Bent Jædig - Bent Jædig Was Here - Live at Montmartre 1969 (2013)

Tracklist

01. For Sale (Live)
02. Softly as in a Morning Sunrise (Live)
03. On Green Dolphin Street (Live)
04. Bent's Minor Blues (Live)
05. What's New? (Live)
06. There'll Never Be Another You (Live)
07. Bent's Got Rythm (Live)
08. The Theme (Live)

Danish tenor sax-man Bent Jædig left his mark while he was here. At his funeral in 2004, one speaker said, He lived jazz, and he was a jazz musician with a capitol J so large, that it reaches the sky . He was a sharp, modern jazz musician, and for long periods, his home and career were south of the Danish border. A true cosmopolitan and jazz nomad, from the mid-1950 s and on he played with the most important modern European jazz musicians and visiting American stars: Chet Baker, Benny Bailey, Lucky Thompson, Dusko Goykovich, Tete Monoliu, Don Byas, Bill Coleman, George Coleman, Carlos Ward, Mal Waldron, Philly Joe Jones and many, many more. He was offered Sal Nistico s chair in Woody Herman s orchestra but had to turn the offer down due to difficulties obtaining an American green card. Back in those days, the word would pass swiftly when Jædig was in town for a short visit... Have you heard? Bent Jædig s in town... Come on, come on... But in 1969 he * to Copenhagen on a permanent basis, and that is when the story of this album begins. These recordings are from Copenhagen s Jazzhus Montmartre in the beginning of 1969, taped by the club s regular sound technician Freddy Hansson. Three dusty tape reels emerged miraculously in the debris when the legendary club finally closed down in 1976. It was discovered that the quality of the recordings and the music had survived the trials of time. BENT JÆDIG WAS HERE documents Bent Jædig on a couple of evenings in the winter of 1969, when his quartet was booked for a week. The quartet featured 2/3 of the regular house trio which accompanied so many giants through the 60 s: Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Don Byas, Johnny Griffin, Ben Webster, Stuff Smith, Booker Ervin, Roland Kirk, Donald Byrd. On this selection the sound of Bent Jædig s tenor is at the center huge and penetrating accompanied in great form by the Copenhagen-based American pianist Kenny Drew and bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and a surprise in this setting drummer J.C. Moses from Pittsburgh. Moses died in obscurity in 1977, but he was a versatile musician, and for a while he was a popular sideman in mainstream, bebop and the avant-garde of his day, making his name with the New York Contemporary Five, but also in an early version of Charles Lloyd s quartet and in the 60 s with Roland Kirk, Archie Shepp, Clifford Jordan, Eric Dolphy, Kenny Dorham and Bud Powell. His playing is powerful, pushing Jædig onward.

BENT JAEDIG, tenor sax
KENNY DREW, piano
NIEL-HENNING ORSTED PEDERSEN, bass
J.C. MOSES, drums

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