After Hours

by Charlie Christian

Overview

AFTER HOURS is an excellent live document of the early roots of bebop, capturing this exciting music in the process of being built by its pioneering architects. Recorded live in New York City at jam sessions at Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House in 1941, these tapes feature young modernists Charlie Christian, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke, and Don Byas as they pushed the structural materials of swing toward something new and intense. Beyond the historical significance of these sessions, however, the music is simply fabulous. There are revisions of "Stardust" and "Stompin' at the Savoy, " but the tunes are mainly blues-based improvisations, with plenty of syncopated play and stretched-out soloing from all involved. Christian's guitar takes center stage--his fluid, fleet-fingered style and mellow amplified tone have become such a stock part of jazz guitar, it is hard to remember that he almost single-handedly wrote the book. Though Gillespie gets double-billing on this set, he only appears on four of the nine tunes, but one can hear early hints of the advanced technical style that would explode in his work with Charlie Parker in the later '40s. This music is truly classic.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/09/2000
Label:	Original Jazz Classics
UPC:	0025218193221
Rank:	42686

Tracks

1. Swing to Bop (Improvisation)
2. Stompin' at the Savoy
3. Up on Teddy's Hill (Improvisation)
4. Down on Teddy's Hill (Improvisation)
5. Guy's Got to Go (Improvisation)
6. Lips Flips (Improvisation)
7. Stardust
8. Kerouac (Improvisation)
9. Stardust

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Charlie Christian   Primary Artist,Guitar
Dizzy Gillespie   Primary Artist,Trumpet
Hot Lips Page   Guest Artist,Trumpet
Don Byas   Guest Artist,Sax (Tenor)
Kenny Clarke   Guest Artist,Drums
Thelonious Monk   Guest Artist,Piano
Joe Guy   Trumpet
Tom Miller   Drums
Kermit Scott   Sax (Tenor)
Al Tinney   Piano
Edmund Paul   Bass
Rudy Williams   Sax (Alto)
Nick Fenton   Bass

Technical Credits

Eric Miller   Reissue Producer,Digital Producer
Dizzy Gillespie   Composer
Benny Goodman   Composer
Edgar Sampson   Composer
Leonard Feather   Liner Notes
Jerry Newman   Composer
Thelonious Monk   Composer
Mitchell Parish   Composer
Hoagy Carmichael   Composer
Charlie Christian   Composer
Public Domain   Composer
Chick Webb   Composer
Kirk Felton   Remastering
Irene Higginbotham   Composer
Traditional   Composer
Andy Razaf   Composer