With: Mal Waldron (piano), Patrice Caratini (bass), Guy Hayat (drums)
Recorded on: May 12th, 1970
Mal’s first trip to Japan was relatively short and compared to other journey’s not very productive yet. Back in Europe he started touring again, playing mostly in trio and solo form. He was a much seen musician those days in France and Germany. Especially in these years, Mal did not really have touring band. His band was mostly composed by local musicians that joined him on live gigs. And Mal never failed too get the best out of them.
‘Blood and Guts’ is Mal’s very first live record as a leader. It was taped at the American Center for Students and Arts: a meeting place for both French and American writers, artists and musicians. Mal played again with Caratini (who is on ‘Ursula’ also) and French drummer Guy Hayat (who had played with Bud Powell multiple times) to record probably the most definitive version of his classic ‘Blood and Guts’. A highly energetic original, with it’s funny loop by Mal’s left hand, this composition remains such a strong effort by Mal. The following ‘Down at Gils’ has this lovely repeating loop after which it goes into a swinging song. Monk is never far away but here he was probably on Mal’s shoulder. Caratini seems to be more at ease than he was on the ‘Ursula’ session and provides some great backing, as is Hayat who plays excellent. And as with most of his gigs, there is plenty of space for them to solo on. Mal was far from egocentric and always gave his companions lots of space to improvise.
The only standard on the album is ‘My Funny Valentine’. Mal doesn’t do a lot of jazz standards but if he does in a trio form, he never fails to impress and be creative with it. At first the melody is hard to recognize but it comes closer and closer as the song progresses. The tempo changes multiple times but the feeling stays close to how the original was meant to be.
Like with many of Waldron’s live recordings, the live atmosphere contributes to the record in a very positive way. The audience keeps it pretty civilized but yet you could taste the live atmosphere and smell Mal’s 22th cigarette he just lit during Caratini’s bass solo.
This a highly recommended live gig by a great trio. The 2012 Futura reissue in digipack form is excellent: the sound quality is absolutely stunning, especially for a live recording. Unfortunately like with most albums from that Futura series, there are no liner notes whatsoever. A missed opportunity if you ask me because there’s a lot one could tell about this stage in Waldron’s career. It’s also still possible to get this on second hand vinyl. The album is not extremely rare.
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