Record date: May 6, 1972
In May 1972, Mal was back in his new found homeland: Germany. He appeared in trio form on the Jazz Ost-West festival with someone known and someone less known. The known person here was of course Jimmy Woode who was also on Mal’s side during the legendary sessions at ‘the Domicile’ club in Munich one year before. The less known person is Allen Blairman, an American jazz drummer living in Europe who already made an appearance with Albert Ayler and played with musicians like German vibist Karl Berger. The recording of the appearance at the festival resulted in the release of ‘A Touch of the Blues’ 5 years later on the Enja label.
The concert opens with Here, There and Everywhere which was previously recorded on ‘A Little Bit of Miles’. Apparently Mal always had some kind of set repertoire though on every album, you find new compositions. The version here is more interesting than the one on ‘A Little Bit of Miles’. And that has mostly to do with the sideman. Woode is such an experienced bassist: he sounds so much at ease with these originals by Mal. And despite the modal feel of them he still manages to sound creative and surprising with every single note he plays. During Mal’s solo’s he seems to float on the music itself heading in all directions. Again, the space he gets is pretty big and he manages it just fine. Drummer Blairman is a solid man in the background, not Mal’s most daring drummer, but a solid sideman alltrough. Part from the better musicians, the music heads in more directions also. It swings, it’s bluesy, it waltzes and sometimes freak out a very tiny bit. Finally the composition merges into ‘The Search’, a beautiful composition that also appears on the very mysterious similar titled album that is on Spotify.
Side B is filled with just one lengthy composition: the title song ‘A Touch of the Blues’. Do not expect a boring or predictable blues that just keeps on going for 19 minutes. The theme itself already is changing a few times, and so does the music. It goes anywhere from a warm meandering theme to some hard swinging here and there. Yet it does have that full bluesy feel. Both solos by Woode and Blairman are excellent with Woode hitting the snares of his bass very hard. The way he takes his space in the music reminds me a little of Jimmy Garisson sometimes. The exciting part of the whole composition comes after Woode's solo where the music reaches climax after climax. It's the kind of intensity that makes you sit at the very edge of your chair. Great song, great playing here.
Together with ‘Mingus Lives’ this is one of the lesser known Waldron’s on Enja. That is definitely not making sense as this is a great live session capturing Mal during one of his best periods with a great band. There’s a bunch of vinyl versions mostly from Japan and the original from Germany. Got the original Japanese vinyl version myself which plays perfectly fine. For cd enthusiasts: this was recently released on cd for the first time in Japan on the budget Solid label. The releases I have on that label are perfectly fine. Liners will probably be in Japanese if they exist but there are no liners on the original German release so you do not really miss anything. If you have the possibility to pick this up for a fair price do not hesitate.
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