Some Jazz Records: Sonny Sharrock Clippings
Comments on recordings from musicians and other actors of the jazz scene. Random and not-so-random listening cues from the archives.
King Cole Trio with String Choir, The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)/In the Cool of Evening, Capitol 311, 1946, 10" 78 rpm.
"I didn’t like guitar. I don’t like guitar," guitarist Sonny Sharrock said in a 1970 Down Beat issue whose cover he shared with Eric Clapton. "You know, I’ll tell you my favorite guitar solo: the little bit that Oscar Moore did on Nat King Cole’s recording of 'The Christmas Song.' Like it’s about eight bars or something. That to me is beautiful, man. But other than that I don’t like jazz guitar." Nat King Cole’s 1946 78" can be heard at the Internet Archive.
The Solitaires, Please Remember My Heat/South of the Border (Down Mexico Way), Old Town 1006, 1954, 7".
When Sonny Sharrock passed in 1994, Valerie Wilmer wrote his Guardian obituary. "He was a cultural historian, too," she reminisced. "With him I met obscure doo-wop singers who have escaped the most fanatical discographers; he knew every inch of their lives. His enthusiasm for the Nutmegs and other groups of his youth had me scrabbling through 'cut-out' bins in the sweaty subway record emporium beneath Times Square, searching for relics." Doo-wop was not a topic Sharrock discussed extensively in print, but he introduced a few records during a 1990 WKCR interview, "We heard two songs by the Solitaires, 'Please Remember My Heart,' from '54 and then 'The Angels Sang,' 1956, one of the best New York hallway groups. Then we went to the Moonglows, older group than the Solitaires." Asked if he collected doo-wop, Sharrock answered, "Yeah, I’m a collector, and you know, it’s holy music for me, […] I learned my harmony from this music, and you can hear it, you know; if you listened to it a lot, you could hear that some of the things that I do harmonically are based very much in this music."
John Coltrane, Ascension, Impulse! A(S)-95, 1966, LP.
While in Europe in 1970 to fulfill his duties within flutist Herbie Mann’s pop jazz band, Sonny Sharrock was interviewed by Richard Williams for the Melody Maker. "I used to try and play lines, but it didn’t work out," Sharrock said. "It seemed like Ornette [Coleman] was the sound, but I couldn’t play lines that way, and then when Trane’s Ascension came out, with that grand ensemble, maybe that was where I heard a way to play." Coltrane’s pivotal LP was released in early 1966. An important break came for Sharrock at the end of that year, when he was heard live by Ascension contributor Pharoah Sanders and Coltrane himself. (See also McCoy Tyner's comments on this record.)
Blind Willie Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson, Folkways FG 3585, 1957, LP.
During a 1987 Jazz Forum interview, Sonny Sharrock was asked when he started playing with a slide. "After I heard Blind Willie Johnson," the electric guitarist answered. "I heard that, and I went crazy, man. You know that song 'Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground'? It was the most achingly beautiful shit I’d ever heard. And I thought, yeah, there’s something in there that I can take and apply to what I’m hearing in the free thing. It is so expressive." Sharrock heard Johnson’s December 1927 recording on a Folkways release. "You gotta consider the equipment of the day, too," he added. "I had a little Ampeg amp and a hollow-body jazz guitar, an old Gibson. You couldn’t do much with sustain, and not many foot pedals were yet available. And I saw that I could use the slide to take the guitar out of that very clean Kenny Burrell sound and into the area of the shrieking horns. I could sound like Pharoah [Sanders]. We were pushing at the same scream."
Miles Davis, Miles Davis in Europe: Recorded Live at the Antibes Jazz Festival, Columbia CL 2183 (CS 8983), 1964, LP.
"Now, I like to play along with records, it’s a cheap way to play with very good bands," Sonny Sharrock told Motorbooty while discussing his guitar sound. "So one day I was playing along with this Miles record, Miles in Europe, and there’s a version of 'Milestones' on there that’s extremely fast, and I’m playing along with it, and at that point I could play and make it for about 16 bars, and then it would start to fade, but I found that if I did a trill on one string, I was able to reach certain things, and then the sound developed out of that trill. That’s when I started working on that, playing a repeated note very fast, like a buzzsaw, and to overpick the string." (See also Ornette Coleman's comments on this record.)
Wrapping-up the research for this installment, I came across Hank Shteamer’s recent three-part series on Sharrock. It notably includes an examination of Sharrock’s contributions to Herbie Mann records. The guitarist was quick to dismiss this part of his discography (some albums of no interest, he told Jazz Magazine) but it remained his most widely heard work.
Like Sonny I dont much care for jazz guitar players, but Blind Willie Johnson - oh Yes! John Fahey told a story that some friend played him a Blind Willie Johnson record and he thought it was the worst shit he ever heard. Shortly afterwards, he heard Johnson for the 2nd time and broke down in tears at the expressive power of his music.
For Oscar Moore's solo on the Nat Cole Xmas song, I count 4 bars rather than 8 - surely this must be a chilhood memory of Sonny's, this playing, this music ? Lovely, any which way. 😊
It's a great and funny quote "I like to play along with records, it’s a cheap way to play with very good bands".
And Ascension again: - Ascension just gets better and better the more time passes - a deep pool.
Short yet enjoyable - and with good links to bounce off to too - I enjoyed this.