(1972) A Little Bit of Miles ***1/2

 

With: Mal Waldron (piano), Henk Haverhoek (bass), Pierre Courbois (drums)
Record date: February 9, 1972

Only a few days after the release of ‘Blues for Lady Day’ Mal made a live appearance at the Hot House in the Dutch city of Leiden. He was joined by two Dutch musicians from a bit different signature: Henk Haverhoek on bass and Pierre Courbois on drums. Haverhoek was more a mainstream kind of jazz guy playing with the likes of Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin and Art Taylor. Courbois was more free jazz oriented, know for records with musicians like Gunter Hampel, Peter Brotzmann and Willem Breuker.

I always wondered why the album got the title ‘A Little Bit of Miles’. For the same title song you’d probably say but then I wonder why that song got that name. It’s a very, very, very little Bit of Miles one could here on this record. In fact: it’s a typical Waldron album with typical Waldron compositions. It makes one think of the theme of ‘The Call’ a little bit sometimes. The title song is a nice up tempo kind of song with a bluesy feel and lots of the repetitive vamps he’s known for. As the music progresses the playing gets more and more intense. Haverhoek is playing really great bass lines, daring to leave his own comfort zones, yet he is a bit far out in the mix which makes it hard to really focus on what he’s doing. In his soloing you could hear it better and though not mind-blowing he plays really nice: leaving more traditional song structures and daring to actually tell something. Courbois is more in front of the mix but that’s not a bad thing as he really does a good job reacting on what Mal’s his doing. With Mal’s percussive style it sometimes almost sound like a drum battle between the two.

On side B there’s another lengthy composition: ‘Here, There and Everywhere’. It starts with lightly waltzing Monkish theme. Mal being backed up by Courbois’ cymbals. After that the solos start with the modal theme in the background, getting more swinging and leaving the theme of the song behind. So beautiful to hear how Mal’s hands also interact with each other: his left setting the beat and his right one reacting on it. Also nice to hear Haverhoek playing with repeating theme’s in his solo too, clearly inspired by Mal.

‘A Little Bit of Miles’ was released on Freedom records in 1974 in both Germany and Japan. The vinyl versions aren’t too hard to find. I have got the Japanese reissue from 1985 which sounds good: not a single pop or click. But as I stated before, Haverhoek is a bit too far up in the mix. I don’t have any comparison but I thinks that was a recording issue and probably every version has that same problem. For cd lovers: the Freedom cd version from Japan is pretty hard to find. Both of the songs here were released on the cd version of ‘Blues for Lady Day’. The music is also available on streaming services these days. Definitely worth checking out, but not necessarily essential.