IS THE SCENE CLEAN OR McLEAN? OR BOTH?

Guest “muser” altoist PAUL ZEC, who has graced this page previously with reflections about HORACE SILVER and CHARLIE PARKER reveals all………………

The celebrated composer/arranger Tadd Dameron wrote a number entitled THE SCENE IS CLEAN. This was first recorded by the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet in January 1956 and in the same year by Tadd Dameron himself. Research indicates that there are a further twenty-one 21 recorded versions from then until 2017!

In 1959, a play by American playwright Jack Gelber opened in New York City. Called The Connection, it was about the lives of jazz musicians - and their “habits”. The cast included a quartet of famous musicians performing jazz music live on stage. Among them was that superb alto saxophonist Jackie McLean (1931-2006). The pianist Freddie Redd (1928-) composed wonderful music for the production, which was released on the Blue Note label.

In 1963 the English pianist, composer and teacher Lionel Grigson was asked to write new music (presumably for copyright reasons) for a student production of the play at Cambridge. I performed in Grigson’s quartet. In the early 1970s Freddie Redd and Jackie McLean, along with bass and drums, played a season of The Connection in London’s West End. Shortly after, Freddie found his way to the Troubadour, an Earl’s Court jazz venue, where for a while he was the house pianist and friend of Lionel, Spike Wells, Pete Burden (an altoist whose sound always reminded me of McLean) and myself. (See Spike’s earlier musing on the subject of the Troubadour itself.)

Back to the top. Where does Tadd Dameron fit in?

Well, he and Jackie McLean were both very hip and extraordinarily important figures in the history of modern jazz and they have been acknowledged and linked in a unique, quirky musical tribute: a composition by Lionel Grigson and bassist John Hart called THE SCENE IS McLEAN.

In 2002, I made a quartet CD which includes the well-known Tadd Dameron tune ON A MISTY NIGHT. But the title track is none other than THE SCENE IS McLEAN and this tune is well worth checking out.

This CD is not available commercially and I regret to say Spike’s treasured copy has corrupted (the way, not only of all flesh, but I fear eventually of all compact discs). Spike is now searching to see if he has another version of Lionel Grigson’s THE SCENE IS McLEAN on any his live cassette recordings…………..