphonist and (early in his career) quite capable on piano and drums, Charles was as important for his open-minded approach in the 1950s towards more advanced sounds as he was for his playing. He moved to New York to study percussion at Juilliard in 1946, but instead became involved in the jazz world. He had short stints with the big bands of Randy Brooks, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Buddy DeFranco and Chubby Jackson from 1948-51 and then played with combos headed by Anita O'Day, Oscar Pettiford, Roy Eldridge and Slim Gaillard. He also became a member of the Jazz Composers' Workshop (1953-55) along with Charles Mingus and Teo Macero, opening his style up to the influences of classical music and freer improvising. Charles, who recorded with Mingus, Miles Davis and Wardell Gray, among many others, began leading his own stimulating record dates in 1951, and by 1953 he was also working as a record producer, a field that took much more of his time from 1956 on. He led his own sessions for Prestige, Atlantic, Savoy, Jubilee, Bethlehem (where he produced around 40 records, mostly for other artists), and Warwick from 1951-60, but was hardly heard from in the 1960s, other than a 1963 set for United Artists. Charles relocated to the Caribbean, where he opened a sailing business. After participating in a 1980 jam session, Teddy Charles eventually moved back to New York, making a "comeback" record for Soul Note in 1988, but still remaining semi-retired from music.
---Scott Yanow, All Music Guide |
