Bobby Timmons
Robert Henry " Bobby" Timmons ( born December 19, 1935 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, † March 1, 1974 in New York City, New York ) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He is known for his work with Blakey's Jazz Messengers and as a composer of Moanin ', Dat Dere, and This Here, each a typical example of his Gospel processing style.
Timmons was the son of a pastor. Both parents and several aunts and uncles played piano. His uncle Robert Habershaw gave him early education, this also taught McCoy Tyner. After high school, he won a scholarship from the Philadelphia Musical Academy. He played organ in the church, which his later jazz -influenced game. Getting professional appearances began in the local environment and with Rhythm and Blues at the Trenier Twins.
Career
Timmons moved in 1954 to New York City; He played in 1956 with Kenny Dorhams Jazz Prophets, with whom he made his recording debut on a live recording in May. 1956/57, he played with Chet Baker ( Scott LaFaro was part of the band ), 1957 with Sonny Stitt and Maynard Ferguson 1957-58. Timmons year collaboration with Baker 1956-57 is recorded on the album Chet Baker Big Band. For Stitt he appeared in 1957 on personal appearence and Curtis Fuller on The Opener. In 1957 he played on Hank Mobley's album Hank. On Lee Morgan's album The Cooker he plays with Lover Man.
In the late 1950s he moved with Lee Morgan together in an apartment, and the two bought a piano, whereupon Timmons practiced and Morgan worked on compositions: 88
The Jazz Messengers Blakey, he was one the first time from July 1958 to September 1959, where he was also on a European tour in November and December 1958. Then he joined in 1959 Cannonball Adderley. During this time, Timmons was known as a composer. Encyclopedia of Jazz According to his compositions Moanin ', Dat Dere, and This Here were paving the way to develop the gospel stained soul jazz style of the late 1950s and early 60s: 646 After Billy Taylor he had while Carl Perkins as a predecessor.
'' Moanin ' he wrote in Blakey, the other titles with Adderley. This Here was a surprise hit of the live recording of The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco, and the band saw after they returned from a trip to New York, a large amount of audience at the Village Gate opposite where they had to play.
Supposedly left Timmons Adderley, because he (Dis Here) showed disappointment over the little money after the surprise hit This Here, and Art Blakey offered him more.
On the Messengers album A Night In Tunisia you can with the Messengers Wayne Shorter and Timmons hear in its composition So Tired for the first time. His title Dat Dere, was recorded in 1960 by Blakey with the messengers on the album The Big Beat. Timmons Bobby Timmons on it also plays Trio in person.
After leaving Blakey a second time, he formed his own bands, first with Ron Carter on bass and Tootie Heath on drums. 1963 Timmons played with Lewis Powers on bass and Roy McCurdy on drums. A reviewer for the Washington Post described him as adventurous and mobile. But since he hired less qualified musician, he also confirmed a lack of passion.
Although Blakey called him with the others of the band as a " gentleman ", pursued and disabled him his addiction to the extent that he can be heard on some recordings as a sideman, as with Nat Adderley, not on all tracks. The album came with two pieces without a piano, Wes Montgomery with two out as Springer and the piece of fallout.
Later recordings usually followed in a trio or quartet; In 1967 he played with Tom McIntosh in Nonet ( Got to Get It ). The mid- 1960s he began playing vibraphone. Although he played from time to time on the organ, of which there is only one recording - a version of Moanin ' 1964 From the Bottom. This album, the Richard Cook "excellent" rated as, but was released by Prestige Records after his death.
Timmons ' career was in the 1960s, fast downhill, partly because of his drug abuse, and are sometimes referred to allegedly because of his frustration, as a composer and player of simple pieces of music. In 1967 he recorded for Milestone Records and played in 1969 in a quartet of Sonny Red and in a trio that Etta Jones accompanied them.
He was also involved in recordings with Art Farmer, Pepper Adams, JJ Johnson, and Kenny Burrell. In March 1974 after a month of hospitalization, Timmons died at age 38 from liver cirrhosis. He was buried in Philadelphia. With his wife, Estelle, he had also called Bobby, a son.
Style and composition
Timmons is known for its block chords: a style in which the right hand designs melodies, and the left goes along with the rhythm of the right, but the voice guidance does not change except to chord changes. In his partly reduced or even massive piano using influences from Art Tatum and Bud Powell, whom he declined in favor of block chords, Red Garland, and he played rhythmically harder and concise. A good example is his entire chorus in the play Come Rain or Come Shine, characterized by an F major F minor changes, on the album Moanin ', here is also clear that these chords are through-composed and more varied than completely newly improvised, and Spontaneous Combustion on Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco.
Bobby Timmons brings the Diminished his block chords in changing the chords in the left hand, while he may have the melody in the right hand much easier and improvise on Blue scales with flatted fifth, the rub in most simple form with the allfällig occurring diminished chords. He also plays the accompaniment an octave " too low" for the little c instead of to -ing middle c '. In addition, Timmons octave major seconds, obscure the parallel octaves sound and can be made even more eye-catching with chromatic nuances.
On one hand, noted Scott Yanow, Timmons had not removed stylistically from what he had developed until 1960. At the same time, he emphasizes facets of Timmons ' play: Great, inspired by Bud Powell ballads, his pure, accurate, unsentimental long lines. Timmons 50 radio aspects in game -influenced pianists such as Les McCann, Ramsey Lewis, and Benny Green.
He led his own trio, with whom he went into the studio in January 1960 and recorded for Riverside Records; " He presented himself as Soul Man with boppenden, partly classical ambitions. Billy Strayhorn's Lush Life and the intro to My Funny Valentine designed Timmons as emotionless drunk demonstrations of his harmonic skills, " Ralf Dombrowski wrote about his debut album.
Timmons ' 1963 game with Lewis Powers on bass and Roy McCurdy was of a reviewer for the Washington Post described as the drums "flexible, agile and adventurous ... about everything a gloss of sacred music and spirituals spreads "
Timmons felt not particularly as a composer: "I am a dilettante as a composer I've never consciously sat down and tried to write a song. . " He describes his method of writing a new song by whistles, plays around with notes, or at the club, he says a musician to play it, the other those, and they play to that. The impulse Moanin ' tender, he got from Benny Golson, who asked him for the A part that he sandwiched between the numbers when Blakey to write a bridge.
Timmons has developed a call-and -response principle in which the piano the caller and the combo makes the choir.
The quality of the recordings varies, both sound and instrument technically and in terms of inspiration and passion. Not all recordings are representative of his skills. It is worth noting, finally, his special ornament lush style that will permanently swing impulses and confirmed the time.
Discography (selection)
- Moanin ' ( Blue Note, 1958)
- Live Paris Olympia 1958 ( Fontana, 1958)
- A Night in Tunisia; it So Tired
- The Big Beat ( Blue Note, 1960), the first time it Dat Dere
- This Here Is Bobby Timmons (1960), Sam Jones ( b ) Jimmy Cobb (dr )
- Soul Time (1960 )
- Easy Does It ( 1961)
- The Bobby Timmons Trio in Person ( OJC, 1961)
- Street and Soulful Sounds ( 1962)
- Born to be Blue! (1963)
- Workin ' Out ( Prestige, 1964-66 )
- From the Bottom ( OJC, 1964)
- Quartet And Orchestra ( Milestone, 1967-68 )
- Chet Baker: Chet Baker and Crew, 1956
- Cannonball Adderley: The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco, 1959 ( with This Here )
- Nat Adderley: Work Song, 1960, with Wes Montgomery
- Lee Morgan: The Cooker, blue note, 1958